Women only want men who look like models

In a review of Yahoo Personals, Rick writes the following:

I was one this site for 2 months and sent out 100 introduction letters. I got 1 reply from a stripper, now I have dated strippers in my youth, but I am looking for something more now. So I tried an experiment. I changed my photo for that of a model about my age, and changed nothing else. Then I sent the exact introduction letters to the same 100 women. Amazinglt I had an 85% return, don't figure.

On the one hand, someone might say "duh!" But the problem here is that women like to claim some sort of moral superiority in the dating game. They will have you believe that men care about nothing but looks, but women are into the deep qualities like intelligence, commitment, and niceness (whatever that means). But the moral superiority is false; women are just as superficial as men.

In fact, I am sure that there are a lot of "nice guys" out there (recall that the majority of men are "nice guys") who would like to date an average looking woman, but those same women are holding out for an alpha-male type. This is why there are so many unmarried people in their thirties.

Catherine

I was just writing about internet dating in the last post, and then what happens? A woman sends me an unsolicited email via the internet dating service that I belong to. I guess it's not true that all women only want men who look like models. It just applies to most women.

I already spoke to Catherine on the phone (why not Cathy?) and I'm going to meet her for drinks after work on Wednesday. We live in the same neighborhood and she went graduate school where I went to undergraduate school.

I have to emphasize how weird it is that a woman would contact me first on an internet dating services. The last two times were Rana and Yoko and neither of those worked out so well. Catherine seems better. She was born in the United States, a big plus in my book. She's low maintenance (she lives in a non-doorman building making her lower maintenance than me!), and she's not ugly (she's average looking as far as I can tell from her photos). So what's the catch? If I never write anything in the blog again after Tuesday, the catch is that she's a crazy serial killer who meets men online and then kills them.

Carr update: still haven't spoken to her yet but I left her another message.

Twenty thousand dollar week

The value of my investments is up more than $20,000 this week. I sure hope this is a prelude to a financially successful year.

On the one hand, it's cool seeing a $20,000 increase in just a week because some people toil away for a whole year and make less than that. On the other hand, lots of men my age with better jobs, like investment bankers, partners at big law firms and Carr's friend's brother-in-law, earn $20,000 in salary every week of the year and they laugh at my puny lucky week in the market.

Carr update: she doesn't answer her work phone either. Haven't talked to her yet. I did leave a message once so she knows I haven't forgotten her.

Carr

A few posts ago I mentioned the girl Carr whom I met at a club and who gave me her phone number.

I thought Carr had decided that she wasn't interested in me, but she left a message on my voicemail today asking me to call her at work tomorrow, and she left her work phone number. Cool. Maybe, because it was so dark in the club and she was drunk, she doesn't realize what a loser I am.

I find it difficult to remember much about Carr, except that she was short and thin and had dark less-than-shoulder length hair and pale skin. And she was wearing lavender nail polish. She's not the type I get the hots for, but beggars can't be choosers, and also some men would like her, so people who see us together wouldn't think I'm settling for her because I'm desperate, which would be the case with certain other girl's I've dated in the past few months.

Certain commenters who think I am fixated on looks (and maybe I am) will criticize me for not talking about her personality. Well, to tell you the truth, I know very little about her personality. I mean, how much of a person's personality can you really glean from fifteen minutes of conversation in a noisy club? But I'm certain that she's way cooler than either Yoko or Rana.

I do remember that Carr's girl friend's brother-in-law was the former CEO of the company I work for. This means that her friend's sister is filthy rich. (I looked on the internet to see how many shares of stock he used to own, and he had a golden parachute too. Holy!)

Is it weird that she wants me to call her at work? I have no privacy where I work. The guys next to me will overhear my whole conversation. This might be a good thing; they'll get the false impression that I'm a cool guy who meets girls at clubs and I'm not some loser virgin like I really am.

Nice guys, jerks, and the 80/20 Rule

Many of the comments on my blog refer to "nice guys" and "jerks." Apparently the universe of men is divided into these two categories, yet the terms are strangely undefined.

It seems to me that the two terms are simply synonymous with the bio-evolutionary terms of the "alpha-male" (or jerk) who has lots of sex, and the "beta-male" (or nice guy) who has little sex. To the extent that how much sex a man has affects his personality, it's obvious that the guy getting a lot of sex doesn't have to be very nice because he's getting what he wants (sex) anyway. Why bother to put in the effort to be nice when it's not necessary?

Or maybe "nice," to a woman, means a guy who wants a long term relationship and not just a quick conquest. But the very definition of the alpha-male is that he's going to have sex with lots of women, so obviously he's not going to stick around. It's not in his nature. In this sense, a "nice alpha-male" is an oxymoron.

Although woman say they don't want to have sex with jerks, in fact women are biologically programmed to want to have sex with alpha-males. I explained this in my previous post about insecurities and evolutionary biology. Don't doubt the power of our biological instincts; without them we wouldn't even be having any sex at all.

Based on the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 Rule, among single men there is surely a small number of alpha-males who are having the lion's share of the sex. Perhaps 20% of the men are having 80% of the sex. Maybe this is even higher. Maybe 10% of men are having 90% of the sex.

Even going with the more conservative 80/20 ratio, this numerical analysis brings us to a shocking conlusion. If a typical woman has had sex with five men, then statistically four of those men will be from the 20% of men who are alpha-males or "jerks." So a woman believes that "nearly all men are jerks," even though it's not true; only 20% of the men are jerks, but jerks comprise 80% of the men that she has had sex with. She has a completely distorted view of what men are really like because the type of man she usually has sex with is not representative of the average man.

Response to some comments

Amanda:

Since you haven't had the same sexual experiences that most adults have had you're sort of stunted in terms of your sexual development. I wonder if this also contributes to your obvious lack of emotional maturity? Most 14 year old virgins are only interested in pretty girls with hot bodies. It is possible that the same is true of 40 year old virgins?

Just as they say you have to crawl before you can walk, perhaps you need to experience relationships based purely on lust, as typical of a high school kid, before you're ready for a deeper more intellectual adult relationship based on mutual interests.

On the other hand, I suspect you are attributing more "emotional maturity" to non-virginal men than they actually have. Men have just learned to tell women what they want to hear so they can get laid. That's not maturity, it's acting.

Fred:

Just found your blog,

I think you are a witty and charming guy, and I think your biggest problem is a very low sex drive. You are almost A sexual from what I can tell. I suspect you dont masturbate much? I am not trying to be offensive here, its just my 2 cents. your situation is tough.

I am the total opposite of you. I am very horny and promiscuise. I the feel and taste of a womans body, especially her vagina and anus. In my 36 years, I have had about 50 girlfriends and one night stands. I have also had sex with over 500 prostitutes. I live in Europe BTW where it is more socially acceptable to admit that you have had sex with a hooker.

I do have a sex drive problem. I didn't always have this problem. When I was a teenager I was always getting sexually excited. I think it's normal for men to lose their sex drives as they get older, but it's not something talked about much because men don't want to admit it. But where the drive is lost, learned habit takes over and allows the man with the flagging sex drive to continue to have an active sex life. I've read that the flagging sex drive actually makes the man better at sex because he can hold it in longer and prolong the woman's experience. The horny teenager will shoot his wad in thirty seconds.

As far as masturbating goes, I do it too much. It's a learned habit. Masturbating for twenty-five years without ever doing the real thing is obviously a very bad habit. The brain learns to respond to the hand instead of a live woman.

The thought of tasting a woman's anus: yuck.

Anonymous:

You need therapy to overcome your deep seated problems. This blog isn't helping, it's making it worse.

I get this comment a zillion times. I refer you to my post about the 49-year-old virgin who was screwed (only figuratively) by therapists.

Are there any therapists who treat virgins? I can't find any by searching Google. My blog shows up. But do a search for therapists who treat fear of flying, and you get a whole bunch of results. Yet it's a lot easier to cure fear of flying. All you have to do is buy a ticket, sit in the plane, and no matter how scared shitless you are the plane will take off and land.

It doesn't work the same way with virginity or relationships. Fear itself prevents the virgin from meeting women and from interacting successfully with them. Women like confident men, not scared men.

After I started this blog, I came closer to having sex than I ever had in my whole life. If it wasn't for what might be a sex drive issue, I wouldn't be a virgin any longer. So I wouldn't say that the blog isn't helping.

Anyway, unless you can recommend a therapist who has successfully treated older men who were virgins, this advice is completely useless.

No more Yoko

Can't stand her anymore.

After only three dates where I spent a total of about $400 to $500 (she likes to order stuff that contains lobster) and had to take a cab half a mile because she can't walk, do I need to tell her anything, or do I just stop answering her phone calls and emails until she gives up?