I know what you’re thinking: “Oh boy! There she goes again…talking about the same shit again! When is she gonna come off it.” I know. I’m sorry. By now, if you’ve been keeping up, you read the string of posts about dating and attractiveness and how what you look like plays a huge role in the number and quality of your dating prospects. Forgive me. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record and hopefully this will be my (second to) last post about this and then we can get on to the real business of dating. I wanted to write this post because in that string of attractiveness posts, I make a lot of assertions, assumptions, and generalizations, without laying the proper foundation for those claims or putting them in context for you. So, let me do this now.
[Oh, but first, a word about generalizations: Whenever I make a broad or general assertion about any group, whether they’re grouped by gender, race, age, ethnicity, or class and someone comes by and says “That’s not always true”, I find this quite annoying. Let me just clarify this one thing. Whenever I make a general statement, please don’t take it as an absolute truth because frankly, there are no absolute truths. It’s a generalization and the nature of a generalization is the fact that there will always be a segment of the group referenced who the statement is not true for. Does that make sense? I assume that you're all lovely, gorgeous, smart women. I don’t want to insult you by prefacing every statement with “Sometimes, but not all the time” constantly use qualifying language like some, most, sometimes ,might, almost, etc. I find this to be burdensome and honestly, unnecessary. The fact that there are some people who won’t exhibit a certain behavior all the time should be a given. But, just a little bit of advice: when women date, we tend to have a natural inclination to want to beat the odds and be the exception. Do not do this. Generalizations can really be helpful because they can save you a lot of time, heartbreak, and bullshit. If I were you, I’d accept the generalization as the rule and each time a guy (or whoever) shows me proof that the general rule is wrong, I’ll recalibrate that rule for just that guy. I know you believe that we’re all special and we’re all individuals (you’re so naïve). But, truth is, when you divide us into very specific groups, you’ll find that there are certain patterns of thinking and definite patterns of behavior which tend to be consistent across the board a great deal of the time. Don’t fight the generalizations, embrace them, they’re your friend, they’re there to protect you.]
By now, you should have already read several posts on this issue by now. I know that’s a lot for one topic but the reason why I’ve decided to spend so much time on this is simple: when it comes to dating, attraction is a big ass deal! Before getting to know someone, communicating, saying all the right things, not saying any of the wrong things, insisting on respect, kissing, hugging, loving, holding hands, yelling, and all that yummy/crazy stuff we like to do when we’re in a relationship, you have to be attracted to one another first, right? I mean how in the world are you gonna get to all the good/bad stuff with a person if somebody doesn’t make the first move?
Second, I wanted to dispel the common misconception that “Men are visual creatures.” Actually, “dispel” might be the wrong choice of words here because the statement is not an untruth—it’s a half-truth. It’s also very misleading. Yes, men are visual creatures. But, so are women. So that’s out of the window. When people say men like attractive women because men are visual creatures, it implies (1) that women are not and (2) that this is a biological feature that men have no control over, both of which are untrue.
The fact that men are visual creatures has little to do with why they prefer attractive women over unattractive women. We have to give men more credit. They’re a bit more complicated than this.
First, I need you to watch this clip:
I’m very sorry that I was only able to find a clip with John Mayer. He has proven himself to be quite the asshole these days. He might have little, if any, credibility left when it comes to anything regarding women. Please forgive me. But make no mistake, in this context, what he says is pretty representative of what a lot of guys do when they scope the room for women or when one approaches them.
Now, here’s something that for some strange reason, no one ever wants to admit:
Women are visual creatures too!
I mean, duh. Women are physically attracted to good-looking men just as much as men are attracted to good-looking women. That’s right, contrary to popular belief, men and women aren’t so different after all. Men have spent so much time trying to convince us that the we’re different, I’m beginning to think it’s a conspiracy. If we buy into the theory that men are genetically predisposed to to his and women are genetically predisposed to do that, it has the net effect of letting men off the hook from having to do stuff that they don’t want to do, like housework, and it discourages us from doing the things that we want to do, like sleep around with different guys (hey, don’t act like I’m the only one).
Girls, listen up and listen good: stop subscribing to all these bullshit theories.
Men and women are not all that different. In fact, we more alike than we are different!
I know. All this flies in the face of everything you’ve read and heard. You want to believe them. You cant help it! And I don’t blame you. You’re probably thinking, “men are so stupid/mean/selfish/promiscuous/etc. and women are not ( don’t be silly, of course we are) there’s got to be some genetic basis for our differences, right?” This is a completely fair question to ask and I must admit that, in the past, I also subscribed to this thinking. We’re all so easily persuaded by this “science” because most of us are not educated in the field. This is not an excuse to abandon your common sense. Unfortunately, as a society, and especially as women, we have not been trained to listen, think, and read critically. If you read closely and ask all the right questions, you’ll find that a lot of this “science” relies on questionable methodology and base assumptions that are biased in favor of men. Don’t get caught slipping ladies, this is still a man’s world. Don’t ever forget that.
First of all, anyone notice that the majority of the scientists who promote and espouse these theories are [surprise!], men? Gender bias in the scientific and social science community is very real and in some circles, quite prevalent. This bias greatly impacts the information that is studied, funded, published, and disseminated. Anytime you politicize anything, you negatively influence the outcome. Human behavior is just too complex to sum up with a “men and women are wired differently theory”. The truth of the matter is this: in evaluating nature vs. nurture, which is essentially what all of this boils down to, it’s nearly impossible to completely isolate one variable from the other (i.e., completely isolate the social forces which influence our behavior from our genetic makeup). The more and more you read, the more and more you’ll find that for every article out there with strong supporting evidence claiming one thing (”genetics are to blame for our differences!”) there are almost just as much literature available with strong supporting evidence asserting the opposite (”social forces are to blame for our differences!). At the end of the day, it’s all inconclusive. I don’t know about you, but I read more than a little bit and I second-guess just about everything I read until I’m sufficiently convinced of its validity. If I am intrigued by an idea, I can’t commit fully to a theory until I’ve researched it for myself, examined the opposing view, and asked myself critical questions. I ultimately come out on the side which makes most sense to me and I take that position until something else more convincing comes along to support or disprove it. Now, I can’t tell you what to do (oh please, who am I kidding, yes I can! I’ve been doing it all this time, why stop now?), but there’s no need to second-guess anything you read here, okay? Relax. I’ll read and think for the both of us, okay? You’re welcome.
Anyhow, back to what I was saying. Men and women are very similar. We both want the same things. We both want love, sex, food, children, friendship, companionship, shelter, security, money, fulfilling work, a sense of pride, acknowledgment, appreciation, and lawn furniture. Believe me, we do. Regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc, people want the same things. Any person who tells you they don’t want (most of) what’s on this list is either weird, a liar, or they suffered some type of mental or emotional trauma that makes it difficult for them to embrace common human needs.
But, now here’s the kicker: while men and women both want the same things, men and women don’t give these things the same value or priority in our lives. At different stages of their lives, a woman might value love over material wealth and a man might value material wealth over love. At times, we may assign the same value to the same things at the same time in our lives, but most often, we tend to have mismatched values at mis-matched stages in our lives. What’s important to a woman in her early twenties is not necessarily what’s important to her in her mid thirties. Likewise, what’s important to a man in his early thirties, may not be the same things that’s important to him in his fifties.
A woman may place a huge emphasis on romantic love in her 20’s and motherhood in her 30’s while a man might place his emphasis on his friendships in his 20’s and not care much for fatherhood until he’s in his 40’s. Oftentimes, it’s this mismatch in our timelines and priorities which causes a great deal of friction and frustration between men and women. If you have a couple both in their mid- to late-20’s, the woman might be chasing the man while the man is chasing success and material wealth. We see it everyday, men who are unable to commitment and the women who love them (on the next Oprah). We women tend to arrange our lives in a circular fashion, similar to a venn diagram where the circles are all overlapping while men tend to arrange their lives in a more linear fashion, more like a ladder. Women prefer to do all the good stuff all at the same time, while men tend to want to take it step by step.
Alright, so by now, you’re thinking, “but what the hell does any of this have to do with attraction?” One word: Success!
We all want it, we just define it differently.
Women tend to define their self-worth and success by the quality of their relationships (family, friends, boyfriend/spouse, children, etc.) and men tend to define success by the quality their things (house, car, clothes, watch, where their kids go to school, what his wife looks like). In short, women place more emphasis on the intangible while men place more emphasis on the tangible. Why? Because “seeing is believing.” In a man’s world, success means nothing if the things you’ve accomplished can’t be seen or touched. A beautiful woman is a sign of success. In effect, a man doesn’t pick a beautiful woman because he is visual, he picks a pretty woman because everyone else around him is visual and he wants them to see what he’s accomplished.
Men don’t talk much. And when they do, it’s usually about stupid shit. When men get together, they talk about the same shit: sports, cars, music, video games, women, and on occasion, world events. Men don’t go around talking about how awesome their jobs are (unless of course their jobs involve sports, cars, music, video games, or women). They show each other how awesome their jobs are. If they’re making good money on their jobs, they show it by wearing nice clothes, owning fancy gadgets, buying up the bar, and driving nice cars. Likewise, men don’t go around telling each other that the woman in their life is great/smart/caring/etc. Their buddies could care less! Besides, how does one prove that another is great? You can’t see it or touch it. They show each other how awesome their woman is by showing her off. Attractiveness is something you can see.
When a man picks a woman, she is seen as an extension of him. If the woman is not attractive, or nothing to write home to mom about, she’s likely to stay hidden in the closet. As I explained before, many men believe that they don’t need women anymore. Since they think they can do just fine without one, they’d rather not have one unless she makes him better. The easiest way to make a man better is to make him look better. Especially in front of his peers.
As tempting as it is to believe the notion that men choose attractive women because they are visual creatures, don’t be so quick to believe the hype. For years, evolutionary psychologists have posited several theories for why men have a preference for attractive women. One being that said preferences are remnants of mate selection strategies used by our pre-historic ancestors. It is believed that men used visual cues like a woman’s skin, hair, waist-to-hip-ratio, etc. to determine whether or not she was healthy and reproductively fit (i.e., better equipped to pass on his genes). While still widely promoted, this theory is also widely criticized.
I can easily point to several flaws in this theory, the first being “Waist-hip-ratio? Please! Our pre-historic ancestors weren’t that fucking smart!” Second, several millennia ago, before we adopted the many of the social, moral, and religious codes which restrict much of our modern sexual practices today, prehistoric peoples, fucked any and everything thing that blinked and bent over. (Pardon my french, but, those freaks could give a shit about a waist-to-hip ratio!) Besides, we’ve evolved so much socially and biologically away from this era that I strongly doubt that these strategies have much, if any, influence over our mating selection strategies today. While I’m not completely dismissing all scientific bases for human attraction and mate selection, it’s my personal belief that it’s supposed influence over our mating decisions (both past and present), has been grossly exaggerated. But, hey, can you blame them? It’s a lot more politically correct to say that “men are visual creatures” than to say “men are shallow assholes.”
When people judge the man a woman is dating, they tend to judge that man as separate and apart from the woman and this usually has little to no consequence for the woman. However, when people judge the woman a man is dating, they usually make assumptions about the man, as if the woman were an extension of the man. Why? Perhaps because when it comes to dating, men do the choosing and whoever a man is capable of attaining (and maintaining) reflects this man’s worth. When a man obtains an attractive woman, he earns the admiration and/or envy of his peers. They like this. For a man, the social advantage/reward of having an attractive mate, far outweighs the emotional/psychological advantage/reward of dating someone who is enriches his life on a deeper level. While the foregoing is not always true, there are many exceptions, social pressure plays a huge role in who a man will choose to pursue.
Here are two exceptions which easily come to mind: this theory [1] becomes less true as a man ages and [2] more true as a man rises in class/status.
Let’s dispose of the first one first: for a man, peer acceptance is a very important aspect of being a man. Unlike femininity, which, for a woman is established at birth, masculinity is must be earned, maintained, and guarded with every fiber of a man’s being (if you haven’t already, be sure to read this blogpost). Men are constantly assessing themselves and each other, always careful to make sure their behavior lies within the bounds of acceptable male behavior. Women don’t experience the same kind of outside pressure. The older a man becomes and the more he becomes secure in himself and his masculinity, the more he is willing to shed these expectations. Thus, the younger the man, the more value he places on what his peers think of him. Not counting mid-life crises, as a man gains life experience, the less and less important his partner’s attractiveness becomes.
The second one, class and status, are a little more involved. So pay attention.
Studies show that the less education a man has, the sooner he gets married. Thus, men who have high school diplomas tend to get married before men with college degrees, and men with college degrees tend to marry before men with advanced or graduate degrees. Hence, the longer it takes a man to become successful in his life, the longer it’ll take him to settle down and get married. Consequently, the higher a man rises in class and status, the higher the expectations are for him to be successful. The more successful a man is, the more attractive women he has at his disposal. A man will forgo marriage until he is successful to ensure a greater chance for a more attractive spouse. Don’t forget, being with a beautiful is a sign of success.
A mechanic, carpenter, or plumber will peak in his career sooner than a physician or a lawyer will peak in their careers. In very short time, a mechanic will go as far as he’ll ever go in his career, be as stable as he’ll ever be, and probably make as much money as he’ll ever make. The lawyer, on the other hand will take a few years or more before he makes partner, or opens his own practice, or earns the salary that he’s satisfied with. As I explained a short while ago, the more successful a man becomes, the larger his pool of available, datable women becomes; the larger the pool of available women, the more attractive women in the pool. Thus, these men find it more difficult to commit to a relationship because they know (or think) that in just a few years they can date make more money, buy nicer things, and date better looking women. Why settle for less now when you can wait and get more later? Now that men can get sex without making a commitment, they’ find it unnecessary to invest the time, money, and emotional energy into relationships with women they find only moderately attractive. Hence, the downside to dating (or looking for) wealthy, educated men is the potential to be left hanging on a string waiting for a commitment while he decides whether he can and should get someone better than you.
There are of course exceptions to this exception. Some successful men know intuitively that in order to secure better career opportunities, it’s better to get married and have children sooner because it’s better for their image. Take politicians for example. Voters tend to distrust single, male, political candidates because they’re thought to be either gay or players. No one wants a player in office and when was the last time you saw an openly gay political candidate run for office? Others, take doctors for example, know that if they choose a career that will require long hours and several years of study, they’ll need someone to come home to and partner-up with to help them with all their bills (student loans anyone). They too are seen as a lot more stable and trustworthy, careerwise, if they get married at a decent age. There are more exceptions, but you’ll find that a great deal of educated, upwardly mobile men stay single well into their thirties because they’re too busy (chasing success) to settle down.
Another interesting facet is this: income. A working-class, blue collar, or only moderately successful man is not only more likely to marry at a younger age, he’s also more likely to be satisfied with an unattractive or only moderately attractive woman. Many of these men have realized early on that they’ll probably never be rich and if they ever want to enjoy all the trappings of success and happiness—i.e., a decent home, a nice car, nice clothes, vacations—they’re going to need a second stream income, i.e., a wife or a partner, to help make that happen. These men are more content to marry a woman who is only moderately attractive but who works and supports herself and has more to offer than just a pretty face and a coke bottle figure. These men are looking for more than just beauty; they’re looking for loyalty, ambition, a nice personality, compatibility, maturity, and someone who will make a good mother to their children. In short, these men are more likely than wealthy men are to seek a full, equal partner. A wealthy man, on the other hand, reasons that he has enough money to take care of the both of him and his wife, so why give a shit about ambition, personality, compatibility or maturity? By mild default, the working class man is more likely to value the attributes that make a woman a good person overall. That’s a pretty good reason to consider these fellas.
So there you go ladies. Why attraction means so much and how it relates to a man’s age, class, and level of education. As you go out into the dating arena looking for a partner, keep a lot of this in mind. Attraction can mean so much to some men and so little to others. Don’t believe men” Pay attention to your friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers. You’ll notice this pattern over and over. A great deal of your male friends won’t admit to this because for some, it’s not politically correct to say these things, especially in the presence of women For others, it’ll be difficult to admit to this because in their mind, this behavior is not deliberate. To them, it has nothing to do with the any of what I said above, they just happen to have a strong preference for attractive women because it’s in their genes. Uh, huh, riiiiiiiiiiiiight! Girls, stop falling for the men are visual hype. Men are visual, but that’s only half the story.
Until next time, ciao
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