"Alpha"Males

What kind of "alpha" male are you?
If you’re a gorilla, you’re big and strong. You’re twice the size of a female. You fight any male you
meet. You live with your harem of two to five females. Your females are monogamously faithful
to you. Your penis is one inch long. Sex is quick.
If you’re a gibbon, you mate monogamously for life. You live with your mate and your children.
You sing to your mate. She sings back to let you know where she is. You and your mate are the
same size and look identical. You start each morning with a half-hour of loud hooting to frighten
other gibbons away from your forty acres of forest.
If you’re a chimpanzee, you live in a group of fifty individuals. When a female is ovulating, she
has sex with every male in the group. You have a large penis, large testicles, and ejaculate lots
of sperm. You reproduce not because you dominate females or other males, but because your
spermis more active than other males’ sperm(i.e., you’re healthier than other males).
If you’re a baboon, you live in a troop that varies from 10 to 200 individuals, depending on habitat,
time of year, and predation.1 You make friends with other males. When anothermale threatens
you, your friends back you up. You avoid fighting. Fighting leads to injuries, and lions eat
injured baboons.2 You also make friends with females. Female baboons mate with their male
friends. They like males who have many friends.
What kind of "alpha" male are you?
If you’re a gorilla, you’re big and strong. You’re twice the size of a female. You fight any male you
meet. You live with your harem of two to five females. Your females are monogamously faithful
to you. Your penis is one inch long. Sex is quick.
If you’re a gibbon, you mate monogamously for life. You live with your mate and your children.
You sing to your mate. She sings back to let you know where she is. You and your mate are the
same size and look identical. You start each morning with a half-hour of loud hooting to frighten
other gibbons away from your forty acres of forest.
If you’re a chimpanzee, you live in a group of fifty individuals. When a female is ovulating, she
has sex with every male in the group. You have a large penis, large testicles, and ejaculate lots
of sperm. You reproduce not because you dominate females or other males, but because your
spermis more active than other males’ sperm(i.e., you’re healthier than other males).
If you’re a baboon, you live in a troop that varies from 10 to 200 individuals, depending on habitat,
time of year, and predation.1 You make friends with other males. When anothermale threatens
you, your friends back you up. You avoid fighting. Fighting leads to injuries, and lions eat
injured baboons.2 You also make friends with females. Female baboons mate with their male
friends. They like males who have many friends.Women are conflicted about money. Women want "alpha" males who show off their money like
peacocks show off their tail feathers, e.g., buying a round of drinks in a bar. But women also want
"relationship" men who put their paychecks into a mortgage.
Show off your money to attract a woman’s attention. Then talk about the home you’re buying to
make her want a relationship.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors owned nothing but what they could carry to the next campsite.
Accumulation of wealth wasn’t possible. Women’s cerebral cortexes have learned to appreciate
accumulated wealth, but their brains aren’t hardwired for this. In a conflict, women tend to
choose their more basic instinct–love–instead of their newer appreciation of wealth.Confidence and Stress
Aché men gamble on bringing home a deer one day in ten, instead of choosing the safety of
helping their wives gather food. Gambling–and a man’s life in general–is stressful.
Mammals produce glucocorticoid hormones in stressful situations. Too much glucocorticoid
causes health problems. Inmale and female primates, high-status individuals produce minimal
glucocorticoid in stressful situations. Low-status individuals produce too much glucocorticoid.7
Stress–"the fear of fear itself"–physically hurts low-status individuals. Stress doesn’t affect the
health of high-status individuals.
Confidentmen–who believe that their powers or circumstances can handle stressful situations–
attract women.8 To attract women and improve your health, take a stress-reduction class. Learn
to handle stressful situations with confidence.
The common belief that men are hardwired to be alone ("go to their caves") after a stressful day
and that women are hardwired to talk to a supportive partner is a misconception. The former is
the avoidant attachment style and the latter is the secure attachment style. It’s true that attachment
styles are hardwired in adults, and it’s true that this distinction is of paramount importance
in relationships (mismatched partners have more relationship difficulties, and avoidant individuals
have more relationship difficulties in general) but the hardwiring is from the individual’s
early childhood relationship with his or her mother. Men and women can have either attachment
style.
Looks, Height, and Strength
Women rate tall, strong, athletic males as "very desirable" marriage partners. Women are almost
twice as likely to value physical strength in men, as men are to value physical strength in women.
However, most women have to be realistic and would settle for a male just slightly taller than
themselves, whilst prefering men with feminine-looking faces. E.g., women prefer Leonardo
DiCaprio to Tom Selleck
American women prefer men 5’11" (180.34 cm) or taller.10 Tall men receive more personal ad
responses than short men.
If you’re short, study Japanese. Then vacation on Guam, the Hawaii-like American island where
Japanese women vacation.
Never-married women are more likely to prefer physical attractiveness. Conversely, divorced
and widowed women are more likely to select good character over physical attractiveness.
4.1.6 Language Skills
Men with good language skills attract women. Women love talking. To improve your language
skills, take a creative writing class. Or memorize a few romantic poems.
Or learn a foreign language. The words conjugate–to form variations of a verb–and conjugal–
relating to marriage–come from the same root word. Foreign women will think that a man who
can conjugate verbs correctly in their language will make a good husband.
4.1.7 Age
Women select personal ads primarily by age.11 Women select men who are, on average, three
and a half years older. Older men, in general, have more social status and emotional maturity.
The worldwide average age difference between brides and grooms is three years. Americans
marry closer in age.12
In 1890, the average age at which men firstmarried was 26. Womenmarried at 22.13
During the first half of the twentieth century, increasing affluence enabled younger men to support
families. Secondary education and increased leisure time facilitated dating. Dating sometimes
led to sex, pregnancy, and early marriage. In 1956, menmarried at 22, women at 20.
The FDA approved oral contraceptives in 1956. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in
1973. Women delayed motherhood to start careers.14 In 1998, men married at 27, women at 25.
Couples now live together from the age that their parents’ generationmarried. The average man
now first lives with a woman, either in marriage or as an unmarried couple, for the first time at
22. The average woman moves in with a man at age 20 or 21.15
Couples that marry younger than 25 have dramatically higher divorce rates.16 Our brains’ prefrontal
lobes don’t mature until 25.17 This "executive decisions" brain area is where we make
good judgments. Automobile insurance rates drop at 25 because drivers with mature prefrontal
lobes get into fewer accidents. Similarly, men and women make better relationship decisions
after 25. (If you want to marry younger than 25, and you live in a culture where it is accepted to
ask your parents to arrange a marriage for you, then give it a try; That idea sounds radical but it
has worked for thousands of years.)