Is the Pill Making You Choose the Wrong Men?
Is the Pill making women abandon this:
Vin Diesel
In favor of this?
Zac Efron
I’d like to start by tipping my hat to my favorite Danish guy reader, who clued me in to a new UK study published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. It suggests that the Pill is dramatically changing the way women and men experience sexual chemistry. It’s definitely changing how women sniff out potential mates, and it’s probably also changing the pheromones they’re putting out to guys. This is very important says Rachel Herz, PhD, author of The Scent of Desire and a faculty member at Brown University, “My own research says the way a man smells to a woman is the main determinant of sexual attraction.”
Women are naturally attracted to men whose genetic makeup is dissimilar to their own.
A man’s natural odor may be the most important information he can give a woman. “Body odor is an external manifestation of the immune system, and the smells we think are attractive come from the people who are most genetically compatible with us.” Much of what we vaguely call “sexual chemistry,” she adds, is likely a direct result of this scent-based compatibility.
Having a genetically different mate increases the chances for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
- Couples with a high degree of gene similarity suffer higher rates of miscarriage and experience longer intervals between pregnancies, indicating more difficulty conceiving.
- Genes affect important immune responses. By mating with males who have different genes, females give their offspring a better disease-fighting repertoire.
The number of genes couples share corresponds directly with the likelihood that they would cheat on one another.
- Women who are genetically similar to their partners report being less satisfied in their sexual relationship with their partner — and seek more new sex partners — than women with genetically dissimilar partners. If a man and woman have 50 percent of their MHC (major histocompatibility complex) alleles in common, the woman has a 50 percent chance of sleeping with another man behind her partner’s back.
In laboratory studies, women who sniff men’s sweaty T-shirts find them more attractive when they come from men whose genes don’t match theirs.
(I hope those women were generously compensated for participating in those studies. Sounds like a lose-lose to me. You’re either smelling a bunch of gross guys you want nothing to do with, or you’re smelling guys who get you horny, only to remember you’re sitting in a fluorescently lit lab.)
Women taking the Pill choose lower testosterone men across the board.
In T-shirt-sniffing studies, women taking birth control pills seem to be attracted to the “wrong,” or genetically similar men.
“Women who have their hormone levels smoothed out by the Pill tend to seek men who look like good long-term prospects,” says the new report’s lead author, Alexandra Alvergne, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Sheffield.
- A woman on a normal menstrual cycle will have a burst of hormones around the time of ovulation that will drive her to lust after the hottest, sexiest guy in the room.
- When hormones aren’t raging, women want to be with a less testosteronized man, one who is likely to stick around for the long haul.
- In addition, when women aren’t ovulating, they tend to gravitate toward photos of men with a more feminine look.
When women become pregnant, they switch to preferring the scent of genetically similar males. Claus Wedekind, PhD, who performed the original T-shirt-sniffing studies, has suggested that birth control pills somehow mimic this process.
What if you marry and then stop taking the Pill?
Many media outlets have dubbed the pill “the divorce pill” in light of these findings. Herz wouldn’t go that far, but she acknowledges that it’s a problem. ”It’s like picking your cousins as marriage partners. It constitutes a biological error.”
(An interesting tidbit: Charles Darwin married his first cousin.)
As a result, explains Charles Wysocki, a psychobiologist at Florida State University, when such a couple decides to have children and the woman stops taking birth control, she may find herself less attracted to her mate for reasons she doesn’t quite understand. “On a subconscious level, her brain is realizing a mistake was made—she married the wrong guy,” he says.
Women’s noses aren’t the only ones affected.
Men are more attracted to women who are not on the Pill.
- Men are sensitive to smell as well. The Pill distorts the signals a woman sends, making her seem less appealing to men.
- Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico and author of The Mating Mind, noticed the pill’s connection to waning male desire while studying a group of exotic dancers—women whose livelihoods depend on how sexually appealing they are to male customers. Non-pill-using dancers made about 50 percent more in tips than dancers on oral contraceptives.
The Pill may also be fostering the hookup culture in ways you haven’t thought about.
- “Hunter-gatherers didn’t have to do a lot of kissing, because they could smell each other pretty clearly from a few feet away,” Miller says. “With all the showering, scents, and soap, we have to get our noses and mouths really up close to people to get a good idea of their biochemistry. People are more motivated to do a lot more kissing and petting, to do that assessment before they have sex. In other words, the need to smell our mates—and the comparative difficulty of doing so in today’s environment of perfumes and colognes—may actually be driving the sexual disinhibition of modern society.”
- A study published in 2005 in Psychological Science showed that when study participants of different orientations and genders were asked to choose between distinct odors — straight men, gay men, straight women, lesbian women — each picked the odor of a partner of the preferred gender and orientation.
What are the implications for your relationships?
- Herz recommends that if you’re looking for a man to be the father of your child, go off the pill before you start your search. Make sure you truly like the way a guy smells before you get serious about him.
- If the cow’s already out of the barn, it’s more complicated. “A woman’s perception of her partner’s smell is so intertwined with her emotional reaction to him that it could be difficult for her to assess his scent as if he were a stranger. If she’s in love, he could smell like a garbage can and she’d still be attracted to him,” says Herz.
Interestingly, Fisher believes that ultimately, this all might be for the best. “When we lived in a hunter-gatherer society, there was a village to help raise the children, so picking the most macho man might have been fine. In modern society, it makes much more sense to pick the dad rather than the cad. Then the woman has at least one person to help raise the baby.”
PICK THE DAD RATHER THAN THE CAD.
It’s what I’ve been telling you all along!
Sources:
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20080812/bad-sex-pill?
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/modern-love-8/biology-of-love?ecd=wnl_sxr_080109
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33199927/ns/health-womens_health/
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/home
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/scents-and-sensibility
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Pardon my bad manners, but why is it that every bad decision that a woman makes must be somehow found to be due to some external factor beyond the control of their pure, incorruptible love-seeking hearts?
How about this: Is the pill making you choose bad man? No. Bad women *choose* bad men. If you keep dating creeps, you are creep bait. You may attract creeps, but it if you CHOOSE them, well then the shoe certainly fit. Modern, intelligent, strong 25th wave feminists are certainly intelligent and empowered enough that they are not susceptible to the medical effects of the pill. The pill's pharmaceutical persuasion should certainly be no match for their true wants, which are well-defined by their various writings on what they are “looking for in a guy”.
Can't find a good man? That's because you don't want to.
I wish women could truly own their behavior, instead of always looking for some factor beyond their control to which they attribute their bad decisions.
Just another reason to dislike those overusers of cologne. Say No to Too Much Cologne (SNTMC – ok, so not a catchy acronym).
Is the pill making you choose the wrong men?
Umm No. It's not. Responsible. You/Women are.
This has been short answers to overly complicated but poorly researched & imagined hypothetical questions. Brought to you by The American Chemical Society. Where we'd like to remind everyone that there's at least 80-90K chemical compounds in regular us that have never been adequately investigated for any health effects. Including possible endocrine disruptions from well known plasticizers. And many, many others in regular household use. Besides Foodstuffs that is. And artificial scents of many types. Some of these well known to exist for much of the last few 100's of years, BTW.
Cheers, 'VJ'
Whoa, Rick, don't get your boxers in a twist. I am in no way providing an excuse or easy out for women in this post.
1. There is an important distinction between wrong man and bad man. A bad man might be the right man, hormonally speaking. For example, let's assume that a bad man in this case is a very high testosterone male. Top dog, if you will. There is a chemical match for him, a very high estrogen female. Her warm, nurturing but indecisive nature complements his analytical but controlling nature. They are good together. A high estrogen woman will pick a high testosterone sweaty t-shirt in a situation where she has no idea of the male's looks or social status. If she is on the pill, her own hormonal surges are smoothed out during her menstrual cycle. She doesn't dig Top Dog's smell in the same way. In fact, she's now drawn to Beta.
2. Of course adults need to be responsible for their choices. We're dealt a hand genetically, but we have free will. We can learn from our experiences, and shape our choices accordingly. If you find yourself attracted to bad boys all the time (and there are many reasons women are), part of the reason may be hormonal. It's your job, if you want to have a successful relationship, to apply reason and resist that temptation. Many people are predisposed to addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs. While we acknowledge that life is perhaps more challenging for those individuals, we expect them to do what is necessary to get their act together. The same reasoning applies here.
3. The research clearly shows that the sweat sniffing test works across sexual orientation and gender. A gay male is turned on by the sweat of another gay male. It's the combination of hormones that works. It seems intuitively obvious to me that when you start messing with hormones, you're going to interfere with natural selection.
4. The mix up works both ways, as I state above. Men are less physically attracted to women on the pill. So if a woman doesn't want to miss her chance with the “right” guy, she would do well do return to a natural state when she's hunting.
5. I think it's interesting that Helen Fisher, a highly respected researcher at Rutgers University, thinks that this might all be for the best. In modern society, women just don't need Alpha traits in the same way. Raising children alone isn't easy, but it's obviously very common. She's acknowledging that the pill isn't going anywhere, but the good news is that a man with beta traits is probably a better partner anyway. If you poke around my blog, you'll see that I've been saying that since I started blogging nearly a year ago. Pick the dad instead of the cad.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the soap and water approach. When my son was an adolescent he brought home Axe body spray one day. I have a very sensitive nose, and after he sprayed it all over himself I thought I would pass out. That's the power of marketing for you, though. We're made to feel self-conscious of our natural smell, so we spend big bucks finding ways to cover it up.
VJ, see my reply to Rick re the responsibility of women. You're right about chemicals in the environment. I'm sure they're messing with sexual selection too, in a big way. But this isn't junk science. There is a large body of research work on this issue, with plenty of peer review and duplication of results. It's legit, even necessary, to study this, even if it just tells a small part of the story.
Also – as a random little note.
I am not on the pill…and I am not attracted to either of those men. Vin Diesel gives me the heebie jeebies and I heard Zac Efron speak once…I've never gained those brain cells back.
I'm mainly with Helen Fisher here. I'm aware of the research here, and some of it is fairly interesting too. But again, as always, it gets to the bottom line of just how applicable all this 'stuff' is in the real world? I'd say on the slim evidence we've got so far that this is either unknown, incompletely or insufficiently known, or not strong & consistent enough to show reliable, noticeable effects. So yes, interesting research, valuable if done right, but still a long way from most real life practical applications. Well other than the semi-stupid/brilliant marketing campaign for Axe & other 'pheromone inspired' perfumes. Which is to say, stuff that's already at least 2-300 years old in application & use.
So might this all be some 'vestigial' holdover from our 'primitive' past? Who knows? We do know that mostly, every culture recently encountered & described do not strongly select their mates along seemingly primarily olfactory measures or cues. From what we've been able to understand. That might change however. But it's a long, long way from there to our hyper modern lifestyle whereby 'face to face' meetings are not as common as they once were, and are certainly not as commonly 'intimate' as might be required to 'activate' many of these senses at close range. And the absence of other 'masking' chemicals or clothing etc. So nothing junk about it. It's real science. But the implications for & on human mating remain to be seen or proved. Those for human & parent child bonding are actually better known & demonstrated. Cheers, 'VJ'
Haha, Vin Diesel is gross! To be honest, I think all his fans are men. And Zac Efron is just too pretty, he looks exactly like a woman to me. I thought they were pretty good representations of what I was trying to get across, though.
You're right; when people are falling in love online, all physical cues are rendered meaningless. It would be interesting if you could type both parties in married couples, note their degree of dissimilarity, and then see whether their marriage succeeds. With a large enough sample, I'd bet you'd find that the dissimilar couples did a better job staying married.
To be clear, I'm not implicating you, Susan, in a plot to absolve them of responsibility.
I guess I was just accusing the notion that it has more than marginal effect, and the primary effect is probably conscious choice.
However, I could be very wrong on that point. As a society, we seem to be increasingly cultivating a need to focus on our basest motivators. Please note: Base does not mean bad or wrong. It just means lower.
While chemical attraction has a part to play, I think it is severely overrated, and should be put back in it's proper place as a component of attraction.
Too many people indulge their chemistry needs, and create a self-reinforcing loop where lack of powerful chemistry becomes a deal-killer.
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You may be right about the effects of hormones being minimal, I don't know. I thought it was significant that Dr. Fisher recommends that women go off the Pill when looking for a man to father their children. I agree that conscious choice is dominant, I just find it interesting that while we may have free will, we are also heeding the call of millions of years of evolution. The science of attraction ensures hybrid vigor in the species.
I thoroughly agree with your last point. I don't get the sense that men are demanding intense physical chemistry as a prerequisite for interaction, but many women do this. (Of course, women are pre-programmed to shop for the long haul, and men may be only interested in one night.) Women increasingly expect to be hit over the head by attraction, and do not allow time for chemistry to develop. I'm afraid the romantic comedies produced by Hollywood may have something to do with this.
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To be more specific, is there really any meaningful difference between “attraction” as used in the MODERN context and female arousal? I'm not convinced that there is.
The phrase “madly in love”, implying loss of reason has curious parallels to the male loss of reason.
Perhaps, just perhaps, women use the term love to put a prettier term on the exact thing that they think is so base in men.
Basically, a certain purity or wholesomeness might be imputed (by our culture) to women's fiery desire, where in men it is assumed to have no noble characteristics.
I do agree that physical arousal is a large part of attraction – that's the part we refer to as chemistry. For women, though, other factors are also very important. We're not as visual as men are. We value confidence, wit, generosity, intelligence, creativity, ambition/success/earning power. None of this is up for debate, much research has been done on what women and men look for in a mate. Women view the sexual chemistry as a prerequisite, but want more than that for the long-term. We really are programmed to search for men who will stick around and help us raise our young. However, it's true that women frequently make conscious choices that fly in the face of this. Hence the resentment on the part of so many men who feel that women only want them for their good qualities after they've been treated poorly by a number of high-testosterone/Alpha types.
For me this was perfect timing, since I'm in my first month sans Pill this year.
, and the fact is that hormones are everywhere. In the same way that you can't use your conscious mind to direct your lungs to stop breathing, physical attraction is a slippery, fully hormonal-powered thing. Of course it would be very wise to choose rationally the partner that best meet a series of objective criteria (at least for all the smart people, not to the romantic, day-dreaming saps like me, haha). But the body is just as powerful as the mind, though most of us don't realize how much we depend on both of them until we get sick. 
We live in a culture that seems to believe that mind has to win over the body everytime. But I have a pile of medicine textbooks here (waiting for me to finish catching up with HUS
My mom made this very clear for me one day. I had gone out on a few dates with a nice guy, very nice, very very nice, crazy about me, a f* surgeon and all. And didn't felt the least bit attracted. I was trying really hard to do what you often say about letting the chemistry develop with time, since it was my first chance to have a nice, grown-up relationship in a very long time. But I felt more and more down each day. I sat on the kitchen one morning complaining to my mother about all the flaws I found in the poor dude, and she was encouraging me to give him one more chance. But I looked so miserable that she suddenly asked: “Well, do you ever want to sleep with him or not?” I was surprised, because we never talk about my sex life, but I answered very truthfully: “No, never!”. She replied: “Then you two are not going to work out. To make it long term, you are going to need a man that really shakes up your hormones” (It sound kind of lame, but everyday talk is hard to translate to English, haha).
So anyway, I do have I point. Hormones matter to me, I don't feel that's wrong for me to let odours and high heart rate to play a part in my search for a “partener. At least in the beggining of a relationship, the desires of our hormones are just as powerful as what we decide after careful meditation. Those are the messy foundations from which love eventually may emerge, and in the end the feelings will take over our hormonal impulses. Its very easy to forget that Nature is wise. Hormones are there to help you chose a mate, and nowadays we need all the help we can get, even if it means letting go a little. Or taking a break from the Pill.
(Which by the way, has the great side effect of discouraging me to sleep with the hormonal-attractive guy without a second thought
PS: There's a beautiful article that appeared on National Geographic in 2006 and I think it features the same Dr Fisher. She seems as fascinating as her research. Its about the biochemistry of love, but is also about what keeps people together in the long term. What makes it special is that the author talks very honestly about her own marriage.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/02/true-...
Hey, morning glory, this is a great comment! I love your mom's approach to your dilemma. It's very sound reasoning! I do something similar when I'm speaking with young women who can't decide whether they like a guy. I always ask, “Do you want to see his penis?” It works every time. Women either grin, or say “EW!” If you find yourself in the EW camp, you've answered your own question.
By the way, I've wondered what became of that nice surgeon. Oh well. I'm glad to have closure, haha.
That's a great article at National Geographic. I've saved it – some very interesting info in there. Thanks .
I agree.
I want to point out, however, that 'attraction' or arousal, or whatever, is not an element of human existence that is completely beyond our control.
By way of example: I remember a movie called (I think) “Four Seasons”. In it, there was a mouthy gal who always said what she thought, regardless of how inappropriate the comment.
She would then say “I can't help it – I'm Italian!” The idea being that one's status as an Italian made one uncontrollable bound to mouthy outbursts, with the accompanying get-out-of-jail-free card that is implied.
What we all know, however, is that we can modify who we are and modify what we prefer to SOME EXTENT. Mouthy “Italian gal” can learn to control herself, and consider other's feelings.
I am very serious when I say that we can do the same TO SOME EXTENT with regard to attraction.
If I am an average-looking guy, with average attributes, I consider it my SOCIAL DUTY to cultivate a taste in women that INCLUDES gals in my looks range.
Sure, Jennifer Anniston look-alikes turn me on. Whom would they not?
But I need to consider that the Creator, or Darwin, or whomever, gave me Chevy/Ford look and attributes. I'm okay with that.
But when girls in my price range have attraction “Needs” that run into the Tom Cruise category, we must ask ourselves if they have a responsibility to develop their preferences to the type of men that are willing to marry them.
The problem is that some of them will try for the alpa asshat more than once. Some will even be pragmatic enough to realize that they will not get an alpha to commit to them; that they will have to be content with being a toy for a while. They reason that they will someday settle for Mr. Average Beta.
The major flaw in this is that once their taste for alpha is fully developed, they may never be able to find emotional satisfaction with Mr. Beta. People accustomed to luxury seldom transfer well to lower middle class lifestyles.
In the end, they may be glad to end up with Mr. Beta, who is a human liferaft chosen to keep them out of the sea of Lonely Old Age, but they are only using him.
I would rather be single and lonely than know that my wife chose me out of expediency. That is the reason that, as I told you earlier, I don't even look in the higher price ranges. I want to be able to prefer any woman I would marry, and not think of her as settling.
It is left to you to decide whether that is devastatingly romantic or creepily clinical.
Rick,
First, I would like to thank you for bringing a constructive and informative persona to the conversations on my blog. You have enabled me to understand things from a different point of view, and that's incredibly useful (and necessary).
Second, it's just odd, but I was actually discussing the movie Four Seasons today! I mean, how many years ago was that? Plus it's not really such a great movie! I haven't even thought of it for 20 years, I don't think. And yes, I agree, we all need to be responsible for our choices, and that means bringing reason even (perhaps especially) to those situations where we may have urges that are not appropriate.
I really like what you have to say about being realistic when it comes to finding a mate. Your attitude is mature and responsible, but it also positions you for success. I am struck by the fact that unlike many men who would describe themselves as average looking, you are not angry. You are not approaching women with a chip on your shoulder. So many men feel understandably resentful toward women who chase Alphas, but the risk is that they dwell on that to the exclusion of being emotionally available to a woman whose affections they may win.
I've been thinking a lot about how selective women are – I think you're right about this. I've found an example that I'm going to write about in the next day or two that demonstrates that women are choosier than men. Are they holding out for Tom Cruise? I don't know, but unless they're Mercedes material themselves, they would do well do dial it down a notch.
My husband was telling me about a college friend (he went to a mostly male engineering school). This guy was not attractive physically. At all. And he was at a school that was 80% male. Within a couple of months of arriving, he had a girlfriend of similar looks. That is, not attractive. I don't think anyone envied him his girlfriend. But that's not the point. The point is that they had so much sex the roommates could barely sleep or study. Those two had fallen madly in love, had everything (and probably more) than most college couples. What a waste it would have been of that young man's college years to spend them pining for the hottest girl on campus. Meanwhile, my husband and the other guys weren't getting any. They had every reason to envy him that.
Of course you don't want leftovers. Of course you don't want to be chosen out of expediency. I think it's great that you know that you can develop a preference for a woman who will be likely to reciprocate your feelings. You are very open and honest, you display emotional maturity. As long as you make an effort to meet new people, there is no doubt in my mind that you will find real love.
I don't think your approach is devastatingly romantic or creepily clinical. I think it is rational and well-thought out. I think you've got a winning strategy there.
I agree.
I want to point out, however, that 'attraction' or arousal, or whatever, is not an element of human existence that is completely beyond our control.
By way of example: I remember a movie called (I think) “Four Seasons”. In it, there was a mouthy gal who always said what she thought, regardless of how inappropriate the comment.
She would then say “I can't help it – I'm Italian!” The idea being that one's status as an Italian made one uncontrollable bound to mouthy outbursts, with the accompanying get-out-of-jail-free card that is implied.
What we all know, however, is that we can modify who we are and modify what we prefer to SOME EXTENT. Mouthy “Italian gal” can learn to control herself, and consider other's feelings.
I am very serious when I say that we can do the same TO SOME EXTENT with regard to attraction.
If I am an average-looking guy, with average attributes, I consider it my SOCIAL DUTY to cultivate a taste in women that INCLUDES gals in my looks range.
Sure, Jennifer Anniston look-alikes turn me on. Whom would they not?
But I need to consider that the Creator, or Darwin, or whomever, gave me Chevy/Ford look and attributes. I'm okay with that.
But when girls in my price range have attraction “Needs” that run into the Tom Cruise category, we must ask ourselves if they have a responsibility to develop their preferences to the type of men that are willing to marry them.
The problem is that some of them will try for the alpa asshat more than once. Some will even be pragmatic enough to realize that they will not get an alpha to commit to them; that they will have to be content with being a toy for a while. They reason that they will someday settle for Mr. Average Beta.
The major flaw in this is that once their taste for alpha is fully developed, they may never be able to find emotional satisfaction with Mr. Beta. People accustomed to luxury seldom transfer well to lower middle class lifestyles.
In the end, they may be glad to end up with Mr. Beta, who is a human liferaft chosen to keep them out of the sea of Lonely Old Age, but they are only using him.
I would rather be single and lonely than know that my wife chose me out of expediency. That is the reason that, as I told you earlier, I don't even look in the higher price ranges. I want to be able to prefer any woman I would marry, and not think of her as settling.
It is left to you to decide whether that is devastatingly romantic or creepily clinical.
Rick,
First, I would like to thank you for bringing a constructive and informative persona to the conversations on my blog. You have enabled me to understand things from a different point of view, and that's incredibly useful (and necessary).
Second, it's just odd, but I was actually discussing the movie Four Seasons today! I mean, how many years ago was that? Plus it's not really such a great movie! I haven't even thought of it for 20 years, I don't think. And yes, I agree, we all need to be responsible for our choices, and that means bringing reason even (perhaps especially) to those situations where we may have urges that are not appropriate.
I really like what you have to say about being realistic when it comes to finding a mate. Your attitude is mature and responsible, but it also positions you for success. I am struck by the fact that unlike many men who would describe themselves as average looking, you are not angry. You are not approaching women with a chip on your shoulder. So many men feel understandably resentful toward women who chase Alphas, but the risk is that they dwell on that to the exclusion of being emotionally available to a woman whose affections they may win.
I've been thinking a lot about how selective women are – I think you're right about this. I've found an example that I'm going to write about in the next day or two that demonstrates that women are choosier than men. Are they holding out for Tom Cruise? I don't know, but unless they're Mercedes material themselves, they would do well do dial it down a notch.
My husband was telling me about a college friend (he went to a mostly male engineering school). This guy was not attractive physically. At all. And he was at a school that was 80% male. Within a couple of months of arriving, he had a girlfriend of similar looks. That is, not attractive. I don't think anyone envied him his girlfriend. But that's not the point. The point is that they had so much sex the roommates could barely sleep or study. Those two had fallen madly in love, had everything (and probably more) than most college couples. What a waste it would have been of that young man's college years to spend them pining for the hottest girl on campus. Meanwhile, my husband and the other guys weren't getting any. They had every reason to envy him that.
Of course you don't want leftovers. Of course you don't want to be chosen out of expediency. I think it's great that you know that you can develop a preference for a woman who will be likely to reciprocate your feelings. You are very open and honest, you display emotional maturity. As long as you make an effort to meet new people, there is no doubt in my mind that you will find real love.
I don't think your approach is devastatingly romantic or creepily clinical. I think it is rational and well-thought out. I think you've got a winning strategy there.
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“Pick the dad instead of the cad” but what a majority of women want both?
when women are young they want cads but when they are 30s they want someone to be responsible i.e. a Dad…why should as a man, be responsible of this emotional leftover mess who has had so many hookups in her youth and now wants a “dad”? I dont want a women who made “dumb” choices when she was young and now “learned” from them. I want a smart girl who wants the smart choice since the beginning!
Valmont, that's fair. If I were a man I wouldn't want a woman in her 30s who had spent years screwing cads and was now looking for Mr. Nice Guy. But I honestly don't believe that's the way it plays out for most women. Most women get to college and have a hard time distinguishing at first. Yes, there are some guys who are obvious players, etc., and any girl who goes with them deserves what she gets. But lots of guys start out nice, and then wind up acting douchey, or pretend to be interested, until they get what they want. In other words, many young women are deceived. As they get more experience, they begin to select men with more attention to character traits, at least the smart ones do.
Most of them will stop dating jerks by their mid-20s, provided they can even find a good guy. That's the other side of the coin – the dads better have their acts together, be out there socializing, not just sitting home with their buddies and their games.
Ha ha…my sentiments exactly!