<p> Individuals vary in the specific traits they value in a partner, but also in their overall degree of ‘choosiness’ for partner quality. Yet more desirable partners are a limited resource sought by more same-sex rivals, making them harder to obtain. Accordingly, we proposed the novel hypothesis that individuals holding more discerning overall mate preferences would be higher in intrasexual competitiveness (IC). Further, we expected that mate preferences would interact with participants’ own mate value and their sociosexual orientation to predict IC. In online and university student samples, results showed that higher mate preferences predicted higher IC, and (in the aggregate data) that a three-way interaction existed whereby IC was highest among those high in mate preferences, self-perceived mate value, and unrestricted sociosexuality, controlling for age, sex, and relationship status. These findings suggest that IC is a disposition that facilitates achieving mating goals and is highest when those goals are most difficult to satisfy.</p>