Fat guy, hot wife

I found this paper online about how peoples’ assessments about differences in attractiveness figures into whom they choose to date. The study’s authors used data from HotorNot to see what influenced people’s willingness to contact another person for a potential date.

There were a couple of interesting results. But this post is about the gender differences. Men were more likely than women to contact women with higher hotness ratings and yet less likely to consider their own hotness when making contact. Stated more simply, men think it’s more important for a woman to be attractive than a man.

On the face of it, this is not a bad assumption since this and other studies show that women prioritize physical attractiveness less than men do although more attractive people are more selective regardless of gender. I can’t help but agree with The Family Guy episode that pokes fun of the tv phenomena of fat men with hot wives. This doesn’t tend to play itself out in real life—people tend to date and marry within their own physical attractiveness level. So all these shows (and movies) do is perpetuate a belief for men that this is true. And this drives me bat shit crazy.

One of the big reasons I’m so popular online is that a significant portion of the guys who make contact are suburban guys in their 40s. Despite the fact that I clearly state age and distance limits, their attitude seems to be that it’s worth it for them to take a shot at a younger, hotter woman. I assume this works like spam—someone somewhere must be responding to these guys or they wouldn’t keep doing it. Or maybe it’s essentially costless to wink at me so the success of the venture is irrelevant.

Either way it’s not costless to me. I have to sort through these emails to get to the guys I would consider dating. I have to deal with the irritation that despite the fact that I bothered to make public my requirements, they are being ignored. Or they’re not and I get emails like, “I know I’m out of your age range, but…” But what? I look like Brad Pitt so I figured you wouldn’t mind? No, never that. It’s always, “but you seemed so awesome I thought I’d give it a shot.”

Please guys do all of us a favor. Take a good hard look in the mirror before you send that email or wink. Sure, you’re fun and interesting, you have a good job and a nice house. But remember, there is another guy out there with all those qualities who is better looking. We’re going to choose him instead.