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Chicago's Perfect Man: Smart, Successful, Blue-Eyed, Brown-Haired Drinker

By Lizzie Schiffman Tufano | January 10, 2013 1:27pm | Updated on January 10, 2013 2:12pm
 Chicago's perfect man has brown hair, blue eyes, an athletic build, a fat paycheck and a graduate school education.
Chicago's perfect man has brown hair, blue eyes, an athletic build, a fat paycheck and a graduate school education.
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Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

CHICAGO — Shocker: Chicago's perfect man looks a lot like Jake Gyllenhaal, earns between $150,000 to $200,000 a year, and can order a drink as coolly as James Bond.

That's what an online dating site found after surveying 4,000 Chicago women to determine "The Perfect Man" based on their ideal income, education level, hair color, eye color, body type and vice.

Chicago was the only city of more than 30 surveyed that valued education first, followed by success and then sociability, according to WhatsYourPrice.com, a dating-auction site that conducted the survey.

"Chicago is one of those cities where it's like a 'work hard, play hard' mentality," said Leroy Velasquez, a Chicago native and spokesman for WhatsYourPrice.com. "They do value a man who is educated and successful, but at the same time, someone they can have a beer with."

The survey polled members of the website — which auctions off first dates — based on how much each quality would influence their decision whether or not to accept a first date.

Chicagoans should be proud of the site's findings: Body type was only the fifth most important quality in a man here, but was the primary determining factor in New York and Indianapolis, Velasquez said.

A graduate degree is the most enticing quality to Chicago women: Twenty-seven percent said they would give their digits to a man with that level of education.

Miami ranked income as its most important quality, but Chicagoans have higher expectations: Women in the Florida city wanted a man who makes $100,000 to $150,000 per year.

Chicago women said they'd be 25 percent more likely to date a man based on income, but set their ideal in the $150,000 to $200,000 salary range.

Seventeen percent said they valued a social drinker, making that the third most important quality. Blue eyes, brown hair and an athletic build were the top physical choices, and 3 percent said smoking was a big deal — they preferred men who don't puff.

Having grown up in Chicago, Velasquez said he thinks their findings are right on target.

"I wholeheartedly agree," he said. "In Chicago you have areas like Wrigleyville and the Loop where there's a lot of people who are intelligent, but they do like to go out on the weekends as well."

The site also surveyed 5,000 men to find their perfect woman, but with slightly different parameters. Since men bid on dates with women on their site, they asked men how much they would be willing to pay for a date with a women with certain physical attributes, vices and education levels, and ranked the priciest qualities highest.

There, they found that Chicago's "Perfect Woman" is a green-eyed blonde with a master's degree who  drinks but doesn't smoke. The average first date offer for her was $240.44.

Don't go rushing to the salon yet, brunettes: The price difference between blondes and brunettes was only $13.29, much less than the cost of highlights. Green eyes were valued only $5.49 more than blue eyes, but $16.09 more than brown.

While these findings cast Chicago daters in a slightly less flattering light, they're worth noting, since Chicago recently was ranked the "most promiscuous" city in a survey by "Sugar Daddy dating website" SeekingArrangement.com.

The site polled 5,000 of its 1.7 million members and found that 72 percent of its Chicago members reported having more than seven sexual partners a year, the most of any city — even 4 percent more than Sin City.