BlackPillScience

"Opposites attract" is not really supported by the literature, e.g. see page 32 in Potârcă (https://epc2012.princeton.edu/papers/120187) (2012) and /u/eduardkoopman's comment. Being white seems overall advantageous. Data from OkCupid revealed that females have stronger homophily (preference for their own race) and attraction to Whites. Black women, Asian and Black men were the most disadvantaged groups. It seems the only case in which "opposites attract" is slightly true is between Asian women and White men. "How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get" https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howyourraceaffectsthemessagesyouget.html "How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating" https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/howracesandreligionsmatchinonlinedating.html "Race and Attraction, 2009 - 2014" https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/raceandattraction20092014.html "Same-Sex Data for Race vs. Reply Rates" https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/samesexdataforracevsreplyrates.html There are likely various things that cause sexless marriages, but this is my favorite explanation: The idea that males need to be soft and vulnerable likely destroys their alpha cues and makes them unappealing to women (women's interest in having sex often does not decline like this https://i.imgur.com/78n2o6c.png in marriages in which the partners do not become overfamiliar with one another; Klusmann (2002) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1015205020769, Klusmann (2006)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12110-006-1010-2). Women having income, status and education likely also impedes that same dimension of attraction, e.g. males with much lower income than their wives are 2.27 times as likely not to have sex (Kim 2017)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-017-0968-7, aversion to having the wife earn more than the husband explains 29 percent of the decline in marriage rates over the last thirty years (Bertrand 2015)https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/130/2/571/2330321, women like Tinder profiles of males with lower educational status than their own only half as often (Neyt 2018). ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp11933.pdf An attractive face is not a proxy for positive genetic traits (except that it is a trait in itself that promises high reproductive success of the offspring as others select it). For more information see this compilation of studies. Men have a ~4 times higher sex drive (see this compilation). What has not been studied in the literature (AFAIK) is to which extent this results from women's greater choosiness. Women may have a higher sex drive when copulating with alpha males (Edit: There is actually evidence in the study above, in that males with much lower income than their wives, which probably correlates with relatively low status, only have a bit less than half as much sex). Established fact is, though, that men's cumulative demand for sex is insatiable. It is costly/risky to give birth to the human head and humans also have the most dependent offspring in the entire animal kingdom, so human females have a high parental investment. This results in males with relatively high sex drive being selected as they can get away with more offspring by copulating with many females. This, in turn, selects cautious females who choose the best quality from the many males who approach them (because choosiness is the easy and obvious way of improving reproductive success when you are given the choice between many potential mates). When 2s get together, are they actually attracted to each other physically?

I think so and the mere exposure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect effect may explain how they overcome their unattractiveness. There is also more to relationships than just looks (e.g. sex, warm partner contact https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08964280309596065 , emotional support, lineage of power and wealth, access to resources etc.). Looks only dominate initial romantic interest (and personality only plays a very small role).

Do ugly people have lower standards?

Yes, see this graph https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/4/8/eaap9815/F3.large.jpg from Bruch & Newman (2018), https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaap9815 also the chapter "Pair Formation, Courtship, Sexual Love" in Foundations of human behavior: Human ethology (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 2017). People do not aim overly high in order to save face. Women's preference for looks seems slightly stronger than men's, but women aim up regarding socioeconomic status in addition to that (which men don't), so in effect women are much choosier.

If ugly women are showing obvious signs of interest towards a male, is this because they believe he’s in their league, or because everyone finds that man attractive?

Probably both, but it's mostly about the status of the male.

To what extent do some personality traits open doors?

No idea about short-term outcomes, but the long-term outcomes are summarized here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4499872/

Is being funny a real thing or is it looks dependent?

It's probably both. Good jokes are intrinsically funny, but who tells the joke also has a massive halo effect. More physically attractive people are perceived as more humorous than less attractive ones (N = 38, for males r = .77, p < .001, for females r = .52, p = .018).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/may/19/are-funny-people-sexy-or-are-sexy-people-funny

http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.020 (Cowan 2013)