HAGEN: How low should you go?

I received a piece of advice before coming to college about how to attract fellow male students. “Guys want three things,” the wise sage told me. “Beer, food and sex. If you can provide at least two out of those three things you are gold.” If this is true &-&- if it is really this simple to get a guy &-&- then why are so many girls I know single? Oh yeah, that pesky little thing called “standards,” which determine the potential for a long-term relationship. I know for a fact that most of the female population, including myself, would not settle for a guy whose love is so easy to attain as bringing him a couple bottles of Budweiser and slices of Upper Crust pizza.

Despite my sentiment, according to the media, I might have it all wrong. For the past few weeks I have been inundated with articles about the necessity of lowering one’s standards in order to snag and, most importantly, keep a man. Author Lori Gottlieb’s recently released book “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” has been causing a firestorm of debate. She encourages women to greatly scale back their checklist of important male qualities and overlook a guy’s unattractive small details. Critics claim that she is assuming it is preferable for a woman to be with a man about whom she feels lukewarm about than be single and, horror upon horrors, baby-less. Supporters, however, claim her message is more geared toward encouraging women to overlook superficial details, such as a required height or hair color, and instead focus on personality traits that will make him a good partner. She is basically warning women that if they are too picky, they are going to hit 40 all alone.

If the main issue at stake is finding a future husband with whom you can start a family, does that mean women in college must also lower their standards? After all, most 20 year olds I know aren’t too worried about their biological clocks or finding a spouse right now. If this is true, then technically, college-aged females should be the pickiest of their gender. In order to test my hypothesis, I surveyed a number of girlfriends, ages 20 to 22, and asked them which attributes a man they are interested in must absolutely have. Surprisingly, characteristics such as having a “smoking hot bod” and “chiseled cheekbones” or being an Olympic athlete, astronaut or demi-god did not come up. Instead the most commonly mentioned and desirable features were “having a sense of humor,” “being easy to talk to and hold an intellectual conversation with” and “someone who listens to and respects me.” After looking over my data, I have come to the conclusion that most women my age &-&- allegedly the hardest type to please &-&- just want a basically decent and fun human being.

Of course, some physical attributes were mentioned too. The most preferable being “pretty eyes,” a “nice smile” and “clear skin.” These tended to be brought up more as afterthoughts rather than necessities &-&- nice bonus features for a guy to have, but not required.
The one physical trait that was deemed important was the man’s height. Most of my friends said they wanted someone taller than themselves. This is one common female desire that Gotliebb especially rails against. She claims caring about height is simply a silly vanity because it is his personality, after all, that is most important. Unfortunately, what she has left out is the male perspective. Just as almost all my girl friends, regardless of their height, claim they want a taller guy, the majority of my guy friends, also regardless of their height, claim they want a shorter girl. This is a social stigma that has been around for years and, while not always true, is pretty common and probably not going away anytime soon.

This also highlights the main issue I take with the recent onslaught of “settling” articles: they always take the point of view of the woman and never the man. Biologically speaking, it is true that women are more pressed for time if they wish to start a family, yet they make it seem as if men will marry the first woman they meet, and that women are messing everything up by being too vain. Males are being greatly underestimated, and I have a feeling that the characteristics my friends feel are important for a man to have &-&- sense of humor, intelligence and respect &-&- are pretty similar to those a man feels a woman should have. While I agree with Gottlieb that in order to have a long and satisfying relationship personality should be prioritized over looks, we should not assume that women always have standards which are too high and men simply have none. Instead, relationships that work the best are ones in which a man’s and woman’s standards match each other, which I think generally happens more often than not. The ideal for a partner is usually based on simply having a good character, and this standard transcends gender. Therefore, in most cases neither male nor female should feel they need to settle.

Although I have a great conviction in this belief, I do have a confession to make. If a guy showed up at my door with a six-pack and a box of Domino’s cheesy bread, well, that certainly wouldn’t hurt his chances either.