I recently thought about the problem women have in selecting a suitable mate. As they are not the one’s approaching men, for the very most part, their theoretically best approach is to put themselves in an environment where they can meet the highest-status men that would consider them as a mate. While men do not mind dating down, there is a limit to that. For instance, unlike in the movie Pretty Woman, the real world knows few to no examples of a trashy streetwalker bagging a multi-millionaire financier. In this article, I want to tackle this problem from a more abstract perspective.

Relatively few women seek to actively put themselves in situations or environments where they could maximize their long-term dating success. Instead, they mostly seem to go for convenience first and sexual attraction second, i.e. they select their mates from the men they most easily have access to. Let us call this directionality in female mate selection, i.e. the order in which women narrow down the number of suitable men. The default approach of simply picking among those that show up in front of you is obviously limiting. This approach surely provides psychological comfort as it does not require them to leave their comfort zone. However, the result is that they can only hope for finding a locally optimal sexual partner. Similarly, you probably would not assume that whatever city you were born in and area you grew up in provides you with the best economic opportunities. This may be the case, but normally you have to move around about to maximize your economic potential.

Formally speaking, a better approach for women is to select an environment first, followed by a subset of men within this environment, before they pick a sexual partner. This way they maximize for resources while ensuring that their sexual needs are also met. While this approach probably does not lead to a Chad, for the long term a solid male 7 or 8 is surely better for her anyway. After all, it is not as if women are not materialistic. Having their own money spigot at home clearly beats struggling to make ends meet. However, even among women who deliberately seek out a new environment in order to access a better dating pool the execution of this plan often leaves a lot to be desired. In the end, they normally just pick someone from the men in their new environment who appears in front of them. Going from deliberate environment selection to assessing random men and finally selecting them based on sexual interest only leads to a local optimum in a better environment. Nonetheless, among the strategies we have looked at so far, this one is arguably the best one.

There is a different approach, which I have hardly ever seen. I know that it exists because I remember a few encounters with women who did exactly that, i.e. even in an environment in which only men of a particular caliber could be expected, they first assessed or confirmed your economic viability and if you did not pass this screen, they walked off. There are surely more subtle approaches to this, for instance by making an educated guess about someone’s social standing based on habitus and appearance. However, this may take too much time. Thus, a woman who wants to more naturally select a long-term sexual partner could end up wasting months if not years while more desirable men pursue other women. To put it simply, if a woman spends a few weeks trying to get to know a guy in order to figure out if he would make a good boyfriend quite often only wastes her time if this guy has uncertain economic prospects. She could have used that time to get to know other, better-suited guys instead.

Granted, women who are too direct in their initial assessment can come across as rather crass. I recall that at some expensive night clubs I saw women who deliberately approached a few men, spoke briefly with them, and moved on. In one of the most expensive clubs in London, a model-esque young woman approached me, introduced herself and after some initial chatter, asked me about my job and where I lived. She did not like hearing that I was a graduate student, so she was quick to wish me a nice evening. She originally approached me because she found me attractive or at least attractive enough, but excused herself before ending up in a situation that has no real benefit for her. Clearly, she wanted to maximize the return of her planned looks vs. money trade. Other women are even less subtle. In one of the night clubs at St Tropez, I recall a very attractive Nordic blonde asking if she could sit down at our table, and her first question was, “What do you do for a living to be able to afford this lifestyle?” She did not like hearing that I am here because I got invited, and left very soon after. At least these women were honest about their true intention.

The best directionality in terms of maximizing long-term mating success for a woman is arguably to deliberately pick an environment in which she can meet suitable men who would also consider her. There is no point in a 6/10 weaseling her way into VIP clubs, for instance. However, if a very attractive and well-educated young woman does the same, she would fare a lot better. After a suitable environment has been chosen, i.e. she lives in a good part of a major city and works in a field in which she encounters many well-off men, then she can balance economic success and sexual interest. With this approach, she would fare a lot better than the typical woman does. Interestingly, a very similar strategy used to be the norm not too long ago in the West. Parents pre-selected men for their daughters to choose from, and only those who made it past this hurdle got introduced to the daughter. This approach leads to a better outcome for the man as he is able to trade money for looks, and the woman also benefits as she can get a more successful man this way. Matchmakers do the same. I only know about their approach in China, as this is still an active industry over there. The general method is that the match maker does not randomly introduce people. Instead, they match them based on looks, social status, and financial situation. Using the model of directionality in dating, it seems that this is simply a more efficient solution to the problem of how to maximize dating success.