Cracking the code

It was at the impressionable age of 19 that I saw the Blake Edwards movie “10.” The title, of course, referred to beautiful Bo Derek’s sex-appeal rating on an ascending scale presumably beginning with the No. 1. Who would argue whether Derek was a 10? Not me, then or now, but that’s beside the point. The film introduced the idea of hormonal calculus to an entire generation, and we are still living with it.

Rating the opposite sex on a numerical scale seems to me an innately male inclination. Women don’t quantify attraction; they feel it. Leave it to men to take something as abstract and mysterious as attraction and slap a bar code on it. Not that I do. I am an enlightened male. Women tell me this all the time, usually right before they dump me for the leader of the regional chapter of Hells Angels.

But at least I’ve navigated my own ever-lengthening tenure as a single, available male, blissfully unconcerned with how I’d personally be rated on the numbers scale.

Until recently. Not surprisingly, my innocence was shattered not by a woman, but by another male.

I call him the Anti-Mensch. At 78, he is a Zen-master curmudgeon who likes to tell people the truth about themselves. The truth is rarely pretty. The A.M. has been married more than a few times, so he’s learned a few things about women--the sorts of things that can make you toss in your sleep like a Cub Scout who’s heard his first campfire ghost story.

Anyway, I was sitting next to the A.M. in a restaurant when he began quizzing me about a recent girlfriend who had been, to put it mildly, a handful.

“Is she crazy?” he asked me, though it was clear she’d already been judged in absentia.

“Well, she’s ... complicated.”

“Then you’re doomed. Is she beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re really doomed. Martin, you’re a four looking for a seven. Face it, you’re not very good-looking.” The A.M. gestured to the lithe, beautiful 23-year-old blond at the end of our table. “You’re looking for a 10 like her,” he continued, “and you’re not going to get her.” Overhearing this, the young woman in question drifted over to where I was sitting, planted a kiss on my lips and whispered, “You’re a 10 in my book, sweetie.”

A lovely gesture, but I am realistic enough to know that I am not a 10. But a four? I was thinking maybe I was a 7.8, making allowances for my age bracket the way they do for geriatric marathon runners. OK, I’d ballooned up a bit, and my wardrobe was a ruin of Hawaiian shirts and tattered khakis. But a four?

My “friend” went on twisting the knife. He said a four like me should be with a three because a three would be grateful and sweet, two descriptors that have never applied to any woman I’ve dated. I wonder why.

I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I was soon to embark on what anthropologists refer to as an assessment of my “mate value.” The concept is transparent enough, but from a male’s perspective this is what you do when you’re so confused about your goods you don’t know whether it’s more realistic to steal Sheryl Crow from Lance Armstrong or to enter a Trappist monastery. This requires a fearless moral inventory, or more likely, an utterly fearful one. Hands a-quivering, I resolved to crack the code. Would women like me more if I were rich? Must I drive a Porsche? Do I need to spend money on clothes? Do I have to spend money on women?

I decided not to start dating again until I’d collected empirical evidence that could be easily skewed to confirm that I am no less than a 7.5. I found my way to David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas and author of “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating.” In Buss’ realm, mating strategy is influenced by the specter of offspring (and both quantity and quality count). Me Tarzan, you Jane. But Buss is a heavy hitter, having traveled the world to evaluate mating strategies.

What women look for in men is resources, says Buss in his book. In ancestral times, resources were measured in buffalo hides, sharp spears and the muscles to heave them. Now, as one might expect, it’s more along the lines of real estate, savings and a juicy paycheck. This is not to say that women are greedy and shameless gold diggers; it’s simply that evolution has pointed them toward men with resources, who are more likely to provide an environment in which offspring can be successfully and comfortably nurtured. That still may be less than flattering, but so is the fact that men judge women primarily by their physical beauty, which is indicative of the kind of offspring they’ll produce. Darwin never said nature had a soft touch.

So anyway, the Porsche doesn’t hurt, but not because women care that much about expensive cars. The car, like a trove of tribal jewelry in primitive cultures, and for that matter Beverly Hills, is more a symbol of underlying abundance and not the thing itself. (Though, for the record, I know a fair number of women who think men could find better ways to shake their tail feathers.)

Intrigued by the book, I called Buss, hoping on the sly for an endorsement that I was at least better than average. We started by talking about this business of resources. “One thing is to have resources,” Buss said, “and the other is willingness to channel them to a particular woman. Generosity is an important factor. From a woman’s perspective, if you have those underlying attributes, other favorable psychological attributes are predictable.” So a garish display of wealth alone will not put women at your beck and call, not that I was in danger of making that particular mistake.

As someone who can do just about anything except make money, I found all of this alarming because it echoed a conversation I’d had with my friend Kathy. Seeking swift and unequivocal refutation of the A.M.’s low-ball assessment of me, I’d told her the story, putting a whimsical and delightfully self-deprecating spin on my encounter with the A.M. I think I deserve four points based on my sense of humor alone. (I do, DON’T I?) Kathy is my age, divorced and has two kids. In other words, one of those darn grown-ups you hear so much about.

“Sorry,” she told me, “you are a four.”

“What makes me a four?” I demanded. “I’m not George Clooney, but I’m not Quasimodo, either,” and I went on to name personal traits--including charm, humor, warmth--that I thought ought to tip me into the 5.1 range.

“It has nothing to do with that,” Kathy said. Then she broke it to me. “The problem is, you don’t have any money.”

I told her I had just bought a new Honda Civic. OK, so it wasn’t a Ferrari--at least it had air conditioning and was safe and reliable, as opposed to the battered 1984 Volvo that you could trace anywhere just by following the trail of auto parts it left. If cars are like clothes on a larger scale, I had gone from tattered overalls to an unpretentious Kenneth Cole suit.

“That makes me at least a five,” I declared.

“Maybe a 4.2.,” she replied mercilessly. Clearly, if I were going to determine what qualities of mine attract women, the worst people to talk to were women of experience.

Buss did offer a ray of light. “A woman’s mate value is readily apparent to men,” he said. “For men, it’s your potential, your future status trajectory. But these qualities are more difficult to discern, so a man might have a higher mate value than appears on the surface, and perhaps a woman isn’t able to see those qualities.” Buss paused, then added a shocker: “I think that in a place like Los Angeles, these things may be exacerbated.”

I shifted the conversation to a topic I at least could do something about: appearance. “There’s no question that dress is extremely important in women’s assessment of a man’s status,” Buss said, citing one study in which the same man is photographed wearing an expensive suit and then a fast-food uniform. If you guessed that the former was viewed as more attractive, move ahead three squares.

I wondered just how much of a Beau Brummell I needed to become to qualify as above average. Where are those queer eyes for the straight guys when you need them? I went hunting for advice, but specifics were hard to come by.

A friend suggested I try shopping at Barneys New York. I had never been in Barneys, but it seemed like a good place to embark on my wardrobe renewal project. “Are you looking for something specific?” asked Wendy, the sales associate.

“I’m tired of dressing like a rodeo clown,” I told her.

In the course of an hour, Wendy won my trust. As a side note, it is perhaps worth mentioning that I suffer from the shopping equivalent of white coat syndrome, in which your blood pressure shoots up to alarming levels at the sight of a doctor, or in this case, a sales associate. But my pulse lulled as Wendy culled the vast repertoire of Barneys’ styles. In this fairly brief transaction, I found my belief in human goodwill definitely restored. Wendy was clearly no sycophant. That orange-and-red striped silk and linen shirt: “I’m worried about washout--it’s borderline.”

“You need to dress slimmer! Baggy clothes [such as I frequently wear] add weight!”

“Are you comfortable with the low-riding waistline?”

She saw the answer was “no” before I could respond. Subsequently, we came to the mutual conclusion that I look fairly awful in any sort of plaid shirt.

Gradually, the winning garments took their place next to the cash register. Then it came time to pay. I was looking at about $1,500.

“Can you hold these for me until later this afternoon so my girlfriend can have a look at them?” But, of course, Barneys could.

And there they wait. Sorry, Wendy. Still, it’s good to know that there are salespeople who will give you an unbiased opinion, who will even stand in as your surrogate girlfriend if need be. How else would I have learned that I look awful in plaid?

well, i couldn’t wallow around in ambiguity and size 38 pants forever, so I started making some changes. I lost not 10 pounds but 15, took up yoga, bought some clothes and had the Starlight Silver Honda Civic washed. After entertaining the possibility of a career change--say to narco-trafficking or corporate plunder, anything that would boost my resource deficiency--I decided to work harder at writing and to continue my quest for answers.

From Rebecca Curtis, a professor of psychology at Adelphi University, I learned that humor is high on the scale of women’s values. “A sense of humor is actually one of the most highly evolved traits,” she said. “It relates to getting along socially, and goes along with emotional intelligence.”

OK: Dog walks into a bar ...

Strangely, I started to get my groove back, sort of, while driving back from an Orange County restaurant that purported to serve aphrodisiac foods. I was in the car with two smart, attractive women (both taken and, despite our earlier diet of aphrodisiacs, quite in control of themselves). They took a keen interest in the curse of the Anti-Mensch.

“No way you’re a four,” one of them said. “Most of my female friends are married to guys in some kind of artistic pursuit. These guys don’t make much money, but they’re doing what they love, and that counts for a lot more. I’m trying to think if I know anybody for you.”

“Just get out there and start dating,” commanded the other, who is preternaturally self-possessed for a young woman in her 20s. She worked in advertising and offered her help. “I’ll do your web profile! But just go out on dates!”

The next day I asked out a woman who had impressed me at a party. She accepted. It’s just one date, but it’s a start. And as for my numerical rating, well, I just don’t think about it anymore.