Saturday, June 18, 2011

"As OK Cupid has demonstrated, women rate 80 percent of men below average."

Vox at Alpha Game Plan: "Don't listen to female advice on dating":

It cannot be stressed enough that female dating advice is aimed at ALPHAS and concerns how women wish ALPHAS would behave. It isn't aimed at the majority of men, because to women, the majority of men simply don't figure into their calculations at all. As OK Cupid has demonstrated, women rate 80 percent of men below average.

"Females of OkCupid, we site founders say to you: ouch! Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards for the “average” member of the opposite sex."

This is why all of the myths so cherished by deltas and gammas are precisely that, myths. Women aren't attracted to a man who is a gentleman, they are attracted to an Alpha and they would like him to behave like a gentleman.

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45 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Women aren't attracted to a man who is a gentleman, they are attracted to an Alpha and they would like him to behave like a gentleman."

---

Right, and that's why women generally say the opposite of what they really want. The alpha thing is a prerequisite that they don't even consider or think about.

7:31 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Greg said...

All of these articles about what 'women' or 'men' want just kill me. As if there was some thing like a 'women' or a 'men'. Those things don't exist, only individuals who happen to be either male or female.

People read those studies and then let them affect their perceptions of individuals and situations based on that crap.

It seems to me that we should be trying to see and react to each person in our lives, or each person we want in our lives, as an individual.

8:07 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Trust said...

@JG said... Right, and that's why women generally say the opposite of what they really want. The alpha thing is a prerequisite that they don't even consider or think about.
____________

We teach men and women alike falsehoods about women and what they really want. When women are confronted with feelings and desires that contradict that image, it causes additional problems because the women (nor the men) don't realize it is quite normal. So, in order to keep their image, they say something different than what they do.

This is why women can be so hostile towards good, dependable, provider husbands. Facing their feelings about their husbands reflects how uncommitted they are, despite being regarded in society and by themselves as the committed ones. They don't want to continue pretending to be something they are not, and they don't want to come clean as it would expose how deceitful they were in pursing the marriage. The only way out with their image in tact is to make their husband the culprit, and the more he does to try to make her happy the angrier he gets.

The above paragraph is based on a study by Michelle Langley on how women end their marriages.

8:09 AM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Greg:

If you are ignoring real trends or patterns in specific groups, then you are ignoring valuable information.

8:27 AM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I travel to a little village in China, it may be useful to note that people outside of cities in China tend to be far better in Chinese than in English.

That is useful.

Although I may run across an INDIVIDUAL who was born in America and only lives in the village in China now - and he speaks better English than Chinese.

Patterns and trends concerning groups involve useful information.

8:30 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Cham said...

Allow me to point out the dichotomy of the 2 most recent posts. Deanna Frazier writes in her post about how to attract women:

It truly doesn't matter how much money you make, whether or not you’re overweight, walk with a limp or are going bald

And in an exerpt from the OKtrends blogpost we find statistically:

As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable.

From this I get, yes, when it comes to dating, women are very much concerned about the way a man looks. Perhaps it is just a tiny tad bit more than PRESENCE that lures the ladies.

On a side note: I always love it when bloggers write what they think, or the way they feel, or present themselves the way they want everyone to view them....and then some other yahoo comes along and actually looks at data and statistics, and blows the blogger hypothesis away.

8:36 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Zorro said...

W00T! Awesomeness defined!

Kill me now. I'm done. There is no more use for me in the world.

9:27 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Der Hahn said...

Antecdote is not data but I've had some experience with this. I've been on the same dating site for about a year since breaking up with long term girlfriend. The first pictures I posted were relatively recent but taken before I started a workout program in Jan this year. I lost about another 15lbs (I'd already lost about 30 on my own) and gained muscle tone (I don't look like Ahnold but I look ok shirtless). About March I posted some slightly 'beefcake' pictures taken after I finished the first ten weeks of program. I just want to emphasis that I didn't really change anything else .. still balding, grey in the hair and beard, hairy chest and back, farmer tan .. no hairplugs, no greecian formula, no spray tan. I'm definitely seeing a difference in responses. I don't have women swooning but I didn't expect that since men vastly outnumber women on this site because of the emphasis .. it ain't match or e-harmony and I know that I'm no better than average (over all) to maybe a bit above average (for my age) in looks. I get a lot more flirting in the chat rooms, positive responses to emails, and have gotten a couple of chances to meet which didn't happen before the new pictures went up.

9:40 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger BobH said...

Cham said...

On a side note: I always love it when bloggers write what they think, or the way they feel, or present themselves the way they want everyone to view them....and then some other yahoo comes along and actually looks at data and statistics, and blows the blogger hypothesis away.

Thomas Sowell has this phrase, "optional reality" that somehow seems to fit.

So women want men who are socially dominant outside the particular male-female relationship, but submissive within it. What's the surprise? More importantly, is that "morally wrong"? (Then again, as Franz de Waal attributed to Robert Wright: "We are all hypocrites in constant denial of our thoroughly selfish nature.")

9:50 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Southern Man said...

Yet another illustration of an ugly truth: there is surprisingly little overlap in what women say they want, what women think they want, and what women actually want.

10:12 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger knightblaster said...

From this I get, yes, when it comes to dating, women are very much concerned about the way a man looks. Perhaps it is just a tiny tad bit more than PRESENCE that lures the ladies.

It's across the board, Cham. Women. Only. Want. The. Best.

Not in the sense of "optimizing" among a set of good options, but rather in the sense of thinking that everything other than the best is total crap. Yes, looks, too. if women are given the question at OKCupid and are basing their decisions largely on looks (which is how online dating works), hypergamy leads them to filter out almost all of the men who are below a certain cute (very close, it would appear, to the pareto 80/20). If women are selecting in *person*, looks still play a large role, but presence plays a bigger one. And I would bet dollars to donuts that these guys who are passing an online "looks hypergamy" test are, if they go on a date with the woman, going to be immediately evaluated on a "presence" basis, and if there is a lack of congruence (i.e., her presence rating of the guy lags behind her looks rating), hypergamy is dashed and he's done.

10:35 AM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

and as a result of this bias in thinking, live lives of misery...and summarily take it out on the objects of their affection.

(i have a 20 year old step-daughter as a prime example. hostile girl, with a diminishing marketablitiy.)

3:19 PM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Roman said...

I wonder if this means that a substantial percentage of females "settle" for less than they want. Perhaps they are disappointed after the vows, might explain some divorces?

6:47 PM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Roman,

That's simply a matter of faith to me, like you're stating something obvious.

But I'm getting the drift that many men don't get that. So we see the heart-broken divorced man who never saw it coming.

I don't know why I have to say this: Getting married means she wants to shackle you with the obligations that you will find out about in family court. That's it.

You don't get anything in return. She can fuck anyone she wants, and you are still going to be held to your family court obligations.

It's not funny - a man just burned himself to death on courthouse steps in the United States because of the family court (google it). No matter what happens decades later, you are responsible for Princess. You don't friggin' get it.

7:42 PM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thomas J. Ball, 58, of Holden, Mass. is the current suicide.

There are tons of suicides among men (3 or 4:1 to women, mostly divorced men), but he left behind a letter detailing exactly how he was being screwed over.

To his credit: He didn't take the people involved in his problem with him.

8:17 PM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

His last statement:

http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/local/last-statement-sent-to-sentinel-from-self-immolation-victim/article_cd181c8e-983b-11e0-a559-001cc4c03286.html

8:19 PM, June 18, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No histrionics, I think women who use men (i.e. most women) are pathetic. Men who don't see this have to be knocked upside the head. But maybe they still won't get it.

8:21 PM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger Zorro said...

I just printed out and read that statement by Tom Ball, the self-immolation victim.

It is must-reading for every man in this country who votes.

If people ask me why I never married, I will give them a copy of that statement. It truly is a sledge hammer.

8:40 PM, June 18, 2011  
Blogger fivewheels said...

"Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards"

This guy doesn't know what "paradoxically" means. Even if he just wants it to mean "surprisingly" it's wrong. Nothing about that fact is in any way contrary to my expectations.

2:46 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger knightblaster said...

This guy doesn't know what "paradoxically" means. Even if he just wants it to mean "surprisingly" it's wrong. Nothing about that fact is in any way contrary to my expectations.

Yes, once you have your eyes opened. But many do not.

The popular meme is that it is MEN who have "unrealistic beauty standards" -- despite the fact that the fashion magazines and design studios who are pointed to as evidence of this are overwhelmingly dominated by women and gay men and that the women that straight men actually look at (i.e., porn) are all and sundry in terms of appearance and don't typically look like fashion models. As I explained to a woman once -- a gay guy is going to gravitate towards a more androgynous appearance in a woman -- so fashion models are tall like men, skinny and not curvy (unlike most women) and kind of mannish, often, in their faces -- because the guys who are helping to pick them out are GAY MEN who, many of them, like a kind of mish-mash femmy/masc look. But who gets blamed for this? Straight guys, of course. Because women love gay men, generally speaking (probably because gay men are not hitting on them, and women hate to be hit on by all but a tiny minority of hot straight men).

So, for most people, especially women (most of whom totally buy into the meme that men have unrealistic standards for the reasons set forth above) but also a lot of men who have been programmed to accept these meme as well, the truth about how unattracted women are to most men is surprising. It is a "paradox" because it contradicts their own received "conventional wisdom" -- which in this case, as in most others concerning male/female matters, is a rank falsehood, and one designed to slander straight men and take them down/disempower them a bit.

7:14 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Steve White said...

Women want perfection.

Men just don't want to be annoyed.

9:31 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Quilly_Mammoth said...

Wait, this is a poll conducted amongst women who need a dating site to find what they can't in real life????

If women just selected for looks then how did my wife select me?

But it's a meme most believe in, which is why I....and I'm sure Glenn...constantly get asked "How'd you land -her-?"

It's a secret we don't share. ;)

9:52 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger DADvocate said...

Why does this not come as a surprise to me?

I suspect men rate 80% of women acceptable for a one night stand and 20% acceptable for marriage.

10:35 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Unknown said...

Both sexes are capable of paradoxical thinking.

Women want their men to be warriors in the (business) world but sweet compliant lambs at home.

Men want their women to be sluts in bed but angels in the kitchen.

10:40 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Ern said...

Cliff -

I'll take care of the kitchen, actually. I want a woman who:

- is sane and responsible
- doesn't hate men
- has taken good care of herself physically and will continue to do so
- is intellectually curious
- shares some interests with me
- is reasonably physically affectionate
- thinks that I'm special

That's pretty much it. Most women whom I encounter fail one or more of the first three. The last one may seem odd, but it seems to me that there's no point in having an exclusive relationship with somebody if you don't think (s)he's special.

10:59 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger David Foster said...

It is *possible*, of course, that the men on this dating site are actually on the average less-attractive than the men the women encounter in day to day life, and hence the 80% number is objectively true.

Unlikely but possible.

11:09 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger TheLastBrainLeft said...

I can attest that the whole "women wanting alphas" thing is true. And it's practically universal, even women who would rate LOW on the desirability scale for most men cling to the vision of marrying an alpha.

I think it's primal. Women want perfect male specimens to supply top quality DNA for the purpose of reproduction. Men tend to be just as selective (youth and large breasts are attractive because they project an aura of fertility) but we are far more likely to accept someone who doesn't quite rank in the top tier on the femininity scale.

11:49 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger GawainsGhost said...

I find these articles ridiculous.

Any man who would take the advice of a woman, especially regarding men's fashion, is an idiot.

Women do not know what they want. They only know what they respond to, and they don't even know that until they respond to it.

What I learned during my summer of love, driving around Texas getting laid by drama girls was this. They all had boyfriends, and not a one of them cared for him when the new kid came into town.

A woman does not make a commitment. She makes a promise with the option of changing her mind.

I don't care if she's single, longing for Mr. Right, dating, has a boyfriend, is engaged, married or divorced. When the new kid comes into town and she responds to him, it's all over but the crying.

Be the new kid in town. Then move on to the next town, because hanging around won't get you anywhere. Not after the next new kid comes into town.

11:49 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Southern Man said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

11:52 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Southern Man said...

Well, we did an OKCupid experiment of our own a while back: collected a lot of sample text and used it to create a fake profile of an overweight, mousy-looking girl (we used a license-free stock photo) with a profile filled with misspelled words and grammatical errors and emoticons and left it up for a month. It garnered a couple hundred responses and more unsolicited dick pics than we ever care to see again.

Conclusion: OKCupid, like other free dating sites, is mostly populated by desperate guys. The top 20% of that cohort might actually rank as "average."

[previous post deleted, edited, re-submitted]

11:54 AM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger boxingalcibiades said...

Southern Man and Quilly Mammoth may have a serious point: simply using OKC or similar sites presents selection bias out of the gate.

12:10 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger David Foster said...

Cliff C...warriors in the business world, lambs at home...sluts in bed, angels in the kitchen.

Actually, not sure how paradoxical this really is. There are a lot of men who are very difficult at home AND unsuccessful at work, for the same reason....and, I'm sure, women who are cold and unresponsive in bed and also boring/unpleasant in daily life.

Of couse there are complete jerks who are very successful and total bitches who are good in bed, but I doubt if these combinations are more frequent than the other patterns.

12:41 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Joe said...

I believe the entire alpha theory is overblown. It may describe a tendency, but that's all. Most self-proclaimed alpha males aren't that at all--they are just con-men--and genuine alpha males have just as much problem getting women as anyone.

I believe this is all about a sense of entitlement by women. They've been told their whole lives that they deserve whatever they want. They are simply going after men who are good looking, wealthy or who have the appearances of wealth.

The irony; this is what that woman's article said without her realizing it. She was attracted to men who could pretend to be wealthy. It's what PUAs preach, even without realizing it.

All this feminist bullshit causes serious self-esteem issues in women. They can't get what they want just because they want it. The world isn't their oyster.

On the flip side, women with strong self-esteem aren't hanging around in bars trying to get picked up and willing to take losers who pretend they aren't. They are in relationships and if not, are comfortable enough in their own skin to be patient while they develop new relationships.

The real irony of dating sites is that they are dominated (note the word) by desperate, lonely, deluded people. The women want the long term relationship they are owed and the men want to be laid by the hot babes they are owed.

It's amazing to me how much both sides are willing to compromise their personal integrity in order to pretend they are getting what they want.

(One thing that's interesting about OK Cupid is that so many questions repeat themselves, it's relatively easy to see the fakers--everyone will have some contradictory answers, but the fakers will have dozens.

It's also quite apparent that most OK Cupid members aren't answering honestly but according to what they think is appealing. With this in mind, using OK Cupid as a analytical tool is largely a waste of time.)

PS. The whole alpha male thing itself is bullshit anyway; what great apes are we going off of? We aren't apes or wolves and even so alpha theory applies only to a minor species of great apes, not most of them. Human behavior is actually closer to that of bonobos than silverbacks.)

1:50 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger knightblaster said...

No we're closer to chimps than bonobos. Chimps resolve conflict through violence and the males organize hunting/raid parties (sound familiar?). Bonobos resolve conflicts through sex orgies. Not exactly what you see in humans.

2:12 PM, June 19, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think "alpha" should be defined as "what women want".

If you go by the true definition of alpha, from animals, the heavily tattooed guy in prison, who spends his days lifting weights and who would start biting into your flesh if you do the least thing to disturb him, is the real alpha male.

I don't want to be that.

What women want is the air of confidence and money and knowing stuff about the world, in addition to having other men listen to you when you talk etc. That's something a bit different than "alpha".

2:45 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger Cham said...

What Helen didn't mention was that part about how men which women to respond on the OKCupid site:

When it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque. Someone like roomtodance above gets nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.2/3 of male messages go to the top 1/3 of women.

So OKCupid's men are being visually picky as well.

3:04 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger GawainsGhost said...

I read the study on bonobos years ago, and came away thinking it was fraudulent. My first degree was in biology with an emphasis on animal behavior. There was very little real evidence to support the study. It seemed to me more like some guys imposing their sexual fantasies and penis envy onto monkeys.

That said, among chimpanzees, our supposed closest relatives in the animal kingdom, the females will engage in intercourse with every male in the group. But they will only engage in intercourse with the dominant males when they are fertile.

It's a reproductive strategy. She assures herself of having the best genetic stock for her offspring, while deluding all the other males. None of them know who the father is, so they all participate in the raising and protection of the young.

Remind you of any girls you know?

3:18 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger knightblaster said...

Remind you of any girls you know?

Indeed. We are more like chimps. Also, bonobos competed shittily, and have very remote and isolated habitats as a result, as compared with chimps. Bonobos were losers, in a relative sense. That doesn't stop feminists from wanting humans to be more like bonobos, of course, but it just makes us the same losers, really.

So OKCupid's men are being visually picky as well.

In an online setting, it's worth a shot. The key isn't who men are willing to risk an approach on, the key is how many they find attractive as compared to women. Two different things that you are conveniently conflating. I understand why, I think: women experience male desire only when it is expressed. That makes sense, but is a misunderstanding of male desire, which is more ecumenical than female desire is, by a substantial degree.

4:02 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger ken in tx said...

It's my understanding that heavily tattooed men in prison who work out with weights are frequently contacted by women seeking mates, especially if they have committed some outrageous crime.

9:08 PM, June 19, 2011  
Blogger 80%er said...

Bunch of Assholes.............

I am the eighty percent!

11:09 AM, June 20, 2011  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

it`s funny that people continually try to comapre us to apes, and we are so unlike them as to be nothing like them at all.

i don`t know of any apes that live in condos or have a car for instance, or throw shit and masturbate when under attack.

we don`t even have the same amount chromasome pairs.

funny thing though. my step-daughter works with large primates and wonders why the male gibbon gets angry with her when she gives the females food after he has taken it away...actually i think she`s a junior feminist trying to "even" things. i just tell her not to get too close to the cage when he`s pissed.

one girl already got bitten by him through the fence.

11:31 AM, June 20, 2011  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

and my wife is a prime example of a woman who chose the alpha male breadwinner as her first husband. he gave her a strong handsome son (and an agressive boyish daughter) and everything she needed to raise her children and live comfortably. he was an utter dick to her and the marriage finally broke down as the children became old enough that she felt she could leave.

he now lives with his drug-addicted ex-model second wife, who refuses to allow him to have his chlidren in "her" home.

the really odd thing is that her son from her first marriage walks, runs, plays music and sport,and generally acts so much like me that people naturally assume he`s my boy...including people my wife works with that forget we`ve only been together just over three years.

so what did my wife choose this time, a more amenable version of a type of man?

it certainly wasn`t a conscious choice because she`s as surprised as i am that her son and i are so similar in so many ways, and i`m not a beligerent ass like his father...

...maybe she needed a better parent for the boy.

11:45 AM, June 20, 2011  
Blogger Der Hahn said...

If okcupid is set up like the site I'm familar with as opposed to match or eharmony then the data obtained from messaging has a substantial but I think fatal flaw. Match (I know) and eHarmony (I think) enforce a 'pay to play' model. Everyone who wishes to read or send messages *must* pay the membership fee. The cheaper sites will often allow free members (read women) to *respond* to messages while still allowing only paying customers (read men) to initiate them. So we're really not getting a true sample of who women would initiate contact with because they mostly likely can only respond to the messages they receive. While the skew is probably not as great for men I suspect it influences their behavior as they likely know the only way they are going to be contacted is by sending messages to as many women as possible, even the 'unobtaintable' ones.

(BTW, from my limited experience on match an unbiased sample of women initiating contact wouldn't look much different from the OKcupid graph for men)

2:43 PM, June 20, 2011  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

i have a client who is using dating sites to find a partner. his findings correlate to my theory that women are always looking for a better deal (unconsciously) and that this makes them irrational consciously.

he is 55 and recently inherited several millions of dollars, the bulk of which has yet to be settled between he and his brother, but last week he bought an off lease merc convertable and now the game will change.

he does park the car in the garage and still uses the pick-up truck for dating...for now.

i laughingly warn him to watch for leggy blondes with russian accents, but i`m actually dead serious.

1:03 PM, June 21, 2011  
Blogger Dr.Alistair said...

oh yeah, and i noticed that, when i dated on those sites, the same women were on all the sites, whether you paid a fee or not.

1:04 PM, June 21, 2011  

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