Did you know people that despite not seeming like much of a "catch" easily found sex partners?

What I was wondering is how two gay men could spend five minutes in her company and correctly figure out that “she liked to fuck.” She was not attractive enough to get men’s attention on that basis, but clearly she sent out some signals that men picked up on. THAT was the mystery.

THAT is the relevance to this thread, namely how unattractive people can still be awash (as it were) in sex partners.

Sorry, I should have s-p-e-l-l-e-d this out in my post.

Maybe that’s the close cousin to GAYDAR… LAYDAR?

Men are often crap at knowing what women find attractive in a mate.

Yes, we like clean/groomed to at least a minimal standard. Buff, money, etc. all very nice but what women a lot of women want but don’t get is being treated like a fellow human being rather than a vending machine that, if the proper magic words are said or actions taken, will dispense sex.

The short, plain looking not terribly well-groomed guy of modest means is getting dates because, as noted, he strikes up conversations with women and by doing so frequently enough he’ll eventually find one who thinks he’s an acceptable dating/fucking partner. But he’s also probably having an actual conversation with her rather than trying out “pick up lines” or trying to “figure her out”.

Used to see a lot of those sorts of hookups at SF conventions - overweight nerds getting laid because they start off having an actual conversation regarding mutual interests, both (or more) parties realize they’re interesting people even if not in pretty packaging, and things go on from there. Also angry nerds furious they’re not getting laid and who can’t figure out the “secret”. The secret is be a decent human being to start rather than a butt-hurt, nasty, controlling, angry person intent on extracting sex and nothing else. And understand that no matter suitable you may be, you won’t always get laid. Have interests beyond just getting laid so other things makes you happy and fulfilled.

Perhaps you are underestimating the attractiveness of a woman who “likes to fuck”?

I thought this thread was mainly focusing on guys? Because most women can easily find sex partners regardless of what they look like. There doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery to that.

Post title : Did you know people that despite not seeming like much of a “catch” easily found sex partners?

Sockpuppet or mistake?

TV Tropes calls this the Kavorka Man, apparently from a reference to Kramer on Seinfeld.

Honestly, here it is. There’s not a lot else to it.

Act confident (whether or not you are), chat up as many women as possible, leave them alone if they say no and move on to the next one, and know how to carry on good conversation. It works.

I didn’t get this until I was in my 20s. I looked pretty much the same, but went from getting no dates to having as many dates as I wanted. Any guy can get dates just by doing this.

Things NOT to do:

  1. Act entitled and get pissed off if a woman says no.

NOTHING is less attractive than a sense of entitlement. People hate that. Hell, they hate it in non-romantic contexts.

There are a lot of weird myths about sex and dating that people believe in spite of the evidence or the fact that they just don’t make sense, and the SDMB seems to have a lot of people who stick to those myths, which is kind of surprising to me. The idea that you need to be some kind of super-attractive 9/10 person to have sex is common, even though the 1-10 scale thing is a bit silly, and the concept doesn’t hold up to even brief thought. (Why would two 4s wait around for 9s to notice them instead of hooking up with each other?). Same with the idea that getting laid is something extremely difficult and rare, when it’s something humans have routinely engaged in since before history.

Generally it’s just ‘being willing, not setting standards too high, and putting in the effort’. You and your buddy were sitting around talking about how unattractive this guy is, while he was off chatting up pretty girls to see if one was interested in him.

The people I know who do a lot of hooking up generally get turned down a dozen or more times per day or week, even more if they’re using online apps and you include quiet non-response as a rejection. They just don’t treat every attempt to connect with someone as a big deal, or getting rejected as traumatic.

Was there only contact with her really just one five-minute meeting, or did they know her a bit more from mutual friends or reputation? Also, being less attractive can be an advantage - a lot of guys will be intimidated by the super-hot chick who’s dressed to the nines at the bar and will have to psyche themselves up to it, but will casually take a shot at the average-looking woman, maybe even as a warm up to talking to hot chick later on.

They met her once at a party of mine. Maybe talked for more than five minutes, but not much more.

I can see what Pantastic said being true for many, or even most, people. There are people for whom getting laid, or dating for that matter, is both difficult and rare. If you can’t fake confidence, for instance, you may be out of luck. I’m naturally shy, and a few bad experiences as a teenager obliterated what confidence I had. Throughout college and young adulthood I was more interested in dating than hooking up, although I was open to the latter if I had clicked with someone. When I met Ms. P it worked because of a few factors, including a) she made the first move and wasn’t immediately turned off by my lack of confidence and b) it happened so fast I didn’t have time to think about it a lot. Whether it’s something that can be found in DSM, or just a flaw in my character, it made my life difficult for a long time. If the unthinkable happened and I found myself “back on the market” I don’t think it would be any easier.

My best friend from my military days was like that. He was very ordinary-looking. Not tall, not ruggedly handsome, thinning hair. Kind of a sleepy look on his face, although he had an engaging smile and a good sense of humor. But everywhere we went together, women stared at him with a look that said “Yeah, I’d fuck that”, and he was never wanting for sexual partners. It was baffling to me.

I’d be curious to know if any female dopers have known guys who made them think “what do they see in him?” Conversely, has anyone known a guy who made them say 'why can’t he get dates?" I know that some women saw me as being in the latter category, but if they had seen what it looked like when approached someone they would have known.

Could it be as simple as something akin to this coming up in the five minute conversation?

I’ve had many friends say that about me.

I’m gonna go with this as the most successful attempt to describe that ineffable something that some guys have. And even though it sounds like it might be in contradiction to “confident,” I would add “unassuming” to the mix. In other words, a guy who is knows who he is and is comfortable with himself, and has nothing to prove by conquests.

The whole package can be pretty subtle. I was strongly attracted to my SO within an hour or so of meeting him. Now that I know him well I think “confident” and “focusing 100% of his energy on the girl of the moment” and “nothing to prove” were big factors, but I couldn’t have articulated that at the time. I just felt like he was someone I really wanted to know better.

He does match several characteristics others have mentioned … he’s short (5’6") and pretty scruffy. And yet all his life he’s had women drooling over him. In fact, he once had a roommate get exasperated to the point of anger with him - “how come YOU get all the girls???” He honestly didn’t know why. Which is probably part of his charm.

.

Ms. P would say something similar to you about me. I lacked the “confident”, but had the “focusing 100% of energy on girl of the moment”. I also always had an unwillingness to be anything other than what I really am. Feigning confidence would be inauthentic. I was past thirty before it happened, but somebody did immediately feel drawn to me, and had stayed that way for 24 years. I certainly never got all the girls. I got almost none of them. I don’t blame them; I accept that I don’t have what most women are looking for. I was lucky to find one of the few for whom I did.

Not everyone finds the same physical features/clothing style/personality traits attractive.

In my single days, there was nothing more annoying than one of my friends violating “bro code” and acting in weird, rude, angry or drunk or pushing to get everyone to leave because they aren’t getting enough attention.
One thing I noticed was that a lot of guys tend to go out in packs. Which makes sense. It’s generally more fun to go out with friends than by yourself. But I think that can also act like a bit of a crutch where they go out and don’t really interact with anyone else. I think a good skill (particularly as you get outside of a school environment) is an ability to do stuff by yourself and meet other people.

Being able to lick your eyebrows is also an asset.

This is a myth, although a lot of men believe it. I’d say it’s true that most women can find sex partners more easily than most men can, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “easy”.

Especially if your definition of “sex partner” includes basic requirements like “probably won’t physically endanger his partner” and “probably won’t spite-fuck his partner because he wants the sex but feels resentful and humiliated that his partner isn’t prettier, so soothes his insecurities by making fun of her afterwards”.

Most not-very-attractive men who envy not-very-attractive women for supposedly having no problem getting all the sex partners they want have no idea how shittily many men will treat female sex partners as punishment for the crime of not being very attractive.