Why Can’t You Accept Me For The Way I Am?

Do you remember when Airline Attendants were hot?

Me neither.

The only reason why I ask this question is to illustrate another difference between men and women.

Women think: “It’s nice to see that an older woman has the ability to handle such a demanding job.”

Men think: “Why do I always get stuck with these ^&%#$ squat walruses on my flights?”

The same thought process occurs in relationships. For some reason, women tend to go into “change this man” mode whenever they think that a relationship has a 0.0001% chance of going somewhere. Men just want sex.

A couple of examples:

The girlfriend states that you need a dog (if you don’t already have one). The guy wonders why he needs to spend the next ten to twelve years picking up some animal’s shit… when he’s not thinking about banging this chick.

The girlfriend indicates that you need to get more furniture to replace the junk that you already have. The guy thinks that he’s just broken in his Salvation Army rescued couch to fit his favorite reclining position…meaning that he can still see the television with his girlfriend on top.

The girlfriend starts criticizing your choices in clothes and friends…while you’re thinking about better uses for her mouth.

What do you think would happen if we start to suggest way to “improve” certain areas of our women’s lives? Like how they dress? Or how they fix their hair and makeup? Or how much they weigh?

The moral of this story centers on why women go to such lengths to change their men and yet demand that we accept them in their current state.

I used to work with a woman a few years ago who could not understand why a guy couldn’t accept her because she weighed 150 pounds.  (Let’s overlook the fact that she was a shade over 5 foot tall.)

She loudly and proudly proclaimed one afternoon that she would rather die alone than conform to some Barbie doll image.

I understand that the Paramedics were rushed to her home that night…

…apparently she had gotten her face stuck in a gallon ice cream container.

The Male Pill Is Coming

No, I don’t mean Viagra.  I mean a contraceptive pill for men.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NATION/657226903/1002

How common do you think taking this pill will be?  Guys, would you take it?  One argument in favor of taking it is to avoid the risk and expense of paternity.  Child support based even on a fairly modest income would add up to over $200,000 over 18 years.

Women, would you insist that your boyfriends/husbands (or both) take it if you’re now using female contraceptive pills? 

Guys, if your girlfriend/wife is not taking the pill and you have to wear condoms, would this be preferable to wearing the raincoat?  (note to women: sex isn’t nearly as enjoyable when you’re wearing one).

How would your decision be changed if you weren’t in a monogamous relationship?

Are couples happier where the woman is more attractive than the man?

Are couples happier where the woman is more attractive than the man?

I want to discuss another topic from the Kanazawa article discussed on the Psychology Today blog (discussion and link in my post immediately below).  He asserted:

…couples in which the woman is more attractive than the man are happier than the couples in which the man is more attractive than the woman. Why is this?

It is therefore quite natural that a man (whether he himself is handsome or ugly) who is married to an attractive wife is happier than a man who is married to an ugly wife, because it means that his attractive wife has a high mate value. Similarly, since physical attractiveness is not what women seek in their long-term mates (husbands), even though it is what they seek in their short-term mates (lovers), having a handsome husband will not necessarily make a woman happy with her husband or marriage, unless he is rich and powerful as well.

   

As we explain extensively in Chapter 3 of our book Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (“Barbie — Manufactured by Mattel, Designed by Evolution: The Evolutionary Psychology of Sex and Mating”), women’s mate value is primarily a function of their youth and physical attractiveness, whereas men’s mate value is primarily a function of their wealth and status. Men prefer to marry women who are young and beautiful, and women prefer to marry men who are rich and powerful. Of course, you don’t need no stinkin’ evolutionary psychologists to tell you that; your illiterate and uneducated great-grandmother, who never in her life set foot outside of her small village, knew that a hundred years ago. But she didn’t know why; we need evolutionary psychology to figure out why.

 

 

 What are your thoughts on these points? 

Girls, Beware the Best-looking Guys

I’ve been reading two interesting posts on the Psychology Today website from the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa.  There is a lot of material there.  For now, I’ll just focus on a few of the research findings he discusses:

 

[H]andsome men on average make bad husbands. Men can maximize their reproductive success by pursuing one of two different strategies: Seek a long-term mate, stay with her, and invest in their joint offspring (the “dad” strategy); or seek a large number of short-term mates without investing in any of the resulting offspring (the “cad” strategy).

 

 

 

All men may want to pursue the cad strategy; however, their choice of the mating strategy is constrained by female choice. Men do not get to decide with whom to have sex; women do. And women disproportionately seek out handsome men for their short-term mates for their good genes…

 

 

 

Thus, handsome men get a disproportionate number of opportunities for short-term mating and are therefore able to engage in the cad strategy. Ugly men have no choice. Since women do not choose them as short-term mates, their only option for achieving any reproductive success is to find one long-term mate and invest heavily in their children — the dad strategy.

 

 

 

Consistent with this logic, studies show that more attractive men have a larger number of extra-pair sex partners (sex partners other than their long-term mates). Interestingly, more attractive men have more short-term mates than long-term mates, whereas more attractive women have more long-term mates than short-term mates. Most importantly for our current purposes, handsome men invest less in their exclusive relationships than ugly men do. They are less honest with and less attentive to their partners. McNulty’s new study of newlyweds confirms this. Their data show that the more physically attractive the husbands are, the less supportive they are of their wives in their interactions.

 

 

 

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200804/why-handsome-men-make-bad-husbands-ii

 

One of my friends came up with this theory, although it was supported only by anecdotal evidence rather than the presumably more rigorous methods used in the studies on which these conclusions are based.  His theory was that a great many women are attracted to the very best-looking guys and would sleep with them.  Those guys (the cads) would rarely want to settle down with any of these women, because they were in high demand and could sleep with lots of different women. 

 

The women, most of whom wanted relationships with these guys, were disappointed and wondered why guys were interested only in sex (cads).   It wasn’t that all guys were this way; but almost all the guys they were interested in were this way. 

 

A lot of you readers have undoubtedly observed the very same phenomenon.

 

It occurs to me that a lot of heartache could be eliminated by better selection. 

 

 

Avoid a Mismatch in Sex Drives

Michele Weiner Davis, a prominent marriage counselor and author of several books on marriage, among them “The Sex-starved Marriage” http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Starved-Marriage-Couples-Boosting-Libido/dp/B0000CAR60/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207691787&sr=8-3, recently wrote an interesting article in Time magazine.  She wrote:

… it is very, very common for people to be mismatched in their sexual desire. That in and of itself is not a deal-breaker and is not necessarily a problem. How couples deal with that really becomes the issue. We discovered in the survey, and it bears itself out in my practice, that the person with the lower sex drive controls the sexual relationship, not out of a need to manipulate or control, but because they have veto power. If they’re not in the mood, it doesn’t happen. There’s an unspoken agreement: the person with the lower desire expects his or her spouse to accept it, not complain about it, and also to be monogamous. In my years in working with couples, that’s pretty much an unfair and unworkable arrangement…

 

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1728520,00.html

Those of you who are contemplating marriage would do well to remember this (I’ll address this to guys bc guys mainly read this blog, but it applies to girls as well).  After the marriage, your spouse is your only legitimate outlet for sex.  If she’s not in the mood, you can’t have sex.   That’s not much of a problem; everyone has a stressed day now and then.  The problem arises if it’s not just an off day or an off week.  If she’s not in the mood for a year, you can’t have sex for a year.

And the problem isn’t limited only to that situation.  Power in a marriage accrues to the partner who wants sex less.  She can then use sex as a reward for your behavior that she likes and as a punishment for your behavior she doesn’t like.  It’s easier than dog training.

She also discussed an problem that a lot of married people have: their partner lets herself go after marriage:

Men are more visually oriented when it comes to arousal. So women can debate that, but the truth is, if they really want their husbands be more interested in them, they should pay more attention to how they’re taking care of themselves physically.

 

We’ve all seen this happen. In fact, one of Mr. Practical’s friends told him that a guy could expect only five thin years from a wife.  After that …

And there is very little most husbands can do to persuade their wives to work on shedding the fat.  They’re mostly just stuck with things.  At that point their only option is divorce, which is drastic and expensive.

One Secret to Dating Success: NOT Dating American Girls

As I’ve mentioned before, I truly prefer dating non-American women.  As of this writing, I’ve dated two Eastern Europeans, two Russians, two Germans, a Swede, an Israeli, and a Canadian.  While none of those girls were absolutely perfect mentally, they were certainly more feminine, more conscientious about their bodies, and more straightforward than the Americans I’ve dated.  I’ve basically been dating non-Americans exclusively the last few years.

Well, I’ve recently started making contact with a normal American girl who happens to be mega-hot.  By “contact” I mean through the Internet.  I still haven’t met her in person (she lives a few hours away).  We were just “friends” for a while, but MySpace messages turned into e-mail messages which turned into chats and now phone calls and text messages.  Flirtation has been a big part of this.  This all sounds great, but…

…I’m now being reminded why I basically date non-Americans.  She plays games.  She admits to playing games.  She talks about other guys, which is something I generally don’t care about, but she seems to do it at inappropriate times.  She reverts from being charming to being bitchy in a split second.  She has no idea what she wants in a guy.  She seems to mull relationships from some kind of logical formula, instead of letting her heart be her guide.

Ugh.

I guess I can’t bitch too loudly about that last point, because the “logical formula” thing is what I do. I am always thinking about what degree of attraction and what degree of sense of humor and what degree of intelligence and I need to be happy.  So I guess I am being somewhat hypocritical.  And maybe that is why so many of us are still single.  We’re thinking too much.

Regardless, I think I’m going back to the international dating thing pronto.

Why Did The Senator’s Husband Go To A Hooker?

No, not THAT senator. You thought I was talking about Hillary and Bill Clinton, didn’t you? The husband of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow apparently went to a hooker for a fifteen minute bout of sex. This sort of thing has been in the news a lot lately, and every woman I’ve talked to asks why these men would have sex with a prostitute.

I know nothing about the Stabenows’ marriage (actually, I don’t think they are referred to as “the Stabenows” because he has a different last name, so I’ll call them the couple). So I actually do not know why he had sex with a prostitute. But one possible explanation occurs to me. I will post a pic of this 21 year old prostitute and a pic of the 57 year old Debbie Stabenow:

I’m not condoning this; just trying come up with a possible answer to the oft-repeated question why. Men like to have sex with young, attractive women. I would also point out that the Senator was quite a bit older than her husband.

How Much Should You Spend On An Engagement Ring?

If you thought it was only two months salary, you are behind the times. It used to be only two-months salary, but DeBeers upped it to three. Can you imagine the maker of any other product putting out the word that you should spend a certain percentage of your income to buy their product? I can’t imagine it would be successful if, say, GM were to advertise that “You should spend nine months salary on a new car.”

I recently read an article in “The Atlantic” magazine on how this impressive marketing strategy became successful. Reduced to its essentials, it is this:

The South African diamond producers realized they were mining a lot of diamonds. Knowing the law of supply and demand, they realized that a huge supply of diamonds on the market would reduce the price they were able to get. So they formed a cartel, a big company that controlled the supply of diamonds pretty much worldwide. It helped that almost all the diamonds in the world were found in South Africa.

In the late 1930s DeBeers went to an excellent advertising agency in NYC and paid them to undertake a decades-long campaign to boost diamond sales in the US. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and few people could afford to buy diamonds. Even when they did buy diamond eng. rings, they were inexp. little diamonds of poor quality. So DeBeers wasn’t making much money. Yet.

The agency told DeBeers that times were hard and they would have to convince guys to spend quite a bit of money on diamonds, which meant they couldn’t spend as much on food, clothing, and shelter, you know, necessities.

The agency developed the strategy of selling the idea that only a diamond meant love and commitment. Among many other techniques, they sent speakers to public schools making this kind of presentation, convincing a generation of young girls that they needed to get a diamond ring before giving it up (the speakers weren’t this direct, of course, but that was the effect).

Years later the agency figured out a way to increase their already-vast sales: convince women that they needed another ring, ten years or so after the marriage. And now this too is seen as necessary. So instead of putting $10K in college fund for the couple’s children, or a 401(k) so they won’t be poor in retirement, the couple spends it on another diamond ring.

What a remarkable advertising campaign. Expensive for guys though.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond/4

Can you get married and avoid being poor?

This is in response to a friend of mine who wondered how he could have a relationship with a woman and not run the risk of becoming impoverished by paying half or more of his income in alimony and child support after the relationship ends.  I worked out a few options, but I’d be happy if readers could think of more. 

1. don’t get married or have kids.  Since few women will consent to a long relationship unless you get married and have kids, this method seldom works, or works only short-term. 

2. get married or have kids only with a woman who makes at least as much as you do and who is irrevocably committed to continuing that career that enables her to make that kind of money (and who will resist the powerful urge to quit work after having the kid to stay home with the kid).  Remember: when she quits work, you have to bring in more money to take up the slack, even after you’re divorced.  You have know accustomed her to a lifestyle where she doesn’t have to work and you will have to pay for that lifestyle for some years to come (in addition to your own modest household).

3. Live in a state or a county (believe it or not there is quite a bit of variance from county to county in the same state) that isn’t as lavish at dispensing your money.  This will protect you somewhat.  It will, let’s say, allow you to live in a modest house rather than a tiny apartment, a YMCA, a spare bedroom in your parents house, or a homeless shelter.  

4. Date or marry a woman who gets a big payout from her ex-husband and can afford to pay her way, or even subsidize you.A variant of this is to marry a woman who earns a lot of money in her own right.  I understand such women exist, but they must be extremely few in number. 

5. Earn under-the-table income that neither the IRS nor your ex-wife can prove.  Note: she gets to look at your tax returns until your kids reach age of majority, which could be 18, but is increasingly 21 or even later, until they get out of college. 

6. Regularly increase your income and hope she doesn’t think to go back to court to get an increasing payout from you. Remember, every time you get a raise, she can get a raise.  

7. Leave the country.