(Now there's a dealership incentive!)

The local motorcycle dealer had, for a time, a delightful young lady at the accessories counter. I mentioned once that if she walked up to the salesman and customer wearing the latest Icon™ jacket and asked the saleman how she looked, she'd sell a jacket on the spot. She didn't try it, being a bit more modest than that. Quiet, she'd wear the company shirt and cargo pants.

Or maybe she just didn't want to hurt somebody. Aside from riding her Yamaha R6 to work locally, and to school to get her degree, it turned out she'd been a swimsuit model for years. Umm, the blue eyes are real...

Hey, she worked in a motorcycle shop. Didn't I mention how big a bike nut I am?

"Goes about 12 miles before it needs to be plugged in for eight hours and recharged."

Are you kidding? Is that a typo? I'm 55. I can go 12 miles in an hour on a bicycle, and it takes me considerably less than 8 hours to recharge.

That's what the guy told me. Seems rather inefficient and kind of a pain in the ass!

Uh, Rad. That swimsuit model. Um. Wow.

Way outta' my league, though.

Jeff, it gets worse, for the chronically frustrated at least. But remember her modesty. The model in any magazine, or on a Web site, isn't just a creature, but a person, remarkable first for their wit and being most remarkable for being a total, optimum package.

I'll usurp Amy's role here for a picosecond, and point out that it is you who not only decide, but determine if a woman like Angela is "out of your league". I'm pleased to know Angela superficially and proud of her many accomplishments by proxy; she's fought a bunch of wars because of her looks, gender and heritage (the tan and blue/gray/green eyes are real). If I were not married and ~30 years older, I would probably be acting stupidly in some attempt to get closer to such an obvious prize. As it is, I can chuckle at success and marvel at beauty from a more comfortable distance, and thus not whine at something out of reach.
And so I encourage you. Be a success, and nothing is "out of your league". Hey, check out her photographers on that link. You could be there...

If you're the best at what you do, there is someone appreciative of that. You can find that someone. Don't "settle".

Well said, Rad!

I dated a guy for a few months that I thought was out of my league. He was GORGEOUS and when he asked me out I was beyond stunned. So stunned that it took me a few months to notice that he wasn't terribly intelligent, and rude to wait staff, and a few other things that I'm ashamed to think about now. Turns out I was out of his league.

Jeff, I'm trying to work out: was this a Type I or II error on my part?? If I assumed he was smart and decent because he was hunky is that a false positive?

Catspajamas, heh!

We'd have to define the null hypothesis, but under the usual interpretation it's probably a false positive. The evolutionary psychologists tell us that women optimize their mating strategies by trying to eliminate false positives, even as they also might reject good mates as false negatives. Men are supposed to optimize their mating strategy the other way around. It could be summarized this way: women want proof before assuming a guy is relationship material, but men assume a woman is relationship material until they get evidence to the contrary.

If all that is true, then dating advice will be very different for men and women. Dating will have a cooperative and a competitive component. I must say that I find most dating advice is oriented towards optimizing a woman's strategy, not a man's.

All that being said, I have reservations about it. Evolutionary psychologists borrow from the language of statistics, but I'm not sure they have adequate data to really back it. I think the mathematical concepts are used as metaphors. The metaphorical appropriation of mathematical concepts in the social sciences and the humanities can be dangerous, as Alan Sokal has demonstrated.

Or you can use my simple test:

Is she female? Are you Brian?

Then she's out of your league.

Aww, that can't be true, Brian. Or maybe it's that thinking that's the problem.

Brian, I don't think you give yourself enough credit. And if the women you know won't give you the time of day, shine them on, but don't stop looking. Thinking like that is part of the problem. In Sociology it's known as the Self-fulfilled Prophecy. A person tells themself they're not good at something or that nothing good happens to them, then they prove it by failing or having bad things happen. That is a simplified explanation, but basically it all starts with attitude.