I sense too much negativity and frustration on this thread. I can sympathize. I was exactly the same way at 24, a nerd who couldn't hold a conversation with the opposite sex, had rejection after rejection, and was pretty depressed about it too.
I consciously decided to "improve" myself. Here are things I did:
1. Improved my wardrobe. Believe me, it makes a difference.
2. Consciously taught myself to listen, and ask questions that will lead to more conversation.
3. Consciously taught myself to gauge the level of interest of the other person. Move on if the other person isn't interested - as they say, there is always more fish in the ocean.
4. Push the envelope a little bit ... the man has to push - you have to ask for the phone number! And it is a good way to gauge interest.
5. Don't forget that some level of IQ compatibility is critical. Just as "they" don't want the nerd in you, may be some of the "airhead" types aren't great to be around for you either.
Let me just say that I hit success after consciously doing it. It is like doing a start-up. Know your strengths and know how to compensate for your weaknesses - a superior IQ can help you figure out how to compensate :-)
I asked my wife of twenty-six years, the mother of our four children, what she thought of this link, and she commented that maybe the link just shows that IQ and intelligence are not quite the same thing. It is paradoxical to suppose that high intelligence people might have less reproductive success than average intelligence people, but it's not too far of a stretch to suppose that IQ tests fail to capture all of the intelligent behavior necessary to enjoy reproductive success.
An older but much more thorough source on some of the same issues is
It is paradoxical to suppose that high intelligence people might have less reproductive success
Maybe you mean counterintuitive? Here is one plausible argument:
"Reproductive success" depends first on making other people like you and second on taking very good care of your children. It's hard to see how deep analytical insight would make either task much easier, especially given that so much of sex and child-rearing runs on simple, emotional scripts.
On the other hand, tautology is possible if you're prepared to argue that intelligence causes a person to be significantly more popular, likable, and conscientious, it's hard to imagine positive mental traits that wouldn't be due to intelligence. In that case, all you're saying is that "success is caused by the agglomeration of factors that collectively cause success."
I hang around a lot with individual differences psychologists, so I'm used to hearing rather broad claims of what IQ ("psychometric intelligence") means. To some people, it is taken to mean general adaptive ability. But what would an organism adapt to if not overcoming challenges to reproducing, under selection pressure?
But, yes, if what IQ tests estimate is something narrower than David Wechsler's claimed general ability to adapt to the environment, it is understandable that some high-IQ people never even get to first base in the biological task of reproduction.
But what would an organism adapt to if not overcoming challenges to reproducing, under selection pressure?
Our minds -- whose involuntary emotional reactions drive our behavior and impart to us many of our basic values -- are evolved. Evolution tinkers, reuses, never redesigns or reorganizes. So instead of pushing us toward the single, monolithic goal of having children, we experience constant nudging to do things that are conducive to reproductive success. Support yourself. Be well-liked. Have sex. Love your children. Achieve status. In slogan form: evolution's instrumental values are humanity's terminal values.
So to answer your question, we act to make ourselves happy, and what makes us happy approximates what is good for the next generation. There are gaps, though. Some people to focus on their careers to the exclusion of family, and contraception doesn't engender the same reaction as eating rancid meat. I tend to think this is a good thing, but I'm status-quo biased and my values are largely a product of the current arrangement, so that's unsurprising.
Seems that it should provide some selection bias, as the more intelligent you are, the more likely you will have a good idea and survive longer/provide better for your family etc.
Perhaps, but in times past physical strength was probably as much or more important than intelligence. Note that the least intelligent also have less opportunities to pass on their genes. It would seem that there's a sweet spot where a mix of intelligence and strength is most favored(note the testosterone hypothesis in the article).
Now, however, intelligence is much more important to success. How long will it take for evolution to smile on those with higher IQs such that potential mates find intelligence to be the most attractive trait?
I don't think it's paradoxical. There's a reason "smart genes" didn't proliferate throughout the human race, giving us all (the genetic potential for, at the least) 150+ IQs. That reason is that they're a reproductive drag.
An article the states something that we all know. I think the smartest people knows when to act dumb.
As a comp sci master student who also go out on weekends sometime to clubs, I have to say that women are not turned on by the occupation of a programmer.
I don't think they're turned on by room-temperature IQ construction workers (not saying they all are) for their occupation either. Maybe the problem here is that you're talking about your occupation. If you meet a secretary or a doctor in a bar, do you want to hear her rattle on about her daily routine?
This could be related to the problems very intelligent people have getting laid. Their interests are less accessible and more focused, and so their conversations are more boring to people who don't share those interests. Whereas everybody but the stupidest people can easily follow along in a reality TV discussion.
Uninteresting hobbies and professions are not what's truly at fault here. As the article suggests, people with higher IQs probably spend much more time realizing their ambition than they do trying to have sex. And it doesn't really matter how smart you are -- if you aren't a practiced socializer, you're going to have trouble competing with people who are.
Also, it seems that intelligent people place quite a high value on, well, intelligence. I doubt most people working on startups, research, ground-breaking products, etc want a mate who doesn't understand or care for any of it.
A doctor can casually drop something into the conversation about all of the lives he's saved or kids he's helped and instantly score points. That new webserver is slightly less enthralling to the uninitiated. It's easier to turn some kinds of work into an interesting story than others.
I think that's a case of "the grass is greener on the other side"
You can just as easily come up with fun stories, things you've done, etc. as a programmer as a doctor.
- Next time you're on facebook try pressing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter and see what happens. No I won't tell you but it's fun. If you can't remember it here's my number so you can text me and ask
- Yeah today I've had more than half a million people come through computers I run. Without me they would be in serious trouble. Pretty wild huh?
- I've helped so many kids with computers you wouldn't believe it.
Like in tennis, the point is not to try to hit a winner when the question gets asked but to stay in the game. Volley it back by focusing on something you'd like to know about her.
For example:
Her: "What do you do for a living?"
You: "I write software that thousands of people use every day to get their own jobs done. And my real passion is cooking. I love French cooking from scratch.(pause)What do you enjoy doing?"
OR
Her: "What do you do for a living?"
You: "I write software. Office politics aside, I like the creative aspect of building something up, from a blank screen in my editor to something that people actually use on the Internet.(pause). What do you do to exercise your creativity?"
Or, more to the point: "I program computers to do my bidding. Great fun to do, boring to talk about." Then unapologetically move on to something more there-and-then-worthy, using any cues to --as parent suggests-- give her a chance to talk about herself and (esp.) her interests.
Exactly. That is a very difficult question. And the key is to answer it in a way that pertains to the interviewer's goals (which for a girl meeting a guy might be: does he have a life, will my friends like him, is he interesting).
As Jerry Seinfeld says, a date is a job interview.
Few people are turned on by low intelligence. What the construction worker has on the programmer is masculinity; it's perceived as a more "manly" line of work.
However, both men and women tend to be more androgynous as intelligence increases, which is a problem for both genders, but especially for men, when it comes to attracting mates.
I am skeptical that women are really into construction workers as a whole. If they get any benefit from construction, my guess is that they are more fit on the whole. Women I've met in urban areas don't give a shit about the "manliness" of your work; in fact, I don't even think it's a great disadvantage to be unemployed if you have a good reason to be.
Hm, didn't want to derail this into being really focused on construction workers. Replace that in the previous paragraph with any non-intellectually focused occupation.
She strikes me as more androgynous than most of the female software engineers I know, and certainly more androgynous than the average female. Pictures don't tell the whole story. :-)
She has a leadership role in a technology company. Society views leadership and technological prowess as masculine traits. So that's androgyny.
An androgynous person is one who has a mixture of masculine and feminine traits, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'd generally argue that it's a good thing, because gender roles/stereotypes are limiting and generally bogus. Most people who are worth a damn are fairly androgynous, because there are plenty of worthwhile traits on both sides of the stereotypical gender divide.
I don't know about that. I've had good responses to being a programmer. "Oh you're so smart!" It's just how you sell it. Also, a club isn't exactly the best place to let the coolness of being a programmer show through.
Where I am it really boils down to whether or not you start kissing the nearest girl in the club when drunk.
You could possibly explain this in the article then with the idea that intelligent people are more likely to be either really introverted or extroverted and that the introverted ones tend not to do this sort of thing, leaving just the extroverted of the smart people to get laid?
Sort of similar to the risk-aversion idea here, except with introversion. I do have smart friends who do this, they just happen to also be reasonably extroverted
For each item on your list there is a way to make it happen. Most involve devoting more time to it or changing your strategy.
For example, if you want to go faster you should probably run more.
I suggest the same approach to 'making her smile'. Go talk to girls until you find one that is fun to talk to.
It is important to remember that the girl you WANT to like you probably won't like you back. Get over it; don't waste your time on someone that doesn't even like you. If she doesn't like that you are a programmer, find someone who does. Rejection is part of. Get rejected today! It means you are trying....
Correct. Girls provide themselves when other women want you, but when you're in a dry spell and they might actually be able to help you, they kick you because you're down.
This is very one-sided and nothing like what I was trying to say. It's not entirely the "fault" of girls that making them smile is not enough.
The parent was more even handed when they mentioned confidence and social status. Yes, some girls maybe care about confidence a bit too much, but just the same, guys like myself can often do a poor job of acting confident (sometimes due to lack of effort conforming to norms).
Two mentions of the "opposite sex" make me wonder how heterocentric this study was. I haven't investigated his source studies and the link to the Counterpoint survey is broken.
If the wording of the original survey asks questions specifically related to kissing, holding hands with, and having sex with members of the opposite sex, this study could fail to consider the sexual activity of intelligent homosexual college students which could also provide some interesting results.
Anybody else notice how this relates to pg's essay "Why Nerds are Unpopular" (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)? Getting sex as a teen, like being popular, takes fairly dedicated effort, and more intelligent, especially nerdy, people have other things to spend time on.
There are sooooo many reasons why these numbers may look like this. You may consider it is because smart people are unattractive, or you could consider it that smart people are smart enough to know it isn't a good idea to have sex when you are fifteen.
The author suggests the same interpretations in more general terms:
"Another idea is that smarter people are more risk averse, and delaying these activities is a byproduct of enhanced concerns about unwanted pregnancy and disease. While not avoiding sexual behaviors, per se, they are just less likely to seek it out or consent to it for fear of the potential consequences.
...
Another idea, consistent with popular media portrayals of geeks and nerds (males at least), is that intelligent people actually want to have sex, but are simply less likely or unable to obtain willing partners because they are disproportionately viewed as unattractive or undesirable as partners."
edit: this comment is not meant to support your claims, only to suggest your claims are redundant to HNers who read the article.
I think it's similar to "Why Nerds are Unpopular".
In my parents' day, "finding a husband/wife" wasn't something most people had to make an active effort in order to do. It happened fairly naturally. So smart people paired off at a similar rate to everyone else.
In the post-"Game" world, wherein breaking through womens' defenses and attracting them requires learning a bag of cheap sales tricks, the big losers are the people who don't learn them. These are the dumb, who are unable, and the smart nerds, who can't be bothered because they find childish social games uninteresting.
> In the post-"Game" world, wherein breaking through womens' defenses and attracting them requires learning a bag of cheap sales tricks
The entire industry of pick up technology is based on the premise that there may be a technique that can successfully attract a woman. Wheras, in real life, there is no magic technique - it's all about confidence and putting youself out there, taking a risk/taking the lead.
What the pickup artists are really marketing is protecting the guy's ego - e.g. I wasn't rejected - it was the approach/technique. Which, as we all know, is false marketing.
> It's a complex set of skills that has to be learned over years.
Yes, in my unscientific survey of reading about men posting about their experiences on various pickup forums - the fraction of those who really became good at "pick up" - basically became good not because of the technique but because they went out there with their icebreaker "I need a female opinion" and went from there and gained confidence and experience, to the point that eventually they were so desensitized of rejection (yet, aware) of interacting with women that really no women made them nervous (Bill Clinton was legendary for his ease around all women) - and this is what made them attractive. Snowball effect.
You should. I'm not sugarcoating the ugly, ruined world that supposed "sexual modernism" has brought us to.
I am all for the right of gays to marry, legalized abortion, and 95 percent of the feminist platform. The problem is that we now have a generation of women who feel "empowered" to "try out" a few of the scumbag men that, in previous generations, they wouldn't have dared be seen with. That hurts almost everyone.
On the other hand, it's a better world when people behave sexually in a manner that is consistent with their public morality. That means that they don't sleep with people they wouldn't be proud to be seen with by their parents, family, and friends and to call a boyfriend or girlfriend.
You know, I'm not entirely sure this discussion is going anywhere, but I thought I'd jump in and share a thought that might be valuable anyways.
> On the other hand, it's a better world when people behave sexually in a manner that is consistent with their public morality.
This sentence here, it assumes people's public morality is their real feelings on the matter, instead of doing what needs to be done to get by without ostracism.
I think most people have at least a little different public and private moralities - there's what you believe, and there's what you'd be comfortable representing you believe in your community.
Assuming that the public morality is the real or sensible morality seems to miss that a lot of people aren't happy with the roles they're generally expected to take. Some very outstanding people openly show their countercultural preferences, but many people just quietly dissent, and that's not altogether too crazy if their dissent leads them to the best possible life for themself.
Now, people being unable to make good judgment calls on what furthers their real goals - that's a big problem. But giving a nod to public morality, much of which is imposed on people, seems to be a little off. I think the issue is more of good judgment and long term thinking than it is with public/private morality.
I lost my virginity at fifteen. I didn't, and still don't, think it was a bad idea. I was emotionally prepared for it, in a committed relationship, and took the necessary precautions. I don't have sex indiscriminately, and I'm not emotionally damaged because of it.
It's easy to look at the average and say that a fifteen year old shouldn't be having sex. The average fifteen year old one would encounter is not necessarily emotionally prepared for sex, but I wouldn't say that's indicative of their being a problem with sex. I'd say that has more to do with the pressures of society. The idea that sex is a bad thing that should be suppressed is the problem. We're surrounded by sexual images and ideas as kids and young adults, but we're also told that we should wait until we're married. Fortunately, I had a mother who was open with me about sex, who told me that sex was a beautiful, natural thing and while she would prefer I wait until I was married, she realized that was unrealistic. So, I came out of my teenage years without any unwanted pregnancies, STD's, or emotional baggage in regards to sex.
Emotional and psychological complications, sometimes long-lasting. Early loss-of-virginity age, which many people still care about in a marriage partner.
Empirically, people who lose their virginity early (< 18) tend to be hypersexual as adults.
You say that as though being hypersexual is a bad thing. :-)
Seriously though, any "emotional and psychological complications", etc. are only because of our societies ridiculous, puritanical, anti-sex attitudes. It's really way past time for society to move past these dark ages attitudes about sex. Sex is natural, and even better, it's FUN! :-)
Being sexual in a loving relationship between two adults is a good thing. Being indiscriminately sexual is a bad thing. Being sexual with the wrong sort of people is a bad thing.
I don't have any problem with an isolated casual sexual encounter. As far as I'm concerned, that's none of my business. However, I absolutely hate living in a culture that glorifies it, to the detriment of loving relationships. I also hate living in a world where the vast majority of available women have such awful attitudes as to be unmarriageable.
Those "puritannical attitudes" exist for a reason. Some people take them way too far, and their application is very unjust (e.g. gendered double standards); but they shouldn't be cast aside as relics of "the dark ages". There are many great things about loving, long-term, monogamous relationships and family formation.
The attitutde that men are interchangeable accessories like shoes, rather than human beings. The attitude that it's okay to date scumbags you'd never introduce to your parents. The attitude that a guy who's in his 20s and hasn't nailed at least 10 girls is a loser.
Men probably have just as many shitty attitudes, but I don't encounter them directly in my dating life (only indirectly, because most women I know have been with some awful men).
I really don't know what kind of girls you have been hanging out with. Are you sure you aren't just assuming they are going to be like that before actually getting to know them?
I never thought I would say this one day, but I believe that puritanical attitudes exist for a reason. Not that long ago, one could die of syphilis. Many other STD's would result in infertility. The sexual revolution is only a few decades old, and it was made possible by penicilin, antibiotics and advances in Medicine. You call anti-sex attitudes "ridiculous", while "anachronistic" would perhaps be a better word.
The other half is that a person with a large number of prior sexual partners is more likely to cheat in a long-term relationship, less likely to be sexually satisifiable by one person, and less able to form the intense bonds of trust and love that a relationship requires.
Thus, the "puritannical" stance on casual sex is as relevant and useful today as it ever was. In fact, it's more useful now than it was 1000 years ago; although STDs are much more curable, raising children is considered to be a 20+ year, shared process, making the intact family desirable.
What's disgusting is the double standard-- the stud/slut dichotomy-- that allows men to behave badly with few consequences. My opinion is that women have the power to end the double standard; if women stop being attracted to promiscuous men, for a man to be slutty will be seen as being as foolish and self-damaging as it is for a woman, and the double standard will disappear.
I'm guessing that "going without" involuntarily is what caused those problems. That element of it wasn't your fault; you were being ignored because girls were chasing (trying to "tame") unemployed sociopaths and badboys in lieu of men like you.
If it'd been voluntary, you'd have been fine. You'd be surprised by what people can do without.
I consciously decided to "improve" myself. Here are things I did:
1. Improved my wardrobe. Believe me, it makes a difference. 2. Consciously taught myself to listen, and ask questions that will lead to more conversation. 3. Consciously taught myself to gauge the level of interest of the other person. Move on if the other person isn't interested - as they say, there is always more fish in the ocean. 4. Push the envelope a little bit ... the man has to push - you have to ask for the phone number! And it is a good way to gauge interest. 5. Don't forget that some level of IQ compatibility is critical. Just as "they" don't want the nerd in you, may be some of the "airhead" types aren't great to be around for you either.
Let me just say that I hit success after consciously doing it. It is like doing a start-up. Know your strengths and know how to compensate for your weaknesses - a superior IQ can help you figure out how to compensate :-)