Thursday, August 09, 2007

Girls don’t make passes


At boys with granite asses.

File under: d.u.h.

Turns out, girls like bad boys for the short-duration/high-velocity/traumatically -decelerating good times…

And the other boys for life's biological marathon.

Who knew?

From the AFP.

Feminine guys better for long-term love: study


Wed Aug 8, 8:20 AM ET

Women see masculine-looking men as more unsuitable long-term partners but men with more feminine features are seen as more committed and less likely to stray, researchers said Wednesday.

Scientists at the universities of Durham and St Andrews came to the conclusion by asking more than 400 British men and women to make judgments on character after looking at digitally-altered pictures of men's faces.

The web-based test asked participants to rate the face for traits such as dominance, ambition, wealth, faithfulness, commitment, parenting skills, and warmth.

Men with square jaws, larger noses and smaller eyes were classed as significantly more dominant, less faithful, worse parents and as having less warm personalities.
Those with finer facial features, fuller lips, wide eyes and thinner, more curved eyebrows on the other hand were viewed as a better bet for long-term relationships.
And healthier-looking faces, for example those with better complexions, were seen as more desirable in terms of all personality traits compared to those who looked unhealthy.

Older faces were also generally viewed more positively compared to younger ones.
The scientists said there was a "high amount of agreement" between women about what they see in terms of personality when seeing a man's face and they may well use their impression to decide whether or not to engage with him.

"That decision-making process all depends on what a woman is looking for in a relationship at that time of her life," said Lynda Boothroyd, from Durham Universitys Department of Psychology.


Under other circumstances there would now come a long and elaborate lecture and interpretive dance entitled “The Driftglass Theory of Quantum Dating” in which I would go on about how at any one moment women exist in no less than four, distinct, non-overlapping Quantum Dating States during their lifetimes, and why Nice Guys should make themselves keenly aware which Dating State their intended occupies.

This is because geeky Nice Guys are
A) Suckers for dating theories.
B) Suckers for all theories laced with physics-terminology.


So both? Combined?

How can I possibly lose?

It is not advice on how to woo and win your dream girl, because frankly there are no majyks to be had at that cosmetics counter: in all sincerity, the very, very best you can do is to be yourself, be as honest as you can be without blurting out your every weird secret in the first hour and without injuring your intended’s heart unnecessarily, listen, and don’t be afraid to let your passions show, as silly as you think they may seem to others.

The human face lights up like a nova through stained glass when we talk about what fascinates us and what we cherish, and there is no pheromone-body-spray-hair-gel-suppository that can simulate the gorgeous and aphrodisiacal luminosity of it.

The Theory of Quantum Dating will not improve your batting average one iota, but it will making looking yourself in the mirror less painful.

It will not explain to women why some men are such swine, but it will explain to some men why swine never want for companionship.

It will not explain the infuriating mysteries of male dating behavior because, frankly, I don’t want to date men so the subject doesn't interest me.

It will unfairly generalize to make a point, so I will stipulate in advance that, no, of course I’m not talking about you.

The Theory of Quantum Dating lays out to the Nice Guys, in simple terms, not only who you should avoid dating, but exactly how your strategies for dating women you should not be trying to date are doomed to fail.

It explains when to Just Say No, and why.

However since I still have hopes of flogging it to Men’s Health or Maxim or somesuch for Real Writer Money, that is about all the tease I dare do, except to note that women mature faster than men in lots of ways, including the development of a Public Persona avatar.

And the Public Persona avatar of both men and women almost always comes pre-loaded with The List.

The List of “Top Ten Traits I Am Supposed To Find Attractive In A Partner.”

The polite and socially acceptable List that goes something like “Sense of humor…Smart…Rilly Nice…” and so forth.

But for a woman in the first Quantum Dating State, not only are those traits nowhere to be found integrated into her real, operating system code, but you will find that she is serially dating (and sometimes marrying) men who are the polar opposite of everything her Public List proclaims she values.

While every “Humorous…Smart…Rilly Nice…” man in the vicinity does everything but set their hair on fire to get her attention, a woman in the first Quantum Dating State will walk right past them and leave with monsters over and over again.

Until one day when she will ask you, in perfect seriousness, “Why are men such bastards?”

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown..

Because it turns out, girls like bad boys for the short-duration/high-velocity/traumatically-decelerating good times…

And the other boys for the marathon.

Of course as with all such theories, there are always…

…the odd, statistical outliers.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

And this hint-filled-screed-that-doesn't-exactly-deliver-the-goods has WHAT to do with my favorite rock formation in the world?

PS- So now I have to buy every issue of Maxim to find your article? ;-)

WereBear said...

Bravo! It sounds like a fascinating article.

Now go do it.

Anonymous said...

Damn you driftie! Where the F**K were you when I needed all of this info?!?! Screw it!! I'm signing on to the Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg School Of Dating & Dogging from here on out.

Anonymous said...

Fooey! I don't date anymore. In my long-lived life I have learned one thing: While money can't "buy" love, it can certainly rent it for as long as you need it.

Anonymous said...

I never dated. I slept with someone six times and moved in with him...her...them - anyhoo! You've shown me the light. I'll saved that come-hither look for the sweet and the singed.

Organic Mechanic said...

well...as the old song said:

-- if you want to be happy for the rest of your life
never make a pretty woman your wife
so for my personal point of view
get an ugly girl to marry you...

i forget the name of the band, it was way back in the day. easy to flip "woman" for "man" -- same result.
no wandering eye....

now, how about that wee little news piece about W and Lyme Disease?
i've known quite a few folks around these ridges who have had Lyme Disease and it is not pretty. in fact, can be totally debilitating.
it's fairly easy to avoid if you're a real forester and not a tourist in Nature. also avoidable if you are sensitive enough to feel the tiny creature crawling on your skin, much less start to burrow in -- it hurts like hell.
i guess it is obvious that W is not human at all.
peace out --

Anonymous said...

As a critter that has long since bonded (and reproduced - be afraid world!) I have discovered that quanta state called 'marriage' - kind uv a low energy 'date' state, but time dilates, so it's hard to tell. But this sparked my brane;

"be as honest as you can be without blurting out your every weird secret in the first hour"

Occasionally, although it's rare - this works. But can you handle it when you find her porn collection makes yours look like an Etch-a-Sketch and a box of crayons?

Anonymous said...

But can you handle it when you find her porn collection makes yours look like an Etch-a-Sketch and a box of crayons?

I was just happy that the porn collection (having fallen, due to electrical work) was happily accepted and utilized.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

The Donald's facial expression says it all:

"What the pluperfect fucking sulfuric HELL?"

Fran / Blue Gal said...

I'd date you, Drifty, even if you lace your lovemaking with physics terminology. Wait. Isn't that what the Karma Sutra was all about?

Maxim? Paycheck? for writing?

Words on paper, baby.

Malacandra said...

As the bard wrote:

"Pretty women out walking with gorillas on my street...
...
Is she really going out with him?
Is she really gonna take him home tonight?
Is she really going out with him?
Because if my eyes don't deceive me,
There's something going wrong around here".

It's crazy making when you're young... but as one ages, there's an ever widening pool of women who have been burned enough to not jump up on that hot stove again... but not so badly burned that they won't dare jump on the cold stove either.

And those wised-up ones start to jump the nice guys.

In my youth I had been the nice guy who was Best Friends Forever with any number of luscious, intelligent, talented, bright and soulful women. Any one of whom I would have marched barefoot into Mordor for, in exchange for a peck on a cheek or a hanky to tie on the end of my lance.

And I was mystified why they'd instead opt for Vinnie Barbarino or Jordan Catalano, only dumber and meaner, over and over and over and over.

And then endlessly complain about him. To me.

Now I'm happily married for over 18 years. Now they're interested. The universe has the most perverse sense of humor, I tell you.

Anonymous said...

And, BTW, that isn't granite in the photo. Probably a sedimentary formation of some sort. Granite weathers into big orange pillowy-looking thingies.

Fran / Blue Gal said...

dammit Drifty I tossed and turned all night worried that I'd misspelled KAMA Sutra in this thread and dammit I did.

I did find the online full text version so you can blog it for Maxim Magazine. We could also search for palindromes within the text faster than leafing through the tree-killer version, though maybe we can't get your desktop that close to your bathmat. Whatever.

driftglass said...

US Blues,
The flatirons has the nicest ass of any mountain range in the continental US.

malacandra,
It is s funny 'ol Universe at that.

chautauqua,
The muse cares not for your ge-o-logies :-)

BG,
Well it is a very large tub.

Bollox Ref/skunqesh,
Been there, and glad of it.