Sunday, September 15, 2013

Reader Comment: How an Engineer became Sexy

I'm not having much spare time these days, but today I managed to go through some of my notes. There was one comment, made almost a month ago, that stuck out. I thought it deserved greater visibility so I'm posting it on the front page. Take some time to let it sink in since there are a lot of unpopular truths in it, and many of you can probably relate to it in one way or another.

But without further ado, here's "anonymous" on how he managed to become a sexy engineer:

I'm 30 and like most average guys I didn't really have a lot of luck when it came to women between 18-26. However, the average woman in my peer group has plenty of men chasing her till she get's to 30. There are many women who knew at the time that I wanted a relationship with them, however I was always passed over "for better men" I'm sure every guy has a story to tell.
Eventually things improve for men with age as a result of genuine achievement such as getting status,handling real responsibility, and genuine competence. Also the "sex haze" tend to calm down a little after 28 and you can evaluate things more clearly. 
Now, the problem appears to be as Alek Novy has pointed out in his articles, men are apparently not allowed to be selfish. So, now that I have better options, I get called an "asshole" for politely declining a "wanting to catch up over coffee" with some of the women who are now 30 and looking for a "serious relationships" only. I get called an "asshole" for dating women who are 25. You see the issue goes far deeper than dating, it is more to do with "male sacrifice/disposability"
When women have power, they should use it for themselves. When men have power they should use it for the benefit of everyone. Men are not allowed to be selfish. 
I'm constantly struck by the ARROGANCE of some women, even some of female my friends who at 30 go up men they've been rejecting for the last 5 years and say "I'm looking for something serious" , "We should get together some time" "How come we didn't date? were have a lot in common"
In the dating world, apparently every woman over 30 thinks an Engineer is "amazing, smart, even sexy" when at 25 if the words "Engineer" came out of your mouth you would be treated as if you had leprosy. 
Men get pissed off because an average woman has had PLENTY of chances at meeting men by the time she is 30- PLENTY unless she lived as a nun, however when men get to 29 you become "a player" if you DARE to be selective or have a criteria. 

Got a story to tell? Please let me know in the comment below! 

23 comments:

  1. This whole 'female's desirability declines with age whilst a male increases' argument seems like a male revenge fantasy to me. Is a desirable (hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy) girl at 20 really going to have no options at 30? And is an undesirable male at 20 really going to be swimming in birds at 30? I think not. I’d argue that, if a girl reaches 30 and still can’t find a partner (despite actively looking for one), her lifestyle (i.e. she’s socially isolated), personality (i.e. she’s boring/selfish/ has unrealistic standards and/or unjustified entitlement), or looks were never that great to begin with. The same goes for guys.

    “I'm constantly struck by the ARROGANCE of some women”.
    - Me too, but only by the ones who’s arrogance is unjustified (i.e. the average looking/unattractive ones)

    “When men get to 29 you become "a player" if you DARE to be selective or have a criteria.”
    - I think you get called a player if 1. she is attracted to you and 2. you are fucking everyone/anyone else but her, regardless of age. It’s the same as a guy that thinks of a girl (he’s attracted to) as a whore for sleeping with others guys (who aren’t him). He’d have no issue with her fucking him in the bathroom of a club on the first night they met, of course.

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    1. "Is a desirable (hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy) girl at 20 really going to have no options at 30? And is an undesirable male at 20 really going to be swimming in birds at 30? I think not."

      Of course not. A guy whose foundations are messed up will always be undesirable. However, if those foundations are in order, a 30-year-old male will tend to be a lot more attractive to women than a 20-year-old, all things being equal. For women it's the other way round...

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    2. You're missing the point:

      A hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy 20 year old will have more options then a hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy 30 year old. That's just the argument, don't twist it around and call it a male revenge fantasy!

      Did you read that engineer's story? Doesn't it sound normal to you that he now decides who he wants to date? I mean women did the same to him back then.

      I really don't like your post, because you're just sidestepping the issue here.

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    3. "Of course not. A guy whose foundations are messed up will always be undesirable. However, if those foundations are in order, a 30-year-old male will tend to be a lot more attractive to women than a 20-year-old, all things being equal. For women it's the other way round..."
      - I don’t see how age makes any difference. A male can enhance his attractiveness at any age, in theory, being improving his looks, finances and social standing. I fail to see how a good-looking, high-status, rich 20-year male would be any more attractive at 40, if he still had these attributes.
      - It’s the other way around for women because their looks, and thus desirability, decline as a function of age because their looks are more strongly tied to their desirability than males.
      - In short, age will have no effect on males because a lot of what makes a male attractive transcends age (i.e. height, wealth, status, facial features). Women will become less attractive with age because the features that contribute most to their attractiveness decline with age (i.e. skin quality, hair, body).

      " A hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy 20 year old will have more options then a hot/smart/independent/emotionally healthy 30 year old. That's just the argument, don't twist it around and call it a male revenge fantasy! Did you read that engineer's story? Doesn't it sound normal to you that he now decides who he wants to date? I mean women did the same to him back then.I really don't like your post, because you're just sidestepping the issue here."
      - Let me guess, you are a male approach 30?
      - My point was not to debate whether women get more attractive with age, they don’t (on a physical level). My point was that guys who think that a day will come when they will get to reject all those women who rejected them when they were 20 are engaging in a revenge fantasy and will be bitterly disappointed (all over again)
      - I have as much reason as the next guy to want revenge, by the way. I empathize. I just don’t think it’s realistic or healthy for men to think they’ll be able to exact their revenge, some day, on those women that hurt them in the past.


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    4. I can see that working for some men, sure. But I was an ugly dork at 20 and I was an ugly dork at 30.

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    5. Dude I'm freaking 24 years old :D

      approaching 30 lol.

      The thing with getting older for men is that they can compensate with a whole lot more factors: wealth, financial success, stability. These are all factors that can give him more leverage in the dating market. Aging per se won't solve this, off course, you need fundamentals.

      You wrote:
      "I fail to see how a good-looking, high-status, rich 20-year male would be any more attractive at 40, if he still had these attributes. "

      Most guys arn't rich when they are in their 20 and if they are it's because they were born rich or had rich daddies. So it's actually a false dichotomy (can't believe I just used that word :D).

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    6. Mitch, you don't get the point.

      Apart from the fact that you can be somehow objectively desirable or repulsive, there is a huge irrational factor at play in dating, namely the fact that many desirable women grow up being chased since they are 15 and have A LOT of options. Some of them tend to project it into the future, and always postpone the moment they will find the man with whom they will build something of value.

      For men it's the opposite: even pretty good-looking guys do not get the constant attention even moderately cute girls get. They never really get into that state of mind where they can afford to wait, unless they muster the guts to approach women and see that they are more desired than it seems.

      The thing is, in your early twenties, girls will get A TON of options, really. But men won't. Moreover, since they have a choice, many girls will look for the best catch (that's the smart thing to do), and will have this abundance impression fueled by the mainstream idea that all women are princesses and deserve a Hugh Grant. Therefore, they will keep sticking up their nose even for very decent guys, who do not fit the ideal mold they have created, and believe can be fulfilled since they have so many options.

      The problem is, time passes. And after a while, something funny happens: smarter women have gone with the best catches, which might include older guys. And our 30 year-old princesses are suddenly realizing that:

      -They are no longer the best option for the guys.

      -Newer, younger, sexier versions of them are actually going for the good catches, which include many decent men from their age who were not good enough for their ideal mold by then, but now have more maturity, more money and more experience.

      When it comes to hot young girls, men compete with older men who have more prestige, personality, status, etc. When it comes to hot guys, girls compete with any attractive girl, and youth is a huge factor in female beauty (hence why no young girl feels the need to write an article like "Why you SHOULD date a younger girl").

      And suddenly, their attitude changes. Radically. Not only in terms of who they will date, but more generally in terms of how they generally behave towards people.

      As a still pretty hot friend of my mother once told me "It's horrible to always get stares from guys, until you're too old for them to be interested, and then it really sucks".

      Men do get more "leverage" in the romantic negotiation as they age, while women are in the opposite position. Obviously, if you start from 0 and get 3 extra points, you're still almost nowhere. But the difference is huge for guys who were decent back then, but did not have the "player" personality naturally. As for women, the ultra hot ones have probably managed to get a dude, but the blow is quite huge for alright-looking women who had based their behavior on the constant stream of attention they got when they were younger.

      Obviously, nobody recommends to count on that. But it is a good thing to notice that, whatever your actual attractiveness is, all things being equal, you tend to be at a disadvantage when you are younger as man, and older as a woman.

      The fact that women who would not give you the time of the day suddenly start to mellow and get angry when they understand that you now have the upper hand is very real. I'm 26, and already starting former classmates go down this road...And their friends trying to hook them up with the nerds they wouldn't have touched, who now have a good career.

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    7. Geert: as you say, most guys aren't born rich or poor, but average. This is why the irrational factor is much more potent for them.

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    8. I'm 24, also.

      "The thing with getting older for men is that they can compensate with a whole lot more factors: wealth, financial success, stability. These are all factors that can give him more leverage in the dating market. Aging per se won't solve this, off course, you need fundamentals."
      - Agreed.

      "I fail to see how a good-looking, high-status, rich 20-year male would be any more attractive at 40, if he still had these attributes."
      - It is not a false dichotomy. It was merely an analogy used to illustrate how 'fundamentals' are unaffected by age (apart from those that are inextricably linked to aging i.e. beauty).

      My main point was that guys who are holding out for the day when all those girls who once rejected them (literally or figuratively) come crawling back will be disappointed.

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    9. I think we'll go in circles forever if we continue. You guys make good points. I was arguing that it’s delusional for guys to sit around thinking that by virtue of their increasing age, alone, that they'll have those girls that once rejected them/were out of their league. Upon reflection, I can see that a guy who had no luck with girls who were in his league, to begin with, may have more success with these women as he accrues wealth/status with age and she loses some of her looks/attractiveness with age. If that's the point you're making, I agree.

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  2. Well, i think everyone who has had to deal with western girls has a similar story, i went from a 16 year old illegal alien in the USA to where i currently am, a 32 year old business owner who employs more than two hundred people. I am not bad looking, but since i was poor and not only that, everything about me screamed "human refuse" i was practically invisible,can't really say i blame those girls though, i wouldn't have dated myself either . A few weeks ago i bumped into an old crush of mine, lets call her Sarah(because that's her fucking name), while i was preordering a PS4 for my niece, at first i didn't recognized her, i met her when i was 19 years old, she was a complete stunner, black hair blue eyes and a very tight body. Her father hired me and other five guys to fix his garage(a fratbro tried to enter it in a BMW with the door closed) we were being 20 dollars per day, it took us 4 weeks to fix, during that time she was very flirty with me, until i mentioned that i was an illegal, and basically my posetions amounted to eight pairs of jeans and an electrical stove, she stopped talking to me inmediately. I later found out that her father was a real state bigshot in LA and her daughter was to attend Yale. "Figures" i thought, that is when i set out to make something of myself, it wasn't easy and i did some bad things, but i came on top at the end of the day. This landwhale standing in front of me couldn't be the same girl, i asked her if i knew her and she told that i worked for father that time her garage got wrecked, i asked why at her age she was working at fucking gamestop, if she was meant to be a Yale graduate, as it turns out her dad got conned, for all his networth, she dropped out 2 semesters in, had a kid with a deadbeat community college profesor, her mother divorced her father and his father commited suicide 6 months after an stormy divorce. She tells all this while we are sitting in a bench during her 30 minute break, after the sob story came the proposition.
    "I didn't see you coming, where is your car"
    "Oh is the Blue Subaru"
    "Hey, how come we never dated?"
    At this point i was trying my best not to grin like a madman
    "I asked you about it, you stopped talking to me after it"
    "Oh, come on, you didn't gave me a chance!"
    "You forgot that already? You remember my face but you didn't remember that you rejected me?"
    I can see her face filling with anger, i just can't understand who is the target
    "Sarah, what you are telling me here is: You weren't good enough for me back then but now that you are, you should date a woman 3 years older than, who lives on minimum wage and has 2 kids"
    I can't really understand her expression then, was it dissapointment, disilusion?
    "You lost that opportunity 12 years ago"
    She tried to say something, but decided that silence was better
    "I hope everything works out for you"
    I left her there in that bench thinking, i didn't feel better about myself, if anything i felt bad for her, maybe she deserved better, but something about her tone told me she hadn't grown as a person in all that time, she was still a teenager who couldn' make decisions and acted on her impulses, she felt entitled to me even knowing what had happened(or what didn't happen) between us.

    Sorry if my english isn't up to speed or if my narrative skills are lacking. Keep up the good work Aaron

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    1. Man, this would make a great two-act play. Some of these stories I'm hearing on this topic are incredibly poignant. I particularly like this one for the whole "immigrant being rejected by upper-crust American girl" angle. As an immigrant, I can relate (although I started out with a lot more advantages than you, it sounds like).

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    2. I was in a pseudo-immigrant but I had the exact opposite, I had garnered the interest of upper crust American girls very early when I arrived but I either didn't want them at the time and didn't know how to read signals and approach. Being an asshole and aloof actually sort of did help because a lot of those young girls found that attractive.

      The problem was that I didn't know how to utilize my advantages and I was suffering from various mental problems as well as culture shock.

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  3. Probably the dynamics being observed are more an unintended consequence of women's gradual increase in confidence after 25, than any actual sexual dynamics that you have hypothesized. You probably haven't become any more sexy, or maybe just a bit, and they probably haven't lost that much sex appeal, or just a bit. You're simply entering an age range where women begin to be comfortable expressing themselves sexually.

    The real issue is that women younger than 25 lack the confidence to make overt sexual gestures of any kind and respond almost entirely passively. (Exceptions abound, but I would stick by my generalization!). After that age they start making moves, initiating contacts, hinting at what they want. I'm not sure its fair to connect it to desperation or decreasing market value.

    What many guys (including myself) do not understand and have never understood, is how desired and desirable we really are to many women who never say it. You don't know how many women have secretly desired you, all throughout your high school and college years. Even the clear cases are just a fraction of the percentage of those that have, in one way or another, actually wanted you. The scope of female desire is hidden because they are afraid, but they stop being afraid around 25 years old.

    Its that which you are observing, not an increase in your own sexiness. And the 'hell of early 20's sexual anemia', which I know all too well my brother, was in reality just a consequence of this fear on their part. The fear made sex impossible except in certain circumstances. Then, when its gone, it seems like opportunities abound.

    This, at least, is my working theory for the moment.

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    1. The problem with your hypothesis is in the premises. Women start to make advances because they realize that they simply have to because they can't compete with younger versions of themselves anymore.

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    2. In my view even thinking about relationships in terms of 'competition' against other potential mates is kind of failing to understand the main emotional dynamic that drives relationships, or positing that this is simply visual-based lust.

      There is no real competition because relationships are not based on a 'checklist of features', but an emotional dynamic that is completely unique each time it unfolds. Actually, when one's methods of relating to another are so rationalized and comparison-based that one *could* believe in dating and mating as a 'feature-checklist comparison safari' - there is so much alienation already present there that the dating world is indeed going to *seem* like a very intense and dispiriting competition. The emotions that draw people together and lubricate all this are effectively frozen by the ever-present judgment and insecurity of this mind-state.

      The desire to control this process has to have all sorts of unintended consequences for the delicate process itself. Thats why flying blind on all this stuff often works remarkably better than any reasoned-out plan of action or strategy. Basically the extent to which you are able to think about relationships is the extent to which you are not able to have them. If I believe I can think about them, I am in fact closed off at precisely that point. I dunno, am I crazy? its all very zen... Good blog bTW!!

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    3. Dude (?), you got it wrong. There is competition because for the dynamics you describe to count you have to be in a relationship, but before you get there you have to get the girl first. There is competition even if you are not aware of it. This works in both ways, of course, since reasonably attractive men can chose among girls just like hot girls can pick among guys, and in the end, both have to pick each other.

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    4. "Basically the extent to which you are able to think about relationships is the extent to which you are not able to have them"

      I think this is brilliant! I often thought this myself.

      Everyone I know who has theories about how to get girls does not get them. The guys I know who get girls don't think about it.

      It's simply too complex and there is too much white noise. The only thing to do is go out there and do it.

      Aaron's blog I think of as a kind of ladder that you throw away once you climb it. Aaron is great at vastly reducing how much you think about the process of girls by simplifying it drastically, but at a certain point reading Aaron's blog becomes too much thinking about it, and you have to stop doing that.

      At a certain point you just have to forget about everything.

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  4. "When women have power, they should use it for themselves. When men have power they should use it for the benefit of everyone. Men are not allowed to be selfish"

    Not directly related to the point of the post but I liken this sentiment to womens mentality of "my money is my money and his money is our money" when women want things for their house, car, vacation, etc and reprimand him for even thinking of buying something for himself.

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  5. Its difficult for us guys to get in their shoes because their sexual life starts in an entirely different way than ours: around the age of 15 they get the keys to the candy store and are free to take whatever they like, we on the other side are to follow a strict no-sugar diet with very few exceptions allowed Some of us don't even know what the candy store looks like from inside; the girls go there everyday.

    Another way to see it would be to compare access to the other sex with access to money: the millionaire's heir who parties non stop at 20 but loses half his fortune by 30 and is broke by 50 on one side; the self made man who is poor at 20 but wealthy by 40-50 on the other side. Their relationship to money is entirely different.

    The above is reason enough why the education of girls and boys must be different as their respective start in adulthood could not be more different.

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  6. "Of course not. A guy whose foundations are messed up will always be undesirable. However, if those foundations are in order, a 30-year-old male will tend to be a lot more attractive to women than a 20-year-old, all things being equal. For women it's the other way round..".

    You are wrong!. Teens and twentysomething women prefer men in 20′s.

    Bram P. Buunk et al 2001 found women preferred partners of their own age, regardless of their own age and regardless of the level of relationship involvement. Pawlowski & Dunbar (1999) found that women typically prefer males 2-3 years older than themselves and this remains stable across the age range. Preferences of teenage females are similar in pattern to those of adult females, ranging, on average, from their own age to several years older (Kenrick et al, 1996).

    Donald Symons (The Evolution of Human Sexuality, 1979) was who specifically suggested that male peak of attractiveness is at second half of twenties. Nancy Etcoff (Survival of the prettiest) tries to give a pattern for this approach and she considers some assumptions of San Isidoro of Seville and Albrecht Dürer. (But those data are not very consistent). Anyway OkCupid Blog confirms this hypothesis; they found that man’s desirability peaks at 26-27 and about 70% of female dating pool is interested in male at that range of age. As you also can check out male model industry is focused mostly at men in their twenties.

    By the other hand, Zebrowitz et al, 1993 showed that attractiveness ratings of male faces went down at about the same pace as they did for females. Suggesting that a youthful appearance might contribute to attractiveness in both sexes. In a study based ratings of physical attractiveness reflect a negative correlation between age and beauty. Ratings of striking attractiveness or handsomeness were quite heavily concentrated among subjects under 35, and the rest of ratings distribution tends to show steady deterioration with growing age (Campbell et al 1976). Milord found that age was an important determinant of preference judgements for facial attractiveness of two age groups, with younger faces being prefered. Korthase found that a strong negative correlation (r= - 0.91) between perceived age and physical attractiveness in the ratings of facial photographs of young, middle-aged, and older adults.

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  7. The point is that a 30-year-old male is much more likely to have his act together than a 20-year-old male, and when it comes to *marriage*, women consider more factors than just the physical attractiveness of the male (if that really does peak in the mid-late twenties, certainly plausible I suppose, but I wouldn't treat it as gospel). This is why a man's options tend to improve with time, up to a point: he gets his act together, i.e. moderate decreases in physical attractiveness are offset by vast increases in other factors important to women seeking marriage.

    All of your studies lack historical context. "A Farewell to Alms" by Gregory Clark studies, among other things, mating patterns throughout recorded European history. In the centuries leading up through the industrial revolution to the present, the average woman who married was in her mid twenties, and she wed a man in his early thirties. The further back you go in time, the more drastic this difference becomes. All of your studies are drawn from a sexually novel period in history (post-sex-revolution modernity), notable for, among other things, its relatively low levels of marriage, full-stop. Cum grano salis, and all that.

    Basically, if you're a marriage-minded man, you need to keep in mind that, in the eyes of your average marriage-minded girl, when it comes to your physical attractiveness, "good enough is good enough." So long as you're physically attractive enough, she's going to evaluate you on other factors (i.e. money and status). It is therefore wise to get "good enough" in the looks department and then focus on developing those other factors. If you spend all of your time on your looks, you will indeed experience net decreasing sexual bargaining power as you age -- just like a woman. But if you spend your time wisely, you can increase your sexual bargaining power, up to a (substantial) point.

    A woman, on the other hand, starts off with her maximal endowment of sexual bargaining power in her youth, and then all she can really do is screw it up, e.g. via promiscuity, obesity, or just plain getting older. Men seeking wives value beautiful (healthy/fertile), chaste, loyal women -- age does not help the last two traits, and harms the first. Time simply cannot help women.

    In summary, while time offers men the *possibility* of improved dating options (within limits), it *only* diminishes the lot of women. This fundamental asymmetry used to be commonsense, everyone from Jane Austen to Moses recognized it. The autistic sexual zeitgeist of modernity is perilously ignorant of these basic truths, which ultimately harms women the most. This is a tragedy.

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    1. @Thomas,

      You should not convey a spurious and demagogic message arguing about ancient mating patterns. it is true that earlier generations of (lucky) middle aged males could date much younger women, and some societies had arranged marriages, but they also had wars, more bereavement, lack of food, persistent cold and wet, work outdoors in all weathers and in very dangerous factories and sites, more frequent and long lasting serious illnesses, very long hours of (often) back breaking labour etc.

      You should know that because of the economically prosperous, systemically mediated welfare state dynamic that prevails in developed world populations, economic and ecological pressures no longer mediate their mate choices to the extant they did in the past. One consequence of this is that phenotypic quality (mate preferences in sexual selection are mainly based on visual features, i.e physical attractiveness) has supplanted other forms in the stratification of male status with respect to mate availability. So, being a high status males (with respect to mating) now says less about material wealth, than about physical beauty.

      Before women entered into the workforce, so main reason that women married wealthy men was for financial support. If money is no longer a necessity, they can look for high phenotypical quality men. In the Western world, gender equality, the sexual revolution, and in particular the advent of the contraceptive pill has given women more freedom when choosing a partner. The contraceptive pill brought about a distinction between childbearing and sexuality, enabling women to choose to be with a partner who suited them but who was not necessarily the most suitable partner to bear children with (usually an older man with a relatively good income). The pill also gave women the option of delaying childbirth or rejecting the notion of having children altogether. And cougar women are the significantly becoming more common in society. There are also several indicators as to why women are choosing this type of relationship; they are attracted to younger men simply because of their youth and the physical features that accompany youth. In the Western world, women are increasingly of similar education and income levels to men, are taking on senior roles in the workplace, and are gaining more status.

      Nowadays the age gap distribution in undevelopment countries show us that education, urbanisation, economic independence is key in determining at what age women marry, and depressing spousal age gap. Large spousal age differences are especially found at polygynous unions. According to 2012 Census Bureau data, less than 5% of husbands are 15 or more years older than their wives of the total married population.

      You can bet that, in general, some middle aged western men getting beautiful mail order brides would not have gotten them if these ones were western. This is a specific scenario where women lower their standards under socio economic duress. Economic and social conditions for women in former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, or Latin America are a motivational factor in finding foreign arrangements, but you should get the point.

      Women (humans in overall) use non-compensatory choice heuristics, not strategies making trade-offs among attributes (e.g., weighted averaging among educational level/incomes, attractiveness, personality, etc). For example, when faced with choosing one potential mate from different online profiles, people eliminated individuals who are not acceptable on a given threshold of attractiveness, first they eliminate anyone who does not meet their standards on the limiting factor: attractiveness; and of those remaining they eliminated anyone who does not meet their standards for education, personality, etc. It is a linear process. But you have to pass the appearance check.

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