Are ruthless guys more attractive than kind, good guys?

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Sorry, I'm using it somewhat crudely to refer to highly successful, aggressively competitive, good looking men. the aggressive competition is something all men have to some degree, some more than others.

I wasn't trying to call you out for using the word Alpha, by the way. It's just that I'm pretty sure you were the first person I ever noticed using the word here on WP. I didn't even know what it meant. Then when I heard the definition and all the subtypes like Betas, I was confused because I disagree with those ratings. The people who men consider Alphas are my Betas, and vice versa. It's like men made up these arbitrary, judgmental terms and projected the mindset onto women. It's insulting to our sensibilities so that's why we get so frustrated.

That's largely what I observed, combined with what I've read. At least in high school the cool kids were often quite tolerant and likeable, but there were a bunch of cliques that were generally on the outside of that 'alpha' clique that were much more prone to violence. A lot of the bullies (regardless of clique) were less well off, or had issues at home, or had mental health issues, at least of ones that I encountered and needed to know about. Fighting was way more common among the less well-off kids compared to the more well-off kids.

The alpha kids were mostly preppy and mostly didn't get involved with fighting, when they bullied it was usually by social means. They didn't need to fight because they could make beating them in a fight worth too much to make anyone want to attempt it.

For what it's worth, while I share your concerns over the concept being used it's hard to really flip the terms because of how tightly connected to social hierarchy they are. Beyond that, a lot of people flip between elements of those tropes depending on how they read their place in the hierarchy.

But maybe it's just because the manosphere tries to make 'alpha' synonymous with being a knuckle-dragging misogynist meathead with body dysmorphia and an addiction to supplements and you have reasonable standards for evaluating which males are demonstrating traits that deserve to be synonymous with status.

I was so introverted in high school I wasn't even aware of who was popular, who fought, who bullied, or anything going on around me. I was in my own little world hiding in the library. I never ate in a high school dining hall once despite attending two different high schools. On graduation I still didn't know the names of people in my graduating class. My point is that it's interesting to hear other people's take on what high school was like. It's like I didn't even go.

Middle school, on the other hand - that was terrifying and there were all sorts of bullies, but I don't remember any of them being considered popular.

I think you're right about the manosphere. Men feel inadequate for any number of reasons, which is human nature. It seems that rather than admit they don't feel confident or secure, or admit that they're jealous of other men, they accuse women of being shallow.

That's my take, anyway.

Of course there are some shallow women, and some highly attractive or highly successful men might also be extremely kind, loving partners. Maybe that's why they aren't single. I wouldn't want to discriminate against people for how they look or for their abilities whether good or bad, but it's safe to say I'd much rather be with a good-hearted, unemployed autistic man even if he was overweight or not traditionally good looking, than a stereotypical Alpha who mistreats me.

I went to a semi-elite private Co-ed school where boys were taught we had to be competitive and good in something to count as a human being. Anyone who didn't "cut it" either academically, sports or music etc. was encouraged to find another school. We all had parents who were rich and my male classmates were aggressive bullying dicks whose behaviour was enabled and encouraged. Within this culture the "best" also correlated with being hyper-competitive and that's what my female classmates liked in terms of male friends. My worst bullies were all female by the way.

I went to a separate school (a public Catholic school) and then a normal public school. There were no pretensions of it being elite, it was just where all the local rednecks and townies* went to school.

* I don't think anyone around here actually calls them that, but I don't know else how to describe the small town analog to rednecks, in particular the ones who try to imitate subcultures associated with rougher parts of bigger cities. It seems different from when upper-middle class kids do the same though, because they share some similarities with poor people from high density parts of bigger cities, in particular the embrace of 'honour' and the need to protect it.

I went to the local public high school which had 2,100 students in portables and a portapacks (picture the collapsible hallways leading onto an airplane). It was huge but at the same time all the kids from my middle school went there, so I should have known at least a few people. Instead I was so scared I literally hid in library study carols without eating or sayng hello to people I might have known. My brother and Ken were there too in the senior grades but I didn't talk to them at all. I remember one girl who looked rich but I have no idea if she was popular or not. This was the early 80s so the cute boys were starting to look quite preppy but I didn't know them enough to know who was nice or mean, rich or poor. Anyone could look preppy back then.

My second school was in California. It was the kind where you enter all the classrooms from an outdoor courtyard. There were no internal corridors. I was really confused and had no clue how to find any of the rooms. Luckily I went with my cousin so I just followed her around. She had lots of cliquey friends but I was scared of them so went and hid whenever they were around.

Correlation does not equal causation. There are some women who look for security and prestige in a relationship so they might flock to men who are or appear to be successful, but their ruthlessness is not an appealing quality, if it exists it's a tolerated byproduct. Such women tend to be shallow and insecure, so this behavior is especially on display in adolescence, but does not necessarily hold true throughout life. You're making a whole lot of assumptions. Personally, and this is also true of women I know, I find ruthless people of any gender abhorrent and would never choose a partner who has that quality.

I would say class may be an issue here too, semi-elite and elite private schools are kind of a bubble. And yes, I agree with the general consensus these observations I've made don't really apply in government schools.

Thanks for conceding that, but I went to elite schools myself. And it was not like that. And are we extrapolating what insecure adolescents might do to adult behavior?

My old school was bad, but is was hardly the worst.
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