In the looks-maxxing community there is the belief that if you improve everything about your life you are going to enjoy greater success with women. By and large, this view is correct. However, there are very obvious limits, which is where the “black pill” comes into play. In the end, you can only maximize your genetic potential, but you will not be able to, ceteris paribus, outcompete someone who puts in the same, or even less effort, but who simply had a much better genetic starting position. On a related note, in evolutionary biology the verb “to outcompete” has a very specific meaning as it relates to one species displacing another species in the competition for resources, which may lead to the former’s eventual extinction. This is the implication with competition in the sexual marketplace as well. If you cannot compete in one niche, you may need to find another if you want to pass on your genes.

One way of trying to outcompete your competition is to use your resources to signal that you possess great provider abilities. If you were poor, you could not afford a nice car or decent clothes, after all, at least when banks do not hand out loans indiscriminately. You may also want to get better clothes so that you look sexually more appealing. Still, while some clothes may make you look taller or more slender or perhaps even more muscular than you really are, you are not really going to surpass your genetic limitations. If a short guy puts on an expensive suit in order to get some attention he may not even be noticed by the women in a room if there is no shortage, no pun intended, of guys who are above 6 feet tall.

The aforementioned phenomenon I noticed the other day when I attended a social event in the neighborhood together with my wife. I was overdressed for the occasion, wearing a suit as I had to look like a professional later that day. My wife afterwards told me that she had spoken to an acquaintance of hers who had not met me before but who knew plenty of the other people at the event, and she had asked my wife if I was “the tall one”, which she confirmed. I am a very tall guy and I even was the tallest guy at that event. Upon my wife confirming that I was indeed the tall one, her acquaintance asked, “the tall one in a suit?” This may seem like a trivial exchange but it perfectly captures that people perceive your looks, which includes your height, before anything else. Dressing well obviously enhances your appearance but arguably you will generally be perceived first as being tall, then as being well-dressed.

Men perceive women the same way, completely unsurprisingly. If expensive clothes could make a woman look more attractive then guys would chase after public figures like Christine Lagarde or Ursula von der Leyen. Such women probably do not ever wear an outfit that does not cost at least 20,000 euros, excluding shoes and handbag, which can easily double this amount. Add jewelry and a watch on top, and you are looking at solid six figures top to bottom. With young women in clubs the effect is the exact same. A young woman with a pretty face and a great body will always get plenty of attention, i.e. positive attention from men and negative attention from women. She could show up in cheap rags from a second-hand store and you would not care about it at all. In contrast, a less attractive woman can spend as much of their father’s money on expensive clothes and accessories as she wants but she will always get outcompeted by more attractive women.

An interesting aspect with women is, however, that they may even repel guys if they signal that their lifestyle is very expensive. If you are not rich, you simply may not want to pursue such women. This is, however, part of the female mating strategy because these women want to give off the impression that they are really expensive to maintain, precisely in order to attract men who look for that kind of woman. A good question is if this approach works well at all, considering that a rich guy can easily put any attractive woman in a designer dress but turning a less attractive woman who wears designer dresses into an attractive woman poses a far bigger challenge.