A reader emails to express his wonderment that his nerdy friend has a smoking hot girlfriend:
Generally this blog is the truth but this defies nature:
my friend is a nerd who clocks in plenty of hours of world of Warcraft and other shit. When I heard he had a girlfriend I was happy for him expecting him to show up with some goth girl who was chubby but endearing or something. Instead he shows up with probably the hottest girl ever to set foot in this house. She’s one of the party girl/ model types and we were all speechless. How is it possible? There’s about a five to six point discrepancy at least. although we enjoy each others company he grunts more than he speaks and is about 5′ 3″ and has sticks for limbs. Please solve this mystery, if it means anything she had the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy, only laughed when he said shit or fuck or something. I’m not bullshitting she really was that hot. I want to stay anonymous though.
I want to be glib and dismiss this reader’s concern with the usual “exceptions do not prove the rule” truism, but I noticed something in his email that offers a possible explanation for why a WoW playing nerd has a hot model girlfriend. It’s in these two lines:
“although we enjoy each others company he grunts more than he speaks”
“only laughed when he said shit or fuck or something.”
My take is that this guy is no typical nerd. Grunting is an aloof alpha form of communication, and one that nerds generally don’t engage in. Hot party girls love non-needy assholes, and a guy who grunts all the time is signaling a very strong aloof and indifferent frame. Most hot girls under twenty-eight are attracted to that type of man.
Nerds don’t curse much, either. Any so-called nerd who says shit and fuck a lot is likely not representative of the archetypical nerd despised by women.
Verdict: Despite his short stature, stick limbs and WoW playing, our reader’s nerd friend is actually the jerk that women love. It’s always best to recall in these seemingly anomalous scenarios that women discern a man’s alphaness by much more than the size of his arms or his dorky hobbies. While women’s alphaness is easily recognized — looks, looks, looks — men’s alphaness is shapeless and contingent. You’ll have a much harder time picking out the stone cold alphas from a line-up of twenty men than you would from a line-up of twenty women.
And if you combine nerdy, WoW-playing hobbies with an alpha male personality, the guy could even be revving up the hot girl’s attraction for him under the “Contrast is King” principle. Plus, what if he’s the kind of guy who often ignores his girlfriend in favor of playing WoW? Any guy who can ignore a hot girl’s attractiveness in favor of his hobbies, even if it’s WoW, must certainly have some alphaness in him. And if I were a hot girl used to constant male attention, being ignored for a video game would get my hamster-wheel spinning faster than if I was being ignored because the guy was getting other pussy on the side.
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I don’t know, man. Maybe those grunts are not alpha, just his way to ask for another slice of pizza in front of the computer. Maybe that “hot chick” is not so hot anyway and the reader is overrating the whole thing.
Too strange to be real.
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He might be a PUA, to which his friends are clueless.
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Nerds swear all the time… it’s that pent up anger… and when I’m pwning them at Battlefield.
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Silly me. I always took R’s advice that “there is a groupie for every male endeavor. Except World of Warcraft.” literally, so I took up Starcraft instead.
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I’d guess the answer is in this:
She’s an introverted nerd herself, trapped in a hot girl’s face and body.
I’m guessing she not a extroverted party girl by temperament, just that she looks that part to the guy who’s emailed in and projected that onto her.
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Then yeah, add the aloofness bits that Heartiste points out, as to why she chose this particular nerd to be with.
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Is she Asian?
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“She’s an introverted nerd herself, trapped in a hot girl’s face and body.”
Bingo. For every hundred nerds 90 will be alone, 9 will snag fatties, and 1 will snag a little nerdette whose young and won the genetic lottery on looks. It would not be a surprise if she also played WoW or had other nerd hobbies.
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Also consider,
nerd girls get way way too much attention all the time because they are surrounded by desperate nerds. Not being put on a pedestal is probably a turn on.
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“there is a groupie for every male endeavor. Except World of Warcraft.”
Since I was introduced to the game by a WoW groupie I can attest to the fact that there are exceptions even to a truism like this.
While the number of groupies vary by endeavor, in anything where a male can earn the respect of other males, and gain dominance, there will be groupies. Period.
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Nerd usually implies high academic achievement, right? Or is that a geek? Americanisms are beyond me. Anyway, what does this nerd do for a living? If he is very successful, a girl could see beyond the Xbox. Also, what is their age gap and how mature is she? Young and naive girls often get street cred at school for dating older men.
Funny, to me:
“although we enjoy each others company he grunts more than he speaks”
“only laughed when he said shit or fuck or something.”
implies pubescent teenager, are you sure he’s an alpha? Maybe he just hasn’t evolved very much.
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My guess would be that the girl has low self esteem, and the guy gives her only very intermittent validation, if any.
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She’s probably comfortable with that ole boy. What his friends fail to comprehend is the inner calmness he is projecting towards this girl. If they shifted their focus away from the pedestal they built for her they would realize why she operates differently from other “hot girls.” Falling into any woman’s frame is a fast track to delusion. They don’t even know this girl and the kids are already slipping. Sound composure is a genuine display of confidence. You can have a down ass “G” roll up on your gal and he could have fucked a good amount of women. Yet if he is nervous in settings where you are comfortable, he will end up walking. That is a dead giveaway in this scene. I’m not a big fan of boot camps from all the PUA material saturating our markets and raising the value of women in our dating scene. Although a passionate dating “guru” will teach solid mechanics in accepting situations at face value. It’s a sound principle. Not judging a book by its cover. 9 times out of 10 you’re assumptions are wrong. Let the ego go. Everyone thinks they know everything or are playing a better hand. Until you are consistent in favor and have adequate experience learning from failure then you don’t know. Even then there’s still much to learn. So go find out. Pay attention to her. If you give anyone especially a woman your approval before earning their way into your books, chances are they will take you for granted or not care for you at all. Keep them guessing. Until you find a decent girl who earns your company. Time, money, energy and most importantly opportunities to fuck more interesting available women. Invest in the concept of penetration.
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here is a recent nyt article about warcraft avatars finding real-life love. girls in that article all look semi cute.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/fashion/24avatar.html?_r=1&ref=stephanierosenbloom
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Maybe that “hot chick” is not so hot anyway and the reader is overrating the whole thing.
This is exactly what I was thinking. What I call a 6, my gameless roommate calls a 9. Unless the reader has bagged quite a bit of beaver himself, I’m inclined to believe this is the explanation.
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I’m going to guess the girl isn’t a 9.
Nerdlings can core pretty well if they’ve got redeeming features. Funny, sarcastic and assholish usually works well.
That begs the question: are they then still nerds?
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Could be a hipster nerd type.. the artsy ones.
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@a girl
I don’t think the NYT would put up an article filled with the lumbering sloths that make up 90% of the WoW women. Even libs understand people like to look at cute chicks.
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I detect hoax.
Pics – or it never happened.
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do you guys think there is a fundamental difference between nerds(?) who play fantasy RTS games like WoW or Starcraft and between nerds(?) who’d spend tons of time playing games just the same but who’d rather play wargames that don’t have fantasy elements in them, e.g. world war 2, napoleonic wars?
having no knowledge of “game”, being a nerd myself, i spent most of my mid twenties as a salesman for a computer games distribution company. the market for fantasy RTS is huuuge. the market for straight wargames is niche — very small. and looking back at the personality types of gamers i used to encounter back then, and applying the nuances of the alpha-beta dichotomy we hold in the “game”-sphere, it appears to me that there is a clear line separating beta-ish-gamers from alpha-ish-gamers. and the clue resides in the amount of fantasy involved in any particular game. the more fantasy-esque a computer game is, the more likely it is to appeal to the beta-ish type of gamers. ergo, dungeons and dragons type games are more beta than say sim city.
granted, computer games by nature are fantasy-esque. but within it, there appears to be some form of hierarchy.
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Two key variables are left out here: the age of the woman and/or her prior experience with men.
Women tend to have a very safe “starter” boyfriend to help them ease into sexual maturity with the men they really want. The first stage of this is the Justin Beiber fascination–that is, an early teen gal’s hormonal interest in a feminine boy who presents absolutely zero risk of sexual demand. The next stage is an awkward proto-boyfriend in junior high/high school, perhaps even into early college. Once the philly is ready for mounting, however, the nerds, nice boys, geeks and such are left behind in favor of a stallion.
My thought was this hottie was simply in her last stage of getting ready for a real alpha. If she is 17-21, and a late bloomer to boot, that may be the case. If so, WoW-boy simply had a last chance at the gal before she found her stallion.
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This is plausible. With the advent of globalization and technology, the need for people savvy with computers only rises. The need for dumb muscle lowers. Any woman looking at a muscular guy knows he is probably not very educated, and therefore low class and low income. There are some computer geeks who are also ripped, but not many. I suspect that in the next few years, alphas will be geeks.
Nice to see you again, Jenny Hao.
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WoW isn’t an RTS, it’s an MMORPG. Even though both WoW and SC have fantasy elements, they have hugely different audiences – SC is a competitive game while WoW is more of a life simulator. I bet WoW has a lot more omegas playing it.
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Gorb–
To me a nerd is a geek who can’t get laid by anything cute, or probably anything non disgusting, due to his social awkwardness, lack of physical presence, and low status.
So no, though still a geek.
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guy, SC fan i presume. ok, correction warranted, MMORPG it is. im stuck in the RTS roots of Warcraft. obviously, i dont play anymore. but your clarification do support my thesis.
as you know, computer games are big in east asia, where i came from. there are computer gaming cafes in every busy corner of big cities catering to non-stop lan parties, competitions and whatnot. as supplier of games and rigs, i helped setup hundreds of these cafes and interacted with their client base for years. and from that vantage point, my observation was consistent: men, boys, teens, exhibiting alpha tendencies will almost never immerse themselves in computer games with lots and lots of fantasy elements in them.
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numerous theories abound.
1) she could be rebounding by going the exact opposite. lots of girls “go nerd” bc they got f-n-c’d by their lacrosse player ex.
2) she may be inner geek and bond with him better. true love.
3) he may be well endowed.. and popped a viagra then put her hand on her dick. yes, that works.
4) he could have a trust fund or other unique attribute.
5) she could be an “arrangement”
6) he could be taking breaks from WOW to be readng roissy.
the measure of a man is how well he hits out of his weight class.
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“Life simulator” type of games attract masses of young women. I know of guys who’ve been forced to sit on their computer and play Warcraft for their girlfriends who collect pixel clothes on their character.
These games have many types of players. There’s the ones that go for the competitive part and sure enough, to get anywhere you need to sacrifice massive points with women since you end up spending so much time that could be spent on working out, making money, socializing etc. Then there’s the people who play games as a pretty chat interface, just another type of social media. And then they put in slot machine type subgames just to hook all the addictive types, collectible stuff for OCD women and so on.
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WOW is also a roleplaying game. A lot of cute girls love roleplaying. It’s a way to do acting without actually having any talent. There’s quite a few girls who play wow.
And, of course, a lot of forty year old mothers who have nothing better to do with their time.
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@gengis
That is an interesting observation. I have never played fantasy games but like strategic historically based games like Paradox makes (EU3,Victoria 2). These games give you a nation to lead through history. I think the market for these games (which is quite small compared to WoW) is 99.5% male.
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I knew a guy like that. Nerdy looking. I think he had a ponytail. But instead of WoW he used to watch porn a lot and ignore his girlfriend who was model hot. She ended up marrying him. I guess she was jealous of the porn. Totally weird. I envy the guy, she was beautiful.
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@commenter99
yes. im familiar with paradox. i still have hearts of iron 2 doomsday installed on this laptop but i hardly play anymore. i heard hearts of iron 3 is out but i haven’t touched that one yet. their games is, i think, the closest you can get today to the old boys war room feel.
back in the day, there is this genre of games that appeals exclusively to the big boys. those war college type battlefield simulations where in you get to play general, napoleon or otherwise, in charge of battle tactics and diplomatic strategies. those games are gone now, relegated to obscurity. replaced by titles so heavily feminizing you’ll think you’re going to grow a pussy if you play them — guitar hero, dance dance revolution, any wii game for that matter.
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Men’s alphaness is for the most part tied up into looks as well, at least for a young man (relative to his peers). I have noticed some girls don’t talk to me for instance when I have an shitty haircut, or for example older chick make sideways glaces at me when I sport a goatee and stache but otherwise they ignore me.
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Shawn,
You’re right. They care about looks, but only stupid shit like haircuts and tattoos.
There will be no pretty women in 20 years.
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Awesome Post. I bet the nerdy guy owned himself.
I look pretty shabby when I leave the house with glasses(usually wear contacts) and an oversized t-shirt. Usually I dress nice but sometimes I get too lazy and just do it for shits and giggles. IT doesn’t hurt my game past the first impression. I may look like a nerd but I act alpha when I get warmed up and do some crazy dares(approach large mixed groups and such).
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You see this a lot in Asia….smoking hot chicks with Omegas and mouth-breathing nerds.
There is another potential explanation. Chicks that are hot, often have lower self-esteem after being hit on all the time so will go with a nerd because they can control him as opposed to an alpha who will do their own thing and demand that she make the effort or be gone.
A nerd like that would not be demanding, he would probably be doting and the fact he’s interested in computer games means he’s not out partying and chatting and flirting with other girls.
A few weeks ago in a restaurant here in Hong Kong, I saw a smoking hot girl sitting with a guy exactly like this.
The guy was picking up sushi off the plate and carefully putting it on her plate after dipping it carefully in soya sauce.
He went to get a glass of sake and then she poured some for herself from his full glass.
She was talking away to his parents…he sat silently staring as if lost in thought at his lobster tail.
No chance of this guy over-gaming her.
These women will say things like “My boyfriend takes care of me.”
The “you should take care of me” is a common theme in Hong Kong/China.
So it very possible that regardless of a girl’s looks, if the guy is controllable—and computer games are a kind of addiction—he won’t be out partying, so she can treat him like a beta orbiter who “takes care of her.”
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I should say…chicks often have low self-esteem after being hit on and dumped all the time….
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In Asia its a little different because the guys at the top of these gaming communities get big time contracts and are celebrities. They were jerseys emblazoned with logos, make big money, and even have groupies. True to form, people at the pinnacle of almost any male hierarchy will get some pussy. But while a high percentage of athletes can get pussy, a tiny percentage of gaming nerds can. There are a lot of loners for every lucky one.
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Either it’s an act or she lost a bet. There’s no way someone like him could be Alpha enough to pick up a hot lass.
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@Walawala,
Yeah, I saw that a lot in the mainland and in Korea. I’m sure these chicks played around – but the schmuck got to pay for her and “officially” nail her.
A least he gets to nail her… most of the time.
Of course, if your game is tight, you can nail these guys’ girls, too.
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Geez they guy probably isn’t a needy dependent “nice guy” or a cringe fest and tfurthermore is even willing to be in a committed relationship.
The guy who emailed obviously is.
And just because he plays WOW he’s in the same class as guys who have pillows with anima chicks for girlfreinds
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Oh-o yes sir there are groupies for WoW, as well. My man and I were sitting on the bus after a friend’s house-warming party and heard a girl talking on the phone about being on her way to a “live raid” by Paragon (one of the best WoW guilds in the world; a live raid is sort of a LAN party where other people, usually fans, gather to watch the pros do their thing). Us being rather tipsy and occasional WoW players ourselves, we started chatting her up about it. Turns out she is exactly your regular WoW girl groupie: she’s average in looks but goes to great lengths not to appear so; a tad chubby, she dresses all in black with a huge load of make-up and piercings to match, her hair dyed a bright color. Excessive show of cleavage and exaggerated faux feminine behaviour, giggles and all, are the icing on the cake. She professes to play only healer characters (considered feminine by some). She’s also paying a pretty sum of money to go see the players, whom she goes all dewy-eyed when talking about.
I have an innate repulsion towards these kinda girls for some reason. Thank god there are other kinds of girls playing WoW, as well. You players of another kind of Game might be surprised by how many hot girls have sucha dirty little secret. 😛
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This is funny. My roommate sounds exactly like this guy; no girlfriend, but girls are usually interested in him upon meeting him. Its a possibility that your theory is correct, but there are other possibilities worth exploring here. I’ve known my roommate since we were in elementary school (small town) and I know for a fact that he is a blubbering, mewling loser. He has no social skills, no confidence, and no interests or talents to note as he just plays video games all day; that said, most girls find him cute (he’s not in shape by any means but he isn’t fat and has a good face). The difference between an aloof alpha male grunting and a man with virtually no idea of how to carry a conversation can be difficult to discern by someone who doesn’t know any better. The difference of course lies in intention, because the self control and attitude these actions represent has to actually be there; if you are accidentally alpha once, it does not make you alpha. The girl sees him disregard her somewhat, and assumes its because he has better things to think about, when in actuality he doesn’t know how to talk and is going to throw a fit of insecurity as soon as she is gone. These girls virtually always lose interest after a few weeks. The writer did not mention how long these two had been together.
Long story short, the girlfriend in that letter could have (relatively easily, believe it or not) totally misjudged this guys character. He could have bumbled his way through aloof asshole game, and she’s buying it, at least until his first misstep which will be equally as unintentional as everything he’s done right.
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nerd confidence can go a long way:
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Here’s another real-life example of an ‘alpha nerd’ (almost an oxymoron right?), meet ‘Idra’ a top pro Starcraft 2 gamer… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPskOimdW4c
Go to 3:15 and see who pops out. She seems happier to be with him than he is with her, I don’t think anyone here would rate her less than a 6 or 7 either.
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She’s shockingly hot for a WoW groupie.
Further to my theory that Canadian chicks seem to be hotter (on average) than American ones.
As my buddy said when we drove through Vancouver: “Look. No fat chicks.” (but there was a fuck of a lot of granola).
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@Jenny H
“Young and naive girls often get street cred at school for dating older men.”
Interesting insight into female motivations.
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@Ivor – she’s a 7.5
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“looks, looks, looks”
Not quite. A bad voice ruins everything. The right voice with an outgoing personality, confidence, etc. goes along way for a woman too.
Pay attention. When I was younger I thought those girls I was most strongly attracted were objectively the most physically attractive. They weren’t.
For some reason harsh, tinny, disdainful voices give me a hard on.
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In S. Korea, the top StarCraft players are big celebrities and have groupies who sex them. Hard to imagine but it’s true. StarCraft is the big thing over there.
But for every top gun, plenty of sexless wannabes.
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Well…as far as I’m concerned, the “nerdy” online communities of which he is a part are still real human social groups. There’s no reason that participation in those human social groups couldn’t produce a male with alpha qualities.
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That “simple pickup” youtube channel is fucking hilarious
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“While the number of groupies vary by endeavor, in anything where a male can earn the respect of other males, and gain dominance, there will be groupies. ” These words snipped from an above commenter are correct. And it’s amazing how many people who read this blog are thoroughly familiar with WoW and SC 🙂
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[…] Heartiste – “The Most Unattractive Trait on Women“, “Nerd Natural” […]
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These pick up “geeks” are great.
I love when geeks win.
Roissy should comment on these videos.
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Since the data here is not complete, one can only speculate, though some good points have been made. One thing I have seen is that “hot” females often have sub-Beta boyfriends whom they use for safety. They know this guy will always be there, no matter how much they get it on with other guys.
For example, you might see a female show up at a party with her putative boyfriend. She then proceeds to be the party girl, talking and drinking with every other guy, while boyfriend sits back looking clueless. Maybe he is confident enough to know she will come back to him at the end of the night. Maybe he thinks that if he put his foot down she will walk out on him. He knows he will never get an opportunity to have a girlfriend like her.
If they shifted their focus away from the pedestal they built for her they would realize why she operates differently from other “hot girls.”
Indeed. She may be atypical of her female peers. She may actually like a guy for his intelligence. She may be into the gaming or computer worlds. And maybe the guy is super in the boudoir and she gets off on the multiple orgasms he generates?
But there may be other factors. What if she has a kid and sees him as a Beta male provider? Or what if he holds her hand in (say) herpes survivors recovery groups?
Anyway, more data is needed…
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Look at all these theories. Geez. God forbid anyone on this blog ever allow any hope that maybe, just maybe, people who play WoW or are short or skinny or who classify as “nerds” are not really that hopelessly unnattractive to women and can still hope to find a reasonably attractive partner. Oh no….God Fucking forbid anyone get that idea!
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Even Athol Kay is a WoW player. Of course, he lucked out finding his willing sex kitten for marriage early on and has had the married game to keep her as such.
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pua vids are getting more ludicrous – like Hollywood comicbook movies, wirefighting and cgi
gee I wonder if it’s bc there’s money involved.
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@Firepower
sex to money
desperate buyers
money to sex
will try anything
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Look at all these theories. Geez. God forbid anyone on this blog ever allow any hope that maybe, just maybe, people who play WoW or are short or skinny or who classify as “nerds” are not really that hopelessly unnattractive to women and can still hope to find a reasonably attractive partner.
It is much too fun to speculate!
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This kind of exceptions scare me because feminists and other beta suckups may jump on it and try to discredit game. They would go like “see what we were telling, women are not that complicated, just say “hi” and be yourself”. This retarded views of the dating scene make me cringe, especially when i remember my miserable AFC attempts to play out of my league.
Be alpha or wait for a miracle (and if a miracle happens, cuckolding will happen too).
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