Appearance and attractiveness do matter, especially in a romantic relationship

In recent times, many people have decided that it is wrong to care about appearance because appearance doesn't say anything about the type of person you are. But neither of these things are true. It is not wrong to care about appearance, and your appearance can say some things about who you are. The key here is being able to spot when people tend to treat the situation as just black and white: you either care only about appearance and not at all about personality, or you only care about personality and not at all about appearance. And because the first option would make for a very shallow person, people opt for the second option, thinking it's the only other option left. When in reality, it is both appearance and personality that matter. But they matter in different ways depending on what contexts you are talking about.

The body positivity movement was originally about accepting flaws about yourself that you cannot change, but it has turned into people accepting their bodies the way they are now no matter how bad they are. But if you don't like the way you look, most of the time, it's likely because you have neglected to make that part of you look good. A lot of people could actually make themselves significantly more attractive if they just worked on it more. Have good hygiene, learn how to style your hair including knowing which styles to go for depending on your face shape, learn good fashion, and work on your physique and posture.

When you are meeting someone new, their first impression of you is crucial. If you give a bad first impression, but then give a good impression every other time, it will take a while for them to shake off that bad impression of you they got when they first met you. When you meet someone new, they have no idea who you are, so everything they know about you is in this one first impression, and shapes how they will think of you. And there are many elements to such first impressions, like not being rude, being funny, having a good handshake, and of course, your appearance. As I said earlier, being attractive involves putting in effort to be attractive, so if someone doesn't look good, most of the time, it's because they barely put any effort into their appearance, and that reflects on the kind of person that they are.

It's of course not just about what someone's attractiveness tells you about their personality, it's also just about the appeal of looking good in general. People like people who look good. Not just romantically, but just in general. If you look good, you are going to be more likable, provided that you don't have a terrible personality. But if you have a good personality but are really ugly, and then you have a good personality and are really good looking, you will find that you will be more likable than you were before. Good looks are appealing in people, and you are allowed to find someone who is uglier less appealing if they're uglier because of things they willingly decided not to change, because that means that their ugliness is their fault. And so, when you look good, you will give people a more appealing first impression of you. Thus, in first impressions, your appearance matters.

As I stated before, you are allowed to find someone who is uglier less appealing if they're uglier because of things they willingly decided not to change, because that means that their ugliness is their fault. And this matters in a romantic relationship, too. Because in the context of meeting new friends, people simply like people more when they look good. But in a romantic relationship, they don't just like them, but are attracted to them. It is important to find someone you are attracted to, and you shouldn't have to be pressured into getting into a romantic relationship with someone you aren't attracted to. And in a romantic relationship, appearance goes both ways. If you expect your romantic partner to put effort into making themselves more attractive for you, they should expect you to do the same for them. And if that happens, then both of you will be significantly more attracted to each other because you memorized each other's preferences, and gave each other what you wanted. Being attractive for your romantic partner involves knowing what they like in a romantic partner, and doing your best to be like that for them, so you can give them what they like, and likewise they do the same for you. This is provided that their requests are reasonable and within your control, which most of your appearance is. Thus, in romantic relationships, your appearance matters.

Conclusion: it's okay to care about appearance, because most of your appearance is under your control, and your appearance will affect how you are treated in all kinds of social aspects. And once again, to be clear, I am not saying that appearance is the only thing you should care about, because personality obviously also matters. But I'm simultaneously also not saying that personality is the only thing you should care about, because appearance also matters. But that second part seems to have gotten less obvious in modern culture, at least in America, I don't know about the rest of the world.

Alright, you’ve written a dissertation on common sense but dressed it up like you’ve discovered the cure for cancer. 

1. First Impressions: The Shallow Truth

Yes, first impressions are crucial. They’re also incredibly unreliable. Humans are lazy processors of information—we judge based on what we see because it’s fast and requires less cognitive effort. Congratulations, you’ve cracked the evolutionary code of survival. But here’s the rub: if someone’s entire assessment of you hinges on that first handshake, smile, or outfit, that person is telling you far more about their superficiality than your own shortcomings.

Do appearances reflect effort? Sometimes. But they also reflect resources, upbringing, and genetics. That person with “bad posture and a questionable haircut” could also be the person who just worked a double shift to feed their family. You’re conflating “neglect” with circumstance, and that’s an amateur mistake in this line of pseudo-intellectualism.

2. Romantic Relationships: Attraction Isn’t a Formula

Hmm, the “you should be attracted to someone who tries” argument. It’s not wrong, but it’s not universally right either. Attraction isn’t just about looking like a magazine cover or a TikTok thirst trap; it’s about pheromones, emotional connection, and about 12 other factors science hasn’t fully pinned down yet. Yes, putting in effort is important, but so is compatibility. A partner who cares too much about appearances might also be the kind who criticizes every extra pound you gain or every wrinkle that sneaks onto your face. Careful what you wish for.

You’re also walking a dangerous line with “ugliness is their fault.” That sentiment isn’t revolutionary; it’s lazy. Genetics, illness, and life circumstances aren’t exactly things people choose. Encouraging effort is fine; shaming people for their appearance is not. If you’re with someone, and the best you can do is obsess over their ability to contour their face or bench press their weight, the problem isn’t their lack of effort. It’s you.

Your Conclusion: A Balancing Act Without the Balance

Yes, we’ve culturally overcorrected in some ways. The body positivity movement, while rooted in good intentions, does sometimes veer into “accept everything, even if it’s killing you.” But the opposite extreme is just as dangerous—reducing people to their ability to conform to arbitrary beauty standards is no better than telling them to give up entirely.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the world is unfair. Attractive people get better jobs, more attention, and more sympathy. We know this. But equating effort solely with physical appearance is like saying a book’s worth is in its cover design. It misses the point. We’re multi-faceted creatures, and appearance, while important, is just one facet. If someone’s shallow enough to judge only by that, they’re probably not worth impressing in the first place.

In short: You’re right that appearance matters. You’re wrong to oversimplify it. And your argument? It’s as deep as a kiddie pool but at least tries to sound profound. For that, I’ll give you a reluctant golf clap.

 
1. “Both appearance and personality matter”
 
You accuse me of oversimplifying your argument into “appearance is all that matters.” Nice try, but that’s not what I argued. I acknowledged your claim that both appearance and personality matter; my critique focused on how you disproportionately weigh those factors. Your essay spends far more energy justifying appearance as a moral metric than it does exploring personality, despite your disclaimers.
 
When I said, “Appearance isn’t everything,” I wasn’t strawmanning your argument. I was pointing out the imbalance in your reasoning. You frame attractiveness as an indicator of effort and discipline, subtly downplaying the weight of deeper, intangible qualities that define meaningful human connections. Disclaimers aside, your argument leans heavily on superficiality.
 
2. “Ugliness is their fault”
 
Your attempt to clarify the “ugliness is their fault” argument doesn’t make it better—it makes it worse. Sure, posture and haircuts are easy fixes for some people, but you’ve glossed over the systemic and personal barriers that prevent others from meeting these supposedly simple standards. Telling someone to “just improve their posture” is like telling a drowning person to “just swim.” It’s simple advice wrapped in a profound misunderstanding of circumstance.
 
And your assertion that “more often than not, ugliness is someone’s fault” is not only unprovable but also morally shallow. Looks are shaped by a lifetime of experiences, traumas, environments, and genetics—factors you conveniently dismiss as exceptions. By framing unattractiveness as a blameworthy trait, you reduce a deeply subjective and multi-faceted concept into an unkind judgment call.
 
In reality, your argument isn’t insightful—it’s reductive. Effort matters, yes, but circumstances shape what “effort” looks like for each individual.
 
3. “Being attractive involves knowing what they like”
 
Your idea that partners should tailor their appearance to suit each other’s preferences sounds reasonable on the surface but carries a dangerous implication: it reduces relationships to a performance of aesthetics. Real intimacy isn’t built on physical appeasement. It’s built on shared values, mutual understanding, and the ability to weather life’s inevitable changes together.
 
Let’s not ignore the glaring flaw here: not everyone has the same capacity to meet beauty standards. What happens when one partner can’t “deliver” on attractiveness due to illness, age, or other uncontrollable factors? By your reasoning, their partner is justified in becoming less attracted to them. That’s not a recipe for a healthy relationship—it’s a gateway to insecurity and toxicity.
 
Instead of focusing on “meeting preferences,” a stronger relationship thrives on emotional depth and resilience. If physical appearance is the primary foundation, it crumbles when life inevitably shifts the terms.
 
4. “You formed a tainted image of my argument”
 
Yes, the pièce de résistance: accusing me of misunderstanding you. Interesting . But here’s the problem, I understood your argument perfectly. You’ve dressed up a shallow point (“people should just try harder to look good”) with surface-level concessions (“but personality matters too”) to give it an air of balance. My response didn’t distort your argument; it exposed its weak foundation.
 
You’re not debating whether appearance matters—you’re debating how much it matters. Your essay implicitly prioritizes physical attractiveness as a reflection of worth and effort, relegating personality to a supporting role. That’s what I challenged, and that’s what you’ve failed to address.
 
Conclusion:
 
Your rebuttal doesn’t fix the flaws in your reasoning, it amplifies them. You’ve spent more time defending the superficial than acknowledging the complexity of human relationships. The truth is, while appearance matters, it’s one facet of a much larger picture. A focus on attractiveness as a moral obligation reduces people to their surface value and ignores the deeper elements that make us human.
 
Your argument isn’t just shallow—it’s trapped in a two-dimensional world of “effort” and “fault.” Real life, and real connection, is far messier and far richer. Appearance may open doors, but it doesn’t keep them open.
 
In short: your attempt to salvage your position doesn’t just fall flat—it collapses under its own superficiality.
 
 

The reason I spent very little time talking about personality and more time talking about appearance should be obvious: it's the topic of the debate. I'm not going to spend a chunk of my time talking about something that the debate isn't even focused on. I just had to mention that so that I didn't get accused of only caring about appearance and not at all about personality. The reason the debate topic focuses on appearance and not personality is because practically nobody is going to disagree that personality matters, whereas many would disagree that appearance matters, at least to the extent that it actually does. Thus, I thought it'd be important to make that the topic of the debate. Thus, there is very little focus on personality, because that's not the topic of the debate.

To clarify, these things are factors in someone's physical attractiveness, it's just not the only reason. Your appearance isn't entirely out of your control, not even close. The amount of control you have over your appearance may or may not vary depending on your life, but nobody has 0% control over their appearance (and don't hit me with the "it's maybe like less than 1% in your control"). Because a significant percentage of your appearance is under your control, and if you did your best to make that as good as possible, it would be definitely noticeable. As for the things you can't control, condolences.

You can simultaneously not judge a burn victim for being ugly because that ugliness is out of their control, and be less attracted to them. Attraction isn't an emotion you can control, you can't just decide who you're attracted to, you just see someone and are attracted to them physically if they meet your preferences in appearance. So yeah, I'd be less attracted to a burn victim, but I'm not going to judge or criticize them for that at all. Not unless it wouldn't be that big of a deal for them (like if they were rich or something) to have some kind of surgery done on their face, but even that is pretty out there.

You accuse me of glossing over personality just so I can try and salvage my argument and make sure that you know it's not just about appearance. And, while I wouldn't exactly put it that way, that's pretty much what I was doing. Because I'm not going to focus on something that isn't even the topic of the debate. The topic of the debate is appearance, not personality. So I'm going to focus on appearance and not personality. You see me very quickly going over personality and focusing on appearance as a bad thing, but it's not in the context of a debate that is about appearance.

1. “It’s the topic of the debate”—A Convenient Justification
 
You argue that you didn’t focus on personality because the debate is about appearance. Fine, but that doesn’t absolve you from addressing the interplay between the two, especially since you acknowledge that both matter. Your initial argument repeatedly positioned appearance as a reflection of effort, discipline, and even moral character. That’s why I called out the imbalance—not because you ignored personality, but because you used appearance as a disproportionately weighted moral metric.
 
The debate may focus on appearance, but ignoring its limitations, complexities, and interplay with personality leads to a shallow, one-sided argument. If you want to make a compelling case, you can’t cherry-pick the aspects of appearance that suit your narrative while dismissing the rest as “not the topic.”
 
2. “Appearance isn’t entirely out of your control”—A Half-Truth at Best
 
You’re right: most people have some control over their appearance. But your argument leans heavily on the idea that “a significant percentage” of appearance is within control, as though it’s universally true. It’s not. Factors like income, time, physical ability, and mental health drastically alter how much control someone has. Telling someone they can “just try harder” ignores the structural barriers and personal struggles that make your claim reductive at best and insensitive at worst.
 
Sure, we can acknowledge effort without overestimating its impact or universal applicability. The issue isn’t whether people can improve their appearance; it’s your insistence on framing attractiveness as a personal obligation tied to effort and discipline. That’s a dangerous oversimplification.
 
3. “Attraction isn’t a choice”—A Convenient Dodge
 True, you can’t consciously choose who you’re attracted to. But your framing of this point is oddly selective. You justify being less attracted to a burn victim while glossing over the implications of placing attractiveness on such a high pedestal. If attraction is involuntary, then why place so much moral weight on appearance to begin with? You’ve created a framework where attractiveness matters immensely, but any consequences of that framework are conveniently outside your responsibility.
 
Your throwaway comment about “rich people getting surgery” is particularly revealing. It exposes your underlying bias: a world where physical improvement is an obligation tied to financial privilege. That’s not an argument—it’s an indictment of the shallow value system you’re defending.
 
4. “The topic is appearance, not personality”—A Misguided Defense
 
Your conclusion reiterates your narrow focus on appearance while attempting to justify why you sidelined personality. But here’s the problem: debating the importance of appearance doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To evaluate appearance’s role, you have to contextualize it alongside other factors like personality, effort, and circumstance. Otherwise, your argument comes across as lopsided and detached from reality.
 
By treating appearance as the sole focus, you’ve built an argument that simplifies human relationships into a transactional, superficial equation. That’s why I critiqued your framing—not because you mentioned personality briefly, but because you failed to adequately address the broader complexities that undermine your case.
 
Conclusion: Still Missing the Mark
 
You’ve doubled down on your original points without addressing the deeper flaws I raised. Your argument continues to:
      1.   Overestimate the control people have over their appearance.
      2.   Undermine the importance of non-physical factors in attraction and relationships.
      3.   Frame attractiveness as a moral obligation while dismissing its broader consequences.
 
The topic of the debate may be appearance, but your attempt to reduce human interaction to physical effort and judgment is what makes your argument fundamentally shallow. You say you’ve focused on appearance to fit the debate’s scope—but in reality, you’ve ignored the nuance necessary to make a convincing case.

 
1. “Appearance is the topic, not personality” – A convenient excuse for a shallow argument.
 
Pro keeps hiding behind this claim as if it absolves them of presenting a balanced view. Sure, the debate focuses on appearance, but pretending personality, circumstance, and other factors aren’t part of the equation is intellectual laziness. Ignoring the interplay between appearance and deeper human traits turns Pro’s argument into a one-dimensional take on a multi-faceted issue. If you’re going to argue that appearance matters, you can’t dodge the bigger picture. Otherwise, it’s like explaining a movie by describing only the trailer.
 
2. “Control over appearance” – Oversimplified to the point of ignorance.
 
Yes, people have some control over their appearance. But Pro vastly overstates this, treating physical attractiveness as if it’s a choice everyone can make with the right amount of effort. They dismiss financial struggles, health challenges, and systemic barriers with a casual wave of their hand, as though everyone has the same access to haircuts, fitness, or even time to care about their looks. Pro’s argument is blind to privilege—it assumes everyone starts from the same baseline, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
 
Saying “ugliness is their fault” doesn’t just oversimplify; it’s cruel. Life circumstances, genetics, and trauma shape how people look—and some of that is beyond anyone’s control. The idea that effort can overcome all of this isn’t just flawed; it’s borderline delusional.
 
3. Attraction isn’t a performance, and it’s not that simple.
 
Pro claims that attraction is tied to effort, but here’s the reality: attraction isn’t a checklist of traits. It’s a deeply personal, often involuntary response shaped by emotional, physical, and subconscious factors. Sure, effort can enhance physical appeal, but it’s not the whole story. A burn victim or someone with a disability doesn’t “fail” at being attractive because they can’t conform to beauty standards.
 
Pro also conveniently glosses over the toxicity baked into their argument. Suggesting that someone’s value in a relationship hinges on meeting their partner’s aesthetic preferences is not only shallow but a recipe for insecurity and unhappiness. Real relationships aren’t built on trading looks; they’re built on emotional depth and resilience—qualities that far outlast fleeting physical appeal.
 
4. The moral gymnastics of blaming “ugliness.”
 
Pro has leaned heavily on the idea that unattractiveness often stems from a lack of effort, but this argument doesn’t hold water. It assumes that physical beauty is a universal moral obligation and that failure to meet societal standards reflects laziness or poor character. That’s a flawed and judgmental framework that reduces people to their appearance while ignoring the real barriers many face.
 
Pro also claims that partners should “do their best” to look good for each other. On the surface, this seems reasonable—who doesn’t want to impress their partner? But the underlying message is troubling: that physical appearance is paramount, and if one partner can’t maintain it, they risk losing the other’s attraction. This isn’t a foundation for love; it’s a breeding ground for toxicity, where one’s worth is measured in haircuts and waistlines.
 
5. Pro’s argument is a mile wide but an inch deep.
 
Despite their repeated attempts to justify the focus on appearance, Pro’s argument consistently collapses under its own weight. They’ve reduced human relationships to a transactional exchange based on effort and appearance, sidelining the complexities of personality, circumstance, and emotional connection. Their reliance on shallow metrics like physical attractiveness misses the point entirely: that people are more than their looks, and relationships are more than a mirror of aesthetic value.
 
Conclusion: Why Pro’s Argument Fails
 
Pro has spent this debate defending an oversimplified and ultimately flawed perspective. They overestimate how much control people have over their appearance, place undue moral weight on attractiveness, and ignore the deeper qualities that truly sustain relationships. Their argument isn’t just shallow—it’s rooted in a misguided view of human connection that prioritizes aesthetics over authenticity.
 
Here’s the truth: appearance matters, but it’s one piece of a much larger puzzle. Pro’s attempt to make it the centerpiece ignores the rich, messy, and profoundly human aspects of relationships. Their argument reduces people to their surfaces, but the real world—and real relationships—are far more complex.
 
In the end, Pro’s case doesn’t just fall short; it shows the limits of superficial thinking. Human beings aren’t mannequins, and attraction isn’t a moral report card. If Pro can’t see beyond the surface, they’re missing the best parts of what it means to truly connect with others.