Isn’t knowing your partner loves you for who you are and not for how you look like a better situation?

In my experience such men do not exist. I know rationally they do, but the chance of meeting one seems so rare to me it’s easier to give up looking for them.

You have to understand, starting from about the age of 13 men have been hitting on me, including those who were married. I watched friends who I thought were amazing and loyal people betray their girlfriends or wives when they got a shot with a “prettier” woman. Not even talking about the situations with my own boyfriends in the past, falling for another woman because she was visually more to their taste or they were nitpicking my body.

I have seen how different my father treats his much younger girlfriend versus how he treated my own mother. I see how one of my brothers treats his new younger girlfriend versus my sister-in-law. And in both cases it’s definitely not about character. Etc. etc. I don’t think this is a unique experience of me but shared with many.

there’s a lot of average-looking men and women in media

It’s beyond me how anyone can watch movies, anime, video games or anything really and arrive at the conclusions you do. There are plenty of average looking men in media and especially diverse looking men. Women are shown much less in screen-time and when they are shown, in the majority of cases, they are of a similar type that fits current beauty standards.