Why some women choose losers

Many men have wondered why women allow losers into their lives.  There are those who have minimum standards for their mates, and some with a laundry list of sky-high expectations, but there are also those who have an inexplicable lack of good taste!  It’s easy to see why guys who are rich, good-looking, famous, or accomplished tend to do better with women; that much is logical.  Still, why do guys who are basically zeroes have any success whatsoever?

Perhaps one day when you were lonely, you’ve passed by someone who looks like he just crawled from under a rock, yet had a hottie on his arm.  This might have caused you to wonder “what the hell does he have that I don’t?”  Perhaps at that point you began to doubt the existence of a benevolent deity.  An easy explanation would be that these chicks are nuts.

WTF is wrong with them?

Taking a nerdy digression into mathematics, the relationship of male quality to sexual success is quite baffling.  A Blue Pill guy might assume it’s a linear function.  For example, he may believe that a loser can find nobody, an average guy will get middle of the road success, and an exceptional guy will be twice as successful as Joe Average.  (Before the Sexual Revolution, it basically did work that way.)  A Red Pill guy, informed of hypergamy and the 80/20 Pareto rule, might perceive an exponential function or possibly a logistic curve:  popularity doesn’t ramp up much until you reach the top 20% echelon of guys.  Still, to account for the loser bonus, one would have to postulate a parabolic curve, or possibly an exsecant (U-shaped) curve.  It’s one of those weird paradoxes, like why the government caters to the extremely rich and extremely poor but doesn’t give a crap about everyone in between.  Still, there appear to be some other factors going on.  Confusion happens when you use logic to try to make sense of Chick Logic!

The traditional Red Pill explanation is the alpha male effect.  There’s a lot to be said for that, yet there’s no universal definition for who is an alpha male.  To me, this is a guy who is successful in life, socially savvy, and others respect him for his demonstrated good qualities.  I find it hard to see how (for example) an ex-convict with missing teeth, a meth habit, and a room temperature IQ would qualify.  Most likely, the decisive factor is simply about having lots of personal charisma; those who know what buttons to push are well rewarded.

One explanation is that women who choose losers are damaged – even ones who seem classy – and like attracts like.  Other psychological explanations are masochism and Stockholm syndrome.  There’s likely some truth in all that, but we haven’t arrived at a complete picture yet.

Another possible explanation is that some women try to “fix” their mates.  On a mundane level, this happens when a long-term girlfriend goes on a campaign to change one or more of your undesired (by her) personality traits, and eventually you wonder how you ended up dating your mother.  (Those who try this should be careful what they wish for!)  Popular culture is a big offender here.  Many romance novels feature heroines who are captivated by the force of an untamed man’s desire, yet by the end of the novel, they’ve tamed him because the purity of their love transforms him.  Surely you can see how well that works in the real world (not!) yet it’s still a big Chick Lit trope.  Disney’s Beauty and the Beast exemplified this.  Perhaps some losers are seen as candidates for fixing; unfortunately, it may take several attempts before they discover that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  (If they’re unlucky, by then they end up on welfare with four kids by four deadbeat dads.)  The guys who know how to press the right buttons can whip out the sympathy card as needed.

All the above suggests that women’s mate selection isn’t always governed by rational factors.  Thus, in final summary, these chicks are nuts!

Tales of horror

The following cases don’t address motivation, but at least suggest solutions.  Both cover ostensive polyamorous situations where the higher-quality guy was basically blown off in favor of a loser.

The first was a succinctly-titled forum post, “Why do women choose losers over someone worth a damn?”  Kyle got taken for a ride.  He took on a provider role before he got any action.  As soon as he did that, she got serious with another potential suitor.  This was a man-child, working part time at a pizza parlor and part time selling pot, and he was such a lousy lover that she fantasized about Kyle when she was sleeping with this other dude.  Kyle was quite the opposite – he was mature and popular, worked fifty hours a week, had his own place, had his own car, and satisfied her quite well when she finally gave him a chance.  Right after that, she got second thoughts.  Next time she invited Kyle over, her loser fuck-buddy was there too.  WTF!

There was no follow-up from the original poster – just several comments, many ignorant – so we can only guess what happened next.  Perhaps he could have saved the situation by holding Frame and explaining that casting him back into the Friend Zone would result in him casting her out of his life.  Not tolerating the situation to begin with would have been better yet.  Hopefully he learned that you shouldn’t even think about taking on a provider role before getting any action!

Another gem came from Best Of Craigslist.  A guy was courting someone for months with no action because she “wasn’t ready”.  When helping his almost-girlfriend move, he discovered (thanks to a heap of used condoms under her bed) that she was sleeping with some “lives-with-mom-works-at-the-A&P-makes-you-take-a-cab-to-your-rented-movie-and-microwave-popcorn-date-at-his-house jackass”.  Her explanation had been “You and I are close, and you’re really nice to me. I like being with you. I don’t really like him, it’s just a sex thing.”  It went quickly downhill after that:

“If I’m not worth waiting for, then…”
“Sure, whatever. The shit that’s in my truck will be on the sidewalk in five minutes. Goodbye.”
“But who’s going to help me mooooovvvvveee????”

Fortunately, he wised up right then and there!  After his Red Pill moment of clarity, his policy is that if two dates have gone by with no action, it’s over.

In summary

If you take on a rescuer role – as some put it, “Captain Save-A-Ho” – then you’ll probably end up getting chewed up and spat out like used bubble gum.  To hell with that!  You’ll either get a one-way ticket to the Friend Zone, or if you’re “lucky” you’ll get a dysfunctional relationship.  Find someone normal instead.

Another hot tip is that if someone you just met starts telling you about all her abusive relationships and bad experiences, then she’s probably playing you for sympathy points.  She might later end up describing you as an abuser to her next mark!  Sometimes bad things happen to people through no fault of their own, which may well be disclosed later on in the relationship, but people with a healthy sense of boundaries don’t tell these things to people they just met and consider as potential dating material.  Think about it – if something nasty like that ever happened to you, then you wouldn’t make it first date conversation material, would you?  I’ve never heard of any guy using a “Father Badtouch and the altar boy” story as a pickup routine.

So if you ever run into anyone who dates losers, consider it a red flag.  Taking a very apt comment from an article slightly out of context, “Remember, they want your money, blood, sweat and tears, they just don’t want you.”