Female Projection & Education
Random theory of the day: many women in their mid-30′s start to realize that their primary assets of attraction are starting to radically diminish. They will then try to diversify. But this betrays reality. Because there really isn’t anything to diversify into. The straight biological dope is that for guys, attraction is 90% physical fitness and beauty.
What you find is that women start diversifying into the things they’ve always been attracted to in men… a classic case of projection.
Case in point: I recently read that over 72% of all college students aged 30 and above are women, and the disparity is even more pronounced for online education.
I’m sure there are a number of reasons for this (including financial independence). But at the end of the day, most large scale social trends like this can be causally explained by low-level biological impulses related to social status and attraction. My theory: Women are attracted to well-educated men (many biologists believe that the large, creative human brain is a result of female choice in sexual selection). In other words, because one of the primary attraction factors for women is an impressive brain, they subconsciously figure that men are attracted to similar traits in women.
Anecdotally, I also see a lot of women taking up instruments in their mid-30′s. Why? I’m sure there’s a multi-factor reason, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the same phenomenon: a subconscious, though misdirected, attempt to remain impressive in the mating game.
Now I’m not saying that education and instrumentation aren’t attractive in women. In fact, I’ve suggested that “skill” is attractive in women because it displays certain features that are desirable for long-term relationships. What I am saying is that the return on investment measured in terms of pure attraction just isn’t going to be there.
