“Indeed, I’m the consummate geek that is easily led astray and could talk for hours on how a microwave cooks food over a skillet (and the differences between dry meat and oiled meat when on the hot metal). When I was young and poor I can’t tell you how many glazed over eyes I saw. As a mid thirties male I can’t tell you how many glazed over eyes suddenly come to life when I say my position at work (and that pretty much kills everything I might have been feeling).

When I was unemployed many would not even look at me, mention I’m a now Senior Software Engineer and you can immediately see the eyes and face change attitude. I shudder at that thought and detest it – in the presence of unknown females I almost *never* mention what I do for a living, always have and always will. I’m sure it’s not much different than females who feel they are only liked for their breasts.” — strcpy

“hmmm… if men are so easy to understand, then why do women have such a hard time understanding?” — D

To some degree, both sexes have trouble grasping how the other thinks because the truth is so very often _exactly_ what each one doesn’t want it to be. We have secret fears about the motivations and wishes of the other sex, and all too often those fears are well grounded, so even when we find the answers to the questions we ask, we don’t want them to be true and we try to reject it.

‘Not that, anything but that.’

That’s a large part of why comedians make so much hay with jokes about marriage and male/female relationships, the humor taps into the little simmering resentments men and women harbor for each other, sometimes even in the most loving relationships.

It’s also why the lesson of most religions and traditions is the same on this point: being a decent person, treating others and especially the opposite sex decently, requires self-denial and self-restraint, one must say ‘no’ to yourself and sometimes _not_ ‘do what comes naturally’ in order to be a mature, decent person, _especially_ when dealing with the opposite sex. It also requires a certain amount of sometimes painful self-honesty about our own motivations.

Nobody ever said being a grownup is always fun.

OK – reasonable issues to raise, Dr. Clouthier, though I think one could disagree with choices made about age range and sample size without condemning the study as shoddy or shaky science. As it is, the sample size seems to me to be a strong point of the study – over 4000 people participated. To me, that is a pretty big number given that the effect the study focuses on is likely to be biological – that is, to be a consequence of evolution and therefore relatively consistent across people (so much so that sexual orientation, for example, was irrelevant).

I don’t agree that the age range is a problem, given the purpose of the study, which is to learn more about assortative mating. The average age of participants was 28. That means that the average respondent was clearly in the age range associated with seeking and finding a mate. The age range of people in the photos that were rated was 18 – 25. Again, this seems appropriate for a study of assortative mating. While it is undoubtedly true that people in their 40s, 50s, and older ranges seek mates in our society, few of them do so for the purpose of having children. Mating strategies of people in their 20s are likely to have evolutionary consequences, and thus are of interest for a study such as the one we are discussing. The age distribution may be a problem if one wants to draw inferences from the data on issues other than the extent of consensus, which was the focus of the study – but that is not a criticism of the study.

The idea that women use a differential preference strategy while men respond to market forces is interesting. I don’t think the study results suggest that this is a clear-cut difference between men and women, and I did not mean to imply such a conclusion. The results do suggest that men lean more to market forces than women do and women lean more to differential preferences than men do. That seems to me to make sense when you think about the relative commitments of time and resources required of each sex to produce children. One could argue that a man’s genetic interests are advanced by having as many mates as he can, since the contribution he makes to each birth is small in terms of time and bodily resources. That being the case, if during evolution each man tried for the strategy of having mating opportunities with multiple women, that would engender serious competition among men, assuming that the numbers of women and men were equal. Such competition would not arise for women since they would not seek so many mating opportunities.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, and the discussion of this study.

also? the thing about “I’d do her…” is that men are interested in anything within a range of variables. That’s NOT the point, because we are wired to “do” as many as possible in a given circumstance. But that isn’t the one, whose face you still worship years later, and that isn’t the one who you would start a war over or die for.

the ones you’d “do” from looking at pictures, are just image, NOT commitment. If women are looking at something deeper, like: “I wonder what our children would look like…” They are at a different level entirely. They have a different agenda. Men DO care about what is going on between the ears, especially [Is it me or is this one just crazy?]… but you don’t get that from looking at a photograph… and NEITHER do women. They may claim to be interested in what a guy thinks, but the moment of decision before they can talk to him, is all based on looks. Just like for men.

Men Agree Who’s Hot, Women Don’t

By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer

posted: 30 June 2009 12:22 pm ET

Thin and seductive, that’s what men find attractive in women. But the ladies are less in agreement over what makes for a hot guy, new research finds.

The news is good for guys who might think they’re not the hottest hunks. But it also means more competition for the hottest chicks, scientists say.

“Men agree a lot more about who they find attractive and unattractive than women agree about who they find attractive and unattractive,” said study researcher Dustin Wood, assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

The study included more than 1,300 heterosexual men, about 2,700 heterosexual women, about 125 homosexual men and about the same number of homosexual women. The average age of participants was about 28 years old, and ranged from 18 to more than 70.

Participants each rated nearly 100 photographs of either men or women, depending on the participant’s gender and sexual orientation. They scored how attractive they found each photographed individual on a 10-point scale from “not at all” to “very” attractive.

Previously, the researchers had judged each of the photos for various factors of attractiveness, including how seductive, confident, thin, sensitive, stylish, curvaceous (women), muscular (men), traditional, masculine/feminine, classy, well-groomed, or upbeat the person in the image looked.

What men want: Despite another recent study that found modern men are more interested in intelligent, educated women than in decades past, in the new study men tended to base their attractiveness ratings on women’s physical features, giving stellar marks to those who looked thin and seductive. Most of the men in the study also rated photographs of women who looked confident as more attractive.

What women want: Women showed some preference for thin, muscular men. But they also disagreed over the hotness factor of many men, with some women giving a guy high attractiveness ratings while others scored the same guy as not attractive at all.

Do men actually agree more on what makes a person attractive or was there something about the photos that caused men to rate them in certain ways? To figure this out, the researchers turned to the homosexual ratings. Sure enough, gay men showed a greater consensus about attractiveness levels of photos of men than did straight women of those same photos.

And straight men also showed more consensus than lesbians in terms of attractiveness ratings of the photos of women.

The results, published in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have implications for the dating scene.

For instance, with varying ideas of which men are attractive, women may face less competition from other women on the prowl. Men, on the other hand, might face stiff competition from other guys who all have eyes for the same handful of potential mates. Men, therefore, may need to invest more time and energy into attracting and guarding their mates from other potential suitors, the researchers said.

Oh, and they do: After eons of evolution, men are hardwired to overspend and max out credit cards to attract mates, a study last year concluded.

But.

I think you’re crazy not to take advantage of whatever you can bring to the mating game. I’m 6’3″, and I’ve been happily married now for 20 years, but if (heaven forfend) I was thrust back into the dating world, I wouldn’t think of ignoring women that had met me when I was standing up instead of sitting down.

When a guy is considering whether to date a woman, he’s largely considering whether or not he wants to have sex with her. I know it’s not the whole equation, but it’s a big part of the deal. When a woman considers dating a man, she’s asking herself whether she wants to set up a family with you. And again, it’s not the whole equation, but it’s a big part of the deal.

And, you’re kidding yourself if you think that just because you haven’t explicitly told a woman that you’re pulling in a half mill a year (that’s what you senior software engineers make isn’t it?), that it doesn’t mean she hasn’t figured it out. From the clothes your wear, to the way you carry yourself, a perceptive woman (is there another kind) can pretty much read you like a book.

There are very good reasons not to immediately announce your salary to every woman you meet (it does mark you as the a$$hole), but you’re crazy to not bring what you’ve got to the mating game. Many of the same qualities that got you your good job are also desired by women. Are you going to ignore women that see you being confident or decisive or dominant? It’s part and parcel of the same thing.

I always think it’s silly to decide that people should not want what they really want. It’s kind of arrogant really.

Women are often hugely guilty of this. They intentionally dress down in “comfortable” clothes and dare you to find them attractive. “Because he should want me for who I really am.”

Which is seriously deluded.

Listen ladies, we men have plenty of opportunities for friendship with other men. And, frankly, we have a lot more in common with each other. What brings us to you is the biological imperative to mate.

Please everyone, get a clue out there. Both men and women want what they want. Attempts to talk them out of it are simply misguided.

It’s “look different.” It’s an adjective complement. Like “look hot.”

As for men I always found attractive, I’m like Morgan in that a (cute) person of the opposite sex in glasses is irresistable. But 99% of actors leave me cold. Tom Selleck is the only one I ever salivated over, for obvious reasons. Brad Pitt and the rest of the unmanly actors can just go jump. I didn’t even think he was hot in “Thelma and Louise.”

Also, women have considerations when looking at a man that men do not, which also might be genetic. Is he a serial killer or an abuser? A good percentage of men might be. Many women are nuts but very few are physically dangerous. Most goodlooking guys to me look like narcissistic sociopaths (or himbos). Nothing turns me off faster.

A funny confession: there is a male model on the Hanes T-shirt packages I buy for my hubby, that my ovaries call out to (and I’m in my 50s). Total meltdown AND he’s probably gay. This is the curse of us women.