13 Personality Traits That Make People Unattractive To Pretty Much Everyone
BublikHause | Shutterstock Everyone has met someone who is gorgeous, but cannot seem to keep friends or a partner around. While people often wonder how they’re single or lonely, the answer soon becomes very apparent, very quickly. They have personality traits that make them unattractive to pretty much everyone.
Often, people with unattractive traits repel others without realizing it. What they think is charm seems overbearing, or their honesty is read as negativity. Regardless of why, these traits tend to repel those they wish they could attract the most.
13 personality traits that make people unattractive to pretty much everyone
1. Entitlement
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Nothing says someone has issues quite like expecting things to just fall into your lap or expecting special treatment for no good reason. Among people looking for love, this often signals that you’re an emotionally stunted mess with no self-awareness.
Entitlement is part of being immature, which is why it is to be expected among children and why good parents actively guide their children toward empathy rather than selfishness. But among adults, entitlement can be a sign of personality issues and selfishness that make people unattractive to pretty much everyone.
2. Rage
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While anger is a totally natural, healthy emotion, rage is not attractive. Rage, by its nature, is anger that feels out-of-control and can cross into the psychological condition known as intermittent explosive disorder. The APA explains that this condition is an "impulse-control disorder consisting of multiple episodes in which the individual fails to resist aggressive impulses and commits assaultive acts or destroys property."
Again, not all anger is rage, and that anger can be a very helpful emotion. A 2017 review of literature by Frontiers in Psychology explains that behaviors accompanied by anger and rage serve many different purposes, and the symbolic and cultural framework and social contexts often define the nuances of aggressive behaviors.
All in all, though, rage is one of those traits that is unattractive to pretty much everyone, and it is one worth exploring with a professional.
3. Immaturity
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No one likes being used, disrespected, and feeling led on. If you throw tantrums, pout, and act like a jerk, you will not get many people who would want you as a long-term partner or even a friend.
This can be annoying, but immaturity can also be a warning of worse things to come. The National Domestic Violence Hotline states that if you are in a relationship with a person who displays emotional immaturity, you may have seen and experienced behaviors and traits associated with the condition.
Regardless of whether the immaturity displayed is annoying or truly problematic, immaturity can be emotionally draining and difficult for friends, family and partners alike. Compounding matters is the fact that immature people are often unable to see their role in relationship problems or family drama, so they consider themselves helpless victims. This is a miserable experience for both the immature person and those who care about them alike.
4. Awkwardness
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Some awkwardness can be endearing. After all, everyone feels awkward from time-to-time, and exposing that awkwardness can be a charming way for someone to be honest and vulnerable with loved ones.
However, awkwardness as a trait that makes people unattractive to pretty much everyone often comes in a form that looks like selfishness rather than endearing earnestness. It's almost as if someone doesn't care enough to learn how to be socially graceful.
Your social skills are a lot like a muscle you’d use. When you work out your social skills by talking to others and learning about others, you become less awkward. So, if you feel as if you posess this trait and it's holding you back, try making a point of going out and talking to others regularly, you can smooth this issue out. Then you can transition your uncomfortable behaviors into the type of endearing, vulnerable awkwardness that actually brings people closer.
5. Negativity
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Though misery loves company, no one wants to be around a miserable person for too long. If you’re constantly negative and crapping all over anything positive, then you’re stuck with a personality trait that makes you unattractive to pretty much everyone.
As explained in a 2018 study, negative people often distrust the intentions of others, and they get cautiously involved in interpersonal interactions and take risks only if they do not have any severe negative consequences. It is also a fact that few ventures in life potentially involve as much insecurity and personal vulnerability as establishing and maintaining close relationships.
Negativity isn't a life sentence, however. Doing gratitude work, like keeping a gratitude journal or doing gratitude mindfulness exercises have been found to increase positivity even in the most negative-minded people.
6. Desperation
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Does anything shout “unattractive” quite as loudly as desperation? Probably not. No one wants to be with a desperate person, not even other desperate people. That's why it's among the personality traits taht make people unattractive to pretty much everyone.
A 2018 study found that humans tend to need social connections strongly as a social species. However, there are individual differences in how socially connected one needs to be to feel fulfilled and in how aversive the threat or loss of critical social bonds is.
The negative emotions one experiences when one’s needs for social connection, either quantitatively or qualitatively, are not met (e.g., sadness, frustration, sorrow, shame, desperation) are what make up the feeling of loneliness. That's why it's so important for lonely people to do the work of building connections with others.
7. Instability
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Instability that makes people unattractive can come in many forms, from financial to emotional and more. One thing they have in common is that there is a lot of up and down in someone's life, making it hard to rely on them. They may be calm and cool one day and moody and angry another or flush with funds one week and broke the next.
While everyone has periods of change in their lives, instability as a trait means that the person isn't even working toward stable consistency. They may not realize it, but they likely crave the energy an excitement of instability, riding the highs until they come crashing down. This is incrediby hard on a friend, partner and even family member, which is why it ends up being an unattractive trait to pretty much everyone they meet.
8. Immorality
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Some people might like the “bad boy” or "naughty girl" types, but almost no one willingly and knowingly dates people who are immoral and unethical for the long term. Why? Because there’s no saying that they won’t do something horrible to you, too. That's the biggest reason immoral people are unattractive to most people.
Moral cognitions and moral behavior differ vastly among people, of course and vary based on culture and generation. Still, immorality is often based on behaviors that knowingly do harm to others (or that might). Because people generally want to be able to trust friends, family and partners, if someone comes off as possessing the personality traits of someone immoral, they will become unattractive to pretty much everyone.
9. Neediness
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Everyone has needs and can go through periods of extreme neediness. That's normal! But when neediness becomes part of their personality, they face a lot of hardship, as this is incredibly unattractive.
So, what's the difference? Excessive neediness comes off as desperation and control. For example, someone who is excessively needy is sad, angry or anxious when you are not around, which makes you feel like you have to be around all the time. This is a type of unhealthy control, even if the needy person doesn't intend for it to be. It may also be simply passive-aggressive.
Excessive neediness can also manifest as overt control. A person saying something like, "You're not allowed to take a vacation without me" or "You cannot hang out with that person" is being controlling. They may think this makes them look strong, but in healthy adult relationships, it actually comes from a source of neediness.
That's a big reason why neediness is, in most healthy people's eyes, one of the most unattractive personality traits.
10. Insecurity
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Everyone is insecure to a point, but there’s a limit to how insecure you can be without making yourself unattractive. The difference is in how someone expresses their insecurity. If they act out, blame others or disempower themselves with victim mentality, they can easily repel people.
While this is true in friendships and professional relationships, it is especially true for romantic partnerships. A 2020 study published in theInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that a partner’s security often signals whether it is safe to commit to relationships.
Partners’ insecurity heightens the risk of hurt and rejection that likely undermines commitment, whereas partners’ security signals the potential for a promising, stable relationship that may promote commitment. This shows the value of working on self-esteem, likely with a counselor or therapist or via gratitude or mindfulness practice.
11. Overbearing
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People who insist on being the loudest, most domineering person in a relationship are not charismatic and they don't look strong, despite what they may think. They’re often overbearing and manipulative, and most people can smell that from a mile away.
Overbearing people often don't realize how unattractive this is to pretty much everyone because they think it's how confident people behave. They don't realize that overbearing or controlling behavior reeks of insecurity, practically repelling those who are healthy and confident themselves.
12. Egotism
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If you’ve ever met someone who seemed to think that they are way better than you, then you already know how unattractive egotism can be. No one wants to date, or even be friends with, a person whose arrogance makes them feel like they’re just not enough to please them.
While we all have an ego in the psychological sense, the people who embody the trait of egotism keep themselves at the center of every conversation, every situation, every story. They often interrupt or try to one-up people in order to appear confident and cool. The problem? Pretty much everyone can see through it and finds it unattractive.
13. Blandness
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Blandness is an unattractive personality trait that results in no motivation, no hobbies, and nothing outside of a relationship. Some people may confuse shy or quiet people with bland people, but they're actually very different.
Shy or reserved people are often very interesting and have dynamic, fascinating interests just like anyone else. They may not have the social skills to know how to share these interests, or they may not enjoy being the center of attention. Once you get to know a shy or reserved person, you usually realize they aren't bland at all.
Bland people seem to have no personality, even after you get to know them. Maybe they have numbed themselves with substances for too long, or maybe they're insecure or lacking self-awareness, not realizing how "blank" it makes them seem. After all, motivation, passion, and other interests are attractive. If you have none of that, dyou're probably unattractive to interesting people.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, New Theory Magazine, and others.
