Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women • Hacker News Board

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#51

Post by ardit33 » Fri, Sep 04, 2009, 6:57 PM UTC

rottencupcakes wrote: post #27

Being software engineers, I don't think we need to worry about pretty women in the workplace degrading our work performance. Hacker News itself is 94% male, according to the poll that was up a while ago. That's a ratio that goes unmatched at the nerdiest tech schools.

on my previous company, there was this hot admin..... . i mean hot.

Sometimes it was hard to concetrate, but sometimes it was actually motivating. It brought the competitiveness out of me, and I actually was pretty productive, while i was not thinking about stuff.....

But the upside of the whole thing that I drank a lot of water, since the kitchen was on that way, and I got to upgrade my wardrobe to look good.

Since then, I started dressing much better.

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#52

Post by dgabriel » Fri, Sep 04, 2009, 7:04 PM UTC

SamAtt wrote: post #50

dgabriel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unlikely that your anecdotal stories are better evidence than years&years of studies. Supermodels aren't relevant because they lie so far outside the norm, and can't be used to predict the behavior of a typical woman (even a very attractive woman).

You missed his point. He's saying your study doesn't speak to the question. While his anecdotal evidence might not be accurate but it at least addresses the question at hand.

It's not my study, and it's not a single study, but years of research. The only question I'm addressing here is whether people are attracted to others of the same level of attractiveness, since he requested evidence.

Are women more flexible about their partner's attractiveness based on other factors? Maybe, but without any kind of research, it's all conjecture and confirmation bias.

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#53

Post by fatdog789 » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 1:42 AM UTC

rottencupcakes wrote: post #27

Being software engineers, I don't think we need to worry about pretty women in the workplace degrading our work performance. Hacker News itself is 94% male, according to the poll that was up a while ago. That's a ratio that goes unmatched at the nerdiest tech schools.

Not all of us are software engineers. I work in the legal field. My office is 60% women. SoCal women.

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#54

Post by thesecret » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 5:09 AM UTC

TomOfTTB wrote: post #34

wallflower wrote: post #14

One of my sister's friends, a short average looking bald gay man is constantly hit on by very attractive women (he lives and works in NYC). He says it might be due to the fact that he is totally non-plussed by beautiful women (since he has no sexual interest in them) There is always desensitization training. In one day, you could probably approach fifty attractive women and effectively tame your fear. I've never done…

My dad acted in the Theatre and so I had been doing Theatre tech since about 11 years old (and have many, many beautiful women as friends). With that experience in mind I can verify you sister's friend's claim. When you come right down to it there are two things you have to realize about women. 1. As hard as it is for Men to comprehend the truth is attractiveness isn't that high on a woman's list. It's not that women…

Women are interested in men who give them the cold shoulder because it's a challenge. In her head she is thinking "He must be surrounded by so many pretty women so he is immune" or "Whats wrong with me?"

The 'challenge' theory also applies to guys who are married or who have girlfriends --- it is a challenge

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#55

Post by xiaoma » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 2:01 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #48

TomOfTTB wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, might I suggest you read a comment before replying to it. I never said women didn't care about attractiveness in fact I said just the opposite. Second, most couples in my experience aren't of equal levels of attractiveness (and I'd like to see the research you quote because I don't know how levels of attractiveness could be gauged effectively enough to conduct such research). In fact, I'd say just the opposite…

You didn't say that women don't care about attractiveness, but you did say that attractiveness "isn't all that high on a woman's list." So while your position was a bit misrepresented, I don't think you can quite claim to have said "the opposite." This is all a question of degree. I do think that physical attractiveness does play a very big role in both directions. But clearly women do place a somewhat lower premium…

Brad Pitt is both rich and famous. I'm not sure he does much to make your point.

At 46 years old, Brad Pitt is also about twice the age of the women who get the most attention from men. In order to make a fairer comparison, imagine a man who's very handsome, but whose career and overall signals of success are on par with the physical attractiveness of "the donald".

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#56

Post by xiaoma » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 2:03 PM UTC

TriinT wrote: post #26

electromagnetic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it reproductively focused, that's way more than most men think when they meet a pretty woman. I'd say carnally focused; reproductively focused comes a few hours later if they've forgotten a condom.

I would still call it "reproductively focused". Condoms and being legally forced to support your biological kids have both been invented since we stopped evolving ;-)

we haven't stopped evolving

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#57

Post by xiaoma » Sat, Sep 05, 2009, 2:05 PM UTC

Herring wrote: post #31

Sutibu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general impression I've gotten is they go for pure animal magnetism when looking for a good fuck, and sensitivity, intelligence etc. when looking for some chump to help raise their kids.

>chump >their kids You're apparently not going to be winning any parenting awards.

Are there special parenting awards for mistakenly raising another man's kids?

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#58

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 06, 2009, 12:32 AM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #55

geebee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't say that women don't care about attractiveness, but you did say that attractiveness "isn't all that high on a woman's list." So while your position was a bit misrepresented, I don't think you can quite claim to have said "the opposite." This is all a question of degree. I do think that physical attractiveness does play a very big role in both directions. But clearly women do place a somewhat lower premium…

Brad Pitt is both rich and famous. I'm not sure he does much to make your point. At 46 years old, Brad Pitt is also about twice the age of the women who get the most attention from men. In order to make a fairer comparison, imagine a man who's very handsome, but whose career and overall signals of success are on par with the physical attractiveness of "the donald".

[deleted]

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#59

Post by TriinT » Sun, Sep 06, 2009, 2:50 AM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #56

TriinT wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still call it "reproductively focused". Condoms and being legally forced to support your biological kids have both been invented since we stopped evolving ;-)

we haven't stopped evolving

I was being facetious...

Re: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women

#60

Post by bad_user » Mon, Sep 07, 2009, 8:11 AM UTC

restruct wrote: post #28

bad_user wrote: post #16

I could tell you that without a "research study". And any of my grandparents were also aware of it. These kind of studies leave me a bad taste. It's as if they ran out of funds and want to produce something entertaining that sells stories and that looks like real research. It also promotes sexism. I mean, what would be the natural conclusion coming out of such a study? Stay away from beautiful women? Don't hire them…

Unless they fake the data, researchers do not have control over the results. Yet I hope the article is not being upvoted as startup advice: "Don't hire beautiful women." Perhaps heterosexual men can also train themselves to think of beautiful women as people first instead of as sex objects primarily.

> Unless they fake the data, researchers do not have control over the results.

Yes they have. In any statistic, you can introduce bias (many times without even knowing), the most common one being selection bias.

For example, I'd bet that the results for this research done on men coming from fields that are male-dominated (like engineering, finance), are totally different from the results of men coming from female-dominated fields.