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Sure, that good-looking, muscular guy seems attractive now, but do you really want to date him, especially over the long term? There are benefits to dating attractive, masculine men, but you may want to consider the potential downsides.

The Allure of Attractive Men

Good-looking men are assumed to have better personalities, more rewarding careers, and more fulfilling life experiences (Dion et al., 1972; Griffin and Langlois, 2006), assumptions which may be accurate given our positive toward attractive individuals. Attractive men may actually possess better-quality , and thus may be healthier, live longer, and even be more intelligent (Perrilloux et al., 2010). Additionally, women partnered with attractive, masculine men report more frequent orgasms (Puts et al., 2012); this finding alone may make some of you stop reading now and pursue the most attractive, masculine guy you can. However...

Attractive, Masculine Men Are More Likely to Cheat

Women may be less interested in dating attractive men over the long term because of these men's higher propensity to be unfaithful. Women perceive attractive men as both more likely to cheat and more likely to leave long-term relationships (Waynforth, 2001). Further, men with more masculine facial features are more likely to report having been unfaithful in the past (Rhodes et al., 2012) — and past is a predictor of future unfaithfulness (Fincham and May, 2017). You may also want to be leery of a partner with an especially masculine, sexy voice; both men and women who are perceived as having attractive voices are more likely to be unfaithful to their partners (Gallup & Frederick, 2010).

Reduced Relationship Longevity

Recent research shows that relationships involving highly attractive individuals are less likely to endure over the long term, perhaps due to the tendency to be unfaithful discussed above. Recent research using a variety of different methods shows that more attractive individuals are more likely to , that they have shorter relationships, and that they are less likely to choose not to pursue attractive alternative partners (Ma-Kellams et al., 2017). Further, in married couples with more attractive husbands, these husbands report reduced relationship satisfaction and are less supportive of their spouses (McNulty et al, 2008). Interestingly, more masculine, taller men are also more likely to divorce and remarry than their shorter counterparts (Mueller and Mazur, 2001).

You Won't Want Him All the Time

Men’s preference for women with more feminine facial features is clear and consistent (Weeden and Sabini, 2005; Jones and Hill, 1993). You might suppose that, correspondingly, women would consistently find more masculine facial features more attractive in men. However, men's facial masculinity is not always attractive to women. Cross-cultural research shows that women from both Eastern and Western cultures prefer more feminized male faces (Perret et al., 1998). According to the authors, more masculine faces are perceived as dominant and older, but less warm, honest, and cooperative. Intriguingly, when women are fertile, they seem to prefer more masculine men as short-term mates, but women generally prefer men with more feminine faces when considering mates for long-term relationships (Penton-Voak et al., 1999). Researchers suggest that some women may pursue a mixed strategy, choosing a man with more feminine features as a long-term mate, while pursuing more masculine men for short-term sexual relationships (Cousins, 2015).

For the reasons reviewed above, women often decide to pursue less attractive, less masculine men for their long-term relationships.