The Ladder Theory

Sally: We are just going to be friends, OK?
Harry: Great, friends. It's the best thing...You realize, of course, that we can never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape, or form - is that men and women can't be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No, you don't.
Sally: Yes, I do.
Harry: No, you don't.
Sally: Yes, I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You're saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive.
Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail them, too.
Sally: What if they don't want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn't matter, because the sex thing is already out there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story.

Taken from the first page of the Ladder Theory website, this classic scene from the romantic comedy movie, When Harry Met Sally, illustrates one of the biggest differences between males and females and the way in which we view each other through the prism of the ages old mating ritual.

The ladder theory offers a pretty accurate metaphor and one everyone man and woman who is interested in truly learning how the opposite sex actually thinks. First, the author starts with the initial rating system for which Men and Women view potential future partners:

Now, once a man and a woman rates a person they first meet, they place them upon their mental ladder...however, the ladder metaphor is different for men and women:

So it should be self-evident, if you are following this at all, that the people you want to have sex with the most will be at the top of the ladder. Descending down to the bottom of the ladder we pass the following people:

1. The people we really want, who may even be out of our league, are on top.
2. Then come the people we like.
3. Moving further down we pass the people who we would fuck if we were intoxicated and would admit to doing it later.
4. At the bottom are the people we would fuck drunk, and would lie about doing it later.

Clinging to the bottom are the girls that are wolf ugly. These are women so ugly you would chew your own arm off to get away rather than fuck them. Usually fake teeth, or the loss of several hundred pounds can move a woman up from wolf ugly.

Now let's take a look at what the typical woman's ladder looks like:

The first thing to notice here is that a woman has not one ,but two ladders. This is becasue in addition the normal ladder, a woman also has a friends ladder. The friends ladder is where a woman puts guys that she considers "just friends". More to the point where she puts guys who don't get to have sex with her.

The problem arises because a woman never lets a guy know which ladder he is on. Obviously there is a huge difference, or gap between these two ladders. It is in this gap that kisses of death are delivered and intellectual whores are made. All a man can do is "go for it" and make a move on a girl; ask her out, try to kiss her, write her a love note or whatever. If he's on the good ladder fine. If he is on the friends ladder this is a case of ladder jumping. The man is trying to jump the gap from the friends ladder to the real ladder. The girl has two choices at this point: she can let him on the ladder and all is well, or, more likely, she can kick him in the head, and off the ladder. If you look you'll see that below the ladder is the Abyss(what was it Nietzsche said about a man being on a rope stretched over an Abyss?....well it's worse than he thought; there is no rope.) So the man falls into the Abyss. The Abyss isn't really as bad as it sounds. Mostly it's a period of self-loathing, embarrassment, and of course utter awkwardness with the girl in question if they are talking at all.

Excellent insight and in my opinion, an accurate metaphor.

It's a rather long website, but you really should read the whole thing.