All is right in the world. You infer the man has alpha characteristics to complement his good looks, and he has cashed that in for a hot babe.

You would be surprised, were you to talk to him, if he wasn’t charming and a bit arrogant. You do not doubt the woman’s judgment.

All is right, if depressing, in the world. You infer the ugly man has beta or even omega characteristics, and that an ugly woman was the best he could do.

You assume the ugly woman resents him for having to settle, but knows she has no other options. Love between them is less about passion than it is about task delegation and avoidance of suicidal loneliness.

The last mismatched pairing is the subject of this post because it so powerfully illustrates a fundamental tenet of game: a man’s looks are of limited utility as a measure of his alphaness and, hence, his attractiveness to women.

When we see couples out and about we usually resort to sizing them up based on immediately discernible criteria like looks and style

This judgmental shorthand works well on women for whom looks are their most salient sexual currency, but shows its limitations as a method of discerning a man’s dating market value, as exemplified by the couple in the story above.

This is why most people have a tendency to assume the best about ugly men who pair up with beautiful women, and assume the worst about handsome men with ugly women

There is an instinctive, deeply primitive understanding chugging away behind the prefrontal cortex in every one of us that women sexually respond to a suite of male attractiveness traits, of which looks are only one desirable male quality.

It is therefore not inconceivable to most non-brainwashed observers that an ugly man might have other characteristics that appeal to a beautiful woman on his arms, or that a handsome man might be crippled with weakness and self-doubt that constrains his ability to attract no better than a big fat pigwoman.

Contrast that instant appraisal we all have of the men in mismatched pairings with how we think about the women in such relationships.

A beautiful woman with an ugly man does not have beta characteristics; she is simply drawn to other attractive attributes in him which we are not as privy to as his looks

In the mismatched couple I witnessed, it was clear that whatever good will or tokens of desire that the handsome man had inspired in his pigwoman were completely squandered by his beta behavior