Listen Up Guys: Women Now Come With Higher Standards

We should all have standards. More importantly, we should all hold ourselves to them. DH is founded on principles like scientific truth, empirical testing and impeccable quality and I try to live by these standards every day, not just with what I publish on DH, but with how I live my life and in how I choose my mate.

I admit, I wasn’t always so picky: being a fat kid that no girl will even admit exists let alone date gives one a bit of a complex and, for lack of a better phrase, you become an attention whore. If a cute girl looked my way, I’d pretty much do anything she wanted if I thought a date was a possible outcome. But I’m older now, and wiser and I created standards by which I choose who I will date. Now, not that most of the particulars would interest you, but there’s one that’s important and germane to this conversation, and that’s aesthetics.

Okay, you can start labeling me a pig, but hold that thought for a minute. I’m not just talking about someone who’s drop dead gorgeous, because, honestly, gorgeous girls are a dime a dozen. By aesthetics, I mean a woman who’s beautiful and athletic, who’s achieved the lithe sexy curves that make men swoon…yes, men. I want a woman who understands the work needed to achieve excellence and who respects themselves enough to obtain it. And who did so for themselves, not for anyone else.

Now, if you feel a resurgence of your pig comment, that’s fine, but you should know that women are headed the same direction. Recent work looking into gender-differentiated mate selection in the modern world found that as women reach financial equality in a society, then they care more about looks than they once did, almost as much as men[1].

Yes women, that’s right, if you think I’m a pig, then there’s a good chance you’re becoming a pig-ette.

But I’m fine with this. I work hard at every facet of my life and that includes the shape of my body. I would say my looks, but as I pointed out in a previous rant, diet and training just aren’t going to make me prettier, no matter how much I bench or how many abs appear on my stomach.

There’s more to the study mentioned above, however. The researchers revealed a role reversal for mate preference. Women now care about a man’s ability to be a good cook and homemaker almost as much as his financial stability. In other words, being able to bake a fat cheesecake rivals a fat wallet. I’m lucky in this regard, as I always had to cook for myself and the intrinsic scientist inside impelled me to create new dishes with boring ingredients. That’s how I came up with the recipes in my first book The Carb Nite Solution and what will fuel the upcoming recipe book to accompany Carb Back-Loading.

So, to aid the male cause of finding an ideal mate and to lighten the burden on women to find a male who produces food as yummy as his obliques—DH is going to start posting recipes and instructions soon. I may even have time to film a cooking video or two with Alex Navarro—who makes up for my lack of prettiness. But this is a topic for another day.

Right now, I want to circle back around to standards. Although our standards rise and we demand more from our mates than we once did—or just different stuff—it turns out that our standards often fail to influence our ultimate choice[2]. To me, this is sad.  We set standards to elevate ourselves not only from those around us, but from who we are today so that the “us” of tomorrow can look back and be proud of the changes we made in ourselves. Standards create an evolving benchmark of who we should be, and what we deserve. If you’re part of the DH community or a DH fan, you deserve to set standards for yourself. And once you set those standards, it’s a moral imperative to live by them, to rise above normal, to be exceptional.

Compromise between people and nations is necessary for the world to work. But if you compromise your own standards, the only thing you gain is a life that’s less than you deserve.

Take home messages:

1. Men should learn to cook.
2. Women should hold fast to their new desire for sexier men.
3. And as a corollary: everyone should prevent themselves and their mate from getting fat once they’re in a committed relationship—because it happens too often.

Okay, you can go now.

 

Featured Image by: ScarletteMadison 

 

References

1. Zentner M, Mitura K. Stepping Out of the Caveman’s Shadow: Nations’ Gender Gap Predicts Degree of Sex Differentiation in Mate Preferences. Psychol Sci. 2012 Aug 29. (Epub ahead of print).
2. Eastwick PW, Finkel EJ, Eagly AH. When and why do ideal partner preferences affect the process of initiating and maintaining romantic relationships? J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Nov;101(5):1012-32.