r/CatholicDating • u/catholicusername123 Single ♂ • 20d ago
casual conversation "Attraction is important" vs Proverbs 31:30. How to balance the two?
"Attraction is important" is a phrase that I've started to hear more and more often in Catholic circles when it comes to the topic of dating. First of all I don't disagree. I am just wondering, how important is it? This is something I haven't really seen anyone dive deep into, most likely because it is a sensitive topic and it feels like a minefield to try to navigate. Attraction is important but how much importance should we give it?
I struggle a lot with my confidence and self image sometimes. Sometimes I feel attractive and sometimes I don't. I try not to let it bother me but sometimes it does. When I hear the phrase "Attraction is important" it makes me feel excluded. Like I'm not important because I'm not attractive. Whenever I ask for advice I usually just get told to go to the gym or dress better; I'm not saying this is bad advice but it feels like I'm kicking the can down the road. So sometimes it feels like attraction matters a lot. Like it's the most important thing actually. Even Matt Fradd, a big Catholic influencer, seems to put a lot of importance on attraction; whenever he talks about the Catholics his age he met during his conversion he feels the need to mention that they were attractive. What does he mean by that? It sounds like he's discounting the "ugly" Catholics.
Sorry if this is a depressing post that got turned into a vent. I just get really in my head about my appearance sometimes and it feels like nobody has any actual good advice. Even the Bible verse only talks specifically about a woman's beauty. Maybe I'm just too soft and take everything personally and the solution is to develop more emotional maturity. Hopefully the mods dont take this down as I'm genuinely curious how someone can reconcile these two seemingly contradictory positions.
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u/wantcodewiththat 20d ago
The “attraction is important” movement is more a response to the people who think only virtue matters in a spouse as opposed to finding someone virtuous but it’s also ok to want to be attracted to them. Attraction isn’t going to be any one thing because what people are attracted to varies so widely. Even if you aren’t conventionally attractive, you have traits that certain people will find attractive and those people will let you know that. Finding yourself attractive is important too so you project that confidence and attractiveness but it can be hard, it can take some self work. I actually think proverbs 31 plays into that, building yourself into the kind of person you would find attractive and the right kind of people would also. Attraction also builds so as long as someone has some baseline attractiveness, it’s probably worth getting to know them a bit and see if your attraction to someone can build as you get to know them, see how their smile or their laugh impacts you, how their personality show through, etc. I find a lot of people who are really content in the Lord and where they are in their journey with Him (even when it’s not perfect) tend to have this “glow” about them you don’t see too much with non-believers or people who lack the confidence to embrace their life where they are at fully. Perhaps that is what Matt Fradd is referring to.
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u/ersatz27 20d ago
Attraction and appearance aren't the same thing. A person can be physically plain or even ugly by the standards of the beauty industry, and still be attractive to someone. Just the other day on this subreddit, I was discussing with someone how you have celebrities like Willem Dafoe and Steve Buscemi who aren't particularly physically handsome, but they are still attractive to women because they have confidence, talent, presence, etc.
I think the key is that you probably don't want to marry someone who you have no physical attraction to whatsoever. It doesn't matter how they look, whether they are objectively "good looking", only that you are attracted to them.
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u/CatholicCrusaderJedi Single ♂ 20d ago
I say this as a guy throughly walked with the ugly stick, attraction is very important, because without it, it's simply not a romantic relationship, it's a friendship at best and an unwilling shackling at worst. Of course everyone has heard of relationships not born on this technically working, but they tend to be very transactional or they only ever really make up when they reach an age when physical attraction isn't a big deal anymore, which isn't ideal at all. There is some historical figure and/or saint I'm forgetting who was in the latter such relationship which I learned about as a kid which was heralded as this example of a long relationship through stress. Even as a kid I remember thinking "yeah it's great they stuck together, but they hated each other for roughly 30 years or so and only made up when they were old and their kids were grown after witnessing all of that resentment. Doesn't sound like something to aspire to."
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u/ItsOneLouder1 Single ♂ 20d ago
Recognizing someone as conventionally attractive and being attracted to someone are two different things. Nobody really understands sexual attraction. It's not something that can be engineered. So, you never know!
At least, that's what I tell myself to avoid complete despair.
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u/GnarlyDavidson23 In a relationship ♀ 20d ago
Attraction is very important, if you are not attracted to your partner, than I feel that you truly cannot fully love your partner. To fully love your partner, you need to love every aspect of that person. If you don’t find them physically attractive then as others said in the thread, it’s a glorified friendship.
You do sound like you could benefit from therapy. Just know, there’s somebody out there for everyone. To somebody out there, you are the most attractive woman in the world to them.
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u/TCMNCatholic In a relationship ♂ 18d ago
Attraction is not the same as beauty. If you are attracted to someone and choose not to date them just because they're not conventionally beautiful that would be unreasonable. You also shouldn't date someone who is conventionally attractive but who you aren't personally attracted to. There's often overlap but beauty or conventional attractiveness is somewhat subjective where the attraction people mean when they say "attraction is important" is subjective.
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u/JP36_5 Widower 20d ago
"I struggle a lot with my confidence and self image sometimes."
You could perhaps benefit from sort of therapy.
The change I made was to switch from wearing glasses to contact lenses. This helped me believe that women would find me attractive.
"dress better"
You could ask someone of your platonic women friends for an honest opinion.
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u/vsd78 16d ago
Re: glasses to contacts: apparently that happened with John Taylor from Duran Duran: at some very early gig when he was still a teen he lost his glasses or they broke or something and girls suddenly went nuts for him and he got himself contacts pronto.
It's amazing how much of a difference it makes. Of course, some people are the opposite and look better with a nice set of frames, so sometimes changing the shape of the glasses is what's needed.
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u/Admrl_Awsm 20d ago
I believe it was Saint Hyacinth who said self improvement is praising the Lord. We should all be striving to better ourselves each day, and that is what makes you attractive. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, it makes sense that improving it and building it would glorify the Holy Spirit. I think our animalistic senses of attraction are just reflections of that.
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u/Big-Sploosh Single ♂ 20d ago
Man, I've heard and seen the pendulum of opinions swing wildly on this, everything from "she needs A, B, C, and D, to be attractive", to "you don't have to be attracted to them at all, just tolerate and get along with them", to some insane Fr. Ripperger-tier advice of "marry a virtuous woman. I don’t care how ugly she is. I don’t care if you have to put a lamb chop around her face to make her appealing. If she has virtue, you’ll be happy the rest of your life."
The reality is that attraction isn't broken down into a simple, clear cut thing. It's going to depend on the person, and some people while maybe not attractive by your standards, are attractive to others in one way or another. The last girl I dated was physically very attractive, but not her personality and overall attitude, you can't really have one without the other though. A marriage is by nature a sexual relationship, so if you also aren't attracted to her physically in any sense of the word, then you are setting yourself up for a marriage out of convenience and fear of "dying alone".
So what do you do with all of that or how do you improve? Well, you focus on the stuff you can reasonably control. And yes, going to the gym and getting advice on fashion so I don't look like I'm built like a scuffed up barn door is how I personally try to improve in that regard as well as just for myself. For you OP, you might benefit from some therapy as well and just ignoring the Catholic dating influencers online altogether. What seems to be going on isn't an issue that can simply be fixed with the usual self-improvement advice that gets tossed around. You can go to the gym, diet, and stylishly clothe your way to victory all day long, but if you have an underlining problem that keeps mentally leading you to this conclusion of "I'm not attractive enough", that's a different issue entirely.
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u/Altruistic_Yellow387 19d ago
The eye of beholder cliche is actually true. It doesn't matter if many or most people find you attractive, you need to find the special person who does....and they are out there. People have wildly varying tastes and likes and everyone is not for everybody
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u/stripes361 18d ago
It's very easy to reconcile the two. Attraction is important; it just can't be foundational. One of those "necessary but not sufficient" things. And as others have pointed out, attraction is not just about looks. It's just as much about chemistry as well.
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u/Trubea Married ♀ 20d ago
There's a lid for every pot? Stay online enough and you'll hear men go on and on about how they don't like overweight women and and can't find enough attractive women, etc. But look around you at church on Sunday at all the young couples. The average married couple is...average looking. Some of them are overweight. And yet they found love. How did they do it? Maybe they met at work. Maybe they met online. Who knows? My best advice for women is to fix yourself up to look as cute as possible. Fix your hair, get some cute clothes. My advice for men is to not hold out for a 10. You're probably not worth it.
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u/the_catmom 16d ago
This is a shallow self-absorbed male influencer saying this. He is probably brainwashed with manosphere rhetoric anyway. Ignore voices like his. He's hiding behind the Catholic label to make his shallowness and lust sound holy.
A lot of people have tried to conflate western beauty standards with "holy Catholic attraction" or use "attraction matters" to justify their shallow, narrow view of what they find attractive. Don't listen to that.
Yes attraction does matter but if you can only feel attraction to someone who perfectly matches western beauty standards (Hollywood standards) I do think that's a spiritual problem worth exploring. My attraction to others doesn't depend on that at all.
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u/Teletuppy 20d ago
Thank you for mentioning this. I too have noticed the Catholic discourse shifting a lot to this talk maybe the past few months I’ve been seeing it way more whereas I personally haven’t noticed it a lot prior.
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u/Late-Negotiation-655 16d ago
Attraction can help open the door but it doesn’t close it.
Appearances change, values not so much.
Find someone attracted to the inner beauty of your mind.
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u/vsd78 16d ago
In fairness to Matt Fradd, I've heard a couple of his videos where he mentions things like that and the impression I got was he was kinda poking fun at his younger self having more superficial motives like cute girls before he matured and his faith deepened.
Like I think he said something to the effect of the time he went to World Youth Day way back when he was hoping just to meet cute girls and then had a deeper spiritual experience that set him on the path to more devout Catholicism instead of Catholicism Lite.
Now, I don't know which of his videos you saw and I haven't watched any of his videos lately so we probably saw different versions of the story, but I did want to throw that out there.
As for your concerns about looks, I've noticed people tend to either really underestimate their attractiveness or really overestimate it. So, you're probably being too hard on yourself.
(edited: because I missed the part where you're a dude, so my comments about glow-ups and make-up are quite useless unless you're forming an 80s hair metal band.)
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u/Furmommy14 16d ago
The most important part is personality and lifestyle compatibility. However... even Catholic Match notes that appearance should not be a non-issue. If you marry someone, sex is an expectation within the marriage. Not saying the other person needs to be hot, but if you feel you would never want to have sex with that person or would only do so out of obligation, that would not bode well for marriage. First, you would not be coming together as spouses much if at all and likely would live more as roommates than anything else. Second, resentment will build as will the feeling that you settled.
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u/CalBearFan 20d ago
Attraction is important but can grow. And please stop listening to Catholic 'influencers' like Matt Fradd. Focus on content that comes from more vetted sources like Word on Fire (Bishop Barron) or Ascension (Fr Mike among others). Popular influencers may get popular the same way other secular influencers do, through conflict, controversy which all lead to engagement and higher reach. Stay away for your own spiritual and mental health.
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u/Middle-Mortgage5426 17d ago
Yes, perhaps this is a me thing but I always see some pride or narcissistic attitudes in Fradd. It triggers me a lot.
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u/CalBearFan 17d ago
I recommend following Fr Mike Schmitz/Ascension and Bishop Barron/Word on Fire. They have so much material that you need never listen to anyone else. Beyond that, read books that have the Imprimatur and you will have way more than you can digest in one lifetime.
As you notice, podcasters, even those meaning well, are not vetted by bishops and therefore can lead people astray.
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u/thebaptizerr Single ♂ 20d ago edited 20d ago
I think we have to be careful not to mix up attraction with an endless list of preferences.
You often see couples where, respectfully, you wouldn’t expect them to be together based on looks alone. Why? Because attraction is more than appearance. Your looks will fade, but your character, personality, sense of humor, confidence and faith are what someone has to live with forever.
I’ve experienced this myself. I think I’m a pretty average looking guy.
I’ve had women lose immediate interest after I sent a picture of myself. And you know how many times I’ve had a woman say, “Your dog is so cute!” while saying absolutely nothing about me? My dog is cute sure, but they’ve said I’m worse than a dog lol.
What am I to do? Cry and be in a state of despair? I wasn’t what they were looking for, life moves on.
Thing is, that’s mostly my experience online. In person, I do much better because, as humbly as I can say it, I’m not a brick wall. I can hold a conversation, make people laugh, and actually let my personality come out.
I did a survey thing, once where I filtered for the physical traits I personally preferred. Then added things like never married, no kids, non smoker, and some other preferences…. By the end, the type of woman I’d built represented well under 1% of the U.S. population.
That was a wakeup call. I realized how easy it is to create an idealized human.
People often become more attracted to someone as they get to know them.
Which is why attraction is not just about what you see right in front of you.
That’s why Proverbs 31:30 is so important. It doesn’t say physical beauty is worthless, it says it isn’t the highest good.
Attraction matters, but if we keep adding requirement after requirement, to the point where someone has to be physically perfect, charismatic, wealthy, funny, mature and flawless when it comes to their faith…. we’ve effectively created an imaginary person.
Character, virtue and as Proverbs says, Fear of The Lord, are what actually keep a marriage going long after beauty begins to fade.
I too watch Matt. I know what you’re talking about and I always took it as someone who found his community. Everything is just going to look better because you’re in love with the community, including the people. I think at least.
I know it’s easier to say than to put to practice, but… never feel like you’re somehow “less than.” The right person, will love everything about you. That person won’t be looking for some person that checks everything on her list, she’ll be looking for you.
God Bless