Image titled “Skepdate” from Cectic.com. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Jess McCabe of The F-Word Blog inadvertently points out that controlled studies are more useful social indicators than random journalism assignments:
A woman carries out a speed dating experiment. She goes to one such event as a human rights lawyer, interested in economics, politics and Proust. She strikes out: the men are terrified. She goes to a second night as a ditzy, brain dead florist who says things like “why is water wet?” The men love her.
The conclusion? According to Tanya Gold, the dating guinea pig in question, men are much more interested in stupid women:
Everything my mother has ever told me about men is true. They didn’t care that the florist couldn’t recognise a chair. They liked it. The feminist revolution didn’t pierce their hearts; it only made it into human resources. If you want to be loved, just scoop out your brain and act like a child. After 40 years of feminism we shouldn’t really burn our bras. We should burn our men. Love may be dissembled but statistics never lie. Reader, let me tell you: men want me – and you – to be lobotomised.
Well, that sounds pretty horrible, right? Well, it is horrible. But also horribly sloppy. First, check out the methodology of the author, Tanya Gold of The Guardian
I decided to attend a speed-dating night as a fabulously successful, dazzlingly literate human rights lawyer, and then another as a gibbering idiot who works as a florist. Who would the men fall for?
As a lawyer, I walked into a Soho bar. My first date appeared. I smiled at him, and said: “I am a human rights lawyer (grin).” “I work 60 hours a week (grin).” And watched him shrivel up. “I’m an engineer,” he said (no grin). And then he was silent, so I told him I was reading Heidegger. He stared at me as if I had told him that I boil men’s heads.
...
Then came Robert. “I’m a florist,” I smiled. The reaction was instantaneous, passionate and almost molecular: “Can I buy you a drink?”
Then came Harry. “Let’s not talk about me,” I said. Bang – he asked me out. Just like that. On the spot.
...
I could have been engaged by 11.17pm. But instead I went home and sifted through the evidence. Only one in 20 of the men I met on the Soho love coalface wanted to date a woman who had heard of Proust (19 of out 20 cats don’t prefer it). Yet eight out of the florist’s 12 men wanted to be gibbered at again and again and again.
Ok, call me an unlettered lout, but pretty much all I know about Proust is that every time I bite into a madeline I think about what kind of nightmare it would be to have to read all seven volumes (I had to look that up too) of Remembrance of Things Past… since that sort of thing seemed to have driven the Steve Carell character to attempt suicide in “Little Miss Sunshine.” :-)
This is not, incidentally, an intended dig either at Proust or Scholars thereof. The point being that I’m not sure one out of twenty people, men or women, at a “So-Ho love coalface” would have heard any more about Proust than I have.
Which sort of brings up my next concern: if she’d recruited a male colleague to repeat the experiment as closely as possible how might he have fared with women? Let’s look at that first paragraph, m’kay?
If I’m speed dating in London’s Soho District (”...an entertainment district which for much of the later part of the 20th century had a reputation for its sex shops as well as its night life and film industry. It has a long history of providing a range of eating places.) and I was to plop down and say I was a workaholic pro-bono lawyer who unwinds by reading Heidegger… I’m not sure how many people (women if it was hetero speed dating, men if it was bi or gay speed dating) would take me up on it either.
But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about. Ok, maybe, a little. As I read about Tanya Gold’s little unmonitored human-subject experiment I did start out wanting to mention that I thought men would fare about the same as she did. But!
As I continued reading it occurred to me that Gold had been (whether intentionally or not) mimicking the Before and After characteristics of “pick-up artists” (PUAs) in the “seduction community” (SC) who run around supporting each other’s efforts to “pick up” women.
And trust me, if your standard approach to dating is to brag about how much overtime you pull and how many Nazi-endorsing German philosophers you read, then, yeah, pretending to be a florist who says “Let’s not talk about me” is going to get you someone else’s phone number way, way, way faster, m’kay?
And to be honest, that brings me to what I really, really wanted to talk about. Something germane to both Gold’s article and the whole PUA business: only one in 20 people (male or female) are really going to be interested in a tremendously dull tosser who likes to break the ice by talking about work or dead Germans whereas three out of four people respond well when you pretend at making undemanding but playful conversation that’s more about them than it is about you. I get that. That’s pretty much the core of good pickup/seduction/icebreaking conversation, and so if you’re naturally inclined towards the first then learning how to manifest the second is going to work wonders.
But the one part I wish Gold had tried — the key to most good first-approximation experiments — would have been the “control group” experiment of pretending to just be herself! Y’know, an intelligent, outgoing, humorous and adventurous, professional woman. Because I could be mistaken but I’m guessing that in any given situation that way more than one in twenty men, and maybe not that much fewer than one in four, might have given her their phone numbers. And that’s the point I think a lot of would-be pick-up “artists” need to think about. Because when you’re shy, and you’re worried that you’re not going to be able to “score” with someone else unless you can say something interesting, and so when given the opportunity you either sit there silently stewing over “what can I say, what can I say, gawd her eyes are drifting towards her watch, I’ve got to think, got to think” or else spout out the first thing that comes to mind, like
[I got a PhD in economics at Cambridge.] It was incredibly rewarding. Are you interested in economics, Eric[a]?
... then, yeah, it’s not going to work out so hot. But here’s the deal. If you’re shy it’s easy to decide that it’s the being-an-economist-which-is-dull part that turns prospective partners off when in fact it’s the trying-to-think-of-something-interesting-to-say-which-is-dull part that’s the problem. Sure, being an economist isn’t terrifically interesting, but instead of throwing around subtle digs (PUA “negs”) or wearing aviator goggles in a bar in order to seem interesting, it’ll work wonders just to say something entirely non-clever like “Let’s not talk about me…” Even if you’re “just” an economist. Or florist!
Anyway, points to Jess McCabe for the (literally) thought-provoking link, and half points to Tanya Gold for a half-baked, massively stereotype-polishing, but still productive opinion piece.
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-01 09:06.
Okay, a quick google search brought up some actual evidence on this (beyond my own acquaintances), a great little article by Stephanie Coontz. She writes that while highly educated women were less likely to marry in the past, the trend has reversed in the last few years. Now even women with postgraduate degrees are actually more likely than less-educated women to marry and *stay* married. Maybe a sign that both men and women are evolving beyond the old stereotypes?
There's one big caveat, though, which is that women with grad degrees are likely to marry significantly later than other women. I'm sure that's true for men, too. But it obviously matters more for women if they want to have kids.
None of this predicts how men respond in dating situations, of course. There are still lots of men who'll respond to stereotypical eye-batting femininity, and who may look for that in a date. But what people want in a marriage may be different than what they want from casual dating, and it's heartening that being a smart gal is apparently not the liability it was in the past.
And Avalon, I don't mean to deny your experience in any way. I too met and married a guy who's not just smart but good-hearted, so I know it's possible. I do think smart women who seek a smart mate may need to be a little more persistent and patient, but it's worth it in the end if you meet someone who's a wonderful fit. My point was rather that insofar as *both* women and men still practice hypergamy, we help perpetuate stereotypes and frustration.
[Yeah, the worst mistake I made in college was steering away from Stephanie Coontz's courses because she was scary-smart and very hard. I'm not claiming I'd have skated through (I wouldn't have) but I sold myself so short I didn't even try. Anyway, yeah, there are multiple other studies that support her conclusions and refute the Maureen Dowd / Tanya Gold view of relationship contingencies. Thanks, Sungold. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 10:22.
There's a guy I have known for many years; we go to some of the same events. Any time I fail to dodge quickly enough he hits on me. I regularly see him wearing the same t-shirt; it must be a favorite of his. It says "If you're a social outcast, it probably just means you're intelligent."
I cringe. Is there anything that could be put on a t-shirt, that would make the wearer less appealing? If this shirt resonates for him (and it must, since he wears it so often) it's no wonder he oozes desperation. No wonder women flee from him.
BTW, I'm a new reader of your blog, and I'm enjoying it immensely! Thanks for writing it!
[Funny you should mention that, Elizilla! I'm answering comments pretty late, but the day you posted here I happened to see a guy's t-shirt what sez "I'm grumpy because you're a doofus!" Sweet mother of pearl! I think what it means is they don't think they have *any impact in the world* and so, since nothing they say matters they can say just any kind of random offensive nonsense. Anyway, yeah, having been *exactly* in that guy's shoes (I'd have worn something too much like it in my early 20s) I'm pretty sure it'd be more efficient for him to change to match the world rather than wait for the world to match him. :-) Thank goodness! Seriously, though, people really ought to try and learn from my mistakes -- I've made a million of them! Thanks for your kind words, E. And glad to have you on board. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 04:19.
Thanks for this post figleaf, I read that article also today and was shaking my head about how far off it was...
[This is it wasn't *that* far off -- we've all got stories about how "the other half" ought to be that... aren't either as accurate or helpful as we think they are. She fell into hers, but this morning I was reminded of how easily men can fall the other way. Ironically, the better alternative is heuristic assessment since that tends to be more flexible. Thanks, Hugh. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Mon, 2007-12-31 04:29.
From my personal experience I disagree that it is necessarily hard for a clever and well educated female to find a partner. I’ve had a goodly number of men (clever, well educated and both more and less successful) interested in me BECAUSE I’ve been reasonably intelligent and well educated. Finding a partner is a matter of marketing – knowing your target market and getting out there and meeting enough people to find your match. Even if you are within the intellectual cream of your generation and want to “marry upâ€, it’s just a matter of getting out there and meeting the smaller pool of suitable partners.
I also have very clever and well educated friends that are not married – and I think it’s because they have been too busy to settle down, needed to sort themselves out first before they felt like they could settle down or because they wanted to concentrate on their careers. I advised one of my friends (post grad degree, very clever) to try online dating – she had quite a number of nice men contact her including some with lower and higher education levels and different backgrounds. They did not seem to be frightened off by her high level of academic achievement!
To conclude – I cannot comment on the general trend in society because I have not the experience and have not done the research to support my contentions. However, within my little world being clever and well educated attracts rather than repels men!
[Interesting perspective, Avalon. And good point on trying to connect online if you consider yourself to have *any* kind of difficult-to-accomodate preferences in other partners. An old friend literally crossed the globe for literal decades because she was a politically liberal, devoutly Mormon who wanted to marry a progressive Mormon man. She found a genuinely wonderful guy around 1995, jusssttt before the internet had grown to where it might have helped accelerate her... and actually *their* search. Thanks. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 21:26.
College memory: I'm in the guy's room, chatting, late in the evening. He dims the lights, lights an oil lamp, pulls out a bottle of wine - and sits back on his bed, not offering me any of the wine, and instead proceeding to tell me all about the importance of so-and-so to modern economics.
Not so much a turn off as a reason to conclude that He's Just Not That Into Me.
[I think the wierd thing is that it wasn't that he wasn't just that into you, he was just more into *himself!* And then after you left he may have been able to comfort himself with the reflection that *women* just aren't that interested. It's time for old paradigms to go when they no longer lead to notice new conclusions as much as they reinforce old ones. Thanks, Lynn! --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 21:41.
Agreed, her methodology was pretty worthless. Too many variables and she held almost *nothing* constant.
Even so, I do think the larger point is valid: If you're a very bright gal, the pool of possible mates is somewhat limited. Some men are intimidated or turned off, even if you play your smarts down. And to be fair, women are less likely than men to choose a mate who's less intelligent than themselves. (This goes for wealth, SES generally, height, educational attainment, height, and age as well - a crazy little thing called hypergamy, which is pretty widespread cross-culturally.) Both men and women collude in this. I plead guilty to it myself, at least where intelligence is concerned.
I know a slew of wonderful women with graduate degrees who are still single. Not so for the men I know with comparable brains and education. Some of those men paired off with women who are bright and interesting but just not as exceptional as themselves. Across the board, women are less likely to do that. Now, these women aren't a representative pool, but their example is telling, because they're women who can't "marry up," at least where brains and education are concerned. Something similar happens on a much larger scale with African-American women who are college educated.
That said, anyone of either sex who starts going off about Heidegger while speed dating is most likely a douche. But I wonder if men get cut more slack when they try (however pathetically) to impress their date by being pretentious? (The smartest guys I know - including, by a funny coincidence, the *actual* Heidegger scholar friend of mine I just had dinner with - don't seem to feel the need for this.)
On the other hand, if you really were passionate about Proust, then one hit in 20 is not bad. :-)
[Anybody wanted to talk about Hannah Arendt (Heidegger's student and mistress with whom he debated the philosophical dimensions of whether he should or shouldn't turn her over to the Nazis) I could do that all day -- if I ever got another tattoo there's a good chance it would include the words "for love of the world." But yeah, I wouldn't mention that while speed dating. :-) The place to look, by the way, for single men is *down* market/SES/education because, as you mention, there's a line below which men fall below radar no matter how otherwise virtuous they are. Thanks, Sungold --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 19:24.
I grew up with very, very clever young men – a lot of them are teaching at tertiary level and doing ground breaking research if they are not leading high tech companies. I've found that educated professional men seem to prefer intelligent, well educated women that are also pleasant, happy, non-judgemental and interested in them. Having a silly playful side seems also very acceptable because such men also like to be silly and playful and non-intellectual as well.
While I agree with all that has been said, may I suggest that the journalist did not control the “type†of man she surveyed. I’ve found less well educated men are interested in women with similar interests and situation in life as themselves – a florist might make a wonderful partner. Don’t underestimate the florist’s ability to earn a steady income and even start a successful and profitable business.
[Nor should one imagine a florist as anyone dull (though the journalist evidently did her best.) Anyone who thinks it's just snipping flowers and tying bows should take a look at the logistics, economics, sales and marketing, and other business decision-making skills required to keep an actual florist shop open and the customers happy. Excellent points, Avalon. Thanks. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 20:11.
I think you're right that Tanya Gold's methodology was sloppy, but in my experience her core hypothesis is right on.
I have a graduate degree in a hoity-toity field, and in my adult life I am self-employed. After several early comments from men about how "I'm too smart" for them, I began to test reactions based on my perceived education and/or job level. My results over the years unequivocally support Gold: the lower I portray myself on the educational and economic scale, the higher the level of sexual interest I generate.
Sad, but true.
[As I said earlier I don't want to excuse the men either in Gold's essay or your actual experience. One of my little breakthroughs on the "no sex" class paradigm was the realization that men, stuck with the idea that they/we need *leverage* to "get" sex from women, are left with the fear that women of equal or greater stature wouldn't "let" them have sex. Since, after all, there'd be no dependency and thus no leverage. Grossly embarrassing for men if true. There is another side, of course, and that's the too-common "Maureen Dowd" syndrome where even well-estabilished women are reluctant to become involved with men who aren't as successful. Thanks, TIS. --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 11:08.
And perhaps also being a listener rather than, or as well as, a talker. "Please explain", "what is that?", "what do you do?" - all open questions, as opposed to what seems to have been a series of statements: "Don't buy leather shoes" and so on.
[*Exactly!* Outside of, maybe, a courtroom or standardized assessment or, possibly, a witness-protection program, open ended questions are *always* more appealing in social settings. Certainly more so than corrective ones. Thanks, A! --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 10:59.
As you say, the methodology is sloppy to put it mildly. But still, I bet there are *some* interesting economists :)
You're making me really nervous. Jess McCabe has just asked me to review a book available only in French. Please be gentle :)
[*Of course* there are interesting economists! That's the whole point, in a way. The silliest thing anyone can say about him or herself is "I'm just an economist..." or accountant, or professor, or adventurer, or whatever. First because *we're* finding *themselves* wanting when we make such judgments. Second because there's something interesting about *everybody!* Sometimes you have to dig deeper through all their "just a's." The point being that it's not the *economist* part that turns prospective partners off, it's the "just a" part! Because if *we* can't see anything more in ourselves, what incentive to they have to look? Especially in a nightclub or other date-intensive setting. As for you, A? Heh. You're interesting in more ways than most people can count. I mean... you've got *Jess McCabe asking you to review books!* No slouch she so you're probably even more interesting in real life than through your online window. Thanks! --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2007-12-30 10:37.
I think one obvious explanation for the difference is in body language.
It seems as though Ms. Human Rights Lawyer had body language (and indeed, spoken language, too) that was either deeply intense and threatening, or else signalled "I feel threatened by you" - the evolutionary origins of grinning, for example, are actually for the chimp to bare his/her teeth to say "you scare me" and signal that he is backing off.
Little Miss Hairdresser didn't grin: she smiled, giggled, stared at the floor, etc. Classic signals of "I am not a threat to you".
[Excellent points, SE. I wouldn't want the men who chose the fluffy version over the aggressive one, but then in a dating context I'm not sure *anybody* wants to date Dilbert, the male *or* female version. Thanks! --fl]
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Fri, 2008-01-11 16:33.
i know i'm jumping into the convo rather late (playing catch up post-holidays with your fun, figleaf), but i'm siding with Invisible Spinster on this one, with the obvious caveat that all of us have anecdotal evidence...not the same thing as actual research. that being said:
i likewise have the hoity-toity high-powered degree & specialty certifications (i'm a board-certified lab animal veterinarian), and i've been swimming in the deep and occasionally murky pool of online dating for a couple of years now. i can not count the number of times a man has acted dismayed, or worse yet dismissive (there's your PUA negs) during the inevitable "what do you do" portion of the getting-to-know-you banter. i even had a guy once stop and ask me mid-conversation why i had to be so smart (NOT meant as a compliment). it's been made readily apparent to me that i should present myself as non-threateningly as possible, always downplaying my years of schooling, the professional cachet of my high-powered residency, the position of authority i hold in my job, and god FORBID i fail to parry any queries regarding my comfortable income.
and, yes, it's every bit as crippling to these guys, too, who are attempting to form meaningful relationships of their own. the wonderful man i've been seeing for the past several months admitted that his biggest concern in our relationship is that one day i'll "wake up and realize he's just a store manager." this clever, witty, educated man who likes his women intelligent, independent, and sexually liberated...is worried that all those things are not enough to overcome the simple fact that i have a bigger paycheck.
Submitted by 1845 (not verified) on Sun, 2008-01-13 16:39.
CHIN up for a pose like that Figleaf! You will look more sexy
[Actually pretty good advice, tweety. Thanks! I'll keep it in mind. --fl]