Even modern girls like caveman confidence

A friend from college tracked me down on Facebook this week. To be fair, he was a friend-of-a-friend, an aggressive pre-med type that I sometimes ran into at the smoky bars and late-night diners around the university. He was doughy and nondescript, even in college, and the pictures on his Facebook page showed a similarly pasty, slightly older version of the whitebread kid I remembered.

But here was something surprising: an on-line album devoted to his recent vacation in North Carolina, complete with a long-legged, bigchested girl by his side. She was tanned and gorgeous and had a seductive, back-arched pose in nearly every shot. Next to her stood my friend, or friend-of-a-friend, in all his pale white glory, hair covering his chest and lining the belly that hung limply over his swim shorts.

This is often one of the greatest mysteries of the dating circuit, the ability of mediocre men to score women that, for all intents and purposes, are well out of their league. As fa far as I can remember, this guy was mid-grade in everything but his confidence.

For all his mundane qualities, he was outspoken and brash, unafraid to approach girls or assert himself in a group of guys; clearly an alpha.

As women, we are biologically programmed to desire this kind of alpha male, these aggressive, fearless men with a no-holds-barred approach to dating. While most women run through a list of nice-guy qualities they seek, in our heart of hearts, we're pining for an unshakably confident man that exudes all of the alpha male qualities of our caveman forebears.

In a bar in east Texas, where the women wore rhinestone-studded jeans and Waylon Jennings played on the speakers, I watched a crew-cut Army man work a sort of confident, aggressive magic that bordered on obnoxious. He was tall and broad shouldered, not good looking, exactly, but with heavy brow ridges and a sloping forehead that gave him a certain Neanderthal appeal.

Other, more attractive men worked the crowd of women from the nursing school next door, buying drinks and making chitchat, practicing the typical nice-guy routine. He stood on the sidelines drinking whiskey and coke and chucked ice from his glass at a brunette in a black halter.

Initially, she was dismayed, turning away from the more reputable suitors to glower at him each time a cold, wet cube landed on her bare back. He was relentless, though, and soon she was laughing at him over her shoulder, even as he pelted her with ice. By the end of the night, she had made her way to his table, and the last I saw, they were lip-locked in a dark corner of the bar.

As a woman, I find this type of behavior reprehensible. And, let's be honest, a little bit appealing. It's hardwired into my double X chromosome, a predisposition to favor aggressive, confident males, and I could no more fight it than my love of chocolate or fondness for shopping.

Men, when in doubt, take the most confident approach. Most women will admire your fearlessness and respond to your alpha traits. Even in the modern world, it's true that nice guys often finish last. You can be sure that alpha males always finish first.

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