What Your Taste in Women Says About You

There aren't many people without a "type" – those rare few who date people for abstract concepts like "who they are inside" or "love". No: most of us will continue to date essentially the same person, again and again, until death or marriage do us part.

Psychologists will say it's because we're trying to fill the void one or both of our parents left, scientists will say it's to do with hormones. But we know it's really because we're all sad individuals with no imagination. If you're a horny little shite who fancies alt girls (or E-Girls, these days) as a teen, you'll be a 50-year-old shite who dates ex-alt girls who still wear full-black and eyeliner. Say you snogged Oxbridge candidates all through sixth form? It's an all-grown up girlboss for you. If you're a nerd who salivated over gamer girls with big naturals? You guessed it: Old Lady Gamer.

The other week, we told the ladies what their taste in men says about them. Now, straight men, it's your turn to be stereotyped through the medium of your "type". Read on and consider yourself "seen".

The highly-functioning workaholic maniac woman only dates other people who did a law conversion or an MA-equivalent at a Russell Group. Which is good news for you – a Man Who Reads, listens to difficult music and only manages six hours of sleep a night in between all the mind expansion (which is fine, because you function adequately on five). Friends and family call you a power couple.

But your existence is ethereal and fluid: despite having been together for half a decade, you've only been acknowledged on the TL five times. But you don't mind, haha – you know it's bad for the brand.

One day, though, the slowly bubbling resentment will go full-Vesuvius and you'll shag someone from your banking firm or smash her electronics against the wall.

While she obviously has other interests, her Instagram centres around the undeniable fact that she is hot. When she updates her Story, it's either a meme about her waning mental health or an arty close-up of her boobs that you watch at least 13 times before you send it to your friends.

Her sexuality remains ambiguous, which means you can project whatever you want onto her. Although you may think she's the perfect girl for you, you're scared of commitment. If she ever opened your overzealous heart eyes reaction to her posing in the elf filter, she would respond only by liking your message.

As soon as she shows you any attention, you move onto the next Hot Girl on your Discover feed.

She was a girl in Cos and & Other Stories, posting subtly VSCO-ed essay collections in the evenings. You were merely someone happy to escort her to Milan and the south of France. And in summer? The park, for a homemade spread and some light reading on an Edinburgh 100% All Wool rug.

You work in the [insert arts, humanities or media industry], just like her. Sure, your parents give you handouts. How much? You'll never tell. You're a respectable softboi these days.

Much of your personality is based on your comfortable upbringing and the fact you were teased at school for being a "pussy". You leave the writerly aspirations to your girlfriend, but will one day turn the time you called your mum a bitch and subsequently punched a hole in the wall into a brooding memoir about modern masculinity.

You've been there for "this one" since high school – ever loyal, dependable and steady. Sure, there was that one time you cheated on her, but that was before you became a man.

Oh, to be a blogger's other half. The perks are plenty: free casserole dishes, overnight stays and sumptuous dinners in town. When all is said and done, you're a man who loves the clout – and incidentally got into skincare a year ago.

Appearances are important to you, both on and offline. You want a woman on your arm who knows her Pentax K-70 from her SK-II, her Mario Testino from her Mario Badescu. She's a bae with a plentiful supply of Diptyque Baies. You make her look good (quite literally, you're her full-time unpaid creative direction and photography), but crucially she makes you look good. To be with an influencer is to be seen: witnessed, observed, captured in her content of you. Those other girls could never.

Your avatar on every social media platform is a photo of you "out and about" somewhere with a girl whose relationship to you is questionable. There both you are – at the park, at the beach, on top of a mountain, wearing blue jeans, gilets and bobble hats. There you both are, smiling, mouths curling up and to the side in exactly the same way. There you both are, staring determined into the camera like you're models in a photoshoot for a banking app. There you both are, looking exactly the fucking same.

Whenever anyone points this out, you look at each other, for a bit too long, and say, "People always say that, don't they." You weirdly rub her back.

If the girl is in fact your sister, you have one of those "close" relationships where you text each other selfies, talk about your sex lives in great detail and voluntarily share a bed as adults. If she's your girlfriend, you have a sister who you hate.

You'd think this guy would have snakebite scars and a full sleeve dedicated to The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, those with "alt" guy friends will know that their girlfriends tend to be reasonably plain huns who work in sales, listen to house music and are far too good for them.

The "alt" girl – i.e. vegans with nose rings, American Apparel "running" shorts and eyeliner that screams "I will ruin your life" – is courted mainly by a combination of guys who would have been mean to them at school, gamers who pay for porn and out-of-shape comedians.

If you don't fall into one of those categories, you probably matched on Happn because you were at the same European music festival.

@hannahrosewens / @emmaggarland / @nanasbaah