The other thing to add to the Volokh "why don't men try to be attractive?" conversation is that to be completely honest, I have no idea what women find attractive in men.

I'm reasonably good at figuring out which women are interested in which men if I see them interact, and if you gave me a lineup of men and 30 seconds of their conversation I might be able to guess which ones were most attractive (though I suspect I might do pretty badly at that), but I couldn't tell you waht concrete things about them made them attractive.

I really have no idea what marginal improvments in attractiveness I could make to myself.

I don't think I'm just in denial here, and I don't think I'm stupid and clueless, somehow it just isn't something I've picked out at all...

And maybe that explains some of why a lot of men underinvest in their own attractiveness: smart, succesful, reasonably social men can still have no idea what women find attractive in men and hence its a waste of energy to flail about guessing.

That doesn't stop me from coming up with dozens of wacky theories on what women find attractive, but when it comes down to it I know they're probably all wrong and that in the last analysis I have no clue.

This is especially true on the margins. Its one thing to know that women like popular men, or well-dressed men, or men who can hold down a conversation... It's entirely a different thing to know how to move towards such a goal in incrimental steps.