What do girls/women look for in men?

[zoobyshoe]

I'm just arriving at more cognitive dissonance.

 

[JasonRox]

He pretended to be the "perfect" guy for me and all my friend's kept telling me he was the one.

Shouldn't you be the one telling yourself he was the one?

Should you not know him better than that before getting married?

If I were to pretend, I can only pretend for so long. I'm sure he didn't keep this up for years. I would die after like a year tops.

Probably the reason why Zooby can't keep up with the kind of character that attracts girls. You can only pretend for so long and then the real you surfaces.

 

[Pythagorean]

Shouldn't you be the one telling yourself he was the one?

Should you not know him better than that before getting married?

If I were to pretend, I can only pretend for so long. I'm sure he didn't keep this up for years. I would die after like a year tops.

Probably the reason why Zooby can't keep up with the kind of character that attracts girls. You can only pretend for so long and then the real you surfaces.

this is true. One thing though, that can be a true change is confidence in who you are.

I'm a nerd, I'm not in denial of that, and I have no problem with women.

 

[Evo]

Shouldn't you be the one telling yourself he was the one?

Should you not know him better than that before getting married?

If I were to pretend, I can only pretend for so long. I'm sure he didn't keep this up for years. I would die after like a year tops.

Probably the reason why Zooby can't keep up with the kind of character that attracts girls. You can only pretend for so long and then the real you surfaces.

That was it, we only dated three months before he proposed. I figured I'd known my first husband over a year before we got engaged, so that was no guarantee. My first husband and I were best friends, but we grew up in different directions, we married too young.

Well, we'd only been married for 6 weeks (my 2nd husband) when I finaly approached him and said "you are NOT the same guy I married" and he told me that he had to do whatever it took to get me to marry him, because I was what he wanted, but now that we were married, he didn't have to pretend anymore. The guy's only talent is as an actor, he could win an Oscar. I got so sick of people telling me how lucky I was to be married to such a great guy and it was all an act. Finally, some of his friends caught on and took my side in the divorce.

My best friend's fiance was finishing his residency as a neurosurgeon at one of the top medical schools and was a terrible intellectual snob, so he was impressed that (my ex) was pre-med at Yale, and an Ivy league grad. He kept pressuring my best fiend to pressure me into "liking" my ex while we were dating.

It's a long, very complex story.

Zoob, you have no idea what you're talking about because you don't know the dynamics. It was everything BUT his looks.

And thanks zoob for dragging this all up because you mistakenly thought appearance had something to do with it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Thanks zoob for dragging this all up because you mistakenly thought appearance had something to do with it.

I'm not the one who posted a picture of him with his shirt off.

 

[Evo]

I'm not the one who posted a picture of him with his shirt off.

It's the only picture I still have of him, he stole all of our pictures.

And the post had to do with him NOT being my type. He thought he was god's gift to women. Did you forget that part?

 

[Astronuc]

What do girls/women look for in men?

Any sign of intelligent life - anything. At last report, many girls/women were still looking.

A little comic relief.

OK, I'm not funny. But I am nice.

 

[Moonbear]

Any sign of intelligent life - anything. At last report, many girls/women were still looking.

A little comic relief.

OK, I'm not funny. But I am nice.

I'll give you an A for effort.

 

[Evo]

It's just that some people here can't believe that there are people that look for qualities other than physical attractiveness.

 

[Astronuc]

I'll give you an A for effort.

Awww, thanks Moonbear. My brothers got the funny genes, and I got stuck with smart and serious - really a manifestation of Asperger's or autism, or some combination, in addition to ADD (and probably ADHD).

I was just grateful to the woman (my wife) who felt strongly enough to accept the challenge of living with me.

 

[matthew baird]

I add perhaps some hobgoblins do not realize that there are men out there with character though in the minority and that women who appreciate such things will prefer them to the rest. Perhaps the hobgoblin needs someone cut out for him, the female hobgoblin! After all, birds of similar feathers flock together.

The women out there who appreciate such things is also the minority, as the men with character are. Am I right?

 

[zoobyshoe]

It's the only picture I still have of him, he stole all of our pictures.

And the post had to do with him NOT being my type. He thought he was god's gift to women. Did you forget that part?

Cognitive dissonance:" Here's the type of guy I hate. I married him."

To resolve dissonance, poor, dumb zoobie must resort to old addage: "If there's a difference between what someone says and what they do, believe what they do."

 

[Astronuc]

To resolve dissonance, poor, dumb zoobie must resort to old addage: "If there's a difference between what someone says and what they do, believe what they do."

But in many cases, there are extenuating circumstances, so an act (or the motivation for an act) may (should) not be taken at face value, nor may a person. One cannot get directly into the mind of another.

That was then. Much has transpired since.

The revelation of the deception must have been traumatic.

 

[JasonRox]

It's just that some people here can't believe that there are people that look for qualities other than physical attractiveness.

Zooby isn't saying that's all you look for.

 

[Evo]

Cognitive dissonance:" Here's the type of guy I hate. I married him."

I married him because he was supposedly intelligent and well read, and loved science fiction and ancient history and astronomy and archaeology. Turns out he HATED all of things, but he was able to talk about them with me because he at least was educated.

That combined with everyone telling me he was "perfect" for me". He seemed sincere, he "LOVED" everything I loved.

It was all a farce. A short lived farce.

I fell for intellectual reasons. NOT LOOKS.

It had nothing to do with his appearance. You keep saying it was his appearance.

Give up zoob, you are wrong.

 

[Hurkyl]

The women out there who appreciate such things is also the minority, as the men with character are. Am I right?

Who knows. Since that's the "popular" thing to believe, I'm inherently suspicious. Frankly, I can only understand it on an "academic" level: attitudes such as the one Milo Hobgoblin has are so utterly foreign to me, that the anecdotal evidence is the only reason I can even believe that there is a significant fraction of people who think that way.

 

[Evo]

Ok, the picture of my ex that upsets zooby so much.

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3157/dman4xv4.jpg

 

[Moonbear]

He was pre-med? Did he end up in med school? He has more of the smarmy politician look than the sort of look that would inspire me to trust him as a physician.

 

[Evo]

He was pre-med? Did he end up in med school?

No, he transferred to Dartmouth because it had a prettier campus and was more of an Ivy League jock playschool. He did take some graduate courses at Harvard.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Here's a thought, at what age you girls (Well, girls like Evo) started fallin for qualities rather than a appeareance?

 

[Loren Booda]

Evo,

He seems quite adept at posing for the camera. Your description is of a manipulative cad. Yale has its share of deceptive sociopaths. Did he go to prep school?

 

[Evo]

Here's a thought, at what age you girls (Well, girls like Evo) started fallin for qualities rather than a appeareance?

My first boyfriend when I was 14 was crippled by a motorcycle accident. I met him shortly after he got out of the hospital he'd been in for over a year. He was able to walk with a cane for short periods. So, my first boyfriend was a cripple. His condition gradually grew worse.

But he had a great sense of humor, was intelligent and easy to talk to.

 

[Evo]

Evo,

He seems quite adept at posing for the camera. Your description is of a manipulative cad. Yale has its share of deceptive sociopaths. Did he go to prep school?

No, but his dad paid his way through everything.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I think the question here is not so much "what do women want vs. what do girls want" as it is "what do people want when they are not ready for a relationship vs. ready for a relationship"?

When people are not ready for a relationship they flirt, experiment, are drawn to the superficial, but when they get ready to make a commitment they introspect, inquire, and are drawn to to the goals/qualities more matching their own. It is a very different decision making process for both genders.

In some cases, a person with an exceptionally large ego who is not ready for a relationship, but thinks he/she is, may confuse seeking a life partner with striving for the acquisition of an asset. This person takes on pretenses in order to secure the mate as easily as he/she might fudge on a loan application for a house. There is an abstraction of the spouse as an acquisition rather than a partner, which seems to be the case with Evo's ex-husband. The telling mark is that it is always short-sighted, without regard for what the "acquisition" thinks in the future when the real personal qualities are revealed. It is simple objectification.

 

[Evo]

Very good MIH.

 

[Astronuc]

As Evo mentioned, very good, MIH!

I think the question here is not so much "what do women want vs. what do girls want" as it is "what do people want when they are not ready for a relationship vs. ready for a relationship"?

Or what does the opposite gender want? It seems to be an ongoing concern for many.

When people are not ready for a relationship they flirt, experiment, are drawn to the superficial, but when they get ready to make a commitment they introspect, inquire, and are drawn to to the goals/qualities more matching their own. It is a very different decision making process for both genders.

Maturation occurs at different rates, and it seems, some people never mature. Introspection/self-reflection is an essential/inherent quality in a mature mind.

In some cases, a person with an exceptionally large ego who is not ready for a relationship, but thinks he/she is, may confuse seeking a life partner with striving for the acquisition of an asset. This person takes on pretenses in order to secure the mate as easily as he/she might fudge on a loan application for a house. There is an abstraction of the spouse as an acquisition rather than a partner, which seems to be the case with Evo's ex-husband. The telling mark is that it is always short-sighted, without regard for what the "acquisition" thinks in the future when the real personal qualities are revealed. It is simple objectification.

It would seem an exceptionally large ego would preclude a meaningful and reciprocal relationship. I think the key word is 'objectification', which is very unfortuate. A marital relationship is supposed to a reciprocal partnership.

 

[turbo]

Maturation occurs at different rates, and it seems, some people never mature. Introspection/self-reflection is an essential/inherent quality in a mature mind.

The best thing that happened to me in this regard (maturity) was spending a year in a relationship with an older woman. I was 20 and she was 24 and she had returned to school after spending a couple of years of living in Europe. The relationship was (mostly) all fun, with little or no pressure, no promise of any long-term commitment, and we were a good match intellectually and emotionally. I was sad when she graduated and moved on, but I had a whole new outlook on women and could recognize the traps that I had fallen into earlier and avoid them. I had never had a relationship that rewarding before, and having experienced that, I was not at all impressed by some of the young women that I would have pursued a year earlier. It's hard to know exactly what qualities you want in a mate if you haven't had a relationship that made you happy. Before her, I dated the way dogs chase cars. It was fun, but what do you do with one if you catch her?

 

[Astronuc]

My wife is 6.5 years older than me, and the one other woman who I know would be similarly compatible (as a wife), is twelve years older.

 

[turbo]

I think a philosopher said people have smells. We all need someone that smells right to us.

I have a different analogy. Going home to my older girlfriend after classes felt good - like putting on my favorite old soft sweatshirt. Comfortable and relaxing. I feel that way about my wife of 31 years. It's hard to put a finger on the qualities (in both of the partners!) that come together to make someone's mere presence that satisfying, but when it clicks, you'll know it.

 

[Astronuc]

I am inclined to think that luck also plays a big role. Sometimes people can have the finest qualities but never meet someone who they want to be around. I think most people compromise at the end, when it comes to the point of do I want to be by myself or with someone I can tolerate? Perhaps it is that love and marriage do not always coincide for everyone and, for those that it does, they are indeed lucky.

Life involves mitigated luck. We are where and when we are, and much beyond our immediate surroundings is beyond our control.

Meeting the woman who became my wife was a pure chance (random) event. I was joining one of my friends at a concert. He was with his girl friend, who was with a group of her girlfriends. Over the next several months, I just happen to encounter the same woman, and eventually we gravitated to each other, but we didn't start dating until 9 months after we met - we both lived in separate towns about 90 miles apart (attending different universities). We spent the time getting to know one another, simply as friends. However, three months after we began dating, I proposed to her (she didn't expect it), and we were engaged for about 11 months, although at that time, we were more or less married, but we still lived 90 miles apart (although we spent holidays and weekends together).

While we were dating, we talked about many things - about our thoughts and feelings, about our aspirations and where we wanted to be in the future. We talked about relationships and family. While we enjoyed doing things together, like listening to music or watching TV or movies, our relationship was not about entertaining each other. We made plans for the future which included graduate school, and ultimately moving back close to her family, which was important to my wife. For me, I was flexible, since I was not tied to any particular place - I am 10,500 miles from where I was born - and I've always had the roving instinct.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Ok, the picture of my ex that upsets zooby so much.

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3157/dman4xv4.jpg

[/URL]
Hehehe. No. I don't find it upsetting. I find it to be telling. That's all.

I talk to women all the time, on other forums and in real life. I have never heard anyone of them deny that looks are a factor in deciding who to date or have a relationship with. I don't think you should feel any shame that you picked the studly, hunky guy pictured here. To the extent he was able to hide his real self you had every woman's dream: a handsome, nice guy.

As Jason Rox pointed out I'm not maintaining that his looks were the only thing that mattered to you. All I'm saying is that I don't believe they didn't matter ALOT. You are claiming they played no part whatever in the decision. I can't believe that because I have never met a woman who is completely unaffected by a man's looks.

Now, it is quite true that many women (and men) weigh the desirability of looks vs other things and find that the other things end up being much more important in the long run. So, wisely, they sacrifice looks as a priority and shove them down the list to the level of a mere preference.

That doesn't mean looks cease to affect them on a basic physiological level, as Hobgoblin described, it just means they consciously override that, the same way a person can consciously override their urge for a piece of chocolate cake if they decide to go on a diet, and settle on an apple for desert. But, let's face it: if chocolate cake were non-fattening, and really nutritious, no one would take the apple. Given two authentically confident, pleasant guys, one tall, handsome, and well muscled, and one short, a little strange looking, and flabby, what woman would refuse the former?

 

[zoobyshoe]

... but when they get ready to make a commitment they introspect, inquire, and are drawn to to the goals/qualities more matching their own. It is a very different decision making process for both genders.

This makes sense, but I'm curious about your take on how the process differs according to gender.

 

[Moonbear]

Life involves mitigated luck. We are where and when we are, and much beyond our immediate surroundings is beyond our control.

I agree with this and lunarmission's comments. It's hard, if not impossible, to have some checklist of qualities you want in a partner and to head off on a scavenger hunt looking for them. I don't think I know anyone who is currently happily married who went out looking to find someone in any purposeful way, they just stumbled into the right person somewhere along the way while out doing the things they enjoyed anyway. And not all of them ended up being the type of person they even thought they were interested in when they started out. You have to share certain core values, but beyond that, there's a lot more flexibility in the process than a lot of people acknowledge. I can have my list of things I like in a guy, but that doesn't mean the person I ultimately find will match the list perfectly, or that he won't bring other qualities to the table that I never even considered and that end up being more important than things on my "list."

While we were dating, we talked about many things - about our thoughts and feelings, about our aspirations and where we wanted to be in the future. We talked about relationships and family. While we enjoyed doing things together, like listening to music or watching TV or movies, our relationship was not about entertaining each other. We made plans for the future which included graduate school, and ultimately moving back close to her family, which was important to my wife. For me, I was flexible, since I was not tied to any particular place - I am 10,500 miles from where I was born - and I've always had the roving instinct.

These are important things to discuss before marriage, and I think in a lot of failed marriages, part of the problem is they weren't discussed beforehand. I think a lot of people mistake having fun together as being enough to sustain a marriage. They enjoy going to dinners together, or out to clubs, or doing weekend activities, etc., but that just makes them a good friend and fun person to hang out with. That's certainly important, but not the only thing. You can't go on dates every day of your life, and have to be comfortable not just with the present, but with where you want to go in the future. If you both want to live close to your family, and your families are 1000 miles apart, will one of you always be unhappy, or is one of you capable of substituting the in-laws for your own family being close by? If one of you wants to travel the world and the other is a home body, can you both satisfy your preferences? Is the one who enjoys traveling comfortable with traveling alone or with other tour groups, and the person who prefers staying home comfortable with their spouse traveling without them? Or will one always be dragging the other along on trips they don't want to make, or the other making their spouse feel trapped and stir crazy in their own home? And both people have to be completely honest with their partner and themselves (some people are so head-over-heels infatuated that they think they can make compromises they really aren't comfortable with down the road). As an example, friends of mine who wound up divorced headed into marriage with some fundamental differences about having children, and how to raise them. They both thought that since they loved each other enough, they'd overcome that when the time came. For example, they were of two different religions, and both said that as long as the child was raised with religion, it didn't matter which one, but when they started more seriously discussing children after getting married, they each interpreted it as meaning they could raise the kid(s) in their own religion and the other wouldn't mind. They could never agree on that. I don't know how they ever thought they'd agree on children when they couldn't even agree on pets. One really loved dogs and wanted a big dog as a companion, the other was terrified of dogs and could barely tolerate the smallest lap dogs in the same house let alone a large dog. They were good friends and good roommates, but when it came to things important to sustaining marriage, they had none of it.

 

[Evo]

Hehehe. No. I don't find it upsetting. I find it to be telling. That's all.

I talk to women all the time, on other forums and in real life. I have never heard anyone of them deny that looks are a factor in deciding who to date or have a relationship with. I don't think you should feel any shame that you picked the studly, hunky guy pictured here. To the extent he was able to hide his real self you had every woman's dream: a handsome, nice guy.

You just don't get it, do you? Physically, he's NOT MY TYPE. That's not what I look for in a guy. I wasn't attracted to him when we met, my co-worker told him to ask me out, then they bullied me into accepting. My friends had to keep insisting that I keep going out with him because I wasn't attracted. You're being ridiculous about this.

As I've said here before, he was the ONE time I decided to date a "good looking" guy and I should have followed my instincts and not succumb to pressure from friends.

If you saw pictures of my first husband and men I've been seriously involved with, you'd notice that most aren't considered attractive by "media" standards.

 

[Moonbear]

Given two authentically confident, pleasant guys, one tall, handsome, and well muscled, and one short, a little strange looking, and flabby, what woman would refuse the former?

This is the part you're not understanding, because you're assuming some Hollywood version of what women are supposed to consider good-looking applies across the board. It doesn't. And, I don't understand why you're trying to tell Evo why she chose the man she did? She's the one who knows her own feelings and views, not you. If she says looks are not important, and it was because of his intelligence and ability to talk about the things she enjoyed talking about, why can't you just take her word for it? You're doing the same thing Twisting_Edge was doing earlier in this discussion, assuming women can't think for themselves or explain their reasons for choosing the men they choose, and that somehow your perception of some guy's looks are more important than her opinions.

And, you bias your choices above by throwing in "handsome." Every woman has a different definition of handsome. For me, a short flabby guy with glasses and slightly balding is more handsome than a tall guy with a full head of perfectly styled hair and a flashy white smile who looks like he spends way too much time in the gym. I do admit that looks play a role for me at some level, though it depends on how I meet someone...if I'm just out and in the mood to meet new people, and am actively looking to talk to new people, I will seek out those who have a certain attractiveness in their appearance, but that would NOT be anyone looking like Evo's ex-husband. I don't find that attractive in the least bit...he looks too much like a Ken doll and not a real man to me. I'll pick out a guy who's a little shorter, a bit stocky, a bit bald and not trying to hide it (no baseball caps, no comb over attempts), neatly dressed but not done to the nines (that means he could be wearing khakis and a polo shirt, or even jeans and a t-shirt, as long as it wasn't some raggedy, stained thing with holes in it...I'd be turned off by someone who is too overdone with silk shirts and diamond cufflinks type stuff, because that would signal to me that he's superficial, even if he isn't). Basically, the looks I go for are the ones that say "I'm not a slob, I don't need my mom to dress me in the morning, but I'm also not pretentious and superficial." For things like weight, I don't want someone so overweight that they get out of breath with just a little exertion, but a bit of flab says, "I'm real." I'd go bonkers with a fitness fanatic, so that look is not attractive to me. But, more importantly, I notice mannerisms. If a guy is too stiff or too slouchy, I notice and am not interested. If he appears confident and casual, comfortable with the people he's with, laughs with them and seems easy-going, that's what really catches my attention. I lose interest quickly if he seems too boisterous, or easily irritated, or seems to be ignoring the people he came with, or I see him hitting on every woman in the place as if he's god's gift to women. There's a lot to body language when looking at someone across the room that tells me far more than body shape or size.

However, if I meet someone by happenstance, and am not necessarily looking, or hadn't yet noticed them, then a great conversation will lead me to ignore appearances entirely. Likewise, if a guy is attractive in appearance to me, and we start talking and he can't hold up a conversation, or can't talk about anything but sports, then it doesn't matter how good looking he is, I'm going to completely lose interest.