I was watching some reality show on Hulu a few months back called “Dating in the Dark”. The premise was that 3 men and 3 women would meet each other and pair off in complete darkness so they could get to know each other without looks getting in the way.
The guys were constantly finding ways to figure out what the women looked like. Also, overall, the women seemed to find almost all of the guys to be acceptable looking once they saw who they picked. The guys were amazingly picky. It really sucked when some not-so-hot guy was kvetching over some very attractive girl being just not quite up to his standards.
I also think that guys get into that “women date jerks instead of nice guys like me” thing because they go after women who are WAY out of their leagues looks-wise. And when they see girls in their range, they ignore them.
I remember telling an old room mate of mine who was whining about some gorgeous woman ignoring him for a jerk. I was like “She’s ignoring you for a HOT jerk. You’re nowhere near hot enough to get that girl, no matter how nice you treat her,” And he ignored me, always chasing after girls who would ignore him no matter what and complaining that they ignored him because he was too nice.
It never occurred to him that he was ingoring “nice girls” who weren’t as hot as he wanted and going after hot looking jerks—just like all of the women he chased. He was just as bad as them if not worse.