Dr. Helen reports that men in hot cars find it easier to pick up hot women. It's hard to dispute the cited study, but it got me to thinking about whether in my innocent youth I'd graded men "up" on the basis of their cars. Back in the Pleistocene, before the advent of the NPH, I was attracted to other men from time to time. I can't remember any of their cars. I don't think most of them even had cars. I might have been impressed by their cool bicycles, though I don't quite remember. Their rock-star hair, certainly. Their preference for natural fibers over polyester. IQ and independence of mind, absolutely--opinions that wouldn't induce eye-rolling--as well as a willingness and ability to support themselves. A sort of non-frat-boy quality that's hard to define and may have had little value in screening out the real wankers. But not their wheels.
Isn't it possible that the guys most interested in cars were most interested in trying to win the attention of the kind of chicks who were most interested in guys' cars?
H/t Maggie's Farm.
11 comments:
Speaking for myself only, I always liked muscle in an engine. It never occurred to me that it might help me with girls, though. I wanted it for the speed, the roar, the feeling of taking out a curve on a mountain road.
When I thought of girls, I guess I assumed they'd be frightened by it. If they weren't, they should have been! My father used to tell me when I was a boy that it was a plain miracle he'd gotten old enough to be a father at all, and I used to wonder what he meant (given how responsible and solid the old man was then). Now, looking back on my own young manhood, I understand exactly what he was saying to me.
I gathered from the description that the same guys were driving the different kinds of cars, so it wouldn't have been that kind of selection bias. Maybe they were more confident getting out of a $$$ car, but I'd think that a smaller effect.
Well, I guess I never thought about it, but that's because I had the cars that everyone else wanted to ride in - guys and girls. I've told y'all that my Mom drove a Cadillace. What I've not talked quite so frequently is the Camaro Z28 that I used to have as well. Between that, the Caddy and Pop's two Jeep trucks, no one had a car that had the potential to capture my attention, much less make the guy more desireable because of his car. I mean, I'm talking a 1978 Camaro Z28 special ordered with an engine so big they had to move the cabin of the car rear-ward six inches on the frame to accomodate it. The only person in the area outside of my family who had car that came even close was an aquaintance of mine who had a '68 Camaro. After having these kinds of cars in my life from the time I was in khaki diapers, dude was gonna hafta have a pretty damn fine car to even get me to turn my head.
FWIW, MH owned a very beat-up Dodge Colt that we fondly called the "Bondo-Mobile" when we got married.
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The first non-junker we ever got was a 1956 Chevy that we paid to have lavishly restored. Now that was a car that might have gotten my attention as a young sprite. It certainly endeared the NPH to me that he was interested in the project. Later we chose cars that weren't likely to break down and could hold junk and/or multiple dogs in air-conditioned comfort during months of unsafe levels of heat: what earlier generations would have called station wagons and we call small SUVs. Like my current RAV4, which at the age of seven has never needed any service that I can recall, except that its hubcaps keep falling off. We also have a Dodge truck that can tow things, but we rarely use it.
NPH = NearPerfectHusband?
I can't remember most of my boyfriends' cars either. Only two of them stick out in my memory, and that's because I dated the guys for a year: an old Ford "woodie" station wagon and an old VW bug.
I was always suspicious of guys with fancy cars. What I was looking for was a guy who was level headed, and fancy cars always seemed kind of "show-offy" to me - sort of a trying-too-hard thing.
One of the things I like most about my husband is that I would be fine with him buying himself a really nice car but he is always practical when evaluating cars. He thinks about things like gas mileage, driving in snow, commuting, safety, can we fit a car seat in when the grandkids come to visit, can our elderly parents get in and out of the car?
That's the kind of man you marry - smart, practical, protective of those he loves.
Never got to try this experiment, as my transportation was always a motorcycle. Usually a sort of ratty motorcycle!
Raven: a Vincent Black Lighting 1952?
MikeD: yes!
Cass: Agreed: trying too hard was a non-attractor. And these days I let my husband choose my car for me, knowing he'll do the homework and make a sensible decision. I like the look of the little Mini-Coopers, but I don't want to own one.
There's a reason why the Cooper's are called four-crotch crotch rocket's, Tex. And that's about the level of protection they offer.
Just fyi....
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Raven:
It's probably the case that the reason I took up riding motorcycles relatively late was that, in all the possible worlds in which I rode motorcycles in my teens or 20s, I got myself killed.
DL--that's why I like looking at them better than owning one! They're adorable little Christmas ornaments.
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