In which I pit Nice Guys

[blowero]

@Lilairen

Well, here’s a quick one if you want it: because for a variety of reasons, many women who use dating sites get a lot more responses than they can handle, I can see it being plausible for them to start adding additional “requirements” to their advertisements to cut down on the flow.

Also, it strikes me that dating sites have a weird interaction with the mainstream notion that the woman displays and the man approaches; the pattern still holds, as I noted, but she has the ability to, in that display, turn around and demand certain things of the men that approach.

I’d say you are using some pretty tortuous logic to, for whatever reason you have, try to convince me that men are just as concerned about height as women. I just don’t think that’s true; you haven’t convinced me.

I’m not trying to disprove it;

You sure seem to be.

I’m pointing out that it is a cultural issue,

No, I don’t think that it is. Perhaps to a small degree, but not entirely. There is most definitely a “hard-wired” component to physical attraction. It is not entirely cultural, not by a long shot.

and trying to generalise about all women from the behaviours of a particular culture strikes me as weird.

No, “most” is not “all”. Don’t confuse the two.

I have never seen these patterns that are being claimed as nigh universal among the people I spend a great deal of time with, and I believe this is because I don’t spend time with people who are strongly hooked into the culture that supports those behaviours.

So what you are saying is that none of your female aquaintences have boyfriends or husbands who are taller than they? I find that hard to believe. It’s certainly not all women. Preferences are as individual as the people who have them. All I said was that, by and large, on average, women are more concerned with height than men are. I didn’t say anything about “all” women.

The communities I hang out in are generally populated by people who prefer to choose partners from people they already know, people who don’t conform to mainstream gender stereotypes, and geeky sorts. This strikes me as evidence that the “men are like”/“women are like” stuff is cultural; it’s very strongly associated for me with “mainstream America”, which I only have a nodding acquaintance with.

I don’t understand. “Geeky” sorts can’t be tall?

[blowero]

@yosemite

Oh, no—I don’t think the requirements for men are nearly as stringent. Think of all the old geezers or non-hot guys who have no problem getting the chicks. They exude something that attracts women, but it sure as hell ain’t good looks.

Huh? And you think non-hot women are incapable of getting men? Do you think Roseanne and Oprah are virgins?

[ParentalAdvisory]

I would definitely go out with Roseanne and Oprah, but only for their money of course.

[yosemite]

@blowero

Huh? And you think non-hot women are incapable of getting men? Do you think Roseanne and Oprah are virgins?

I didn’t say non-hot women can’t get men. Just go down to the mall and see a bunch of non-hot women with (usually) non-hot men. I was specifically was talking about non-hot women getting young, hot men. That’s something you don’t see so often.

And regarding Roseanne: have you* seen* her ex-husbands? Do any of them remotely look like Jude Law? Are any of them a hot young guy?

And as far as Oprah goes, I believe she’s had the same committment-phobic boyfriend for years now. And she’s not ugly. She is sometimes fat, but not ugly. And once again, while her longtime boyfriend isn’t exactly ugly, he ain’t Jude Law, Will Smith, or anything remotely close to it.

You know, let’s just back up here a little bit. To the part where you try to claim that men are judged just as stringently by their looks as women are. Let’s just do that.

How many over-45 actresses (or better yet, over-50 actresses) are hot leading ladies? How many men are, in comparison, still considered hot leading men? How many magazines can you list that are geared towards helping men look better, cosmetically, and fashion-wise? Let’s compare that number to women’s magazines. And let’s go to television and magazine ads. How many of these are geared towards preying on men’s insecurity about their looks? Compare that number to the ones preying on women’s insecurity about their looks.

You know, I can think of two actors right off the top of my head that still can have “leading man” roles, while their female counterparts? No way in hell. Two of my favorites: Richard Dean Anderson. He’s in his early 50s. A lot of us still think he’s hot. He’s got greying hair. Mostly grey, actually. He doesn’t look like he’s in his early 50s, but mid-late 40s at least. Not young. Almost all grey hair. Hot. How many grey haired, mid-late 40s women can you name that are still able to play leading ladies? And the other: Tom Berenger. Also early 50s. Looks like mid-late 40s. Pot belly. Big ol’ pot belly. This man is not a trim, fit person. He’s still playing leading men, he’s still considered hot by a lot of us. How many oveweight mid-late 40s actresses still get leading lady roles? Care to name a few?

I don’t see how anyone can say that the pressure or expectation is the same on both sides. There’s no way that it is.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Aeschines

The taxonomy of sucky guys–cheapasses, milquetoasts, social incompetents–I can’t argue with that.

That hurt. My idea of a perfect date is buying a 50 cent loaf of bread and eating it under a bridge, now I am supposed to feel bad for saving money?

@Aeschines

Men’s focus on looks is superficial and unfair, but in reality what men want is fairer and more achievable than what women want, for one simple reason: what men want–a hot body and pretty face–is absolute, whereas what women want–money, power, rank, and dominance–is relative. Let me explain.

If a guy doesn’t find you hot, it really is nothing personal. It is not a slam on your character or who you really are. In addition, because looks are an absolute, or non-relative, condition for attraction, your good looks do not detract from those of another person. Among equally physically attractive women, guys will indeed then go for the best character. This, coupled with the fact that most women have the potential to make themselves basically attractive, means that, aside from that first filter of looks, the other filters are fairly meritocratic. The big exception is that guys will generally be pressured not to pair up with someone outside their social system or class; this pressure comes both from men and women who have an interest in preserving the class/social structure. Needless to say, however, that it is far more likely for a rich guy to marry a poor gal than vice versa.

With women, however, the selection criteria are relative. Another guy’s high social rank lowers mine; his higher wealth makes mine seem like peanuts. It’s realitive. So even if I can provide a woman a very high standard of living in an absolute sense, she will still reject me if my competitors can do better. Women do compete with each other in the looks area by getting buff and dressing well, but the limit to what can be done there is quickly met with. There is no limit to the competition guys can engage in when it comes to wealth and power. Competition is a bitch.

This isn’t true though, looks are relative. Look at the ‘beautiful’ women of 100 years ago. 100 years before plastic surgery, walking around half naked in summer, tanning, good nutrition.

Hell, I live in Bloomington and women who would turn heads back in my hometown are mediocre looking here. Looks are as relative as anything else, hence the phrase ‘mary anne ugly’. I’m trying to dig up some pictures but the google phrase ‘beautiful women 1800s’ is coming up empty. Suffice it to say I have seen enough pictures of what beautiful women of 100 years ago looked like to know they are not beautiful by todays standards. Maybe some are above average, but not by much. I assume in 100 years when our understanding of nutrition, weight loss, plastic surgery and whatnot is more advanced the beautiful women of today will be mediocre too.

PS where did you go to grad school?

[Wesley_Clark]

@passengerpigeon

I found a problem with your analysis.

–p

Would you prefer a guy who is poor, cheap, a doormat and a social pariah? If not then you are agreeing with Aeschines. I think women don’t understand what guys mean whey they say

@Aeschines

As every guy knows, women want a guy with money, power, and social status.

What we mean is that women, in the broadest sense, prefer men with these things. At the very least they find them more attractive.

I want one of the women who jumped on Aeschines for saying this to say to me that they would find a guy who is poor, cheap, a doormat and a social pariah more attractive than a guy who is wealthy, powerful, respected and famous. None of you can do it.

[Lilairen]

@blowero

So what you are saying is that none of your female aquaintences have boyfriends or husbands who are taller than they? I find that hard to believe. It’s certainly not all women. Preferences are as individual as the people who have them. All I said was that, by and large, on average, women are more concerned with height than men are. I didn’t say anything about “all” women.

No, I am saying that, aside from that one girl in high school, I have never heard a woman express that height is a particularly important component of her relationship-forming desires. I am willing to believe that there exist women who have it as a requirement (given that I met someone that looney once); I know of women who have it as one of the potential components of an aesthetic preference, but none of them seem to consider it anything more than a bonus if present, in much the same category as hair colour.

Nor have I seen any evidence in my own life (both personally and among the people I know) that height difference tendencies within relationships are anything more than the statistical fact that men are, on average, taller than women.

The hypothetical women who treat height as some sort of shibboleth strike me, personally, as being far more closely resembling sitcom characters than real people. And my impression of sitcom characters has been, for quite some time, that they more closely resemble how people think others behave than how people do behave; caricature rather than character. (This is also my impression of most personals ads, FWIW.)

[Kimstu]

WC: I want one of the women who jumped on Aeschines for saying this to say to me that they would find a guy who is poor, cheap, a doormat and a social pariah more attractive than a guy who is wealthy, powerful, respected and famous.

Wrong: you should be comparing the guy who is “wealthy, powerful, respected and famous” with a guy who has only average levels of wealth, power, respect, and fame. I think plenty of us would prefer the ordinary Joe to the fat-cat. Me, for one.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Kimstu

WC: I want one of the women who jumped on Aeschines for saying this to say to me that they would find a guy who is poor, cheap, a doormat and a social pariah more attractive than a guy who is wealthy, powerful, respected and famous.

Wrong: you should be comparing the guy who is “wealthy, powerful, respected and famous” with a guy who has only average levels of wealth, power, respect, and fame. I think plenty of us would prefer the ordinary Joe to the fat-cat. Me, for one.

I believe you would prefer an ordinary joe. I myself would prefer a plain or slightly cute woman over a beauty queen. It doesn’t mean that in the broadest sense looks are important to me and the vast majority of men or that I will find a pretty woman more attractive than a very unattractive woman. The opposite of beauty is ugliness and the opposite of wealth, power and social status is poverty, weakness and social stigma. Just as men generally prefer more attractive women over less attractive women prefer men with money and social status over men who have no money and bad social status.

“Average” is relative and always has been. Average may just mean ‘minimal amount to be attractive to me’. What about a guy who has below average levels of wealth, power and social status, is he more attractive or less attractive to you than guys who have the average level?

[Wesley_Clark]

@Wesley Clark

It doesn’t mean that in the broadest sense looks are important to me and the vast majority of men or that I will find a pretty woman more attractive than a very unattractive woman.

That should say

It doesn’t mean that in the broadest sense looks *aren’t * important to me and the vast majority of men or that I will find a pretty woman more attractive than a very unattractive woman.
Anyway what I mean is that the gap between poor, socially stigmatized and weak men vs average men is much larger than the gap between average vs rich, powerful and famous/well respected men. Thats like if a woman said ‘I had a choice between dating an engineer and a doctor and I chose the doctor, so i’m not concerned with money’. This is not true, if she had chosen a guy on welfare over the doctor she would not be concerned about money. Choosing a guy who is at least average or slightly above average over a guy who is way above average doesn’t mean you don’t care about these things, it just means you aren’t obsessed with them.

It also reminds me of the show Joe Millionaire when people were making a huge fuss over how he chose the woman he fit with more than the most beautiful. Problem was all the women on that show were at the very least attractive, if not beautiful. So no, he was not deep he was just not totally into looks, he just had minimal requirements that had to be met. Once those were met he went on personality.

I hope this doesn’t come across wrong because there are alot of insults going around on this thread. What I mean is that I doubt any women here can tell me that they find guys on welfare who are spit on and laughed at more sexy than normal men who make 40k and get along with their neighbors, or men who are famous and wealthy. The common denominator between the wealthy man and the average man is that they both have more money, power and social status than the guy on welfare.

[Wesley_Clark]

On the same token it is safe to assume men prefer women with average or higher levels of money, power and social status over women who are below average. So my entire comparison could be wrong.

[Kimstu]

WC: *Anyway what I mean is that the gap between poor, socially stigmatized and weak men vs average men is much larger than the gap between average vs rich, powerful and famous/well respected men. *

Probably, but the point is that Aeschines said:

As every guy knows, women want a guy with money, power, and social status. […] So even if I can provide a woman a very high standard of living in an absolute sense, she will still reject me if my competitors can do better.

That is very clearly stating that women as a group want the most “high-ranking” guy out there in terms of money, power, and social status. Not just that they don’t want a guy who’s a complete failure in those areas, but that they want the guy who’s the biggest success.

Since many of us do, in fact, prefer the ordinary joes to the big shots, he got called on that statement, and rightly so. Just because we would generally not prefer a despised and destitute pariah to an ordinary joe doesn’t mean that we actually agree with Aeschines.

[catsix]

CanvasShoes said:
Good GOD cat, we all realize that you’re the ultimate self appointed Diva in protecting all that is masculine, but for someone who professes to prefer writing and thinking “logically and analytically” when it comes to men you’re anything but.

As opposed to your level headed Caps Lock laden posts? You’re the picture of not getting overly emotional.

Do you think that a man is being “nice” if when rejected for a date, he starts berating and verbally abusing the woman he just asked out?

What the fuck are you talking about? This thread’s been quite the opposite of your ‘men are always wrong’ mantra.

If you think that no, he’s not being nice, then BINGO! That’s WHO we’re talking about. Those men, and JUST those men who pretend to be nice, but who aren’t. And not only aren’t, but who are assholes in the bargain.

If you keep getting assholes, maybe you ought to change your parameters.

In this pitting, the OP very clearly pointed out the type of person she was talking to. The guy in the OP DID fall under the SPNG category by going on and on about how bad women are, and how they always screw him over and so on (paraphrased).

If all the women he’s dated talk to him the way the OP did, no wonder he has a very negative opinion. I’ve already stated my opinion of the one who put her boyfriend in the dog house because he didn’t buy her the ring she wanted.

Again, no you didn’t. No woman in THIS thread has said any such thing. You’re just not paying attention, as per usual you’re letting your knee jerk need to jump to the defense of any imagined slight to a male, whether deserved or not.

Ahh, the histrionics again. At least you’re never surprising with your accusations. I see bitching and moaning from women about ‘always finding the same kind of guy’, I’m going to tell them it’s because they’re lookin for the wrong kind.

yosemite said:
And as far as Oprah goes, I believe she’s had the same committment-phobic boyfriend for years now.

How do you know he’s the commitment-phobic one? Nice assumption there based on the unfair stereotype that all men are afraid to commit.

[SusanStoHelit]

@catsix

If all the women he’s dated talk to him the way the OP did, no wonder he has a very negative opinion.

And just what did I say to give him such a negative opinion? I may not have been cooing and calling him pet names, but I can assure you that I was nothing but polite.

@catsix

How do you know he’s the commitment-phobic one? Nice assumption there based on the unfair stereotype that all men are afraid to commit.

It’s not an assumption- in interviews Oprah has stated repeatedly that she spent most of her relationship with Stedman wishing that he would marry her. Now that she seems to have dealt with some of her personal issues she doesn’t seem to care as much about making it official, though.

[yosemite]

I’m not CanvasShoes, but I have a few tidbits of input I’d like to add here:

@catsix

As opposed to your level headed Caps Lock laden posts?

CanvasShoes, bless her heart, uses caps lock in places where the rest of us would use italics or bold. I don’t think she’s more or less emotional than the person (like me) who uses italics.

If you keep getting assholes, maybe you ought to change your parameters.

I don’t think that every woman here is complaining about always getting assholes. They stay away from assholes (as in the Nice Guy Asshole type). They are commenting on how Nice Guy is bitching because the women he wants won’t date him, without acknowledging that perhaps this is at least partly his own fault, for being an Asshole. Some others are commenting on Nice Guys who pester them, and then when they reject Nice Guy (whose attention they never solicited), he blames them for rejecting him. Neither of these things have anything (note: italics ;)) to do with the kind of men these women choose to date.

How do you know he’s the commitment-phobic one? Nice assumption there based on the unfair stereotype that all men are afraid to commit.

This seems to be common knowledge among the gossip rags. I don’t know he’s the one with the commitment issues, but that’s what I get from my fleeting memories of Oprah interviews I’ve read, etc. I could be wrong, though. Does it really matter either way? She’s had this guy for a long time; they’re not married. But more to my original point, he’s not a Jude Law lookalike. He’s just some ordinary-looking guy who is about her same age.

[clairobscur]

@Wesley Clark

On the same token it is safe to assume men prefer women with average or higher levels of money, power and social status over women who are below average. So my entire comparison could be wrong.

I’m unconvinced. It seems to me most men don’t feel very concerned about money, power and social status when chosing a partner. I would even suspect that it’s more often the contrary : men seeking women with less money, power and social status because it makes them (men) feel more secure.

[Incubus]

Slight hijack:

Anybody see this Sunday’s Opus?

Old dude tries to hit on some young thing, who gives him a ppbbbththt! for being too old. So he hits on some older woman, and she gives him a ppbbbththt! for being too poor :smack:

Of course, the guy was a :wally but it still kind of sucks for the guys that are ugly and poor.

[Nightime]

How many magazines can you list that are geared towards helping men look better, cosmetically, and fashion-wise? Let’s compare that number to women’s magazines. And let’s go to television and magazine ads.

The flaw in your logic is that these fashion/cosmetics/etc things are meant to impress other women, not men.

You can’t blame fashion or cosmetic pressure on men. Women are a harsher judge of other womens’ appearances than men are.
As a sidenote, I recently heard a woman ask her friend “didn’t you wear those shoes yesterday?”. Is that really a fashion mistake? I wear the same shoes every day…

[yosemite]

@Nightime

The flaw in your logic is that these fashion/cosmetics/etc things are meant to impress other women, not men.

You can’t blame fashion or cosmetic pressure on men. Women are a harsher judge of other womens’ appearances than men are.

There’s some truth that women cause some pressure to other women, but I can’t seriously believe that anyone here is trying to make the case that men face the same pressures to look good as women do, or that men are judged as harshly by their looks as women are. I’m not saying that men don’t feel any need to look good, but the pressure isn’t even remotely in the same ball park.

I’m not saying that women don’t notice a hot-looking guy, and don’t admire them. But all you have to do is look as some of the less-than-outstanding-looking leading men (of all ages) to know that a guy doesn’t have to be young, thin, or every especially handsome to be considered hottie material to many. (Read my comments about grey-haired, 50-something Richard Dean Anderson and pot-bellied, 50-something Tom Berenger. These guys are still considered “hotties” in many circles. I don’t see too many grey-haired or fat women in that same age range being called that. Why do you suppose that is?)

[Nightime]

I was responding to your use of fashion and cosmetic ads for women as evidence that they are under more pressure to look good.

The pressure comes from other women, not from men.
Also, it is easy to find a characteristic which is more valued in one gender. You seem to think that since more older men are considered attractive that proves that men face less pressure over appearance.

However, it would be equally conclusive (read: not very) to say that since short women are considered more attractive than short men, women must have it easier.

Notice that by choosing a specific characteristic, you can “prove” whatever you want.