Greentext

My mother pointed that typically only family members would be blunt about your flaws, and not necessarily from your friends. From my own experience, she is kinda right. The thing however is that in Western society, individualism is overly valued. People are expected to be on their own. Staying with parents is stigmatised. Or, friends and family move out so there is increasingly little socialisation and more isolation. You receive relatively fewer feedbacks as a result. And even if a flaw is pointed out in a polite and constructive manner, you don't know how the person will react and respond. The person may think others are selfish for not mentioning about the bad breath, but if that person lashes out or took it personally, that person is selfish for not taking a constructive feedback. Instead of having negative reaction, the person should say "okay, I will take care of myself next time."

Even if a flaw is pointed, there could be many other things. Like a machine, there are moving parts. Sure, you can improve your hygiene; but if you are too uptight, too shy, rude, your attempts at flirting comes off as too creepy etc, few or or all of those things will be a turn off for women. Never mind not owning a Porsche or being 5'5" in height, less shallow women like men who takes care of themselves, a gentleman, not too serious and confident. Mature women take personality more than physicality any day. I know short, less good looking guys date tall, model-looking women because they are confident and a gentleman.

Having a bad breath is an example I could think off the top of my head when I typed my initial comment, but there are other examples I could have pointed out. Although, those other examples would be too uncomfortable to mention to the person, like having neurodivergence not being alleviated, or "too feminine" (I am for delineating traditional gender roles but there are still some foundations which I believe would be required to qualify for the expected image of heterosexual man and woman). They are two examples I have seen of my friends (they got partners now but struggled with dating before), and good luck telling them that why they struggled.