Who has more "deal breakers"? Men or women?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Folks, we will be painting with broad brushes here. You have been warned.
Whether it be a one night stand, friends with benefits or long term relationships. Which of the two genders has more (typical) deal breakers.

Women’s deal breakers are: Short men. No or low confidence. No job or minimum wage job.

Men’s deal breakers are: Obesity.

Not saying any of this is just. It does seem to have a ring of truth to it though. So in your opinion, do women typically have more “deal breakers” than men?
Does any of this matter? (No)

2

I don’t think a lack of a job would matter for a one-night stand, would it?
I suspect most genders would find a partner with no job to be off-putting when seeking out a long-term partner, though.

And as a hetero woman, “obesity” is a deal breaker for me too, far more so than being short or having a low-paying job. As is poor hygiene, for any kind of relationship, even chatting for five seconds at the bus stop.

And I don’t know why you think “lack of confidence” is a deal-breaker for women. Most “confident” men are controlling and manipulative, so I consider being “confident” to be a deal-breaker. “Honest” is far better- you don’t know the answer, you don’t know how to do it, you admit it. A valuable trait more men should strive to acquire.

3

Women. A woman has more to lose by picking a bad partner than a man since women invest more in procreation and offspring, and because women put their health and mobility at risk in ways that men do not when they get pregnant, so she is going to be the more selective gender.

4

and age. Basically markers that are signs of infertility are deal breakers for a man. Obesity and being too old are probably the biggest deal breakers for men.

Also a woman being too crazy is a deal breaker for some men, but not others.

5

I am not looking for female friends. Given that I do not have a salary, I can not.

6

I find age (woman must be younger than the guy) or height (guy must be taller) are almost universal deal breakers for women.

7

hmmm. In my entire life, I have only dated 2 men older than I. Being 5’4", I would have had to search to find shorter men, but I have happily dated men about my height.

I do agree that most women prefer taller men, but I believe the preference for older men fades as a woman matures, especially now that women provide for themselves and don’t need an older, established man for financial support.

8

Sneak Brag Alert:

Not so sure about the age thing either. My GF is 47 and has been a gym rat all her life. And she has beautiful long red hair. She has no shortage of 20-something year old guys crushing on her.

9

There are multiple factors (a woman your own age is someone you can relate to on a cognitive and emotional level which is attractive, having a peer you can relate to) but fertility declines with age, which is going to affect attractiveness.

10

I’m a woman and height does not matter to me.

11

The OP was discussing confidence, not “confidence” (whatever that means).

12

You know, you might be doing yourself a service if you learned the differences between “friend”, “friend with benefits”, “lover”, “long term significant other” and “prostitute”. One of them is how much they give a shit about your financial status.

Like so many things, it varies a lot with the individual. Someone mentioned “age” as a deal breaker for men and the relationship to fertility, but I’ve met quite a few guys for whom age was a deal breaker as a matter of power: in their late 20s or early 30s, they wanted girls of 18 but ran away if the object of their attentions turned out to be 28. And women are as likely to have “age” as a limiting factor, and again for a multitude of reasons beyond the purely biological or economical.

Speaking of economical, I keep hearing about how “women want a man who makes more than she does” but my personal experience has been more along the lines of “some men are convinced that a woman should not earn more or have a higher degree than her man”.

13

Surely for a ONS economics are not in play?

I’d say women have more deal-breakers for casual sex, but that it’s about equal for relationships.

14

I would argue that men have fewer dealbreakers, but that their dealbreakers are more difficult for women to overcome than vice versa.

For most men, the primary dealbreaker is appearance, whereas women’s dealbreakers are more intangible - confidence, personality, wealth, etc.

A man who lacks confidence or good personality can acquire it. But if a woman is very ugly, it will be almost impossible for her to overcome that, because many men won’t even give her enough of a chance for intangible positive attributes to shine through.

15

You should change your username from CCitizen to DDowner. Wah wah.

16

Back when I was single I tried speed dating a number of times. It was cheap and fun. I was early for the second one and struck up a conversation with the organizer and mentioned I’d gotten no hits on the first one.

“Oh,” she said “totally normal. You picked lots of women, right?”

“Uh… yeah, actually, I think I said yes to half, at least. What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “These things all go the same way. The men will all agree to exchange contact information with lots of women - usually half or more of the women they meet. They’ll pick the prettiest women more, but they’re not that predictable and all the women will get at least a few yeses. The women will all pick one to three men, no more, and will only pick the most handsome ones; a few others guys might get one hit and half have no chance at all.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s depressing.”

She shrugged. “It happens every time, and every time we try to change it and it never does. And we wish we could. It’s bad for our business model; men who don’t look like Ryan Gosling give up after one or two events, so our churn of male customers is through the roof and the word of mouth we get among men is not good. It’s every speed dating outfit, it’s always the same.” And sure enough, before the event started, her speech was practically begging the women to be open to exchanging emails. Anyway, I got two hits total in three events with that company, so I’m not the best looking guy.

I went to another speed dating event organized by a reasonably successful Toronto-area columnist whose “specialty” is matchmaking and dating. I put those in quotation marks because while she is an excellent writer her understanding of men is comically wrong. WE know each other through a number of mutual contacts and I was talking to her before the event. As is her custom, she complained that there are no single men available in Toronto - a city of almost three million people, and one that had provided a full complement of men to her event. She went on to complain that what would happen at this event was the men would all pick just the most beautiful woman.

I explained that exactly the opposite would happen. She was incredulous and told me I was insane, so I bet her fifty bucks I was right. A few days later she sent me an email saying I’d gotten no hits, and an interac transfer for $50.

Honestly, I think women (at least in North America) are conditioned to be much, much pickier. I am not sure if that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or neither bad nor good. It just is, and I’ve nothing to complain about because I ended up with an amazing woman, so, hey, it all works out.

17

I’ve never wondered how fertile a woman was before trying to go out. In fact, the less fertile, the better.

18

No.

A woman has more to lose not because pregnancy but because a woman is far, far, FAR more likely to be beaten/raped/killed by her male partner than a man is by his female partner.

We aren’t thinking “I don’t want this guy because he might knock me up and he isn’t someone I want to have children with”, we’re thinking “I don’t want this guy because he’s been ignoring my boundaries and generally being creepy and he doesn’t seem safe.”

19

This is a major problem with online dating sites and apps too and people won’t admit it because it doesn’t fit the socially constructed narrative that men are the superficial ones. Men hit on everything that walks, women are only responsive to the most attractive minority of men and all the other men just give up eventually. I don’t know if being pickier is the same as having more deal breakers, but they are in the same continuum.

20

Domestic violence rates are about even, women are just as violent as men. My point was that on a subconscious level eggs are expensive and semen is cheap, and women have more to lose by getting pregnant with the wrong person so they are generally pickier and more tepid.

http://jezebel.com/5509717/domestic-violence-are-women-as-abusive-as-men