I’ve always sort of struggled with the “1-10 scale,” and that’s because, at least to me, it’s so subjective. What I consider an “8” you might consider a “5.” I see and hear guys on Twitter all the time saying stupid shit like, “I only bang 9’s and 10’s brah,” and it makes me laugh and roll my eyes.

Maybe I’m an extremely harsh critic, but I’ve never seen a “10” in the wild. I’ve never met one personally or been introduced to one face-to-face. That’s because, to me, a “10” is literally “perfect.” There are literally no flaws, at least physically, that I can see. I’ve definitely seen my share of “5’s,” “6’s,” “7’s,” and “8’s,” and I’ve even encountered what I would consider to be a “9” or even a “9.5” in the wild. In all of the years that I’ve been walking on the planet, I could count all the “9’s” and the “9.5” on one hand, and probably still have a finger or two left over.

That being said, I don’t ever recall seeing someone so ugly, so deformed, so hideous, as to be considered a “1.” To me, a “1” would be that person that no one would want to fuck, it’s really that bad. So that leaves the “2’s” on up to the “9.5” that I’ve encountered in real life.

I know I have my standards, as I’m sure you do as well. It gets really interesting when you move from the purely physical, to such things as personality, scent, and voice. I’ve met women that on initial approach, I would have rated them a solid “8,” only to catch a whiff of them, or hear them talk, or find out her personality is, let us say, “unpleasant,” and she drops to maybe a “5.” Sometimes even lower if the smell, personality, and voice are all left to be desired.

I’ve also encountered women that on initial approach I would have rated a solid “6.5,” and due to their personality, the way they smell, and their pleasant sounding voice, they got bumped up to a “7.5,” or even an “8.” Have that “6” do her hair, put on a little makeup in just the right amount, and have her throw on her “little black dress” and she moves up to an “8.5.”

You see and understand where I’m going with this don’t you? Everybody has their standards of what they find as attractive and everybody is throwing random numbers around. I’ve seen women rated as “10’s” that I would never even come close to giving that high of a mark to them. Other than seeing models in magazines (do you remember those?) or pictures on the internet, I honestly don’t believe a “10” exists.

Back in the day, Hot or Not used to let you rate people based purely on their looks. You might have been able to guess or get an age, and you might have had a name thrown in there for good measure, but that was it. It would blow me away when I saw women getting “10’s” or “9’s” as their rating, when to me, they might have made for a good “7” or “7.5” At least with Hot or Not, they would average all of the ratings out and you had a better idea of their “true rating.” Not super scientific, but at least it was something.

I even threw a picture of myself up there for shits and giggles, because aren’t we all curious what other’s think of our attractiveness? Of course I got rated as a “1” a couple of times (ouch!) and there were even a couple of “9’s” and “10’s” thrown my way (all I could figure was that I either fit that person’s particular niche, or they were just being really generous.) Turns out after about 500 ratings or so, I averaged at a “6.5” Not bad. It’s actually about where I would have rated myself in the past.

The thing is, the 1-10 scale is not only subjective in the sense of what we individually find attractive, it’s also subjective in the sense of what we think women ought to be.

A “5” is the top of the bell curve. She is average in every sense. She’s neither too thin or too fat. She’s not ugly, but she’s not beautiful. She honestly wouldn’t garner a second look if you were to meet her on the street. She’s just, average.

However, women (and men) today have changed over the years. Obesity is unfortunately the norm now. An “average” woman today is going to be overweight. Maybe not the clinical definition of obese or morbidly obese, but she’s going to be overweight. I’ve seen this firsthand on dating sites and apps where women today are describing themselves as “average” and yet to me, they are overweight. “Thin” is actually still thin, or in some cases, what I would consider “average.” Average to me has always been height/weight proportionate.

What are we to do in order to have some sort of standard when it comes to the 1-10 scale? How are we supposed to come to a concensus of what an actual “5,” or any other number actually is? Are we just “fated” to leaving the 1-10 scale as simply a matter of subjective preference and just “know beauty when you see it?”

Aaron Clarey over at CaptainCapitalism actually came up with an answer that I think actually works out if we are going to have some sort of realistic concensus as to what an actual “5” or any other number actually means in today’s day and age.

Go check it out.

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