It’s well known that when it comes to picking partners, women tend to be a lot choosier than men.
Men will take just about anything in a skirt that’s still breathing, whereas women will be far more discriminating about whom they get to know very well.
There are a lot of evolutionary reasons behind the higher standards set by women (such as higher reproductive costs). But interesting enough, that barrier drops somewhat if she’s the one doing the approaching.
In the article Women May Not Be So Picky After All About Choosing A Mate published in Science Daily, new research from Northwestern University has demonstrated that when women were required to approach potential romantic partners in a speed dating situation, they weren’t any pickier than men.
“The mere act of physically approaching a potential partner, versus being approached, seemed to increase desire for that partner,” said Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and co-investigator of the study.
And it appears that confidence is also a factor:
Approaching a potential date increases confidence, which in turn makes the approacher less selective.
However, there could very well be what researchers would call “selection bias” here: women who agree to try speed dating are almost certainly not a representative sample (statistically speaking) of women in general.
Chances are good that:
- They’re more desperate to begin with (they wouldn’t be trying speed dating if good looking hunks were approaching them with any frequency) and
- They’re also more confident to begin with (otherwise they’d likely try easier ways to meet guys).
So it may be that “more confident women are more likely to try speed dating” rather than “speed dating itself makes women more confident”.
But there are some other possibilities too.
While women tend to procrastinate so they can get the most information about a prospective mate over time, there’s the risk that they’ll lose out by waiting too long. Another woman might snap up if she dithers.
How long is “too long”?
It’s all relative: she looks for clues that he’s starting to lose interest…
- Either he’s starting to see things in her that he isn’t impressed with and/or
- Another woman is lurking around and showing signs of possible interest.
Either or both of these seem to get women off the dime and into action.
Speed dating is designed to create that effect … because women take as much time as they think they can in the circumstances, speed dating promoters arbitrarily limit that time dramatically.
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because women take as much time as they think they can in the circumstances, speed dating promoters arbitrarily limit that time dramatically …”
And because all the speed daters are in the same room together, the women will see other women chatting up guys that she might also see as “a possible match” and that will also trigger the sense of urgency.
After all, women are tremendously competitive with other woman and enjoy few things more than taking a man away from another woman. Speed dating is designed to bring out that side of their personality by putting the competition right before their eyes.
I learned from teaching at university that I could get students to talk to each other the first day of class simply by me telling them to (I’d make each person talk to the person next to them for ten minutes and then I’d go around the room and make each person introduce that neighbor to the class).
Left to their own devices, most students would have been able to go a whole semester without ever saying a word to the person next to them, but once I “gave permission” (gave the order, perhaps I should say), then it because tremendously easy for them. I suspect that a similar dynamic is part of speed dating … the promoter tells them: “Here’s what we’re going to do …” and then they do it.
That tends to minimize the risk of rejection or fears of ulterior motives, of course. But did that mean all my students changed instantly from being people of low confidence to people of high confidence? Nope… they were still painfully shy almost everywhere else (including all their other classes).
What I provided was a
structure and my direction
And so there’s a circular relationship between “pretending to be confident” and “actually being confident”.
This is well known to personal coaches (hence the advice “Fake it till you make it”).
So if you’re depressed and go to a personal coach, one of the first things they’ll work on is your posture … they’ll teach you how to walk like a person who really is happy and confident.
And just that one change will by itself make that person also feel more confident.
So by approaching a guy (as if she were a confident woman), a woman will feel somewhat more confident just from this interaction of body and mind.
Do women become less picky in speed dating? Or just more productive?
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Do women become less picky in speed dating? Or just more productive?
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In real life (where they may meet one or two new guys a week), women may take a while to decide whether one of those guys is the best choice. Put her into speed dating with twenty guys and she can cram three months into a single evening of evaluation and that makes it a lot faster to rate potential dates against their competitors.
But unfortunately, speed dating isn’t necessarily the same thing as “speed-sex” (which is what guys might really prefer – hence the popularity of wild drinking parties on campus). Whatever time is saved by her selecting a date is likely to be added back in before she agrees to go to bed with her newly selected date.
However, learning to flirt well, while polishing your seduction skills will go a long way toward shortening that particular curve.
And don’t forget the most important lesson in this experiment: the very act of approaching a partner will automatically make you feel more confident.
-Mack Doppler
