This post by the IJC has prompted some interesting discussion on looks and dating.
The comment I liked best:
Even in New York, most men and women, hot or not, have little chance of dating someone whose financial, educational or social circumstances are very different from their own. Which is why slender, hot editorial assistants are more likely to date chubby production dorks than investment bankers. Male investment bankers who are married in their first six years of practice are more likely to leave their spouses for another investment banker than to stay married (they spend six or seven days a week at work, after all, from 8 in the morning to midnight).
In my first six months out of college, I worked as a temp in a Wall Street law firm. Almost all the associates (young lawyers) male or female, were married. One lawyer, a pretty woman in her early 30s, was divorcing her artist husband because, rumor had it, she was having an affair with another lawyer. Big surprise, huh, that you begin to feel passionate about the people you see all the time, who share your interests and are similarly educated.
This whole discussion of who gets laid and why is out of control. In high school and college, the girls getting laid were the ones who were easy. Boys decided if a girl was hot, often, based solely on the size of her breasts. Really pretty girls who didn’t give out the available vibe didn’t get laid.
That didn’t change so much after college, actually. 1 in 1,000 young women will pick a man based on his income. Everyone else is looking for someone who makes her feel beautiful and interesting, smart and funny, full of potential and understood. The guy I know who gets laid most is a struggling artist who lives with a roommate in Williamsburg and dresses like a homeless person. He’s not brilliant. I don’t think he’s handsome. He drinks too much. Yet, he’s dated one hot woman after another. Using the logic of this discussion, he should only be dating his hand, working out at Crunch at 6 in the morning pining after the hottie on the treadmill.
Yeah, I agree with that guy.
I am always reading comments like “Girls only want such-and-such [money, height, looks]” and “Guys only want such-and-such [looks].”
Everyone has different requirements and beliefs about what is attractive. I could care less about someone’s income – what I care about is whether I can actually have a goofy conversation with them. But someone else could say that makes ME picky.