What Drives a Man to Approach a Woman?

This morning on the way into work, I was listening to the Wild 102.9 morning show on the radio. They were talking about a new study that Ok Cupid released about dating. I can’t find the study online, but the jist of it is this:

Men are more likely to message/approach a woman who is moderately attractive vs. a woman who is beautiful because the chances of rejection are lower and therefore less of a threat to their egos.

The men who called into the show backed up this theory, saying they don’t bother hitting on a girl who is a 9 or 10 because they’re sure she has men lined up around the corner, and they don’t want to waste their time with a girl who is in demand.

The women who called in expressed their frustration revealing that in fact, the beautiful girls are rarely if ever hit on while their less-attractive counter-parts are the ones with guys lined up.

This whole debate hit home for me. During my single years, I too was plagued with the “never gets hit on” disease. It was really frustrating! I couldn’t understand what was different about me from my friends that led guys to avoid approaching me.

I was told that it was because I was “intimidating” with my height (5’11), trendy clothes and outgoing personality. I always felt annoyed by that….what was I supposed to do? Make myself more plain jane just so I didn’t scare the poor, frightened men off? :)

Eventually I stopped waiting for the guys to come up to me and took the situation into my own hands by casually striking up a conversation with a guy I was attracted to.

Once the initial conversation was started, it always went well and usually ended up in a date or future contact, but it bothered me that I had to do all the initial work.

Even with Luke, I had to ask our mutual friend to introduce us when I noticed him looking at me, but not making a move. He claims he would have come up to me eventually, but I have my doubts.

So what do you think? Do men really target modestly-attractive women over more striking ones? Or is that just something women who don’t get hit on tell themselves so they feel better?

Men- what drives you to approach a woman? When do you stay away from a pretty girl?

Lonely Party of One

Being married to a traveling man isn’t always fun. This week Luke is in San Francisco working on a project that will likely keep him on the road for several weeks. It’s the first time we’ve been apart since getting married, and I don’t like it one bit!

I joke that Luke tricked me into falling for him. See, the first year we were together he didn’t travel once. I thought I had a great guy who would always be around whenever I wanted to hang out.

That was until he smacked me with the news that he was put on a job in….TEL AVIV, ISRAEL and would be gone for two months straight. Waaaaa??? Say it isn’t so!

I was really worried about what would happen to our relationship while he was gone, but it ended up being a good thing because it forced us to evaluate how we felt about each other and talk about how committed we wanted to be to our relationship.

Luckily we both felt the same way and decided to stay together while he was gone. Right before he left, we said “I love you” for the first time.

While it can be hard when Luke is gone traveling for work, it’s helped me become independent and more sociable with friends. I know how important it is for me to maintain interests and hobbies to keep me busy and happy while he’s away.

I think maintaining a full life with friends and activities, some of which we share and some we do alone, is what makes us both happy and ultimately attracted to each other. I think our friends appreciate that we’re not tied to each other all the time too. Sometimes you just need to hang with the girls!

Of course, when he walks in the door on Friday I’ll have a weeks worth of hugs saved up for him. :)

How do you guys maintain your independence in relationships?