Why Women Love Don Draper

Emily is currently binge watching Mad Men and she is making one thing abundantly clear:

Don Draper is hot.

He’s so dreamy and manly.

So, he’s everything I’m not? Just kidding, I have my moments.

But therein lies the crux of the matter. We mortal men have but moments, while Don Draper is always on: a man who knows who he is, what he wants, and sees to it that he gets his way.

Chris, you’re talking about a fictional character played by Jon Hamm. Did you see him Bridesmaids?

No, I know, but the ladies love Don Draper. When women are telling men that Draper’s the shit, men should take notice.

It would behoove us to analyze this further.

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Don Draper. I don’t get it.

Full disclosure: I’ve only watched Season 1 of Mad Men. Based on that, when picturing Don Draper, the things that come to mind are:

1. Binge drinking.
2. Binge smoking.
3. Heavy doses of sexual harassment and discrimination.
4. Promiscuity and infidelity.

On second thought, I totally get why women love Draper – he’s an asshole, and women love assholes.

***

Okay, I’m being facetious. These are superficial elements that serve to illustrate the overall socioeconomic climate of America in the 1960’s. Mad Men is a period piece, after all.

So why do women really love Don Draper? One word:

Control.

He’s not in control of every situation (i.e. Betty), but he comes across as a man who’s always in control of himself.

The obvious is that he’s well-dressed and well-groomed.

The not-so-obvious is, to be frank, rather powerful.

Most communication is nonverbal, is it not? Don Draper’s posture is always immaculate. He never appears to be rushed or disheveled. He even looks in control when he’s drunk, which is a scientific marvel in itself. If I were downing whiskys like him in the afternoon, I’d end up talking like Lucy trying to sell Vitameatavegimin (do kids even get this reference? If not, how sad).

The eyes, as they say, are the window to the soul. Draper will always look you in the eyes when he speaks. He’s not looking down, kicking the floor. He has the constitution to maintain eye contact, which is quite a desirable quality.

Never before have we required less eye contact than now. Texting, Emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking. It’s like we’re doing everything we can to avoid eye contact.

This is kind of screwing men over. Let’s start looking at each other’s ugly beautiful faces.

Of course, verbal communication is important too. The speech is deliberate and intentional. One will never hear Don say, “So, I was thinking, do you wanna maybe, I dunno, if you wanted to, like, I dunno, go out and maybe get a drink with me sometime? But only if you’re free.”

He’ll bash a woman over the head with a club and drag her to the bar by her hair before he says that.

Body Language. Eye Contact. Strong Voice. All signs that Draper’s in control, and the chicks dig that.

Got it? Good.

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Anyways, yeah so, maybe uh, you’ll sort of, I dunno, like this post, and umm, if you’re not too busy, uhh, like, maybe you can, I dunno, leave a comment or umm, sort of, give me a like maybe if you wanted to, umm, errr, uhhh, ummm, mmm, yeah.

– Chris.