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sheesh expatAz, i can recommend a good dose of what is real for you. my husband was Middle States Atlantic Conference Champ in the mile, half mile and two mile, 6 ft 4 in., weighed never more than 170 his entire life. when we married i was 5 ft 4 in. and weighed 145.... not exactly a size zero, more like a size 14..... which even today ranks as a plus size model. Get a grip, not all men only look at big kajungas and tiny everything else. Some men like an intelligent person, or a talented person or an adventurous person, all of which i was when i was young, adorable and just out of grad school..... so this chubby chick did get the good guy with fitness, abs, great buns and killer blue eyes because i had much more of what truly counts. He didn't "settle" for who was on some made up ranking system. Sheesh. when will all this ridiculousness stop?????? I know plenty of people who didn't marry a clone of themselves. Perfection isn't about size, abs, fitness, NONE OF THAT. Perfection is about finding just that one special person who gets you, really gets you and nothing else matters, not money, not a fancy-schmancy career, not the car they drive and certainly not the "size" they are
Luckily for the majority of us who fall in between those extremes we somehow manage to couple up.
My experience with my parents' marriage, and close-up knowledge of other marriages in our small town was that not being the extreme in appearance doesn't mean that you are not extreme in your expectations....or even in your view of yourself.
I don't think I would have wanted to be either partner in at least 60% of the marriages I have seen up close in my lifetime, and that's eight decades now. Too many married people fall into a habit of constantly picking on their partners over and over again. As an older adult there have been some couples that I would not see as a couple because of their nagging and snottiness to each other.
The plus - though not an unmitigated one, of course - was that these rather ill-fitting matches of average folks in the Forties and Fifties and Sixties did often end up as a kind of partnership in family-raising, and if there was grumpiness or bitchiness in one partner or both, still they did focus as best they could on the business of raising a family. It was amazing the degree to which the spouse was related to as a chronic PITA, but their focus had became their project rather than the other person and they often behaved better on this ground.
That seems to be far less the case now, divorces became very common. Yes, it can be a second chance for personal happiness, but some of the kids who have a step-parent and a re-married parent when they talk about growing up make it sound confused and empty.
I suppose as divorced and remarried parents become the norm, as I expect they will, that what I perceive as confused and empty sounding childhoods will be the norm. But once these marriages are the norm the expectations of childhood may change so pervasively on the social level that childhood will become something different than the old ideal.
I think people who fit this 'type' are subconsciously aware of their own inferiority, and are hoping for an external validation (the person who is out of their league) to prove to everyone that they are better than that. Alternatively, if they were to be with someone they perceive to be an inferior specimen, they believe others will perceive them to be similarly inferior. I have seen this manifested in both women and men I know personally.
Everyone gets to set their own bar, but not everyone gets their wishes fulfilled. Such is life.
I think this is often the case. In my experience people who tend to think in all or nothing terms often struggle to feel comfortable with their imperfect (nothing) selves. This can manifest itself in lots of ways, but one is to believe that getting together with someone attractive enough will redeem them somehow, and conversely, getting together with someone flawed, like a real human, will confirm their flawed (nothing) status.
So what is it with these types of individuals? Gender has nothing to do with this from my observations because i’v seen it many times on both sides. Usually we humans “settle” for someone that’s on our ranking of attractiveness, education, and health (slim fit body). I’v came across many friends of friends who are very narcissistic and shallow yet they are the completely opposite of the attributes they seek in a partner. .
I've said the same thing many times and of course, it makes people angry. I don't care. There are some who have impossibly high standards for a partner. They can't accept the reality that they are an ordinary person. One example is a friend of mine. She's 57 years old. She won't date anyone who's not a doctor or lawyer. (She never finished college). Hasn't had a date in years. She's also financially destitute and I think most professional men would just see this older woman, getting on in years, looking for a meal ticket. Educated men tend to be very careful with their finances and who they hook up with. I wouldn't say she's a narcissist but she tends to be delusional.
So what is it with these types of individuals? Gender has nothing to do with this from my observations because i’v seen it many times on both sides. Usually we humans “settle” for someone that’s on our ranking of attractiveness, education, and health (slim fit body). I’v came across many friends of friends who are very narcissistic and shallow yet they are the completely opposite of the attributes they seek in a partner.
With social media taking over, I guess society becomes more shallow? Idk but one thing forsure is that i’v never seen a chubby chick with fit guy with abs, and i’v never seen a fat nerd guy with a model.
I have seen both many times -- when money or power has played the great equalizer.
I think a lot of times it's a defense mechanism... defending their 'alone' status to themselves or others. When they find themselves alone for a variety of reasons. Maybe they feel inadequate to approach the opposite sex. Maybe they have social anxiety. Maybe they're just not in a life situation where they're ready to pursue a relationship. Could be any number of reasons.
A friend of mine was like this for years whenever the topic of women would come up. Literally no woman available or even in sight was ever up to his standards. Until some time went by and he found himself in a situation where he felt willing and able to find a woman. Suddenly his standards were reasonable, and he's been happily married to a gal he met for several years now.
So if somebody claims unreasonably high standards, I wouldn't necessarily take that at face value. I mean maybe that is the case, which would be a whole different can of worms. But I think more often it's just an excuse people use when they're not ready to pursue the opposite sex for a variety of reasons.
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