Abigail, your examination of “type” made me think about how preferences can become compressed bundles of social signals: appearance, status, profession, and other markers carrying desires we have yet to name clearly for ourselves. The deeper inquiry begins when we ask what a preference is pursuing, protecting, or performing in our own lives. Your realization about wanting the rockstar energy you had been seeking through someone else gives that question particular force. Grateful for the candor with which you placed your own assumptions under examination.
Thank you, Rev! Grateful for your considered analysis. Our preferences can indeed pursue, protect, or perform — that alliteration was a gift for the tongue!
What stood out most here to me is the observation regarding how what we find attractive in a mate, is often something of an externalization of qualities that we desire for ourselves. In my own sexual odyssey, I came to this realization as well. We all have underdeveloped parts of ourselves, or things we wish we were better at, and without consciously recognizing it, we see it in others and just know "I want that". This desire is really one of self actualization, we long to feel complete. However the reality is that another person can't do that for you, sure they might help keep you company, get you off, and cheer you on as you grow and change through the trials of life, but they can't do the work for you. So many relationships fall apart because we become discontented with our significant other, without recognizing that actually its just a dissatisfaction within ourselves and who we really want to be. The best lover and partner isnt one that checks all your boxes, they are a mirror that helps us to see who we really are, and holds our hand on the long walk through it all. Bonus points for being great in bed, because if it isnt true love, and it isnt good sex, it isnt worth your time.
Oh it was long and I enjoyed every bit of it 🩷 I kinda avoid to go for the exploration - as there are some urgent matters in my life but I will definitely add in my side quests to examine my type.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and insight behind this piece. It creates a true definition of terms for those looking for how to understand their preferences.
I actually did something like this as a man--I figured beauty is an entirely superficial characteristic which is uncorrelated with morality, intelligence, or other desirable qualities for a long-term partner, so I should avoid it and find all these amazing people who everyone else passed on for shallow reasons! Wasn't rejecting patriarchal ideals of beauty vaguely feminist or something?
A few decades later I finally realized why I didn't like sex that much, which everyone found very odd, and why I had never actually fallen in love.
So, you can only take this sort of thing so far. Or at least I could. If you were more fortunate...good for you!
"Whenever I defiantly proclaimed, Oh, I’d never, I found myself forcing myself to experience whatever it was I believed was unsuited to me."
Seems like a good practice, examining our 'nevers'.
'Good' is such a subjective idea, but I always thought of it as caring about others and showing kindness. Everyone has to decide what it means for them, probably.
Haha I figured it was a matter of time for someone to suggest this. But technically this piece is the opposite of propaganda. I’m suggesting individuals stop buying into culturally influenced ideas of attraction and to ask yourself what you truly like. And if what you truly like is a direct overlap with conventional beauty standards, well, enjoy! You look hot and young so I don’t blame you for being attached to hot and young energy 💫 attachment is tho, as many philosophers suggest, a root of pain 🤷♀️
Oh fuck, I GET this. 😑 I’ve been married for 24 years to a man who, if we’re using the completely ridiculous checklist society handed us for what a desirable man is supposed to look like, probably doesn’t tick the obvious boxes. We’re the same height, he has short limbs, got called Stumpy growing up, but in every way that actually matters to my life, he is my person.
But, just to really hammer the lesson home, I had an affair with a man ten years younger than me, tall, ridiculously Prince Harry handsome, who fucked me so well I confused the whole cocktail for love 🙃😂 and who also turned out to be a narcissistic prick capable of doing things that eventually made his character impossible for me to unsee. THANKGOD the universe allowed me to keep my marriage intact even though it destroyed me for quite a while.
So when you talk about having our beliefs around attractiveness completely cooked, YES. Because I’ve lived both ends of that particular experiment and still needed several years and a large existential crisis to understand what I was looking at. 😂
I think whats interesting for me now reading this reflection and seeing my own, is how much shit we’ve unconsciously bundled together under “attraction.” like beauty, desire, chemistry, goodness, compatibility, status, love. as though one is evidence of the others, but it’s absolutely fucking isn’t.
Anyway, 24 years in and I think the whole thing is crazier than I ever realised really 😂 Who you find attractive once you actually know someone is a completely different thing to who we were all taught to look at and go, yep, that’s hot!!
Great read. I’d like to hear more though about your experience dating out of type. Was it something that felt forced? Was there a breakthrough moment that allowed you to see people as just people without all the projections?
I’m working through something similar where I seem locked in on a sort of aesthetic of woman that my mind interprets as proof of winning life if she desired me and chose me as a sexual / romantic partner. It’s almost as though a part of my psyche is stuck in high school where I was shy, awkward, with an acne covered face and thick glasses looking longingly at the cool, popular girls. I’m a 33 year old, 6ft tall man now with clear skin and no glasses (on the last stages of Invisalign) living in Manhattan and I look at that equinox/pilates girl next door but also a corporate baddie but also a model or actress type as the highest tier of mate possible.
There’s this sense for me that if I can prove women in that fictional tier chose me, proved I held social and sexual value to them, I could finally ease my mind and close the hole that has been filled with self doubt, body dysmorphia, and shame. It would prove I’ve had value and worth all along.
It’s clearly an inside job for me and a projection on these women. At the same time as an aesthetically oriented person, and a healthy sexually vibrant man, there’s the biology of being drawn to very attractive women.
With this overshare in mind, would love to hear more of your pov as a woman who navigated the waters of attraction, projection, and the relationship to self explored.
Thank you for this; Nobody here is going to say it, so: the people in the experiment didn’t know they were the curriculum. “I fucked ugly people to unlearn” is honest clickbait, but the honesty cuts both ways; the guy with the ponytail was someone’s Tuesday, not someone’s Brussels sprout. Sprouts don’t notice being gagged on. The essay is better for sitting with that than for the joke that covers it.
Actually the guy with the ponytail was my husband 🥹 He’s nobody’s Tuesday!
But it’s a point I figured would come up — did these people consent to aid my self discovery? I believe that every person you sleep with teaches something to you. It’s a given of sexual intermingling. In fact, everyone you interact with even nonsexually has this potential. Given that I never lied and professed some massive attraction (which anyone can tell you isn’t a prerequisite to a pounding), and given that everyone I slept with pursued me, I feel it was all ethically benign. I don’t actually consider anyone I’ve slept with to be ugly — there are things about every human on earth that are attractive. It’s, as you point out (with, might I be presumptuous here, the aid of AI), it’s a useful word for grabbing attention and provoking people to sit with the meaning of the word within their own life.
Corrected on the ponytail, happily… and that’s a better ending than mine. On the ethics: “they pursued me, I never lied” settles the deception, which is the bigger charge, and settles it. The smaller one I keep turning over is that consenting to a night isn’t quite consenting to a project. By all means, this is not an accusation, au contraire, every memoirist lives in that gap, and you’re at least writing from inside it rather than pretending it isn’t there. And may I also say that your last line does a lot of work; if nobody is actually ugly, then the title is the provocation and the essay is the correction. Which I think is the point. Thank you 🙏🏽
Abigail, your examination of “type” made me think about how preferences can become compressed bundles of social signals: appearance, status, profession, and other markers carrying desires we have yet to name clearly for ourselves. The deeper inquiry begins when we ask what a preference is pursuing, protecting, or performing in our own lives. Your realization about wanting the rockstar energy you had been seeking through someone else gives that question particular force. Grateful for the candor with which you placed your own assumptions under examination.
Thank you, Rev! Grateful for your considered analysis. Our preferences can indeed pursue, protect, or perform — that alliteration was a gift for the tongue!
Substack surfaced this for under the sub header “Personal Growth”… which I suppose it was!
lmfao indeed
What stood out most here to me is the observation regarding how what we find attractive in a mate, is often something of an externalization of qualities that we desire for ourselves. In my own sexual odyssey, I came to this realization as well. We all have underdeveloped parts of ourselves, or things we wish we were better at, and without consciously recognizing it, we see it in others and just know "I want that". This desire is really one of self actualization, we long to feel complete. However the reality is that another person can't do that for you, sure they might help keep you company, get you off, and cheer you on as you grow and change through the trials of life, but they can't do the work for you. So many relationships fall apart because we become discontented with our significant other, without recognizing that actually its just a dissatisfaction within ourselves and who we really want to be. The best lover and partner isnt one that checks all your boxes, they are a mirror that helps us to see who we really are, and holds our hand on the long walk through it all. Bonus points for being great in bed, because if it isnt true love, and it isnt good sex, it isnt worth your time.
100% Stifler’s mom! You ought post that yourself 😘 btw, I mention your namesake in my previous post about milfs 😇
Score one for the follicularly challenged short kings! Woo hoo!
A well-deserved win! xxx
The title of this was diabolical and had me howling. The best man I dated was significantly shorter than me as a 5'9 baddie. No regrets.
Hahah Im glad for the howl and the double vouch 👏❤️ thanks for reading 🥹
Oh it was long and I enjoyed every bit of it 🩷 I kinda avoid to go for the exploration - as there are some urgent matters in my life but I will definitely add in my side quests to examine my type.
Type examination side quest! I love that phrasing. Thanks for reading and glad you’ll fit I in as and when 😘
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and insight behind this piece. It creates a true definition of terms for those looking for how to understand their preferences.
Glad to hear u think so 💫😘
I actually did something like this as a man--I figured beauty is an entirely superficial characteristic which is uncorrelated with morality, intelligence, or other desirable qualities for a long-term partner, so I should avoid it and find all these amazing people who everyone else passed on for shallow reasons! Wasn't rejecting patriarchal ideals of beauty vaguely feminist or something?
A few decades later I finally realized why I didn't like sex that much, which everyone found very odd, and why I had never actually fallen in love.
So, you can only take this sort of thing so far. Or at least I could. If you were more fortunate...good for you!
Ha! I appreciate the attempt and effort 💫 We must never deprioritize the attraction, but questioning it, in aim to expand it, isn’t a bad move either
I love your stories and writing. Personal and deeply culturally important...and funny! Thank you!!
🥹 thank you so damn much I’ll pin that to my (nonexistent) affirmation board ❤️
"Whenever I defiantly proclaimed, Oh, I’d never, I found myself forcing myself to experience whatever it was I believed was unsuited to me."
Seems like a good practice, examining our 'nevers'.
'Good' is such a subjective idea, but I always thought of it as caring about others and showing kindness. Everyone has to decide what it means for them, probably.
''Plus, shorter men live longer'' Pretty sure some philisopher said that ;)
Damn, I need to add a footnote ;)
Fascinating and enlightening
I'm glad you think so xx
This is Ugly man propaganda and as a straight woman I have been barraged with it my whole life already. No thank you
Haha I figured it was a matter of time for someone to suggest this. But technically this piece is the opposite of propaganda. I’m suggesting individuals stop buying into culturally influenced ideas of attraction and to ask yourself what you truly like. And if what you truly like is a direct overlap with conventional beauty standards, well, enjoy! You look hot and young so I don’t blame you for being attached to hot and young energy 💫 attachment is tho, as many philosophers suggest, a root of pain 🤷♀️
Oh fuck, I GET this. 😑 I’ve been married for 24 years to a man who, if we’re using the completely ridiculous checklist society handed us for what a desirable man is supposed to look like, probably doesn’t tick the obvious boxes. We’re the same height, he has short limbs, got called Stumpy growing up, but in every way that actually matters to my life, he is my person.
But, just to really hammer the lesson home, I had an affair with a man ten years younger than me, tall, ridiculously Prince Harry handsome, who fucked me so well I confused the whole cocktail for love 🙃😂 and who also turned out to be a narcissistic prick capable of doing things that eventually made his character impossible for me to unsee. THANKGOD the universe allowed me to keep my marriage intact even though it destroyed me for quite a while.
So when you talk about having our beliefs around attractiveness completely cooked, YES. Because I’ve lived both ends of that particular experiment and still needed several years and a large existential crisis to understand what I was looking at. 😂
I think whats interesting for me now reading this reflection and seeing my own, is how much shit we’ve unconsciously bundled together under “attraction.” like beauty, desire, chemistry, goodness, compatibility, status, love. as though one is evidence of the others, but it’s absolutely fucking isn’t.
Anyway, 24 years in and I think the whole thing is crazier than I ever realised really 😂 Who you find attractive once you actually know someone is a completely different thing to who we were all taught to look at and go, yep, that’s hot!!
Great read. I’d like to hear more though about your experience dating out of type. Was it something that felt forced? Was there a breakthrough moment that allowed you to see people as just people without all the projections?
I’m working through something similar where I seem locked in on a sort of aesthetic of woman that my mind interprets as proof of winning life if she desired me and chose me as a sexual / romantic partner. It’s almost as though a part of my psyche is stuck in high school where I was shy, awkward, with an acne covered face and thick glasses looking longingly at the cool, popular girls. I’m a 33 year old, 6ft tall man now with clear skin and no glasses (on the last stages of Invisalign) living in Manhattan and I look at that equinox/pilates girl next door but also a corporate baddie but also a model or actress type as the highest tier of mate possible.
There’s this sense for me that if I can prove women in that fictional tier chose me, proved I held social and sexual value to them, I could finally ease my mind and close the hole that has been filled with self doubt, body dysmorphia, and shame. It would prove I’ve had value and worth all along.
It’s clearly an inside job for me and a projection on these women. At the same time as an aesthetically oriented person, and a healthy sexually vibrant man, there’s the biology of being drawn to very attractive women.
With this overshare in mind, would love to hear more of your pov as a woman who navigated the waters of attraction, projection, and the relationship to self explored.
Thank you for this; Nobody here is going to say it, so: the people in the experiment didn’t know they were the curriculum. “I fucked ugly people to unlearn” is honest clickbait, but the honesty cuts both ways; the guy with the ponytail was someone’s Tuesday, not someone’s Brussels sprout. Sprouts don’t notice being gagged on. The essay is better for sitting with that than for the joke that covers it.
Actually the guy with the ponytail was my husband 🥹 He’s nobody’s Tuesday!
But it’s a point I figured would come up — did these people consent to aid my self discovery? I believe that every person you sleep with teaches something to you. It’s a given of sexual intermingling. In fact, everyone you interact with even nonsexually has this potential. Given that I never lied and professed some massive attraction (which anyone can tell you isn’t a prerequisite to a pounding), and given that everyone I slept with pursued me, I feel it was all ethically benign. I don’t actually consider anyone I’ve slept with to be ugly — there are things about every human on earth that are attractive. It’s, as you point out (with, might I be presumptuous here, the aid of AI), it’s a useful word for grabbing attention and provoking people to sit with the meaning of the word within their own life.
Corrected on the ponytail, happily… and that’s a better ending than mine. On the ethics: “they pursued me, I never lied” settles the deception, which is the bigger charge, and settles it. The smaller one I keep turning over is that consenting to a night isn’t quite consenting to a project. By all means, this is not an accusation, au contraire, every memoirist lives in that gap, and you’re at least writing from inside it rather than pretending it isn’t there. And may I also say that your last line does a lot of work; if nobody is actually ugly, then the title is the provocation and the essay is the correction. Which I think is the point. Thank you 🙏🏽