Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X & Boomers Have Completely Different Ideas Of What Makes Someone Attractive
Dmytro Sheremeta / ShutterstockNot only are no two people likely to have the exact same preferences when looking for a romantic partner, but general opinions about what makes someone attractive have a way of shifting over time.
While a youthful appearance and symmetrical features never seem to go out of style, each generation from baby boomers to Gen Z has its own way of thinking when it comes to physical and emotional attraction.
Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and boomers all have completely different thoughts on what it is that makes someone attractive.
Older generations were more focused on the end goal of marriage and children than younger people are now. They thought the most attractive person was the one who could offer them that kind of stability. Younger people are more interested in who someone really is and probably confuse older folks when they overlook more practical matters when deciding who’s attractive.
Boomers were most attracted to people who were reliable, although there was still a strong counterculture influence in their preferences.
Baby boomers were more complex in their thinking when they were young than many young people now give them credit for. On the one hand, many of them were raised to have pretty traditional beliefs from their parents, so they chased the classic dream of getting married and having kids in record numbers.
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This group thought it was attractive when someone was clean-cut and ready to work towards a stable life, whether that meant taking on the role of the breadwinner or the homemaker. They planned on building success and security together, and anyone who wasn’t able to contribute to that kind of lifestyle wasn’t attractive to them.
At the same time, plenty of boomers were yuppies who were highly invested in extremely focused careers and felt strongly attracted to people with similar goals, while others who were slightly older embraced the hippie lifestyle and thought the most attractive people were the ones who expressed themselves freely and who didn’t see love as something to tie up in a transactional institution.
Gen X found independence and rebellion attractive, and their opinions were heavily influenced by pop culture.
Parents of Gen Xers were hard workers who tended to put their jobs before almost everything else. This gave Gen X kids an unprecedented amount of independence. These latchkey kids came home and took care of themselves and their siblings until their parents got home from work.
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Since this generation learned to be super self-sufficient, that’s what they expected from others, too. Few things would have been less attractive to them than someone who was basically helpless. Their definition of attractive included reliability, but not in the sense that they were looking for a provider.
Gen X wasn’t all about responsibility, though. MTV became a phenomenon when they were young, and it had a huge impact on them. They watched stars who weren’t much older than they were on their TV screen every single day, which opened them up to the possibility that people who looked or acted differently could be the most attractive. Pop culture showed them a different side of life that they couldn’t look away from.
Millennials entered a new era of dating where people’s attractiveness was based more on their personality.
Millennials were the first generation raised with the internet, which meant they were also the first to use dating apps in a widespread way. This came with mixed results. In 2019, nearly half of the single adults in the U.S. said they actually thought that dating had become more difficult over the previous 10 years.
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The same survey revealed that millennials were less interested in conventional ideas of attractiveness. They were fine with dating people from different backgrounds or income brackets, but they were more likely to draw the line at moral issues like politics. As cliché as it sounds, they really did care about who someone was on the inside.
Another thing millennials found really attractive was respect. A majority of women said they had been harassed on a date at some point, which was probably the most unattractive thing a person could do. Because they didn’t feel the same societal pressure to get married, they also wanted to find real love and not settle. Someone who was attractive was someone with whom they had a deep connection.
Gen Z inherited an entirely different world that allowed them to completely redefine what it means to be attractive.
Gen Z took the romantic strides that millennials made and amplified them. Sociologist Andrew Cherlin explained that young people’s romantic goals are totally different because they want to be happy more than anything else.
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“A century or two ago, no one expected much personal happiness from marriage and family life; it was just something you did,” he said. “Now marriage, like other decisions we make, is all about ourselves.”
Since Gen Z is more concerned with relationship satisfaction, they don’t really find stability attractive like older generations. They’re looking for people they can enjoy their lives with instead of someone who can provide in some way. The most attractive thing to them is someone who understands them and who they can have fun with.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
