I went to high school with a girl, let's call her Alice, who was not particularly pretty. Most people, looking at a picture of us side by side, would have said I was the prettier. But Alice could flirt, something I've never been much good at. She was rather magnetic; people found her attractive.
Myself, I have always felt awkward. I can be charming on a first date, and that is a new development. But it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. When I first met the person I'm dating, I felt extremely awkward because he was so handsome. He could sense the awkwardness too, but he wanted to see me more because he thought I was cute. I told him I'm often surprised when people find me attractive; he found that stupid.
But this is an angle on anxiety: the fear that a partner will find someone more attractive than me. It's a common feeling among poly people who are not perfectly secure. Of course, that isn't the point. The point is, even if a partner finds someone more good-looking than me, the partner won't leave because of it. The partner values me for me, not my pretty face or nice-looking cleavage. As for more attractive, well, that's not just looks. Attractiveness has many facets. Maybe someone else is funnier, or more empathetic, or athletic, but she or he doesn't have the same mix of characteristics as I do, and won't have the same chemistry as I do with the partner.
The same goes for me, of course. I could meet someone who is more attractive, physically or otherwise, than the person I'm seeing. I suppose it's even possible that I could find this person so very extremely attractive that it would overpower my good sense and lead me to throw over any and all other loves for the sake of him if he wanted me to. But that is so infinitesimally unlikely that it's really not worth considering, and the same goes for the partners of my partners.
As with many things, it comes down to putting oneself in the place of another and seeing where the thought experiment leads.
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