What Women Want

When researching for a future video I came across a study from 2010 by Gunter J. Hitsch, Ali Hortacsu, and Dan Ariely. The study looked at online dating service data to get accurate assessments of what people are looking for in partners.

Looking at the results of the study, the first things I noticed were the basics. Turns out women like men who are attractive, tall, and have lots of money. Who would’ve guessed? But as I kept digging something caught my eye. Occupation.

Irrespective of income, women showed a statistically significant amount of additional interest in men with cooler-sounding jobs.

This got me thinking. Why?
Attractiveness, pass on better genes to kids, makes sense.
Height, better protectors, makes sense.
Money, better providers, makes sense.

But why occupation/industry? Something that seemingly does not affect a woman’s life or the life of their children. In fact, jobs with more risk associated with them, ones that could endanger a man’s ability to be a father like military, police, or firefighters were near the top of the list.

If it doesn’t affect a woman’s ability to effectively breed and raise healthy offspring what exactly is the advantage of it?

Being stumped by this piece of data, I asked my girlfriend…

Why Your Occupation Matters

After telling her this data she thought it was funny but she wasn’t surprised at all.

“It’s simple, if I’m telling my parents about a new boyfriend when they ask what he does for a living it’s easier to say doctor or lawyer than waiter or dishwasher”

And it all made sense. It’s all about the approval of others. She doesn’t care that you’re a doctor. She cares that when her friends or family inevitably ask what you do for a living she has at least an acceptable, but preferably prestigious answer.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we all want to look good in the eyes of other people. Especially those close to us, parents, friends, etc. and so for a woman to make you her boyfriend, she needs to know you add some status to her life.

When she’s telling her friends about you and she says doctor, lawyer, firefighter, police officer, etc. It’s assumed you are the kind of person that makes for a good partner. You’re smart, courageous, capable, caring, and make at least a livable wage. You could be a labourer and all those things could still be true about you, but if she tells her friends you're a labourer, that’s not what they are going to assume.

Women’s Status

The deeper I dove into this conversation, the more I realized how you will appear to her friends and family is a large part of whether she’ll think you’re a viable partner or not.

Women don’t compete on the same things men do. Women don’t really care how much money each other make, how good at sports/video games each other are, or who could win in a fight. The only thing they really compete with each other on is who has the “best” man and who lives the most “aesthetic lifestyle”.

This means how she can make you appear to her friends is a huge point of status within her social circles.

How You Can Use This Information to Get a Girlfriend

To understand how to manipulate this effect to your advantage you need to know exactly how these conversations go down.

This is the most common way it goes down:

A girl mentions her boyfriend in conversation.

Her girlfriends then say “Omg, Jenny you have a boyfriend? Show me!”

She then pulls up the best pictures of you she has access to and shows them.

Then she tells her friends the 2-3 points about you that are most worth bragging about.

They ask questions about potential flaws she has to answer(if occupation was not mentioned in the 2-3 bragging points it will be brought up here)

Actionable ways to use this information

Given this is the process women go about telling each other about their boyfriends. You now know what to optimize for to make sure your girlfriend can show you to her friends without being embarrassed, and instead be proud to show you off.

1. Make sure your girlfriend has good pictures of you that she can show to her friends. This will most commonly take the form of your Instagram profile.

This is my personal Instagram. I never use Instagram. I don’t even have the app installed on my phone. The only reason I have Instagram is for the sole reason that my girlfriend always has good pictures she can show her friends.

You need to understand that as a man your girl will need to show her friends and family pictures of you and it’s your job to give her good pictures to show. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy but having an Instagram profile(whether you use it or not) with 3+ good pictures of yourself will do wonders for making a girl comfortable with accepting you as her boyfriend.

Sidenote: If you’re on the shorter side(5’9” or shorter) try to appear taller in these pictures. No pictures with tall friends, pictures with short friends, and if you have short proportions have more shots sitting down and fewer full body shots. Her friends will be less likely to make a big deal out of your height if you do this. An unfortunate reality of the West you have to deal with as a shorter man.

2. Give her 2-3 bragging points she can tell her friends while showing them your pictures.

Whether that be you’re tall(6ft+, being 5’11” and telling her 6ft in shoes may also pass), you’re smart, you can dance, you know famous people, you play guitar, you’re a collegiate/professional athlete, you’re an amateur fighter, you go to a prestigious school, or you are in one of those attractive industries/occupations, you need to give her a couple points she can tell brag to her friends about.

This means if you already have any of these you just need to let her know about them. If you don’t have any it means you should work on developing some.

3. Spice up your occupation if you don’t have a conventionally attractive one.

The last tip I can provide based on these insights is this. If your occupation isn’t inherently attractive you should give her a way she can phrase it as attractive. Even if it isn’t one of her 2-3 bragging points about you she will still be questioned on what you do for a living and as this is the case you should give her an answer she can use that will receive positive results.

If you work a job like driving Uber but are starting a business on the side tell her about the business and emphasize that is what you do with most of your time.

If you work a more corporate sales, marketing, or accounting job. Say who your company helps. Instead of “I sell B2B accounting software” say “I help small business owners get their finances together so they can keep their dream business afloat”.

Obviously, I can’t give you personally a precise way to do this, but think critically, think about what her friends will think when she tells them your job.

Conclusion

A large part of why girls pick a man is so they can brag about him to their friends. If you make it easy to brag about you to her friends she will be more likely to want you to be her boyfriend. If she gets more positive feedback from her friends and family about you when she shows you to them, she will be happier with her decision to choose you and treat you better for it.

Optimize how you appear to her friends and family to optimize how she feels about you.