The difference may add 15-20 minutes to the commute, if you're coming down from points east. Not insignificant, but it's not like it is taking people 10 minutes on one hand, over an hour on the other.
It seems to me that men would actually very much like to believe that women don't care about attractiveness, but we do. If it was the case that women don't care about attractiveness, why is it that (if research is to be believed) most couples tend to be about the same level of attractiveness? Probably because women actually do very much care about attractiveness. Is it possible to have some personality attribute that would outweigh average or below-average looks? Yes, but not nearly as common as most men it seems would like to believe.
I am having a hard time buying the hot women hitting on average bald gay guy story. It is fun to flirt with gay men, definitely, but not because we actually want to get with them, and NYC women know how to spot gay men. There's something missing to this friend of a friend of a sister of a... story.