facets of attraction

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There seems to be some truth in those, but they don't seem to account for the asymmetry between what men and what women find attractive. So perhaps there are more essential categories which could be hypothesised that maybe account for some of what's said above. Just my opinion though, I'm sure you know more about this kind of thing than me.

beezy, yes there is some asymmetry, yet also overlap. for example... the early "averaging of faces" experiment first demonstrated that men prefer averaged faces and women prefer UNaveraged faces. but they tried experimenting differently (i think they averaged news faces and averaged more men into the mix), and they subsequently found women like them too.

there are often cultural gender differences in what gifts are given too and what we value most ("ostentatiousness"). for example female sports figures or comediennes are simply not valued as highly as idols. BUT female actresses, singers and porn stars are valued very highly.

thanks for the compliment you sneaked in, beezy. i do a lot of reading on these topics.

MisterSpock, glad to hear that you do not just go for "hotness". it sounds like you have a much better internal system for seeking compatible mates. have you had some success so far?

I don't want to derail this thread so I'll say simply this: I've had many female friends say that I would be a good partner, however I lack the self confidence to put myself in situations where these qualities can be seen. I am yet to overcome my social anxiety to a point where I can confidently approach women with the intention of starting a relationship. The most recent girl I 'selected' thinks I would be a perfect partner, just not now... Call that success or failure however you want. Thanks for asking, though.

meh, don't worry. the thread isn't exactly hopping (probably a tl;dr situation ).

i wish i had solid advice for how to have women view you differently, but i think that it is hard to know why men get seen as "friends only" on a repeat basis. my guess is that you might seem too mature for girls your age, and many of them are dating immature party types. so they see you as the kind of man to settle down with, yet they are not ready to settle down. they are fooling themselves, of course, but there is no way to make them see that.

if you build confidence as a bit more time passes, the women may become more mature as well and could decide to act on your real potential. but i don't know how to actively shift their perception now.

Bingo. One trouble is that the 'immature' people have a different weighting of the criteria - I would say that many 18-25 yo girls/women just want 'a nice guy to have fun with', which in my experience are traits which do not often coincide. To be what these girls call fun, all you need to be is charismatic and good in the sack. The intelligence and perhaps even faithfulness are optional, or less important. One thing I have observed though is that most 'hookups' occur on the dancefloor, and I don't dance that way, so that could be the 'ostentatious' factor, or the prehistoric 'mating ritual'. I just hope it doesn't take too many years for my peer group's priorities to change.

Having read a few articles on the subject, I think I can safely say that women will still be attracted to most Alpha Male types at whatever age, and men will still be attracted to young hourglass blondes, at least on a primal level, because of genetics. But experience or circumstance drags you away from those mates.

^^^there is a possibility that it's partly due to the people you are hanging out with, and the places you are frequenting. my friends were not really like that at your age. we were kind of "cafe intellectuals" that read books and had long-winded discussions in coffee shops instead of going to bars (yes we were pretentious but we didn't care). or we'd hang at someone's house... people would be sketching or practicing music.

people were less likely to go for stereotypes - the really bad boys were not too popular because the girls liked guys who thought before they acted. and one obese girl was highly sought after - diversity and uniqueness was embraced. our friends included artists, musicians, an electrician, a law student, wait staff, a dishwasher, etc. it was a very welcoming community.

that sort of thing is likely not your scene, but it's the antithesis of bar culture. it's possible to consort with groups of people that have an entirely different philosophy, and those groups have their own social norms and expectations.

Now quite off topic, I could be a child of two worlds - I think we're are now at a very interesting stage technologically, and am excited to see where it goes, but I think I would feel more at home in a time with different values to now. That could very well be my scene. The trouble is I only really have three friend groups, one of which has two or three sub-groups. The sub-group with which I would go to coffee shops, are mostly off at university. This leaves the bar people.

Finding new people, that's the trick. It might be true for many Aspies that extending social circles is quite difficult. I have asked around my friends, and collectively know very few females to which I may or may not find myself attracted to. I'm a man out of time: I like the old things, pocket watches, waistcoats, classic sci-fi, being polite for polite's sake, classical music, Shakespeare. Enough to mark me out as, ahem, different. I believe I should fit fully the intelligence and the 'ostentatious' categories, and I would say that people I know should know my to be loyal/faithful. I would also rated myself moderately alright in the looks department. This leaves the familiarity facet. Perhaps a circular area chart could be made rating each quality, and any deviation from circular could be seen as detrimental to potential romantic relationships, as I either know women in my life very well, or I don't know them...

Back on topic, I feel this diagram demonstrates how those facets could contribute to a general opinion of overall attractiveness, for non-weighted ratings:
Link

I have used 3 examples from my social circle, and one arbitrary attributed stranger (familiarity 0). I think that these charts (based on the facets you suggested) give a representation of how attracted one might be to a person based on their characteristics, taking average (or area) as the determining result. Any views on that?

Last edited by MisterSpock on 22 Feb 2012, 4:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

i resized it for you so the graph isn't skewed. i have no idea how to read that

you start from the middle and go out, the further you are from the middle the more important the factor. So the areas where it's a very sharp point means that is extremely important.. but the things on either side are not particularly important. but the area where it's not covering at all or is a shallow and blunt shading means it's not important or less important.

The top row of numbers averages out to a total which is show as the blue shape - it is the biggest, and it relates to the most attractive. The bigger the area, the larger the overall attraction.