|
The woman on the phone was an old friend, so I was not taken aback by her sarcastic commentary on my last column, which simply stated that the main characteristic that a majority of women are looking for in men is a sense of humor.
"You certainly don't have to bother writing a column about what men want," she chortled. "Everyone knows all men care about is a woman's appearance -- guys are so shallow."
Well, to some extent my friend was right. But I have to divide the male of the species into two overall categories: men who have never been married, and men who are divorced (or who at least lived with a woman for a number of years).
Let's talk about the first group first. Yes, ladies, I have to admit that when interviewing never-married men at the dating service that I ran for 23 years, an overwhelmingly high percentage emphasized that the characteristic they were most interested in when meeting a woman related to her physical appearance.
Big surprise, right? That's sort of like saying that people who eat at Italian restaurants like pasta.
Moreover, I did not run a video dating service or an online service where men could view pictures of women. So the sampling of thousands of men that I dealt with involved those men willing to essentially meet women on "blind dates."
(One must assume that these men were even less "looks-oriented" than those men who, when they heard that they would not be able to at least see photos of their prospective dates, would slam down the phone even quicker than the idiots responding to the "ding" in those silly Southwest Airlines commercials.)
Still, it was an extremely rare never-married man who would state that looks were "not that important." (A statement I heard from many women.)
But I do want to point out that unfortunately those guys' (and again I' m referring to men who have never been married) emphasis on appearance actually increases with age, once they turn 40.
That is, never-married men in their 40s tend to be pickier than men in their 20s and 30s, while never-married men in their 50s and above are even pickier than men in their 40s!
So, middle-aged "professional" bachelors tend to be the most demanding about a woman's appearance. Many of these guys have been dating for over 30 years and really have no idea what is truly important in a relationship. They merely rationalize that when it is finally time to settle down with one "chick," they place the highest priority on settling down with someone they find exceedingly attractive.
Several such men, who were unhappy with the relative attractiveness of their first few dates, actually called me and stated, "Look, forget everything else about personality, hobbies, or religion, just match me with the best looking women you have!"
I would conjecture that the prognosis for these men to live "happily ever after" in a meaningful, substantive relationship was pretty bleak.
This brings me to that other group of men in the dating world -- divorced men. For the most part these guys are far less appearance-oriented. They are not living in the fantasy world in which never-married "Hugh Heffner-wannabes" reside.
Ask a divorced man what his main priorities are in terms of meeting someone new, and for a majority, those priorities are related to the reason for their divorce. Yes, ladies, some men actually possess an ability to learn, to grow, to evolve.
Ask a guy, whose wife left him to run off with her ski instructor, what he is looking for in a woman, and he will either answer "a woman who is faithful," or at least "a woman who hates skiing."
And a divorcee whose wife nagged him 24/7 will prioritize meeting a woman who is basically "low maintenance." A divorced man whose wife was a "shopaholic" will say he wants to meet a woman who knows the value of a dollar. Get the picture?
Of course, if a man's marriage dissolved because his wife packed on a 150 pounds or so since their wedding day, then he might say his main priority is meeting a woman who is not obese.
Over the years many women recited the old adage to me "if a guy is over 40 and never married, there must be something wrong with him." And for the most part (but not always, some guys are just workaholics, while others are just socially inept), that "something wrong" means that he spent much of his adult dating life as a "player." That he "pinballed" from one attractive girl friend to another, losing interest when that initial euphoric sexual attraction would eventually (and inevitably to some extent) dissipate.
So, single women over 35, don't make the mistake of saying (as some do) that "I don't want to meet a divorced man, there's too much baggage."
Consider the alternative.
| 
