Alright, so here's me serious, non-sarcastic thoughts on rating people based on how attractive you find them. I don't engage in the practice myself, for a couple of reasons. I don't trust to do it without objectifying women, first of all. Second, and probably more importantly, it offends the person being rated, since I would rarely rate someone above a 6, and everyone wants to be a 10. As I've said in my previous entry, 10's basically don't exist, and anything above an 8 is incredibly rare, or at least that's how it would be if I actually rated people. Anyway, I'm not looking to to hurt people's feelings over something that isn't even worth my time. There's also the fact that people who rate other people rarely ever actually communicate anything through their ratings, because different numbers mean different things to various people. Furthermore, people are rarely consistent with their rating system, so you can't take them too seriously.

All that having been said, I don't necessarily find the practice of rating your attraction to someone appalling. I don't trust myself to do it without objectifying women, but what if someone else can? What if someone is just more inclined to express himself or herself through numbers and has a natural inclination to quantify everything? I know I often try to quantify a lot of things. For example, I give a rating out of ten for every film that I watch, every book that I read, and every television show that I watch. As it happens, those numbers have meanings for me, and I'm very consistent with how I distribute them. What if someone has a similar system for how they rate attraction, and the numbers actually have meaning for them? And they're capable of being consistent with their ratings, too? Good for them. Honestly, I don't actually care.

For those of us who aren't numerically inclined, we have something similar to number ratings. It's called adjectives. Instead of calling someone a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10, you could say that he or she is fair, lovely, beautiful, irresistible, or perfect. Each of those words kind of imply a different level of attractiveness, don't they? Why is it that we aren't appalled when we call someone fair? In a way, that's quantifying someone's attractiveness without explicitly doing so, because it implies that he or she isn't quite good enough to be called beautiful or irresistible, so why don't we find words like that appalling and objectifying? Just a thought. Language is funny. Perhaps some people do find phrased like that appalling. I'm pretty sure there are. There are probably some people who get really tired of hearing descriptions of themselves that imply that they're moderately attractive, but they can tell that people are holding back from truly gushing over how appealing they find them.

Perhaps some people like the numbers better, because they genuinely like to quantify things, like I do with movies and books. I honestly don't judge them, because I truly don't care. It's just something that people do, and it's part of our language. I just wish that people were far more clear and consistent on what their ratings meant, so I had a better idea of what they're trying to communicate when they say that someone's a 5.5.

As far as communication goes, I also think that if a friend told me that he had a crush on someone and then said that he thought that she was a 7 overall, I'd tell him to not even bother and wait until one day he met someone that he thought was at least an 8.5 (that is, if he rated people like I would if I rated people). If he came to me and said that he was getting along with a girl that he considered an 8.5, or even a 9, I'd feel compelled to be his wingman and make the relationship happen. So I can see how ratings would work well in that regard, if people were consistent and picky with how they rated others.

Let's be honest, though. If he actually met a 9 that he wanted a relationship with, he wouldn't be thinking to himself "she's a 9." Here's why: love can be very emotional, and rating people exercises the left side of the brain, which is the less emotional side. When you rate people and trying to quantify things, you're putting off any emotional attachment. I can actually see the benefit to that, since we ought to refrain from getting emotionally attached to attractive people too easily. If a guy met an attractive person, and then rated her, I believe that he's probably trying to distance himself from her, even if he rated her rather highly. At least, that's the impression that I get. As I said, it can also lead to the objectification of people.

Overall, I don't think much of it when people rate others. It's just something that people do, and it's too trivial for me to find it appalling, and in and of itself I don't object to the practice on account of how it's technically possible to rate people without objectifying them, and we already to similar things to rating people via other linguistic means. It is interesting to speculate on the psychological aspects of it, so I consider it an intriguing phenomenon.