Sjuka, ouppnåeliga mansnormer

When Men Behave Badly
David M. Buss

Differences in desirability create havoc in at least two fundamental ways. The first centers around misperceptions. A man who is a 6 but thinks he?s an 8 will be utterly irritated when the woman who?s an 8 whom he?s trying to chat up rejects his advances. Although women and men both can err in their self-perceived mate value, research shows that men are more likely than women to be overconfident in a variety of domains. Men experience higher self-esteem than women?a sex difference that emerges at puberty. Men have higher estimates than do women of their own physical attractiveness, for example, a sex difference robustly documented in studies conducted since the 1980s.8 Consequently, men are more likely than women to err in overestimating their desirability on the mating market.
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Now we add a problematic element to the mix?women (and men) try to secure long-term mates at the upper end of their mate-value range, the most desirable that they can aspire to successfully attract. One study of online dating found that both sexes pursue partners who are an astonishing 25 percent more desirable than they are.10 Hope apparently springs eternal. A woman in this situation, receiving attention from the higher-mate-value man, typically believes that he is within her mate-value range as a long-term partner, although unknown to her he simply might be seeking casual sex.

8 B. Gentile et al., Gender differences in domain-specific self-esteem: A meta-analysis, Review of General Psychology 13, no. 1 (2009): 34?45.

10 E. E. Bruch and M. E. J. Newman, Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets, Science Advances 4, no. 8 (2018): eaap9815.