The Hot Girl Effect and Networking

Is this for real? Is there any science to support the anecdotal experience of "the hot girl effect"?

In my experience from a particular music scene, people with celebrity-level status who want to be treated like real people tend to be the people well worth talking to. Those who want to be treated like celebrities are generally less worthwhile to talk to.

Basically, you may not want to talk to anyone who's so shallow that fame is a really big deal to them.

The theory above is short term (get a date), when there is also the long term consideration (marry her, have kids). If you are an average joe, the chances of you having kids with a hot top model are, very frankly, very low. And we guys know that.

In the same way, the chance of us having a nice chat with the CEO of Goldman is fair, but the chance of him maintaining contact with us and being a friend or mentor is pretty low. You don't have the money to hang with him, you don't have the opportunities to share with him and so on.

So you can get a date with the top model if you're brave. You can get a coffee with the CEO if you're brave. But I doubt that anything long term will develop, unless you have true value to offer.

And people evaluate their actual value and see that it probably is not enough to make it worth their while approaching this person.

An example that I'm sure many here can identify with: How many of you have emailed Paul Graham asking him for feedback on your app or whatever? Some brave ones likely have, but how many realistically expect a relationship to develop out of that?

There are a lot of variables in play, and I really have no idea if this holds up for any particular woman or not. But as a guy, who spends a lot of time talking to other guys about approaching / meeting / dating women, I can definitely say that - in my experience - there is absolutely an "intimidation" effect where men will avoid the hotter women because they assume that:

A. "she's out of my league and wouldn't be interested."

B. "she is that hot, she probably gets hit on all the time and is therefore probably snooty / bitchy towards strange guys."

C. "she can have any guy she wants, so surely she's dating some bigshot executive with a rolls-royce and a private jet... no point in little ole me going over and talking to her."

D. "etc."

Not saying that all guys do this, or that all guys do it in all situations, but there is something plausible about this.

From the article: "Once a girl passes a certain degree of hotness, the amount of guys hitting on her drops dramatically."

However, I know of a different version. If (as a guy) you are seen to date a hot girl, then the chances of you dating other hot girls goes up. They want to know what you've got.

I'm guessing this applies to VC as well.