July 29, 2005 :: The shotgun strategy

OK, this one isn't so much a new theory as it is an application of an existing theory: the law of supply and demand, with a twist. A whole lot of women say things to me like this: "Why do I get approached by so many short men?" Substitute "short" with "broke", "lame", or any other pejorative you like, but the idea is the same. Why are there so many more bustas than desirable men out there? The answer is: there aren't. Well, maybe there are, but not nearly as many as a person in that situation might think.

Those of you who might have taken a little statistics, population biology or public health should be familiar with the classic bell curve, and what it means for a characteristic that can take a range of values. Essentially, it says that for any population large enough, the vast majority will be clumped around the average. In our example, that characteristic is desirability in some shape or form. Specifically, let's look at height. The average American man is five feet, nine and a half inches tall, and the bell curve tells us the vast majority of men will have heights close to that... say, within three inches. As it happens, black men trend slightly (about 3/4 inch) taller. So where are all these short men coming from?

First, let's consider an average guy, and let's call him Joe. Joe is average height. Let's put our average guy Joe in an average social environment, with about the same number of men and women. Let's say Joe is trying to find a woman for a date. On average, Joe would have to proposition, oh, let's say n women before he found one that agreed to go out with him. The exact number isn't important; what's important is that there is one.

Now let's look at a short guy, let's call him, say, Peewee. Peewee is five feet five inches tall, which puts him squarely outside the vast majority of near-average men we discussed earlier. Simply put, there just aren't that many Peewees out there. And let's say Peewee is on the same mission as Joe. Peewee has balls, so he's not afraid to approach any women taller than him, but he also doesn't have a height preference. Peewee also has to talk to a certain number of women before he can find one to go out on a date. But women like tall men. So Peewee has to approach more women than Joe before he can find one to go out with. How many more? A lot more. A whole lot more.

Just like there are a whole lot of men around the average height, there are a whole lot of women who have about the same height cutoff in their list of requirements for men they date. Some like em taller, some shorter, but the vast majority will be in that same area, give or take a couple of inches. Peewee falls short. And because he is outside that area where so many women have their cutoff, he's going to have a hard time finding those few women for whom height isn't so much of an issue. So what does Peewee do? He employs what I call the shotgun strategy: aim broadly, with as many attempts as possible, to increase his odds of hitting a target. And Peewee might have to sacrifice some of his other preferences to find that hard-to-find Peewee-loving woman. So he'll talk to anybody. Put just a couple of Peewees in that average social environment, and they'll probably approach every woman in the room, something that Joe would never do.

So if you're a woman, what does this look like? It looks like an army of Peewees, constantly hitting up you and your friends, because Peewees make many more propositions than average Joes, just to achieve the same result.

This idea can be extrapolated in the other direction. Let's say there is a guy who's significantly taller than average. Let's call him Superjoe. Superjoe is highly desirable because he is so tall, and women love tall men. So when Superjoe goes to the same club that regular Joe and Peewee also went to, he doesn't have to proposition as many women as they did. Superjoe's n is smaller than Joe's n, and a LOT smaller than Peewee's n. So to women, this looks like a shortage of Superjoes, because they don't have to approach as many women to find what they're looking for.

I just spent this whole discussion talking about height, but really it can (and does) apply to many other desirability factors. The key is, every time you add another factor to your personal equation (be it financial stability, general looks, skin color, whatever), the effects are multiplied. That means that the apparent number of Peewees explodes, and Superjoes become exponentially harder to find. In fact, I think that there is a point of desirability beyond which men's personal n becomes zero; that is, they don't have to approach anybody at all. They are so desirable (for whatever reason) that women literally throw themselves at them. These men are essentially invisible, because they never approach anyone, so women often don't believe that they exist. Think of them as black holes - they are out there, you know they are out there because of the effect they have on people around them, but you never actually SEE them.

So ladies, don't sweat the Peewee brigade. There's a regular Joe out there for you, and if you're lucky, maybe a Superjoe.

posted by Rainmayun at 11:03 AM -