What Women Really Want in a Man, According to a New Survey - VICE

The internet has no shortage of men explaining what women want in a partner, and a surprising number of them seem convinced the answer is another man telling them what to do.

A new survey commissioned by Chyrpe, a dating app for women who prefer taking the lead, found that 63% of women surveyed preferred a supportive, emotionally available partner over an alpha male. Another 54% believed dating an alpha male often meant putting his needs first. Just 3% wanted someone controlling, while 9% were interested in dominance. You have to wonder how many of those self-proclaimed dating gurus have ever bothered asking women what they actually want.

The survey was conducted by research firm 3Gem, which questioned 2,000 US adults between October 15 and 21. Chyrpe also has a vested interest in the findings, given that the company promotes female-led relationships. Back in February, it even published a press release telling self-described alpha males to stay off its app.

Men are feeling some pressure to keep up the alpha male act, too. In Chyrpe’s survey, 35% said their friends would give them a hard time for letting a partner take charge, and 37% felt pushed by social media to act dominant. Nearly four in 10 also worried that opening up emotionally wouldn’t go over well with their partners.

Chyrpe relationship expert Gigi Engle said men are constantly told they need to be dominant and in control to attract women, even though that’s not what many of the women surveyed said they wanted. In fact, 45% agreed that alpha males are attractive only in fiction.

The whole alpha male obsession is even more funny when you look at where it came from.

Wildlife biologist L. David Mech helped popularize the term in his 1970 book about wolves, drawing on earlier studies of unrelated animals kept together in captivity. After studying wild packs, he found they were usually families, with parents raising their pups. Mech eventually challenged the terminology and spent years asking his publisher to stop printing the book. It went out of print in 2022.

Research on attraction has questioned dominance, as well. In three studies involving 348 people, published in 1995, psychologist Lauri Jensen-Campbell and her colleagues found that dominance on its own didn’t make men more attractive. Women rated men who seemed kind and helpful as more desirable partners.

Being kind to your partner seems to have some benefits beyond getting a date, too. In a 2011 study involving 124 people, researchers found that those with more agreeable partners were generally happier in their relationships. Agreeableness was also the only personality trait they studied that helped predict if a couple would eventually break up.

A guy who knows what he wants can be attractive. A guy who thinks he knows what every woman wants is another story.