New 7 Things That Make Us Less Attractive: Based on Psychology

6 min readDec 2, 2020

When was the last time that you thought about that certain someone who has managed to woo you ? Was it a day ago? an hour ago? 5 minutes? 10 seconds? Well, you are not the first — nor the last one to do so.

It’s likely that most of the people, especially the youth in today’s time, are thinking about it as much as you.

You gush yourself thinking about, why doesn’t this attraction work on both sides and moreover what can you do to make sure it does?

But have you ever given much thought to what you shouldn’t do? In today’s fast-paced dating world, it’s more important to recognize and eliminate undesirable traits than trying to add the desirable ones in your personality.

To help you with that, here is a list of seven psychological things we do that make us less attractive than what we are.

1. Being very distant

While procrastination might feel good to us on a personal level, it isn’t attractive to others at all.

In 1992, two psychologists named Moreland and Beach got curious about the relationship between how many times you see someone and how attractive you find them.

To find the answers, They did small social research in which they enrolled four women as students in a large psychology class. At the end of the given semester, students in the class were asked to rate how attractive they found each of those women.

What the psychologists found was that the fewer classes a woman attended, the less attractive they were rated by other students. While some of the students even forgot about the ones who weren’t attending classes regularly.

Be sure to remember this study the next time, you get infatuated to someone. The more you make your appearance, as well as your presence, known to them the more likely they are to find you attractive over time.

While acting distant will do the exact opposite and make you seem less attractive than you are in the eyes of others.

2. Revealing too much, too soon

In 2011, researchers told female undergrads that their Facebook profiles had been viewed by male students and that they would now be viewing the profiles of those guys.

You can probably imagine that the women were intrigued. The women were split into groups and were told either that he liked their profile or that the researchers don’t know whether he liked their profile. The women were most attracted to the men who didn’t reveal whether they liked the women.

Why? The researchers decided that the more the women pondered the mysterious man, the more he was on their mind, and the more intrigued they became.

In general, women are attracted to mysteries. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking in the context of a long term relationship but a little mystery sure goes a long way for getting a woman interested in you.

3. Being too much clingy

It’s the classic young love phenomenon- constantly hanging out together and being close to each other.

Three social psychologists from the University of California, San Diego conducted a study on the relationship between people’s physical proximity and how much they like each other.

The researchers made a surprising discovery.

They asked students to name who they liked and disliked. The researchers found that the students’ most-liked people were those who they frequently met face-to-face. But they also found that the students’ least-favourite people were those with whom they were forced to spend time.

Humans are free beings. As much as we love to socialize with each other our personal space should never be at risk during these moments of social interactions. In other words, watch out that spending time with your crush doesn’t end up with you getting on their nerves.

4. Going on boring dates

Two psychologists in Vancouver, Canada did a study on misattribution of arousal, which is when people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do.

They had an attractive female research assistant give male participants a questionnaire.

In the first group, she asked them the questions while they were on a scary suspension bridge. In the second group, she asked them while on a low, small bridge. Those on the scary bridge were more excited (because of the bridge) and were more attracted to the research assistant and more likely to call her later.

What can you understand from this situation? Well, on your next date, don’t just go to Starbucks, McDonald’s or pizza hut — that’s boring. Instead, go see fireworks, ride go-karts.

Do something adventurous and exciting.

5. Not showing enough interest in others

When Granny told you, “Smiling Always pays off”, were her words backed up by science?

Psychologists Curtis and Miller randomly paired participants. One person in the pair was led to believe that their partner either liked or disliked them.

Those who thought they were liked were nicer and their partner ended up liking them more.

The researchers concluded that so-called reciprocal liking is a self-fulfilling prophecy: if your partner thinks you like them, they’ll be nicer to you, which in turn makes the whole relationship better. And the opposite is also true: if they think that you don’t like them, they’ll be meaner, and the whole relationship will suffer.

Showing interest and being nicer to others will make sure they are nicer to you as well and attraction is known to escalate in a light environment, not in a bitter and hateful one.

I don’t know about the mother but it turns out that grandma always knows the best.

6. Using cheesy pick-up lines

Psychologists who study attraction have identified three general strategies for pick up lines: cute-flippant (for example — Your place or mine?), innocuous (such as — What do you think of the music?), and direct (as in — Can I buy you lunch?).

A study asked men and women which pickup lines they prefer to receive. Most strategies work for men being approached by women.

However, women tend to prefer innocuous and direct lines over cute-flippant ones. Bottom line: groaners aren’t attractive. So now you know: asking someone, “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” is scientifically the lamest possible thing to say.

7. Not having a wingman or wing woman

Some people treat dating like a competition. But did you also know that there’s lots of room for cooperation among friends?

Having a third-party make the introduction may be the best strategy of all for guys trying to pick up women. Especially in today’s dating world, where there’s more choice than ever, daters have to overcome many hurdles to catch someone’s interest.

Having someone make the introduction for you automatically moves you past the difficult first stage, and it makes it clear that you’re nice enough to have friends.

Sorry James Bond, but in the real world, the best romancers work in pairs.

Thank you for reading.