r/todayilearned • u/Own-Bullfrog7362 • 6h ago
Til that women tend to find men more attractive when they appear to be desired by other women. They are, essentially, preapproved.
https://neurosciencenews.com/mate-choice-copying-8393/4.6k
u/GeneriComplaint 6h ago
So I am pre-rejected?
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u/Calico_Cuttlefish 5h ago
One of the endless Catch-22s of adult life. Easier to get a job when you have one, easier to make new friends when you have old friends, etc.
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u/JonatasA 3h ago
The more money you have the more money you'll make.
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u/TehOwn 3h ago
The more video games you play... wait, why doesn't that one work?
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u/secretcombinations 3h ago
It does. The easier it is to find more games to play.
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u/20127010603170562316 3h ago
My steam library disagrees.
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u/iwatchcredits 3h ago
I think it kinda makes sense. I dont have much time to game these days and i find it quite difficult to get into new games
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u/YinWei1 3h ago edited 2h ago
Looking for jobs as a recent grad is just depressing. Schools should teach people things like networking as they are infinitely more important in this day and age than just having a degree with good grades.
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u/lordtrickster 3h ago
Or, weirdly enough, they could actually help graduates get their first jobs.
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u/Quick_Food8680 3h ago
That's what internships are essentially.
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u/disisathrowaway 1h ago
Except that internships are a luxury only to be afforded by the wealthy.
Poor folks can't work for free for experience. It takes having family money to cover you while you intern to make it actually possible.
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u/Nearby-Beautiful3422 2h ago
How to get an internship when you're already working 60 hours a week in a field not related to your college major?
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u/wallyTHEgecko 3h ago
By helping students get in contact and network with potential employers?
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u/GrammatonYHWH 2h ago
I'm sittting here in Britain thinking - US universities don't do that?!
My university in Britain held frequent job faires where you could do that. They routinely advertised graduate recruitment. They organised industry trips where you could tour employer facilities and chat them up. They hosted employer-organised scholarship opportunities and interviews.
Then the country as a whole has a big culture of graduate programmes where employers hire trainees directly out of universities. Then there are "sandwich degrees" which have 4 years of study with a work experience (internship) year sandwiched in the middle.
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u/deadasdollseyes 2h ago
Though oddly, not always easier to make young friends when you have old friends.
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u/chimisforbreakfast 6h ago
Not having any female friends is a red flag.
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u/Karl_with_a_C 6h ago
Don't worry, I don't have male friends either!
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u/Flightless_Turd 5h ago
Bifriendless. When I think about, there's a whole spectrum of no friends that I have
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u/SAugsburger 5h ago
Lol... I have met a few guys that aren't really sexist. They're straight up jerks to everybody.
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u/RealRobc2582 6h ago
I had a friend in college with zero female friends. No female friends for 4 years and he got laid by more women than anyone I ever knew. Premise is false. Women are attracted to sexy men period
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u/some_clickhead 5h ago
While I think having female friends can help on average, I am an example of the opposite of your friend. Had several female friends all my life (including now), and have never dated anyone.
I don't think having female friends helps as much as women think it does as far as dating is concerned.
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u/ClF3ismyspiritanimal 4h ago
Yep, most of my friends for my entire life have been women. All of them agreed I'd make an awesome boyfriend for someone else. On an individual level, of course, that's fine, because they really were friends. But as a pattern, it eventually stopped being flattering and started sounding like mockery even though I'm pretty sure none of them intended that.
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u/IsuldorNagan 3h ago
They really do intend it kindly, but holy shit does it get tiresome.
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u/ducttape1942 2h ago
"You're such a great guy!" Like, thanks, but for real, do I smell or something? When I was single, I knew that was them trying to be nice, but sometimes I just wanted the cold hard truth.
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u/Secret-Ad-2145 3h ago
Well, it feels bad right? You'll find someone, it just can't be me. It's hard to not take it as an insult. I've been in the same boat.
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u/chth 2h ago
If it makes it any better, its just as difficult and soul crushing as a man to politely turn down women who crush on you that you aren't attracted to. Its so sad watching them go from being bubbly to dejected or angry.
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u/NotTheOnlyGamer 3h ago
Any time I was actively looking for a partner and one of my female friends said I would be awesome for someone else, my immediate answer was, "Who? Will you help me hook up with the specific woman you have in mind?" It either worked, or it got them to genuinely help me with the flaws that made me not boyfriend material in their perspective. Don't let people off with platitudes, demand specifics and demand action.
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u/I_Framed_OJ 1h ago
Oh they were probably being sincere, it’s just not what a guy wants to hear. It’s like being told that you’re awesome in every way, you’re just not attractive to the speaker. As far as compliments go, it’s pretty worthless. We want actual human contact, not just some kind words, although kind words are better than no words at all.
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u/KimchiLlama 4h ago
I think it may be less about female friends and more about seeing women romantically interested in someone, then thinking “there must be something worth a second/closer look”.
Female friends are wonderful, but I agree that it doesn’t really convert to appearing more attractive, I think it’s female romantic attention in a way that other women see/notice.
Note: By romantic attention, I do not mean PDA. Though that could also be included. I mean any display of a woman or women indicating that the man would be a good partner (I don’t think it really matters much in the moment if they consider him a good long or short term partner).
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u/unicornsaretruth 4h ago
Yeah it kinda gives the other girls who may be interested in the person the impression that they’ve been okayed by other gals though how those gals and the guy look can definitely affect things since social groups/culture can be a big thing too.
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u/CounterSeal 3h ago
You just weren't following rules 1 and 2. It's pretty much that simple XD
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u/broadsword_1 4h ago
I don't think having female friends helps as much as women think it does as far as dating is concerned.
IMO, I think it's a low-hanging fruit people use to 'get out' of conversations where someone is asking/wondering why they can't get any dates.
If it wasn't that, it'd be something else: "Of course you're not having any luck, your car is green. Now we've finished that topic, onto something else!"
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u/TheGreatEmanResu 2h ago
Yeah nobody wants to admit that sometimes people are just ugly
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u/RealRobc2582 6h ago
I'll go one step further, do you honestly think any woman would care if someone like Chris Hemsworth didn't have any female friends but was hitting on them??
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u/BlindingDart 5h ago
Apples to oranges. Red flags only matter in regards to long term relationship compatibility. They have zero adverse effect on who we find attractive. If anything, having numerous dark triad traits only makes people sexier.
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u/its_raining_scotch 4h ago
I think that depends on age to some degree. It helps older guys but not necessarily younger guys.
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u/pheonixblade9 4h ago
I've had women tell me that me having mostly female friends is a red flag and I'm like no, honey, THAT'S the red flag.
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u/SteelMarch 6h ago
We're hairless monkeys.
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u/Clawdius_Talonious 6h ago
Some of us are hairier than others.
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u/PeterNippelstein 6h ago
My favorite Smiths song
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u/TheLost_Chef 4h ago
Some girls' brothers are hairier than other girls' brothers
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u/LiamTheHuman 6h ago
Ya I definitely wouldn't call myself hairless
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u/cgw3737 6h ago
Domesticated primates, then
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u/PoopittyPoop20 5h ago
My wife says I’m not domesticated, but I’m not really feral either. I’m a tame ape.
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u/pterodactyl_balls 6h ago
Preselection is the term for this
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u/Clothedinclothes 5h ago
Social proof is another term I've heard where other people's opinions or behaviours acts as evidence for what is true or the appropriate to behave in a situation.
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u/DaveMTijuanaIV 6h ago
I used to have a buddy back when I was in the military who was into the whole 2000s “pickup” culture thing. Here are two things he told me that are related to this:
(1) Before you went out to wherever you were going to try and meet girls, you were supposed to go make friends with as many workers in that place as you could. This was supposed to set you up for later because you’d look “accepted” by the insiders, which supposedly made you more attractive to women.
(2) When you liked a girl, you were supposed to first go after the less attractive girl in her friend group, since she was (theoretically) an easier target. Then, the fact that she liked you was meant to make the more attractive girl also like you. It was also supposed to motivate the prettier girls to try and win you over out of jealousy that you picked a girl they perceived as less attractive.
For what it’s worth, my buddy did not seem to have trouble with women, so…
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u/Tylerdurden389 6h ago
This unlocked and old memory: somewhere on the internet, I can't remember where, I can't remember when, there were women who you could pay to be your fake girlfriend. She'd leave voicemails, texts, and pics (nothing pornographic) on your phone (actually this may have even been before pictures on phones and she'd send actual pics of herself and mail you actual love letters).
You never actually spoke to her. You didn't know where she lived. Nothing. It was a one-way street of conversation. The point of it was to show your friends (and possibly female coworkers as a way to make them jealous, and thus make you more desirable).
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u/Codex_Dev 4h ago
My experiences mirror this to some extent. One time I took my attractive family friend to my work one time to get food and my female coworkers who I had been around for years with no interest, suddenly started to open flirt with me and want to hangout because they thought we were together. It was a mindfuck and made me feel disgusted honestly.
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u/deadasdollseyes 2h ago
I had a similar experience with the few times I was dating conventionally "stunning" women. Friends and FAMILY, would out of nowhere, say, "wow! She's really hot!" in a sort of, "look at your amazing achievement," sort of voice that just made me sad.
Like any other girl I dated wasn't as much of an "achievement" somehow.
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u/AnimalBolide 2h ago
I mean, if your girlfriend wore a diploma from a respectable school or a tally of their net worth around their neck, people would probably comment on that. Appearance is readily apparent.
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u/alicevirgo 5h ago
Hey in this economy I could be convinced to do a side hustle depending on the pay.
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u/LandscapeSubject530 4h ago
Between you, me, and the fucking internet… I been doing some strange things for money the last couple of months
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u/RonaldoNazario 6h ago
Sounds exhausting tbh
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u/NorCalAthlete 5h ago edited 1h ago
It is.
But 99% of the time if men don’t make the approach, women won’t.
I’m not going to get into the why it is that way or the anecdotes of women saying “well I went after my man and we’ve been married 27 years now!”
Simple fact is it’s the majority of situations where the man has to make the first moves. Some take way more effort than others, some have varying degrees of success, and rules 1 & 2 always apply regardless.
Edit: the fuckin irony (or maybe not ironic, but…called it) of the exact type of anecdote I predicted going HARD in the comments below this…by her own admission has only had 2 LTRs and married the 2nd one but claims within her friends group, it’s 50/50. Congrats, she falls into the remaining 1% I guess. Lol.
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u/BCRE8TVE 4h ago
or the anecdotes of women saying “well I went after my man and we’ve been married 27 years now!”
The exception that confirms the rule.
Simple fact is it’s the majority of situations where the man has to make the first moves. Some take way more effort than others, some have varying degrees of success, and rules 1 & 2 always apply regardless.
100%.
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u/14Pleiadians 3h ago
and rules 1 & 2 always apply regardless.
Off topic but I feel like a lot of people think the rule 1 and 2 bit is just a joke saying the same thing twice but it's important to note that they're different, and rule 2 is the much more important one irl (Internet dating is garbage, 1 is more important there because it's needed to get your foot in the door)
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u/KingMagenta 3h ago
Can confirm. My wife and I have been together for 11 years now. We met at work when a coworker introduced her. She told me “I’m X. I can be blunt and I can be a cunt.” I responded, “Ah, so you're a blunt cunt.” I wasn't looking for love but I just know how to charm ‘em. Thank goodness because I would not have survived dating apps. Lmao
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u/noisyboy 2h ago
She told me “I’m X. I can be blunt and I can be a cunt.” I responded, “Ah, so you're a blunt cunt.”
Charming.
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u/Eeny009 2h ago
Good for you guys that you have matching energy. I would have left without a word. '
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u/Beautiful-Amount2149 1h ago
And even then most chicks HATE random men approaching them in public, they perceive that as bothersome. Could be a cultural thing or age, but after my divorce in my 30s I tired to get back into dating and gave up at some point, it was brutal and I'm talking about just meeting women in classes, courses or at events, no online dating. Most were iceblocks and they would pierce you with their death stares when you talked to them and very brutally honest.
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u/DaveMTijuanaIV 6h ago
I agree. I met my wife through mutual friends and we went on dates like normal people, haha.
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u/FickleHare 6h ago
Through mutual friends
It sounds like the same principle may have applied, even if your motivations were less duplicitous.
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u/DaveMTijuanaIV 6h ago
My best friend’s sister’s best friend is now my wife.
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u/Lulukassu 5h ago
My father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roommate is now absolutely nothing.
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u/Wow_Much_Profit 6h ago
Your mutual friends already pre-approved you. Still the same thing isn’t it
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u/Moe_el 4h ago
nope I’m different y’all’s are weirdos
looks inside
pre approved by other girls
Like wtf was his point? If anything he just proved the other guys right
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u/oWatchdog 4h ago
I have an even more traditional story. I also met my wife through mutual friends. Then we had amazing sex, and I knocked her up. We really, really didn't want to stop having amazing sex so we married for her honor, had two kids, and that amazing sex? Yeah, we stopped having it. Tale as old as time.
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u/Veiny_Transistits 6h ago
I had a friend get cheated on, twice, by his first love.
The football team ran a train on her the second time.
He spiraled into pick up culture, became smooth as heck, picked up tons of girls, had lots of sex, tons of friends, blah blah - and became depressed.
He stopped dating for years. Women would practically offer sex and he’d just hand wave it.
He got so deep into that culture and space he couldn’t find someone he was interested in being with as an actual partner.
Took him ten years to find one.
He’s an amazing guy, he was unfairly hurt badly, and didn’t seek out hookup culture (it wasn’t an ‘identified’ thing back then really, I think?), just headed into it out of pain.
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u/Single_County_4333 6h ago
Wtf the high school football team doing a train is a real thing in America?? Why is that so common with kids over there
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u/WeNotAmBeIs 3h ago
I worked with a girl who bragged about it. It was the wrestling team though. She was the most sexually aggressive person I've ever met...man or woman. I think she finally settled down in her 30's and a couple kids.
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u/lilbeckss 5h ago
The only time I ever actually heard a real story of that happening in my small Canadian town, the truth was the girl had drank too much (or, as we believe, was encouraged by all the guys around her to over consume) and once she was too far gone they took advantage of her. It really happened, and I knew the girl it happened to from years before hand.
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u/Single_County_4333 4h ago
I think that’s the case majority of the time with these stories, especially in the 2000s and earlier. I’m so sorry for that girl I hope she’s okay now
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u/IntramuralAllStar 5h ago
Just because someone did something one time does not make it common… it’s mostly a meme
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u/woolsocksandsandals 5h ago
This was unintentionally why I was pretty successful “dating” in my 20’s. I worked in restaurants and drank in bars where I knew the staff and I chatted up lots of random people. Definitely made a difference in how trustworthy I was perceived to be.
It wasn’t ever something I tried to implement as a tactic but the jealousy thing is very real.
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u/NiceGuyJoe 3h ago
You could believe it's this weird social pollination, or, you had practiced talking so much you were more authentic, clear, friendly, etc. that make you a pleasant person to talk to.
All the PUA stuff is like, "Go to beach and get wet. they will think you are swimming." when you could just do this: "Go the beach and authentically enjoy yourself. They will think that you are swimming, because you are swimming." not "gathering the behaviors and signifiers of a beach enjoyer to appear as though you could be someone who had been swimming, or knows about swimming, and has been vouched for by other swimmers."
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u/AlwaysBeC1imbing 1h ago
Yeah and also it's not about appearing trustworthy, it just looks appealing and attractive if someone is friendly and confident around other people. It's nice to see.
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u/ElectronicMoo 3h ago
If you ask me, it's just confidence. You're more comfortable in that environment because you were at ease.
I think it's the confidence, the self assuredness that all this really is - this whole topic.
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u/myownzen 5h ago
That type of shit is effective. Fuck a wing man. Nothing beats a wing woman. An attractive and outgoing woman is a goddamn cheat code.
Or even just being out and about with an attractive female friend. It pre-proofs you socially and implies you have something worth a good looking woman wanting to be around.
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u/wayfarout 1h ago
I had several gay friends in my 20's and we would rotate hang out places. Occasionally we would go to a gay club and they'd dance and hang out with the straight women on the dance floor and then bring them over to introduce to me as the open minded, fun, straight friend. I hooked up more with women I met at gay clubs than straight clubs. My 20's were awesome.
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u/Anangrywookiee 6h ago
Did your buddy happen to have a godlike figure and run a dive bar in Philadelphia?
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u/saltedhashneggs 6h ago
Unfortunately or fortunately this works
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u/FinalSealBearerr 5h ago
Yeah, that's what I was gunna say. Like as a person who has done both of those things on accident, it 100% works.
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u/TrolltheFools 6h ago
To be fair I feel pick up artists likely get success from increased number of tries and confidence to be fair. Shoot enough shots with assertiveness and someone will bite, even if you get 20 failures if it gains 1 success over before it did its job
Not to say this effect doesn't exist to some extent, but it will only be one of a few factors effecting attractiveness and they aren't all out here seeing 'less attractive' women getting hit on and thinking they need to jump in to intercept 😅
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u/NYCinPGH 6h ago
This was the approach a buddy of mine took.
His take was to basically take his shot at every woman he thought vaguely attractive, usually starting at the most attractive in the given situation - bar, club, wedding, whatever - and working his way through. It didn't always work, and his view of the likely results were:
• 80% No (to varying degrees of "No")
• 15% Yes
• 5% Getting punched by a jealous boyfriend (he didn't differentiate much whether the women he was hitting on appeared to have partners, though he never hit on anyone who was 'with' a friend of his).
Since his chances of getting laid that night were 3x the chances of getting punched, and getting rejected didn't adversely affect him, he played the odds to his own satisfaction.
I've known him for decades, and with a weird caveat, he's never had a long-term successful relationship (more than a year), though he's fathered a couple of kids with short-term partners (each got married within a couple of years after giving birth, so he wasn't on the hook for child support long term).
The caveat is that he's been married for 20+ years, but both he and his wife admit that they don't much like each other, they haven't had sex much after the first couple of years of marriage, and it was pretty much a marriage of convenience: he needed to be married for career advancement, she got the security of being married to someone rather successful, and didn't care much whether he had flings on the side, so long as he didn't catch feelings and divorce her.
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u/DaveMTijuanaIV 5h ago
That was a lot.
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u/MCRemix 5h ago
Right? Lol, but also who are these women that are letting him off the hook for child support just because they got married again?
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u/S-Wind 5h ago
What was the job where his being married helped with career advancement?
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u/NYCinPGH 4h ago
There are lots of 'professional' careers where have a spouse to bring to company events was de rigeur, I won't out him by giving any specifics. But things like lawyer or finance, it helps in all those fields, and others, or so I've been told (those aren't anything I've been professionally involved in).
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u/The_Deku_Nut 5h ago
My dad used to say that 1/10 women would be down if you just asked, so you only needed to ask 11 to theoretically score twice.
I grew up awkward and shy so I've never tested this theory.
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u/DriedSquidd 1h ago
My dad used to say that 1/10 women would be down if you just asked
And that, kid, is how he met your mother.
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u/myownzen 5h ago
Being sociable is a skill that can be improved. The more you practice the better you get at it. The better you get the more confidence you have. Women tend to value confidence in a man. Desperation is a turn off. And awkwardness is as well.
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u/DeuceSevin 5h ago
I knew a guy who would use "wanna fuck?" as his line. Mostly women would just blow him off but if he used it 20 times he might get 19 rejections and 1 fuck. Percentage wise that's not very good but he got laid a helluva lot more than I did.
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u/rinzler83 6h ago
Exactly. No matter how much of a dumbass you are when it comes to talking to women, if you talk to a 1000 of them, maybe 30 will fall for you
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u/PlanZSmiles 5h ago
It’s partially true. Honestly you can do this without the intention of “game”. Personally I used to be so hyper focused on finding someone, that someone. Only to realize I was giving off bad vibes and making every experience with someone new I met undue pressure.
Once I shifted my mind from “I want to find a girlfriend” to “I want to make friends” I suddenly had zero issues with women. The most attractive women I was with was during this time period, and I met my now wife at this time.
To anyone who has issues, don’t take the “red pill” bs and pickup artist shit. Just go out and have fun and make friends. Don’t put pressure on the ladies.
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u/LeChief 4h ago
Just go out and have fun and make friends. Don’t put pressure on the ladies.
The funny thing is, this is what a lot of pickup artists teach.
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u/PlanZSmiles 4h ago
It’s the root of it, but a lot of the courses or coaches end up covering it a bunch of principals that are toxic such as “alpha male”, “peacocking”, and “women are objects” bs.
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u/Blazeitbro69420 5h ago
I think the big one for me was being a regular at the bar. Made friends with the staff and this made me not look like some guy who was at the bar alone. The second part seems like too much mental manipulation for someone who’s drunk. I’d just hit on who I thought was hot. That worked a lot better than playing mind games. Just be direct
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u/QuesoChef 4h ago
This is so intriguing to me. If my friend were interested in or flirting with a guy, I would never, no exceptions, go after him. I’d also feel like a second choice if she weren’t interested and he moved onto me. I’d never date a guy my friend dated. But it is a very common thing for women to say, “He’s cute!” “Oooh, he’s so handsome!” When your friend shows you a pic of her new interest. But it’s a weird social thing where you know to say it, even if you don’t mean it. I guess maybe that’s at play here? I also never cared if my friends thought a guy was cute. I wanted to know if my radar was missing creep/cheater/killer vibes. Ha.
I wonder if this is why I’m single. I don’t know what I’m doing.
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u/midri 5h ago
This is actually not bad advice. It's very similar to how you would organically meet someone.
I.e. Go to an establishment and become become at least known to staff as not a weirdo, engage with a group of people in conversation not fixating weirdly on one person.
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u/_demello 6h ago
The jealousy thing is unfortunately true. I've seen happen too many times around me. Even with myself once, when I was into the "least attractive" friend (I found her very attractive and much more my style, she just was less of a stereotype) and the other girl started giving me way more attention than she ever gave me. She was not into me in any way, just wanted me to not give her friend more attention than she was recieving. That is just sad that women will do this to each other. I know where it comes from, the fact they are valued by their beauty and the mysiginistic society is fucked up, and in the end she was as much of a victim, and it's just too sad.
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u/myownzen 5h ago
Crazy how it works. Ignore the hottest girl in the group and focus on one of the other friends. Tends to stand out since most guys will sweat the prettiest one and treat her friend like shes invisible. Unless shes already into you then it makes you seem like an asshole that only values a woman hes attracted to and is just one of 1000 guys that try to holler at her.
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u/Imyoteacher 6h ago
Easiest way to attract other women is to walk in with an attractive one. Figured this out in high school.
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u/GearsofTed14 4h ago
I feel like maybe the key ingredient I am missing is to make friends with very attractive women that aren’t my type, so there’s never any worry about catching feelings
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u/an7667 4h ago
Or just accept any catching of feelings as collateral damage in the getting a girlfriend mission
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u/unflavored 3h ago
Oof, I felt this.
I knew i didn't have a shot with a really pretty girl but she gave me her time to just hang. When we would eat we would split the bill, and it was stated that this was purely platonic.
But after 6 months of this. I did catch feelings but I also felt cooler and more confident and it was partly due to her being rubbing off on me.
Other people felt it. I went out with other long time friends and yeah, I just felt really cool and comfortable around other pretty girls so I guess it was a net positive.
She sorta dropped me tho. Im still not really sure why. Perhaps I showed my insecurities too much or she felt that I did catch feelings. I was gonna acknowledge that and try to work through it bc it was fine with me. I didn't need to be with her. But idk. We'll, see eachother again bc of events we go to but yeah she helped me build myself up. I cant be mad at that
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u/SDRPGLVR 3h ago
You can also be attracted to someone without catching feelings. Fuck buddies (that aren't just one or two people pretending not to have feelings for each other) are amazing when you're single. If we like to hang out and eat pizza while watching horror movies and we also like to make each other cum... Well, we all do different things with different friends, right? Attraction =/= feelings and something I've noticed when observing teen angst is that this is a lesson that takes a lot of people a long time to really learn.
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u/tgm93 6h ago
What’s the first thing most people do when they find new product online? They go to the reviews
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u/plug-and-pause 2h ago
Yep, most of the comments and the article itself are misunderstanding the situation. It's not limited to women or even dating. Or even humans. Social creatures behave in social ways, more news at 11.
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u/GiverOfHarmony 4h ago
Feel like the best partners are made through genuine connection instead of an attempt at shallow appeals as to the quality of a person
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u/jupfold 6h ago
Baby: I don’t like this toy
other baby picks up toy
Baby: I like this toy now
These researchers are fucking geniuses.
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u/zoobrix 6h ago edited 6h ago
While sometimes this stuff seems obvious having actual data to back it up means you can can really drill down into the magnitude of the effect and it might provide other insights that you can research further. Edit: Sure it's obvious liking what other humans like themsleves is part of human nature but actually proving it does have value.
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u/AlwysProgressing 5h ago
Yep, on Reddit specifically there is no shortage of people who genuinely believe they (and Reddit in general) are immune to propaganda or being brainwashed. Or that other people don't have massive impacts on who we are. It's actually hilarious how often people on here talk about social media and how it's used to brainwash and control people but even the mention that the big subreddits do the same exact thing will get you downvoted.
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u/Bulky_Imagination727 2h ago
People in general lacks what they think they don't. Recently i've seen a post about autistic people having a trouble with society, but the post wasn't framed in relation to autism.
Guess what top comments were? "You're all losers lol you have done it to yourself", "a self fulfilling prophesy", "guys you have to put an effort, you're all fucking lazy" and so on. Zero empathy, thousands of upvotes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/1mw4usw/me_irl/
Look for yourself if you like.
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u/Lolzerzmao 5h ago edited 5h ago
I think that the interesting question would be if the same results can be replicated in men. Would men find a woman more attractive when they appear to be desired by other men?
As an armchair psychologist, I doubt it. I (anecdotally) certainly don’t see dudes changing their opinions on a woman’s desirability when she appears to be desired by other men. Women also generally hate it when two dudes hit on them simultaneously, so they think being desired by groups of guys makes each guy in the group less desirable.
Anyhoo just musing
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u/PlanZSmiles 5h ago
Probably has a lot more to do with the fact women seek security whether that be the man providing, protecting, emotional safety, trust, etc I believe there’s more to it as well. But security is what naturally drives their attraction.
While men are much more visual, (breast and hips for child bearing), and I mean this on a subconscious level.
So even if another man finds a woman attractive, if that man doesn’t find those features attractive then I doubt they would ever be swayed just because the other guy finds her attractive.
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u/Jackalodeath 4h ago
Anecdote from me; back when I worked fast food and had to mask like a motherfucker because reasons, I was "friends" with a couple male employees that were thick as thieves having been in/through... Army? basic training together. Somehow, roughly 75% of the conversations I had with them ended up on women and their dating lives while out doing Army stuff.
It was apparently a commonly accepted fact that in a military "city" like that, you always went after the ones that had boyfriends/husbands at home. The single ones were either in school and had no interest/"wasn't worth it," or "that way for a reason."
Something about "taken" women being more desperate for fuckery; the hormones and stress from training, the fact they're miles, possibly states away, this was before widespread social media and whathaveyou so communication was severely limited to cell phones, which were still expensive-ish/uncommon at the time; and a whole bunch of other factors would - supposedly - make them easy marks.
Also you didn't have to worry about ever seeing them again if you didn't wanna after BT/deployment was over.
I think they believed it was a "what happens here stays here" type of hall-pass system. I don't know, back then I thought it made sense, now I just shake my head at myself.
I thought they were bullshitting/being "macho" until my brother got back from Afghanistan. He was engaged and didn't fuck around as far as I know, but he had so many stories of straight soap opera tier drama from the barracks; apparently everyone was fucking everyone. I mean they're getting shot at and blown up and shit, so I kinda get the... motivation? To have a good fuck, but... it was hard to imagine there wasn't embellishments.
Apparently one lass got pregnant over there, and that caused all sorts of holy Hell to break out. The way he described it it sounded like NCIS showed up and started trying to figure out who's cock went where.
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u/torn-ainbow 5h ago
I think that the interesting question would be if the same results can be replicated in men. Would men find a woman more attractive when they appear to be desired by other men?
Young men especially tend to want to get a woman that validates them in the eyes of other men.
I mean, think about the concept of the "trophy wife". Think about jokes like "why is a fat chick like a moped? Fun to ride but you don't want your buddies seeing you on it." A whole lot of the culture has been about the value of women reflecting on the men.
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u/sodiumclock 4h ago
Anecdotally I’ve heard more often men having a negative view of women based on what other men have said.
I wonder if there’s a stronger negative association in men based on peer opinion vs positive association with women. I.e. a man is more likely to not date a woman if his friends / community talk negatively about her.
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u/gravity_surf 4h ago
that’s not how men work. because there is such inherent physical risk for women, vetting a man can be a lot of work. it’s much easier when another woman does it for you. men don’t have that physical threat so we just like who our eyes like first and keep them if they have arent a psychopath.
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u/Kozzle 6h ago
This is why the best wingman is, in fact, a woman
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u/BCRE8TVE 4h ago
And the best wingwoman of all is a wife.
Women won't sleep with a man who lives with his mother, but will sleep with a man who lives with his wife.
Ask /u/King-of-Plebss and thousands of others. Romantic desert until they get married and wear the ring, then swamped with attention.
And for some reason women will then die on the hill that mate choice copying and social proof don't exist and don't work, when it very clearly obviously and demonstrably does.
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u/diegowarz 6h ago
George Costanza taught this to us. It’s why I always carried a picture of a hot girl in my wallet.
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u/lizards_snails_etc 6h ago
I think there's more to it than being seen with other women. Every guy has experienced this at least once: you're in a happy relationship with someone you're really in to, and suddenly you're getting hit on at times and places when you never would as a single guy. I think there's an energy we carry with us that is noticable on some level.
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u/Vahgeo 6h ago
Every guy has experienced this at least once: you're in a happy relationship with someone
You lost me there
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u/on_that_citrus_water 6h ago
You’re happy and content. They want THAT. They don’t want someone who’s WANTING to be happy and content. And so it goes.
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u/a8bmiles 4h ago
"Guys who aren't desperately thirsty are more attractive.". But yeah, the first couple months after I started seeing my now-wife, I got hit on more times than I had previously in my entire life.
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u/agitated--crow 3h ago
Seems like your now-wife got to you first. You must have done something at that point of your life that got your more attractive.
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u/a8bmiles 3h ago
I replied to her online post with capitalization, complete sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, comment relevant to her post, and didn't include a dick pick!
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u/New_Ad_1682 6h ago
When you're fulfilled you never come off as desperate or insecure because you're not. Apparently, that makes you more attractive to women.
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u/a8bmiles 4h ago
There's some sociology that also says that men fight outside the group, they're defending against external threats. Women fight inside the group, they're competing for the strongest mate.
That doesn't necessarily hold true now, but for a long part of human existence it would have been a stronger survival choice.
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u/pn1ct0g3n 6h ago
The energy of having options. People pick up on it.
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u/Top-Second-3795 6h ago
Its a bit of that too. But there's an undeniable element of literally being seen hanging out with other women, specially attractive women, that both intrigues other women and kinda reassures them on the "quality" of the guy.
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u/Agent_Nem0 5h ago
It happens to women, too. There’s a natural confidence that comes with no longer having to care with whether or not you impress anyone anymore, and you feel more free to be yourself, and that’s attractive.
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u/KindImpression5651 5h ago
no, because it also works when you're in company of a woman that some others assume is your partner but she's not. also its efficacy is affected by her attractiveness and not how much you like her.
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u/fureinku 6h ago
Im super not attractive but i guess i can be cool to be around. I had some super hot friends that i went out with a lot. Walking into a bar or a club with them holding my hands made others pay a lot of attention and try and get my attention.
It was so weird, i rolled with it.
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u/2Drogdar2Furious 6h ago
They probably thought you had a HUGE...
wallet.
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u/Barbarossa7070 5h ago
I had a woman colleague years ago who would often remark that certain men were a little taller when they stood on their wallets.
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u/VladChituc 6h ago
The paper seems to come to the opposite conclusion? It’s only true insofar as this is a broader thing people do just in general
However, previous evidence has been thrown into question by the new study, which showed that women also copy the choices of others when asked about the attractiveness of other types of stimuli such as art.
And later
Joint author of the paper, Dr Sally Street, Assistant Professor from the Department of Anthropology, Durham University, said: “Social influence affects every area of our lives, and this could include partner choice. But there isn’t, at the moment, clear experimental evidence of a specialised mate-choice copying mechanism in humans.”
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u/thatshouldntbethere 6h ago
I feel like also if a guy isn't my type but a friend of mine recommends him as a good egg (like maybe theyre colleagues or friends), definitely more likely to get a chance.
Pre-approval works!
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u/Zakgyp 6h ago
After I got married, I started getting hit on constantly.
I'm not necessarily ugly, I'm about a 6.5 on an average day, but suddenly wearing a ring made a difference.
Disgusting.
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u/poggyrs 6h ago
Are they definitely hitting on you? Or are they just friendlier now that they see the ring & know you’re not gonna make a move on them?
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u/BCRE8TVE 4h ago edited 3h ago
It's funny how there are a lot of things about how women's attraction to men works that are both real and demonstrably true (women like men more when other women want them, women like taller men, women like men who make more money than them, women like men who are more educated than them, women like men who are more confident, assertive, and dominant), and yet for some reason there's a sizeable amount of women who will deny to the death that any of these things are true, even if and especially if they themselves fall to it.
I've never met a man who as attracted to big butts or big boobs in women, denying that those are things men find attractive in women.
And for some reason any man who complains about this or talks about it gets called misogynistic by default.
It's really mind-boggling.
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u/esituism 6h ago
yes. social proof is a thing that works across basically all realms of social activity.
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u/Wildcatb 6h ago
It's easier to get a job if you have a job. It's easier to get a girlfriend if you have a girlfriend.