What people complain about

I read an article in a british web site (dailymail.co.uk article ), that listed what women complained about in their boyfriend.  From what I can tell, most of it (with slight cultural shifts) applies to women as well as men.

First, note these are things they complained about but they have NOT left their boyfriend.  So they are 'acceptable', but undesirable traits.

Many of them had to do with chores/hygiene/messiness (toilet seat up, nail clippings left out, not helping with the cooking).   No need to list them all - be neat and helpful.

There were two that I found funny (or at least hypocritical):

9. Driving like a boy racer

15. Criticizing her driving

Then there was some silly things like not multi-tasking, watching too much sports, bad dancing and snoring.

Everything above is annoying, and I would avoid them (particularly the hygiene) when you are tryin to get a date.  But they are not game killers, in part because they often say as much about the complainer as they do about the complain-ee.
 
But there were a five  significant issues: 

1. Failing to be friendly with their friends and family
2. Not getting along well with children
3. Not liking dogs
4. Being a "mommy's boy"
5. Being grumpy.

All of these traits are annoying and cause problems.  Best to avoid them.  Be friendly and make a real effort with your date's family, friends and ANY children you see.   Same goes for dogs.   Avoid being too 'wimpy' - this goes for women as well as men.  Men like a woman that can stand up and deal with the world.   Finally try to be pleasant to be around.  When you complain, people dislike you.


That said, let's take a page from British aircraft designers in WWII (they examined returning planes for bullet holes and added extra armor where no bullet holes were found - as clearly the planes that got shot in those areas did not make it back while planes that landed did not need extra armor).


Notice no mention of cheating.  If you cheat women don't put up with it as a flaw, they say goodbye.  Same for unemployment.  Those are the major ones.

Don't envy the intelligent (much)

Don't you just hate it when wealthy people complain about their problems?    They whine about how horrible it is to have all that money.  The problem is of course that it is rather easy to get rid of money.   Charity, tax,  luxury items, not to mention con men, are all perfectly happy to take your money.

While it is a bit harder to dumb yourself down than it is get rid of your money, I do not pretend that being stupid is better than intelligent.  Only an idiot would want to be stupid.  :)

That said, being intelligent is not quite as great as it sounds.   Consider that someone with an IQ of 65 is considered "defective intelligence" (source).   That's 35 points below the average and "normal" IQ of 100.   Now suppose you have an IQ 135.   The average person is that same 35 minutes below your intelligence.   They just don't understand things that are obvious to you.  Effectively you are surrounded by idiots.  (Note I would rather be called an idiot than defective. )

Ever been in traffic and had some idiot cut you off then return to his original lane?   Ever watch some fool try and fail to use a vending machine?   You know that guy at meetings that just does NOT understand anything - no matter how many times you explain it? The customer service guy that clearly knows less than you do?   The cashier that thinks a $2 bill must be counterfeit because they never saw one before? Those are just some obvious examples.  Think about having things like that going on ALL the time. 

Now, I don't want to be stupider than I am.  But being smart is not all it's cracked up to be.   Would you marry an idiot?  (See, this post does have to do with dating.)   Being smart has a lot of advantages.  You tend to earn more money, fall for less stupid tricks, and in general make slightly better decisions.  But stupider people seem to have more fun (or are at least more easily amused), and have an easier time finding someone to love.

Dating makes this issue much more obvious.   If you are only willing to date people whose IQ is over 125, you only have 6% of the population to select from.  For those of us that are very intelligent, we have a significant disadvantage.  Worse, people don't paste their IQ on their far head.  You can't even make a reliable guess based on clothing.   You have to talk to them - usually for more than 10 minutes - to figure out if they qualify.

I think that's why intelligent people do so much better at college dating than in high school dating.  Everyone around you usually has intelligence similar to yours.   This makes certain things a lot simpler.

You can't even use advanced degrees as a shortcut for intelligence.  School requires hard work more than intelligence.  I know people with (estimated) IQ's of 110 that have a doctorate, and lazy geniuses with (estimated) IQ's of over 130 that barely finished college.  Which school they went to is more important than how far they got.  People accepted into Harvard Undergraduate program are smarter than people that finish Touro Law school

Now, some people do prefer a partner that is smarter than them.   At the same time, other people prefer someone less intelligent than them.   I don't see a general trend making intelligent people either more or less desirable.  But we do have a smaller section of the population to choose from.

First Dates

Getting the date is almost 100% shallow stuff.  How do they look.  What do they say in five minutes.  What clothing they wear.   If you have ever rejected someone that asked you out you have been shallow.  That's OK ladies, the same goes for every guy that has asked out a woman.  We pick who to ask out for based on almost the exact same methodology that you use to reject us.  So if you have ever asked out a woman based on how she looks, that was being shallow.

First dates are only a little bit better.   We are talking 80-90% shallow, depending on the people.  Oh, you go a little bit beyond the basics (job, how you spend your time), but from my experience, the gorgeous people (thin women with a nice face and hair, wealthy tall men) are always the people saying no to the second date, not the ones being rejected. 

The movie/TV myth of the bad date being a total jerk is just that - a myth.   Nine out of ten times, we reject people for not liking our favorite movie/music/pet, not because they asked the waiter out in front of you.

It took me a while to figure this out.   First by recognizing it within myself, then by seeing the same stuff happen with other people.   You see, I try to not be shallow.  I date less attractive women.  But I notice that I put up a lot with attractive women - things I would dump a less attracive women for in a minute.  I try to make excuses for still liking them, but they are excuses.  It's not just me, I see it with other guys and can easily see it with women dating men.  


Part of the problem is that we put our best foot forward.  We tell white lies and deceive out dates.  Did they forget to say they 4 kids?  Did they forget to mention they live with their parents?  Did they forget to say they are unemployed? 

Not to mention a whole bunch of stuff we don't know about ourselves.  Bossy people don't think they are bossy, they think everyone else is disobedient.  As such, they can't warn you they are bossy even if they were honest enough to admit it.

Even the second dates tends to be mostly shallow stuff.   Say 60-70% of dumped on the second date are on things that your mom/dad/sister would not think worth it.

It is not till the third date that we start getting into the real core reasons not to date someone.

Now, I don't think shallow = evil.  Everyone is entitled to being shallow.  But in general, we can all try to be a little bit less shallow.  In the long run, we will be happier.

So, before you dump a guy/gal on the first (or even second) date - ask yourself - if they had a ton of other good qualities would you still date them?  What if they were rich?  What if they were thinner?   If your answer is yes, then consider going on one more date and seeing if perhaps they do have a ton of good qualities you haven't learned about yet.