The Survey

A while back a friend and I were sitting in the local Starbucks having a cup of coffee (this was back when we still had the local Starbucks) and as usual the conversation turned to girls.

“Who can understand girls,” my friend said in frustration. “Someone ought to write a book explaining them. Every guy would buy a copy.”

“The girls are way ahead of us on this one,” I said. “There already have plenty of books and magazines explaining men. And they’re always comparing notes with each other. They know much more about us then we do about them.”

Eventually, as the conversation progressed, I remembered a “Late Night” I had been to my Freshmen year at Calvin College. “There is one thing that sticks out in my mind,” I said. “I went to College at a really conservative religious school, and they always talked about dating in religious terms. You know, ‘finding the person God intends for you’ or stuff like that. They had a lot of devotionals and bible studies about dating.

“Anyway, my Freshmen year I remember going to a dorm devotional on dating. It was in three parts. One night the girls got together and talked about what they thought guys were looking for in a girl. One night the guys got together and talked about what they thought girls were looking for in a guy. And then they compared results.”

“And?”

“Well it was really interesting. When we guys got together, first all the usual obvious stuff came up. ‘Girls like sensitive guys’, ‘Girls like intelligent guys’, that kind of stuff. Then, as the discussion went on, people started to get more and more bitter, and some guys started saying stuff like, ‘You have to be sort of a jerk to get girls’ or ‘Girls always go for jerks.’”

“What did you say?”

“I was kind of quiet in those days, so I was just watching the discussion. Opinion was pretty divided. Some of the other guys were saying ‘Come on, that’s not fair. Girls don’t always like jerks’.
So the moderator said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll just put an asterisks by it to indicate not everyone agrees on this point.’

“So the third night we got together to compare results. And when we got to the part about the jerk, the moderator said ‘Now we have an asterisks here to indicate not all the guys agree with this.’ But to my surprise, several of the girls said ‘Yes, we usually go for the jerk’”. (Actually I think it was only two or three, but for some reason I felt the need to say several when I was retelling the story.)

“Why?”

“Something about how the jerk has a sort of cocky charisma, or a lot of self-confidence about him.”

“Wow,” my friend said. “That’s really disturbing. Do girls really think that way?”

“I don’t know. It makes a certain degree of sense, doesn’t it? Think about all the people we know here in Japan who get a lot of girls. They’re almost all jerks.”

“What else did you learn at that devotional?”

“I don’t remember. It was almost ten years ago now. Just that little bit sticks out in my mind.”

My friend thought for a moment, and then announced, “We’re going to find out. We’ll talk to as many girls as we can, and find out what kind of guys they like, and we’ll figure out once and for all if this jerk thing is true or not. Then we’ll put all our information together, and we’ll write a book that will help out guys everywhere.”

I agreed to it in the way I’ll agree to all sorts of ridiculous things when I’m sitting in a coffee shop talking. I didn’t think we were actually going to do it.

But my friend has been quite enthusiastic about it. He’s interviewed a number of women so far, and has been very meticulously writing down their information.

Occasionally he does this by himself, but often he brings up the subject when the two of us are together. “Joel and I have a question for you,” he’ll say to the girl. “How to explain it though? Better start at the beginning. Joel, why don’t you tell her about that devotional you went to your freshmen year.”

I wish we could just plunge right into it, but he insists on recounting the story every time. I’m not wild about retelling that story multiple times. First of all I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I attended something as lame as “A Dormitory Devotional on Christian Dating” and secondly, the story almost ends as an accusation, and I don’t want to turn into that guy who is always complaining about how nice guys can’t get girls. I mean, telling the story once over coffee to a friend was okay, but I didn’t intend to have this little antidote become “my story” that I have to tell to every girl we meet.

Also, the conversation has a nasty way of turning back on us. “Okay, we told you what girls wanted. Now you tell us what guys look for in a girl.” I always have a hard time answering this one.
“I don’t think we know,” I usually answer. “We don’t have a list of things we check off. We’re just walking around one day and then ‘Bam!’, we’re in love, and damned if we can explain what happened.” This is, I think, the most honest answer I can give, but it never makes the girls happy.
“What kind of crap answer is that? We just spent a good 15 minutes trying to honestly explain to you what girls look for in a man, and that’s the best answer you can give us back?” is a common response.

All that being said, we have learned a lot of really interesting and useful information. One girl even remarked, “Oh no, I’m telling you guys too much. Please promise you won’t use this information for evil.”
At the ripe old age of 27, much of this info is coming a bit late. Ten years ago it would have done me a lot more good. But, better late than never.

But after having built it up like that, I must confess I find it bit hard to draw generalities that I can post on the web in the form of absolutes. As you would expect, each subject had widely varying answers. (Which is good I suppose. If all girls liked the same kind of guy, the rest of us would all be in trouble).

Suffice it to say, not one girl has told us, “Yes, its true, we all like jerks.” Some have mentioned that liking jerks is a phase girls go through when they’re younger, but most grow out of it eventually.

There are interesting differences between the Japanese and Western women as well. Again, difficult to draw too many generalities, but Japanese women seem to place a higher priority on personal space. Many of them want a boyfriend who gives them some social freedom. I suspect this is because many Japanese guys are notorious for not doing just that, so it becomes something the women appreciate more.

Other than that, hard to draw any conclusions without posting every response we got so far. Which (don’t worry), I’m not going to do. Maybe when we finish this project we can make some more conclusions. Otherwise, I guess you should probably start doing some research of your own. And then let us know what you find. As Red Green would say, “Remember, we’re all in this together.”

Link of the Day
Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn't get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.
(Complete Article Here)