For a long time now we've known that dating apps are skewed in the favor of the most attractive of us all [2] [3]. But one thing you might not have known is the experience from the point of view of an attractive women is dramatically different than that of an attractive man. Attractive women get vastly more attention than their equivalent male counterparts. This first part of the Tinder Experiment blog series examines exactly how vastly different the experience is for an attractive woman. Both men and women are looking for different things when using tinder and the traits they place higher on the list of ideal mates are different. But before we can examine exactly what it’s like to be an attractive girl on Tinder – we have to cover some material/concepts that help frame the discussion.
Gender Specific Sexual Strategy
There is an idea that each gender has a sexual strategy, and that they apply their sexual strategies to increase their chance of reproduction and decrease negative outcomes. This dynamic is driven by the gender that is required to invest more into each offspring, in humans it is the female. The human female has to invest much more towards potential offspring than the male does. The female has to battle through long pregnancies, nursing of infants and raising of the child. Also the female is limited in how many offspring she can have as a result of the anatomy of her sexual organs. A female can only mate successfully when very specific set of criteria are met i.e, she is ovulating, she has healthy eggs and she has a willing male to impregnate her. As a result the success of a female passing on her genes is limited by the amount of resources she is able to invest in her few children. In contrast the male puts in less investment per child. A man is even able to completely walk away from a women after passing his seed. He is also not limited by the amount of females he can impregnate and as a result can produce and pass his seed with less restrictions in place. Enabling the human male greater probability of success in passing on his genes. The success of a male in passing his genes is only limited by two factors, the availability of fertile women and their willingness to have sex with him.
The Shotgun vs the Sniper Rifle
This dichotomy between the genders influence their sexual strategy. These GSSS are the basis for parental investment and sexual selection theories. Understanding that a female has less chances to pass on her genetic code in comparison to a male who has many more chances, allows us to see the difference between the genders sexual selection criteria. Another way to think about it is to imagine a target at a shooting range, your goal is to hit the center of the bulls eye. The instructor at the shooting range presents two weapons that are selected via a coin toss. The first weapon being a shotgun and the second being a sniper rifle. You have 14 rounds of ammo for the shotgun and 3 bullets for the sniper rifle. The target is many yards away. In this hypothetical situation depending on which weapon you end up with the strategy used to hit the target will be completely different.
If you are left with the shotgun you have to physically get close enough to the target (about 15 yards away) and generally be pointing anywhere near the direction of the target to have a good chance of hitting the center bulls eye. Fortunately for you what you lack in accuracy you make up for in probability due to the sheer number of rounds and shells ejected per round. The Probability of one of your shotgun pellets passing through the center bulls eye isn’t low. If you get the sniper rifle on the other hand you will be more cautious and shoot from afar. Why a further distance? Because the instructor is unfair and puts this restriction on you. As a result of using the sniper rifle you might become more cautious about ammo. You are more likely to shoot when you have a really good chance of hitting the bulls eye and less likely to take chances that might result in failure. In comparison if you have the shotgun you’re less worried about ammo and missing and instead worried about closing in the distance and firing in a spraying pattern. This brute force in numbers vs picking an individual point to shoot and focusing all your resources into setting up the best shot – is exactly what the sexual strategies of both genders is like.
Why are men and women best served by different strategies?
Men because they have, in essence, lower cost per seed (ammo) worry less about finding an ideal mate and instead just focus on having as much sex as possible until their goal is met. Men employ a shotgun approach – trying to spread their seed with as many women as possible. They can do this because their sexual anatomy gives them the ability to produce seed cheaply and quickly. While in contrast the female has less “ammo” and is more invested per egg than the man is per seed. The female wants to aim for the best man possible, even when there is a low probability of the male committing to the female. In short she will shoot her rifle at the furthest possible distance to hit the target of the highest value to her. This gamble is the essence of the female sexual strategy. While the male will as we know “sleep with anything that he can possibly sleep with” aka shoot at anything with the shotgun that has even a slim chance of hitting. Its probably a good time to note that these are exaggeration of both sexual strategies, which help with seeing the difference between male and female GSSS.
As a result the traits in a mate that both genders are interested in are going to be vastly different. Because both are trying to meet their goals through different means. Different strategies have to be employed in order for their opposing goals to be met. Scientific studies have shown that across many different cultures, men are much more interested in looks while women value a man’s ability to provide resources. Peak fertility in women occurs in the early 20’s, at exactly the same time as they are most attractive. A large body of evidence supports these two statements. The behaviors and sexual strategies of men and women are innately different because women bear children and men do not. In other words, the egg has greater value than sperm.
Sexual Market Value and Tinder
Men and woman are different by nature for good reason, and its best to embrace those differences between them. Its impossible to change attraction – no one can change what they are attracted to. Women and men are both attracted to a set of core features and sometimes the criteria for mate selection is unfair. But unfair as it may seem it is here to stay. Men are attracted to physical qualities related to fertility – youthfulness, innocence, and the need for protection. And they are attracted to personality traits related to child rearing – nurturing, caring, attentiveness. All of these traits can be grouped together as feminine traits. In contrast, woman are attracted to masculine traits that relate to your ability to protect – strength, muscular definition, shoulder width, and height. And they are attracted to your ability to provide – status, power and intelligence. These traits in men and women are complimentary because they help with raising a child. Both traits (masculine and feminine) are required to raise a well adjusted healthy offspring. It is in the best interest of both genders to mate with a person that is going to give them the best possibility for reproductive success. To do this, each sex has evolved their own mating strategies so that they can get a mate with the highest sexual market value.
This means that women need to be selective with their mates and choose carefully while men can just play the numbers game. If there ever was an example that showcased this clearly it would have to be Tinder. How often do you think a guy swipes right until his thumb is sore just to get one interested girl? In contrast how selective do you think a women on Tinder is – swiping left nearly infinitely looking for ‘Mr. Right’. In the modern world, at least when it comes to dating apps, women are the choosers. Men will always play the numbers game and will seek out women who are willing to give them an opportunity at reproduction. So, from within tinder is a double standard, which comes from the fact that getting sex is easy for women but hard for men. Because its more difficult for a man to sleep around – if he has a higher body count he is perceived as a higher value catch by women. In comparison a women who gives up herself too easily will be seen as lower value and will be shunned by men looking for long term relationships, but actively pursued by men wanting to pump and dump. Thus creating a paradox for both genders – where by employing their GSSS they indeed create a higher demand for females; in which female sexual market value increases and in return under values many people directly out of the market (bottom 80% of men). Very few individuals (top 40% of women top 15% of men) at the top benefit. The sad part is the bottom 60% of women are falsely believing in their inflated sexual market values. They participate in online dating under the assumption that they can get men of higher status to commit and quickly find out its possible to get men to sleep with them but impossible to get men to commit. And the vast majority (everyone else) is left with a sense of unhappiness coupled with loneliness.
“A man who can’t get laid signals to the world that he is a loser, while a woman who resists spreading her legs for every scumbag who winks at her shows herself to be a sober, selective person. Because a female’s primary goal is getting the highest-quality man available to commit to her, women who cannot or will not stay in a relationship are poor sources of information on men. The male virgin and the female slut are mirror images of each other in terms of attractiveness to and knowledge of the opposite sex.” @mattforney.com
What is it like to be an attractive girl on tinder?
To understand exactly how the dynamic between men and women have changed to allow for such unrealistic expectations – we first have to see it from the point of view of those on top. That minority within the market place that is equally responsible for the current crash that’s happening is the attractive young female and male with high SMV. The attractive young female is hands down the most sought after demographic on Tinder. She is the apex predator of online dating – she has no equal, she is bombarded with attention and affection from all manner of men. And seeing how she experiences courtship will provide insight towards exactly what needs to be changed in the dating world to allow for more equal footing. Before we can talk about what females want we have to discuss what they absolutely do not want. The next blog post “The Tinder Experiment Part 2” picks up where we left off in this blog post. It shows insight into the sexual strategy being employed by females to filter out unwanted men.