How much do we pay attention to physical detail?

Ronald: Now that is an idea I had not considered.....I am writing it down...:)..BTW, I doubt you are ugly....(kisses)

Spot: I totally agree with that. Women r really crazy about their appearance and I think it is important for us (defo including me) to realize we should not be that hard on yourselves :)...Thanks for your comment.

Graham i happen to love crosswords, maybe that's where i'm going wrong lol.

FFP i'm a firm believer that you can find beauty in anything or anyone if you look hard or deep enough. I tend not to look to others to make me feel good about myself, I find if a reason to feel good from within, i think it generally shine through in people. We are who we are, some will like us for who we are, others won't it is all a question of taste. If you don't likelove yourself then it is difficult to think that others will. But most people see others good points before their bad ones, well i do anyway. x x

Sorry Opps 8 i find a reason

Good morning from Beijing, I just woke up to all your comments. Thanks for putting thought into them. Women with insecurities must be reading all of them and maybe wondering if they should ask that guy out to finally meet. If so, mission accomplished img src="imagesadultemoticons001.gif"

Lookingforfun: I do think there has to be some kind of initial physical attraction too. However, chemistry and connection will be built based on personality. I have met very good looking men to find out after 5 minutes, we have got nothing going on. I am pretty sure it happens to all here too.

BBW: I also have a thing for eyes, the first thing I comment on a man and notice :)

Nor: Maybe one day the knee will be down hahaha

The cynic in me tends to see this type of topic as a ploy by which female bloggers can fish for compliments about their figures - although on this occasion I'll resist going up that avenue :-)

Although I concede that the social pressure to be slim is greater for women than for men, us males are not immune to a certain degree of self-angst about their wobbly bits. Like FFP, I'm also my worst critic, but in the last couple of years I think I've become a little more philosophical about being middle-aged and begun to think that maybe it's unnatural for a guy at my stage of life to try too hard, the main reason being that women tend to look at age first and would thus tend to write me off even before I got a chance to bare my warts-and-all :-) Perhaps if I was still about 30-35 then I'd be more inclined to be religious about fitness, simply because women expect men of that age to be "fit". However, it's worth pointing out that blokes can be fit without spending all their god-given hours trying to develop "ludicrous and unnatural abs" in order to fit some kind of socially preconditioned beefcake image. It's just that so many women on this site idealize that kind of look in a guy.

I have got myself into tight corners here before about my taste in women, but my remarks were not meant to be prejudgemental or disrespectful. Basically I am not a bulky, heavily built guy (OK I'm a weed :-) but in order to feel "sexy", I need to feel as though I have at least a tiny degree of physical dominance. It is largely this feeling that directs my selection process when scanning the site for potentially compatible partners - so yes the initial stage of the search is indeed visual, and then the character and empathy bit comes later as a bonus. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a "BMI snob" and find a wide range of female body types attractive. It's just that because I'm not a strapping hunk, there's a certain cut-off point beyond which I'm no longer in my physical comfort zone.

Have I expressed this in a suitably diplomatic way, this time ??? :-)

Skebbie: I am a big fan of your comments and you :) I think you were very diplomatic indeed lol...As I said I think everybody has got parameters. I know I would not be attracted to certain people physically. I think especially on this site, you have not got a choice but to go with ur guts or basic attraction. Having said that, sometimes it has been the case I was not attracted to a person physically but they won me over, but this has happened to me in my everyday life.
BTW, I was not trying to get compliments, but if you have got any, I would not mind at all ;)

Actually it's all Dixon's fault. My evil siamese twin got a disproportionate amount of goodies from me at birth, which meant that the rest of my body was rendered slightly atrophic. If I'd been apportioned my fair share of hunkiness, probably I'd have been hunting for larger ladies :-)

Freefor, thanks for this post, it's a great one.

For myself, I find that if I get along well with a man in chatting with him, and getting to know him, his overall physical appearance is vastly improved when I first see him.

To be sure, I think the physical attractiveness is very important to us all whether we admit it or not, but that doesn't mean we're all attracted to the same thing.

When I'm with my partner, I think I actually appreciate a bit of that extra stuff hanging around. For one, it makes me feel a bit less self conscious about my own flabby parts, but also, it just makes him real.

Sure, a highly toned body is attractive but at the same time if it means he spends hours and hours at the gym to perfect it, that tells me he is more concerned about appearances than I am comfortable being around. Some men have those bodies anyway through work or whatever. I'm not talking about them.

Like you, I am my own worst critic, and it has taken me forty some years to accept that I don't have a perfect body, but it's mine, and it works just fine. I've lost a lot of weight in the past few years, still need to lose quite a bit more (and would still be curvy) but where I'm at right now is just fine for me.

I avoid mirrors while nude, though.

There you go. I rest my case :-)

I have this strange thing about noticing which celebrities and stars most resemble the people I am meeting.For example, there are some on here who bear a striking likeness to some of my favorite famous people and I have ecently found a young,beautiful version of Cleo Laine the jazz singer,who I adored.
Personality,humour and intelligence are the most important criteria, way above any physical short-
comings ( real or imagined by their owner)
I too take careful note of the crossword which a lady favours.If she does the Sun or the Daily Mirror puzzle that's a bad sign, but if it's the Sunday Times Crossword, then I conclude very rapidly, that I'm her intellectual inferior and way out of my depth !

No chance for me with my iPad app sudoku and crossword puzzles then ...

Lillie: Einstein was "a bit of a goer" I've been told ;-)

Hahaha, you are making me smile Macbloke....I think bloggers have been extremely kind with me all the time....

Is this your very witty way to ask btw? img src="imagesadultemoticons012.gif" Only done if you show first....equality my friend is important in today's world!img src="imagesadultemoticons001.gif"

As i live with a psychologist i often view life through this lense.So after reading i am remined of attachment theory.Four styles of attachment have been identified in adults: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant. These roughly correspond to infant classifications: secure, insecure-ambivalent, insecure-avoidant and disorganizeddisoriented.Securely attached adults tend to have positive views of themselves, their partners and their relationships. They feel comfortable with intimacy and independence, balancing the two. Anxious-preoccupied adults seek high levels of intimacy, approval and responsiveness from partners, becoming overly dependent. They tend to be less trusting, have less positive views about themselves and their partners, and may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry and impulsiveness in their relationships. Dismissive-avoidant adults desire a high level of independence, often appearing to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient, invulnerable to attachment feelings and not needing close relationships. They tend to suppress their feelings, dealing with rejection by distancing themselves from partners of whom they often have a poor opinion. Fearful-avoidant adults have mixed feelings about close relationships, both desiring and feeling uncomfortable with emotional closeness. They tend to mistrust their partners and view themselves as unworthy. Like dismissive-avoidant adults, fearful-avoidant adults tend to seek less intimacy, suppressing their feelings.

I fell in love with my wife before we met in purson, she's a real women and that's sexy

Just giving my 5 cents to the discussion :-D
I see the menwoman attraction through the lenses of behavioural ecology and the theory of investments. Have a look at: http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiBehavioral_ecology#Sexual_selection
You can see why in human couple is most of the time the woman that eventually chose her partner (and not the contrary) :-)

ok... links blocked: search on wikipedia: "Behavioral ecology" then go to the section "Sexual selection"

Star: I think women are very much "luckier" than men to be able to get sex. I think any woman willing to have an encounter with a male would find it easy to find a willing mate. However, this does not mean for sure than men would not have some sort of power over the final decision. I would like to think that men in general do also have a saying even if their hormones are running high. Am I wrong?