Yes, there is definitly a downside and I just wanted you to know I get where you're coming from. My first bf asked me out after drooling for months, thinking I was out of his league (his words not mine) and proceeded to treat me as a trophy for years. Seriously he would verbalize wanting to parade me to new friend or colleagues. That relationship turned sour, toxic and in the end abusive...

Besides my current bf whom I've known half my life? Nobody approaches me, and when I was lonely and did some discreet enquiring, it was apparantly because men assumed I was taken or unapproachable and I'm not even "up there" on the scale of looks.

So I just wanted to say I hear you Kathy.

To the OP, I am also a realist and I can definitely see why you say and feel the things you do, but I'm also cursed with an irritating lil thing called hope

I've found that its true that we usually find what we need when we are not seeking, when we least expect it, and when we are most ready to receive it.

Please don't consider yourself unlovable because the women you've encountered thus far are too shallow to look past looks.

That's a reflection of them, not you.