Hot Girls, Douchey Guys

So I've recently encountered a rampant epidemic: really hot, smart, awesome girls who are settling for average to unattractive toolish guys.

I first noticed it when I was out with my girlfriend A. She is absolutely gorgeous so I'm totally used to guys coming up to us and hitting on her. But what is odd is instead of giving the weird/ugly ones the brush-off the way most people do is that she actually expresses interest and ends up talking to these guys for the rest of the night, leading most people to wonder how a guy like him ended up with a girl like her.

After that, I started noticing that all around New York there are these amazingly beautiful girls paired up with guys that just make you scratch your head as to how that came about. I recently met a beautiful girl who is successful and hilarious and for some reason is dating this loser guy I knew in high school whose main accomplishment since seems to be that he's bloated. (Sorry, was that mean?)

So I guess the main question is: why????

And I've come up with two possible explanations:

1) What I like to call "The Anti-Asshole Effect": In general, a lot of hot guys tend to be assholes who treat girls like shit. And as appealingly attractive as that is at first, it can start to wear on a girl after he's cheated on her a couple times. And after dating a string of assholes, a girl just wants to be with someone who will treat her well regardless of her usual dating requirements.

One of my girlfriends from college dated a bunch of assholes who treated her horribly and eventually started dating one of our guy friends, an incredibly sweet, funny guy, but slightly on the pudgy side. They got married a little over a year ago and every single speech his friends and family gave was about how they couldn't believe he was marrying such a hot girl. It was really funny, but also kind of sad.

Now, I am aware of this phenomenon firsthand. After dating more than my fair share of assholes, I have definitely gotten to the point where all I want is a guy who will treat me well, even if it means I will have to sacrifice something else. And that is how I ended up dating some heinously unappealing losers...

I was telling my girlfriend L about my theory and she told me that recently she met a guy who was balding and her initial reaction was, "Awwww he's definitely not an asshole, he must be a nice guy."

2) Female insecurity. After getting fucked over by one too many assholes, it isn't entirely unheard of that a girl tends to start feeling bad about herself. And plus, girls are already racked with insecurity to begin with, so it's not that hard for a girl to fall into total self-doubt.

After reaching these depths, it's entirely likely that a girl would date a less attractive or appealing guy because subconsciously she thinks he would never leave her or cheat on her because she's too good for him to begin with. And in some weird way, this would feed her ego and make her feel more secure in the relationship.

In the end, I guess whatever the rationale is, people do end up settling. And it does end up working out for some people when there's real love and affection there.