Shallow Men And The Women Who Suffer (The Male Lust For The Supermodel Perfect Mate Alert)

A man who strips himself of his sexual instinct in an effort to be nice will not be rewarded for that beavior by a sexual response. It makes no sense at all for a man to expect it to, yet many many men continue on that strategy.

Every time I think we agree, you throw me for a loop. To me, being nice isn't a strategy to get babes. It simply is who I am. I agree that most women don't get turned on by it. IMHO, it isn't because somebody "nice" in their past turned out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's just genetic. And, unfortunately, most don't seem to be able to rise above their biological programming.

One of my female friends is an extremely gorgeous young woman with a lot of brains (the part I like). She says that most of the men who try to come on to her are complete a**holes. I told her that's because only a**holes are conceited and self-confident enough to try. The nice guys don't because their experiences have been that beautiful women are hooked up with a**holes and run like heck from someone decent. The same goes for most other women.

Is this the chicken and the egg or the egg and the chicken. I don't know. I know a lot of women who have brains and beauty and they sleep with drunks and/or drug using losers. Some of the men have money. Some of them don't. Go figure. All I know is that I don't plan on acting mean to get some loving. If that means I don't get loving, so be it.

If I can rise above my genes and like and/or sleep with a woman who has an "a" bra size, then I figure women ought to be able to rise above their genes and look for good husband and good father types as opposed to apeneck Sweeney.

parsy, who has a normal sized neck.

To me, being nice isn't a strategy to get babes. It simply is who I am. I agree that most women don't get turned on by it.

That was my point - women aren't buying what you are selling. Frankly, I don't blame them. A nonsexual (or lesser-sexual) male is routinely rejected by women, and not rewarded by a sexual response. It makes perfect sense - indeed, to expect anything else is irrational. I'm glad that you have accepted that women just don't get turned on by it - to deny that would be to deny the obvious.

I don't think of it so much as a strategy to get babes, but more of a fact of life that has to be accepted if you are going to raise your chances of having meaningful relationships with women, or find that one woman and keep her satisfied. You raise your odds of success in either endeavor by being the type of man women respond to sexually. Leaving it alone will, more likely than not, just get a man more unimpressive results.

This might be a philosophical difference that we have. I don't think people should continue to 'be themselves' when 'being themselves' needlessly handicaps them and isn't working for them. We all have many skill sets that we use in different spheres - social, professional, etc. Developing those skill sets is wise, leaving them deficient isn't wise. 'Being themselves' isn't an excuse for failure.

Basically, I think its incumbent on people to change when they aren't getting the results they want. If you are getting the results you want, that's fine. If you're not getting the results you want and continue at a disadvantage, I just don't see the upside of that.

To somehow raise chronic underachievement to the level of something noble doesn't make much sense to me either.

I think women's disdain for colloquially 'nice' men has many reasons, and the fact that they have encountered many phonies is only a part of it. You are 100% right, it's a least partly biological programming - an masculine man is more sexually exciting and seen as a better mate on balance, even if any particular one masculine male ends up being a poor choice for a long term relationship for a woman.

You are wrong when you told your goodlooking lady friend that 'only' a$$holes are conceited and confident enough to come on to her. A wide range of men are out there and a wide range hit on her - every guy who hits on her isn't a jerk. The 'nice' guy who is afraid to speak with her is just seen as weak, probably because he is weak. Women don't like weak men. If a man is weak, he should address that character problem.

Some very goodlooking women I have encountered have been awful, but the majority have been fine. That's not to say that they were all to my taste, or I was to all their taste, but there's no reason for you to associate decency with a quality women reject. On balance, they don't reject decency at all.

I said in an earlier post, except for fairly fleeting interactions, most people reject a prospective mate for sound, rather than shallow, grounds. Now their evaluation may in fact be wrong, but it's much more likely that a woman rejects a man she has gotten to know for substantive reasons rather than shallow reasons.

I think guys who think that they get routinely rejected by women because they are too good or for mostly shallow grounds, are in denial.

The thing is, as I said before, it's not simply a choice between being nice (nonsexual, unmasculine) and a jerk (too sexual, boorish). Being good husband and father material is fine, but not at the expense of being unambiguously and acceptably masculine.

To paraphrase Vic Mackey in the pilot for the great series 'The Shield,' "Nice guy and jerk guy went home for the day, I'm a different kind of guy."

One more thing - you talk about your very goodlooking female friend who has great brains, and you note that this is the part that you like. Do you not like her looks? Do they not excite you? Are looks totally unimportant to you? Her looks are important to her, most likely, though maybe not the most important thing.

When women say they want to be recognized and valued for more than their looks, they are sincere. But many nice guys filter that in their minds as women want to be liked only (or mostly) for their personal qualities - mind, morals, etc. Women very much like the idea that their looks, body, chest, bootie, legs, etc sexually excite a man, especially their man. Women just don't want it to be the only thing (or the major thing) a man likes in them.

A guy who doesn't get sexually excited, or sexually responds, to a woman's looks is diminished in her eyes. Just the truth.

Do you not like her looks? Do they not excite you? Are looks totally unimportant to you? Her looks are important to her, most likely, though maybe not the most important thing.

Duh. I noticed her looks didn't I? But there are a gazillion good looking women out there. The smart ones, however, are few and far between. Why would I want to come on like Tarzan to every good looking woman I meet? Heck, we might end up mating and I could be stuck with a mental ape-girl for the next 18 years and 9 months.

That is what I mean about being nice and not pretending. I don't want to spread my little genes all over the place. That may have been good in the past to insure my genes survive. But, in this century there are these little thingies called dna tests and a little social convention we call child support, and little guys who work for the gov't who will take your driving license and your fishing license if you don't pay.

New century. New rules, IMHO. If you're dumb enough to want Tarzan, you're too dumb for me to have to be around 24/7/365.

parsy, the proud though sexually frustrated.

Your dismissive use of 'Duh' notwithstanding, it was you who described her as "an extremely gorgeous young woman with a lot of brains (the part I like)." I didn't ask if you noticed her looks, I asked if you liked her looks and found them exciting.

In describing her looks as 'the part I like,' that gave me the impression that it was the only part you like. You said 'part' after all - singular. You didn't say "I like her brains, too." You described her lots of brains as the part of her that you liked. I'm sorry if I interpreted this wrong, but it is exactly what you said.

Maybe I haven't been clear on something, so I have to ask you to clarify. Why do you consistently characterize the options as being one of two extremes? You raised a strong, Tarzan like come on, but that's misplaced. I explicitly said that an overstated demeanor like that isn't productive. I have said that several times, yet you consistently frame the dynamic this way. That's very misplaced: I never advocated that kind of overstated response and explicitly have said it's not productive.

Why do you consistently go back to the 'nice guy/jerk guy' dichotomy when I explicitly wrote that the options are not limited to those two extremes, and when I explicitly wrote that being a jerk isn't a good way to go?

I really don't understand. Please explain it, and maybe I can tailor my comments better. You're just not responding to what I am saying - you're responding to an argument I didn't make.

Your commentary on parenting children out of wedlock is wise, but it's misplaced: I never suggested that. It's place in this discourse makes no sense (though I agree with you, it has nothing to do with what we are talking about).

I never advocated going for a meaningful relationship with a dumb woman. Again, the commentary is misplaced.

What is so ambiguous about what I am saying? If you could tell me that, I could be more explicit, but I admit, I think i have been clear enough and you are just responding to phantom things I never wrote, nor even suggested.

And, unfortunately, most don't seem to be able to rise above their biological programming.

So disqualify them - early on. Most men decide to marry them anyway, based mostly on their physical appearance, then end up on the FR divorce threads complaining about what bitches all women are. I contend that in every single case, the warning signs were there before the marriage ever happened, but the men saw what they wanted to see: that "beauty has a character all its own".

I told her that's because only a**holes are conceited and self-confident enough to try. The nice guys don't because their experiences have been that beautiful women are hooked up with a**holes and run like heck from someone decent. The same goes for most other women.

But that's a case of overreaction in the name of self-preservation. It's unfair to assume that beautiful women are all this way - you have to have the courage to approach them first, be polite and considerate to them, but then qualify the hell out of them before taking the next step. Where men go wrong is in qualifying women solely on their looks (happens every single day on FR - witness the Debra LaFave threads) and either saying:

1) "OK, she's hot - she qualifies. Now it's up to me to prove to her that I am worthy of her." (Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! And the plot of way too many books and movies.)

2) "OK, she's hot - girls like that are all sluts and she wouldn't like me anyway." (The FR Losers Brigade standard answer)

Women are individuals, and you have to judge each one individually. But as HitmanLV points out, this self-destructive "nice guy" behavior that amounts to "I'll show her how non-sexual I am so she'll realize I'm not a jerk and like me more" is for the birds. And Hollywood reinforces it by continuing to depict characters like that who "get the girl" in the end (I think the filmakers are reliving their high school experiences and adding happier endings), when in real life men who don't have the courage to approach and don't hold women to a very high standard achieve the relationships they really want in a vanishingly small number of cases. They settle for someone, and so does she...and that isn't a very good place to be.

"In describing her looks as 'the part I like,' that gave me the impression that it was the only part you like. You said 'part' after all - singular."

I am not a rabbi and I do not take 20 minutes to frame a response. I said the girl was gorgeous. Obviously I noticed her looks. As far as her brains being the part I like, I gusess the long response would have been, "She is very beautiful and well put together and although my little thingie gets excited when she is near, it is her intellect that I find most attractive, followed by her personality. Were we to meet in a bar, I would obviously buy her a drink before the older, less-well put together woman who is missing one of her front teeth. That being said, the world is full of beautiful women and my experience with them has been that most of them gravitate toward a**holes for lovers and on the few occasions when I have found myself in a relationship with a more than average beautiful woman (which was years and years ago when I was young and beautiful)they would invariably interpret decency as weakness, respect as some sort of sign of feminity, and faithfulness as a lack of testosterone. This in spite of the fact that I would invariably hear how good I made them feel in the bedroom, and how crappily they had been treated by their former jerk lovers. I would also hear sometimes how I was too good for them.These affairs all ended about the same way with us being friends while they hopped off in the sack with some drunk or drug-abusing jerk who often suffered from erectile dysfunction due to the various substance vices they had. Mutual friends would fill me in on the gossip of the new relationships and how bad, rocky, and sometimes abusive they were. Because of these experiences and because of my subsequent life experiences, I realize that beauty and looks might be a superficial turn on, if there ain't something there between the ears, and something in the ego that wants respect and decency, then there really ain't nothing there at all."

"Maybe I haven't been clear on something, so I have to ask you to clarify. Why do you consistently characterize the options as being one of two extremes?"

Because that is pretty much what I see. My experience has been that the more beautiful the woman, the worse a**hole she will choose or will choose her. Nice guys and the average male seldom seem to make it to the queen bee.

"Why do you consistently go back to the 'nice guy/jerk guy' dichotomy when I explicitly wrote that the options are not limited to those two extremes, and when I explicitly wrote that being a jerk isn't a good way to go?" See above. My experience is that being a jerk is a pretty good option for sexual success.

"Your commentary on parenting children out of wedlock is wise, but it's misplaced: I never suggested that. It's place in this discourse makes no sense (though I agree with you, it has nothing to do with what we are talking about)."

My point was, (I think) that what may have constituted valuable factors in selecting a mate in 15,000 BC, is out of place today. While I might be turned on by large milk producing glands, and a larger hip to waste ratio, most babies feed off a bottle and c-sections are common. Similarly, while Tarzan wins good survival points for fighting off sabre tooth tigers, today a good work ethic and committment to raising children should be more valuable.

"I never advocated going for a meaningful relationship with a dumb woman. Again, the commentary is misplaced."

When the hottiness of a male or female becomes the issue in selecting a mate, then you got problems. In my line of work, I have to constantly tell my clients, "I can only do so much. Remember, you chose to make a baby(s) with this person." In reality, they didn't really "choose." They had sex and it happened.

What is so ambiguous about what I am saying?

My impression, and I haven't re-read all the replies to date is that on one hand you agree that women tend to go for jerks, (which I agree with and blame on an inability to rise above genetics and biology)and then you characterize nice guys as manipulators and the women who eschew them as street wise.

parsy, who hopes this is helpful.

Women are individuals, and you have to judge each one individually. But as HitmanLV points out, this self-destructive "nice guy" behavior that amounts to "I'll show her how non-sexual I am so she'll realize I'm not a jerk and like me more" is for the birds.

Sometimes I think it is more true that "all women have the same mother." I don't see being decent as self-destructive. It is, however, something that result in mucho lonliness. Relationships are a lot more than sexuality. Try having a sick baby and cleaning up baby puke all night and you realize that what you want and need is a helpmate, not a playmate.

The western emphasis on sexuality as a basis for relationships has led to much happiness, but also to much un-happiness. It is also no coincidence to me that for all the sexuality exuding from every source in our society, Cosmo magazine is still full of "how to have an orgasm" articles each month. I am still waiting to see the "do it with somebody who loves and respects you instead of the drunk and/or jerk you met in the bar" on the list.

parsy, who checks out Cosmo every so often to see if the world has changed.

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