Aaron J. (not his real name) is attractive in a boyish way. He has a scruffy beard, charming smile and wardrobe that seamlessly combines Ralph Lauren with hipster accents. He comes off as a nice guy - so nice, in fact, that girls never believe anyone who tries to warn them about him. But he slept with more women in his four years at Hopkins than most guys do in a lifetime.
There are plenty of cute, eligible guys at Hopkins, but none have come close to attaining Aaron's level of success in the Hopkins hook-up scene. Aaron's secret doesn't involve hair gel, creatine or cologne. Instead, he coaxed countless girls into bed using a simple ratio and model that reminds me of my unhappy days as an economics major. I've decided to pass them on to all of you in hopes that the Hopkins singles market can correct its inefficiencies, meaning no one will ever have to leave PJ's alone again.
According to Aaron, guys just looking to get some evaluate potential hookups on two attributes: how attractive she is, and the amount of effort he thinks it will take to get her bed. Aaron translated these factors into a basic, albeit crude, ratio: Cuteness / Work.
If a guy's just looking for a quick fling, he wants to maximize cuteness while minimizing the amount of work he has to put it to get in. The higher the "cuteness/work" ratio, the more desirable the hookup. The ideal partner would, of course, be a really hot girl who gives you a blowjob in the bathroom five minutes after you meet her. The ratio falls for less and less attractive girls who play harder and harder to get, and rock bottom is somewhere around taking Kathy Griffin to Paris for the weekend and walking away with nothing more than a quick hand job.
This seems straightforward enough, but the Hopkins social hierarchy sometimes prevents guys from using this ratio effectively. Because Hopkins has such a small student body, popularity is more defined and relevant than it is at larger universities. Sure, it isn't limited to one small, exclusive group like it was in high school, but there are certain girls in each grade that the entire social crowd at Hopkins knows about, even if they've never talked to them. These girls, easily identified by their sorority tote bags and lacrosse-player boyfriends, make up an elite minority of Hopkins social queen bees, and a disproportionally large percentage of them are "hot" by conventional standards.
Guys tend to be blown away by these girls' looks and popularity, and they abandon the cuteness/work ratio to pine over a select few girls that every other guy at this school is trying to bone. Needless to say, their success rates are depressingly low, and they start complaining about the lack of available hot girls at this school.
But there are plenty of cute, single girls at Hopkins. These guys just don't know where to look. This brings us to the Hopkins Triangle.
If we diagram the entire female population at Hopkins, categorizing girls by attractiveness and popularity, we get The Triangle. On the vertical axis, we see that as popularity rises, we find fewer and fewer people on each rung of the social ladder. The horizontal axis charts beauty, placing the most attractive girls in the middle and the least attractive on the left and right vertices. The top of the pyramid (section A) is therefore reserved for the most popular and attractive girls at Hopkins. As you can see, there aren't many of them.
A lot of guys spend too much time pursing the girls in A section. But these girls are aware of how desirable they are, and they can afford to be the most selective in whom they hook up with. They are hot, but they take a lot of work. If we apply the ratio, the effort required balances out looks, no matter how remarkable, meaning guys would have better luck going after other girls.
Because the hottest, most popular girls at the top of the pyramid are getting so much male attention, other girls tend to get less. They're more likely to be flattered by perceived interest and advances because they're not used to it, which means they're usually easier to seduce. Aaron says that the farther away you move from A in any direction, the easier it is, on average, to get a girl in bed. A girls tend to require the most effort, while girls in C often require the least.
The Pyramid's power lies in the fact that girls in section B are just as attractive, physically, as the most sought-after girls in section A. But they're not quite as unattainable. If a guy stops pursuing an A girl and sets his eyes on a B, effort decreases while attractiveness stays the same.
This guy increases his cuteness/work ratio, thereby improving his hook-up potential, and he's also more likely to get the girl. But let's say a guy's drunk at a closed function. He doesn't have the option of climbing down the social ladder, and he's looking to minimize effort to make it a sure thing. He can also maximize his options by moving to the left or right (sections D), where he's sacrificing in looks, but gaining in (lack of) effort.
So guys at Hopkins could increase the quantity and quality of their one-night stands if they broadened their horizons. Aaron, of course, is a prime example.
But I'm not spilling his secret so that guys at Hopkins can take advantage of girls who are perhaps a little starved for attention. My hope is that, armed with this information, the Hopkins dating scene will change in two ways.
First of all, guys need to realize how pointless it is to devote all their energies to bringing home these A girls. Statistically, the odds are not in their favor, and they're more likely to find something better by turning to the slightly less socially aggressive crowds. If guys could do that, members of both genders would have more partners to choose from, and popularity would become a little less relevant in the dating scene.
But more importantly, this model can help anyone, not just horny guys looking for a good time. Let's say you're looking for a relationship. Pick one thing you want your potential partner to have, and another thing you want to avoid.
Let's say you want an interesting personality and don't want someone who's terribly unattractive. Put your desired quality (interesting personality) on the top of your ratio and the thing you don't want (lack of looks) on the bottom. So, our ratio would be: Interesting Personality / Lack of Looks.
You know you want to maximize your ratio. And you know how things work socially at Hopkins. If you tend to find the "popular" crowd boring, you should move closer to the horizontal axis of the Hopkins Triangle. But because looks factor into the equation, you'll want to stay close to the Triangle's center.
Your own ratio and pyramid can help you navigate the Hopkins dating scene by showing you where to look in the social hierarchy. And, most important, it can spot you spot someone trying to lure you in with a similar strategy from a mile away.
