Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Women Are So Shallow
A five foot guy needs to make $325,000 a year more than a six footer if he wishes to be as successful at online dating. A six footer wanting to match the performance of a man four inches taller would need to make $43,000 more. This from this - sorry about the New York Times link, but you can hum quietly to yourself or write a sonnet while wading through the unnecessary verbiage. So, it seems, all the love stuff comes down to money and height. Don't women understand inner beauty? No, neither do I. But somebody must. Sadly, men don't either - ' For women in the online study, shorter is better. A 5-foot-6 women would need to make $59,000 more than a 5-foot-0 or 5-foot-2 woman to do as well. She'd need to make $50,000 more than a 5-foot-4 woman.' So, basically, sexual selection is driving our species to ever larger variations in height. In a few hundred years it will be routine to see seven foot men with four foot women on their arms, or, perhaps, clutching their trouser legs. Routine and, in its way, handy - as, I think, Barry Humphries' sublime Australian cultural attache Les Patterson observed, a four footer with a flat head is the ideal as it's good to have somewhere to rest your drink.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I've always been tall and I've been rich and I've been poor - and it's never seemed to make any difference.
ReplyDeleteI've always been tall and I've been poor and not so poor - not so poor is better.
ReplyDeleteThis is mating between animals. People select each other on the basis of physical attraction, and, in the case of women, power, wealth and status, and then retrospectively invent stories to explain their attraction in terms of personality characteristics.
ReplyDeleteLife is the union of money and sex.
ReplyDeleteWhat was my wife at? When she met me I had run out of rungs on the ladder - I was looking for a shovel, for crying out loud. Maybe it was that twinkle in my eye (vitamin deficiency, actually), and my defiant, proud bearing (more commonly known as derangement and a stubborn avoidance of the facts).
ReplyDeleteMen: Buy high quality sex aids and know how to use them. Here's a good start.
ReplyDeleteWomen: Lots of head and morning sex.
There. I'm done.
Or alternatively, Life is the union of Power, Sex and Money. However Sex could be contained within Power, and likewise Money. Hence, Life is the subjugation of Life by Power.
ReplyDeleteThat should of course been, Life is the subjugation of life by Power.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think you'd better factor in the chemical component. When I first saw my husband-to-be across a crowded room at a party in NYC, I did indeed think he was the handsomest man I'd ever seen. But then when he came close and we were talking, then dancing, and I took one sniff of his neck... My God! The scent of him ... it was pheremonal catnip; drove me mad. He could be talking about McClelland's "will to power" (in fact, he was, he'd studied with M. at Harvard) or something equally dull to me, and it didn't matter: All I wanted to do was... Well.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we've been married twenty years now and looking at him now, no one else would probably see the handsome man I first met, but if I lean across the Scrabble board to kiss his cheek and get a sniff of his olfactory nectar... Swoon....
I think you guys need to see a parfumier who can manufacture the right musk for you. I mean Richard and Gordon. Neil obviously already has it, and Bry of course has power, wealth, creativity, and one hell of a cleft chin.
Susan, to round out my earlier comment I met my wife when I was poorer than poor - we're still together and she saved me. I think my earlier comment's irony quotient may have been too subtle.
ReplyDeleteSusan's right, of course. Gentleman, chest-beating manliness is just a couple of squirts away.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan. Glad you think so. Sounds like you hit the jackpot. It's great to hear stories like your's. It give us all hope. Unfortunately, Scrabble is no longer a game we play. She beat me once and she's a bad winner.
ReplyDeleteIt's all to do with reversion to the norm. Luckily we don't live entirely on-line yet and the choice of mate tends to be determined by any number of variables. The thing about on-line dating is that it's a wish list, a fantasy that quickly vanishes when the real person materialises. It's not a true measure of what people really want, just what they think they want. I hope.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I'm not sure that it works that way in Australia. I'm (a slim) five foot nothing and I don't attract many guys at all. Online dating was the worst - I did exceedingly badly until I posted a pic of myself with 'taller' credentials...same words, same face, same hair, different height. Ouch. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of online dating. Or heightism!
ReplyDeleteYet another reason to date Asian girls. They might feel the same way, but chances are you are probably tall enough for them.
ReplyDeleteIt's all biology. In nature, females are designed to seek the males with the best characteristics, so they can pass them to the next generation. Humans are one, if not the only species that actually goes against these instinct, at least some times. You can not fight your biology.
ReplyDeleteThis may be true in some cities like New York or Chicago but in other places I'm not so sure. I still believe that it depends on the personality and charisma of a man to land a decent women in his life. Sure, money does help but when it comes down to it, compatibility, chemistry and physical attraction should be key.
ReplyDelete