For Schlubs In Love, Persistence Pays

A new study says men -- no matter how unattractive or schlubby -- won't let anything stand in their way when approaching a beautiful woman.

Nicole Beland, Features Director of Women's Health magazine and Matt Titus, author of "Why Hasn't He Called?" joined Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith to discuss some famous examples of the phenomenon and why it may happen.

"I think when I first heard about this I think I thought all the way back to Jackie Gleason and the honeymooners," Smith noted. "He plays the bus driver, he is way overweight and has the hottest wife in the tenement. This has been run in every sitcom ever since."

"It's not rocket science. Let's talk about the Marilyn Manson-Rose McGowan and Billy Joel-Christy Brinkley, it goes back and back and back" Titus said. "Women weigh personality much heavier than men do. I studied 25,000 women across the country and asked what were the four most important things in a man? You know what one was -- personality. Two, financial security, three, monogamy and four, were looks. I did men -- it was completely reversed."

That rings true with Beland, too.

"It doesn't surprise me there at Women's Health we are always writing about evolutionary psychology and how it affects us today," Titus said. "Men are hard-wired to look for women with symmetrical figures and an hour glass figure because it means the woman is more likely to have a disease-free baby. It's instinct."

"But we are a lot smarter than our instincts," Beland said. "Both men and women. A lot of men are with women who aren't as necessarily attractive as they are but they get along."

"What do women know, though?" Smith asked "One of the things cited in this study is guys falling off a bar stool and still hitting on the hottest woman in the place and he's a total schlub. What do women understand about that?"

"Personality lasts, looks fade, women know that, so that's why it's weighted so heavily," Titus said. "Look, my wife, a great-looking woman. I'm an OK looking guy but you know what got her? My personality. Not the way I looked.

"I had to walk her to a date she had with another man because I couldn't get any face time with her," Titus noted. "When I took that personality-based strong move, she fell in love with me. That's what did it.

"For men who are interested in going out with a woman who will not give him the time of day because they are so beautiful, they are so pursued, I think persistence pays off," Beland said.

"Ugly guys are used to getting rejected, they can take it and they can get up and keep going," Titus added.

So what should be the advice to the guy who doesn't think he has a shot if women are so much better developed psychologically, anthropologically, what should be the advice to the schlubby guy?

"I think the advice to a schlubby guy is go after who you want and get used to rejection and play the odds," Beland said. "The more women you approach, the more likely one of them is going to say yes."

There was even hope for Matt Titus.