February 11, 2010

Dating and Age

From the NYT's "The New Math of Campus:"
North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60 percent female, is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges. Women have represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. Researchers there cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students, and black and Hispanic students....

And then there's this:
Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said....

Has this ever actually been studied? A huge fraction of psychology studies are done on college students under the often dubious assumption that they are representative of humanity, so why not actually study college students qua college students?

The U. of North Carolina is probably one of the top ten state flagship universities, so its male s students are not exactly losers in the big picture of things. And, no, there are no engineers on campus:
Stephen M. Farmer, North Carolina’s director of admissions, said that the university has a high female presence in part because it does not have an engineering school, which at most schools tend to be heavily male. ...

One of the things that's going on here is age: Many of these U. of North Carolina coeds who won't pay any attention to half the male undergrads would be charmed by the same guys if they were a half dozen years older, more experienced, and more prosperous. But 19-year-old male undergrads strike them as callow. (The rule of thumb for Hollywood movies is that the hero should be around age 35. The heroine should be considerably younger.)

At colleges in big cities, women do have more options. “By my sophomore year, I just had the feeling that there is nobody in this school that I could date,” said Ashley Crisostomo, a senior at Fordham University in New York, which is 55 percent female. She has tended to date older professionals in the city. [Probably some of whom are Fordham grads.]

But in a classic college town, the social life is usually limited to fraternity parties, local bars or coffeehouses. And college men — not usually known for their debonair ways — can be particularly unmannerly when the numbers are in their favor.

Our society uses the educational system to stratify by IQ. At the same time, the school system winds up stratifying socially by age, lumping males and females of the same birthyear together. And it maintains that age stratification longest for the highest IQ people (e.g., people who go to law school, grad school, and the like).

But young women tend to want slightly older, more worldly men, and high IQ young men tend to be particularly unworldly when they are young. They're thinking about Schrodinger's Cat or other kinds of difficult abstract ideas that you can only learn when you are young, rather than about the kinds of less lofty ideas that intrigue women.

Most other cultures have had less stratification of socializing by birth-year. A quick search suggests that in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, that ultimate authority for all this kind of top-of-the-head evo psych generalizing, Elizabeth Bennett is 20-years-old, while Mr. Darcy is 28.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

119 comments:

Tom Regan said...

A while back a friend told me that the ideal age for a female partner was half your own age, plus 7. So for a 30 year old man it would be 22, for a 40 year old man, 27 etc.
Years of politically correct brainwashing prompted me to reflexively recoil from this theory. But, when you look around you, and when you get more experience in life, it seems to be true.
So a college girl aged 21 would be ideally suited to a guy around 26-28. And a 21-year-old college guy's ideal girl would be 17-18.

John Seiler said...

Jayne Dallas said, "Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent."

She means 20 _percentage points_ and 10 _percentage points_.

I hope pointing this out doesn't prevent me from becoming the president of Harvard.

Squabble said...

Funny that you ended with a Mr Darcy reference, iSteve.

Yeah, there are antecedents to the Darcy character, but with all due respect to The Bard, and all of the other dude scribblers, I wonder if any writer came close to nailing what women REALLY want before Jane Austen wrote about Mr Darcy. Darcy is indeed what women want.

The latest Hollywood version of the story ends with the insanely materialistic, status crazed, social climber hottie and her hunk embracing on his family's opulent castle grounds.

agnostic said...

Aside from lack of worldiness, young guys are too emotionally unstable. Too likely to throw temper tantrums, and too likely to be in a general state of nervousness and anger. What fun-loving coed wants to hang around that guy?

Then there's the further handicap that college guys today have from not having grown up during wild times but sissified times. Higher docility, or lower boldness, is not bad for females, but it's a real killer for young guys.

Every week at '80s night I am always amazed at how little testosterone college guys today have. It's like a 6th grade dance where the young boys and girls may be near each other but rarely interact, aside from the occasional guy who backs up his butt into a girl's crotch -- it's an attempt to get into her personal space by being disarmingly goofy and absurd, but the role reversal just makes him look pathetic and effeminate.

They're totally unsupervised and surrounded by half-naked girls in a dark club with hormone-driving music, and yet they're remarkably well behaved. There are a few young guys who get attention, but why are they so rare today? Again, times are just less wild overall, so young guys don't have as much experience as they would have had in previous decades.

Simon said...

Nerd Pride! Yaay! :)

Personally I got a bright Southern Belle, age 25, about to graduate with her MA Economics, and afraid of being left on the shelf. In other parts of the US I expect 25 is 'just getting started', but when we married in her small town, she had just turned 27 and many of the locals assumed it must have been her second marriage.

Any decent but slightly nerdy men in their early-mid '20s reading this, I strongly recommend going for a small-town Southern girl. Just don't then wait 10 years to have kids!

Observer said...

Testy must feel like a proverbial 'kid in the candy store' with these posts, Steve-O!

You know what, I kinda feel this way myself, so please keep posts like these coming from time to time, since they can be very interesting -- and educational -- as well!

Anonymous said...

Re-written for Whiskey -

At a college which is 60% Male

“Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have boyfriends, so all the guys are fighting over that other 10 percent, who are sluts.”

North Carolina doesn't sound so bad, does it?


Steve mentioned Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice being the ultimate authority for "top-of-the-head evo psych generalizing".

The single most important film to the young male is James Bond. Adventure, killing, lots of different, hot, girls to fuck, which include those of your enemies.

Men and women may spend years in a fruitless search for their Mr Darcey, or inner James Bond.

I suppose one reason North Carolina women don't try to "get in early" with a young stud (sub-Alpha but with a little more maturing will become Alpha) is because he might go James Bond, and dump her.

Women want a guy ready to "settle down". A man can give that impression simply by being older.

OhioStater said...

Good point Steve. At a flagship campus like Carolina, Michigan, or Virginia, there aren't many male losers.

It seems to suggest that no matter the quality of the males as a whole, only the top 20% are eligible. So you could work at Goldman, and make $200k, but won't get the girl next to you since the top 20% at Goldman is >$1m a year!

It's as if female attraction is relative whereas male attraction is absolute (36-24-36).

How did we let our system get so screwed up?!

By the way, most of these men will end up earning less than the girls on campus, which has interesting social ramifications. Please Google New York Magazine "Alpha Women Beta Men".

Anyway, these girls are looking for lacrosse players. Those are the only acceptable men on campus.

l said...

Women have unrealistic expectations, which are encouraged by fairy tales, romance novels, Oprah and stuff they're taught at school -- feminist studies/sociology/psychology. The more educated, the less realistic.

Life will disappoint you, ladies. The sooner you accept this truth, the happier you will be.

Dr. Φ said...

I would speculate that the social obstacles limiting the access of coeds to more worldly men are relatively high compared to recent graduates. Thus, as bleak as the dating scene described, most college women look on college men as their dating pool.

Contrast this with the situation after graduation. Now 23 year old men are competing directly with the more worldly and prosperous 28 year old men for the attention of 23 year old women.

Anonymous said...

"Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, "

Leaving the other half as ready recruits for the PUA armies of Roissy and Tucker Max.

Anonymous said...

Reading the last two articles on marriages, it appears that American social model has all but collapsed and is in great need of reform. Why not move to an arranged introduction system traditional in Asian cultures (and which some Jews use).

1) Everyone gets married;
2) Everyone gets dates (though you've got to stop after three or so and make a decision of some sort)
3) Everyone is less insecure;
4) You don't have to make a fool of yourself at dance clubs all the time
5) Less divorce, teen pregnancy, etc.

I think certain groups of evangelical christians are also using this system, or at least trying.

Black death said...

So at UNC, a group of 100 students consists of 60 girls and 40 guys. But 20 of the guys are considered so nerdy that the girls won't have anything to do with them, leaving 20 suitable males. Of these, half have steady girlfriends, leaving a pool of 50 girls chasing 10 guys. Better odds than when I was in college. Still, I think the answer to this pressing problem is obvious - polygamy! Fundamentalist Mormon or islamic missionaries should be turned loose on campus, so each suitable male could have a harem. sounds good to me!

- Black Death

Anonymous said...

At BYU, the guys all leave after their freshman year and go on a two-year church mission. They come back, age 21 and 22, and are sophomores with the 18-19 year old girls, which really seems to work. The maturity and interest levels match up well.

Anonymous said...

Tom,

By your formula I should be with a man the exact same age as my mother. It isn't necessarily politically correct brainwashing that makes women like men closer to their own age. It does seem more natural to date men somewhat older than me (5 to 10 years), but not 20-30 years older. Luckily, I'm already married.

DYork said...

The U. of North Carolina is probably one of the top ten state flagship universities...

Google 'Eve Carson' and realize that that story got almost no national attention yet the rape hoax of a black stripper/prostitute by Duke students was a national event for a year.

Any guesses as to why?

Basil Ransom said...

Anytime girls say "there aren't enough men" it means the men around just aren't attractive enough.

Roger Devlin covered this - of the men that women are not attracted to, women go on as if they don't exist.

Anonymous said...

Steve, this is another ball out of the park, albeit low quant. Any decent presidential administration would make you czar of something.

(I once casually mentioned to a female co-worker that I date girls in the 20s; I'm early 40s. She recoiled as if she had encountered a child molestor. She even got vocal. The unpleasantness was eventually laughed off. This was the same female who spent all her spare time absorbed in the "Twilight" novels...in which a young woman is romanced by a man who is hundreds of years old...)

Lucinda said...

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett actually states her age as being "two and twenty".

OhioStater said...

A proposition: casual sexual relations don't lead to marriage.

And another proposition: a high marriage rate, in a diverse society, is only possible if relations between males and females are structured, orderly and regulated.

The Catholic Church was right all along!

OhioStater said...

Hey Steve. I'm a long time reader, and I might be reaching a little, but lets connect the dots.

You've noticed in a homogenous society like Japan the mobsters, basketball players, and janitors are Japanese, but a diverse society like America the mobsters are Italian, the athletes are black, and the janitors are Hispanic.

Also, you've noticed the presence of blacks (in cities and in popular culture) has caused whites to flee to suburbs and to home schooling for example.

When she says "there are only 20% we'd consider" I assume she is implying the other 20% is gay, Asian, black, short, or somehow not eligible for a good Southern girl.

Does the alpha male ideal for white men change in a diverse society? The bars they go to are not segregated. How does the presence of men of other races change white women's perception of white men?

Shawn said...

Why can you only learn about Schrodinger's Cat when you are young? lol

Anonymous said...

Steve wrote:

"Many of these U. of North Carolina coeds who won't pay any attention to half the male undergrads would be charmed by the same guys if they were a half dozen years older, more experienced, and more prosperous."


Man thats so true. Several men seem to peak at around 27-34, but most women are at their peak at 18-22.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, but Google seems to have fixed its Pat Buchanan glitch.

Chief Seattle said...

Tom Regan, was your friend muslim? I think that's one of Allah's quotations.


The only way those numbers work is if society is getting rid of a lot of surplus men. War is a great tool for keeping your own women in check - I'm surprised Orwell was so caught up in production statistics that he missed that one.

Unknown said...

Did it ever occur to these girls that proclaim they can't find anyone that maybe their standards are unrealistically high? Jayne Dallas' tone would indicate that she feels entitled to a boyfriend of her choosing just for showing up and being female.

It's also fairly well established that 80% of the women are going after 20% of the men, which she touches on albeit her flawed math. So what does she expect? They all want the alpha male and are told by society all her life that she deserves one, and now feels embittered when she realizes that her perception and reality aren't quite lining up.

dontneednostinkingmen said...

grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said....




Maybe she should try lesbianism... Isnt that the point of kicking out all the men from college? Keeping them from the young fertile women and the higher paying jobs.

Anonymous said...

Well, that's good news for me, since at 28, after spending 8 years in the army, I'm going back to school to finish my bachelor's. Like fishing in a barrel with dynamite, baby! Yeah!

Anonymous said...

Seems like China has a different problem.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5953508

BEIJING - China is asking where all the girls have gone.

And the sobering answer is that this vast nation, now the world's fastest-growing economy, is confronting a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as "gendercide" -- the phenomenom caused by millions of families resorting to abortion and infanticide to make sure their one child was a boy.

The age-old bias for boys, combined with China's draconian one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced what Gu Baochang, a leading Chinese expert on family planning, described as "the largest, the highest, and the longest" gender imbalance in the world.

Anonymous said...

Tom,

By your formula I should be dating someone exactly the same age as my mother. I don't think it is just politically correct brainwashing that makes women prefer men closer to their own age, rather than much older than them. I would find it very normal and natural to date men 5-10 years older than me, not so much to date men 20-30 years older than me. The formula just doesn't work as well for women over 30.

Anonymous said...

Since college liberals are for egalitarianism and inclusiveness, how about liberal coeds date and even marry working class local yokels or custodial workers(or their children)on the campus? Problem solved.

Anonymous said...

I dunno. I'm now in my 50's, Stanford grduate, never dated anybody who wasn't just about exactly my age, and when I was 30, married my husband, Wesleyan grad, who is exactly 6 months older than me. I am more comfortable w/ men my own age. Not sure what it proves, except that generalizations are just that.

Polly Sigh said...

The male/female divide seems to be worse among blacks probably because black males tend to be most brazenly alpha-male-ish, which gets them into all kinds of trouble and keeps them away from 'geeky' book-learning.

My theory is that the male/female imbalance is least among Asian-Americans(since Asian males are least alpha-male-ish and rather female-ish compared to other races), but since Asian females tend to prefer white males--and since no female wants to hook up with 'geeky' Asian males--, Asian men are probably bitter on campus.

Big Gomez said...

We always run into problems with the term "Hispanic". I would like to know the male/female divide on campus among white Hispanics, black Hispanics, Mestizo Hispanics, and Indio-Hispanics.

Are white Hispanics more like the rest of the white population or more like the other members of the 'Hispanic' tribe?

heehawlujah said...

What is the male/female divide on campus among Jews? Since Jewish men tend to be geeky and intellectual, my guess it's closer to 50/50.
And, it's probably closer to 50/50 among affluent white gentiles. But among 'white trash' elements, females are probably favored for college since so many 'white trash' guys end up using meth, imitating eminem, or drinking too much beer.

flenser said...

An interesting question is - why have SAT scores ceased to be an accurate predictor of college grades? Men have always outscored women on both the verbal and math portions of the SAT.

Here's a link showing SAT scores by sex from 1972 onwards. The male lead is remarkably constant over time. But female students now get consistently higher GPA's. Why is that?

Whiskey said...

Steve, I've blogged about this extensively.

One problem: DECLINING BIRTH RATES. Each age-cohort gets SMALLER (if you restrict to White only), and so each successive male cohort fishes in smaller waters for fewer fish. [The lack of real cross-racial dating among Latinos and Blacks, the latter of which have static to declining general numbers IIRC and both having few middle class people relative to population size anyway, makes limiting to White only analysis more productive IMHO.]

OhioStater: she is applying 20% to the ENTIRE male population at UNC, which is 40% of the student body -- 60% of it being female.

Richard -- the girl can HAVE an Alpha male ... for sex. And is willing to share him. Thinking that she can use her magical sex appeal to keep him.

EVEN Tiger Woods various bimbos, from porn stars to 20 year old Waitresses, who knew going in that he would never dump his supermodel wife from Sweden for them, developed strong fantasies that he would, leading to one of them putting out the famous phone messages.

The problem gets worse when you add the factor of time to the equation.

The college age woman can and will rack up more partners than geeky male contemporaries. She may not bed guys like Tucker Max and brag/blog about it (female bragging over bagging Alphas represents a SEA CHANGE in culture, it is now CELEBRATED), but there will be elements of that. She might well delay marriage for Grad School of some kind. She will as Steve notes, be looking for a smooth, suave, and successful guy in her early thirties, after much Alpha banging.

Problem: a guy she'd want, i.e. a guy a few years older, successful, SMOOTH, and whom women go crazy for, can pull a woman in her mid twenties at least. Almost ten years younger than her.

That leaves her with "the dregs," formerly untouchable Beta guys who have the success but not the smoothness and suaveness, who generate resentment (as the guy she had to "settle" for) and is quickly labeled "a Kitchen Bitch," ala Sandra Tsing Loh, Julia Powell (who's husband supported her), and others.

Or she can increasingly go "no compromises" and get sperm from an "Alpha" and raise the kid herself.

Age alone does not make a formerly geeky beta guy "Alpha." It does little than add monetary and social status success, NOT PUA smoothness, minor celebrity, and arrogant assurance that nearly every woman will bed him. Which are the qualities women don't stop desiring, they merely add social/financial success to the list.

This is NOT Jane Austen's day. In Austen's day, women would not brag about "sport-fucking" (to quote Tucker Max) the equivalent of Wickham. A desperation marriage between a former Alpha-chaser and a guy without much success with women is a formula for a "Kitchen Bitch" divorce.

Problem.

John Smyth said...

"But female students now get consistently higher GPA's. Why is that?"

Women tend to be more conscientious?

Anonymous said...

How does the presence of men of other races change white women's perception of white men?

White women mostly don't perceive nonwhite men as romantic possibilities at all, with a few obvious exceptions. When Asian men get tall enough to be acceptable, they go into the same category as acceptable Middle Easterners, Indians, and darkskinned Southern Europeans - more-or-less white, with weirder family members and better food. You are totally right that the perception of only 20% of the men being dateable has a lot to do with all the unacceptable short Asian men and all the unacceptable low class affirmative action admits.

flenser said...

since no female wants to hook up with 'geeky' Asian males



among 'white trash' elements, females are probably favored for college since so many 'white trash' guys end up using meth, imitating eminem, or drinking too much beer




I think it's safe to say that the typical commenter here is no alpha intellectual.

flenser said...

Women tend to be more conscientious?



if scholastic examinations measure conscientiousness, why doesn't this show up in the SAT's?

Big bill said...

The " half your age plus seven" rule was given to me as the age of first marriage. A guy of 22 is going to find himself railroaded and run through a ringer if he marries a woman of 22.

Most women are so set in their expectations of marriage that it takes a pretty mature guy not to get thrown in the backseat and the steering wheel jerked from his hands when she starts driving the marriage and family hell-for-leather where she wants it to go.

I think of that poor putz in the realtor commercial who is browbeaten by his wife and her realtor into buying a McMansion.

alonzo portfolio said...

I've been on the Berkeley campus almost continuously since 1986. First, women's looks have changed since the '80's - they're far less attractive and feminine than they used to be. So it's possible some men are just turned off, even before considering the adversarial attitudes instilled by the "gender studies" classes most women attend. Echoing Stanford anon, in the '70's Cal men had no problem landing even the most babealicious coeds; we never had 28 year-olds edging us out. But back then, women didn't have all-pervasive media feeding them a narrow and contrived definition of "cool." They made up their own minds. A few years ago at a flower stand near campus, I fell into conversation with a brickhouse latina from the Bakersfield area, an obvious AA type. I asked her why I never saw her with any male students, and she explained that she had "the disease." She said this meant that as a Chicano, she was supposed to be distrustful of whites.

OhioStater said...

It looks like there are a lot of women headed to the sperm bank. Where can I buy stock?

corvinus said...

One of the things that's going on here is age: Many of these U. of North Carolina coeds who won't pay any attention to half the male undergrads would be charmed by the same guys if they were a half dozen years older, more experienced, and more prosperous. But 19-year-old male undergrads strike them as callow. (The rule of thumb for Hollywood movies is that the hero should be around age 35. The heroine should be considerably younger.)

A while back a friend told me that the ideal age for a female partner was half your own age, plus 7. So for a 30 year old man it would be 22, for a 40 year old man, 27 etc.
Years of politically correct brainwashing prompted me to reflexively recoil from this theory. But, when you look around you, and when you get more experience in life, it seems to be true.
So a college girl aged 21 would be ideally suited to a guy around 26-28. And a 21-year-old college guy's ideal girl would be 17-18.


Agreed... when I was an undergrad (18-21 years old), the girls paid little or no attention to me, but when I came back as a grad student (26-28 years old) I had so many girls with their sights set on me it has gotten rather ridiculous. I feel as if I'm the center of some major drama playing around me but, in a very British manner, nobody tells me a thing.

Hence my assertion that men do not need to worry about getting a wife as many people think; the ratio for us stinks in our college years but the length of time we have to get a mate is much longer than it is for women, and we get more attractive as we get older (to a point).

AlphaOmega said...

One thing that is interesting is the sluttier the girl dresses, the better looking her sex partners.

Girls get dolled up to go home with 6'4" guys that look like A&F models.

CamelCaseRob said...

Whiskey, you are correct that most women who had some time-sharing relationship with an alpha in younger life eventually have to "settle" for a beta, but what about the beta males -- aren't they also settling when they decide to give up on getting the kind of women who *do* land alphas? Everyone except alpha males and females has to settle.

Anonymous said...

I am so tired of hearing about how Alpha males get all the women and Beta men get nothing. As if it was that easy to classify most men anyway. Men, if they are decent looking, fairly intelligent and possess basic social skills do not have problems getting dates. If you have admirable qualities women are going to like you.

Anonymous said...

A while back a friend told me that the ideal age for a female partner was half your own age, plus 7. So for a 30 year old man it would be 22, for a 40 year old man, 27 etc.
Years of politically correct brainwashing prompted me to reflexively recoil from this theory. But, when you look around you, and when you get more experience in life, it seems to be true.
---
The formula was proposed by one of the ancient Greeks -- I think Aristotle -- and isn't all that au courant for modern times when people have a life expectancy of 85 or more. A woman who marries a man of 40 in her late 20s will end up with at least 20 years' of lonely widowhood on the other end. (Woman's greater life expectancy of 6 years plus an age difference of 12 means a likelyhood of 18 years of widowhood.)

And as somebody pointed out, for women over 30, it's ridiculous. A 37-year-old woman is supposed to marry a 60-year-old? Outside of Hollywood and the uber-rich, and primitive African tribes, where does this actually happen?

--Happily, monogamously married for 17 years to a man six years my junior.

headache said...

Steve, yet another article which just proves who wou are head and shoulders above the topnotch MSM "writers".

SF said...

Your own sons must be around that age. I wonder whether they appreciate having a Dad who is actually trying to come up with some practical dating advice.

Anonymous said...

What does 'dating' mean in the modern context ? I don't think it means courtship. I think it means sex.

rob said...

Long and short of the article, women wish there were more very desirable men. Is that really unusual? Women have always complained that there are no good men, or that all the good ones are taken or gay.

Because men are judged on a curve, half (or more) of us are below average. According to the okcupid blog, women rate 80% of men below average on looks. On the other hand, photos mostly don't show height clearly. At best, if we're judged on some absolute scales, the average man could get more attractive.

Free human growth hormone for boys and free rogaine and propecia would do more to increase women's happiness than almost anything else imaginable.

The .5*age+7 formula is advice for rich men looking for a trophy wife/sugar baby. It isn't meant as advice for women, or the vast majority of men.

A woman who marries a man of 40 in her late 20s will end up with at least 20 years' of lonely widowhood on the other end.

For someone marrying for money, that's a feature, not a bug.

SF said...

The only practical advice I would have for young guys is that there are a lot of nerdy, intellectual, friendly girls with whom you feel absolutely no chemistry. Around age 18 to 19, they get a lot hotter. Ask them out before that happens.

Priya said...

You guys are forgetting this part of the article:

"Many women eagerly hit the library on Saturday night. And most would prefer to go out with friends, rather than date a campus brute."

.... that means that many women are NOT into alphas. There may be hope for the nice guy beta yet! (Or not)

Seems to be still some (many) women holding out for Mr. Right.

Anonymous said...

Truth nailed it three topics ago. If you're a reasonably presentable man who doesn't ooze creepy entitlement and hostility toward women (like the guy who complained that women never went out with "nice guys" like him before proving his point by shooting up a women's health club), same age dating in college is simply not that difficult-- as long as you are realistic about your prospects. People want to be with the most attractive mates possible, but mostly end up settling for people at about their own level for the most part.

I was everything Whiskey and company would classify as a "beta" in college-- brainy, verbal, skinny instead of athletic, and with a very shy personality-- and never had any problem getting dates. I was probably lucky in that I had pretty-boy features so the girls who grew up liking British musicians and Leonardo di Caprio interpreted my pathological shyness as brooding mysteriousness, but still...no "game" necessary.
I just don't get this perpetual beta male whine. If you can't get a date, maybe it's because you either feel entitled to date women who are more attractive than you are or simply give off a creepy vibe that women pick up on.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"An interesting question is - why have SAT scores ceased to be an accurate predictor of college grades? Men have always outscored women on both the verbal and math portions of the SAT.

Here's a link showing SAT scores by sex from 1972 onwards. The male lead is remarkably constant over time. But female students now get consistently higher GPA's. Why is that?"

Wild guess:

Most of the females end up in humanities where the grading standards are subjective and the prof is spotting them diversity-points / whereas the guys are studying hard science and math where the answers are objective and you either get it or you flunk?

RGH said...

Taking my daughter around this year to look at colleges to attend next fall, I found that the less selective schools (20+ ACT) had large majorities of females, while the more selective schools (25+ ACT) were close to 50-50. I wonder if that is generally true, or just a fluke in a small sample size.

Christo said...

I can't recall when this male/female fetish hit the networks, journals, and the thousands of social agencies spread across the map. The words “man” and “woman” are much more civilized and intriguing than “male” and “female”--the latter terms more suitable for a discussion of mosquitoes, fruit flies and crustaceans. I realize it is only symptom of a much deeper sickness. But the sooner Americans return to employing man and woman, the sooner their country will return to high civilization, as opposed to its current very low status.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing wrong with women settling. Women have settled forever. Women get close to 30, and are still single,should settle. Most of the beta males they will settle with will make excellent husbands. The alpha "dates" that send their hearts beating will not be faithful anyway and will not be good fathers to their children. Ladies, do what your grandmother and your mother probably did. Settle and have a happy family life.

kurt9 said...

Has the dating game really changed that much since 1990?

Its my impression that the big social revolution was the 60's and 70's and that there has been very little change since then.

Anonymous said...

Most of the females end up in humanities where the grading standards are subjective and the prof is spotting them diversity-points / whereas the guys are studying hard science and math where the answers are objective and you either get it or you flunk?





That's my own guess too, and it fits with my college experience. I just wondered if anyone had seen any serious studies. My sense is that, all else being equal, being female gets you about a letter grade boost in your GPA.

I'd ask to see my classmates English papers after they were graded. It was remarkable to see what merited an "A" for different people.

Anonymous said...

"I was probably lucky in that I had pretty-boy features..."

Bingo. Pretty-boy features make a huge difference for many women and make up for other deficiencies.

Anonymous said...

"A woman who marries a man of 40 in her late 20s will end up with at least 20 years' of lonely widowhood on the other end."

Ten minutes of Alpha is better than ten years of Bata. It is so true.

Anonymous said...

agnostic wrote:
'They're totally unsupervised and surrounded by half-naked girls in a dark club with hormone-driving music, and yet they're remarkably well behaved. There are a few young guys who get attention, but why are they so rare today? Again, times are just less wild overall, so young guys don't have as much experience as they would have had in previous decades.'

Twenty years ago, if you grabbed the wrong girl's buttocks, you might get a stern lecture, possibly with an admonition of Christian conduct.

Today, if you grab the wrong girl's buttock, you might imprisoned for a while, then stigmatized as a sex offender for life.

Thus young men are less sexually forward.

Dahlia said...

"SF said,
Your own sons must be around that age. I wonder whether they appreciate having a Dad who is actually trying to come up with some practical dating advice."

I wondered about his sons, too. My own mother who is close to Steve's age is going through this with my little sister who is 23 and single; she thinks about it a lot.
When we were watching the Super Bowl, Tim Tebow came up and Mom came out with, "I saw his girlfriend and she's just another blonde. I lost all respect for him then. All those men's girlfriends look exactly the same and they're all blonde!" She has never, ever, NEVER made any anti-blonde comment before in her life. My sister, who is beautiful, highly sought after, but stupid in love blames her problems on not getting better guys due to not being tall and blonde or redheaded. Mom simply has come to believe it somewhat despite her own completely different experiences as a brunette.

When children are going through this it is so emotional for the parent. My little guy who is 10 told me a couple months ago that a girl in his catechism class told him she liked him and wanted to be his girlfriend. Even though he finds girls and kissing gross, he was proud and I was suprised at how proud I was for him!

jody said...

CRAZY story i read yesterday that falls EXACTLY on these lines:

http://tinyurl.com/y868ze2
http://tinyurl.com/ylywq8x

summary: 27 year old woman is engineering PHD candidate at penn, boyfriend is 40 year old lawyer in NYC. jealous 42 year old man, a bodybuilder, shoots her boyfriend dead, then kidnaps her for 4 hours, lets her go, shoots himself dead.

it even follows the HBD race laws. the woman is asian, both men were european.

Paul Mendez said...

I went to William & Mary in the late 70's. There was a strict age-based caste system then. Incoming freshwomen were advised by their RAs to go after a law student, if not a law student a grad student, if not a grad student a senior, if not a senior a junior, if not a junior a sophomore, and if not a sophomore, stay home and wash your hair.

So my freshman year was spent drinking and playing D&D (and more drinking).

My senior year, however, was the best year of my life!

My little brother went to American University a few years later. To my surprise, he was screwing a Senior girl his first year.

Anonymous said...

Women are like parking spaces, the best are always taken. But every now and again you can get away with slipping into a disabled one.

Capt. Obvious said...

Realistically, most men can only get a woman who is 5-10 years younger.

An age difference of more than that, and the generational difference is too great to last very long.

This talk of marry a woman who is "half age your + 7" is baloney, and only applies to the rich or famous who are out to get a trophy wife.

Wakuni said...

We need to make a distinction between dumbass alpha male and smart alpha male. Lot of alpha males--the jocks and rebel types--actually don't do so well after high school. They may have been kings among schoolmates but they weren't really hitting the books. They usually become auto mechanics or something like that.

The smart alphas become lawyers, politicians, CEO's. Guys like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. They do really very well.

As for beta males, there are two types too. The dummy betas may not amount to much, but even they may have a better chance of survival in places like the inner-city because they take fewer macho man risks to be the badassest dude in town. From my observation, beta black males are more likely to be accepted into white society and do better.
Also, what might pass for beta in the black community might be alpha in the white community. Obama is kinda beta among aggressive blacks but certainly alpha among bland whites. And what might pass for beta white behavior may strike Japanese as alpha behavior.

Also, a lot of quiet or mousy women--and there are lots of them--are afraid of men who are too aggressive. These women actually feel better with beta male dweebs. So, as long as beta male dweebs do well in school and get an okay job, they can settle down with some mousy gal.

Anonymous said...

Taking my daughter around this year to look at colleges to attend next fall, I found that the less selective schools (20+ ACT) had large majorities of females, while the more selective schools (25+ ACT) were close to 50-50. I wonder if that is generally true, or just a fluke in a small sample size.

Probably not a fluke but rather a reflection of social class. Nearly all children of the upper middle class go to college, so the M:F ratio at selective schools - whose student bodies are mostly from the upper middle class, even if they are state schools - will be close to 50:50. Once you get below the middle of the middle class, more girls than boys go to college. Less selective schools - where the students generally come from less affluent backgrounds - will have more women than men unless it happens to be the local tech or engineering school.

Anonymous said...

If you can't get a date, maybe it's because you either feel entitled to date women who are more attractive than you are or simply give off a creepy vibe that women pick up on.

This. Yes. For every unattractive guy whining that he can't get a date, there's a lonely "fat" or "homely" chick who can't get a date, either. If you, young man, are overweight, or homely, or socially awkward, or very short, or if you spend 98% of your free time playing WoW, you are not only not going to get the 10's, you're not going to get the 7's and 8's, either. Know how attractive you are and look for women at your own level or even slightly below.

The reverse is somewhat less true because men will screw almost anybody. A girl who is a 5 can probably manage to have sex with a man who is an 8 or 9 if she tries hard enough. She might even have him more than once if she proves very adept at the erotic arts. But he'll never marry her.

People have always daydreamed about marrying/dating/screwing partners who were way out of their league, but something in our society - blame the media, I say! - has convinced them that it can more than a dream, that they're entitled to a hot guy or hot girl, even they are not so hot themselves. (Not to mention that we now raise children with such overprotected self-esteem that they probably believe themselves to be MUCH hotter than they really are.)

Anonymous said...

I tried to ask Whiskey this question in a previous thread, but let me give it another try:

How come you are a Scots-Irish evangelical on threads which concern Middle East policy, but you are a stone-cold nihilist when it comes to threads which concern male-female romance?

How do you bridge this dichotomy in your psyche?

Polichinello said...

Lot of alpha males--the jocks and rebel types--actually don't do so well after high school. They may have been kings among schoolmates but they weren't really hitting the books. They usually become auto mechanics or something like that.

Yeah, because we all know that auto mechanics live from hand to mouth.

Whiskey said...

Affordable family formation is only part of the equation.

Another part is attraction and staying power. Marriage requires a lot of mutual attraction and shared memories to get beyond frustrations, economic downturns, illnesses, and other things that life turns up.

A marriage between a woman who chased Alphas out of her league, and racked up the miles, and a frustrated beta, is sure to develop a bad case of the divorce, just as quickly as you can say "Kitchen Bitch." The woman will never be satisfied with the Toyota Prius she bought, with the iffy brakes, after renting all those Ferraris. The man will of course know he's merely one of a lot of cars the woman drove. Not so much special as "next!" This is why marriage seems so down, in favor of chaotic cohabitation.

Heck recall Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham. Elizabeth Bennet, smart, cautious, and careful, fell hard for Wickham IMMEDIATELY and despite Darcy's wealth and power, found him as exciting as Bill Gates in a fuzzy sweater.

Dates do not happen, mostly. What there is seems to be hooking up, followed by a hope for a relationship, with a few hot guys. This puts high emphasis on cocky-aggressive assertive qualities, and low emphasis on other stuff suited for relationship building.

It gets worse outside of College, where it is possible to go long dry spells, that themselves are punitive, in that they don't build skills in "asshole bantering" where arrogant-cocky is the mode that pulls in women.

Dahlia said...

Steve,
This post made me think of my little guy and how much he loves to do math to the point of taking his books to bed at night and staying up as late as he physically can... the only time we allow the 8 o'clock bedtime to not be observed.

Anyway, this in turn led me to think about Isaac Newton as he did not relate to his adult peers whose attentions were compromised by women.

Lo and behold, googling Isaac brought up this:

"Indeed, what Newton needs to bring his smartness to superhuman levels is not more mental stimulation, but the peace and quiet those 18 months at home [from Trinity College] will afford him—that stupendous year and a half in which he worked on prisms, the calculus, and the beginning of the Law of Gravity."

It turned out to be written by you.
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/070903_flynn.htm

Off topic, I just learned that Newton was born a tiny, premature baby.

Anonymous said...

White women mostly don't perceive nonwhite men as romantic possibilities at all, with a few obvious exceptions

I've often heard that many white women do not consider Asian and Indian men to be *ahem* anatomically suitable for them in certain areas. Can anybody confirm or deny this? Are these men excluded from pervasive campus "hookup" culture?

MacSweeney said...

Women have unrealistic expectations, which are encouraged by fairy tales, romance novels, Oprah and stuff they're taught at school -- feminist studies/sociology/psychology. The more educated, the less realistic.

Life will disappoint you, ladies. The sooner you accept this truth, the happier you will be.


Yes, they're going to be waiting forever if they're expecting Prince Charming to come along. Unless they're lucky enough to meet me.

kopseer said...

Dahlia,
my Pa was a physicist/mathematician who worked as a plasma physicist. He was also a math nerd who couldn't let go of his books. Must be 160+ IQ easily. But as a dad and husband he was an utter failure. We as a family suffered greatly under his ignorance of the daily requirements of a family and his disdain for the ordinary things which are important for family life. I wish such a person for no-one.

headache said...

Whiskey, I can appreciate your misogynism up to a point. But somewhere a man has to get over this. Obviously women are playing the dating game to their advantage. In fact if you watch movies on aristocratic Europe you see the same thing. This is why I cannot understand that this is supposed to be something new. Maybe the only diff. is that it is now commonplace in the middle class where before it was the preserve of the aristocrats and plebs.
But if you just get stuck in this "woman are being unfair so I cannot lay the leggy gorgeous babe coz she's banging the local cocky asshole with the rented Porsche"-mode you can never develop those qualities of self-sufficiency which may still draw the odd (aged) alpha-babe.

headache said...

The age-old bias for boys, combined with China's draconian one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced what Gu Baochang, a leading Chinese expert on family planning, described as "the largest, the highest, and the longest" gender imbalance in the world.

I smell the seeds of a new war. Nothing like war to kill off the excess population.

Simon said...

Wakuni:
"The smart alphas become lawyers, politicians, CEO's. Guys like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. They do really very well."

A world where Clinton and Gates(?!) are considered Alphas is a bizarro world indeed. The only measure by which such men can be considered alphas is that they're very successful. Gates is the classic uber-nerd; Clinton is at heart a nerd too, albeit one with a great political talent more commonly found among alphas. Bill Clinton likes to emulate his alpha hero JFK - but compare their wives, compare their mistresses.

Outside the weird world of PUA terminology, Alphas are leaders, commanders, fighters, usually Extroverts. The Silverback gorilla. Stormin' Norman. Betas may be nerds, but amongst primates and other group animals Betas are typically pretty-boy charmers who get mating opportunities by giving the females the attention they don't get from the Silverback.

Betas *are* the PUAs, the Don Juans, the guy who beds the other guy's wife while the cuckolded Alpha is out hunting for meat or defending the homeland.

James Kabala said...

Whiskey: Actually, if I recall correctly (I read the book years ago), Elizabeth was interested in Wickham because his jerkiness was not obvious at first and he seemed quite affable and friendly, and she disliked Darcy not because he was safe and steady, but because at their first meeting he was rude to her!

By modern theories she should therefore have fallen hard for Darcy right away, then, but quite the reverse was true. (Hence the title "Pride and Prejudice" - she was "prejudiced" against him as a rude jerk and despite his growing interest, he was at first too "proud" to correct the misconception. The original title was First Impressions.)

OneSTDV said...

Post on feminism and female hypergamy:

Settling for Mr. Good Enough: Underpinnings of Feminism

The Anti-Gnostic said...

So a college girl aged 21 would be ideally suited to a guy around 26-28. And a 21-year-old college guy's ideal girl would be 17-18.

The better formulation is that, generally, the man should be four to eight years older than the woman. As Steve points out, modern institutions are not set up to deliver this outcome, based as they are on the notion that men and women are interchangeable beings.

alexamenos said...

kurt9 asks:

"Has the dating game really changed that much since 1990?

Its my impression tha the big social revolution was the 60's and 70's and that there has been very little change since then."

I think the answer to Kurt's question is an emphatic "yes!". Each successive generation is further removed from the remnants of a patriarchal, monogamous, society, the most recent generation being the furthest removed.

As a child I watched Leave it to Beaver and Andy Griffith, shows...as a young man in the 90's I had some cultural referance to masculine qualities, even if my father was with his second wife in another state. Young men today grew up watching Al Bundy and Homer Simpson....

Folks around here can lambast the PUA community all they like, but right now the PUAs are the only people telling a lot of young males that it's ok to be a man.

dormouse said...

"Has the dating game really changed that much since 1990?

Its my impression that the big social revolution was the 60's and 70's and that there has been very little change since then."

I agree. There was a sea change in the mid-60s, swift, thorough and sure. The only difference between then and now is that there were more people actually marrying at a very young age, and many even waited till marriage for sex. Even rock stars, like the Beatles and Stones, married their best girlfriends eventually, despite on-the-road orgies. Non-rock stars (in most cases though not all) they commenced with the new age agenda after a divorce.

Bruce Banned said...

A man should be no less than 5 years older than his wife and no more than 10 years older. Too close in birth and the woman will show no respect to the husband; too many years betwixt them and the man verily will be cuckholded. Thus spake Bruce.

Anonymous said...

Simon -
Betas *are* the PUAs, the Don Juans, the guy who beds the other guy's wife while the cuckolded Alpha is out hunting for meat or defending the homeland.

It's decent arguments like these that leaves one, after reading the entire thread, even more confused than at the beginning.

The PUA definition of Alpha is a definition from the POV of men.

According to the Whiskey caricature, if you're not a blinged-up, over six foot tall, square-jawed white or black man, who treats women like a butcher treats meat, and who is permanently 3 nano-seconds away from knocking his rivals' lights out, 7-10s won't be interested in you.

Everything we know from history, rather than film, (Napoleon, Mick Jagger) seems to disprove that.

The only consistent theme appears to be that women can never make up their minds what kind of male fits the Alpha template. One moment they want a secret moment with a cute nerd, another moment they want to be dominated by the rugged, macho killer. Women want everything.

I've noticed women like to present their Beta guys their girlfriends as an Alpha. It's an indirect, but transparent way to plump up your own status.

So perhaps a more accurate definition of an Alpha male is: your capacity to make your woman's girlfriends jealous. Or your ability to screw your girlfriend and your girlfriend's girlfriends on the side.

Merely getting hot women to bed you doesn't seem enough. In evolutionary terms quantity must matter and what we *perceive* as quality 7-10 might not be 7-10 in evolutionary terms.

Anonymous said...

By modern theories she should therefore have fallen hard for Darcy right away, then, but quite the reverse was true. (Hence the title "Pride and Prejudice" - she was "prejudiced" against him as a rude jerk and despite his growing interest, he was at first too "proud" to correct the misconception. The original title was First Impressions.)

You need to think like a Protestant.

Rude = bad manners = HUGE social faux pas.

Actually, it's even more than just a faux pas - in her era, it would have been taken as a indication of very bad [moral] character.

Anonymous said...

I think you guys are wrong in assuming that women want men more than 4-5 years older than them. I'm a college sophomore and from my observations most girls will date up to 1 year younger and 3-4 years older. I've never heard of anyone dating someone more than 5 years older unless they were churchy-types planning on getting married soon. Sorry, the majority of college girls just don't want guys that are over 26 (unless she's a gold-digger or has father issues, which to be fair is up to a 1/5 of all young women). Of course I'm sure a larger age gap is more acceptable the older one gets. But I must admit personally I've always felt weird and slightly intimidated around guys more than 2 years older. I can connect better around guys my own age. My current boyfriend of over a year is only 2 months older, and it's just right considering we share most of the same interests.

Anonymous said...

I think you guys are wrong in assuming that women want men more than 4-5 years older than them.
---
You are correct, and it was the same way when I was in college more than 25 years ago. Your words are unfortunately falling on deaf ears. The guys who post on this blog live in the fantasy world that they are irresistable to college-age girls/-mid '20s girls well into their 40s. It's part of their "evo-psych" dogma that young girls want much older men, and lord help anyone, especially a mere, weak little woman, who challenges their dogma!

Dan J said...

I would not know how students behave at university these days. However, the family business has employed a lot of students in the summertime, for construction and/or tourism work, and I can say with some authority that a woman at around 20 years of age is much more responsible and hard-working than her male counterpart. Young men are easily distracted and often will not do properly any work that is tedious or un-cool. Women stick to it and complete the task at hand. There are exceptions, but this is my general observation.

As for "Pride and Prejudice", get the book, and the BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. There is no substitute. Steer clear of any new movie adaptations.

Capt. Obvious said...

"I think you guys are wrong in assuming that women want men more than 4-5 years older than them. I'm a college sophomore and from my observations most girls will date up to 1 year younger and 3-4 years older."


You are not even old enough to get into a bar or club that serves alcohol (assuming you started college at age 18), so where in the hell would you meet older men?

I agree, though, that for girls 21 and under (aka undergrads), dating more than 5 years older is uncommon.

But, post-college, it is not such a big deal.

Think about it: a 23-year-old dating a 28-year-old is not a big deal.

However, don't get me wrong, I am not staying that a girls want to date men significantly older like some on here. I agree there is a limit (unless that guy is rich or famous).

Anonymous said...

"The .5*age+7 formula is advice for rich men looking for a trophy wife/sugar baby. It isn't meant as advice for women, or the vast majority of men."

rob, it is damned good advice for women. I married a 28 year old when I was 21. Perfect match.

none of the above said...

Anon:

Thus the impact when she referenced his ungentlemanlike behavior as one reason she didn't feel worse about turning him down. (And later she realized that a lot (though not all) of what shed taken for rudeness was really shyness.)

Anonymous said...

Capt Obvious: You can go to bars in my college town at 19. Underage people frequent them often and can easily get alcohol. I will admit I have never gone more than a few times though seeing as I'm not a huge drinker. I have several friends who are over 21 though, and male or female, they are all dating people either their own age or within 2-3 years. I agree that 23 and 28 isn't a big deal although it is still fairly uncommon (maybe it's different here in the South though, who knows). But 7-8 years (as some posters have alleged is ideal) is a pretty considerable gap for anyone in their 20s. I'm just pointing out most women want men the same age or slightly older. I agree though that most women don't typically want younger men.

Simon said...

What I recall from Oxford was that nearly all the 'fresher' (1st year, 18 year old) girls, arriving naive and foolish, were bedded within the first few weeks by male students age 21+, often postgraduate teaching assistants.

Anon:
"The only consistent theme appears to be that women can never make up their minds what kind of male fits the Alpha template. One moment they want a secret moment with a cute nerd, another moment they want to be dominated by the rugged, macho killer. Women want everything."

In the real world, women want both real Alphas (fighters, providers, leaders) and Betas (charmers, talkers, cuckolders), for different things.

Roissy and co PUAs are classic'real' Betas: smooth talkers, non-providers. Their approach works well for Betas like them, especially with modern professional women who think they have no need of real Alphas. Their competition is not Alphas, but (eg) Afro-American males with super-gym-toned muscular physiques - who are also PUAs, and *also* evolutionary Betas.
____________

Who are actual Alphas and Betas amomg humans? Think of 'True Lies', where Jamie Lee Curtis has to choose between Schwarzenegger's uber-Alpha husband character and the smooth-talking Beta used car salesman.

Most modern Hollywood stars are actually Beta types - think Pirates of the Caribbean where pretty Beta Jonny Depp and pretty Beta Orlando Blum star, the only Alpha type is the unsuccessful, comic-relief, British officer.

IRL real Alpha personality is exemplified by the City finance types who compete to see who can have the most - no, not hot chicks - _children_! Because 4 isn't enough, they want 5-6+.

The African Big Man with three wives, ten mistresses and 20 kids is a classic Alpha personality. The charmer who beds the Big Man's third wife is a classic Beta.

IMO the genius of the West, of monigamy, was not that it put irresponsible Betas in charge. No, monogamy gave every man the chance to be an Alpha, to be Pack Leader of his own little tribe, his nuclear family.

Our problem is not, pace Roissy, that Betas aren't getting enough lays. Our problem is that middling successful Alpha-oriented males are often no longer getting good women, are not getting married and having children. Many, frustrated, are reorienting towards Beta behaviour; which is where Roissy and the PUA industry come in.

Simon said...

When every man is an Alpha - every man has his own wife and family, or the prospect of getting them - every man will fight. This is the classic Western model.

Betas don't fight; not well. In a classic middle-Eastern society of Alphas and Betas, the Alpha Champion - the Goliath - fights, while the Betas stand well behind him cheering him on and hoping to bed the grieving widow if he falls.

Thus, in the absence of religious fervour - "Your 72 virgins are awaiting you in heaven, good Beta" - the Eastern army will never prevail against the Western on the battlefield. Thus Lucullus' Roman legionaries could defeat Tigranes' army 20 times as large. Thus Desert Storm - no, it wasn't just the technology.

Betas can make decent suicide bombers, though...

James Kabala said...

I'm not quite sure what point Mr. "Think like a Protestant" thought I was trying to make (he seems to have thought I was criticizing Miss Bennett for her actions), but my point was merely to point out that Whiskey had distorted what really happens in the book for the sake of his agenda.

PaleoCon said...

Apparently these are not new issues, but our dads and granddads kept their women under control. This is a fairytale written a long time ago about hypergamy:

King Thrushbeard!!!

http://silasreinagel.blogspot.com/2010/01/fairy-tales-and-dangers-of-hypergamy.html

Anonymous said...

I've often heard that many white women do not consider Asian and Indian men to be *ahem* anatomically suitable for them in certain areas. Can anybody confirm or deny this? Are these men excluded from pervasive campus "hookup" culture?

I grew up in the Bay Area and imprinted on Asian men as romantic possibilities in adolescence. My experience is that white women who grow up like I did don't complain about tiny Chinese wangs; other women, who don't really perceive Asian men as fully male, do make comments about it. So I think it's just an excuse, an acceptable way to express tribalism and racial awareness.

However, that said, while I don't have enough comparative experience to tell you whether dick size is really that important or whether it really does vary that largely, I do know from what older women tell me that erectile dysfunction rates are VERY different across races. Younger women are probably not thinking long term though. But from what older women tell me, I'm pretty happy I ended up married to an Italian stallion despite the yellow fever of my girlhood.

Anonymous said...

When every man is an Alpha - every man has his own wife and family, or the prospect of getting them ..




There seem to be as many different definitions of what an "alpha" is as there are commenters. In PUA land, a man with his own "wife and family" is not an alpha. Not unless he's doing several other women on the side.

Maybe it would be less confusing if people stopped talking about "alphas", period, and simply said what they actually meant. All this blubbering about "alphas" and "betas" adds nothing but smoke to the discussion.

David Davenport said...

The guys who post on this blog live in the fantasy world that they are irresistable to college-age girls/-mid '20s girls well into their 40s.

This suggests a title for a country music song: "[Gettin'] Old Enough for a Younger Woman."


I once casually mentioned to a female co-worker that I date girls in the 20s; I'm early 40s. She recoiled as if she had encountered a child molestor. She even got vocal.

What about the Hollywood movie tradition of pairing the leading man with a much younger girl?

Example: the somewhat overrated "Vertigo" released in 1958, starring Jimmy Stewart, age 50, and Kim Novak, aged 25 in 1958?


But somewhere a man has to get over this.

Wise non-Latina says:

Man who worries about his alpha-maleness ain't one.

Anonymous said...

Most modern Hollywood stars are actually Beta types - think Pirates of the Caribbean where pretty Beta Jonny Depp and pretty Beta Orlando Blum star, the only Alpha type is the unsuccessful, comic relief, British officer.

That gets back to a point I've been making in several threads now about the ubiquitous androgenousness [and outright homosexuality] of the male characters in this year's Suberbowl advertisements.

The "True Alpha" military officer was not always portrayed in the media as the boorish loser cad - the subject of derision and humiliation [you only need to watch a few select hours on Turner Classic Movies to see otherwise] - so the obvious question becomes: Who is it [amongst The Powers That Be in our society] who is pushing the androgenous/soft-beta agenda, and why are they pushing it - i.e. towards what end [what result] are they pushing it?

Anonymous said...

I'm not quite sure what point Mr. "Think like a Protestant" thought I was trying to make

It was a continuation of a line of thought from the other recent thread - apparently Catholics & Jews are not aware how different their culture [at even just the level of casual, spoken conversation between the sexes] is from traditional WASP culture.

Judging from the mini-firestorm I started at the end of that thread, I'd say that you Catholics & Jews seem to have no idea how important good manners are to WASPs.

[Which, I guess, in retrospect, is what would have to have been predicted in the first place...]

Anonymous said...

"I found that the less selective schools (20+ ACT) had large majorities of females, while the more selective schools (25+ ACT) were close to 50-50."


WTF? There are colleges that will take students with less than 25 ACT? How absurd. They must be community colleges.

Anonymous said...

"I found that the less selective schools (20+ ACT) had large majorities of females, while the more selective schools (25+ ACT) were close to 50-50."


WTF? There are colleges that will take students with less than 25 ACT? How absurd. They must be community colleges.

Anonymous said...

This suggests a title for a country music song: "[Gettin'] Old Enough for a Younger Woman."

Ive always quite fancied older women, older than myself. The trouble is as one ages, the supply of hotter, older women begins to run short.

When I was 15, the 30 yr old housewife next door was the hottest woman I'd ever seen in the flesh. That was 30 years ago! You can see the problem.

Simon said...

Anon:
"There seem to be as many different definitions of what an "alpha" is as there are commenters. In PUA land, a man with his own "wife and family" is not an alpha. Not unless he's doing several other women on the side.

Maybe it would be less confusing if people stopped talking about "alphas", period, and simply said what they actually meant. All this blubbering about "alphas" and "betas" adds nothing but smoke to the discussion."

I'm using the Zoologists' definitions that I learned from reading books and watching science/nature TV shows about gorillas, chimps, wolves and other pack animals. These definitions were developed to be useful in field study and advance actual knowledge, rather than promote an agenda. So I think they say something more useful about humans than does PUA-talk.

Simon said...

Anon:
"The "True Alpha" military officer was not always portrayed in the media as the boorish loser cad - the subject of derision and humiliation [you only need to watch a few select hours on Turner Classic Movies to see otherwise] - so the obvious question becomes: Who is it [amongst The Powers That Be in our society] who is pushing the androgenous/soft-beta agenda, and why are they pushing it - i.e. towards what end [what result] are they pushing it?"

Trying to think of Alpha-demeanour leading men among the current Hollywood generation, there seem amazingly few. The '60s/'70s Eastwood generation is past, the '80s/'90s Schwarzenegger/Bruce Willis generation is pretty well done, and who do we have now? Liam Neeson comes to mind, and that Aragorn guy whose name I can never recall. Any actual native-born Americans? None I can think of.

Jack said...

Most college age women probably don't want to date a guy more than 3-4 years older. For slightly older women in their 20's that upper gap probably rises to 5-6 years. This is pretty realistic UNLESS the guy is famous/rich. Cue the 21 year old Penn State slut who couldn't wait to fuck 33-year-old Tucker Max.

The man should generally be at least one or two years older though. Women are just much more mature at younger ages than men are.

Anonymous said...

Women are just much more mature at younger ages than men are.



I see a lot of people saying this, but they never say why they think it. What does maturity in a woman mean and is it in any way comparable to maturity in a man?

Anonymous said...

"What does maturity in a woman mean and is it in any way comparable to maturity in a man?"


Women are about full grown physically at 15, men at 18. Assuming stature as a proxy for maturity, there is about a 3 year difference. Practically that translates as women being ready for marriage after they graduate high school and men when they graduate college.

The following growth charts clearly show women developing before men:

http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41l021.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41l022.pdf

Anonymous said...

Women are about full grown physically at 15, men at 18. Assuming stature as a proxy for maturity, there is about a 3 year difference.
---
Physical maturity and mental maturity are two different things. (I know this is hard for an evo-psych/HBD afficionado to understand, but it's true.)

I have a pre-teen daughter. She already has boobs and a butt. And she also still sleeps with stuffed animals and makes smiley faces with syrup on her pancakes. Do I see her become "fully mature" in 3 years and "ready for marriage" in 6? Hell no.

You probably don't have any kids yourself.

Jennifer said...

From my own experience i need the guy to be at least 5 years older than me, normally guys my own age are to immature and needy.

OhioStater said...

This is a late comment, an audience of one (Steve Sailer), but I realize I need to elaborate on my rumination about the link between desire for alpha males and blacks.

I read recently at therawness blog, women seek out alpha males if the police department is weak, if food security is weak, and if illegal income is important. If I a guy sticks a gun in your face, memo writing skills are useless.

What I was wondering is, does the presence of blacks and Hispanics in a community change what white women look for in white men? Is the stable provider husband of yore useless in an America that "seems" less safe?

Dating said...

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett actually states her age as being "two and twenty".