I think no and no. I can really like a guy's looks a lot, but if he opens his mouth and shit comes out, I'm not going to be attracted to him.  Actually a good-looking douchebag is one of the most unappealing kinds of douchebags because those are the cocky jerks who think they can say anything because they're God's gift to women. Yuck! Likewise, if a guy's a total sweetheart, but he just doesn't do it for me physically, he's never going to be anything more to me than a really nice guy.  Those are pretty much the situations you just described so I'd guess I'd nix both. Up to you whether you think that makes me very shallow or very un-shallow.

I'm a guy, and that's exactly what I woulda figured.

Im a girl, and im down with what LS said too.

I don't think so. Actually i KNOW I wouldnt respond. besides, I don't have a 'type'

What constitutes the 'perfect type'. Do you mean physically? intellectually? emotionally?

I think it's hard to tell if someone is your 'type' based on an online dating profile. Almost impossible actually.

Likewise, the intro in question could have been written in irony, which I think would actually be funny and might even get me to respond, if it didn't strike me as creepy, which would depend on lots of things, one of which would be the dude's photo.

I don't see a reason why I would BS on a comments section of a blog. I really wouldnt respond to that email, it would creep me out. now if YOU had said it... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

i agree with tuff luv, and vix-en re: if you had responded...ditto

I definitely don't have a physical ideal. Honestly.

i agree that looks are important. i've been doing this online dating thing for altogether too long. i've received a number of beautifully written emails from men that simply do not physically appeal to m.e at all. and you're right - those guys don't get a response. i've tried it a few times, we've met up, and in the end, i couldn't make myself find them appealing as a result of loving the way they think or write or express themselves. so now i don't reply. saves both of us time and energy.

i've also received less than wildly compelling emails from very attractive men and those men did get a response. if the guy is exactly my physical type i might meet up with him even if his email was uninspired or uninspiring, based on his looks, just to see what happens.

here's the problem with the example you presented. that email isn't just boring or trite or unoriginal or uninspired. it's offensive. shitter? melons? funbags? come on. that email is a bona-fide turn off. no man who sent it to me would get a response no matter what he looked like. yes, looks are important. but they aren't the ONLY criteria for online dating success.

you should test your theory. post a fake profile and send that email and see if anyone responds positively.

posted this question at work, and 9 out of 10 therapist agree... If the guy was gorgeous it's likely that a VERY large percentage of women would at least respond to the email to find out if the guy is just being Ironic.

Looks go a long way. Period. Anyone who says otherwise, is likely not being totally honest.

If johnny depp emails me and calls my 'fesses' a shitter, I would think he was mocking me in some way. you stumped me on how to find three photos though... too bad, it would have been fun to see if there really are that many crazy ladies out there.

Being really hot is a one trick pony.  Had I received the message in the original post I doubt I would have even clicked through to see the profile.  Even if the small version of the picture caught my eye, I would be too bored to even be curious.  

I'm not saying looks don't matter.  Chemistry has to be there, but my attraction threshold is based on a different set of rules than I think men have for women.  Not better or worse, just different.  It works both ways.  I can get away with being a raging bitch at work because my 65 year old boss appreciates being flirted with by a pretty 25 year old girl.  Objectification has its place for everyone.  

If I want to objectify a man I can rent a movie and stare at Clive Owen for an hour and a half and be way more amused than I would be on a date listening to some idiot talk about law school and his triathalon training.

but it would offend me. even if it was intended to be ironic, it failed. there's no implied contradiction between the ostensible and true meaning of the message. it's not one of those borderline messages that might be from a total tool or might be from a clever guy mocking the sort of message a total tool would send. it's just gross.

did a similarly unscientific poll as friedlyss. sent the message to 8 girlfriends with the note: "just got this from some guy on Hooksexup. his pictures are GORGEOUS. should i respond?" everyone of them responded with some variation of "dude. wtf are you smoking? of COURSE not." the only exception was the girl who recommend i respond to call him on his unmitigated douchebaggery.

don't know where your "most women" sentiments are coming from. but no woman i know would give this guy a chance. i also don't think you're hearing the pretty consistent message from women commenting. which sounds to me like "sure, looks matter a lot, but not enough to compensate for a message this awful."

Irony does not translate well to e-mail in general and less so when you're talking about a first e-mail.  I agree with Adrift and AHG here that while looks will get you to a certain point and would overcome a boring or trite e-mail, I doubt they would overcome an offensive e-mail.  Assuming that the writer was being ironic, it would show that he lacks judgment about when and how to use irony and humor.  Either way, someone who would send a first e-mail like that is an asshole, and I believe any woman here who says she wouldn't respond -- I'm sure they've been out with assholes before and have no desire to repeat the experience, regardless of his looks.

i'm 35. women in my informal poll range from 26 to 40 with most around 30.

so maybe we're too old for the representative sample you're targeting. possible the 19-25 crowd would respond differently.

i guess if his profile was brilliant and hilarious and self aware, that could raise the "is he kidding?" question in my mind. problem is, i'd likely never see his profile if i saw that message. maybe if i did see it, i might write back to say "based on your profile, i can only assume your account has been hacked and someone else sent me this message without your knowledge and consent. probably time to change your password."

and i would mean it.

Sooo.....are you asking or asserting?  Seems like more the latter to me, and that you're very resistant to the "Hell NO!" feedback that you're generally getting.

I made the mistake of putting my profile up (on a different site) one Saturday night and got responses that were not *quite* that extreme, but pretty close...and even though some were from extremely hot-looking guys based on their picture. the definite reaction was to laugh, delete, and move on.  

I think it's a little like getting the whistle/catcall from the super-hot construction worker (to use a cliche).  It can be kind of flattering, but in most cases you're not really going to respond - and he doesn't really expect you to, either.  

Zeit, I just don't get why you're flogging this donkey.

Have you ever actually tried this approach? If you did, what happened? I'm guessing you didn't but if you did, bet she didn't reply.

Sounds more like idle pillow talk with your girlfriend - who told you that she'd have told you to fuck right off - she replied at all. Can't believe you couldn't talk to her from the get go as you do now?

Holden Caulfield made the same argument, with his story that girls find unattractive insecure guys to be braggarts while finding attractive braggarts to be insecure.  Still, your "note" is too ridiculous.

Zeit, if you're so convinced that you know the answer to your own question despite the contradictions of many ACTUAL women, then why ask it at all? According to you, we all must either be lying or in denial, which says as much about what you think of "most women" as anything you've posted here. As for the "maybe he's being ironic" thing, irony of that sort can be funny if you've already established some kind of rapport with someone.  Any guy who thinks that that's an appropriate way to introduce yourself to a stranger is a moron. As previously mentioned, morons are disqualified, including morons with senses of irony.

Also, how is wanting a potential partner to both turn me on physically, and be intellectually engaging and respectful "wanting it all"?  I'd say that those things are actually just baseline requirements. It's not super-easy to find people who fit them, or otherwise there'd be no such thing as romantic and sexual frustration, but it's not THAT hard.  I think most people have those basic criteria, unless they're really insecure or desperate.

Wouldn't guys do the same thing with a hot girl and an equally inane message? I'd think it speaks to general human behavior rather than specifically women. Or perhaps your point was that women would SAY they wouldn't...

No I don't receive an email like that everyday, but I do receive similar ones about once a week.  So yes, I would be bored and no, I would not be intrigued enough to respond.

Just the other day I received the following:

"your very pretty but something is missing!!!!!!!! My ring on your finger!!!!!!"

Let's see this one came the week before:

"so im guessin' a spanking outta the question then eh miss?.... "

A few months ago in PERSON I had someone scream at me, "I WANT TO COME ALL OVER YOUR FACE.  I KNOW YOU AIN'T NEVER BEEN WITH NO BLACK MAN BEFORE"

Just last night someone threw a beer can at me from a moving vehicle and screamed "I like your shape!"

I'm a little standoffish and rarely get hit on and if that has been my experience with men approaching me then it must be ten times worse for other women.  

I don't care how hot someone is.  Is the email supposed to shock me?  Am I supposed to be flattered that a man wants to fuck me?  From what I've seen men can be pretty indiscriminate.  I just don't think that kind of proposition from Brad Pitt himself would be found particularly clever or interesting by anyone.

No matter what you think women are doing in secret, I maintain that most of them just click delete and never think of it again.

hey leslie? the "missing my ring on your finger" msg? i got that one. twice. a friend of mine who is also on Hooksexup got it the same day i did. i swear, that guy has some kind of mass mailer set up that sends out identical messages to every active profile on a weekly basis.

so yeah. click delete, never think of it again. you said it.

Zeit,

The fact you post this and then tell all the women that you know them better than they know themselves is TOTALLY characteristic of you.

But heck, I'm pretty sure I care more about looks than the average gal, and no I wouldn't respond to this message no matter who sent it.  

First off, I think your insistance that women would respond to this if it was written by Johnny Depp is primarily related to your own insecurities about your looks.

Or maybe you're projecting?  Because maybe looks matter a disproportionate amount to you?  Or maybe both?

But also, I think you, as a man, probably don't have a good feel for how often women DO receive comments like this.  Yeah, some hot guys might be willing to fuck me, but if they're not going to respect me on some basic level, what's the point?  Guys just don't know what it's like to be subjected to the prevalence of degrading comments and attitudes of privilige over your time, body, etc. that nearly every woman has been dealing with since she was 13...

I know what she means, I think she was just writing quickly. Here's my equally quick edit: "Guys just don't know what it's like to be constantly subjected to men's degrading comments and sense of entitlement to your time and body."

It's a valid point either way.  You, or another guy, might respond to an equivalent message sent to you by an attractive woman (although plenty of guys probably wouldn't too.). But it's not really an equivalent situation because of the difference of male and female experience.  Any time a woman walks into a bar, or just out of her house, it's likely that she's going to be dealing with a lot of unwanted attention to her "funbags" etc.  So while the experience of having someone very crudely express their admiration for one's physical attributes might seem kind of novel for a lot of guys, to most women it's just annoying, eye roll-inducing business as usual.  Also, if a woman sent such a message, it would be unusual enough that she would almost certainly be being ironic.  If a guy sent it, he'd almost certainly be just another meathead.  

Oh, Zeitgeisty, you sound so misguided, and I agree with Toluca that it sounds like this is reflecting your own insecurity about your looks.

You wrote "what if this guy was your exact type, and really hot, then you'd respond".

Well - my exact type is someone who wouldn't think of introducing themselves in that way. So, I wouldn't respond.

Of course looks matter. But, they don't matter that much. I would even argue that, if we want to generalize and talk about 'most women', looks matter a bit less to women than to men (witness "trophy wives" vs "sugar daddies").

You sound like kind of a jerk, actually. When people have responded with comments you don't agree with, you attack them rather than their argument ("how old are you and your friends"... "basically you want it all"... "your sentence is completely incoherent"...). This behaviour makes you sound like a petulant teenager who didn't get their way. But maybe that's just the impression I get...

Women may stare at a bulging crotch (actually, I tend to stare at other things--you just can't tell much about a crotch when it's flaccid and covered in pants) like men stare at a pair of tits, but women generally don't go up to men with said bulging crotches and say "Damn, you've got one hell of a package there! What's your number, sweetie?" and then not leave them alone until they give them clear "fuck-off" signs (or the bartender gives even more clear "fuck-off" signs.) That's the difference.  If I go into a bar alone to hear one of my friends play,  there will be about 10 guys over the course of the night who will think I actually came there for the express purpose of being clumsily, drunkenly hit on by them. That's just a fact. It is more permissable in this society for men to be crudely, sexually aggressive than it is for women to be so. Therefore, women are going to have much more experience dealing with crude sexual aggression than men.

Love ya, LS

Zeit, now you're just being willfully difficult. You're a writer. I'm sure you can grasp the concept of exaggeration to make a point. I don't keep tally of the random mooks who bother me in bars. My point was that unwanted, sexually aggressive attention from strangers is something that women have generally had a lot more experience with than men. And you know perfectly well that that's what I meant.

To respond to an earlier statement, nobody here is claiming that they're "irresistible." I think pretty much any woman who doesn't have a beard could relate to the experiences we're relating here. And nobody is saying that they don't appreciate male attention.  We're just saying that male attention, for various already-mentioned reasons, is in large enough supply that most women prefer to accept it from men who can offer it with a trace of class.  That's pretty much all any of the numerous women who have responded to this post have been saying.

zeitgeisty,

Maybe not just at a bar, but if I walked through the city for an hour each day I could easily receive 10 harassing comments.  Everytime I go to a bar I get hit on at least once, usually a few times.  I've had enough conversations about this with my male peers, that I'm fairly sure it's not close to the same level for them.

"Still, this is getting away from what my original post was... which by the way I was EXAGGERATING to make a point!"

Yeah, it takes great talent to blame your readers' skepticism/lack of agreeing with your point on themselves, rather than on your writing.  You are lucky you are being paid by Hooksexup, rather than by how many copies you sell...

Agree with Z up to a point that people project whatever they want to see on a potential mate/date based on looks.  I believe though that it applies pretty equally to both men and women.  Had Ted Bundy been scary to look at, and not a reasonably attractive young man with a law degree and some clean cut charm, there would be roughly 50 more women alive today.  I am NOT exaggerating to make a point.  

That's offline though where people tend to be more impulsive about attraction.  Any man, no matter what he looks like, is going to encounter much more resistance to his "wiles and charms" with a message like that.  He may get the odd one or two who overthinks it and says to herself, "He can't really be such a dick, can he?  He's probably just weeding out the oversensitive.  He's got to be kidding!"  Chances are she would be wrong.  

So let's tone down Z's own hyperbole a bit, and suggest this (in fact, this point has been brought up already in passing):

You get two messages in your inbox one day. Both of them are roughly equivalent in tone and character: dry and uninteresting. Y'know, the equivalent of "Hey, what's up? You seem cool. Let's go out sometime."

The difference is that one comes from a guy who's not so good looking, and the other comes from a guy you'd approximately call "God's gift to women."

Now, the fact of the matter is that <i>some</i> women will ignore both messages. However, you can't deny that, in my estimation, <i>most</i> women will at least <i>consider</i> the good-looking guy's message longer than the other guy, and <i>some</i> would even agree to go out with the good-looking guy, even though his message wasn't terribly interesting. But <i>none</i> of them would consider the guy who was both dry <i>and</i> unremarkable-looking.

The fact is, to make it in online dating, you have to be exceptional in <i>some</i> way, whether it be looks, intelligence, comic potential, etc. If you're lucky, you can find somebody who's, say, above average in all categories, and if you find one of those, you rejoice. But in the cases where the guy is good looking and subpar in all the others, he's still going to get more dates than the average- or below-average-looking guy who's very smart and funny. That's just the way it is.