There's a great deal of confusion among both genders on how to attract the other.
We all know the basics: good sense of humor, confidence, listening.
There are still some things, though, that not even women realize they find appealing.
Here are the secret things men do that women find attractive.
Teen movies in the 1980s imbued us with the idea that the geek never gets the girl.
So you'd think it would be a social disaster to start gushing about your love for Star
Trek on your first date, but that might not be the case.
Psychologist and PhD Jeanette Raymond told the site AskMen,
It turns out that it doesn't matter if it's your favorite sports team or Power Rangers
that gets you excited.
Some might call it geeking out, others say it's passion, but according to dating expert
Evan Marc Katz, regardless of the topic, that's a huge positive in the dating world.
Katz claims that women tell him all the time they want someone who's passionate.
This just goes to show you some of the weird things your brain does without you knowing.
A study done by the University of Rochester shows that women find men wearing red more
attractive than those that don't.
Andrew Elliot, the study's lead author and professor of psychology at the university,
writes,
There are a lot of possible reasons why we may associate red with power or dominance.
Some scientists theorize that it's because red is associated with aggressive behavior,
due to the reddening of the face when a person is angry.
Red was also an expensive dye throughout history and was relegated to the wealthy and royal.
Perhaps our cultural assumption is that red means wealthy.
Whatever the reason, if you're a man, you might want to consider putting on a dash of
scarlet for your next romantic venture.
We all get by with a little help from our friends.
A big part of being a good friend is being kind, and it turns out that women find that
very attractive.
"I know this sounds weird, but can we be best friends?
Just us?
For real?"
"I think we should all be best friends."
"We should be."
Purdue University has found that when men have solid friendships, their likability with
women increases significantly.
Furthermore, women rated traits such as ego support, conflict management, and comforting
skills as the most important aspects of a relationship, romantic or platonic.
In contrast, men rated persuasive and narrative skills as more important.
If your female partner sees you exhibiting the same traits she values in your friendships,
she'll see that as a sign that you are compatible together.
While it should always be a goal to be kind, it doesn't hurt that women are more likely
to rate a man's facial attractiveness and sex appeal higher when he exhibits trustworthiness,
authenticity, and reliability.
The days of Leave it to Beaver-style home-life have long passed.
Men and women spend closer to equal amounts of time in the kitchen nowadays.
However, it looks like women still get excited whenever they see their man at the stove.
"Now if you could only cook, you'd be perfect!"
A team of British neuroscientists conducted an experiment of 20 couples, with the women
watching their male partners partaking in various tasks.
While having their physiological responses monitored, women were more aroused watching
their men in the kitchen than they were when he was doing more stereotypical "male" work,
such as cutting wood.
Cooking even outweighed other housework tasks like ironing or cleaning.
Seventy percent of the women in the study preferred being made a cup of coffee to receiving
gifts or an embrace.
The power of a well-fed stomach should not be underestimated!
Studies have shown that women find men with deeper voices attractive.
However, there's an important factor that's even more important than pitch; breathiness.
Scientists found that whether a voice was pitched high or low was less important than
the voice's breathiness.
This quality of voice is very similar to what a man might sound like when just waking up.
"Ah nuts."
The experimenters concluded that this phenomenon was due to body size.
For example, a higher pitch in a female voice typically indicates a smaller size, while
a deeper voice usually denotes a man with a larger frame.
However, the problem with a deep voice is that it can also be intimidating and suggest
aggression.
This is why the breathiness is so important.
According to scientists,
Miss Frizzle's sage advice to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" turned out to
be a great dating tip.
Women find men more attractive when they take heroic risks, according to various studies.
Heroic is the key word here, as women do not prefer men who take non-heroic risks, such
as playing dangerous sports.
It's also very possible that bravery is more important than altruism when it comes to choosing
a mate.
This could explain why men with careers such as pilot, firefighter, and doctor are some
of the most-swiped-right candidates on Tinder.
John Petraitis, psychology professor at the University of Alaska, further studied the
effects when in conjunction with technology.
He found that women found men more attractive when they would perform risky behavior in
the wild, such as rock climbing in the back-country, but would not be attracted to risky behavior
in a modern society, such as driving without a seat-belt.
Petraitis suggests that this is evident of evolutionary practices, where behaviors that
relate to a hunter-gatherer society are more attractive than those that aren't.
Sometimes, we can actually unknowingly subscribe to traditional gender norms and values.
A study by the University of British Columbia has found that women find men more attractive
when they are brooding than when they are showing happiness and smiling, at least at
first impression.
The lead researcher, Professor Jessica Tracy, stated,
Supposedly, brooding is a sign of pride, which is evolutionarily attractive to females.
Tracy further concluded,
While we're all trying to evolve our understanding of gender, maybe it's time for women to start
telling men they should frown more as a response whenever men ask them to smile.
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