Why I don’t rate online dating scores

love, sex and dating

What’s your ‘sexual market value’? If you’ve been coupled up for years, you probably don’t know or care. And lucky you. But if you’re on the dating scene, even if you haven’t heard the term, you probably have some idea of the attractiveness scale and where you sit on it.

According to the internet (non-trusted source), sexual market value (SMV) ‘refers to an individual’s mating rating and it’s the sum of his/her looks, status, social and dating skills, personal qualities, fitness indicators and any external resources that he/she possesses’.

I first heard the term from a friend who was told, charmingly, by a potential date that her SMV was low. Which was rich considering the pictures he kept sending her of himself and his paunch shirtless in a strip-lit bathroom.

More googling reveals that there is even a SMV calculator just for men, which asks them to input their car’s horsepower (I’m not joking), their below-the-belt score (self-assessed – which could be problematic), plus salary, height and age.

A high-status female, according to the web, has a different set of criteria, which is less about earning power (in fact, a low-key job is preferred – presumably so you can provide massages/ reassurance/sexual services on request) and more about your hip-to-waist ratio. So neither sex is doing well out of this. As someone who had never dated before the age of 45, I had no clue what my SMV was and no idea how I’d fare when I posted my dating profile. It felt exposing. Like I was lining up to be marked out of ten, to be judged hot or not by men who knew nothing of my caring side or upbeat outlook – just whether I conformed to their idea of attractive. Brutal.

As a journalist and a stylist I have a good idea of how to present words and images to create the best impression, so I did OK. But really these profiles are only the gateway to a meeting in real life, where you can properly assess someone’s true nature. And I found that some of the guys whose profiles sounded the best and looked the most appealing were often the least sincere or suited to me. Yes, their ability to sell themselves made them good on an app – less so in real life. (Although I wonder if they thought the same about me!)

The thing about online dating is it’s a bit like going back to school: a sort of popularity contest, but instead of scoring an invitation to a party, you’re competing for likes or swipes.

Talking of adolescent thinking, a male friend told me about the ‘hot-crazy matrix’. He forwarded me a Youtube video of a guy called Dana Mclendon, who looks like a middle manager from Missouri, talking about ‘How to deal with women’. As he explains it: ‘There is a crazy axis and a hot axis. Hot goes from one to ten, crazy starts at four and goes to ten because all women are a bit crazy. If you find one who is above eight hotness and below five crazy, you have a unicorn and should marry her.’

I have no words. I just hope that for every Dana there are hundreds more men who value things such as intelligence, kindness and integrity.

If you’re reading this thinking, ‘Thank god I’m not dating!’, I hear you. But, for those looking for love, don’t despair – I know from experience there are good people out there. You’ve just got to keep looking.

Date against your usual type sometimes, and remember that the crude metrics of the algorithm are designed to make you chase beauty and success, but those criteria, while nice, are not essential. You can find someone who has all of those things yet is awful, or has none but is great.

I’m thinking of developing a scale of my own called MMV – moral market value – which would reward qualities such as loyalty, empathy and conscientiousness. And then create a dating sight called decenthumanbeings.com.

Dana Mclendon need not apply.

what makes a man highly desirable? horsepower (apparently)

@lifesrosie @youmagazine

My husband died four weeks ago. He was only 50 and it was a very sudden death. I’m struggling to come to terms with it. Our children are only 12 and ten and we are all devastated by what’s happened. He wasn’t supposed to die this soon. Now we have to face Christmas without him, and

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