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Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series addresses this issue in an interesting way. The main character, male, single, and in his late twenties in the start of the series, very much notices the looks of ...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T21:57:31Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40450 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T10:16:26Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40450 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Jim Butcher's _Dresden Files_ series addresses this issue in an interesting way. The main character, male, single, and in his late twenties in the start of the series, very much notices the looks of the women around him. That is, the stories are narrated in first person, and whenever a new female character is introduced, we are treated to a "male gaze", sometimes with "the MC's pants suddenly being too small". At the same time, half those female characters are supernatural beings who would make the MC's life very unpleasant given half a chance (or very pleasant and very short), and the one character who could potentially be a Romantic Interest - she's a good friend, but first she's seeing someone else, and then she says no, and he cares about her as a friend - that's enough. So, **while the MC notices the women around him as attractive, this particular thought doesn't translate into action.** Personally, I find this approach very realistic. I mean, I notice attractive guys. Doesn't mean I go making a fool of myself every time a good-looking man passes by, right? **Since you mention your MC believes no "Ms. Right" would date him due to his profession, you can give some room to his regrets on the matter.** He might come to interact with a woman he might have loved (or thinks he might have), but he wouldn't even flirt with her because he "knows" how it would end. Or he might feel a pang of jealousy observing a couple kissing under a street light. Cyrano de Bergerac, in Edmond Rostand's eponymous play, mentions how he feels when he sees couples walking in a garden, and "knows" he can never have that, being as ugly as he is. Which all comes down to, **your character is not looking for sex right now, he might not see it as a possibility right now, but that doesn't mean he can't ever think about it, in one form or another.**
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-12-01T10:23:09Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 5