Hair Length and Male Attractiveness

Anon-

Not quite sure of the request here... openers, like these?:

• Easy Opening with Indirect Direct
• When to Use Direct Openers Versus Situational Openers
• Book Excerpts: The Direct Opener
• Are You Single? Why to Always Ask Girls This
  
• Game Openers That'll Get You Girls
• Shotgun Opening and Reopening Women Later in the Night
• How to Use Situationally Relevant Openers with Women
• Playful/Nonverbal Openers for Meeting New Girls
• The “I’m Glad I’m Not the Only One Who…” Conversation Starter
  
• Day Game 101: A New Way to Open

... or more lines and conversation, like this:

• "Pickup" Lines I'm Using
• The Conversationalist
  
• Conversation Example
• What Does She Want? The 8 Things You Must Ask Her
  

I assume you mean something different than these articles (or had you just not seen them)?

Chase

Ben-

That's real neat to hear, yeah. I know mohawks are big attention getters, and this seems like another variation of that (had to do an image search for "reverse mohawk"... I've heard the term before, didn't have an image associated with it in my head though).

If you have a moment, mind sharing an image that looks similar to what your style is, and a bit about how much social interest you get (where girls are socially intrigued, but not sexually interested) vs. how much of it is girls who are interested in either trading numbers with you to meet up later or even go somewhere with you right now? I don't have any experience with this or any close friends rocking styles like it... I'd be curious to know more about your experiences with it.

Chase

Mike-

I didn't want to go too deep into "what is masculine" in the article, or it'd have been huge (and somewhat tangential), but... much of this is behavior-based.

e.g., there's not really any reason physically Brendan Fraser should appear "less manly" than William Shatner or Sean Connery. However, if you watch their films, Fraser does a lot of cartoon-ish "Whooooaa!" running and ducking, and slapstick humor, and stumbling his way to victory. Shatner and Connery experience setbacks, but they handle them adroitly, and without any goofiness, while keeping the effort they expend minimal (Law of Least Effort). The end result is those two seem like masculine "leaders" while Fraser seems like a lovable goof.

You could go a lot deeper and analyze all kinds of things here too - Fraser frequently does rapid eye movements and head snaps, whereas Shatner and Connery always turn their heads slowly and move their eyes slowly... millions of things like this. But that's the general gist of it.

If I used pictures of stock models instead of well-known actors, the images wouldn't be nearly as evocative because there'd be nothing but looks to go off of, instead of looks + behavior, and our opinions of people are really more a mixture of the way they are and the things they do.

Chase

B.-

Cool to hear it. Long hair just seems to be one of those things that works really well if you have the other pieces in place, yet can be a total disaster if you don't. Sounds like you're doing it right.

Not sure when I'll make it to São Paulo - I've checked tickets to South America a few times over the past couple of years... always a little out of the way from East Asia or Southern / Eastern Europe (keep having this problem with Australia too). Time + expense... I'll make it down there sooner or later, though :)

Chase

Anon-

Aye, it is.

Look still works for him, but he might be fending off some advances from interested gay men.

In this case, I think the model might benefit from switching to clearly masculine button-down shirts, mixing in some facial hair, and probably adopting a more masculine countenance. (that said, sometimes the "Is he gay or isn't he?" look can work pretty well with girls, depending on the region... guess you just have to play with it and see what gets best results)

Chase

Kol-

If you're coming from "too nice", I'd probably suggest starting with "too arrogant" / "too much of an asshole", yeah.

Devil-may-care is good when you're more advanced, but if you try to go straight to that from "nice" you're going to spend a lot of time thinking you're devil-may-care when you're really just avoiding confrontation or trying not to raise tension.

You need to get comfortable with tension and confrontation first, so I'd recommend go be the arrogant asshole, and tone it down later once you know how to do it and aren't afraid to stand up for yourself and get what you want (and be able to do that on a moment's notice).

Chase

Su-

If another guy is holding court, unless you're actively training up your ability to seize control from people, no, don't do it, because you will usually just look socially uncalibrated and put yourself into a "leadership fight" with the guy that'll probably end up simply nuking both of your positions.

The more socially calibrated thing to do is let the other guy do the work of leading, while you lean back and bide your time or suck some girl near you into your own personal whirlpool.

The guy who wants to lead while someone else is leading, additionally, waits for an opening... either for the guy currently in charge to mess up (and then he calls him out, or just takes over the leading naturally), or for the guy currently in charge to get tired, lose interest, or go do something else.

Being successful socially is not dependent on leading the social group, though. The leader quite often is trapped by the group, with eyes constantly on him, and a tougher time pulling away. The guy who isn't the leader is often better able to pick off a girl and drag her away into the shadow.

As for being a more interesting speaker, much of this has to do with how animated you are in both voice and hand gestures, and it also has to do with how colorful and exciting the examples and stories and jokes you use in conversation are. There's a good example at the start of Mission Impossible 3 where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) talks about traffic patterns:

It's also energy in speaking... slow/quiet slow/quiet slow/quiet SUDDENLY LOUD POINT! Slow/quiet slow/quiet LOUD! Things like that. As you vary the energy, you keep people awake. Getting people involved is another one - "Jason, remember that time X did Y? Yeah, so that was... Hey Sophie, can you hand me that glass? Let me show you guys what I'm talking about..." etc. If you're really concerned with this, you can practice on camera - if you can learn to be entertaining speaking alone in your room to a video camera, it's a pretty easy transition to being entertaining in group settings, since you have energy and people to feed off of and aren't having to come up with 100% of it yourself in a total vacuum.

One other thought: knowing when to cut a thread and end the story / turn it over to someone else is important. Especially when you're starting out, you'll be best served by telling short-but-interesting stories and leaving your audience wanting more, than you will be by trying to talk for 20 minutes straight and leaving everyone wanting to shoot themselves by the end of it.

Chase

Anon-

Funny enough, every dominant and sexual Asian guy I've known who did well with girls has had the same exact hairstyle: the short hair with the front spiked up. I guess it's a kind of standard hairstyle and not terribly different or interesting, but typically if a guy's an Asian cat with a dominant personality that's different enough from the "meek and nerdy" stereotype that he doesn't need to do a lot more to stand out.

I might try a short hairstyle despite any concerns about your forehead and just suck it up as an experiment. It sounds like it might work better with your personality (and maybe race, too... I almost feel like medium hair on an Asian guy is a little too feminine-looking most of the time).

Could be the case it DOESN'T work, and the high forehead kills you or hair flops and you see less attraction and poorer results... but you won't know until you try. I've had a lot of women tell me they like high foreheads, too (high natural foreheads though, as opposed to male pattern baldness high foreheads).

Re: leather, you know... I don't know what it is. I have a few stupidly cool leather jackets that are just pieces of art to look at. Everyone who sees them tells me how cool they are. But the attraction I get when wearing them is just... worse than it is when I'm not wearing them. I noticed it back in high school when I switched to leather jackets for a while, and every now and then I go back to them and throw on a cool jacket and it's always the same. I don't know what it is... maybe it's just leather is too dated, or too cliché 70s / 80s bad boy at this point or something. It's one of those things you always think is going to be cool, and it may well be cool, but it seems to reduce attraction overall (who knows exactly why). Or maybe you need a certain image to pull it off right and that's not my image or yours. Tough to say.

Chase

Peleus-

If you haven't tried longer hair styles, I'd say give it a shot (maybe go for somewhere between short and medium) and see if you can notice any change in the attraction you get from women, and the results you get with them.

I'll tell you anecdotally, I had one night I went out in 2008 with longer hair I'd been straightening, and it rained on me, and I kept messing with my hair trying to straighten it out, but hadn't seen myself so had no idea how I looked. Well, I got to this bar, and started mingling, and suddenly I was on fire; I was meeting these really cute girls, and finding it super easy to move them around and get them sitting with me and complying with me for all sorts of things. It stood out to me because it was all happening easier than it usually did for me.

At one point I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and my hair was a terror: completely frizzed out in every direction from the straightening, then the rain, then me trying to fix it... it looked like I'd stuck my finger in a power outlet. Blew my mind. Then I just went back out and picked up where I left off with the girl who was waiting for me while I hit the john.

Moral of the story, at least for me, was don't be so quick to assume you know what will look good to women, especially not with hair. Experiment. Then decide.

Re: short hair and facial hair, depends on vibe. If a man has a very masculine vibe, unless he has a boyish face, he's usually going to be better off clean shaven with short hair. If his vibe isn't super masculine yet, or he has a boyish face, he may be better served adding some stubble into the mix if he has short hair.

Chase

Raqimus-

I'd say so for the most part, yeah. Maybe different on medium-length.

Black men get a higher "base masculinity" rating than white guys do; all other things being equal, the average black guy is considered more masculine than the average white guy. Whether that's cultural elements, black people's higher testosterone levels, or whatnot, just the way it is. But because of that, you'd expect to see more black men pulling off short hair and a clean shaven look well, which is... generally what you see.

Long hair (dreads or braids, usually) is more the artsy look, or sometimes the bad-boy look; same rules apply... risks making the guy look feminine, so not advised for less masculine guys. Maybe try to picture Drake with braids. Doesn't work so well.

Medium hair is one you don't see so much with black guys. Might be due to black men's higher default masculinity setting... he's got to soften the edge a bit to make medium-length more congruent. The black guys I've known who've pulled medium length hair off well (where it's kind of fluffy on the top, rather than kept buzzed) have all been pleasant disposition, soulful types with disarming personas. Seems to be the recipe for this look.

Chase

Sam,

Hmm, that's an interesting one!

I haven't seen enough of this look "in the wild" to have a realistic gauge on it.

I will tell you though that this is one look I've noticed girls often comment on favorably. It stands out a lot and seems to be perceived as super dominant. My guess is that's the combination of "bald head" (dominant / high testosterone) with "beard" (also dominant / high testosterone). Of the women I've seen who expressed interest in this style, they were pretty diverse... only thing the ones who come to mind had in common was all were pretty spunky and dominant themselves.

On the other hand, you probably wouldn't want to rock this look if you couldn't back it up with a healthy serving of Man. It almost seems incongruent to me to imagine a bald, bearded man with a nice guy personality.

Chase

Anon-

Mine’s just below shoulder length right now. I’m continuing to let it grow though. I may trim back to shoulder length later if super long hair doesn’t look as good or is too hard to manage.

I usually style it parted roughly down the middle, with the hair on the front looping / swept over, like Tom Cruise’s and Chris Hemsworth’s in the article. Borrowed some sea salt spray from Alek when I met up with him a little while back and that gave it some additional hold that looked nice; been meaning to pick up some myself. I only tie it up if I need it out of the way… the ponytail looks okay on me and I can make it work, but other looks look better.

Darius talked about long hair making men look shorter in his post on hairstyles; I’m not personally familiar with this rule but I’ve heard it elsewhere as well. I’m not especially good at judging height myself and don’t pay a lot of attention to it… I’m kind of height blind.

I will say personality can make up for missing inches; I’m 6’, and I’ve had the experience of having cool friends mention they’re being 5’8” at some point, and I’m shocked because I just always assumed the guy was 6’ like I was and never noticed I was taller. If the guy comes across as confident in himself, you tend not to notice much, or at least I don’t (I’m sure it differs between individuals how conscious of height they are). Seems like most people of “average” or greater height don’t pay as much attention to it. I’ve slept with a few girls with 2 or 3 inches on me and never had them comment on height and I’m often only vaguely aware of them being taller than me, too.

Chase

Zhang-

Facial hair does help - most of the men you see pulling off long hair well incorporate facial hair into their looks, yeah. Brendan Fraser would be better off with facial hair with either of his looks; actually, if you see his best look, with medium hair, he usually has a slight stubble with that. He'd look better if he kept that with his other looks too.

The big masculinity problem Fraser has is his overall goofy demeanor - he snaps his neck too quick, makes silly 'surprised' faces and sounds, and generally seems like he's not really in control of the situation, unlike Cruise, Hemsworth, Connery, or Shatner, who always command the room around them, nor is he 'just along for the ride' in a kind of cool, laid back, 'I'm just here to party' way. He acts like he's trying to be in control, only he's not in control. Or acts like he's confused all the time and running around trying to figure things out.

Chase

Anon-

Difficult to say. I don't know anyone offhand with this look, and haven't tried it myself (and am loathe to shave the sides of my head to do so).

I'd probably lump it in with the skrillex haircut, in that it's a trendy fashion statement that's going to really appeal to a certain portion of women, and turn off the rest.

If you're curious about it, I'd start with looking for men around you who have the style and seeing what types of girls they're doing well with. If those are women you're interested in, maybe give it a whirl. If they're not, pick something different.

Or, you could always just say "screw it, I'm trying it anyway!" - if you do, please report back and let me know how it affects your results!

Chase

Bboy-

Good question re: masculinity! This one’s vague even for me, so I have it down as an article topic to cover, hopefully soon, and see if I can tease out some concrete ways of differentiating a “masculine” man from a “non-masculine” one. Right now, it’s just gut instinct – there’s a subconscious assessment going on, but I don’t know what’s factoring into that assessment, exactly.

Long hair can be styled, though not with as much range as medium. Hair spray, or if you don’t shampoo too often (just washing with water) and leave the oils in your hair, you can style your hair more. I’ve found with long hair when I really take time to style it properly, that gets me the most attention and compliments – what I usually do is style it in a cool, neat way, and then lightly mess the hair up after that, so it retains the overall style, but is a bit messier. This I learned from one of my old stylists, and it works wonders.

Generally, a brushed / neat look makes you look more refined, so better for professional settings and can give you a sort of a “sexy gentleman” vibe if other fundamentals are in place. Messier is just more raw sexy, same as when you see a girl with messy “just had sex” hair – it screams sexuality. Too messy though and you just look like a wild animal; ideal is get your hair looking good neat, then mess it up a bit from there if you want messy/sexy hair.

Short on the sides and long on the top I’d consider medium-length hair. Medium’s nice because it gives you more styles to play with; however, because it’s more ‘standard’, even cool styles don’t pack as much punch as short or long hair do on a man with excellent fundamentals.

Mullet might work; it’s kind of out of fashion, but it’d certainly get attention, and I suspect there are at least some women who’d find it intriguing. I’ve heard of a few guys rocking mullets to sometimes-good results over the years.

As for research – I looked for some! However, it seems academia isn’t too interested in the effect of male hair length on female attraction. The only studies I turned up were the ones cited under “Cultural and Era Considerations”, but there wasn’t enough of interest to bother posting the abstracts. I dislike going with pure anecdote on fundamentals-type articles where I’m going in deep on just one thing, since any one person’s anecdotal experience is going to be limited no matter how much he’s experimented, so I tried to use actor examples as well. Best I could do on a piece without much science done on it yet (or at least, not much I could find)!

Chase

J.J.-

Interesting comment. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Have you interacted with many Korean women after you've worn shorter hair or a side part?

Sometimes what you will see is people will tell you they dislike a certain style, or the older generation will tell you it doesn't look good, but young women respond very well to a thing.

I had a Chinese friend in China whom I recommended grow some facial hair some years back (spent a while teasing him about how long it took him to grow just a little facial hair), and he reported the attraction he saw from women went up compared to when he was clean-shaven. Though generally if you talk to Chinese women, they will tell you they don't like facial hair on Chinese men.

Sometimes, due to cultural sensitivities, women will say they don't like something that's perceived as too sexual, even if in fact they actually do like it. They'll say they don't to avoid coming across as too much of a bad girl or too sexual for a woman in their culture, however.

Then again, even the movie stars in Korean/Japanese/Chinese cinema usually abstain from facial hair, so it may just be a robust trend - women say they don't like it, and in practice they actually usually don't like it, for instance.

Chase

Scott-

Indeed! Although, bald did recently get its own treatment up here:

How to Look Good Bald (and be Handsome as Hell)

Completely bald is the most masculine look, bar none. It probably requires the most masculine presence to pull off, though.

Most of the bald men I know have dominating masculine presences, which makes the look work well for them, because it amplifies their masculinity. If I try to imagine, say, a typical "nice guy" type with a bald head, it doesn't work nearly as well.

Balding but not bald is one you can pull off if other fundamentals are in place and your vibe is extremely masculine. Jason Statham is the current poster boy for this look. I'd bear in mind it isn't an initially attractive look though, until a woman gets to know him. I've watched Statham movies with women and when it's the first time seeing him, the reaction is usually, "Why doesn't he just shave? It doesn't look good like that," but once the movie gets going and the girl's convinced this is a masculine man, it becomes, "You know what, he actually pulls off that look pretty well. He's really sexy."

Chase

Evan-

When I had long hair in the 9-to-5 world (about shoulder-length), I always wore mine slicked back at work. If you put it in a bun or a ponytail that risks calling attention to it, and if it's hanging around your face you look more like a rocker than a professional.

Even with it slicked back though, my boss still grumbled about my hair just about every week until I cut it. If you're going for interviews and your hair is long enough to be noticeable, I might consider switching to a medium-length style at least until you know the place you've got your new job at is okay with you growing it back out a bit.

Chase

Phelwan-

Good to see you back in these parts. Yeah, Eastern Europe is top notch, huh? Day game is excellent there, and there are so many beautiful women.

Toronto I’ve avoided because everything I hear about the town is just not good. Although it’s almost become this mystical place of horrors in my mind over the years, now I’m kind of curious to visit it and see if it’s as terrible a city as everyone keeps saying it is. I had a lot of people tell me London was awful so I avoided that one forever, yet when I went I thought it was not that bad.

I remember going out with guys from work and trying to get them to approach girls back in 2007 and 2008. That was weird. Most of my friends these days are either entrepreneurs or guys with backgrounds in pickup, and those two are almost interchangeable in how they view the world: the pickup guys find business intriguing, generally, and the entrepreneur guys have usually either discovered pickup on the web or they’ve developed some natural ability on their own – the aggressiveness and assertiveness entrepreneurship trains you to have carries over well to dating.

If you seek out communities of likeminded people (our discussion boards are one such place; or a business forum if you’re into entrepreneurship; etc.) and cultivate those ties over time, you’ll frequently come out of it with some cool new friends you relate to better than whomever you’ve gathered over the years just from school or work, or even random guys you meet out socializing or traveling, since you’re pulling from a more targeted pool. Does take time to build those relationships though, but I’ve found this hands down the best way to meet awesome people and build rewarding relationships with other guys who are on your level over the years. No reason to go it alone if you don’t want to ;)

Chase

Will-

Nice additional thoughts here.

Stubble is +masculinity, definitely. Short hair + clean shaven if you aren’t super masculine, the suit probably helps offset any “boyish” effect this look can have.

Great points on body size and hair length. It does seem to be harder to pull off long hair as you go down in height. Tom Cruise is 5’7” and I think he pulled off long hair well, but… then again, it’s cinema, and they shoot from angles designed to make him look taller than he is. May not work as well in real life.

Chase