Tonight, at every pub, bar and nightclub across the city, there will be men cracking on to women who are way out of their league.

Full of beer, bluster and self-belief, they will choose women much more attractive than they are.

The women will waste half the night trying to convince these Loser Lotharios that they’re really not interested.

But lack of success doesn’t deter these men.

Deluded and sometimes drunk, they’ll try their luck with stunner after stunner, who they will mistakenly judge to be their equal.

Astonishingly, researchers have scientifically proven that men think women are more interested in them than they actually are.

And the more attractive the woman is, the more interested the man thinks she is in him, according to a study by psychologist Carin Perilloux, from Williams College in the United States.

Conversely, the more attractive the man, the more likely he is to underestimate a woman’s interest in him.

And women consistently under-estimate how interested men are in them.

Ms Perilloux took 200 undergraduates speed-dating, asking them to rate how attractive they think they are, and how interested they think their dating partner is.

As she soon discovered, men operate according to a concept known as the error-management theory.

Men believe the costs of a missed sexual opportunity are greater than the costs of a false alarm.

This is what gave craggy crooner Lyle Lovett the guts to make a move on the winsome Julia Roberts, or rough rocker Benji Madden a chance with the lovely Nicole Richie.

But without star power (and millions in the bank), the average Aussie male is never going to reach such lofty heights.

It’s hard to know why such stark differences between men and women continue to exist.

But go to any pub on a Saturday night and the moment you walk in and inhale that sickly mixture of stale sweat, cigarette smoke and sodden beer mats, you have travelled back 50 years in time.

My single friends tell me that women want a man to sweep them off their feet and be a real gentleman.

Men just want to sleep with a supermodel and will do whatever they think they need to in order to trick one into the sack.

Ultimately, though, this research offers a cautionary tale of unrequited love and wasted opportunities.

Ms Perilloux concludes that she hopes her research may “help to reduce conflict produced by errors in perception between the sexes”.

Let’s hope it does. It will save a lot of women the hassle of making up new excuses, and encourage Mr Average to be happy with Ms Average rather than a Page 3 girl.