Category Archives: Comics and Dating
What Women Look for in a Man
I’m wrapping up my little dating series for comedians. For this post I’m going to pull from Rules of the Game by Neil Strauss (told you I had a lot of dating books).
This book is filled with both research and lots of strategies for getting women — seems like a lot of work!
The book is able to explain why women prefer high status men, what my past boyfriends generally call, well, not donut holes, other kinds of “holes;” you get the picture. (Also note that all my past boyfriends of any length of time seemed nice at first, and then whammo! Not good. So there probably isn’t much point in dating “nice” guys either.)
The book points out that the handsomeness of a man has little to do with his looks, and lots to do with his skills and prowess. Hooray, you can be ugly and still get women!
“In a monogamous society, a woman often chooses a mate long before he has had a chance to become a chief, and she must look for clues to his future potential rather than rely only on past achievements.
Poise, self-assurance, optimism, efficiency, perseverance, courage, decisiveness, intelligence, ambition — these are the things that cause a men to rise to the top of their professions. And not coincidentally, these are the things women find attractive.
In other words, if you exhibit the right traits for success, some women will take a chance on you even if you’re currently unemployed.”
I’m not sure of that last bit about unemployment, but I generally agree with the rest. Notice that humour isn’t mentioned here? Sad day for comedians.
a) Is it possible that women think they know what they want, but really don’t?
b) Is it possible that all women are crazy?
c) Is it possible that women, as a given, kind of figure that if they date you, they should enjoy your company, and so humour is part of that, but they are also looking for these other things?
d) Is it possible that in high school, humour went a long way, because the girl’s family fed her and clothed her and put a roof over her head, so she didn’t have a lot of criteria, but once she had to support herself, she had to decide whether you might be a help or a hindrance to that, and to any future babies of yours she might end up with for 20 years.
I’m going to go with mostly “c.”
Another possibility is that Neil Strauss is an idiot who doesn’t know anything. After all, he didn’t talk about bedroom skills either.
What the Dating Books Say About Comedians
I’m almost done with this little series on dating and comedians, but I thought I would share what some of the dating books say about comedians. Comedians apparently are worthy of their own category in some dating advice books.
Note that the books assume that the comedians will be male, so ladies, you are off the hook for this one! Not to worry though, they have plenty of other terms for “problem” women. There are also plenty of other types of “problem” men. I’m pretty confident that anyone with any self awareness whatsoever could at least partially place themselves in 1 – 3 problem categories.
Note that by “comedian,” they don’t necessarily mean a professional one.
I’m going to pull liberally from Ron Louis and David Copeland’s books How to Succeed with Women and How to Succeed with Men. Both talk about the comedian archetype:
“…He thinks that if he’s funny enough, and entertaining enough, women will sleep with him. It is true that women tend to value a sense of humour over almost anything else in men they are attracted to, but alone it is not enough. Women will end up thinking of you as an entertainment machine….women relegate the comedian to the status of friend…
…If you find you are a comedian with women, joke less, and see what happens. They might find you more interesting.”
To be honest, amongst the comedians I’ve met on the Toronto circuit, I think most of them know better than to think that being funny is the only thing that women look for in a man. I had this discussion with someone awhile back, about whether women – and I do mean women, not just girls in high school — would just go for a guy who they thought was funny. This was my response:
“A guy wouldn’t date a woman purely on whether or not she’s funny; there’s no reason for a woman to date a guy purely on that either.”
So what do women look for? I think I will save that for tomorrow’s post.
