Women Select Mates Very Differently from How Men Do

I spoke with a friend recently about how important preselection is to women's mate choices.

I shared some of the research on it (most of which I've shared in other articles or in One Date) that shows men get a +25% attractiveness boost when women see them with a good-looking girl who is visibly attracted to them... this is a bigger boost in attractiveness than height, good looks, confidence, humor, or anything else women like in men. Having attractive women attracted to you is the single biggest attraction factor there is for men.

My friend noted how he knew this, and in fact it was a big part of his game back in the day, letting women see lots of other good-looking women being very into him. It made hooking up a breeze.

However, he still found it a bit mind-boggling. He's not interested in women with lots of men around at all... it's a bit counterintuitive to a man that women like men who get women.

Recently he tried an experiment, just for the heck of it. He had a couple of average girls who were very into him, yet who he himself was not really attracted to. Just to test it, he told them a few stories about women not wanting him. The result was a complete 180 in their attraction; they lost all interest in him and stopped bothering him.

Imagine a hot girl telling you, "Guys just don't want me." You'd be all over her!

Why's it so totally different with the sex roles reversed?

 

Women Aren't Men and Men Aren't Women

Both sexes often project their mate choice criteria onto members of the opposite sex.

Men, who are visual, often think women pick men based on looks. This is especially true for men who use dating apps, where looks are pretty much the only selection criteria, and men vastly outnumber women, so men who aren't good-looking end up getting very little and become embittered. They don't see all the super hot guys with Plain Jane girlfriends, or the super hot girls dating regular-looking Joes.

Men, who like available women, tend to think women will like them more if they can make themselves more available to women. When in fact the opposite is true. Or men, who like kind, nurturing women, assume women will like them more if they can show how attentive and thoughtful they are. When the opposite is true.

Women, for their part, make the same kinds of project-related mistakes.

Men mistakenly think women will want them for the same things men want from women:

• Looks
• Youth
• Kindness
• Availability

Women mistakenly think men will want them for the same things women want from men:

• Humor
• Confidence
• Popularity
• Scarcity

Have you ever met a woman who was cracking tons of jokes, showing off how popular she was, talking about her great career? It's off-putting, isn't it? She's doing it because she thinks it'll make you like her more. Crazy, isn't it?

Both sexes project like this, based on fundamental misunderstandings of the differences between the sexes in how they choose their mates.

 

Of Course There Is Overlap

Few women want to date Quasimodo, and few men want a woman who's entirely humorless.

However, people not wanting to date someone with a major deficit in something does not equal people prizing that quality above all else.

No one wants to date some who is any of these things:

• Hideously ugly
• Mentally retarded
• Socially stunted
• Obese
• Humorless
• Impoverished
• Disliked / unpopular
• Completely unavailable
• Evil or vindictive

People may sometimes compromise if there are a lot of other qualities they like in a mate.

For instance, if a girl is rather plain-looking but she's loads of fun and she has a hot body and she's a total sweetheart, many guys will want to date her despite her plain face.

Or if a guy is not that popular but he is confident in himself and funny and socially adroit, many girls will take interest in and want to date him anyway.

There is a lot of overlap in what men and women find attractive.

Women will still geek out over a really cute guy.

Men will still chase after a girl who is confident and scarce.

However, each sex also has things they prize far in excess of general attractive qualities -- and the sexes often don't realize how hard the opposite sex prizes things they themselves don't much prize at all.

 

Learning Seduction Is About Learning Counterintuitive Things

It would be less counterintuitive if the media and educational landscape still provided accurate instruction to young people on how to date, or people's parents still did.

In earlier generations, mothers would explain to daughters what men expected of them, and fathers would explain to sons how women worked. There weren't many surprises because this knowledge was passed down in families.

Popular literature, movies, and shows all contained these same lessons within them. Any film you watch or book you read from pre-1960, especially one that highlights male-female interactions, is filled with references to the differences between women and men.

Beginning in the 1960s, all this was wiped away, in the name of various sets of values and things society wanted to promote. Parents became afraid to make declarative statements about what their children should or should not do, conscious of the changing zeitgeist of the culture, and of the children's own rebellion against classical sex roles. So they ended up not really teaching them anything at all about romance, and knowledge passed on for generations was lost.

Today, most men and women have little idea how one another operate, and so rely on simple projection. Which is partly right, in some cases, but often wholly wrong.

This leads to a lot of confusion, pain, and bitterness, since people have incorrect expectations, which end up being repeatedly violated (because they're incorrect).

These growing pains aren't necessary in all times and places.

But with how poor the education on sex differences is in modern society, they've become necessary for now.

 

Women Choose Their Mates Very Differently

If there's one thing I could get through your head, it'd be this:

Women are very, very different from you.

Yes, they also have many similarities with you.

You're a human, and so are they.

In many ways they're quite the same.

This is a difficult point to discuss, because there really are a lot of similarities between men and women, but there are also so many differences. Many people tend to lack nuance though, and seem to assume that men and women are either largely the same, or totally alien from one another. The truth is more complex.

However, if you are a guy who does not understand how INCREDIBLY important to women these qualities are:

• Humor
• Confidence
• Popularity (especially with women)
• Scarcity

... and if you do not understand that all these qualities are MORE important for women's mate selection criteria than these are:

• Looks
• Youth
• Kindness
• Availability

... then you need to take some time to deprogram yourself from thinking men and women are similar, and start to really wrap your head around how very, very different from you women are.

Have you ever seen a woman with really good 'girl game'?

What did she focus on? The stuff that works on men. She:

• Maximized her looks to the absolute hilt
• Dressed and behaved in ways to make her seem youthful
• Made herself seem sweet to you but bitchy toward others
• Dropped hints about her availability so you would pursue

This is the opposite of what women who are clueless about men do in modern times. Clueless women are out there cracking jokes, bragging about their jobs, talking about all the men they're dating, talking about how busy they are, trying to frame themselves in ways they think men must think are attractive because those are the things they find attractive in men.

Likewise, when you see a guy who is very good with girls, you seem him focused on all the stuff that works on women. He:

• Often has a sharp, playful sense of humor
• Can speak confidently on myriad topics and leads/escalates with confidence
• Displays or talks about his popularity with others, especially with women
• Paints himself as scarce and in-demand; a hard-to-reach man

How similar is this to what the average clueless man is doing to try to get women? It's totally opposite from it. The average clueless guy is looks maxxing, worried about signs he is aging, trying to act really nice and considerate, and making himself as available as he can to women. He does all that stuff because that's what he likes in women, and he projects it onto women and assumes they must like the same things back.

Be very wary of projection.

Women aren't men. Men aren't women.

The stuff that works very well when women do it to you often won't work well when reversed.

(the exception to this is sexiness... much of what women do that is sexy, from facial expressions to body language, men can safely adopt)

Yes, you should be improving overall. There's absolutely nothing wrong with making yourself more attractive, or improving your social status, or being a good person; you should do all these, as these things will help, often by quite a bit.

But if you truly want heaps of success with women, you must understand what women are actually most attracted to in men. You must understand that it is different from what men are attracted to in women. Then, once you have it down, you must give them what they actually want, rather than the things men think they want based on projecting their own desires onto women.

That is when the real success starts rolling in.

Chase

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READ NEXT: “What Women Want”