I wouldn’t read hacker news for romance advice.<p>I know someone who posts here who would complain loudly and repeatedly they couldn’t get a date.<p>I tried to offer to take them to one of the gallery showings I used to go to, and was like dude I don’t have a girlfriend either but I don’t talk about it loudly in the lab.<p>He told me I’d had like fifteen girlfriends since we worked together and after a bit of a puzzled back and forth since that was… the kind of rumor I’m not gonna deny but also entirely inaccurate.<p>Eventually I realized he meant that so much as inviting someone over for tea once and having it not click was a “girlfriend” to him…<p>And when I kind of laughed, said he’s too metric’s obsessed and he should come to an art exhibition rather than keep posting about how horny he is on Reddit, he just went on a long rant about how modern art isn’t art.<p>Anyways sorry for the long winded story but “women” aren’t really some species to be studied, just like men, they want someone who’s kind, who shows a sincere interest and (this is the part that seeks to trip up you people) someone with a sense of humor.<p>Try just finding a hobby like film or art and someone will eventually take you up to the roof like it’s that one episode of Mr Robot ;-)
Seems to be overly focused on women. What about men? High IQ men are less interested in humans in general because of their unreliability / lack of depth / generally takes too much time dealing with their emotions, so they dont seek out females and end up less fertile overall. There is asymmetry in sexual demand from the two sexes so women are generally bombarded with requests and don't end up in a symmetric situation.<p>What's wrong with the picture of elon with tesla people ? Many of those guys are average or above. Seems like the author thinks hollywood is the attractiveness standard - that s false, hollywood is just a show.<p>Then again , high intelligence is not necessarily more fit. In the modern world, being social and having a network of rich people is more powerful on average, so selecting for average or below intelligence may be more fit.
Sounds like the article is working from experience & psych. research that are both 100% WEIRD-biased*. Plus, women pretty plausibly select for cultural ideals and economic strength...which, right now, <i>looks</i> a lot like selecting for intelligence.<p>*<a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WEIRD" rel="nofollow">https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WEIRD</a>
It stands to reason they do. How else we'd have very intelligent but otherwise unattractive people in every generation. I know I am one (ok, maybe not "very" :-))<p>Min/maxed characters have a chance. And it applies to all traits, not just intelligence.
One observation I made from several years of obsession with pickup (I know, I know), is that women on average actually don't like averages very much (and men too probably).<p>If you're kinda tall, kinda wealthy, kinda attractive, kinda muscular you're also kinda boring even if you would think you would be a great catch based on the statistics.<p>What you find in reality is that individuals have very strong individual preferences which basically make the mean irrelevant.<p>So for example some women really really like athletic guys, while some really really like tall guys. Bu rarely does someone have a preference for a slightly athletic guy, or a slightly tall guy.<p>What you find works well in reality is understanding the type of girl who would like you, putting yourself in places where you might find those girls, and playing to those traits - not trying to fit with some statistical mean.<p>Something that always makes me smile is that when you're out in public you often see unique characters - guys/girls with tattoos from head-to-toe, or someone with a very unique fashion sense. But 99% of the time they always have a uniquely quirky partner by their side who shares and loves their unique characteristics. And to that partner they found a 10/10 catch even if statistics would say the opposite.<p>Just something to keep in mind when thinking about statistics like this.
The article stumbles on assortative mating, and proceeds to draw the wrong conclusion.
Yes, women do select for intelligence, within reason. It would be useless for them to select for men who act, behave and talk, beyond their level of comprehension. At the same time they highly desire someone who is within their level of intelligence and not below it.
Unlike with physical attractiveness, intelligence can only be appreciated when the person itself is smart enough.
Women have dualistic mating strategy (and men too, just differently): the man whose genes they want is very different from the one who they want to provide for the baby to grow up.<p>Of course lucky people can have both of these traits in the same men, but sexual selection is more complex than that.
Wtf is with the influx of articles today that start with a false premise and then furiously start writing a huge pseudo-intellectual word salad trying to debunk it?
Using % virgins bucketed by IQ as a proxy for the attractiveness of intelligence is severely dumb. It requires that all of these individuals are equally chasing after non-virginityhood, which definitely is not the case. A more plausible explanation of the data is that smart people are more likely to not bang early, for reasons (of which, 1) there are many and two) smart ppl are probably more inclined to consider)
Broadly speaking, women typically select for monetary value because they are genetically programmed to secure resources for their offsprings. Monetary value is not necessarily correlated with intelligence, at least not all aspects of intelligence.
This post, and specially its inverted parabola plot, raise another very interesting question:<p>- What advice would you give to a fellow hacker that is more intelligent than attractive?<p>Speak up!
Women select for value.
Intelligence in modern society leads to higher value (i.e. networth).<p>But networth itself will not hold women forever, just look at Bezos and Gates.
Behind the scientific lingo, I'm getting incel vibes from this.<p>Trying to summarize the behavior of half the world population is pointless. Different women look for different things in their partners. For any woman who likes a dark haired, soft spoken thoughtful guy, there's one looking for a blond passionate and outgoing guy.<p>The criteria are endless, and intelligence is too broad to measure. For example, wearing glasses is associated with being book smart and nerdy, so typically would be a marker of low social intelligence.<p>From my own experience, people in healthy relationships basically look for a friend they're physically attracted to. Your mileage may vary.
It has been and is being proven time and time again that physical attractivity (and all its constituents: height, facial-symmetry, voice, anatomy, etc.) is the one biggest deciding factor in who you can have sex with, date and marry. Besides that your physical attractivity also decides your platonic fate, significantly impacts your salary, court/legal sentence length and many more.<p>And I am not even saying this from a too bitter perspective. I am someone who fell on the right side of this scale. I simply have a very astute awareness for this phenomenon. I had the (dis)pleasure of being around some people with godlike attractivity and the way everyone around them bend backwards to satisfy their needs or sucked up to them was eye opening.<p>Incels call this "black pill science" and get condemned for it.