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Relationships/How Women Select Men


"Alpha" MalesEdit

What kind of "alpha" male are you?


If you're a gibbon, you mate monogamously for life. You live with your mate and your children. You sing to your mate and your mate sings back to let you know their location. You and your mate are the same size and look identical. You start each morning with a half-hour of loud hooting to frighten other gibbons away from your forty acres of forest.

If you're a chimpanzee, you live in a group of fifty individuals. When a female is ovulating, she has sex with every male in the group. Males have a large penis, large testicles, and ejaculate lots of sperm. Males reproduce not because they dominate females or other males, but because their sperm is more active than other males' sperm (i.e., healthier than other males).

If you're a baboon, you live in a troop that varies from 10 to 200 individuals, depending on habitat, time of year, and predation.[1] Males make friends with other males. When another male threatens a male, their friends back them up. The threatened male avoid fighting. Fighting leads to injuries, and lions eat injured baboons.[2] Males and females also form friendships. Female baboons mate with their male friends. They like males who have many friends.

Women Go For Tail FeathersEdit














Our hunter-gatherer ancestors owned nothing but what they could carry to the next campsite. Accumulation of wealth wasn't possible. Women's cerebral cortexes have learned to appreciate accumulated wealth, but their brains aren't hardwired for this. In a conflict, women tend to choose their more basic instinct; love, instead of their newer appreciation of wealth.

Confidence and StressEdit

Aché men gamble on bringing home a deer one day in ten, instead of choosing the safety of helping their wives gather food. Gambling&#151;and a man's life in general&#151;is stressful.

Mammals produce glucocorticoid hormones in stressful situations. Too much glucocorticoid causes health problems. In male and female primates, high-status individuals produce minimal glucocorticoid in stressful situations. Low-status individuals produce too much glucocorticoid.[5] Stress&#151;"the fear of fear itself"&#151;physically hurts low-status individuals. Stress doesn't affect the health of high-status individuals.

Confident men&#151;who believe that their powers or circumstances can handle stressful situations&#151;attract women.[6] To attract women and improve your health, take a stress-reduction class. Learn to handle stressful situations with confidence.


Looks, Height, and StrengthEdit


However, most women have to be realistic and would settle for a male just slightly taller than themselves, whilst prefering men with feminine-looking faces. E.g., women prefer Leonardo DiCaprio to Tom Selleck.[7]

American women prefer men 5'11" (180.34 cm) or taller.[8] Tall men receive more personal ad responses than short men.


Language SkillsEdit

Men with good language skills attract women. Women love talking. To improve your language skills, take a creative writing class. Or memorize a few romantic poems.

Or learn a foreign language. Foreign women will think that a man who can conjugate verbs correctly in their language will make a good husband.






The FDA approved oral contraceptives in 1956. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. Women delayed motherhood to start careers.[12] In 1998, men married at 27, women at 25.


Couples that marry younger than 25 have dramatically higher divorce rates.[14] Our brains' prefrontal lobes don't mature until 25.[15] This "executive decisions" brain area is where we make good judgments. Automobile insurance rates drop at 25 because drivers with mature prefrontal lobes get into fewer accidents. Similarly, men and women make better relationship decisions after 25. (If you want to marry younger than 25, and you live in a culture where it is accepted to ask your parents to arrange a marriage for you, then give it a try; That idea sounds radical but it has worked for thousands of years.)

Relationship SkillsEdit



Women prefer men who have a steady job, are dependable, and are emotionally stable.[16] A predictable man is boring and a woman will soon get bored with you to leave you for another. Unpredictable men are a good thing because it will keep her guessing and interested in the mystery that you are. Don't be predictable, you're better than that.

E.g., if you want to date a certain waitress, talk to her for 5-15 minutes and then ask for her phone number and shut up. If she is interested, she will help give it to you, on the contrary if she talks about how her sister just got into town and hands you a business card then flush that number fast as you can.

A woman who is secure will look for the stability of a more sensible man who understands the predictability of a secure relationship but realizes how romance can be used for emotional intimacy.

Home OwnershipEdit

One of the highest factors correlating with likelihood of a man to marry is home ownership.[17]p>

Family RelationshipsEdit




Astrology and Personality TypesEdit

Astrology and personality types fascinate many people. However, astrology is a pseudoscience with no basis in fact and there is no scientific evidence for the various methods of personality typing. Despite this many men and women choose to use astrology as one part of choosing a new partner. Talk about personality types on dates (see Personality Types).

Emotional ConnectionEdit


—Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence (2002)

The prefrontal lobes are our most recently evolved brain area.[20] This is also the last area to develop in each individual&#151;maturing between the ages of 15 and 25.[21]

Women want emotionally mature men. An emotionally mature man changes his emotions as situations change&#151;or to change a situation. Although his limbic brain experiences a wide range of emotions, his higher self (his prefrontal lobes) stays constant. Such an individual is capable of a long-term relationship.

E.g., in Roxanne (1987), a man insults Steve Martin. Martin at first shows anger at the insult. But then he switches to humor. Martin first makes jokes about himself. Then he switches the subject of his wit to the other man, making a crowd laugh at the man. The other man shows only one emotion&#151;anger&#151;in response to each of Martin's changing emotions.


Fear Reduces Us to Reptilian ResponsesEdit


Your limbic brain fears that she'll reject you.

Your reptilian brain wants to have sex with her.




When integrated, [the triune brain] offers us an open-ended potential; an ability to rise and go beyond all constraint or limitation. But when that integration fails, our mind is a house divided against itself, our behavior a paradoxical civil war&#151;and we become our own worst enemy.[22]
—Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence (2002)

Developing Awareness of ChoicesEdit




Imagine your choices. Imagine alternative responses.

—George Kelly, The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955)





Play a GameEdit







Shift to a pretend world. 
Focus on a bipolar construct. 
Exaggerate emotions. 
Repeat the game 
If he were playing the game to entertain a child, he'd bonk his head on the lampshade&#151;three times. Then he'd repeat the skit. He could repeat it thirty times and the child would laugh every time.
Exchange roles. 
Make your game physical and unstructured. 
Schedule playtime. 

Laugh to Connect Your Limbic Brain and Cerebral CortexEdit




Reveal a Secret to Emotionally ConnectEdit



Pearl replied:



—Mel Tillis


Entertainment SkillsEdit

Entertainment expresses emotions. Effective entertainers emotionally connect with their audiences.



—Nick Schultz, editor of






Women's Entertainment SkillsEdit





Truth and Lying in Art and EntertainmentEdit


Art and entertainment are lies, from the point of view of the performer. E.g., when an actor playing Hamlet says that he's going to kill his stepfather, the actor isn't threatening his stepfather's life. A painter creates an image that looks real, but isn't. A poem makes us visualize a scene we don't see. Novels and movies take us into worlds we've never experienced.

But art and entertainment are truthful, from the point of view of the audience. Effective artists and entertainers communicate emotions that "strike a chord" in the listener or viewer. They tell the truth not about themselves&#151;e.g., you don't want to know that an actor is afraid of forgetting his lines, or is hoping that a movie producer might be in the audience and offer him a better-paying job&#151;but instead quiet their own emotions and emote the audience's feelings.<

Religion and EvolutionEdit

Art, entertainment, religion, and reproductive success are entwined.[citation needed] Religious men and women sing in church or synagogue, dramatically recite Bible stories, dance at rituals, etc. Most societies encourage religious men, e.g., rabbis, to marry and produce large families. Men prefer to marry religious women, because they're more likely to be sexually faithful.[citation needed]


Consumerism as Runaway Sexual SelectionEdit


—Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind (2000)
I can't stand dinner and a movie.[30]
—Julia Schultz, Playboy centerfold
Onstage, I make love to 25,000 people;then I go home alone.[31]
—Janis Joplin


Women are especially susceptible to consumerism.[citation needed] E.g., on eBay, women described 11% of their shoes as "sexy." Men described only 0.005% of their shoes as "sexy."[citation needed]


The effects of consumerism range from environmental destruction to anti-American hatred. Runaway consumerism&#;not war, crime, or disease;is the greatest threat to human survival.[citation needed][dubious ] Focus on relationships, not buying stuff. You'll be happier and your grandchildren will have a planet to live on.


  3. Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 110.
  4. "Ofﬁce Sex & Romance Survey," special to MSNBC, May 8, 2002.
  5. Sapolsky, Robert M. "Hormonal correlates of personality and social contexts: from non-human to human primates," in Hormones, Health, and Behavior, edited by C. Panter-Brick and C.M. Worthman (Cambridge, 1999, ISBN 0-521-57332-7, 18-46.
  6. Louis, Ron. SEXpectations (MPC, 1997, ISBN 0961317744, 100-101.
  7. Rhodes, G. Hickford, C., Jeffrey, L. "Sex-typicality and attractiveness: Are supermale and superfemale faces super-attractive?" British Journal of Psychology, 91, 125-140 (2000).
  8. Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 117; "Tall men 'top husband stakes'," BBC News, 14 August, 2002,
  10. Statistical Abstract of the United States (U S. Department of Commerce), Table 56, "Married Couples by Differences in Ages Between Husband and Wife: 1999"
  11. No data were recorded during World War Two.
  12. Murstein, Bernard. Paths to Marriage (Sage, 1986, ISBN 0803923821, p. 26.
  13. Laumann, Edward O., Gagnon, John H., Michael, Robert T., Michaels, Stuart. The Social Organization Of Sexuality: Sexual Practices In The United States (University of Chicago, 1994, ISBN 0-226-46957-3, 477-479.
  14. Parker-Pope, Tara. "How Eye-Rolling Destroys A Marriage; Researchers Try to Predict Divorce Rate," The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2002, p. D1.
  15. Amen, Daniel G. Making a Good Brain Great: The Amen Clinic Program for Achieving and Sustaining Optimal Mental Performance (Harmony, 2005, ISBN 1400082080.
  17. Lloyd, K.M., South, S.J. "Contextual Inﬂuences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage," Social Forces, 74 (1996), page 1110.
  18. Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, 121-123.
  19. Pearce, Joseph Chilton. The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint Of The Human Spirit (Park Street, 2002, ISBN 0-89281990-1, p. 41.
  20. Pearce, Joseph Chilton. The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint Of The Human Spirit (Park Street, 2002, ISBN 0-89281990-1, 40-54.
  23. Kelly, George. The Psychology Of Personal Constructs, (Routledge, 1955, ISBN 0415037980.
  24. Perkins, Michael. "The Young and the Rest," Screw, January 1989.
  25. a b Nefsky, Art. Letter from Mel Tillis, Sept. 30, 1997,
  26. Schultz, Nick. "New Machines&#151;New Dreams and New Worries," The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2002, p. A18.
  27. Soon-Yi Previn is the adopted sister of Woody Allen’s biological son Satchel (now Seamus) Farrow. Westbrook, Bryan. "Frequently Asked Questions About Woody Allen,"
  30. Schultz, Julia. "Centerfolds On Sex," Playboy, May 2001, p. 121.
  • ^ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, 136-137.
  • ^ Brin, David. "Neoteny and Two-Way Sexual Selection in Human Evolution,"
  • ^ Rhodes, G. Hickford, C., Jeffrey, L. "Sex-typicality and attractiveness: Are supermale and superfemale faces super-attractive?" ritish Journal of Psychology, 91, 125-140 (2000); Cunningham, M.R. “Measuring the physical in physical attractiveness: Quasi-experiments on the sociobiology of female facial beauty,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 925-35 (1986); Johnson, V.S., Franklin, M. “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?” Ethology and Sociobiology 14 (1993): 183-199.
  • ^ Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology< (Allyn & Bacon, 1999, ISBN 0-205-19358-7, p. 140.

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