I know for a fact that this exists and even has an explanation, peer-reviewed studies and so on. But on the last few months I’ve felt attracted (and I mean real attraction, not just ‘she’s cute, she’s nice, she would be a rational choice’) to women just to find out later that she’s already in a relationship. Of course if I don’t feel I can really repurpose my feelings towards a true friendship I break contact, but this gets me thinking and looking for some explanations. The thing is that people tend to see others already “committed” as “relationship-rated”, but that didn’t explained why I felt attracted before knowing it. But it seems, and there are studies that apparently support this, that people in relationships feel generally more at ease and have nothing to prove to others, and this reflects in their demeanor, body language, self-confidence, behaviour. Single people that are looking for a significant other, however, normally feel the pressure to “perform” and be desirable, therefore are sometimes perceived as nervous and excessively careful, or even as aggressive. For women, things could be worse, since we live in a profoundly aggressive society towards them, and showing openness could either mean a nice relationship, romantic or not, to being in a toxic relationship, to worse, I mean, way worse. At least that’s what I read about. Did anyone felt the same, even in same-sex interests?

This may be true, however a simpler explanation is that a lot of people are in relationships, so the prior probability of liking someone who’s not in a relationship is already low. Also it could be that attractive people are more likely to be in a relationship, further reducing this probability.