Should I date people I don't find physically attractive if my usual type is toxic?

I asked my Instagram audience to submit questions, and I’ll answer them ruthlessly. In other words, it’s a What Would Ellen Do column! If you’re new to my writing and dating advice, you might want to check out my viral “Uncomfortable things I had to do to marry well” series.

Now, let’s get started.

Question: Do you have to accept that you might not find someone healthy for you physically attractive? Usually, you're attracted to people who fit your type, and that's what feels familiar to you, but it's not healthy.

(Edited slightly for this column - comment from my post on IG)

Ruthless answer: 

Physical attraction should be part of your non-negotiables. That's unchanged.

However, the feelings of physical attraction, or what your body interprets as physical attraction, can come from different sources. That's where you need to pay attention.

Physical attraction for women is often made up of a few things: physical features (a common one is height relative to yours), facial cues (symmetrical faces are often read as more attractive), grooming, status and resource cues (ambition, social standing, earning), context, and behavioural signals. Every woman weighs these differently. In many cases, because of conditioning and wounds, they just can’t help but weigh certain factors more than others.

For example, women who grew up with an unavailable father, or who are dealing with open wounds, often feel inexplicably drawn to harmful behavioural signals like hot and cold because it resembles the version of love they knew. This can override everything else. As they stick around, their brain justifies the investment of time and energy as something deeper, like ‘love’ or ‘fate’, making it even harder to let go. 

Even in a healthy state, uncertainty creates arousal. Early dating, not knowing where it's going, waiting to hear from him - this is normal and it's part of what makes attraction feel alive. The body can’t tell the difference between normal uncertainty (early days, still discovering each other, natural rhythm of two people getting to know each other) and unhealthy uncertainty (hot and cold, breadcrumbing, push-pull, unreliability). Both create arousal in the body.

The point of healing and taking a dating break is to show yourself a different version of love until it becomes familiar, learn to tell the difference between normal vs unhealthy uncertainty, break the association between harmful behavioural signals and attraction, and regulate your nervous system so you can actually feel and think clearly when you meet someone new.

You can get to know him as a person and assess him properly. You will stop finding hot and cold behaviours compelling. You will feel drawn to people who are kind to you and reliably interested in you. You can make your own judgment and decide how much you want to weigh different attraction factors and draw the lines for yourself. And you will have a different experience of attraction - safe, positive, and exciting in a good way.

Ruthless verdict: Don’t date people you don’t find physically attractive. Some physical dealbreakers are legitimate preferences that stay in place regardless of what your body chemistry is doing (e.g. poor hygiene, no.) Set a baseline threshold for yourself there, then heal. Make healthy attraction the new familiar, and assess based on that.

Date with Self-worth is a practical, no-nonsense guide for women who want to date and choose a life partner from a place of self-respect rather than fear, scarcity, or romantic fantasy.

This guide includes structured frameworks — 45 lessons across modules on self-worth, mindset, dating mechanics, communication, and moving on — to help women set real standards, vet partners properly, and walk away when needed. The tone is direct, analytical, and unsentimental. It treats dating as a serious life decision rather than something that just happens to you, and it does not flinch from naming the patriarchal conditioning, anxious attachment patterns, and cultural scripts that keep women settling for less than they deserve.