We Asked Men What Makes Attraction Disappear and the Gentlemen Had Thoughts

You might expect men, when anonymously invited to explain what makes them lose attraction to a woman, to immediately become twelve years old.

This was my concern.

Instead, the gentlemen became unexpectedly serious.

They talked about rudeness, dishonesty, clinginess, negativity, cleanliness, how a woman treats other people, whether she has a life of her own and whether spending an evening with her feels lovely or requires a small recovery period afterward.

Goodness.

For something we treat as mysterious, attraction suddenly sounded remarkably interested in ordinary behavior.

This was not a scientific survey, of course. These were anonymous men answering a question, not a delegation arriving with official findings from the Ministry of Romance.

Still, the same answers kept wandering back in.

And some of them were much more interesting than I expected.

The Waiter Came Up Rather Quickly

The most common theme was not beauty.

It was behavior.

Several men mentioned women who were rude, mean-spirited or unpleasant to people around them, and serving staff came up more than once.

This is one of those little romantic moments nobody puts into the movies. You are sitting across from a man looking perfectly lovely, the restaurant is beautiful, the evening is going nicely—and then you speak to the waiter as though he has personally ruined civilization by bringing sparkling instead of still.

Sir notices.

Not because he has suddenly become Sherlock Holmes over the bread basket. He has simply been given a rather useful glimpse of how you behave with somebody you do not particularly need to impress.

One man said rudeness toward him or serving staff was an immediate turnoff.

Fairly clear.

Another talked about constant negativity and how unpleasant it made a woman to be around. His theories about what might be causing that negativity became rather ambitious, so I shall leave those with him.

But the larger point was hard to miss: several men seemed far less concerned with whether a woman was endlessly dazzling than with whether being around her felt pleasant.

Apparently romance can survive imperfect hair.

Contempt before appetizers is having a more difficult evening.

Sir Would Apparently Like You to Have Somewhere Else to Be

Then came insecurity and clinginess: frequent calls, constant reassurance and the sense that a woman had very little happening outside the relationship.

Now, men enjoying attention is hardly breaking news.

A man may be enormously pleased that you want to see him—right up until he realizes that he has somehow become your hobbies, social calendar, evening entertainment and emergency reassurance service.

That is quite a promotion.

One respondent described constant reassurance as exhausting, which may be the more interesting part of the answer. Attraction seems perfectly happy to be wanted. It becomes a little less relaxed when wanting begins to resemble regular attendance checks.

Sir likes being important.

He may simply not have expected to become the entire program.

Romance Has Also Filed a Complaint About Hygiene

And then, magnificently, we reached cleanliness.

After all our grand discussions about chemistry, compatibility, emotional connection and mysterious sparks, one gentleman essentially said: please wash.

I enjoyed this enormously.

He connected poor hygiene with a general lack of care in other parts of life, including relationships. Whether one neglected shower can really support such a large conclusion is a matter between that gentleman and his bathroom.

But the answer itself was wonderfully grounding.

We spend years wondering what makes attraction bloom, fade, deepen and disappear, while somewhere a man is standing beside the sink wondering whether anybody has considered soap.

Romance does occasionally enjoy being very simple.

And Then the Gentlemen Mentioned Games

Dishonesty, betrayal, passive-aggressive behavior and game playing also appeared, which I found especially entertaining considering how much romantic advice has been devoted to becoming strategically unavailable, mysteriously delayed and just difficult enough to remain fascinating.

Some of the men in this poll seemed to have missed that memo entirely.

They would simply like to know what on earth is going on.

One respondent complained about women who would not plainly say what was bothering them. His actual wording was considerably less delicate.

Anonymous polling does occasionally remove a gentleman’s decorative filter.

But once we put the decoration back, the complaint was perfectly ordinary: if something is wrong, endless guessing becomes exhausting.

Which is rather funny when romance has spent years trying to convince us that mystery is irresistible.

Apparently not everybody wants to solve a small emotional escape room over dinner.

The Most Interesting Part Was What They Did Not Say

Taken together, the answers were much less glamorous than I expected.

The men were not mainly describing some impossible feminine creature who glides into a room with perfect hair, mysterious eyes and the ability to order wine in fluent French.

They kept coming back to much smaller things.

Is she kind when she does not need anything? Does she have a life of her own? Can you trust what she says? Does every tiny problem somehow become a three-act production?

And, thanks to one gentleman’s contribution to romantic history, has everybody remembered basic hygiene?

Of course men do not agree about attraction. Put ten of them in a room and eventually one will become passionately attached to the exact quality another one has just listed under absolutely not.

That is part of the fun.

But I did find something unexpectedly charming about these answers. For all the noise around attraction—the looks, the mystery, the chemistry, the endless theories about what men supposedly want—quite a few of the things they noticed were wonderfully ordinary.

How you treat people.

How being around you feels.

Whether they can trust you.

Perhaps attraction is not always standing at the door with a measuring tape after all.

Sometimes it is simply sitting across the table, quietly watching how you speak to the waiter.