Any guesses what it might be?
Basement Gollum: “Muscles!”
Nope.
Basement Gollum: “Looks!”
Nope.
Basement Gollum: “Facial symmetry!”
Ah nope.
The answer is FEMALE PRESELECTION.
The game maestros are, yet again, correct in their worldview. ♂SCIENCE♂ clearly confirms the field observation that women are instantly and romantically curious about a man who is in the company of other women, especially if those women aren’t fat bluehair feminists.
[Female preselection] solves a more important adaptive problem for females than for males—getting information about a potential partner. Because men are often initially concerned with the attractiveness of a partner, they can look at a female and instantly discern a fair bit of mate-relevant information. That’s often less the case for women. […]
Back in the 1970s, a pair of researchers conducted an experiment to examine the importance of having a physically attractive partner. Participants evaluated men who were either the boyfriend of, or unassociated with, a female; and the female was either attractive, or unattractive. Of the four conditions, the men with an attractive girlfriend were evaluated the most favorably. The men with the unattractive girlfriend were evaluated the least favorably. This was taken as evidence of how the company you keep seems to be important. […]
Because physical attractiveness is an important cue for female mate-value, the perceived quality of a man’s female partner can be determined to a large extent by how physically attractive she is. Due to positive assortative mating, this can have a bearing on a man’s own mate-value. Some studies have demonstrated that mate copying effects are stronger when the female partner of a man is physically attractive than if she is less attractive or perceived as unattractive. In some research I personally conducted, a man’s mate-value was elevated simply by having physically attractive female friends. […]
Based on the research presented above, a man looking to romantically attract women might do well to surround himself with beautiful women. And if one (or all) of them behaves favorably toward him, all the better.
CH has discussed this topic many times, because it is important. You can fast track your seduction successes by rigging the game with a powerful attraction-building shortcut: the presence of an (attractive) woman to cue other women that you are a HSMV man.
But be careful. Being seen with an ugly fatty will actually hurt your attractiveness to other women more than being seen alone! The ideal set-up is one in which your female company is a young, cute girl who acts a little too vajcurious with you. (Btw, older men can greatly increase their close rate with younger women through the application of this principle.)
Of course, getting that first cute babe to join you on your nightly poon expeditions isn’t a small feat. But one you have her, successive cute babes become easier to score. It’s like the stock market; you’ve gotta find the money to invest, but once you’ve got a steady return on investment you can let the magic of compound interest work and live off your dividends.
In the future, I will have a post about game specifically designed for ugly men (bottom 20% in physical appearance), and preselection will play a big part in the ugly man’s ability to extend his dating market victories beyond a few one-off flukes.
