It’s hard to define doucheyness. Some guys can rock the summer tank top no problem and others…it sets off the douche-alarm immediately.
But if you take a step back, more than anything, it seems to be a combination of two things:
- Blatantly soliciting attention in a contrived way – any dude in a sports car, wearing Oakley’s; wearing jeans and jeans only to a rave; being that guy who brings his own guitar to parties.
- “Trying too hard” or incongruence – any white guy wearing traditional Asian garb for basically any occasion that isn’t a Japanese tea ceremony (Steven Seagal, I’m lookin at you).
From casual observation: the douche factor is rising.
And here’s the case for why:
Simply put, being a douche must get results. Standard behavioral psychology. If the behavior is rewarded, it will happen more. In the interest of science and easy poon, I took to Tinder, hypothesis in tow.
The test itself was relatively simple.
With a sample size of n=200 for two very different profile pictures, how much more likely was I to get a match (i.e. initial attraction) based purely off my level of douche.
Each wave, I would use a different picture. The user profile was the same in both cases.
Picture 1) Understated, black and white, dressed in a vest and tie. Normal, almost standard Facebook profile picture.
Picture 2) Over the top abs everywhere, surrounded by women. My old housemate was originally in this picture, but his abs were nicer than mine so I cropped him out. Again, for science.
After long periods of the mind-numbing boredom that only “incessantly swiping right on Tinder” can prove — I arrived at the following:
Doucheyness wins by a goddamn landslide (ladies, y’all are just as shallow as we are). I not only made almost 3x the amount of connections, but I also connected with more women to whom I was physically attracted.
Now this isn’t a guarantee of marital bliss or even successful dating for that matter, but even playing this as a sheer numbers game and doing nothing to intentionally spike interest, as a doucher, I come out WAY ahead.
Is there a lesson here?
Sure.
Sometimes your success is more important than how you appear to other people. Maybe even all the time. If I am looking for my soulmate and I succeed…are the strangers I weird out along the way even relevant?
It just makes the most sense to play to your strengths.
Do you have to be tryhard or incongruent with it? No. Absolutely not. But you should be putting yourself in position to naturally utilize those strengths to your advantage.
- Maybe you ARE awesome at guitar. Well bub, it’s time to start hitting up open mic nights at your local cafe.
- Maybe you’re rich. Show you use your wealth for more than just your own well being.
Being a douche works. But bringing actual, unpretentious, PURE value to the table — it just feels so much better. Oh and it works better, too…probably. But that’s a test for another day. Till then…happy Tindering.
Over and out,
-R