Sam: Ugly Girls, Hot Guys

Over a glass of wine this weekend one of my friends asked me an interesting question – why is it that you see a bunch ugly men with gorgeous women in the public eye, but you pretty much never see gorgeous men with ugly women? And then she made a quick followup – which ugly woman in the public eye would you do?

On the first point I must admit I was a bit stumped. There is the old evolutionary argument – women look for intelligence, resources and status within the tribe, so are happy to go out with a smart, rich important ugly bloke. On the other hand, men go for genetic quality –good skin, and a symetrical face all tend to point to good genes and a healthy immune system. The second thing we speculated about is, well lets face it, there really aren’t every many ugly women in the public eye. The media just pretty much filters them all out. But really, you would think that in the 21^st Century things might be a bit different. The two of us men at the table then thought long and hard about unattractive women in the public eye who we wouldn’t mind getting a leg over and our list was pretty poor. We couldn’t get much further than Dawn French (who as pointed out is just fat, and actually quite pretty).

There are times that I have met unattractive women who just had something, they were sexy, they had energy and I definitely would have (and on occasions did) sleep with them. What about you, got any crushes on ugly girls? Or do we all really just fancy Lucy Pinder?

Sam: Copy Cat

We’ve talked about the downsides of frienditis, but can there actually be any advantages to having loads of attractive females around you? Well it turns out there can.

Our reptilian brains constantly have to make high speed choices whether we should trust new people we meet, and it’s particularly important for women who generally have to look after the consequences should attraction go wrong. We are superficial lizard brains at heart, and people like people that others find attractive. A team of German and Austrian researchers have found that having attractive women around you is an effective mate-finding shortcut.

As we all know, finding a good partner takes time, energy and sometimes even money. When one woman finds a man attractive, others will engage in ‘mate choice copying’ and flock to him too. Apparently birds and fish do the same thing too.

Maybe this goes someway to explain that infuriating phenomena so many people have been through. Suddenly when with a girlfriend, there are no shortage of offers and opportunities, but, when you are single the only constantly available ladies are mother fist and her five daughters. No, it wasn’t some cruel joke, turns out all those women were just programmed to play copy cat.

Sam: Smooth Talk

How much can you tell from a voice? I’ve certainly had a few experiences in the past talking to sultry journalists on the phone wishing that I could meet them face to face, but then wondering if I would be disappointed in the flesh.

Apparently not say David Feinberg, a psychologist at McMaster University - in general people with attractive voices have attractive faces. Fast talkers are judged as more educated and people whose inflections are varied are judged to be more interesting. Women prefer men with deeper voices – since apparently pitch is tied to your hormone levels, giving an indicator of health, fertility and dominance. To top it off, while women are ovulating or looking for short term partners, they are particularly attracted to deep voices.

So really women couldn’t help but love Isaac Hayes, that deep deep grumble was irresistible in more ways than one. Better start working on lowering my tone . . .

Sam: why BO is your best friend

As a result of several rather traumatic childhood experiences, I’ve always had a bit of a thing about BO. Specifically being really over sensitive about me having BO and other people being able to smell it.

Now in retrospect, I really should have realised that it was not me, but my mother. Her inability to grasp to important concepts 1) teach your child to change his shirt each day and 2) if you leave all the washing on the line for so long that it gets rained on that it will stink worse than if it hadn’t been washed at all. Now I realise even if she had taught me concept no 1, it was still invalidated by issue no 2.

Fortunately once I left home I learnt the importance of both changing your shirt everyday, and not leaving your clothes out to rot in the rain. So really I think my school-yard behind-the-back sniggering nickname of stinky was really pretty unfair. Oh the times that I sat, worried that I ponged, which then made me sweat more, which then made me worry more, which made me sweat more. Nasty cycle that one.

Anyway, enough digging up the past. I dealt with it, though perhaps became a little overly obessive about making sure my shirts were washed and I had saturated myself with enough deoderant.

Now you can imagine my joy when just recently I discovered why body odour is actually my best friend.

Did you know that one of the main ways that women pick who they are attracted to is through smell? Sure you’ve heard about the whole pheremone thing, but actually they can smell the makeup of a man’s immune system. Claus Wedekind, a Swiss Biologist got women sniffing men’s shirts and discovered they were attracted to men who were immunilogically dissimilar to them. Why is this important? Makes the kids immune systems tougher and has loads of other knock on effects like reducing the likelihood of miscarriage etc.

Actually, ‘Chemistry’, that indefinable thing about someone that just makes them decliciously attractive and irresistable is actually you sniffing out a mate with a compatible immune system. Apparently we have over 100 difference immune system sequences and women also found that the smell of the men they like was similar to their past boyfriends. This goes a long way to explaining why some men are irresistably shaggable to some women and repulsive to others.

Smell is important to men as well – they do the same thing, but also can sniff out a fertile woman. I know I’ve certainly noticed that some women, who I wouldn’t normally notice, are sometime just devilishly attractive and I can’t rationally quite put my finger on why. This actually has financial implications – smells can make you money. Strippers who are ovulating actually make twice as much as when they are on their period. Men can smell a fertile woman, and without realising are more attracted to her.

Lady readers, one important word of warning – being on the pill impairs your sense of smell. You end up getting attracted to men with the wrong sort of immune system, leading some to label it ‘the divorce pill’. Come off it and suddenly your stud will probably suddenly start to smell as attractive as a dead fish.

So while the telly is banging on about how covering yourself from head to toe with Lynx, and giving yourself a good washdown with Lynx shower gel will make you irresistably attractive, actually it’s bloody rubbish. Actually, it should read spray more, get less. You are covering up your biggest attraction asset, your smell.

So lads love your BO. It really is your best friend.

Dave: the attraction of disloyalty

We’re often upset when we discover the woman we’ve just boned chose to have sex with us purely to alleviate the intense emotional void she’d been cultivating since her cat died, or ‘cos she’d accidentally overheard a friend commenting on her natural big-bones.

It’s not so much the pondering of whether it meant anything to her, though it can hit your pride, albeit as a distant after thought once you’ve finished strutting your stuff around town for a week – I got lucky, oh yeah, baby. The frustration lies in the considerable ease in which women are able to accomplish their task; plenty of guys ready and waiting without having to engage them in witty banter – a quick glance and deliberate brush of the hand across his genitals will do it.

Not so easy for us (you can get in quite a bit of trouble brushing a hand across the genitalia of a complete stranger).

Especially when your self-esteem isn’t at its peak. The lower you feel the tougher it is to sustain the necessary act required to secure the pull. This becomes a vicious circle of repeated rejection, further dejection, greater need for companionship and thus less ability to provide the appropriate cheery persona, etc.

Having been out of the ‘game’ for such a long time, confidence (never my strongest attribute, if indeed, it exists within me at all) has been at an all time low. I was sincerely wondering if I’d ever have sex again.

So I decided, following weeks of deflated deliberation, to visit a hooker. And one within my budget – not the best idea – weighing up the socially and emotionally ingrained indignity of the concept of paying for one of the most natural of human pleasures.

Needless to say, the entire process was incredibly unsexy and demeaning (for both of us no doubt). In a nutshell, my mind refused to allow my cock to get on with what it’s designed for – and it had nothing to do with the several drinks I’d consumed for Dutch Courage as my penis never seems to get as pissed as I do.

She forced a condom on to my flaccid member and sat back holding one leg in the air. Thoughts of shame, despondency and self-ridicule whirred around my head at volume until I sorrowfully mumbled an apology, dressed myself and fled, red-faced and £20 out of pocket.

Where is this going? Well, the last girl I was with, assumed, from my appearance, rather than my attitude or anything I’d said, that I was some kind of ‘player’ (I wish). Once we’d screwed a couple of times over the following weeks, it transpired that we got on well, better than well, we became best friends – so a relationship blossomed. A relationship which lasted longer than most marriages I’ve known.

That’s what hurt so much, once I’d dedicated myself to this person (as was my way) she, through personal insecurities and expectations based upon her father’s infidelities, decided I wasn’t cavalier enough (well, I am circumcised).

It wasn’t until I’d deigned to drunkenly visit a whore that her ‘passion’ returned. I neglected to tell her that I failed to perform because of feelings of self-loathing. Had I cheated on her with a non-working girl, I later discovered, it would have set me up in blowjobs for life.

However, she failed to understand that had I been sleeping with anyone else, I wouldn’t have stayed with her (possibly a greater attraction) but more to the point, it wouldn’t have made me more ‘manly’ but less so.

It may sound a little unsympathetic but then again, she left me. Hooked up with some geeky older family man and now lives alone. I guess it says a lot for my judgment. Though, until that disturbing turn around she’d always claimed to abhor such philandering.

Yet another example of that old adage ‘nice guys finish last’, as made homage to by numerous 80s teen flicks.