What determines female romantic "market value"?

For me, I have observed that romantic attraction to someone takes three ingredients^[1]:

1. That I admire her.
2. That my brain finds it likely that we'll do things that make each other happy.
3. That I spend time in her presence or thinking about her.

The qualities I find admirable, I generally list as: intelligence, beauty, kindness, competence, ethicality, etc.  (Mostly the same as the list of qualities I find admirable in a human.)  Possibly there are more that I didn't think of, or haven't seen vary independently from the above.

There is room for some of these traits to compensate for others: e.g. I've met several girls whose physical attractiveness is "meh", but, after I gained a better appreciation for their intelligence and other qualities, I developed romantic feelings for them.  However, some traits can be dealbreakers: e.g. a few times I liked someone who was really smart and pretty, but then I saw evidence that they were mean (that they deliberately did something to hurt someone else, or treated someone callously and disrespectfully), and my feelings evaporated (that doesn't mean I formed a final judgment of them, and in one case I changed my mind later; but "holding judgment in abeyance due to serious concerns" does dissipate feelings).  Some traits might be "able to be compensated for, if within some range, but if extreme enough could be dealbreakers"; actually that might be the case for most traits.

"That she likes/appreciates me" is a thing possibly deserving special attention.  It feeds into #2, of course, and possibly into #1—it's extremely self-serving, but I do think I'm admirable by my own standards, and that it reflects well on someone if they manage to notice the right things and value them.^[2]  However, I've certainly formed lots of crushes where I had little data on whether they liked me back.  Which, I suppose, is stronger evidence about the underlying qualities (as I perceived them) of the last group; one could imagine girls who are at the borderline, such that if they like me then I like them, but if they don't then I don't.

One could imagine being tempted to be strategic: hiding whether you like me, so you can find out whether you're in the borderline group.  (I've heard of fictional characters doing this, and real people doing at least somewhat similar things.)  I'll mention reasons not to do this: (a) in context, depending on what "hiding" consists of, it might be weird or register as an inconsistency; (b) given that at least one of us has scored 30+ on the Autism Spectrum Quotient, it seems likely that what you believe I've seen about you and the signals you're sending doesn't match what I've received; (c) for a long-term committed relationship, both of us want much better than borderline, so we should be able to cooperate on finding that out anyway; (d) I value honesty and straightforwardness, and good decisionmaking—and if you truly saw a likelihood of a great long-term relationship with me, but decided to risk it on signaling games that could run afoul of (a) and (b), that strikes me as a bad decision.

You ask specifically about age.  I do intend to have kids, which makes the age of my wife-to-be relevant—though if she's fine with IVF and stuff (which has other advantages), that makes age less relevant.  I have found women in their forties and fifties sexually attractive (speaking as a 30-year-old), and had romantic feelings for one of the latter—she's extremely smart, reasonably pretty, very competent, very kind, has similar opinions about raising kids, etc.  Not all guys like older women, but the popularity of MILF porn indicates that plenty do (there is even a GILF category).

1. ^{^}

   I think the underlying causality is like this:

   - If I admire her, then my brain generally endorses the idea of spending time with her, growing to trust her, building a relationship.
   - If the first two conditions apply, then, when I imagine interacting with her, I will generally find it enjoyable, and want to do more of it.  This can become a self-reinforcing loop.  Romantic fantasy can be a lovely pastime.
   - The third condition lets the loop begin.

2. ^{^}

   For the record, I have sometimes observed someone form a positive opinion of me based on something shallow or incorrect, and my reaction has been bemused / raising an eyebrow / somewhat lowering my opinion of them.

To be very blunt about this:

Among other things, I'm interested to understand how age factors into the equation (I'm middle-aged).

It is unfortunately the case that male-to-female attraction usually drops strongly with age. This factor is perhaps even more strong than body weight. And unlike weight, it can't really be influenced by you.

But I think there is an important thing you can do: Signalling much more strongly when you are interested in someone. "Do you want to grab a coffee later?" Trying to be active, not passive, even if this goes against the normal female instinct. Of course this is easier said than done. But just "dropping hints" is unfortunately no longer sufficient at a certain age. This is especially true for the ... "nerd cluster" you are interested in: Since those men are often on the autism spectrum to some degree, they may rarely notice those hints. But they may well be interested in you once they fully realize you are interested in them. Older age just prevents them from automatically (subconsciously) noticing you as a potential mate. Moreover, them being often socially awkward will prevent them from being sufficiently active (due to shyness), so they may well be very glad to be "asked out" by you, even if this is a reversal of the normal male/female roles.

(I just realize I could also have written "we" instead of "they".)

• Being in reasonably good shape
• Long hair
• Hygiene
• Being a good conversationalist, having a sense of humor
• Treating other people well
• Being able to take care of yourself
• Honesty, integrity, straightforwaredness
• Empathy
• Being good at something I can appreciate (food, writing, science, dancing)
• Good judgment, a track record of making prudent decisions
• Inviting me to take risks together in a manner meant to reinforce the strength of our bond (a barefoot hike, going to a threesome, doing mushrooms together, going on a spontaneous and minimally planned road trip)
• Giving a well-chosen complement here and there, seeing if there's an opportunity to avoid criticism in favor of recognizing a difficult situatio
• Stylishness
• Having good friends, inviting me to fun experiences

As far as age goes, I've never dated someone more than my own age +/- 3 years, althouogh I've occasionally been faintly attracted to significantly older women and often been attracted to significantly younger women.

I've schooled myself to stop evaluating women in terms of "attractiveness," and to start instead evaluating them in terms of being in my league. I start by assuming that the dating market is pretty efficient, then modify that by assuming that women who present as attractive immediately on meeting them tend to be less available and women who take a while to show their attractive qualities are underappreciated. I'm pretty average, and my experience is that dating more attractive women has meant I have to make a lot of tradeoffs in the ethics/brains/stability department, while dating less attractive women means that the opposite holds true. I interpret this as Simpson's Paradox in action.

Because of that, if you are having trouble finding a high-quality stable relationship, I would suggest you consider aiming for somewhat less attractive men with better personalities, while also working to improve whatever aspects of your superficial presentation are under your control. You might try aiming for men who are older than you. I realize this is a little more information than you're asking for, but I actually do think that there's a difference between "noticing that someone has a hot body" and "appreciating that they are attractive." The former feels like kind of a raw perceptive fact, the latter is something that depends on my own behavior. To make men find you attractive, you need to elicit the act of appreciating your attractiveness from them, not just "be attractive." And eliciting the that action from them starts by selecting appropriate targets - the kind of men who will be predisposed to find you attractive often because you're younger and perhaps somewhat more accomplished than them, at least on certain dimensions.

[Epistemic status: not really an expert, but I can tell you what I think I know. Also, as a heterosexual male human person with some skill at introspection, I'm sure I have some insights about how men think, but I may have trouble separating that from my own idiosyncrasies.]

Evolutionary psychology tells us that human instincts are optimized for the Stone Age. The period of written history is too short to have contributed much (although there have been some small effects noted in other areas) and the modern era (however you define that) is even shorter.

Those with the appropriate drives who more successfully survived and reproduced contributed to our shared genetic heritage, while those who failed to do that were not your ancestors. Keep that in mind, and the rest will make more sense.

Humans are adaptation executors [? · GW], not fitness maximizers; the instincts only had to make sense in the Stone Age and may have lost their purpose now.

Beyond instincts, culture and shared experience have a powerful influence on human minds, and this can bend some of the rules. (And, of course, individual human beings can vary a lot.) Culture evolves significantly faster than human genes but still has some inertia. Sexual mores many still cling to evolved in a time before paternity tests, when syphilis ran rampant in the cities, and contraception was unreliable. Under those circumstances, virginity and fidelity were highly valued, and this was perfectly sensible. Even absent social pressures, ignoring the traditional advice may well ruin one's life.

There are important differences in reproductive strategy, between men and women. Men need only pass on a little sperm for their genes to make it to the next generation. Their chances improve if they can contribute resources to their children, but there was a very real risk of supporting the wrong kid in the age before paternity tests. Men instinctively value fidelity and get insanely jealous when they don't have it, and (of course) are very much motivated to cheat. (A woman, on the other hand, knows if the kid is hers, and doesn't instinctively care as much about where the resources come from.) Having kids in tow already lowers a woman's value for similar reasons, because they'll take resources, and they're not his, although a his/hers/ours arrangement can still work if he's got some already. Not totally a dealbreaker for everyone. Sex is not simply for fertilization in humans. It also tends to keep the man around for long enough to help raise the kids.

Women are mainly attracted to (the appearance of) social status, as this translates to resources. Men are mainly attracted to (the appearance of) fertility. A slender waist means she's not already pregnant. Clear skin and long, shiny hair are signs of health. A healthy amount of body fat is not unattractive. Scars aren't genetic, so they're usually not a turn-off, even if it's on your face (provided the other signs are still recognizable), although pock marks are a sign of disease, and therefore a different story. Age can be a dealbreaker, because women have a fertility expiration date (menopause). There are probably many other subtle signs. Older men, on the other hand, remain fertile and may have more resources/status. So older women are competing with younger women even for the older men.

So yes, looks matter. A lot. And men probably care about it more than women do, because their instinct is to look for (the appearance of) fertility. But looks are not the whole story. Once you've met the man's threshold--you look to be fertile, in reasonably good health and appear to have reasonably good genes (usually, if the man estimates you're at least as pretty as he is), then the man is at least a little bit interested, on an instinctive level. Looks beyond that level are bonus points, sure, but other traits start to matter more. You may have competition, ultimately decided on other factors, but you have a chance. If you don't meet the threshold, then sorry, no matter how nice your personality, you'll probably never be more than friends.

There are details and subtleties, and probably signs of fertility that aren't purely visual. You can't look too much like his sister, for example. Visual signs are easier to judge in person than from a photograph; it's totally possible that a man who would skip your profile photo would be attracted to you in person, and vice versa. There's some evidence that natural body odors can convey information about immune system genes.

Either "opposites attract" or "birds of a feather" are too simplistic. Men tend to be attracted to women who share their strengths and may be more forgiving of weaknesses they don't share. They don't want more of their own problems. Again, this makes sense when you consider genes.

I feel like that's just basic background and this comment is already getting long. If you have more specific questions, I might have more to say.

You mentioned a "market value", implying a marketplace. Supply and demand matter, and different markets have different characteristics. You may be more competitive if you find the right one. E.g. women tend to be more submissive, sexually, so a more dominant woman is more valued by submissive men, because they're even more of rarity than submissive men are. (Not my kink.) Find your niche.

If you've met his threshold, a man will be much more interested in you if he thinks you're interested in him. The move obvious you can make it, the better. You can probably exaggerate this to an obsessive/unhealthy degree and he'll be that much more into you, at least at the level of instinct. (If you haven't met his threshold, he'll find this pretty annoying, and/or scary.) Remember, fidelity matters a lot to male instinct, so this would need to be exclusive interest. If you're like that with everyone, it would leave a very different impression.

It's very complicated (really!) and you're not going to get good answers here because there are few LessWrong users for whom this is a pressing concern. Finding which women and scenarios men find most sexually attractive or arousing is easy. Getting a good model of why men-who-have-lots-of-options choose to date or marry particular women is difficult. I don't think I've seen any convincing unifying explanation for all of the interesting features (e.g. men's tendency to do assortative mating by class & intellectual ability, even if they're exposed to attractive women outside their class regularly).

I think red lines are more important for males. They are less picky than females. 

Most males are wired to procreate with in proximity, so any female with proximity is most likely to end up having sex with males. 

When you introduce more females males have the ability to pick, but then you have more males and males have a hierarchy too. 

But male hierarchy is governed by females too in terms of picking partners. 

Redlines are things that disqualify a lady from the pick, but other way around most women for this reason seem to be more normative than males. 

That is also why most females even less attractive has lot less work to do to eventually have sex and become fertile. 

I think fat is important factor. 

I believe there are some unconscious phenotypical archetypes males and females have eched into their brains prior to being born. 

So for example slender slim males and slender slim females have a typical advantage, but more robust males with more fat, much like females have certain types that pick each other. 

This is probably decided prior to being born, much like most things. 

Survival strategies mean you need to either care for the few children and be high status or have many kids and hope some of them make it. 

Conversely high status males can feed more females and children. 

High testosterone means more aggression, but necessarily higher status as intellect had to be selected for even in stone age. Its also obvious that intellect had to be selected for even in females. 

Females however lack competitive behaviors and tend towards more subversive tactics. 

For female to score here main approach is looking for best fit, which means she just needs to be noticed in group males by the greatest amount of males, where males need to notice attractiveness. It is important that attractiveness is something primed in humans, but developed over time. Attractiveness is therefore not a stable factor. 

Another variable is compatibility in world view etc. which also correlates with status. 

Status is archetypal thing. Females are relatively selection free they can go up and down the hierarchy, but males have more rigid hierarchy. This probably obvious from military perspective where males shifting hierarchy constantly would cause in fighting and defeating incoherent groups is easier so males have strict hierarchy where archetypal approach to women is more obvious. 

Younger males or males that have less sex will probably be less picky. 

More sex active males will be more picky and likely also more averse to picking someone less attractive to them and with ideas of procreation where the male intends to stay they will probably have a very specific idea of what they are looking for, whereas females are looking for a variety of males that gives females more flexibility as they are in high pressure, because once they mate they have to stick to child rearing, this means females have to be a lot more flexible in male selection, plus a lot of males are assholes and those don't have a chance if females lacked flexibility. 

Females have natural blind spots for psycho guys and abusive types mainly as this is the only way our species can be perpetuated.