Market Collapse #2: Beauty and the Unrealistic Geek

A friend of mine once had a crush on this IT guy at work. He was really geeky and loved to play video games. She got up the nerve to ask him out, figuring that he didn’t look like he went on dates very often, so he would be thrilled to go out with her, right?

He turned her down, citing he was “waiting for the perfect women like the ones in the video games.”

Just what the heck does that mean? His decision could be explained with market collapse. See, here’s the thing: never assume that just because a guy is dateless, he would be less picky. Sometimes, a guy is dateless because he’s picky.

Let’s see: He lives at home with his mama, blows all his disposable income at Best Buy, and stays in every Saturday night playing video games. Have you ever checked out the female characters in video games? You know, the disproportionate breasts, impossible skinniness, skimpy outfits, etc. That’s the guy’s definition of an ideal woman. Not many women in real life look like that, at least not without quite a lot of investment into cosmetic implants and diet pills.

So this is how his side of the table looks like:

Demand: Super hot chick

Offering: Average joe

Now let’s look at the other side of the bargaining table. If there’s a woman out there who indeed fits his ideal, she would not be content to stay with an average guy (those implants and diet pills are expensive, you know). Her side:

Offering: Super hot chick

Demand: Super attractive guy (be it in terms of body type, wealth, or otherwise)

So you see, the two sides’ expectations are so far apart that no deal can be made. The IT guy will spend Saturday night after Saturday night mooning over the “perfect woman,” and my friend was better off finding someone else.