Am familiar with two ways to rate a girl’s appearance: the binary scale and the 1-10 scale. The binary scale only says if a girl is bangable or not, but doesn’t describe the degree of bangability like the 1-10 scale, which my circle of man friends prefer using. We calibrate the system with a simple starting point and go from there. It gives men a quick way to talk about looks without getting all soft around the edges. That kind of shorthand is useful when the room is full of guys comparing notes

We calibrate the 1-10 scale by starting with 7, a rating that describes girl-next-door cuteness. She has no major flaws and is girlfriend material for 90% of guys. The problem with 7’s is one of relativity: while out with one you run into a handful of girls who are better looking than her. In most men this stirs thoughts of “Can I do better?” That question is what keeps the scale moving. A 7 is solid, but she is also close enough to other women to make comparisons unavoidable.

An 8 is very cute, and the relativity problem disappears but one of personality emerges instead. The hotter a girl is, the less she has had to work on her personality to be liked by others. A 9 is what most men would describe as “hot.” Getting a 9 seems to be more luck and timing than skill, and the personality problem is multiplied. At that level, looks do so much of the work that charm starts to matter less. That is why the higher the number goes, the harder it gets to keep the fantasy steady.

The only difference between a 9 and 10 is makeup, clothing, lighting, or photoshop, so 10’s do not exist naturally in the wild. A 6 is a girl who is cute when she works at it, but her flaws are easier to notice. Anything under a 6 means you need to drink alcohol to get aroused, especially in the “monster” range. That is just how men talk when they are being brutally honest. Once the number drops too low, nobody pretends it is anything else.