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No, I'm not. Anybody who's tried in real life as well as online, knows what an impact these factors have, especially height, irritatingly given its arbitrariness in western society.

I spent months trying online, have tried in real life, parties, bars, you name it for years. I am actually pretty good socially. Believe me, this is not for want of trying.

I am not willing to join random clubs to try to meet women, as my prior probability is so low, based on previous experience, that it seems an enormous effort for a tiny probability of success.

What this comes down to is the 'spark' of attraction - women's genetic design means it incorporates certain factors, including those listed above, so if they like you + you don't fulfil the prerequisites you'll end up being their friend, they just 'won't see you that way', etc.

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Allow me to tell you how wrong you are.

My roomate is 6'4, broad shoulders, athletic, good looking by any standard, and he is hella funny. People thought for the longest he had plenty girls, but believe me when I say he had his fair share of trouble.

Now, this will sound like a lie, but I have no way to prove this to you unless you decide to make a trip to the city of Atlanta at which point I will introduce you to my other friend. This guy is 5'5 (at the most), skinny, and by no means will you call him handsome. However from my 12 years in America, I have never met anyone who gets hotter girls, or more girls. I always ask him, and I mean always, "What do you do, really?" From my observation and what he tells me here is what works for him,1) talk to as many beautiful girls as you can (interestingly enough, you have more chance with beautiful women, I have no idea why), 2) don't be nice, 3) smell very very good (One Million or Chanel5 or Chrome Azzaro,...), 4) always dress one step above, always (my friend always looks preppy), 5) never depreciate yourself, never, ever, even as a joke, never.

Ugh, that guy sounds gross. I'm sure he's cool in person but if one were to simply follow this strict list of items they could very easily end up turning themselves into a douche bag. Do we have to become someone we hate to attract people we like?

More likely than not there is an element that trumps the others which your friend fails to mention: personally/charisma. Someone who has it just thinks they are "talking" and may not realize the power they have, so they won't mention it in the magic lists. But it seems to be what matters most and is by far the most difficult aspect of oneself to develop, if one doesn't already have a "good" personality naturally.

> "Do we have to become someone we hate to attract people we like?"

What part of the list above is worth hating? All of the qualities listed seem very morally benign. Well dressed, well spoken, to the point, confident, and smells nice.

Any baggage that comes with those descriptors are your own. Nobody is making you buy the jagerbombs and popped collars part.

> "What part of the list above is worth hating?"

On the surface, "don't be nice" appears pretty douchey.

I suppose it's possible the poster just poorly communicated, and there's a reasonable concept (like "don't be 'fake-nice', be genuinely kind") hiding behind that bad phraseology. If so, it's up to the prior poster to clarify.

> On the surface, "don't be nice" appears pretty douchey.

Very true, but I think the broader point is to avoid being the stereotypical "nice guy" towards women. For better or worse, being "overly nice" or eager to please is a low-confidence move, something that does not appear to be valued by many women.

Random thought: In dating terms, "nice guy" seems to equal "doesn't push for sex" and "bad boy" seems to be "is definitely looking for sex". I am wondering if what is intended by "don't be nice" is along the lines of "be up front about the fact that you are interested in sex".

Up front, but do not bother them with more attempts after getting a clear no. Put her into the friend-zone pro-actively, if you like her enough to hang out, or ignore her, if you are not actually interested in non-romantic activities. But move on.

He doesn't actually say "confident" or "well spoken." Those are things of substance, and he left them out.

> Nobody is making you buy the jagerbombs and popped collars part.

This is true. I guess I just cant help the correlation in my head, because it seems to be that prevalent.

Right, but especially given the OP, it does beg the question of if he is actually building committed relationships with any, or just taking various good looking women home.

Please don't buy into the evolutionary psychology BS. Human relationships are mostly defined by cultural norms, not genetics, or else short people would have been selected out millions of years ago. Women incorporate the same things that all of us do, our culture: imaginary (and largely delusional) hollywood fantasies about ideal romances. The truth is both men and women are equally lost in the dating game when individualistic happiness is held to be the highest ideal.

I'm not so sure, a woman desiring a strong man to protect them sounds pretty evolutionary. Isn't the whole pick up artist thing based on exploiting such?

> Human relationships are mostly defined by cultural norms, not genetics, or else short people would have been selected out millions of years ago.

I think that humans are taller than we were millions of years ago. So yes, in some sense short people are getting selected out. (Though I don't have data. I'm actually more confident that we're taller than we were thousands of years ago, than that we're taller we were pre-agriculture.)

2.5% of people will always be 2σ below the norm.

Sure, and males are taller and stronger than women. But one doesn't have to be the strongest and the tallest. In fact if we observe the variation in today's population the minimum viable height and strength bar seems to be quite low, and since the distribution is approximately normal, it doesn't seem like evolution favors tall people more than short.

Curiously, sexual dimorphism may have something to do with our mating habits

  The sexes differ more in human beings than in monogamous mammals, 
  but much less than in extremely polygamous mammals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism

> In fact if we observe the variation in today's population the minimum viable height and strength bar seems to be quite low, and since the distribution is approximately normal, it doesn't seem like evolution favors tall people more than short.

I don't follow. If a trait is sexually advantageous, that doesn't mean the trait won't be normally distributed at any given time. It just means the trait will tend to increase with time. And I claim that this does in fact happen with height.

I also predict that if you did cross-cultural studies, you would find: in almost every culture, when people are free to choose their mates, taller males have more dating/marriage success, on average, than shorter males.

Of course you don't have to be the tallest and the strongest, but it helps.

Apparently height hasn't changed much since the dawn of man, but it has increased significantly (about 10cm!) in the past 150 years, due to better nutrition, but it's levelling off. It may thus be said that height is not seen as a genetic advantage in itself , but as a signal of better nutrition (although a few centuries is a short time for such a preference to be genetically selected for)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-we-...

That's interesting and surprising, thank you. I'm going to need to consider this further.

Humans are taller because of better nutrition, not due to genetics.

Question: how often do you actually ask women on dates? I mean unequivocally ask them on a "date"?

Empirically, I would say you are simply wrong. I know a fair number of short men who are successful with women. It's probably something else you are doing: dress, hygiene, posture/eye contact, lack of confidence (and not in a "you have to change who you are/act cocky" type of way.) I'm not asserting anything specific because I don't know you. Being short can hurt ones chances in the dating world, obviously, but do you really think all short guys just go dateless their whole lives? It's a ridiculous assertion.

Obviously online, I have frequently attempted contact, before reaching a stage where I could ask that, but that was the purpose.

In real life, I have usually not got so far as to ask for a date, as I have been rejected out of hand before getting that far. And the friends who I wanted to go out with, I have asked out and been rejected.

I don't think it's that ridiculous, for one we're talking 2 sigma out of the norm, on the short side, so that's 2.5% of the male population, and of course there are endless ways to compromise. So that leads to another point, I do want to have a relationship with somebody I find attractive, even if marginally so (I really am not all that picky), if I was to remove that restriction then I could probably do quantitively better. Perhaps many of my fellow short cohorts do that.

Additionally, there are other factors, I know some short people who have done well too - good looks, a certain kind of confidence and social standing/success principally.

I am very open to considering whether I'm screwing up elsewhere, however my experience, and that of many other people has been similar, and I also have tall friends who don't dress especially well, poor posture, etc. who have had endless relationships. It's a huge, huge factor.

First, returns on online dating are typically abysmally low, for everyone. Online dating shouldn't be thought of as anything other than a novelty. I think I heard somewhere that being short counts against you online more than in real life because of how easy it is to dismiss someone just based on that number.

Second, as I suspected, you haven't actually asked many girls out (is the number around 2-4?) This is most of the reason you haven't had success.

Yes, being at a height disadvantage means that overall it will be harder to get dates that you find appealing. This fact is what you are noticing, not that you can't. You said it yourself, there are short men who can get dates they like. Good looks help, but not a requirement. What are they actually doing you're not? Do you actually have to be highly successful to appear so? No. Just looking highly presentable, fit, well dressed in ones style, and yes, confident (in your own way, not a particular type of cockiness), is enough. Even those things aren't really necessary, but they help. Then it's just a matter of actually asking women you are attracted to on dates, enough women until one says 'yes', which will happen eventually. The only real impediment is that you haven't committed yourself to dating and figuring out what works, which is a typical problem with various excuses.

Sure, the numbers are always v. low in online dating, but 0/150 is way below even that low average, and I had a friend do it at the same time and score more like ~ 1/15. That has to say something no?

Well you're inferring that number, the real number is probably closer to 12 over the past year or two, which I guess you could argue is still pretty low. Mostly they have rejected even speaking to me out of turn to the extent I couldn't ask for a date even if I wanted.

I wish I could believe you on the numbers count, but yet again my experience has been wholesale rejection. And there is a cost for each rejection, after being made to feel worthless + unloveable for the 20th time, you begin to wonder is this worth it?

Additionally I feel like this all requires me to be somebody I'm not - try to act confident, because I am a skeptic and humble in what I do, I don't ever feel like I'm special or able to speak out confidently. I feel like faking that would be betraying myself in a way that I'm not willing to do just for a relationship. So perhaps this is partly a choice, I am not willing to sell myself to score dates.

The short people I know who do better are either v. good looking (nothing I can do about that) or especially confident in a cocky way.

If I'd had a hint of iterative success in anything I'd try I'd be willing to go along with this, but I've not, nothing. There has to be a point where constant 100% failure causes you to think 'is it worthwhile spending my limited years of life pursuing this?'

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