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I recommend The Red Queen if you want to start learning about this. The short answer: men largely choose mates based on looks; women choose based more on social

by _h4xr 16y ago

I recommend The Red Queen if you want to start learning about this. The short answer: men largely choose mates based on looks; women choose based more on social status. Signalling low social status reduces male attractiveness; signalling high social status raises it. n = 1, but this has worked for me. Deliberately act like you can take it or leave it, and you're unlikely to be left. (And note that women initiate the majority of breakups and divorces, so you're not risking much if you risk a breakup.)

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- _h4xr 16y ago
  I know. I often fear a nightmarish reality in which women spend minutes or even hours per day carefully disguising natural facial features, odors, and hair--or even exercising at a gym--just so they can manipulate men into wanting to be with them. I pity the guys who get suckered into preferring women who engage in such behaviors. It's almost as bad as men altering their behavior to be more attractive to women. Empirically, prior girlfriends have been unimpressed with my slavish devotion to their every-moment's well-being. My current girlfriend is much more devoted, and much more enthusiastic. I am fairly overt about this. I told her to read The Red Queen after our first date. And I don't lie about this. But when I'm asking myself what's better for the relationship, and what's going to make the person I'm with happier, I have to take into account that my behavior affects her happiness indirectly, too. You'd have to be a real jerk to make her date a nebbish.
- haploid 16y ago
  "My personal belief is that if a woman chose you for your social status, you made a mistake getting involved with her." I'd suggest reading the book cited by the grandparent. You're a little naive on the topic. The vast majority of women marry for social or financial status, but it's an unconscious mechanism. In the end, it's all about optimizing genetic fitness and resource availability. Our genes do this automatically, and it's not limited to humans.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - spoondan 16y ago
    The vast majority of women marry for social or financial status, but it's an unconscious mechanism. In the end, it's all about optimizing genetic fitness and resource availability. Our genes do this automatically, and it's not limited to humans. Are you saying that the book cites research to backup these extraordinary claims? While I'm little more than a dilettante, I can't see how I could completely avoid hearing that a social behavior as complex as marriage had been pinned to genetics. What I've heard is that surveys have shown women will find a man more attractive if they believe he's wealthy. I have not seen it shown that this is wholly unconscious, let alone genetic (rather than cultural). And I have not seen it claimed that this effect dictates why women marry particular men.
haploid 16y ago
Both you and yummyfajitas are making the classic error of espousing an unpopular opinion amongst people who tend to irrationally believe magical romantic things about evolved bags of meat. It's a fairly well established biological fact( caveat - there are of course exceptions )that female primates, including humans, respond sexually favorably toward high status behavior on the part of males. The Red Queen is a good book, but there are countless others. Sperm Wars, Sex At Dawn, The Evolution of Desire, and myriad academic papers that these books reference, paint a very clear picture of female sexuality that few will ever want to believe. n=1 is irrelevant in this discussion. As far as I'm concerned, the actual scientific evidence is quite clear on this matter. Edit: removed reference to emo hipsters. Not constructive.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - _h4xr 16y ago
    "You are aware that the very definition of a fact precludes it from having exceptions, right?" He's talking about statistical distributions. "It's an established fact that six-year-olds are taller than five-year-olds. There are exceptions." I'm not sure where he got the "hipster" stuff, though.
  - haploid 16y ago
    I edited my post. The hipster reference was not constructive. Re: fat nerds and social value: In 2011, "fat nerds" can wield quite a bit of financial power. This can make them attractive to females by virtue of the fact that they can be utilized as resource providers for their future offspring. However, it should be noted that sexual attraction and attraction to resources are generally two independent drives in female primates. Many female primates utilize independent strategies, procuring resources and genetic material from different men simultaneously. See the citations in "Sperm Wars" for references to the research on this phenomenon.
    - georgieporgie 16y ago
hartror 16y ago
I love pop psychology books that tell me it is fine to be lazy and uncaring. /sarcasm We aren't talking about dating here, we are talking about long term relationships. The whole Red Queen thing breaks down when we add artificial human constructs such as marriage and monogamy. We are not a Silver Back leading a band of gorillas, we are far more complex than that. Sure, signalling plays a roll in initial conditions, impressions and attractiveness. However once we get past the monkey brain and into the far more complex social behaviors humans have developed there aren't just a couple of sliders to adjust to determine how successful a relationship is. I would love to hear of anyone having a successful and above all healthy long term relationship using the ideas you espouse.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I love pop psychology books that tell me it is fine to be lazy and uncaring You are confusing normative and positive claims.
  - hartror 16y ago
    Sorry I don't understand your comment could you rephrase?
    - spoondan 16y ago
      It's the difference between "do" and "should". He's saying the book claims to explain human behavior; it doesn't recommend or justify that behavior.
      - hartror 16y ago
        Yet others are using it to recommend and justify the behavior.
        spoondan 16y ago
        Sure, but I don't think your complaint is with the book. You can't blame the evidence for the case the prosecutor makes.
joezydeco 16y ago
So let's turn it back to Hacker News for a moment. You're slaving away in a startup, working insane hours and getting paid way less than what you're worth. There's equity in there somewhere. Maybe. You've finished up another 12 hour day and there's the wife glaring at you at the kitchen table: "When is this job going to get us somewhere? Why can't we be doing/having <x> like your friend Bob who works at <consulting firm y>?" The social status thing makes sense. And you're working your ass off to try to make that next step up, or cash out, or whatever. So what do you tell her in return?

by _h4xr 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

_h4xr 16y ago
I know. I often fear a nightmarish reality in which women spend minutes or even hours per day carefully disguising natural facial features, odors, and hair--or even exercising at a gym--just so they can manipulate men into wanting to be with them. I pity the guys who get suckered into preferring women who engage in such behaviors. It's almost as bad as men altering their behavior to be more attractive to women. Empirically, prior girlfriends have been unimpressed with my slavish devotion to their every-moment's well-being. My current girlfriend is much more devoted, and much more enthusiastic. I am fairly overt about this. I told her to read The Red Queen after our first date. And I don't lie about this. But when I'm asking myself what's better for the relationship, and what's going to make the person I'm with happier, I have to take into account that my behavior affects her happiness indirectly, too. You'd have to be a real jerk to make her date a nebbish.
haploid 16y ago
"My personal belief is that if a woman chose you for your social status, you made a mistake getting involved with her." I'd suggest reading the book cited by the grandparent. You're a little naive on the topic. The vast majority of women marry for social or financial status, but it's an unconscious mechanism. In the end, it's all about optimizing genetic fitness and resource availability. Our genes do this automatically, and it's not limited to humans.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- spoondan 16y ago
  The vast majority of women marry for social or financial status, but it's an unconscious mechanism. In the end, it's all about optimizing genetic fitness and resource availability. Our genes do this automatically, and it's not limited to humans. Are you saying that the book cites research to backup these extraordinary claims? While I'm little more than a dilettante, I can't see how I could completely avoid hearing that a social behavior as complex as marriage had been pinned to genetics. What I've heard is that surveys have shown women will find a man more attractive if they believe he's wealthy. I have not seen it shown that this is wholly unconscious, let alone genetic (rather than cultural). And I have not seen it claimed that this effect dictates why women marry particular men.

haploid 16y ago

Both you and yummyfajitas are making the classic error of espousing an unpopular opinion amongst people who tend to irrationally believe magical romantic things about evolved bags of meat. It's a fairly well established biological fact( caveat - there are of course exceptions )that female primates, including humans, respond sexually favorably toward high status behavior on the part of males. The Red Queen is a good book, but there are countless others. Sperm Wars, Sex At Dawn, The Evolution of Desire, and myriad academic papers that these books reference, paint a very clear picture of female sexuality that few will ever want to believe. n=1 is irrelevant in this discussion. As far as I'm concerned, the actual scientific evidence is quite clear on this matter. Edit: removed reference to emo hipsters. Not constructive.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- _h4xr 16y ago
  "You are aware that the very definition of a fact precludes it from having exceptions, right?" He's talking about statistical distributions. "It's an established fact that six-year-olds are taller than five-year-olds. There are exceptions." I'm not sure where he got the "hipster" stuff, though.
- haploid 16y ago
  I edited my post. The hipster reference was not constructive. Re: fat nerds and social value: In 2011, "fat nerds" can wield quite a bit of financial power. This can make them attractive to females by virtue of the fact that they can be utilized as resource providers for their future offspring. However, it should be noted that sexual attraction and attraction to resources are generally two independent drives in female primates. Many female primates utilize independent strategies, procuring resources and genetic material from different men simultaneously. See the citations in "Sperm Wars" for references to the research on this phenomenon.
  - georgieporgie 16y ago

hartror 16y ago

I love pop psychology books that tell me it is fine to be lazy and uncaring. /sarcasm We aren't talking about dating here, we are talking about long term relationships. The whole Red Queen thing breaks down when we add artificial human constructs such as marriage and monogamy. We are not a Silver Back leading a band of gorillas, we are far more complex than that. Sure, signalling plays a roll in initial conditions, impressions and attractiveness. However once we get past the monkey brain and into the far more complex social behaviors humans have developed there aren't just a couple of sliders to adjust to determine how successful a relationship is. I would love to hear of anyone having a successful and above all healthy long term relationship using the ideas you espouse.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I love pop psychology books that tell me it is fine to be lazy and uncaring You are confusing normative and positive claims.
- hartror 16y ago
  Sorry I don't understand your comment could you rephrase?
  - spoondan 16y ago
    It's the difference between "do" and "should". He's saying the book claims to explain human behavior; it doesn't recommend or justify that behavior.
    - hartror 16y ago
      Yet others are using it to recommend and justify the behavior.
      - spoondan 16y ago
        Sure, but I don't think your complaint is with the book. You can't blame the evidence for the case the prosecutor makes.

joezydeco 16y ago

So let's turn it back to Hacker News for a moment. You're slaving away in a startup, working insane hours and getting paid way less than what you're worth. There's equity in there somewhere. Maybe. You've finished up another 12 hour day and there's the wife glaring at you at the kitchen table: "When is this job going to get us somewhere? Why can't we be doing/having <x> like your friend Bob who works at <consulting firm y>?" The social status thing makes sense. And you're working your ass off to try to make that next step up, or cash out, or whatever. So what do you tell her in return?