Science Proves Hotter Women Think You’re Hotter, Too

If you’re a straight man, imagine this:

You’re at a party and you’re looking for some action for the night. Or you’re looking for your next wife. Or anything in between.

Two women catch your eye:

One is dressed modestly and nervously looks around the room as if she’s scared of people judging her. She’s not smiling because she’s trying to look cool and aloof as a self-defense mechanism. She’s not really what anyone would call “hot.” It’s safe to assume she’s aware of this.
The other woman is dressed to impress, her posture is confident, and she’s turning heads everywhere. Her smile is genuine because she’s happy with herself. Everyone knows she’s hot. She knows she’s hot.

Which woman will you approach?

Many men will see the first woman as “low-hanging fruit” compared to the second woman. They think it will be harder to get with the hotter girl. They might think she’ll be more judgmental because she has more choices. They might think there will be too much competition.

If they don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves, these men might go for the first woman because they’re trying to stay in their own league, especially if they’re just looking for something casual.

They think following this strategy will lead to a higher chance of getting lucky.

Is that actually a good strategy, though?

Science suggests it’s not.

A 2024 study by Garza, et al. asked 247 women to rate themselves using something called the “mate value inventory” (MVI), which measured how they assessed themselves in terms of desirability.

The MVI is a 4-item instrument that includes the following statements, “Overall, how would you rate your level of desirability as a partner on the following scale?,” and “Overall, how would members of the opposite sex rate your level of desirability as a partner on the following scale?,” where response options varied from “1=extremely undesirable” to “7=extremely desirable.” For the 3rd item, “Overall, how do you believe you compare to other people in desirability as a partner on the following scale,” response options varied from “1=very much lower than average” to “7=very much higher than average.” For the last item, “Overall, how good of a catch are you?,” response options varied from “1=very bad catch” to “7=very good catch.” Higher scores on the MVI are indicative of women expressing a higher mate value while lower scores are indicative of women expressing a lower mate value. The composite score of the 4 items was used to indicate a mate value index. The MVI demonstrated good reliability (α=0.74). — Garza, et al., (2024)

If you think you’re hot sh*t, you’re going to get a higher score on the MVI.

Let’s assume that MVI accurately correlates with how desirable you actually are to the opposite sex. That is, women with a higher score are hotter than those with a lower score.

They asked these same 247 women to rate the attractiveness of male figures ranging in height. They compared the women’s self-perceived “mate value” with how attractive they viewed the male figures of varying heights:

Figure 7 from Garza, et al. 2024

The first conclusion that most people will draw from this graph is that women find taller men more attractive. No surprise there. The second conclusion that people might realize is that, the higher a woman’s self-perceived mate value, the greater of an effect a man’s height will have on her initial attraction toward him.

There’s another pattern I’m noticing, though. Notice how every line slopes upward.

Every attractiveness score that the women with higher mate value assigned to the male figures was higher than every score that the women with lower mate value assigned.

What does this mean?

It means the more attractive a woman thinks she is, the more initial attraction she will feel toward men of any height compared to women with lower self-perceived mate value.

In other words:

Hotter women find everyone hotter.

It makes sense if you put yourself in their shoes. If you felt more confident in your own attractiveness, you might be more open to new romances, making you more attentive to the attractiveness in others. If you felt less confident in your own attractiveness, you’re more likely to have conditioned yourself to the sour grapes effect. Cynicism might make you think everyone is less desirable than they actually are.

Shoot your shot with women you’re actually attracted to.

Ultimately, this means you’re more likely to find mutual attraction with women you’re more attracted to than with women you’re less attracted to.

The reason this doesn’t work sometimes is because a lot of men get nervous and mess things up when they’re talking to very attractive women. Lack of experience can make them choke.

The solution? Get more experience, even if you’re not confident yet.

“But I’m not tall!”

Wow, would you look at that? The numbers for tall men are so much higher than short men’s. Things don’t look that great for short men. Even if hot women think you’re hotter than how not-hot women think of you, everyone thinks taller men are hotter than you.

Are things really that bleak for us short dudes?

No. Let’s be a bit more specific:

In the current study, we add the novel finding of women higher in mate value preferring taller men. Interestingly, this finding did not extend to all increases in men’s height, but it was only in relation to men who were taller than the woman used as an anchor in the stimuli presented. This might suggest that women with higher mate value calibrate their preferences specifically to men who are taller than them (if participants assumed the anchoring female as themselves), and not necessarily to increasing levels of height. — Garza, et al., (2024)

When it comes to height, women with higher MVI scores (hotter women) generally just want you to be taller than them, not necessarily taller than other men. I know this might be a really nit-picky distinction to make, but it’s an important distinction for shorter men who are still taller than the women they’re interested in.

None of that really matters, anyway.

The most significant new finding that is meant to be gleaned from this study is supposed to be that men’s height has a greater effect on the attraction of women with higher self-perceived mate value. The hotter the woman, the more initial attraction she will feel toward taller men.

However, keep in mind that initial attraction doesn’t always translate into actual outcomes. Something else is definitely going on, because other studies have shown that men of average height enjoy more reproductive success than both short and tall men (Stulp et al., 2012).

Think about the following scenario:

A hot woman is at a bar.
She sees all the men in the room, and thinks the tallest man there is the most attractive among them.
The tallest men in the room are used to superficial female attention. They never felt like they had to work hard for it. Thus, they aren’t used to making as much effort as most other men. They don’t approach.
The shortest men in the room feel unconfident because society tells them they’re cooked. They think the hot woman is out of their league, and don’t even bother trying to talk to her. They don’t approach.
The men of average height are more likely to be practiced in approaching. Female attention was never really handed to them on a silver platter, but they also know it can be earned through effort. They approach the hot woman.
The woman is unlikely to approach the men she finds the most attractive because society discourages women from making the first move. She is more likely to make a choice among the men who approached her first. This group is more likely to consist of men of average height. She ends up going home with an average-height man because the short and tall men never gave her a chance.

Strip this down to the more fundamental elements and you will notice that action takes precedence over height when it comes to real life results.

I’m a short man (5’5″, below average) and action has proven to have much more significant effects than height in my own personal experience. The vast majority of my taller male peers have had much less success with women. While tallness may be more attractive to most women across the board, being short is rarely a total dealbreaker for both casual sexual encounters and long-term relationships.

The INITIAL attraction that a woman feels is rarely a reliable indicator of whom she chooses to sleep with or enter a relationship with in the end.

What’s more important is how her feelings develop over the course of an interaction with you. Even if she starts with feeling only an imperceptibly minuscule amount of initial attraction toward you, your actions can cause her to feel an overwhelming amount of attraction toward you after just one conversation.

The reverse is also true: even if she starts with feeling a great amount of initial attraction toward you, saying just one wrong thing can cause her to feel completely repulsed.

A man can look exactly like a woman’s number one celebrity crush, and she can feel like she’s falling head over heels in love for him. But, if he says just one thing that turns her off, there’s a very real possibility that she could never look at him the same way ever again. Every time she is reminded of him from that point forward, she could feel dry and disgusted when she once felt attracted and excited.

A woman can feel absolutely nothing for a man one day and eventually warm up to him with excitement and affection because of how he behaves. She can also be smitten over a man enough to dedicate pages upon pages about him in her diary, yet be completely bored of him the next day because of how he behaves.

Of course, some men operate in this same way, but for various reasons, this phenomenon is a lot more common and pronounced in women than it is in men. It is far more common for a man to stay attracted to a woman he finds physically appealing regardless of the so-called “mistakes” she makes, given that her physical appearance doesn’t change all that dramatically. Not so common the other way around.

— Excerpt from Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract an Be Loved by Women

This is oftentimes difficult to understand for a lot of men due to the differences in attraction mechanisms between the sexes. For most men, a woman’s looks is the primary and dominant determinant of the attraction they feel. For the most part, women don’t work in the same way.

What this means is that your ability to flirt or “game” is the main thing that will determine whether you get the girl. Fortunately, unlike height, it’s something you can control. It’s a learnable skill that anyone can get good at.

Go out and get practicing.

Have you ever found yourself becoming more attracted to someone over time? Tell me your experiences in the comments!

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This post was previously published on Write A Catalyst.

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