The world's greatest mystery

The danger in publishing a photograph of one's self, alongside those of various individuals who've rejected you romantically, and asking why the rejections, is that 'readers' will ignore the text (in this case, a man asking several women why they'd turned him down over the years) and come to certain... conclusions based on the provided images. One of the women who rejected this dude is a model. And not in the avant-garde/heroin-chic runway sense. Nor in the delusional 'aspiring model' one. In the swimsuit-model-attractive sense. The other women are also - as is, I believe, pointed out in the Jezebel commentary - plenty conventionally good-looking. The guy? Perfectly within normal limits, but maybe not someone who wants to put a photo of himself next to a photo of a model and ask - as if it's the world's greatest mystery - why she wouldn't be his girlfriend. He also claims to be 5'6", which by the rules of the internet makes him... substantially shorter than 5'6". But it's not his fault that he's short! Isn't it unfair that height enters into so many women's assessment of male physical attractiveness? That physical attractiveness enters into it for women, period?

Let's consider the reverse scenario: A woman who's heavy (this being, for women, the equivalent, give or take, of shortness in men) and also not especially pretty or well-put-together posts a photo of herself, alongside those of male models, professional athletes and the like, and asks, utterly baffled, why she isn't with any of these men. This theoretical woman not only feels entitled to date the Ryan Reynoldses of the world (and, by implication, to preemptively reject her own male physical equivalents), but also genuinely doesn't understand why she keeps striking out with men. This theoretical woman is defining "men" as "men who could be hired to be 'the strapping guy' in a commercial aimed at women"; men who fail to meet this definition don't register. 

Would this ever happen? Yes and no. Yes, there are people of both sexes who, though not conventionally spectacular themselves, will only accept that in a partner. Which is just fine if they're fine with the substantial possibility of remaining single, a possibility that's mitigated if they happen to be very impressive in other areas, or if they're willing to settle in other areas. "League" isn't law. There's nothing disgusting or wrong about a mismatch in that area. And looks are subjective. Wait long enough, and you, the unconventional-looking sort, might find that you are the very epitome of the type of someone who's your type, which happens to be the conventional ideal. (See: the Marisa Tomei-George Costanza "Seinfeld.")

But it's less fine if people - men or women - believe the world owes them their dreamboats. And that seems to be more common in men. Women tend to have if anything too much self-awareness in this area, if anything a too-keen sense of how our own looks don't match up with societal ideals, and we may often if anything overestimate how much that matters for pairing off. A woman who for obvious reasons doesn't meet these ideals isn't going to be mystified if much-sought-after men reject her, and may well assume she wasn't pretty enough even if - it can happen! - that wasn't the issue. That an equivalent man might be mystified tells us oh so much about these matters. Even if - I suspect - the entire point of that article was for the man to give the impression that he dates women along these lines; it just hasn't worked out with any of them yet. A humblebrag of sorts.

As Tracy Moore of Jezebel points out, the rom-com scenario of stalking amounting to seduction is not even thought plausible if the woman is the rejected party. This, as I see it, is because we take for granted that if a man doesn't find a woman attractive enough for that, it's never ever ever gonna happen. Women, many imagine (incorrectly) just require convincing. (Says "game," says nice-guy-ism, says the culture more broadly.) And any woman who doesn't respond to convincing is being shallow. That the man has likely already exhibited superficiality in deciding which women to pursue in the first place is conveniently ignored, because it's so thoroughly assumed.