"Out of my league"

[LoneSheep]

When you think about "leagues", are you talking purely in terms of looks? Or are you talking about the whole package, including character?

I get so confused when I hear men saying, "she's out of my league" when refering to physically attractive women, when they know nothing about their personalities. Why such a focus? I agree looks play a part in overall attractiveness, but to me they're one of the least important things. When I consider a guy "out of my league", it's because he's incredibly smart, kind, funny, popular, etc... maybe good-looking too but not necessarily. Whereas if I met a guy who's physically gorgeous but has a vacuous personality, I'd consider myself "out of his league".

What are your thoughts on this? Have I simply mis-understood the phrase?

It usually means: "I can't afford her"

but I don't personally believe in the concept of leagues.

 

[GoodNewsJim]

She's from Justice League and I'm from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It just would never work out.

 

[Schneiderman]

I disagree. There are many very confident young men. For the great majority of them, however, maria sharapova, is "out of their league"

Confidence can only go so far.

Let me tell you two stories. First: I used to work at a lumber yard, when I was in highschool. For being a highschool student I was making good money there but there were some older guys who were not making such good money for their age... living paycheck to paycheck, you know what I mean. Well, one of these guys went out to a party and met a girl from a rich family and they fell in love and her dad gave him a great job and now he's set. Was the girl out of his league? If he lacked confidence maybe he would have thought so and never pursued it and he'd still be at the lumberyard making highschool student wages.

Second: I know an older guy who never "made it". He still has a lot of financial struggles, any time he starts getting ahead something bad happens to pull him back down. It's terrible because he is one the greatest people I ever met. Anyway, one night he was at a bar and Pamela Anderson was there. And she had a bodyguard to keep guys away from her. But, she whispered to her bodyguard, motioned for my friend to come up to her and he hung out with her for a while. Now, my friend is not the kind of guy who would be interested with being around Pamela Anderson for too long- he went along just for kicks. But what if he was? Here is a rich celebrity buying this working class nobody a drink. Is she out of his league? She told him to come over to her so I guess not. My friend had no real interest in Pamela Anderson in the first place, but who knows how differently things could have turned out if they really hit it off.

 

[Blank123]

When you think about "leagues", are you talking purely in terms of looks? Or are you talking about the whole package, including character?

I get so confused when I hear men saying, "she's out of my league" when refering to physically attractive women, when they know nothing about their personalities. Why such a focus? I agree looks play a part in overall attractiveness, but to me they're one of the least important things. When I consider a guy "out of my league", it's because he's incredibly smart, kind, funny, popular, etc... maybe good-looking too but not necessarily. Whereas if I met a guy who's physically gorgeous but has a vacuous personality, I'd consider myself "out of his league".

What are your thoughts on this? Have I simply mis-understood the phrase?

purely in physical terms, I don't believe there is such a thing as a league. There's "i'm attracted to him" and "I'm not attracted to him". I think leagues were just made up in order to make people feel bad about themselves and in order to have an excuse not to pursue a relationship with someone they might actually want to but are too scared to do anything about.

now as for spiritual, intellectual, etc... that one I can actually understand because you're focusing on something a bit more substantial. Its still as artificial as the looks thing, but I can understand the feeling better. I can think of guys that I have admired greatly for how smart they were, their personalities, their faith, etc... that I didn't feel like i ever measured up to them. But really its not up to me to decide if thats true. If he's really attracted to me, then obviously the league thing doesn't hold up. If he's not then hats not a confirmation of league-status, it just means we're not a good fit.

 

[GQ Chris]

The way that I view this is that looks are obviously the first initial attraction for me, but it just means someone's really nice to look at, but I know nothing else about her. I do not know whether I am better off living on a rooftop than with her, so until I know this, she's just nice to admire from a distance.

 

[ulu]

Second: I know an older guy who never "made it". He still has a lot of financial struggles, any time he starts getting ahead something bad happens to pull him back down. It's terrible because he is one the greatest people I ever met. Anyway, one night he was at a bar and Pamela Anderson was there. And she had a bodyguard to keep guys away from her. But, she whispered to her bodyguard, motioned for my friend to come up to her and he hung out with her for a while. Now, my friend is not the kind of guy who would be interested with being around Pamela Anderson for too long- he went along just for kicks. But what if he was? Here is a rich celebrity buying this working class nobody a drink. Is she out of his league? She told him to come over to her so I guess not. My friend had no real interest in Pamela Anderson in the first place, but who knows how differently things could have turned out if they really hit it off.

I'm not talking about being able to have a conversation with someone, I'm talking about the reality of having a relationship with them because you have enough going on to be interesting to them for more than a few hours.

 

[ProAntiRevolution]

The "leagues" concept is just a laymen's term that puts the concepts of hypergamy in an easy to understand sports analogy. It's more complicated than purely an issue of physical appearances. If you make a large income as a man that will change your league quite a bit. Bill Gates could get just about any woman in the world because of his money. Now if he were just a mid-level guy writing code at MS that would change rather radically. Or a high level politician would have access to a rather large number of women because of the status of his position, even though it doesn't have a huge salary.

As it relates to women it is more of a physical issue because men are socially conditioned not to judge women based on their income and/or social status. Whereas most women will put more stock in a man's income and status than his physical appearance.

Of course, these issues are social conditioning. When you remove income and status from the picture you get different results. Say in a high school dating scene where income is a non-factor and social status is often tied to physical abilities, like athletics, you'll find males and females alike are mostly motivated by physical appearances.

So "leagues" most certainly exist, it's just a easy term for denoting someone's relationship capital without going into sociological terms. Obviously there are no universal rules about how people weigh relationship capital. A woman might not choose the richest man she can because she feels a guy from a lower income bracket will be less likely to have affairs. Or a man may not choose the best looking woman he can get from similar reasons. Belonging to certain social groups might change a person's views on relationship capital because social status within the group is assigned differently than it is in society at large.

 

[Schneiderman]

I'm not talking about being able to have a conversation with someone, I'm talking about the reality of having a relationship with them because you have enough going on to be interesting to them for more than a few hours.

Read my post again and comprehend it before responding.

 

[Apollo Celestio]

The "leagues" concept is just a laymen's term that puts the concepts of hypergamy in an easy to understand sports analogy. It's more complicated than purely an issue of physical appearances. If you make a large income as a man that will change your league quite a bit. Bill Gates could get just about any woman in the world because of his money. Now if he were just a mid-level guy writing code at MS that would change rather radically. Or a high level politician would have access to a rather large number of women because of the status of his position, even though it doesn't have a huge salary.

As it relates to women it is more of a physical issue because men are socially conditioned not to judge women based on their income and/or social status. Whereas most women will put more stock in a man's income and status than his physical appearance.

Of course, these issues are social conditioning. When you remove income and status from the picture you get different results. Say in a high school dating scene where income is a non-factor and social status is often tied to physical abilities, like athletics, you'll find males and females alike are mostly motivated by physical appearances.

So "leagues" most certainly exist, it's just a easy term for denoting someone's relationship capital without going into sociological terms. Obviously there are no universal rules about how people weigh relationship capital. A woman might not choose the richest man she can because she feels a guy from a lower income bracket will be less likely to have affairs. Or a man may not choose the best looking woman he can get from similar reasons. Belonging to certain social groups might change a person's views on relationship capital because social status within the group is assigned differently than it is in society at large.

I agree with this, it's similar to evolutionary psychology. Men are ranked by power/money, women by their looks. Everyone still "looks" though.

 

[ulu]

Schneiderman

I didn't realize your friend who never made it could have had a relationship with pamela anderson if he had been the "type of guy who would be interested in being around pamela anderson for " an extended period.

I thought you had implied she just offered to buy him a drink and chat in a bar.

 

[yam]

So many people are missing good women and men because of this phrase. There are tons of attractive people who are not intrested in looks, they are looking for character. I have seen tonsof attractive people with regular partners .

 

[Im_A]

When you think about "leagues", are you talking purely in terms of looks? Or are you talking about the whole package, including character?

I get so confused when I hear men saying, "she's out of my league" when refering to physically attractive women, when they know nothing about their personalities. Why such a focus? I agree looks play a part in overall attractiveness, but to me they're one of the least important things. When I consider a guy "out of my league", it's because he's incredibly smart, kind, funny, popular, etc... maybe good-looking too but not necessarily. Whereas if I met a guy who's physically gorgeous but has a vacuous personality, I'd consider myself "out of his league".

What are your thoughts on this? Have I simply mis-understood the phrase?

I don't worry about the idea of leagues. That is not me stating that anything is possible either.

I see that 'out of your league' is just a social construct of what type of physical body type should be together. If we were to judge by looks, why in the world did Sandra Bullock go after Jesse James? Jesse is a foolish man for what he did if we would judge it outside of morality and judge it on the fact that Sandra is an amazingly beautiful woman that one could never imagine hooking up with a talented tattooed grease monkey who works on bikes and ends up like having sex with strippers. Go figure eh?

 

[Riot Riot Riot]

I've dated a few guys in the past that saw me as 'out of their league'. I don't know why they'd think such a thing about little ol' me, but hey... it worked out, so.... there's always hope!!