I want to start off this article noting a couple of things. First, this article is for guys. Second, this article is for guys, free of any subtle or not-so-subtle messages disguised as advice, with any sort of agenda (i.e. treat girls nice, relationships are wonderful, marriage is awesome, etc.) Third, this article is going to be brutally honest, so if you prefer something more PG and less informational; I would STOP READING HERE.
Before we begin, let's make one thing clear. There's a difference between a man and a boy. And no, I don't mean the self-serving conditional statements that girls make to try and get guys to be how they want them to be (i.e. a "real man" showers me in Tiffany's jewelery). I'm talking about having balls and not having balls. On a similar note, having balls and being a jerk are not the same thing. In fact, you can have balls and not be a jerk. Likewise, just because you're a jerk, doesn't mean you have balls.
So let's get to it.
You often hear guys complaining about girls not wanting "nice guys", and how they often go for the "jerks". Theories, usually with some trace of evolutionary psychology, explain how girls prefer stronger men over weaker men. It's usually at this point that guys will start to poke and prong at the topic of "tests" (i.e. ways girls test guys).
If you're still reading, then congratulations, you're about to get the answer to your question; "why" girls test guys.
Let's take a walk back to memory lane to, oh let's say, I don't know, 12,000 BC. Guys and girls all over the place. Most of them naked, all of them horny. Girls liked the guys who looked the strongest, stood out among the rest, and had traits they wanted their children to have. And that's exactly who they mated with. So what's so bad about that? 9 months later, those children came out, with no father.
It wasn't long until girls started to conclude that their chances of survival as well as the chances for the survival of their children were greatly increased by the help of a man. On a related note, the age of free sex had come to an end. Girls now had plenty of incentive to control their sexual urges; pregnancy. But with this new social trend, came a drastic change in partner selection!
On one hand, the mate of choice was still the stronger genetically superior male, who had a habit of running around planting his seed(s) to many women, with commitment to none of them. This was the guy, that as a girl, you still wanted to have sex with. These were the genes you wanted your children to have. On the other hand, what good are good genes if you and the children don't survive? So the other consideration was choosing a mate who would also stick around both during and after the 9 months after sex. (note: this evolutionary psychology developed for over a 10,000 year period; before any form of contraception. As society adjusts and adapts to the concept of contraception, this psychology will phase out and change)
So let's go to 400 BC, in Ancient Greece, specifically Sparta. Sparta offers the perfect example to see mating selection in action. You had three classes of men to pick from. A Spartan, a Perioikoi, or a Helot. A Spartan was your first choice. He was genetically superior and the strongest. The only problem was, they had no commitment to any women they had sex with, and of the ones that did, chances are they'd die in war. A Perioikoi was a regular guy, usually a skilled craftsman or ordinary citizen. A Helot was basically a loser.
Girls of Sparta knew who was who, and so, favored mating with a Spartan first, but would also mate with a Perioikoi (ONLY IF THE SPARTAN FATHER HAD LEFT OR DIED, AND THE WOMAN WAS IN NEED OF HELP TO BOTH SURVIVE AND RAISE HER CHILDREN). Though, an alternative to this strategy was to amass a following of Helots whom the woman would make a false promise to each that she would allow them to mate with her, in return for a lifetime of help and support for both her and her family.
Side-track: I know some guy just read that and got a little bit angry. He probably thought, "that's so messed up that she would favor the Spartan over the Perioikoi" Really? Why? Because he's better and we're going to root for the underdog? Nature doesn't root for the underdog. And the same way your survival instincts tell you to favor the "hot" girl over the "ugly" girl, our survival instincts told us to favor the "man" over the "boy", and most definitely over a "loser".
And with that said, let's fast-forward to today.
Today, social classes aren't as easily identifiable. You don't know right off the bat, which guy is going to be a dead-beat and which guy is going to be successful. You don't know which guy is going to be the leader and which guy is going to be one of the many minions. But you do know you still want the genes of the guy that's going to lead, survive, win, succeed, and most likely, other women down the line will also recognize and want to reproduce with. But you also know you want a guy who will stick around and significantly increase the chances of survival and reproductive success of your children.
So, to date, our 12,000 year old evolutionary psychology, is still the same. Our bottom brain desires the strong and powerful man who is built to survive and lead, who will succeed. Our top brain however, looks for a guy that won't cheat, will be a good father and husband, and can provide for and support his family. And thanks to the social pressures that surround reproduction, the father of your children and the man who provides for them, now (though not in the past) have to be the same man.
Thus, the goal becomes to find a guy who is both a genetically favorable mating choice AND will be both able to provide for his family and be willing to stick around and not wander away. If you've ever wondered what women want, there you go, THAT'S what women want.
Now, this is quite the challenge, since the female mating strategy is in DIRECT OPPOSITION to the male mating strategy (mate with as many attractive females as possible). One gambit that female kind has tried to pull was the "no sex until marriage" gambit. You may have heard it called the "I'm a virgin, and want to wait until marriage to have sex, because it's going to be more special". It's an attempt to coerce non-committal men who are favorable mating choices to commit! The only problem is, it doesn't work.
Why? Economics. If you're 1 out of 100 females, and the other 99 females have all waited until marriage to have sex, but have ended up mating with normal guys. But you have the chance to mate with a genetically superior male before marriage, or wait until marriage to mate with a normal guy, what will you do? If you mate with the superior male, you win! You win the survival/natural selection game. Your genes are now ahead. Sure, you played dirty, but so what? You're ahead, that's all that matters. Want a more interesting situation? What if you and an other female have yet to get married or mate, and you both have the option to mate with a genetically superior male? If you don't and she does, you lose. If you do and she doesn't, you win. Game theory at its finest; where it counts. And economics is exactly the reason this gambit fails.
The reason it fails, is because genetically superior men are much rarer than genetically superior women, and so, more high quality women want to have sex with high quality men, than high quality men want to have sex with high quality women. In short, these men have more women who want to have sex with him (whom they also want to have sex with). This is sharply different from those women who have many men who want to have sex with them (but very few or any that they would want to have sex with). So when a man is aware that he falls into this category, (or is simply aware of his sexual demand), his tolerance or willingness to postpone or wait for sex flirts with zero. And it can, because the only person who loses by not having sex with him is the woman! It's a pretty strong negotiating power, and it's almost impossible to bargain with.
On the other hand, while these guys are busy getting laid, there is a group of less sexually desirable men who are busy studying, working, saving, investing, and accumulating wealth. They've come to accept that they are sexually inferior, and so, their desire for sex drops slightly, and their desire for emotional companionship and a relationship is born.
So from a female perspective, the mating game becomes quite complex yet interesting. There is a clock that's ticking, until it's game-over. And that clock isn't fertility, it's age! It's not the reality of being infertile, but the reality of being less sexually desirable to men who are sexually desirable! Once that happens, you're going to have to "settle". That means with a guy who will be the best provider, father and husband. But until the clock runs out, the dominant strategy is to try and get a sexually desirable male to commit to us and us alone. Since this is what all girls are trying to do, simultaneously, the competition is more intense than the last seat at John Hopkins' School of Medicine.
The battle comes down to sex. Between two girls of equal value, the one who puts out first will snag the guy away from the other girl. To prevent this from happening, girls have developed the "slut system". It's quite easy. You have to keep the supply of sex low, in order to maintain some level of bargaining power when it comes to forming a new relationship; otherwise, you and every other woman is completely at the mercy of a man. It's like an oligarchy or a cartel. The way an oil cartel keeps the price of oil up is simply by collectively limiting its supply. Obviously, if one or a few members introduce more supply into the market, they alone will be the ones to profit from it. This is obviously not cool. And if any girl does this, all other girls will label her a "slut". A word that in itself means nothing, created out of thin air, understood as something negative, simply because we say so.
So while we can't just jump on the guys we want, because we'll be ostracized from our fellow female social support network, we're looking for guys to "do that for us" (so that we don't have to). After all, if "the guy" insisted and persisted so much, then we're "less guilty" of the "slut" title. In other words, we can snag the guy away from some other girl, AND our hands & reputation will be untainted!
And for as long as there's still time left on that clock, the "bad boy" is more desirable than the "nice guy". It should be obvious at this point why. But just in case it's not, let's spell it out formally.
The bad boy doesn't get walked over or pushed over. He's not controlled by other guys, he doesn't follow other guys, instead, he controls and leads other guys. This is what makes him attractive! Where he stands relative to other guys! It's a signal to every girl's reproductive unconscious that "hey! this guy is a winner! he's a leader! he's going to be successful in society!" The measure of success that's important here isn't "financial" success, but "social" success. These are guys like Daniel Craig, George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan and Brad Pitt. It's not how they look! It's their attitude! It's the fact that if you were sitting at the same table, and having a conversation with them, you wouldn't be able to come on top! You wouldn't be able to stand out and dominate them! They are in control, they're the ones who are leading, and you can't push them to do anything they themselves don't want to do! THAT'S WHY THEY'RE SEXY!
NOTICE: THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT ALL FEMALE TESTS BASICALLY TEST FOR!
- If I (the girl) can push him, then other guys can push him too. And if he can't stand up to me, then how can I expect him to stand up to other guys? (That's a very serious question that a girl needs an answer to, and until she gets a "good" answer, she can't feel safe next to you. And if she can't feel safe next to you, she can't see you as her man. And if she can't see you as her man, then she can't see you as someone she wants to have sex with. Plain and simple)
The problem with "nice guys", is not that they're "nice". Girls don't love jerks. We don't compete over guys who will treat us badly. Just because you're no Brad Pitt doesn't make Brad Pitt a jerk. What every girl wants, is a "nice" Brad Pitt. Someone with a strong attitude like him, but who also treats her nice and respects and loves her.
Here is where "nice guys" FAIL in EPIC proportions. They can't make the distinction between "treating her nice" and "having a strong attitude". They feel that it's either one or the other, but that it can't be both. If a guy has a "strong attitude", then he's a jerk and he doesn't "treat her nice". I want to "treat her nice" and not be a jerk, therefore I won't have a "strong attitude". For a sex that prizes itself on logic and reason, that's a pretty irrational belief system.
Nice guys fail because when a girl tests for a guy's character, to see if he's strong emotionally and psychologically; the nice guy starts "being nice" (which to him means, displaying a weak and submissive character). As he behaves the way he thinks will show the girl how nice and respectful he is, what he's really communicating "accidentally" is (I'm not the strong man you're looking for. I'm weak. I'm spineless. I'm a push over. I allow you to control me. So you can expect the same or worse when it comes to me versus other guys. You can't feel safe around me. You can't see me as your man. You can't see me as someone you want to have sex with.)
As soon as the guy communicates that message, he gets mentally dumped into a different mental category. If time is running out on the clock, there's simply no time to waste on guys like this. So he gets dumped to "friend", which really means (if I'm still single and unmarried by the time I'm 30, I'll start to give him a chance).
So what I hope every guy takes away from this, is to get rid of these stupid ideas you have about being nice, being a jerk, and being attractive to girls. Now you know what is, and what isn't. The rest is up to you. You no longer have "ignorance" as an excuse.
Before we begin, let's make one thing clear. There's a difference between a man and a boy. And no, I don't mean the self-serving conditional statements that girls make to try and get guys to be how they want them to be (i.e. a "real man" showers me in Tiffany's jewelery). I'm talking about having balls and not having balls. On a similar note, having balls and being a jerk are not the same thing. In fact, you can have balls and not be a jerk. Likewise, just because you're a jerk, doesn't mean you have balls.
So let's get to it.
You often hear guys complaining about girls not wanting "nice guys", and how they often go for the "jerks". Theories, usually with some trace of evolutionary psychology, explain how girls prefer stronger men over weaker men. It's usually at this point that guys will start to poke and prong at the topic of "tests" (i.e. ways girls test guys).
If you're still reading, then congratulations, you're about to get the answer to your question; "why" girls test guys.
Let's take a walk back to memory lane to, oh let's say, I don't know, 12,000 BC. Guys and girls all over the place. Most of them naked, all of them horny. Girls liked the guys who looked the strongest, stood out among the rest, and had traits they wanted their children to have. And that's exactly who they mated with. So what's so bad about that? 9 months later, those children came out, with no father.
It wasn't long until girls started to conclude that their chances of survival as well as the chances for the survival of their children were greatly increased by the help of a man. On a related note, the age of free sex had come to an end. Girls now had plenty of incentive to control their sexual urges; pregnancy. But with this new social trend, came a drastic change in partner selection!
On one hand, the mate of choice was still the stronger genetically superior male, who had a habit of running around planting his seed(s) to many women, with commitment to none of them. This was the guy, that as a girl, you still wanted to have sex with. These were the genes you wanted your children to have. On the other hand, what good are good genes if you and the children don't survive? So the other consideration was choosing a mate who would also stick around both during and after the 9 months after sex. (note: this evolutionary psychology developed for over a 10,000 year period; before any form of contraception. As society adjusts and adapts to the concept of contraception, this psychology will phase out and change)
So let's go to 400 BC, in Ancient Greece, specifically Sparta. Sparta offers the perfect example to see mating selection in action. You had three classes of men to pick from. A Spartan, a Perioikoi, or a Helot. A Spartan was your first choice. He was genetically superior and the strongest. The only problem was, they had no commitment to any women they had sex with, and of the ones that did, chances are they'd die in war. A Perioikoi was a regular guy, usually a skilled craftsman or ordinary citizen. A Helot was basically a loser.
Girls of Sparta knew who was who, and so, favored mating with a Spartan first, but would also mate with a Perioikoi (ONLY IF THE SPARTAN FATHER HAD LEFT OR DIED, AND THE WOMAN WAS IN NEED OF HELP TO BOTH SURVIVE AND RAISE HER CHILDREN). Though, an alternative to this strategy was to amass a following of Helots whom the woman would make a false promise to each that she would allow them to mate with her, in return for a lifetime of help and support for both her and her family.
Side-track: I know some guy just read that and got a little bit angry. He probably thought, "that's so messed up that she would favor the Spartan over the Perioikoi" Really? Why? Because he's better and we're going to root for the underdog? Nature doesn't root for the underdog. And the same way your survival instincts tell you to favor the "hot" girl over the "ugly" girl, our survival instincts told us to favor the "man" over the "boy", and most definitely over a "loser".
And with that said, let's fast-forward to today.
Today, social classes aren't as easily identifiable. You don't know right off the bat, which guy is going to be a dead-beat and which guy is going to be successful. You don't know which guy is going to be the leader and which guy is going to be one of the many minions. But you do know you still want the genes of the guy that's going to lead, survive, win, succeed, and most likely, other women down the line will also recognize and want to reproduce with. But you also know you want a guy who will stick around and significantly increase the chances of survival and reproductive success of your children.
So, to date, our 12,000 year old evolutionary psychology, is still the same. Our bottom brain desires the strong and powerful man who is built to survive and lead, who will succeed. Our top brain however, looks for a guy that won't cheat, will be a good father and husband, and can provide for and support his family. And thanks to the social pressures that surround reproduction, the father of your children and the man who provides for them, now (though not in the past) have to be the same man.
Thus, the goal becomes to find a guy who is both a genetically favorable mating choice AND will be both able to provide for his family and be willing to stick around and not wander away. If you've ever wondered what women want, there you go, THAT'S what women want.
Now, this is quite the challenge, since the female mating strategy is in DIRECT OPPOSITION to the male mating strategy (mate with as many attractive females as possible). One gambit that female kind has tried to pull was the "no sex until marriage" gambit. You may have heard it called the "I'm a virgin, and want to wait until marriage to have sex, because it's going to be more special". It's an attempt to coerce non-committal men who are favorable mating choices to commit! The only problem is, it doesn't work.
Why? Economics. If you're 1 out of 100 females, and the other 99 females have all waited until marriage to have sex, but have ended up mating with normal guys. But you have the chance to mate with a genetically superior male before marriage, or wait until marriage to mate with a normal guy, what will you do? If you mate with the superior male, you win! You win the survival/natural selection game. Your genes are now ahead. Sure, you played dirty, but so what? You're ahead, that's all that matters. Want a more interesting situation? What if you and an other female have yet to get married or mate, and you both have the option to mate with a genetically superior male? If you don't and she does, you lose. If you do and she doesn't, you win. Game theory at its finest; where it counts. And economics is exactly the reason this gambit fails.
The reason it fails, is because genetically superior men are much rarer than genetically superior women, and so, more high quality women want to have sex with high quality men, than high quality men want to have sex with high quality women. In short, these men have more women who want to have sex with him (whom they also want to have sex with). This is sharply different from those women who have many men who want to have sex with them (but very few or any that they would want to have sex with). So when a man is aware that he falls into this category, (or is simply aware of his sexual demand), his tolerance or willingness to postpone or wait for sex flirts with zero. And it can, because the only person who loses by not having sex with him is the woman! It's a pretty strong negotiating power, and it's almost impossible to bargain with.
On the other hand, while these guys are busy getting laid, there is a group of less sexually desirable men who are busy studying, working, saving, investing, and accumulating wealth. They've come to accept that they are sexually inferior, and so, their desire for sex drops slightly, and their desire for emotional companionship and a relationship is born.
So from a female perspective, the mating game becomes quite complex yet interesting. There is a clock that's ticking, until it's game-over. And that clock isn't fertility, it's age! It's not the reality of being infertile, but the reality of being less sexually desirable to men who are sexually desirable! Once that happens, you're going to have to "settle". That means with a guy who will be the best provider, father and husband. But until the clock runs out, the dominant strategy is to try and get a sexually desirable male to commit to us and us alone. Since this is what all girls are trying to do, simultaneously, the competition is more intense than the last seat at John Hopkins' School of Medicine.
The battle comes down to sex. Between two girls of equal value, the one who puts out first will snag the guy away from the other girl. To prevent this from happening, girls have developed the "slut system". It's quite easy. You have to keep the supply of sex low, in order to maintain some level of bargaining power when it comes to forming a new relationship; otherwise, you and every other woman is completely at the mercy of a man. It's like an oligarchy or a cartel. The way an oil cartel keeps the price of oil up is simply by collectively limiting its supply. Obviously, if one or a few members introduce more supply into the market, they alone will be the ones to profit from it. This is obviously not cool. And if any girl does this, all other girls will label her a "slut". A word that in itself means nothing, created out of thin air, understood as something negative, simply because we say so.
So while we can't just jump on the guys we want, because we'll be ostracized from our fellow female social support network, we're looking for guys to "do that for us" (so that we don't have to). After all, if "the guy" insisted and persisted so much, then we're "less guilty" of the "slut" title. In other words, we can snag the guy away from some other girl, AND our hands & reputation will be untainted!
And for as long as there's still time left on that clock, the "bad boy" is more desirable than the "nice guy". It should be obvious at this point why. But just in case it's not, let's spell it out formally.
The bad boy doesn't get walked over or pushed over. He's not controlled by other guys, he doesn't follow other guys, instead, he controls and leads other guys. This is what makes him attractive! Where he stands relative to other guys! It's a signal to every girl's reproductive unconscious that "hey! this guy is a winner! he's a leader! he's going to be successful in society!" The measure of success that's important here isn't "financial" success, but "social" success. These are guys like Daniel Craig, George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan and Brad Pitt. It's not how they look! It's their attitude! It's the fact that if you were sitting at the same table, and having a conversation with them, you wouldn't be able to come on top! You wouldn't be able to stand out and dominate them! They are in control, they're the ones who are leading, and you can't push them to do anything they themselves don't want to do! THAT'S WHY THEY'RE SEXY!
NOTICE: THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT ALL FEMALE TESTS BASICALLY TEST FOR!
- If I (the girl) can push him, then other guys can push him too. And if he can't stand up to me, then how can I expect him to stand up to other guys? (That's a very serious question that a girl needs an answer to, and until she gets a "good" answer, she can't feel safe next to you. And if she can't feel safe next to you, she can't see you as her man. And if she can't see you as her man, then she can't see you as someone she wants to have sex with. Plain and simple)
The problem with "nice guys", is not that they're "nice". Girls don't love jerks. We don't compete over guys who will treat us badly. Just because you're no Brad Pitt doesn't make Brad Pitt a jerk. What every girl wants, is a "nice" Brad Pitt. Someone with a strong attitude like him, but who also treats her nice and respects and loves her.
Here is where "nice guys" FAIL in EPIC proportions. They can't make the distinction between "treating her nice" and "having a strong attitude". They feel that it's either one or the other, but that it can't be both. If a guy has a "strong attitude", then he's a jerk and he doesn't "treat her nice". I want to "treat her nice" and not be a jerk, therefore I won't have a "strong attitude". For a sex that prizes itself on logic and reason, that's a pretty irrational belief system.
Nice guys fail because when a girl tests for a guy's character, to see if he's strong emotionally and psychologically; the nice guy starts "being nice" (which to him means, displaying a weak and submissive character). As he behaves the way he thinks will show the girl how nice and respectful he is, what he's really communicating "accidentally" is (I'm not the strong man you're looking for. I'm weak. I'm spineless. I'm a push over. I allow you to control me. So you can expect the same or worse when it comes to me versus other guys. You can't feel safe around me. You can't see me as your man. You can't see me as someone you want to have sex with.)
As soon as the guy communicates that message, he gets mentally dumped into a different mental category. If time is running out on the clock, there's simply no time to waste on guys like this. So he gets dumped to "friend", which really means (if I'm still single and unmarried by the time I'm 30, I'll start to give him a chance).
So what I hope every guy takes away from this, is to get rid of these stupid ideas you have about being nice, being a jerk, and being attractive to girls. Now you know what is, and what isn't. The rest is up to you. You no longer have "ignorance" as an excuse.
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