Women have a finite set of tokens - they need to decide who is "sponge-worthy."
Exactly. Especially since even if I didn't tell anyone my number count I'd just feel icky and shameful if it was too high for my comfort. I have actually turned men down in the past for this exact reason when I was single.
It's the denial that it's true (it's easy to admit it behind the veil of Reddit anonymity, ain't it?) that I hate.
Look, I don't like lying either. But just the other day I asked my single male friends what they were looking for in a woman. They said "intelligence." Obviously they were lying, but I get it, they don't want to offend me or seem shallow. It's the same thing with women. They only deny caring so much about conventional attractiveness about it to avoid offense and judgment, just like men. Or, they assume wanting a good looking guy is a given so they don't even mention it. Either way, I don't see why ALL women owe you personally an apology- when it's only certain women in your life who have wronged you. It would be absurd for a woman who has been cheated on a few times to demand all men atone for this.
Every single woman I have ever been with (including some real 3-4's) has been with at least one man who was objectively more attractive than me, physically and/or otherwise (all of them top 20% or better). And every single one of these women has, at some point, told me I was their idea of perfect.
This, I don't think is necessarily a lie or even malicious. When they say you are their idea of perfect, they aren't necessarily lying, because it's possible that at that moment they genuinely did like you- inside and out- more than the guys who were only better looking than you. Maybe those guys were boring, or irritating. Just because they're better looking doesn't mean the women can't prefer to be around you. I know TRP goes nuts about height, so let me say this: I've dated some guys before my husband who were significantly taller than him. A guy might claim these men were better-looking than him based on height alone, but I not only believe my husband is better looking/more sexually attractive, I ALSO think he is a more fun person and more interesting to talk to. So when I tell him he's my idea of perfect, I'm not lying, just because I've dated someone taller.