Mate Desirability Score
Improve the changeable traits in your overall relationship-market value
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 96%
Saad describes mate desirability as a multi-attribute score rather than a verdict based on one feature. Appearance, health, communication, intelligence, kindness, ambition, confidence, accomplishment, and other cues can contribute differently, with some strengths compensating for weaknesses elsewhere. The practical move is to separate fixed attributes from changeable ones, then improve the latter instead of treating an unfavorable trait as destiny. Saad also links the model to assortative mating: people commonly pair with others of broadly similar overall value and, for durable relationships, similar fundamental values and goals. He hypothesizes—while acknowledging it has not been tested in the form he describes—that a widening gap between partners' overall scores may create relationship stress.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01People are evaluated across a basket of attributes
- 02Strength in one attribute can partly compensate for weakness in another
- 03Some attributes are fixed while others can improve
- 04Long-term partners often match on broad value and fundamental values
- 05Large divergence over time may strain a relationship
How to run it
- 1
Build the attribute basket
List the traits that plausibly affect attraction and long-term partnership in your context.
Pro tip Include character, capability, health, communication, and life direction rather than appearance alone.
Watch out The score is a heuristic, not an objective measure of human worth.
- 2
Separate fixed from changeable
Mark which attributes cannot realistically change and which can improve through effort or practice.
- 3
Find compensating levers
Identify changeable strengths that can offset weaker or fixed attributes within the overall basket.
Pro tip Prioritize health, learning, speech, assertiveness, and ambition when they are genuine gaps.
- 4
Act on specific changes
Translate each selected lever into a repeatable behavior and track progress over time.
Pro tip Choose improvements that also benefit life outside dating.
Watch out Do not adopt a false persona solely to attract someone.
- 5
Check fundamental alignment
For a long-term partner, compare core values, goals, and standards of conduct rather than demanding identical tastes.
- 6
Reassess development
Notice whether both partners continue developing in ways that preserve broad alignment.
Pro tip Discuss emerging gaps before turning the heuristic into a private verdict.
Watch out Saad presents score divergence as an untested prediction, not a validated divorce rule.
In the wild
Saad says height and facial symmetry may be fixed, while fitness, reading, vocabulary, elocution, ambition, and assertiveness can be developed. In his account, improvement across those available dimensions can change the total basket even when no single weakness disappears.
→ A fixed limitation no longer becomes a reason to abandon broader self-development.
Common mistakes
Treating one trait as destiny
The model is explicitly compensatory: a basket of attributes matters more than one isolated feature.
Calling a hypothesis a divorce predictor
Saad says his divergence proposal has not been tested in the form discussed.
Is it for you?
Best for
Adults seeking realistic self-improvement or reviewing long-term alignment with a partner.
Not ideal for
Ranking human worth, manipulating partners, or making deterministic predictions about attraction or divorce.
From the transcript
“Human beings are also products made up of many attributes.”
“Mating is a compensatory process.”
From the episode
The Cancelled Professor: Husbands Are More Dangerous Than You Think! Men Are Hardwired To Cheat! Science Proves Monogamy Isn't Real! - Gad Saad