[insickness]

Attraction and compatibility are different and both have an effect on whether you want to be with a person. A super ugly person may have all the same interests as you or be compatible in other ways, and you still wouldn't want to date them. The attraction part is the part that is similar to a marketplace.

I think your relationship highlights what incels are talking about. In the past, more people got married like you did. Pre-internet, people's options were more limited. You chose from who ever was in your physical vicinity: at work, in your town, in your school, etc. Now with dating apps, you have an almost unlimited number of choices and you could choose the most physically attractive among thousands instead of the most attractive among the ten or twenty eligible people in your social circle, town, church or school. This makes sexual selection more like a marketplace. If you are an ugly person, you are less likely to marry up because the marketplace has become too efficient for it.