Looksmaxxing Is Just Another Dead End

“…something rather severe is happening recently. It’s the assumption that, having achieved a great deal of prosperity, life seems to have achieved no more particular meaning. And because of that, they’ve begun to stand on the brink and look into the abyss and say, “What is life all about?”” -Paddy Chayefsky

Looksmaxxing is the latest trend associated with perfectionism. Moral perfectionism is likely not as common as it was due to the decline in the number of people practicing religion, and success-oriented perfectionism is so common that there’s little left unsaid about it. So, we can use looksmaxxing to highlight a deeper problem, which finds several expressions. Perfectionism is a creature, or better yet, a virus, morphing and evolving to survive. It always latches onto the wider culture. We can become perfectionistic about almost anything. But that’s the point—it doesn’t matter.

I’ve often asked patients why they’re so preoccupied with becoming the best in some domain, why they need something so much that they’re willing to organize their lives around it, sacrificing all types of pleasures for it. Most of the time, there isn’t much of an answer. It’s like a game, a distraction, and a fantasy; there’s no rhyme or reason, no sense of why they do it or what’s to come, and no understanding of how being the best generates long-standing happiness. It all feels so random to an outsider, who may easily question their passion. With little general forethought, looksmaxxing blends the elements of perfectionism—obsessiveness, sensitivity to criticism and rejection, desire for widespread and complete approval, the need to be part of an elite group, and the intolerance of one’s flaws—with vanity—the preoccupation with being extremely physically attractive.

Like all of the other forms of perfectionism, looksmaxxing is based on a highly flawed perspective of the world and how one becomes influential in it, yet it contains kernels of truth, which weakens one’s cognitive defenses. So, men and boys who organize their self-esteem around attracting women, which is obviously natural to a large extent, engage in online forums that teach the gospel of looksmaxxing: The tallest and most physically attractive men are the most successful in mating. Simple. While again there’s truth to it, it fails to account for deeper and long-term problems. The moral perfectionist may fail to consider a joyless life, where high conscientious bleeds it dry; the success-oriented perfectionist may overlook how their obsession with work erodes their relationships; and the looksmaxxer may discover that while their sexual partners may prefer sex with them over some others, it doesn’t always mean anything more than a sexual encounter, which may not even be recurring.

One of the main threads underlying and connecting each version of perfectionism is the preoccupation with acquiring status for influence and self-esteem. So, its overarching goal is to cultivate a life free of the prospect of rejection, to effectively wield power. Yet, looksmaxxing not only fails to deliver that degree of influence, but it also tends to cause severe harm to its captive. When considering your fixation on your appearance, ask yourself what you’re after and why. How much influence will I have if others, like me, are also maximizing their appearance? Why would highly desirable women, who also have good options, become fixated on me solely because of my appearance when those options imply there isn’t a strong need for them to try to tolerate and work through the difficult aspects of any particular relationship? Would I get rejected for being self-absorbed? Am I bothered by the reality that my romantic relationships may remain stagnant, that no one I'll date may care about me (especially if they believe I'm only after sex)? Can my tendency to fixate on what I don’t have and how I’m not enough ever be extinguished by any physical progress, considering the body’s entropy and the perpetual progress of those around me? How would increasing my ability to garner sexual interest in me substantially increase my self-esteem? And how do I know that an increase won’t be short-lived?

Looksmaxxing, while it can foster some sense of community, devolves into hyper-competitiveness, which is also where it stems from, as each individual realizes that the quantity of attractive men greatly reduces one’s rewards; if everyone looks amazing, then no one does. And as the air gets thinner, body dysmorphia, the exaggerated perceptions of one’s physical flaws, is exaggerated further. It exists through comparison, modulated by one’s perceptions of how they compare to those around them. When comparisons are favorable, body dysmorphia is dialed down, and when unfavorable, dialed up. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t static but changes with movement, as it is, in part, meant to be motivational.

The individual doesn’t allow themself to exist, to be, as identity is wrapped up in the degrees or qualifiers of their comparisons. For example, they may feel good-looking when compared to someone less attractive and bad-looking when compared to someone more attractive. There is no version of their world where they feel attractive enough generally, meeting some more or less internal bar for feeling good about their appearance. Therefore, looksmaxxing, like all of the other forms of perfectionism, has no end. It’s a prison-like state of constant comparison and progress, modulated by external perceptions and reactions, and others’ progress. But it tricks you into believing there’s an end.

Perfectionism’s grand deception is that it will all be worth it: At some point, you’ll become untouchable and undeniable. It fails to account for life’s ever-changing nature, which includes trends. In some epoch, character defined one’s standing. At another, one’s profession did. And in our era, it may be physical appearance or some combination of the three. It’s been said that we have become more shallow over time, but the reality is that, with religion at the forefront, our preoccupation with being good was just as thoughtless, conceited, and performative. We’ve never been thoughtful about why things matter to us or what their outcomes could be, especially if we, as philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested, turned these things into universal laws. Imagine if we structured the world in a way where looksmaxxing became the norm among men. What then? How would we live? What would matter most to all of us?