Dear Prudence: Help! My Boyfriend Says I’m “Only an 8.5.”

[minoanmiss]

He says he’s happy to settle, but I don’t know how to feel about it.



I’ve been with my boyfriend for about six months. He’s been wonderful with my 4-year-old son (who has started calling him daddy!), and we recently started living together. The problem is he just told me he considers me only an 8.5 on the hotness scale and doesn’t think our sex life is the best he’s ever had but that he’s happy to settle based on the whole package. I think we’re very well-matched (hotness-wise), but I don’t compare him to other men in that way. I’ve also tried to improve our sex life, without much luck. My question is: How should I feel about his revelation? Do I deserve more from a partner, in terms of feeling sexy and loved? Or should I stick with it for the sake of my son?


I’m trying to imagine how this came up in conversation. “Darling, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I’m so happy to be able to tell you … you’re a solid 8.5 out of 10. Very nearly a 9. I understand if you want to take a minute and call your parents. Also, I’ve had better sex in the past. I won’t bother you with the details but … it’s been better. I’m not going to dump you over it. It’s definitely good enough for me. Anyhow. An 8.5. A solid 8.5.” I don’t think it’s a requirement that a happy, fulfilling relationship also provide the best sex of all time, but I do think it’s incredibly odd and casually cruel that your partner thinks it’s necessary to a) rank you on a 10-point scale of hotness, b) inform you of your ranking, and c) describe your sex life as something he’s “happy to settle for.”

It sounds like your boyfriend is interested in making sure you feel like you’re not quite good enough and that he’s doing you a favor by overlooking your physical and sexual inadequacies. These are some deeply damaging and manipulative games he’s playing. Meeting your child and moving in together at six months is awfully fast. I don’t think it should be a point of pride that your son has taken to calling him “daddy” so quickly. You deserve more from a partner, and your son deserves more from a potential co-parent. A longer screening period will go a long way towards protecting both you and your child from guys like this.—Danny M. Lavery

Comments

[cereta]

1. Holy shit, what an asshole.

2. If a girlfriend who is an "8.5/10" isn't good enough for you, buddy, you have a very, very high opinion of himself.

3. Asshole.

4. What is he doing to improve their sex life?

5. Having your child call a man you have only met "daddy" is a recipe for future therapy. Also, while I absolutely believe that there are successful blended families (my sister's is one), statistically, the most dangerous person in a child's life is an unrelated man living in the same house. Six months? WTF?

5. Also, dude is an asshole. Get out now before he starts berating your child for getting a B.

[jadelennox]

If a girlfriend who is an "8.5/10" isn't good enough for you, buddy, you have a very, very high opinion of himself.

Every now and then when I feel the need for despair I look at some of the weird incel/pickup artist crap on reddit, and this seems to be a universal truth for them. Or set of truths:

1. women shall be ranked on an objective 10 point scale for fuckability / social desirability
2. the only woman worth being with is one who is at least an 8
3. if you can't get an 8 you might as well... well. Redacted for self-harm warnings.
4. women own all the power and can fuck whomever they choose
   1. at least, all women who are eights or higher
   2. because no other women exist
5. women who are under an objective, universally agreed-upon 8 who talk about how they are getting laid are only doing it to troll you, or they are proof that women are terrible, because how dare they.
6. the best way to bag a 10 is have a prominent chin and to neg her.

And negging her is exactly what LW's awful boyfriend is doing. Yeet him into the sun.

[cimorene]

He seems to be doing negging wrong if he brought it up after they're already dating though. I mean, it does still come off as negging, but he may be trying and failing to think for himself strategywise here, if that is where he got the concept.

[minoanmiss]

Alas, continued negging during the relationship is employed by many people in order to keep their partner from mustering the self esteem to leave them. I remember a story I read where a girl's boyfriend kept complaining that she smelled bad. Finally she confronted him right after a thorough shower and he admitted that his father had advised him to tell her she smelled bad so she'd never have the confidence to leave him, and that this was how his father had held his parents' marriage together, by systematically wrecking his mother's confidence in this way.

Intergenerational disposal required, ugh.

[cereta]

Also, there is no such thing as a woman "incel" (even though a woman coined the term), because any woman can get sex any time she wants, and probably is. See above re: women under "8" not existing.