I find it funny how this is the most obvious point ever. Its like DURRRRR!

And yet it has created 6 pages of discussion...

Much love,

Craigus

philliadelphia on toast rocks my socks, end of discussion.

How very dare you!

I'll have you know I work in Agriculture

Right. This is my first serious post here I think but I reckon it's worth saying. I tried to put on muscle for a while and see if it would change my self image. I went for a two hour cardio and weights session 4 times a week for half a year. I didn't put on a lot of weight (about 5 kg) which I have now all but lost anyway. I learned a few things about muscly men when I spent that much time in the gym (that is not supposed to sound gay.
The point: women do not see the man. They see the image the man has of himself. This may not be a constant image from day to day, and sometimes it is a contrived, projected image, but that is still what they see and what they find themselves attracted by/repulsed to.
With all respect to you for your exercise commitment; its sounds like women are approaching you because 1. being muscly makes you 'think' you are a bigger, more attractive man. Women see that you have this image of yourself and it is one they find attractive. 2. if they are coming to feel your muscles then, according to my understanding of the genders, it is a 'point of conversation' an entree for them to be flirty and approach you. They don't see the muscle and think "I'm taking that home", they see the man's projected image of himself and say "I fancy that". If you are wearing short-sleeved tops, and flexing at the bar, women are aware that you are drawing attention to your physique and that it is important to you. But what they want is what the muscles have given you: confidence and presence.
When you are small or scrawny and you walk into a room of muscly, immature guys - let's say 17 year old rugby players - they assume a hierarchy based on their physical presence and try to enforce it on you. If you have enough character/wit or a different social value, you can reassert a different hierarchy and you can be as short/skinny as you like.
By the same token, women are far more aware of their clothes/makeup and the statement it makes to other women. They say that they are dressing up for attracting men but that is not strictly true. In fact they are engaged in a very subtle (too subtle for most guys) warfare which will establish their value in their group of girls - especially when faced with women in a public place who they don't know but are competing with. Now I don't know about you guys, but if an attractive charming girl who had not brushed her hair/done her makeup/with inexpensive clothes asked me out, I wouldn't say no. Yet the hottest girl will feel insecure if she is not presentable.
So women have a material competition - which guys don't pay attention to - to establish their value in relation to each other which in turn produces their self-esteem and the image of themselves they project.
And guys have a material competition (physique) - which girls don't put as a priority - to establish their value in relation to each other, which in turn produces their self-esteem and the image of themselves they project.
So, even though a woman's clothes don't make her just as a man's muscles don't make the man, they are important in how the respective genders establish their self-value in relation to one another which is apparent in how hot the opposite sex finds them.

This is very long-winded and probably full of truisms and definitely full of generalisations If you think it is silly then just ignore it. But my advice to anyone who is feeling low on self-esteem and wants to attract more girls is: muscles can change how you view yourself. But more often than not, there are chunky, ripped men in gyms who can't take their own t-shirts off (I've seen it, and I obliged) and have spent far more time working the metal than they have spent on the real causes of their sense of inferiority. How many chunky men have you seen who are awkward with girls, talk big about chicks all the time and are just as frustrated and emotionally undeveloped as the next AFC?
So muscles can help your self-image but there are many other ways to do it. I have worked on dancing for example, performed Latin dance in lycra at competitions. Massively camp, I know, but it is something I'm very good at. It has built my real confidence and it shows in how I project myself socially now. Guess I could have spent those six months practicing my pirouettes

I like this guy. Post more often.

Nicely put. Keep posting.

PS

Sir, your input is most welcome.

thanks guys I think I will post more.

Kowalski - what do you mean? You want pics? I've got pics...

Thats a very different way of defining how men and women both project their image and compete with the same sex, and all seems very true as you say.

What made you decide to weight train, just to see how your self image would change? Curiousity, or something else?

Great post by the way