I think dividing people just by “attractiveness” is total wrong.Think of a very attractive girl in a biker gang,then think of a very attractive secretary in a large corporation.Do they have the same mating chance? I highly doubt it.
The main difference though is, to use a finance term, the time horizon. Men have a huge advantage in that regard and that’s the reason why high value men have the upperhand over high value women. The window of opportunity for women doesn’t last as long so they can’t afford to make as many mistakes or to waste too much time having fun with someone not suitable.
Katy Perry won’t have as many quality options at 40 than she had at 25. George Clooney arguably had more at 40 than he had at 25, and he already had a ton at 25.
George Clooney is a rare, and therefore poor example. Most men, high value or otherwise are more likely to be George Costanza rather than George Clooney. Few men age really well.
Totally agree.
@ Palantir: I think a number of men do age pretty well though. If you keep your hair and don’t get fat, and you dress reasonably well, you’re doing at least okay. It’s not that hard to stay at least semi-fit if you avoid eating garbage all the time.
Leo Dicaprio, Tom Cruise, Bradley Cooper, Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, John Stamos…I can go on for hours. All these men have more power in the dating market than comparable actresses of the same age.
My previous post gives the impression that looks is the only advantage men have, but there’s more than looks.
Women value personality traits more than men do, traits such as maturity, confidence, established career, experience. Although both genders acquire those traits as they get older, women are willing to pay a higher premium for them when looking for a potential mate, to the point of overlooking “undesirable” physical traits such as receding hairlines and chubbiness.
I’m also in the camp that men generally age well. Fat and baldness may be the big killers, but otherwise a few extra wrinkles is really not a big deal. Far less of a deal then women getting them
this should settle it once and for all
I doubt this is a revelation to you, but it may help to sort of mask your wealth a bit by not doing “showey” dates despite the temptation to ball out and sandbag career discussions pretty heavily. I’ve also felt that just generally being vague about career and limiting it as a topic of conversation helps a bit to ensure its someone that’s more interested in you. Then again if your place / car is super baller it may be hard to get around that. But if you’re seriously concerned it may not be a bad idea to consciously adjust your presentation and method for meeting girls to avoid the gold digger market.
(to an annoying tune) “if you want to be happy for the rest of your life…”
On the other hand, wealth in men tends to increase with age, and this helps offset the decrease in physical attractiveness. Women, after all, value wealth more than men when evaluating suitors.
I would also guess that men who remain single until late 30s or early 40s maintain their appearances better than married men. First of all, the single men have more incentive to be attractive, since they are still looking to pick up women. Second, single men have fewer family related time and money commitments than married men. Not only do the single men have more time to exercise, but they have more money to spend on clothing, cars, and other showy things.
There is probably a barbell distribution in attractiveness of older single men, since very ugly men might remain single due to their appearances.
So, this basically validates the oldest keys to success:
Step 1) Be attractive
Step 2) Don’t be unattractive
Step 3) Profit
this guy is awesome. one day we will meet up for vodka
I’m a 5 or a 6 and overweight, but I’m pretty sure that’s what women want. Maybe not though, I’ve never been particularly good at picking up on women’s signals.
On topic though, this study seems to make sense to me for a lot of the reasons mentioned throughout the thread. Combining this and some other studies, I guess I just have to hope that tall and white more than offsets fat and poor if I ever job or woman hunt again.
tall, white, fat and poor > short, black, skinny and rich?
women do hate short men…
no wonder cvm has hard time laying his pipe
My best friend from childhood is unusualy short: 5’3" or something like that, and he was immensely frustrated by how many women would never consider him because he was short (not quite sure how he established that being short was the reason, but it did seem very plausible).
My cousin is a very tall woman, six feet tall, and says she really wants a man to be taller than her (not necessarily than taller than her in heels). It seems to limit her dating pool immensely. Not sure why it’s so important to her, but she says she has a hard time being attracted to men more than about 1 inch shorter than her.
So yeah, tall/short seems to be a major physical criterion.
There’s also an interesting book called “Self Made Man,” about a lesbian who lived for a year as a man and did a bunch of things as a man (Bowling, Dating, Door-to-door sales, etc.), and it was really interesting to read (though I technically didn’t read it: I did the audiobook version).
She said that dating was hands-down the most humiliating experience she had while living as a man. She said that she had a dating policy that if things looked like they were headed deeper on the third date, she would come clean about who she was (i.e. a woman) and then decide as two adults about whether anything should continue.
One interesting thing that she noted was that - although all of the women were shocked at the deception once they learned about it - all but one of those who got to date 3 did end up sleeping with her. She said that the last one “just couldn’t get over the fact that she would never be 200 pounds and able to throw her up against the wall while ravishing her.”
^ about the height thing, Coffee meets bagel had an interesting blog post on this topic.
https://coffeemeetsbagel.com/blog/index.php/dating-statistics/how-tall-are-you-really/
Had a tallish female friend in college tell me that it’s unfair that I would date a tall guy (6’6) as I am so short (5’2) and that I should leave those for taller women like her (5’10ish?)
The conclusion I guess is that women don’t really prefer tall men, just men who are tall-er. Then again, I don’t often meet men who are shorter than I am.
Also, if you;re short, I think you can more than make up for it by having broad shoulders ie rugby players.
I’ve heard similar things. I’m 6-2, and I had a gf who was 5-2. When we split up, I went out with a girl who was 6-0, and she complained about shorter women getting all the taller guys.