Hey Yvain,

I'm enjoying your posts very much - so please don't be shy to digress from Rationalistic subjects.

About women and dating, I just wanted to add that you can't really trust stated preferences. (This is known as attitude-behavior gap.) Let me quote a study:

"Do women c hoos e nic e g uys? When given the choice between John, an inexperienced, nice, but somewhat shy man, and Mike, an attractive, fun man who had had sex with 10 women, 54% of the women reported that they would prefer John as a date. Twent y-eight percent reported they would equally prefer dat ing John or Mike, and 18% reported they would prefer Mike. Y et, 56% of the women knew of other women who had had the choice of dat ing nice but sexually inexperienced men, but who chose to date men who were ver y sexually experienced but not so nice. Also, 56% of the women agreed that nice guys are less likely to have as many sexual partners as guys who are not nice. "

This comes from "Dating Preferences of University Women: An Analysis of the Nice Guy Stereotype" by Herold et. al.

So there. Women prefer "the nice guy" yet report as having seen other women prefer the "jerk" over the nice guy.