Just curious what the practical and emotional calculations are that go on in a middle class woman’s mind when she’s dating different economic stratas.
Assuming a guy is pleasant, reasonably intelligent and fun to be around, how would the scope of financial means (wealthy - middle class - poor) affect the real world probability of his getting laid within the first 3 dates.
I’m figuring that the rich and poor guys would have nothing to prove, and nothing to lose respectively and these attitudes are attractive to lots of women, while the striving middle class guys would have to work the hardest to get some action.
And please don’t be disengenous and say “it doesn’t matter”. Relative power relationships matter a lot to most women even if it’s not polite to acknowledge it overtly. My thought is that if the women perceives the man is more economically powerful, or less economically powerful than she is, she is more likely to be receptive to sexual overtures than with someone at her economic level.
I think part of the problem with your thesis is that you are painting with too broad a brush.
For starters I know there are lots of poor guys who are striving, and I’m guessing there are a lot of middle class guys with nothing to prove (whatever you mean by that exactly).
The truth is that to a lot of women, it doesn’t matter.
This board, being what it is, seems to attract an exceptionally high number of intelligent people, but every “Do women prefer X to Y” thread I’ve ever seen has been ultimately resolved with women popping in to mention that it’s never as simple as X and Y. There are other cues to consider.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some women who aren’t drawn to money or power or status, because there are. I think in most cases they’re called groupies. And it’s not to say that most women (or men for that matter) wouldn’t enjoy being involved with someone who could provide economic excess. The simple fact is, though, that it’s only one of many considerations.
Take, for example, a wealthy man with poor hygeine vs. a middle class man who is well kept. It’s an over-simplification, but who do you think most women would choose? If the genders were suited to your tastes, who would you choose?
As far as getting laid more easily and often, I don’t think economic factors are really important so much as dedication to the result. I know plenty of average joes who go out every weekend and are generally successful in their quest to not go to bed alone that night. Of course, their standards are generally set pretty low to begin with, and they seem to get lower as the night wears on and their intoxication increases, but that’s their own prerogative and the ends justifies the means (to them at least).
The same could be said for wealthy guys. Being wealthy and hanging out in ritzy clubs doesn’t automatically increase their likelihood of getting laid simply because of that fact… they have to work at it just like anyone else. Granted, it’s probably easier for them to buy rounds of drinks and flash their bleached toothed smile and mention their Ferrari in passing, but they’re in competition with other guys who can do the same thing.
I’ll tell you what gets you laid/liked/loved. It’s not money. It’s how much of you says “man.” It’s something to do with being a little impassive, a little scruffy, a little burly and phleghmatic and opaque. You don’t want to show warmth. Just indirectly imply it.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but a few phony manipulators have ruined it for the rest of us guys who really want to show a woman how we feel. The gals by and large prefer someone they can imagine warming up to them rather than someone who demonstrates that warmth first. It’d almost inspire more trust to be curt and snappish, driving them away a little, than showing honest attraction.
You know Astro, I’ve wondered the same thing myself.
Although, I’m not rich, I got into an agruement (A freindly one) with one of my (very attractive) ex-girlfriends. It went a little something like this:
Me: “…Oh, please! give me a break! You would NOT be dating me if I scrubed toilets at McDonalds for a living!”
Her: “Oh bullshit! I don’t think how much money a guy makes before I will date him. My last boyfriend didn’t even HAVE a job!”
Me: “Yeah, right, that’s exactly it. -Because in your fucked up, female logic; a guy NOT having a job is “cooler” than a guy who bust his ass cleaning piss off of porcelain for a living.”
There are people that claim that if you want to get laid, you go through the trash at an ATM and find a receipt with a huge balance. you then arrange to give the girl of your dreams your phone number on the back of ‘your’ ATM receipt.
So the story goes, you will get a phone call about 0.37 seconds after she notices “your” bank balance.
That could be why Google lists 36,200 hits under fake atm receipts like this site
I think that any theories about who gets laid more often is wrong when it concerns money or the lack thereof. It’s just like the guys who complain that nice guys don’t get laid.
Personally, I’ve found that most guys who complain about not getting sex are whiners and don’t get laid because they are whiners. Most of the rest are beggers, and although I’m not a woman, that wouldn’t work for me if I were.
I actually had a theory about the very same thing, for different reasons though. Both the poor and rich have a greater amount of leisure time than the work-a-day middle class. For the rich, their money provides them more opportunities to be in situations that lead to getting laid - partying every night, renting shore houses, living in swankier parts of town. They have more access to drugs, more time to work on appearance.
Many poor people are poor because they work interesting but low paying jobs - artist, actor, bartender etc. That gets them laid. Many are poor because they live a lifestyle of liquor, drugs and skanks since they were teenagers, never went to college and never achieved much out of life. Others live a “ghetto” lifestyle of 40s, blunts and hittin it with hood rats. But I bet the average poor shuck driving a taxi
The middle class in their plain vanilla way leads a lifestyle of study, hard work, long term relationships and family. They neither desire a lifestyle of permiscuity nor live in an environment that provides opportunities for it.
If we can put the monetary issues aside, it’s often been suggested that middle class people in general tend to be much more inhibited generally than either the upper or the lower classes. More inhibition = less sex, so that might also imply the truth of the OP’s thesis.
I’ve just been re-reading Class so when I saw this thread I thought it was going to be about the social and cultural angles rather than the financial.