Women looking pretty vs. Men making the first move

[Mark11]

It appears that these are the two things each gender does to attract the other. Which do you think is harder? Most would agree it's easier for women to get men than vice versa. I would agree that women are judged way too much by their looks, but I don't think putting on a buncha makeup, dying your hair, and dressing provocative is as hard as taking social risks to talk to a woman you don't even know and risk being rejected and ridiculed just for showing interest in someone.

[grkBoy]

It appears that these are the two things each gender does to attract the other. Which do you think is harder? Most would agree it's easier for women to get men than vice versa. I would agree that women are judged way too much by their looks, but I don't think putting on a buncha makeup, dying your hair, and dressing provocative is as hard as taking social risks to talk to a woman you don't even know and risk being rejected and ridiculed just for showing interest in someone.

 

I'll agree that women might have it easier to FIND men, but it's not easy for them to get ideal ones.

 

Many women can get a lot of men coming on to them, but if they're all men who only want sex (and she wants marriage) then where does it leave her?

 

Pretty much in the same place where the guys who get constantly rejected are.

[Ruby Slippers]

It depends on what you look like. Personally, I would rather my dating and relationship success hinge on internal qualities, such as assertiveness, initiative, and career savvy, rather than external ones like looks. Looks fade -- people skills and smarts only get better with time, provided you work on them.

 

Women are working with depreciating assets, and men are working with appreciating ones. Few and far between are the men who will truly love and be faithful to a woman as she ages, wrinkles, and sags.

[TheLawmaker]

Good looking men have it easier than good looking women.

 

Ugly men, on the other hand, tend to lose every single time. Biology doesn't favor them.

[Monm82]

I think the average guy has it harder. The average woman doesn't have to do anything, really.

[carhill]

The male equivalent of putting on makeup, mani-pedi and clothes horse is flamboyant behavior and appearance, for example like jumping a motorcycle over 30 cars. Anything risky and attention gathering. Even within risky behaviors there are levels. In the motorcycle jumping example, Evel Knievel, with his flamboyant style, would be more attractive to women than an engineer type who does exactly the same physical act, even if more successful at it. I saw this all the time in racing where some drivers, even if wildly successful, were not popular with the ladies simply because they were not flamboyant and exciting personally, even though what they did was exciting and they won races.

 

Remember the old saying 'a woman loves a man in uniform'? A cop, soldier, sports player, etc. That's a good parallel to a woman's 'make up'. Remember how little boys played with soldiers and girls played with dolls? Training

 

IMO, that men generally must approach women is a totally unique issue. Both genders 'look pretty' in their own ways. Further, a woman's sense of personal safety and the risks she takes with it are something most men will never experience, at least in the realm of what would normally be considered safe behaviors and environments. As an example, if I invite a woman I don't know well to my home, I give little thought to my personal safety. Not so for a woman. Combine that with 'dressing up', sexual tension and often use of mind-altering substances and there are real differences, yet equalities, in the 'responsibilities' of the two genders.

[somedude81]

Women have it so much easier there really is no contest.

 

Don't forget that men also have to work on their appearance to get women.

 

Stylish clothes, nice shoes, cool hair cut, groomed facial hair, working out in the gym. All those are done to attract women. Women mostly look good for themselves or other women.

 

Also as several women on LS have mentioned, they could go out of their house wearing sweats, and old t-shirt, nothing done to their hair and wearing no makeup, and still get hit on.

[thatone]

women do not look good for themselves or other women, don't believe that no matter how much you hear a woman say it.

[samspade]

Women have it easier in the short run. But their window of opportunity is MUCH smaller than a man's.

 

And of course the more practice and experience a man gets, the better he can be with women. A man might not peak with his seduction skills until he's 40 or 50 while most women peak physically by 25 at the latest. (This doesn't mean that all men DO improve - many stay in their sad states all their lives.)

 

So you could say men have it tougher earlier, but women have it tougher later. Not only that, but what makes a man attractive is more within his control. That is, men can improve and correct mistakes. Physical beauty, however, can only be managed so much, and is fleeting.

[rafallus]

Good looking men have it easier than good looking women.

Not necessarily.

 

Being better looking man, you get labelled as player much more often. Also you have set of unspoken expectations to live up to (people tend to associate good looks with other positive traits). Also, you have to limit your teasing quite a bit. I remember when I could have girls eating out of my hand by busting their balls, as I've put on some muscle and got better grooming style, they were repeatedly offended by same attitude.

 

Good looking vs worse looking man is apples vs oranges: neither is easier than other one.

 

Worse looking guy isn't noticed right away, you can hold up and work up some courage, then strike unexpected.

 

As good looking guy, you're noticed right away, you must follow fast.

[iris219]

The original argument rests on the assumption that all a woman has to do is look presentable and suitable men will flock to her. This is not the case at all.

 

Men may have to deal with rejection more than women, but women have to figure out how to deal with unsuitable people (i.e. men who only want sex, men who aren't single, men who are much too old or too young, men who are jerks, men who can't hold a conversation, etc.) hitting on them. This is very annoying.

 

Is it better to get rejected or have to deal with creepy people you aren't interested in?

[carhill]

Is it better to get rejected or have to deal with creepy people you aren't interested in?

Good question. Never having been the recipient of undesired attention, except from occasional MW's, I really don't know what that's like. The corollary is relatively few women have experienced no attention at all, which is a common theme with many of the males who post in threads like this. Imagine not having someone, another human being, find you attractive; imagine being completely alone, even when amongst people, unless you make a proactive effort. Humans are social animals. Even amongst animals, have you ever seen what isolation does to an animal's psychology?

 

I'll add my data point - in the moment, the attention felt good and uplifting; getting complimented and 'handled'. Reflecting later, not so much, because of the dynamic (MW's). However, that doesn't negate the human social animal aspects. It felt far better than social isolation.

 

I can say that, unless a man has been properly socialized for it, constant, repeated rejection can be mind-numbing and emotionally draining. Men who weren't trained to compartmentalize have a tough go of it. On the one hand, to care enough to approach; one the other, not care enough for a rejection to matter. Mercifully, it appears most men are socialized properly to deal with this aspect as subset of their global socialization to compete with other men in an often brutal world.

 

During a period of my M, my now exW saw a bit of that raw emotional brutality men often face, and face alone, and she ran from it. Most of the time, men protect their women from it; compartmentalize it. I failed.

 

It's all inter-connected, IMO. Each gender faces their own unique challenges. I personally don't believe either has it 'easier'.

[Feelsgoodman]

women do not look good for themselves or other women, don't believe that no matter how much you hear a woman say it.

Oh they definitely do it for other women. Women thrive on attention, which can manifest itself as either desire from men or jealousy from the competition. Both are equally capable of giving a woman an emotional high.

[thatone]

the key word being competition.

[iris219]

It's all inter-connected, IMO. Each gender faces their own unique challenges. I personally don't believe either has it 'easier'.

 

I agree--unique challenges for each.

 

Biology makes it even harder for women though.

 

As a woman in her early 30's, it scares the heck out of me to think that I might not meet someone in time to have children. This, I'm sure, affects how I interact with men. Men don't have to deal with this on the same level as women.

[Monm82]

Good question. Never having been the recipient of undesired attention, except from occasional MW's, I really don't know what that's like. The corollary is relatively few women have experienced no attention at all, which is a common theme with many of the males who post in threads like this. Imagine not having someone, another human being, find you attractive; imagine being completely alone, even when amongst people, unless you make a proactive effort. Humans are social animals. Even amongst animals, have you ever seen what isolation does to an animal's psychology?

 

I'll add my data point - in the moment, the attention felt good and uplifting; getting complimented and 'handled'. Reflecting later, not so much, because of the dynamic (MW's). However, that doesn't negate the human social animal aspects. It felt far better than social isolation.

 

I can say that, unless a man has been properly socialized for it, constant, repeated rejection can be mind-numbing and emotionally draining. Men who weren't trained to compartmentalize have a tough go of it. On the one hand, to care enough to approach; one the other, not care enough for a rejection to matter. Mercifully, it appears most men are socialized properly to deal with this aspect as subset of their global socialization to compete with other men in an often brutal world.

 

During a period of my M, my now exW saw a bit of that raw emotional brutality men often face, and face alone, and she ran from it. Most of the time, men protect their women from it; compartmentalize it. I failed.

 

It's all inter-connected, IMO. Each gender faces their own unique challenges. I personally don't believe either has it 'easier'.

 

Good points.

[thatone]

I agree--unique challenges for each.

 

Biology makes it even harder for women though.

 

As a woman in her early 30's, it scares the heck out of me to think that I might not meet someone in time to have children. This, I'm sure, affects how I interact with men. Men don't have to deal with this on the same level as women.

 

men have similar things, albeit the one that comes to mind is younger than their 30s.

 

men are told by their mothers to be kind and gentle and caring and all of those nice guy things to women but they soon find in their 20s that a good number of women in their 20s want none of those things. they want to get laid just like men do, because they 'can' these days, and thus avoid the nice guy types to avoid dealing with their desire for relationships. so unless they have a father figure there to tell them the truth they wind up getting beaten senseless by women.

 

that leaves a lot of those younger men, which you can see examples of all over this forum, with two choices...

 

a) disregard the nice guy thing and treat women like they've been treated

b) stay alone and give up on women altogether

 

all of these are the result of culture changing in conflict with evolution, and it's a battle culture can't win.

[carhill]

men are told by their mothers to be kind and gentle and caring and all of those nice guy things to women

 

If they're really unlucky, like I was, they hear that message from both their fathers and their mothers. Heck, they might as well have strapped an ion generator to my ass and sent me to Mars

 

The only upside IMO to that type of socialization is it works really well for having long and fruitful friendships with healthy members of both genders. I've come to value that. The rest, well, BTDT, on to other things.

[musemaj11]

It depends on what you look like. Personally, I would rather my dating and relationship success hinge on internal qualities, such as assertiveness, initiative, and career savvy, rather than external ones like looks. Looks fade -- people skills and smarts only get better with time, provided you work on them.

 

Women are working with depreciating assets, and men are working with appreciating ones. Few and far between are the men who will truly love and be faithful to a woman as she ages, wrinkles, and sags.

The fact that men offer appreacing assets while women offer depreciating assets makes it unfair for women to expect long term commitment from a man don't you think?

[Ruby Slippers]

The fact that men offer appreacing assets while women offer depreciating assets makes it unfair for women to expect long term commitment from a man don't you think?

I don't really believe that much in "fair" anymore. I mean, I do my best to be what I consider fair, but it seems to me that many people do not. Now I see the truth of human nature, even though it is painful to see.

 

The idealist in me would like to believe that a woman's reward for the pain and responsibility that comes with bearing new life for the species is the loyalty of a good man. But the reality is that ideals are only rarely reached.

[MrNate]

I don't really question these things as much anymore. I mean, in the end, it doesn't produce anything. I mean, each gender has its own unique challenges, but I would say in the grand scheme, everything works out in the end.

 

If men and women operated in the same way, we'd reproduce so fast that we'd kill ourselves off. So I guess it's not so bad when you look at it from that light.

[musemaj11]

I don't really believe that much in "fair" anymore. I mean, I do my best to be what I consider fair, but it seems to me that many people do not. Now I see the truth of human nature, even though it is painful to see.

 

The idealist in me would like to believe that a woman's reward for the pain and responsibility that comes with bearing new life for the species is the loyalty of a good man. But the reality is that ideals are only rarely reached.

I believe in the obligation of a man to support a woman in raising a child that he partakes in creating until the child becomes independent. But I fail to see how a woman should be entitled to a man's lifetime devotion simply for giving birth. Without men humanity would be extinct too for biological and survival reasons. I mean for every woman dying from childbirth, there is a man dying from trying to provide for his family.

[Chicago_Guy]

I think that women have it much, much easier and it isn't even close. All that a woman has to do is look good and be nice and classy - how hard is that? Men have to do so much more. A man can be good-looking and professionally and financially successful but be dateless because he is "too boring" or whatever - I know guys like this. Few men will reject a hot woman for being boring.

[Chicago_Guy]

The fact that men offer appreacing assets while women offer depreciating assets makes it unfair for women to expect long term commitment from a man don't you think?

 

Men who want to raise a family are going to have to commit to some woman. If the man is desirable, he'll probably settle for a woman 5-10 years younger than him who likely still has many attractive years left.

[musemaj11]

Men who want to raise a family are going to have to commit to some woman.

No they dont.

 

You can have a family without having to make a long term commitment.

 

Unless you live in a place like Pakistan ,,,