Time to address my new pet peeve in all pick up related discussions: the ubiquitous 10-scale. Every time I hear or read the words, “She was at least an 8,” I cringe and I immediately find it harder to take the person seriously. Now I admit, I used it myself for a long time. But over the years I gradually came to the conclusion to drop the scale completely, for reasons both varied and not altogether obvious. Let’s break it down.

Why Guys Use the 10-Scale

The 10-scale has harmless beginnings. Guys — people, rather — enjoy rating and measuring the “best” or “better” of, well, pretty much anything. As such, hearing 10-scale ratings is not exactly an uncommon phenomenon among random single-male discussions. Just as people like to talk about who the best president was, who the best point guard is, whose car is the fastest on the block, or what the best movie is that summer, they also like to talk about who’s the best-looking or hottest. Discussion of people’s aesthetic features is just another natural by-product of our human tendency to rate, measure and compete.

And this wouldn’t be so bad if it ended there. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Debating it is a pleasant distraction at best. It’s like arguing whether “Ten” is Pearl Jam’s best album, or whether The Godfather is better than Citizen Kane or not — it’s a harmless sharing of opinions, as there’s no right or wrong answer.

Where the trouble begins is when guys begin to make the assumption that these numbers have some sort of objective meaning, when guys start to assume that a girl being a “9″ or a “5″ will reflect differences in her behavior or her responses toward them. This is wrong and harmful.

The reasoning goes like this: the hotter a woman is — i.e., the higher on the 10-scale she is — the more often she’s hit on by men, the wider her selection of suitors is, and therefore the “harder” she will be to pick up or get with. Men then begin to base entire strategies and behaviors around a woman’s appearance. They develop ideas such as “10-game” or switch up their interactions for women who they think are less attractive.

The other reason men adopt the 10-scale is to use as a benchmark or measuring stick for their own progress or accomplishments. When guys take on the task of improving themselves with women, many of them choose to use the physical appearance of women they’re with as a form of measurement. Although there’s some truth to this (i.e., one can look back and say, “The women I date now are noticeably more attractive than the women I dated two years ago”), it’s impossible to objectively quantify this. So why try?

The reason to try is bragging rights, both for yourself and others. The 10-scale is useful when trading success stories with other men because it allows you to piggyback on each other’s ideals. For instance, I could come to you and say, “I hooked up with the hottest girl last weekend. She was tall, brunette, had gorgeous green eyes, a nice tight ass,” and you’d get a certain image in your mind. You may like that image. You may not. Perhaps you like short, petite, blondes with nice big hips. In that case, you wouldn’t be so enthused. Or maybe you like curvy black girls. In which case, you’d be totally unimpressed.

But if I told you that I hooked up with a straight-up 9 last weekend, suddenly your mind’s eye is filled with whatever you idealize as a “9″ in your head. For me, that’s a tall, slim brunette with a tiny ass. For you that could be something completely different. Either way, it allows us to back-slap, high five, and bro-hug and all that other cool locker room shit that guys do when they congratulate each other on getting their dicks wet.

It’s not enough to say, “I really liked her,” or “I had such a great time,” or even, “The sex was amazing.” It has to be about how hot she was. It’s a status thing. It’s a competitive thing. And although single guys being competitive over women is never going to change, the rating system doesn’t help matters. It’s another validation-suck. It promotes needy and unattractive behavior, as we’ll see…

7 Reasons Why You Should Ditch the 10-Scale

1. A woman’s response to your advances is dictated far more by her self-perception and the context in which you meet her, not her “rating” or how others perceive her. There are women who are would-be “10′s” who perceive themselves to be “5′s” and women who are “5′s” who perceive themselves to be “10′s.” In fact, if you meet enough so-called “10′s,” you’ll notice that a great deal of them put that amount of time and effort into their appearance because paradoxically, they have poor self-images.

A lot of the perception that “hotter women are harder to pick up” has more to do with the context in which you find these women rather than the women themselves. When you approach the hottest girl in a night club, yeah, she’s going to have an inflated sense of importance and will have probably already been approached five times that night… because she’s in an environment that specifically values her looks above all else. In a club, she’s given status based on her looks, so naturally you’ll find that the good-looking girls perceive themselves to be out of your league. But that doesn’t mean when she’s at the grocery store the next day, or at her brother’s birthday party, or in a meeting at work that she has that same self-perception. She may be the sweetest and most down-to-earth girl in the world under other circumstances. And actually, she often is.

2. This goes without being said, but standards of beauty are largely arbitrary. My 9 is your 6 and your 8 is my 7, etc. There’s no useful or consistent measure of comparison here, and trying to delineate advice based on it is beyond pointless, it’s harmful. If I tell you “this tactic works best on 9′s and 10′s,” and my 9′s and 10′s are big-bootied Brazilian girls at a Samba club, while your “9′s and 10′s” are indie rock chicks at a coffee house, then that advice is not only useless, but it’s going to be counter-productive.

3. Your perception of a woman is also blurred by the context in which you meet her. Let me ask you this. Have you ever hung out with a friend who saw a hot girl and was like, “Eh, she’s like a 6. She’s all right.” And then an hour later he meets an uglier girl who’s really into him and he’s suddenly all excited about how hot she is?

I see this happen all the time. Everyone does it to some degree. As if by magic, a girl’s rating jumps up 1-2 points as soon as she’s into us. Cute girls become hot, ugly girls become “doable,” and hot girls become, “Oh my God, dude, you had to see her.”

Or how about this one? You see a hot girl across the room. She’s very attractive. Then you approach her, talk to her, and the conversation is dull and falls flat. She shows no interest in you and excuses herself. Suddenly she’s dropped 1-2 points. You go back and tell your friends that she’s not that hot after all and you’re not into her. And actually, you kind of aren’t. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

And that picture of the girl on Facebook you keep looking at? Well, her bangs are too long and her mouth is a little crooked, so she’s a 5. Except when you saw her in person you thought she was an 8. Or when you’re at work in a room full of old, fat men, and suddenly the one female in your entire department walks in. If you saw her in a night club, you’d think she was a 6, but at work, at work, among a bunch of fat men, she’s suddenly a 9.

Our perceptions of beauty are a slave to context. We are not in the least bit objective in even judging by our own standards of looks. Whether it’s alcohol, a dry-spell, a sausage party, the girl who smiled at you a certain way, the fact that your friend already hooked up with the girl you’re talking to, or a picture on a forum that some guy is bragging about, our mind will sub-consciously overlook features or flaws depending on the situation to perceive what benefits us the most and brings us more validation.

4. Using ratings as a false metric of success creates imagined stress and pressure for oneself. Have you ever been out with a girl who you thought was a “7,” and then had an opportunity to meet a girl who was a “9″ but didn’t take it? And then you spent the rest of the night and/or next day stressing on whether you bitched out, or that you traded down, or that maybe you aren’t improving quickly enough… Maybe you freak out and post for help on forums or analyze your “fear of 9′s” with your buddies… When really you should have just enjoyed a lovely night out with that “7.”

5. The rating scale is a form of a pedestal. A lot is made in pick up advice about not overvaluing a woman for something she hasn’t earned, for worshiping her for her looks, or as it’s commonly referred: putting her on a pedestal. This is good advice.

Then why would you intentionally adopt a rating system which implies scarcity and higher value in a woman without knowing her? The mere fact that you recognize a woman as a “10″ or a “9″ means that you are valuing her more highly than an average woman and that she’s done absolutely nothing to earn this valuation from you herself. Thinking like this will often cause men to behave in a needy way around more beautiful women. Guys who suffer from this often mention getting extremely nervous around “9′s and 10′s” while having no trouble with “7′s and 8′s.” This is why. You’re differentiating her and putting her on a pedestal. Just this time instead of doing it because she’s a woman, you’re doing it because she’s “a 10″ or whatever.

6. The rating scale objectifies women and turns you into a validation junkie. One (possibly) unavoidable aspect of “improving” one’s interactions with others is the need to temporarily objectify them. Picking up women is no different. Again, the origin of the rating scale was to be able to apply some sort of yardstick to the appearance of the women we met. Unfortunately, as with other forms of objectification, this turns us into validation junkies. We have sex with a bunch of “8′s” until the thrill is gone, so suddenly we become obsessed with getting with a “9.” Then we get with a “9″ and get pissed off because our friends say she’s a “7″ which further drives us to seek validation and solace in our imaginary 10-scale. The fact that a girl may be in med school, or have a drug addiction or be perfectly emotionally-compatible with you — these things all take a back-seat to your obsession with an arbitrary number and an elusive desire to “do better.”

7. Her reactions are far more based on your looks, not hers. This is a dirty secret that nobody talks about. The conventional wisdom in this industry is that the more beautiful a woman, the “harder” she is to pick up and vice-versa. But as I mentioned above, beautiful women often have poor self-images, and ugly women often have their own delusions of grandeur as well. Put simply, “5′s” can think and act like “10′s” and “10′s” can think and act like “5′s.”

What is relevant though is her perception of herself vis-a-vis you. If she perceives herself to be out of your league, then her objective appearance doesn’t matter, you have no chance. If she perceives herself to be in your league or below your league, then getting with her will be no problem, regardless of how she looks. The 10-scale has no relationship to her perception of you. It has everything to do with your perception of her. And if your perception of her is that she’s a “9 or 10,” then chances are, you’re putting her on a pedestal, you believe her to be out of your league, you’re going to behave in a needy manner, and as a result she’s going to perceive herself to be out of your league. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How attractive you are perceived to be by women is directly proportional to how much you’ve invested in yourself, both physically and emotionally. Self-development and being an attractive man are inseparable. They’re the same thing.

Therefore the only person you should be applying the 10-scale to is yourself. Instead of chasing after your “10′s,” make yourself into a 10. As you accomplish that, more and more attractive women will be drawn to you naturally, without effort.

My Rating Scale

Here’s my new rating scale: Hot, Cute, and Not Interested. “Hot” refers to any woman I find attractive enough to put in the time and effort to get with. “Cute” refers to any woman who I wouldn’t say no to, but I am not willing to put in a lot of effort. She’d have to put in as much effort as me, if not more for anything to happen. “Not Interested” means just that: I’m not interested. But notice I don’t say “Unattractive.” There are plenty of women I’m not interested in who many men find attractive. In fact, there are many attractive women that I’m not interested in. What matters is my interest-level. That’s it.

Unlike the 10-scale, my three ratings can be defined by anything. What makes a woman “Hot” to me is not only how physically beautiful she is or how high status she is — it’s how she makes me feel in her presence. It’s how excited I get around her.

I discovered a while ago that the reason I hook up with someone isn’t really that important. It’s a feeling. If I’m enjoying myself and the process, then I go for it. This enables me to not make any pre-judgments about her, to not make any assumptions about her status relative to my own, to not put her on a pedestal, and to connect with her as a real human being. Few men are able to do this, especially with the truly physically beautiful women.

Since I adopted this way of thinking, the quality of my interactions have shot way up. More beautiful women don’t intimidate me anymore and I find it much easier to approach them now. They’re just other people. I can honestly look back and say that the women I’ve been with in the past year are significantly more attractive than they were two or five years ago — both physically and otherwise. And not only that, but the experiences have been far more enjoyable. Years ago, the first time I hooked up with a runway model, it was not an enjoyable experience. She was emotionally unstable, demanding and extremely negative. I didn’t enjoy having her around, yet I felt compelled to stick with her, like it was some accomplishment or merit badge that I needed to show off.

But who gives a shit? Really. Because nobody else does, that’s for sure. If I met her today, I’d probably drop her within 30 minutes. My yardstick for success is my own emotional fulfillment now. And yours should be too. That’s what brings success. And when a gorgeous woman sees that you’re hitting on her because it makes you happy, not because she’s an object of status or glamor to you, then 90% of the techniques and games you’ve worried so much about will cease to matter. You’re offering her something far more real and genuine and truly attractive, something that can’t be contrived or synthetically created. And she’ll appreciate you for it and won’t let you go.