Awhile back someone posted a long diatribe bitching about our use of the HB scale and offered ways to "improve" it. I'm proud that the majority of you guys fought back and explained that he didn't understand the context in which we use the scale.

Makes me tear up a bit.

However....however....as of late I've been seeing a rising trend in all these new FR...oh yeah before I get to that.

Good job guys, churning out FR's and some really good conversation between everyone. I'm really digging the amount of effort everyone is giving.

That being said, HB's.

Several new FR'ers and commenters have been throwing around the HB tag like mad. I'd like to offer a few guidelines from the old school perspective.

1) The Hot Babe (HB) scale is an indicator of a girls relative value(attractiveness) with respect to her frame. (That "her" is really important)

2) Her frame is the combination of her self-esteem, self-awareness, presence of allies, presence of competition, and presence of her targets and obstacles. (aka males)

3a) We use our knowledge of social dynamics, situational and physio-psychological assessment to assign that HB label to her. What we think she thinks she's worth.

3b) This is not a mere judgement call on how physically "hot" she is. Do not confuse this with you telling your friends "Dude that chick is totally an 8, i'd hit it". While the two scales use the same numerical system and deal with attraction, they stem from very different contexts.

And as we all know, context is key.

How does this apply to you? Reserve your designation of HB for when it is necessary in context to explain how and why you did something, not just to describe the girl's general attractiveness.

Yes, we all go after attractive girls, some are more attractive than others. Using the HB scale to say "oh i was with this girl who was a 7 the other night" devalues the HB scale system. Because people who don't understand the context read it as "a bunch of dudes judging women based on physical attractiveness alone", because their only understanding of a 1-10 system comes from that. Unless you banged a Victoria-Secret level female, or bagged your first HB, we don't really care to hear you brag about how hot the girls are you pull, unless it provides context into the situation you are describing.

In short, don't use the HB system to tell us how hot you thought some girl was, but to explain why and how her perceived value affected your pick up strategy in some meaningful way.

I hoped that cleared some things up for you guys. Great job on the content though. I'm happy to see you guys out in the trench's fighting the good fight.