The 4 Kinds of Girls and Which Ones YOU Should Go For

One of the series I introduced on here a while back - only to ever do two real articles in it - was on girl types... some of the different kinds of girls, that is. We've had some requests to do more articles like these, and I wanted to put together one here that's a primer of the four basic varieties of women you'll run into - and which type is best for you.

What's the use of something like this? Won't you magically happen into a relationship with the woman of your dreams, if you're out there long enough meeting large enough quantities of women?

Personally, I'm more a believer in having a set of logical guidelines, and then running your emotions on top of that, rather than just letting emotions run wild and hoping for the best. Having rules for selecting the right girlfriends (see: "Find the Right Girl;" "Choosing the Right Qualities in a Woman") tends to lead you to superior women as mates. Emotion is what first draws you to them, but logic helps you screen them (and screen out the other women you're emotionally drawn to who don't match your criteria).

Put more simply, especially when it comes to weird, ephemeral topics like dating and mate selection that are taboo to discuss anywhere in polite society, knowing stuff gives you advantages.

And the "stuff" I want to get you knowing today consists of the four basic varieties of women.

Of course, there are a variety of different girl types we can branch out into as we get more complex in our definitions and look at more nuanced variations of the different varieties of women; we've covered two of these types on here already:

• Club Queens, and
• Shy Excited Girls

For our purposes today though, we're going to be looking at a more elemental kind of woman - the kind from which all other kinds spring out of.

These are our four most basic types of women.

I've boiled them down to just two traits, one learned, and one not:

1. Softness/Strength
2. Inexperienced/Experienced

On a matrix, that works out like this:

I'll define both axes of that matrix here.

Softness/Strength

Softness/strength is what side of the spectrum a girl naturally fall upon with her base personality type. Is she soft, quiet, and nice? Or strong, loud, and assertive?

This, of course, is not an "either-or" type of thing. No real absolutes in the real world. But, roughly, line-drawing-wise, you can more or less cut the kinds of women down the middle and throw them into two camps:

• The soft ones

• The strong ones

And that isn't to say that a woman can't be soft in disposition, but strong in constitution. Nor is to say an assertive woman is incapable of tempering herself and assuming a more ladylike demeanor.

For our purposes, we're defining softness and strength here as these:

• Soft Women: these are the women who tend to be more passive, more yielding, who are more accepting of being led by others (men or women), more open to being commanded, more likely to be humble, quiet, and retreating, and less likely to cause drama, cause a stir, or get offended at most things. If there's a problem in the relationship, soft women are more likely to sit on it and trust or hope that you notice it and resolve it.
  

• Strong Women: these are the women who tend to be more aggressive, more steadfast, who are more likely to rebel against the leadership of others (men or women), more likely to resist commands, more likely to be confident, loud, and assertive, and more likely to cause drama, cause a stir, and get offended by things. If there's a problem in the relationship, strong women are more likely to quickly bring it to the forefront and ask you to address it.

Most cultures the world over encourage their women to be soft kinds of girls. In the more feminist-leaning cultures (e.g., Scandinavia, the English-speaking world, etc.), this tends to be reversed, and the encouragement is for women to be strong. I tend to believe this is more in-born than anything else, although socialization and acculturation can lend an edge or take one off.

My personal preference is for strong women. I run slipshod over soft women, and they get hurt too easily around me. I'm a pretty empathetic guy, but I also get caught up in whatever I'm devoting my time to, and being considerate at all times is not a strong suit for me.

Among most of the men I talk to, the preference seems to be soft women. Even a lot of the men I know who are very good with women still prefer soft women. I'll explore why this is a little later in this article.

Inexperienced/Experienced

Again, like softness/strength, inexperienced/experienced is not black and white. A girl who's very experienced to one man comes across like a naïve amateur to another. A lot of that is based on the man's experience; the more experienced a man is with women, the more women will begin to seem relatively inexperienced to him, and the less experienced he is, the more they will appear.

Here, our two camps are:

• The inexperienced ones, and

• The experienced ones

For our purposes, we're defining these two traits thusly:

• Inexperienced Women: inexperienced women are less seasoned in the ways of romance, dating, sex, and men. They believe more in love, have fewer walls up against others and are more easily influenced and led, are more trusting, have less emotional baggage from negative previous encounters, and are less certain of exactly what they want and don't want.

• Experienced Women: experienced women are more seasoned in the ways of romance, dating, sex, and men. They believe less in love, have more walls up against others and are more difficult to influence and lead, are more skeptical of others' intentions, have more emotional baggage from negative previous encounters, and are more certain of exactly what they want and don't want.

There's a bit of a cultural double-standard when it comes to experience levels in women. Cultures both normally dislike the "facts" of an experienced women (i.e., she's dated around a lot, slept around a lot, and known many men), but love the "presentation" of an experienced woman (i.e., she's charming, svelte, confident, composed, measured, worldly, cosmopolitan, talented with people, etc.). You'll frequently see cultures discouraging women from becoming experienced, but lauding those women who are... so long as it isn't explicitly communicated that those women are, that is.

As discussed in the article on roughly identifying how many partners a woman has had, there are some very real reasons why cultures dissuade women from becoming experienced (i.e., with each new sexual partner, a woman's infidelity risk increases 7%, and infidelity leads to broken families, lowered productivity levels, and less successful children, which on a large enough scale slow down and undermine the culture at large).

However, just as you become more experienced with women, you also become more attractive to them, the same is true for women. As a woman becomes more experienced with men, she tends to become better at dating, seducing, captivating, and maintaining relationships with them as well.

If you're like most men reading this post, you're already sitting there saying, "I want one of the inexperienced girls!" and there's a pretty good chance what you're saying is, "I want the soft inexperienced girl!"

Well, wait just a second there.

You might think you know what kinds of girls you want... but do you?

The research says "no." Have a look - from a paper entitled "Do advertised preferences predict the behavior of speed daters?" by Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Psychology, and Jason Weeden of Arizona State University's Department of Psychology:

“Because researchers are making increasing use of data gleaned from Internet dating sites, it is important to know if the preferences people specify in Internet advertisements predict the choices that they actually make. HurryDate, a commercial speed-dating firm, collected data from over 10,000 people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who participated in speed-dating events in cities across the United States. The present analysis compared these speed daters’ advertised preferences with their decisions to attend particular events and their choices of potential partners at the events they attended. Findings indicated that speed daters’ advertisements reflect frequently replicated sex differences and assortative patterns and that these advertised mate preferences predicted their decisions to attend particular events. Advertised preferences did not, in contrast, substantially predict decisions within events. These results support the conclusion that advertised preferences predict behavior in the mating domain in some contexts but not others.”

That is to say, if you say you really like charismatic blondes, you'd be more likely to attend Scandinavian Speed Dating Night than you would Japanese Speed Dating Night or West African Speed Dating Night, but once you got there you might hit it off with a demure brunette a lot more than you did any of the charismatic blondes present.

The choices people actually make often have little correlation with the preferences they claim to have.

Therefore, most of the time when people tell me they know exactly what they want, I call tomfoolery on their logical brain's part.

That's what your logical brain thinks. But when it comes to love at first sight, mating, pair bonding, and sexual excitement, your logical brain doesn't have a whole lot of say. That's your emotional brain's domain there - and let's look at how that picks mates.

What's the Research Have to Say?

Softness/strength and inexperienced/experienced are two separate dimensions on attractiveness, and this is where things start getting hazy and anecdotal, so let's see how science weighs in. Here's what science has to say on experience.

From "Effects of Premarital Sexual Standards and Behavior on Dating and Marriage Desirability:"

“This paper concerns the effects of sexual attitudes, lifetime sexual behavior, number of coital partners, and the social context of this behavior on dating and marriage desirability. Both male and female respondents were shown to prefer moderately experienced partners, regardless of respondent's own experience level. Unlike previous research no interactions between respondent's behavior and rated person's behavior were found. No evidence for the existence of the traditional double standard was found among these young, single university students; men and women, equally, held a standard that allowed maximization of personal sexual gratification but limited that available to potential partners.”

In other words, according to this research conducted on university students in 1985, the preference is for moderately experienced partners. That is to say, not virgins, and not sex pros, either... regardless of where an individual's own experience levels lie (e.g., virgins want moderately experienced partners, and sex experts want moderately experienced partners).

But remember... this is a survey, based on individual's logical preferences, not their emotional/instinctive ones. And as that research just above showed us, what people say they want, and what they actually want, are two very different things.

Another paper, this one from five years earlier in 1980 and named "Effects of Sexual Experience on Dating Desirability and Marriage Desirability: An Experimental Study," had this to say:

“An experimental investigation of the effects of the level of sexual experience of men and women college students on their evaluations of opposite-sex peers varying in sexual experience was performed. Inexperienced men, and both inexperienced and moderately experienced women, rated highly experienced opposite-sex peers as less desirable dates and marriage partners than inexperienced and moderately experienced persons. Moderately and highly experienced men and highly experienced women tended to rate all opposite-sex peers similarly along these same dimensions. The findings were discussed in terms of the acquisition and social meanings of interpersonal sexual information and the methodological differences between the present study and earlier survey investigations.”

So here we have a study that found that inexperienced men, inexperienced women, and moderately experienced women found highly experienced partners less desirable than inexperienced or moderately experienced partners, while moderately experienced men, highly experienced men, and highly experienced women rated all partners as equally desirable.

Different survey. Different results.

Based on what research I've been able to locate, I think it's relatively safe to say that science hasn't yet taken much of a look on what people actually are drawn to (as opposed to what they think they're drawn to), at least in this arena.

So, I'm going to rely instead on my experience in the field: my personal experience, what I've seen among countless friends, customers, and clients in this niche, and what I've seen among the countless couples of all kinds I've met over a number of years of very active socializing and meeting new people.

Here's how I think this actually breaks down, when logical rules are set aside and we look at people's real preferences.

Kinds of Girls Men Want, By Kinds of Men They Are

When I posted the "how many partners" article, some commenters said, "This applies to men too!" Which I completely agree with.

And it's exactly the same here - that grid of softness/strength and inexperienced/experienced applies every bit to men as it does to women.

Just like women, there are soft men and strong men. And just like women, there are inexperienced men and experienced ones.

And from what I have seen over 7+ years of experience in this domain, I'd tell you it works like this:

• You can move in either direction parallel to your square and be happy
• If you date in your square, you'll be unhappy
• If you date diagonally opposite your square, you're headed for some big fights

How's this work? First, let's figure out how you rank on each of these.

Do you:

• Actively take the lead?
• Like to be the center of attention?
• Prefer the starring role to the support role?
• Let people know it when you're annoyed?
• Get accused of being cocky or overly confident sometimes?
• Tend to never back down when you find yourself in an argument?

If you mostly said "yes," you fall more on the "strong" side of things. If you mostly said "no," you're on the "softer" side (but you don't have to tell anybody else; and heck, you're reading my article, not me reading yours, so you know I'll never know!).

On experience, do you:

• Consider yourself an expert on dating, sex, and relationships?
• Not really believe all that much in "love" or "romance?"
• Find it easy to resist and brush off pushy people?
• Consider yourself skeptical and cynical (as opposed to trusting and accepting)?
• Have some suspicion or other issues leftover from earlier relationships?
• Know exactly what you want and exactly what you don't?

If you mostly said "yes, that's me," you're closer to "experienced" than the alternative. If you went down the list going, "not really, no...," then you're closer to inexperienced.

Note: this one's a little tricky, because you will sometimes meet people acting or even thinking they are something they're not here. e.g., the guy who's a virgin who acts cynical and bitter and says, "Love is one big lie!" and thinks he knows it all about dating and sex and relationships because he's well-read on the topic. The instant that guy ends up with a girl for real though, he turns into a kitten, usually.

On the other hand, you have the really emotional guys who flit from lover to lover, and have tons of experience with dating and sex but will tell you, "I don't think anyone can ever truly understand a woman!" with a hint of romance and passion, believe wholeheartedly in true love (although they never seem to find it, or it never lasts for long when they do), are the very opposite of skeptical and cynical, and are largely suspicion-free.

If one of those sounds like you, put yourself into the inexperienced or experienced camp based on your actual physical experience with women anyway, even though you might think you fit the characteristics of a different quadrant. The kinds of women you'll respond to will still be the same.

Have a look here at how our personality types interact:

Remember,

• You can move in either direction parallel to your square and be happy
• If you date in your square, you'll be unhappy
• If you date diagonally opposite your square, you're headed for some big fights

The simplest way to think of this is in terms of leadership. Those work out as such:

1. Soft/inexperienced has the least leadership ability
2. Strong/experienced has the greatest leadership ability
3. Strong/inexperienced and soft/experienced are both somewhere in the middle

Hand-in-hand with leadership tendencies go dominance, assertiveness, self-confidence, and more.

Good Pairings

To save myself from writing out needlessly long descriptions and to save you from reading them, I'll abbreviate these as follows:

• FT: Soft
• TR: Strong
• IN: Inexperienced
• EX: Experienced

Here are the good pairings and how they work out.

1. FT/IN with TR/IN. Both partners in this dynamic are just beginning to acquaint themselves with the world of dating and sex and relationships. The more tentative FT/IN is happy to be paired up with the bolder TR/IN, who is doing the trailblazing and exploring for the both of them, while the TR/IN appreciates having the support and encouragement of the FT/IN there learning right along with him/her and up for whatever the adventure at hand may be. The dynamic here is "partner-in-crime + exploratory partner."
   

2. FT/IN with FT/EX. In this setup, the FT/IN takes the FT/EX as a sort of guide and partner. Both partners here make each other feel more secure; the FT/EX is glad to have found an FT/IN, whom experience tells him/her is likely to stay supportive and loyal so long as he/she is treated well, and the FT/IN is happy to have found an FT/EX who is gentle with his/her emotions despite the experience gap, and uses that advantage in experience to anticipate the FT/IN's needs and make the kinds of romantic, thoughtful gestures the FT/IN loves. The dynamic here is "loving partner + caring partner."

3. TR/EX with FT/EX. Here, the stronger partner natural leads the softer partner, but because both are experienced the gap isn't too great. The FT/EX is experienced enough to not let his/her emotions run wild when encountering the powerful TR/EX, and astute enough to play coy and keep the TR/EX interested. The dynamic here is "powerful partner + coy partner."
   

4. TR/EX with TR/IN. A different dynamic with two strong personalities, the TR/IN looks upon the TR/EX as a teacher, mentor, and guide, in addition to a romantic partner. The TR/EX tends to be what the TR/IN wishes to be, and the TR/EX enjoys having a partner in crime who looks up to him/her with admiring eyes. The dynamic here is "mentor partner + student partner."

If you want to be happiest in your relationships, make sure you figure out which of these four quadrants you fall in, and date women who fall into one of the two adjacent quadrants.

Now let's have a look at the other possible pairings.

Bad Pairings

There are also some really bad pairings among these four quadrants, and you want to make sure you don't get stuck in any of them.

5. FT/IN with TR/EX. The dominance gap is too wide here, and the TR/EX eats up and spits out the FT/IN for breakfast without even meaning to. If you're the FT/IN in this dynamic, be prepared to have your heart crushed and torn to pieces totally by accident. If you're the TR/EX, be prepared for way more hurt feelings coming out of the FT/IN than you know what to do with, and clinginess and neediness like you wouldn't believe.

6. TR/IN with FT/EX. Rather than hurt feelings, "irritation" is the name of the game here. The FT/EX considers himself/herself more experienced and thus by default the more natural leader of the two, and very much is irritated by the misguided fits and starts and impulsive behavior of the TR/IN. Meanwhile, the TR/IN quickly ends up annoyed at the FT/EX's conservative "parenting" style toward the relationship when the TR/IN really just wants to run free and thinks the FT/EX should probably be more like him/her. Be prepared for constant power struggles and lots of frustration coming out of either quadrant.

7. FT/IN with FT/IN. This pairing of like and like leads to a whole lot of nothing, with each partner tentative, hesitant, and unsure. It's an unlikely pairing to occur, because both partners are normally too timid to initiate dating and relationships. However, if proximity happens to put two FT/INs in close contact and the two do somehow end up dating, be prepared for a relationship filled with fog, confusion, and inaction.

8. TR/IN with TR/IN. Two restless souls, a pair of TR/INs may have a brief and passionate fling, but they'll soon find themselves tugging one another in opposite directions as each rushes off to follow his or her own path of exploration and adventure. The longer these two try to stay together, the more strained things tend to become, and they usually don't last together long because of it.

9. FT/EX with FT/EX. This is another unusual mix, simply because FT/EXes tend not to be very attracted to one another. If two do end up together, they can be content, but there's a feeling of "something missing" in the relationship that neither partner can quite put a finger on. What's missing is a clear leader, and one partner that's very dominant over the other. For this relationship to survive, one of the partners must transition to TR characteristics, or the two will eventually drift apart, with reasons like, "It just didn't work out," or, "That magic something simply wasn't there."

10. TR/EX with TR/EX. What's more fearsome than a pair of T-rexes battling it out? A coupling of TR/EXes is a powder keg waiting to explode, two very dominant individuals used to controlling their spheres and everyone and everything in them, now suddenly together without a clear leader. These relationships, when they happen, tend to be brief and passionate flings, followed by equally ferocious partings. With neither partner willing to subjugate his or her will to the other, they never last long.

If you end up in one of these relationships (or you've realized you're in one already), you don't necessarily have to start looking for the exit door immediately, but you might want to plan for what happens after the relationship has run its course.

How Do You Use This in Real Life?

You can use these quadrants to be more aware of the kinds of girls who appeal to you most, and more quickly screen out the women you're incompatible with.

If you are:

• An FT/IN, the enthusiasm and adventurousness of a TR/IN will enamor you, and the careful attentiveness and romancing of an FT/EX will allure you, but stay away from the TR/EX, who will make you wish you never started dating and turn you into a bitter man, and avoid falling for another FT/IN, as you'll find it more disappointing than anything else.

• A TR/IN, having an FT/IN sidekick is going to be a blast, and learning from a TR/EX mentor who's already been there and done that is going to be tremendously rewarding. But stay away from dating another TR/IN, who's going to drive you insane with the same kinds of demands on you you're accustomed to making of others, and an FT/EX, who's neither going to take the lead with you nor serve as a willing follower, and will drive you batty.

• An FT/EX, you'll delight in having an FT/IN to nurture and take care of, and dating a TR/EX can be exciting and rewarding. But you'll find dating another FT/EX to be rather deflating an experience, and the rambunctious but rough-edged TR/IN is only going to bother you.

• A TR/EX, an FT/EX will intrigue you with her wiles and charms, and a TR/IN will thrill you with her boundless energy and zest, but prepare for explosive times if you start seeing another TR/EX, and get ready to be nagged and sweetnessed-to-death by the clingy, innocent, and needy FT/IN if you end up dating her.

And that's it. All you really have to remember are two simple types: the two you get on best with.

Then get out there, keep those two kinds of girls in mind, and get yourself looking for them in the real world, in the flesh.

And, if you've read this far, drop me a brief line in the comments which type of girl you like the best, and what it is about her you adore.

Yours,
Chase

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