Most of the content I write is aimed at men, but this piece is for both women and men. As a writer for Return of Kings, I read my fair share of complaints from single men who bemoan the fact that American women are no longer marriageable. I think there is a lot of truth to this. When I was still in the dating market a few years back, I thought things were already pretty bad. From what I can gather, it is worse now.
But why have things gotten so bad? There are lots of causes, but I will address only one here: women receive really bad advice. Whether it is the advice from daytime talk shows like Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz, or the stuff written in women’s magazines, the advice is uniformly bad.
In this post, I’ll give the honest advice that women, especially single women need to hear. It won’t be politically correct, and I can’t guarantee that it will boost your self-esteem, but it will at least be true. Here is what men really want from women.
Men want thin women
The biggest reason that men complain about the dating market is that women are on average much heavier than they were in the past. The average American woman now weighs the same as the average man in the 1960s.
I once heard Dr. Oz say that he is interested in all women, regardless of their shape or size. I like Dr. Oz, but he was being a bit disingenuous in this instance.
Despite what you hear from Dr. Oz or Dove commercials, your size matters. No, you don’t need to be a size 0 or have six-pack abs, but you do need a waist. Most men are not attracted to fat women.
I know a woman in her mid thirties who desperately wants to get married. She has complained to me that there are “no good guys left” and that only losers ask her out. She is currently the side girl for a married man.
This woman has an attractive face, she loves children, and she works hard, but she has one big problem that she refuses to rectify. She is fat.
What do I mean by being fat? It’s not perfect, but the BMI calculator gives a pretty good approximation. If you want to be attractive to most men, you should aim to have your BMI fall within “normal weight” range. Honestly, it is preferable if you fall a little bit closer to the bottom half of the normal weight range.
Yes, I know that is insulting, sexist, and misogynistic, but the fact is that if you want to attract a high quality man, or keep the one that you have, you’ll want to stay near the bottom of the normal range.
“But,” you might say, “don’t women come in all different body types? Isn’t it true that some people just can’t be thin?”
Of course women have all sorts of body shapes, but the amount of fat you carry is a simple formula. If you eat more calories than you burn off, you will carry excess weight. If you are carrying excess weight, you can lose it by eating less and exercising more.
Take Maria Kang, the “fit mom” who caused a stir a couple of years back.
Kang doesn’t have good genes. Her mother is obese, and Kang herself has the propensity to pack on weight. She is not shy about posting less than flattering pictures of herself when she was heavy.
To stay in this type of condition, Kang is runs on the treadmill every morning and she watches what she eats. Is it worth it? I think that most guys will agree that if you have a body like Maria Kang, you will get plenty of male attention.
If you look like Maria Kang, you will dramatically increase your chances of attracting and keeping a quality man.
While I am on the topic, let me say a politically incorrect word about pregnancy and fat. Lots of women talk as if pregnancy forever ruins your body and that you can only get it back with good plastic surgery.
It’s true that if you gain a shit-ton of weight during your pregnancy, it can wreak havoc with your body. But you don’t have to gain excessive weight during your pregnancy. Pregnancy does not have to be the end of your sexual attractiveness.
Men want to bang sluts. Men want to marry virtuous women.
This sounds contradictory, but it is not. In every man’s mind, there is a classification between girls who are “marriage material” and “would bang.”
Girls who are marriage material are more attractive than the “would bang” girls. They look healthier and more wholesome. They are smarter. They have respect for themselves and they take the time to care for their appearance. They are feminine. Marriage material girls don’t sleep around. They have a low notch count. It is hard to get in their pants.
About the “would bang” category of girls: men don’t have a lot of standards here. This is a very low bar. Men treat these women as sluts. Men won’t care about your appearance so much so long as you do not resemble Jabba the Hutt. They won’t care about your brains, because they are not interested in banging your brains. Men want to sleep with these women, and when they are tired of them, they will move on.
The good news, ladies, is you get to decide which category you fit in by the way you live your life.
I am not saying that you will never get married if you are a slut, only that you will attract a lower quality of man. The marriage material girls tend to get the alpha males. The sluts tend to get the appeasing betas.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the “marriage material” girls are prudes. A man still wants a woman who is sexy and playful—but he wants her to be sexy and playful with him, not everyone else.
Men want women who make good wives and mothers. Men don’t want women who “Lean In”
I should qualify this. Traditional men don’t want women who “Lean In” and become hard-driving, man-jaw business women.
There is a new breed of man out there who is a product of our modern culture. He wants a career woman who can do it all. She can bring home the bacon and be a great mother. He thinks that she needs to pull her weight. In fact, he might get resentful if she is not pulling more than her weight.
I know one of these modern guys. His wife just had their first baby a few months ago. She decided that she wanted to leave her low paying job and stay home with the baby. He is very angry that his wife has made this decision because it leaves him with less disposable income for cars and vacations.
He is also cheating on his wife with one of his coworkers. Personally, I think this guy is a bottom feeder and a sack of shit.
I am not implying that all husbands of working women are cheaters, only that the modern guy who insists that his wife work may have his priorities screwed up.
Also, you can’t have it all. Someone once said that you can’t serve two masters. It is impossible for a woman to be 100% devoted to work and 100% devoted to her family. One of them is going to suffer.
But I am taking about what traditional men want. The traditional man is the type of man that your grandfather or great grandfather was. A traditional man understands that the best thing for his children is that their mother raises them, not some low-paid workers at a day care institution “school.” He will do his best to ensure that his wife can stay home to raise their children.
This is a counter-cultural message. Every thing in our society is designed to force women into the workplace. From the moment they enter school, girls are taught that they can only be happy by becoming vice presidents of a cubical farm in the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company.
But the truth is that women were designed to bear and raise children. This is true whether you believe in a Creator or whether you believe that we evolved.
I also understand that there are certain financial circumstances that make it necessary for the woman to work. I am only saying that is less than ideal.
Men want women who respect themselves
If you want men to respect you, you have to respect yourself. How do you do that?
Don’t send naked pictures of yourself to people. And don’t let your boyfriends film you having sex. Racy pictures and videos always end up in the wrong hands.
Don’t do one night stands. Don’t engage in threesomes.
Don’t date married men.
Don’t “experiment” with girls.
Exercise. Cardio is good. Do squats to keep you butt and legs firm.
Never stop learning. You don’t have to do STEM, but keep your mind in good repair.
Read. 50 Shades of Grey does not count as reading.
If any man wants to reenact bits of 50 Shades of Grey with you, run.
Take some time to fix your hair, put on some make-up, and wear non-frumpy clothes.
Don’t drink to excess. Having a glass of wine or two once in a while is okay. Drinking until you can no longer walk straight is not.
Don’t smoke pot. There is a “significant and consistent relationship between marijuana use and the development of schizophrenia and related disorders.” Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who can smoke pot without developing schizophrenia. Is it worth the risk?
Don’t be desperate. You don’t need a man to be complete. If you don’t currently have a boyfriend, don’t hook up with a loser just because you want male companionship. Have some standards.
Finally, please take a break from agitating for social justice and work on yourself instead. We need fewer do-gooders and more people who are actually good.
Conclusion
That’s it. That is what men really want from women.
Do you disagree or have something to add? Sound off in the comments section.
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Good article. It is how I have always looked for traditional values in a woman. Maybe it is part of how I was raised that my parents had traditional values, but that is the way it is. What is important in a woman is that she puts family and the raising of her kids first. I don’t want a woman who is just another economic unit for the American culture, and I sure as hell don’t want a slut.
Thanks. I like your description of “economic unit” for the culture. That is how our government seems to view both men and women. There are still lots of women who would be happy to be full time moms, but it involves an economic decision. My wife worked until we had our first. I never wanted her to go back, and she is very happy with that decision.
Great post. With the exception of the obesity rate, all the rest applies perfectly to Western Europian women as well. And makes the life of an average Europian male that is searching for a good girl to marry, extremely difficult. If one simply checks the census data understands that the the trend is persistent: Europians marry less and have less children each year. You do not need much of an insight to understand the strong responsibility of the male-female relationship decline and especially of the feminism and post-feminism in all this.
I agree. I saw a story that there are small towns in Germany that are now almost empty due to the low birth rates. The only good thing I can say is that there are always some men and women who are naturally healthy—when they hear truth, they will embrace it and reject the indoctrination of wider culture.
In the US there are still small communities of devout Christians or Catholics. In these small communities, the birth rates are still high. I wonder if there is anything like this in Western Europe.
Oh yes there are. But unless you are part of these small villages and you marry when you are still young, the result does not change. Those villages or small cities are too small and too insignificant economically and culturally to dictate an orientation. In medium and larger cities the Catholic belief is more and more eroded, unless completely cancelled, and with that also the sense of the family. Therefore either you have solved your long term relationship demand when you are in your twenties or you will wander hopelessly in search of something worth in your late thirties and in your forties. I would borrow from the manosphere the term “Hypergamy” to describe with a good approximation the female behaviour you will face in your critical years as a male in Western Europe. I know all this may sound a little bit simplistic or pessimistic, but I think it is just realistic.
It is the same here. By the time a man is in his 30s, most of the women that you’d want to marry are already married. In this case the only option for a man who wants to marry is to find a significantly younger woman. Easier said than done, I know, but still achievable. The key to pull it off is financial resources, boatloads of confidence, and staying in shape. Sometimes the last two are all that are necessary. The extreme example is Donald Trump and his most recent wife.
Also, are Eastern European girls an option?
Totally agree on the girls age. But you will need a lot of luck to meet girls in their twenties. Unless you become that famous and rich that they will search for you, you are still the one that is searching for them. Gym, work or friends are generally the options, but I would not be that sure that these places are enough to find what you are looking for. As you mention, the nice girls that you will possibly meet in these places and want to marry are already married.
I think the Eastern Europian girls are a good option, but you will have to think seriously about living in Eastern Europe for a while to increase your possibilities.
For what it is worth, I met my wife through my brother’s girlfriend. As you say, gym, work, and friends are the best options. In the US, a lot of people rely on online dating, but I would never have met my wife that way as we would have probably screened each other out due to the age difference.
Hello Michael. I’d like to humbly add a few:
1) Be nice. Yes, it sounds obvious but it’s absolutely amazing how many women who complain about a “good man” shortage are unpleasant to be around either being openly nasty and critical or passive and lazy. Smile. Don’t scowl.
2) Be thoughtful. Gaming men spend more time understanding prime women than my cat learns about mice. Most women’s game consists of emotional batterment (playing hard to get) that only works on weak men. Thoughtful men understand what women want, in a good way, and look to provide it. It can be in general but also personal.
3) Make an effort. This ties into 1 and 2, but it also seems obvious that one thing men like about foreign women is that they value men and display it by taking actions to make men feel appreciated, flirting with men (not the BS kind but rather making conversation to scope out his interest), and even finding venues to meet men. You can’t find fish if you sit at home doing nothing.
4) Pay your way without a negative agenda. I’m sure that many here will find that threatening, but I found it wonderful in my youth how nice girls I knew were financially responsible, even if they had only a few dollars, and didn’t treat men like an ATM machine. Live frugally. When I went out on a date, I simply wore my best pants and shirt even when I had only a few dollars.
5) Accept the cost of what you want. I met a very sweet woman who also happened to be unattractive to me. I rejected her. It was a decision I thought long and hard about. I had to ask myself, in totality, what I wanted and accept paying the price which I did. Look at what you want and think long, hard, and carefully about whether you can handle it (this ties into chivalrous honor mentioned elsewhere). A lot of women marry a “bad boy” whose handsome and gripe that he didn’t work hard to become rich and responsible to complete her dream. Men know that when we marry a dumb cheerleader, that’s what we get. At least with men, we know that the cheerleader gets old. Tall men largely retain their looks most of their lives so women willing to support such men with issues get a better deal.
6) MOVE. The older a demanding woman who wants a perfect man gets, the harder it is for her to get it. It’s been said above but is worth repeating.
That’s the advise I give a lot of young women and some seem to be ready to take it. I think that’s progress.
These are excellent additions. I agree with all of them. On number 5 I notice that lots of American women are bad at factoring in character and intelligence into the equation so they end up with a genuine bad boy or a male bimbo. It is hard to generalize, but I’ve noticed that Asian women seem to be trained to look at other qualities.
Maybe it’s allowed to give some remarks as a woman, Catholic, European. When I was in my twenties, same-aged men didn’t interest me. I was always looking for a man in his thirties. My husband are 10 yrs older, for me this is not a very significant gap. I have the ‘problem’ that I look younger than the average so some people think that the age gap is 15 or 20 yrs.
I guess there are many women and men who don’t think about this option or don’t dare to consider this possibility because of mockery, indiscrete questions or other soc. reasons.
A woman ages faster than a man, especially NOWADAYS (this is my observation), so women should use their minds in matchmaking. Exceptions are confirming the rules.
What’s concerning make-up not all men like this. My husband does not want me to have any make-up on my face.