I wrote several articles on how men and women have very different, polar opposite even, preferences when it comes to the opposite genders. This goes even to the level of etymology; women prefer to describe their ideal or preferred type of man with a phrase 'real man'. In contrast men often use phrases that etymologically opposite of 'real' such as 'good woman as hard to find as a unicorn' or 'my little angel'. Both angels are unicorns are not real.
So why do men and women use etymologically opposite terms to describe essentially equivalent concepts? The answers lie in traits that each gender finds attractive. These traits make both genders ended up summing up their preferences with polarly opposite words etymologically.
To begin with, 'real man'. Yes, fundamentally 'real man' is not real. That is such a man does not exist, like Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy do not exist. Real man is but a product of female imagination, something they wish to be real and traits they wish to find in the opposite gender. Yet women consistently call this imaginary concept that only exist in their imagination a 'real man'. That raises the question why?
To answer that you need to think of traits one can associate with a word 'real'. That way you can trace back the train of thoughts that led women towards this 4-letter word they use describe their preferred type of man. Real is something tangible, something you can touch and feel, something that has presence, character, something that make people feel their existence, impacts world around them, leaves behind traces of their existence and being.
If you think about it, the type of men women tend to like do exhibit some or all of these traits. That is particularly true of type of men, other men dislike. When you see men talk something like "what does she even likes about this oaf/brute/gorilla/asshole/bastard/some other insult?" then it is likely that despite all the flaws that person has, they still has this 'real' quality about them. As much as another man will dislike an asshole for being an asshole, he does makes his presence felt, a be it in negative way, thus fulfilling the 'real' requirement that women crave.
The opposite is true as well. No matter how virtuous a man is, if he lacks these above mentioned 'real' qualities, the woman just cannot like him. If he is too smooth, invisible or intangible, she just cannot love him because she cannot feel that 'real' quality in him. When women break up with someone who seem to have everything going for them, ticks all the boxes and have no flaws, this lack of 'real' quality is always the case. The proverbial: "it's not you, it's me" always means this lack of 'real'.
Now lets look at male preferences instead. Nowadays a phrase "a good woman is as hard to find as a unicorn" is very popular among men. We can all agree that unicorns are not real. So does it mean that men have realistic outlook on life and accept women for who they are? A few actually do. Or does it mean that they completely gave up on the opposite gender and now indulge themselves in fiction like Pygmalion? A lot of them do. Anime figurines and porn proves that well enough.
So does it mean that all is lost for women and they are dying alone in this age of anime and modernity? Considering how dumb most women are, one will be forgiven to think this way. However the answer is the same as with women obsession with calling their preferred man 'real'. The deliberately 'unreal' concepts men use to describe their preferred women reveal their actual preferences just as much as word 'real' reveals what women actually like in men.
So now I will analyse word 'unreal' just as I did to word 'real' several paragraphs above. In many ways these traits are the opposite of what women like. Unreal is something intangible, idealised, polished, perfected even. Something that is pruned of all the flaws, kinks, rough edges, impurities and any imperfections, then polished to perfection and now completely flawless. Angels believed to be flawless, unicorns are also depicted with perfectly white hide and either white of rainbow coloured mane or tail, in short flawless.
If you think about, men consistently work to make everything as flawless as possible. Flawlessly smooth glass, marble, plastic anything really. That does apply to art as well: marble statues often depict people at their most flawless, artists worked hard to make their paintings as flawless as possible, even videogames work to make their graphics as flawless as possible.
That also applies to the kind of women men prefer in their lives. Anime depicts girls a lot more perfected and flawless then they are in real life and that is why men love and watch anime, not for green impractical hair or unreasonably large eyes or some weird antics some shows like to depict. Statues and art depict women in perfected idealised way; most movie actresses are pretty. Lingerie and make up aim to hide imperfections of the body and face and make women more desirable. Victoria Secret gives their models wear angel's wings and calls them angels precisely because it appeals to men. Angelic idealised women. Women themselves dislike using word 'ideal' when describing their preferred man, the opposite is true of men. The more idealised the woman is, the more man likes her.
At the same time, the opposite of flawless is what men dislike. Every flaw a woman has counts against her appeal and eligibility. If a woman is too 'real', has too many flaws, makes her presence too visible or tangible, it repels men. Men want to escape reality, not deal with it. Even cat or bunny ears are popular with men precisely because they make women less real and more idealised. No one picks waifus from Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure, because women there are not idealised and flawless but 'real' instead, with too many facial features and various kinks and imperfections. So, a woman with too many flaws, too 'real' if you like, can never interest a man in herself. That is why men say, 'a good woman is as hard to find as a unicorn', women around them have too many flaws for them to be even remotely interested in them.
That is all to it really. Phrases like 'real man' or 'my little angel/unicorn/pony' does not make any sense until you delve deeper to actually understand what they mean. Women like their men as 'real' as possible while men want them as 'unreal' as possible. Read paragraphs above to understand what either of that really mean.
Neither gender can actually love what the other one finds attractive. Women will never love those featureless "bug eyed" anime girls as much as men do. Neither will men ever like anything woman calls 'real'.
However, one can still understand with their mind what members of the opposite gender like and dislike and use this knowledge to attract them. This article will help anyone to understand what opposite gender really is looking for in their preferred partner.
