You’re at a party/bar/whatever. Across the room, you see an attractive stranger. Your eyes meet. You hold her gaze for a moment. She glances away, then back again. You both look at each other, quietly staring. So begins the flirtation.
A month ago, I went to a sex club for the first time. One big thing I noticed: the classic “your eyes meet” trope absolutely did not happen at that club. And I don’t just mean it didn’t happen to me - every single woman there avoided meeting the eyes of anyone. The only exception was people the women already knew, as indicated by greeting them with a wave or a “hey, how are you” or similar.
Since then, I’ve been on the lookout, and noticed much the same at both sex parties and regular house parties. Just last week, I was at a sex party, and several women did hold eye contact… but it was exclusively women I already recognized, not strangers (even though the party had about a hundred women I did not know). The strangers included multiple cases of women who were there alone, and absolutely would not make eye contact with anyone. Yet apparently those women wanted to be hit upon - as evidenced by (a) being at a sex party, and (b) by them seeming very pleased later when guys ignored their cold signals long enough to make something happen.
Last time I went to a regular house party was two weeks before that. Again, several women did hold eye contact with me, but it was exclusively women I already knew.
What’s up with this?
Simple obvious answer:
- In a context where they might be hit upon, women will only maintain eye contact with guys they already find at least somewhat attractive.
- The things most women find attractive are generally not obvious just from looking at a person, so women are rarely attracted at all to strangers.
Interestingly, even though we’re talking about in-person encounters, this is the same problem as dating apps. Women will only swipe right on guys they find at least somewhat attractive, and the things most women find attractive are generally not visible in a few photos. Thus, extremely low rates of right-swiping.
The in-person analogue of “women very rarely swipe right” is “women very rarely maintain eye contact with guys they don’t already know”.
With that in mind, an obvious guess: just like very physically attractive guys get lots of right swipes on dating apps, very physically attractive guys get a lot more sustained eye contact from women they don’t already know. The whole “you see an attractive stranger and your eyes meet…” thing basically only happens to guys who are hot enough that a nontrivial fraction of women will find them attractive immediately, just based on looks and posture and perhaps a second or two of seeing them move.
Now, it is absolutely possible for guys to make do without the physical attractiveness to inspire those moments of eye contact with strangers. Some options:
- A guy can spend lots of time socially around lots of women, so there’s plenty of opportunity for women to get to know him and find him attractive; then he’s no longer relying on strangers at all.
- A guy can learn to hit on women who aren’t yet interested at all; it can be done in a non-toxic way (e.g. by striking up a fun banterous conversation, giving compliments, etc).
- A guy can rely on the age-old crutches of alcohol and sleep deprivation to make him seem more attractive up-front.
Problem is, all of those options suck ass.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of guys out there who are social butterflies and hang out in social circles with a favorable gender ratio; for those guys, physical attractiveness really doesn’t matter. But if you’re not naturally a social butterfly, then maintaining that kind of calendar is an enormous time sink and not fun. And if your preferred social circles are male heavy (mine tend to be about 4:1), then good luck. And even if you are a social butterfly, you’re just not going to connect with that many women this way; your options will be inherently limited.
And don’t get me wrong, there are guys who enjoy the challenge of pickup artistry - hopefully the non-toxic versions. But again, it’s an absolutely massive time sink. And if you’re not naturally into chatting up a girl who’s displayed no interest whatsoever, trying to generate attraction from scratch for the love of the challenge, man, that shit sucks.
And don’t get me wrong, there are guys who love getting shitfaced and partying until 4 am with shitfaced women. But again, if you don’t love that sort of thing, it’s a massive time sink, and it absolutely wrecks your ability to do anything else with your life. Once again, it sucks.
The promise of physical attractiveness, for men, is that you can pay an upfront cost to get in good shape, dress well, etc. You do it basically once. And then, connecting with new women doesn’t take an enormous amount of time. And you don’t need the absolutely miserable skill of trying to build attraction from scratch. You can just flirt with women who already like you, at least enough to make any move at all. Such opportunities will show up frequently, even without having to pack your calendar with social events. It’s all about making that very first contact easier, because the very first contact is the biggest pain point for guys.
Discuss