7 ms·

How are you going to attract the wife you want if you're not better than other men (in some way, shape, or form)? That's always going to be the zero-sum game.

by aianus 11y ago

How are you going to attract the wife you want if you're not better than other men (in some way, shape, or form)? That's always going to be the zero-sum game. Edit: s/a wife/the wife you want/

theli0nheart 11y ago
People of all socioeconomic statuses somehow find a way to get married. Ultimately, finding someone to spend the rest of your life with doesn't come down to the simple question of "being better"—the qualifications for a good mate are very specific to every person.
- pixl97 11y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/fashion/weddings/falling-marriage-rates-reveal-economic-fault-lines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/fashion/weddings/falling-m...
- aianus 11y ago
  > the qualifications for a good mate are very specific to every person The set of qualifications is specific to every person, sure, but whatever is in that set for a given woman, you need to be better than the competition at those qualifications. Unless you're fine with marrying just anyone, the thesis of the blog post doesn't hold for dating; it's not enough to be 'decent' or even 'good'.
Bjartr 11y ago
Attraction is fairly irrational and subjective, it's also fairly random. Not everybody is everywhere all the time, so there's a "right place, right time" chance aspect to it. Now, if you're talking about attracting a particular individual you've chosen to pursue, well then things get a bit more difficult.
AlisdairO 11y ago
Presumably the way you might be 'better' if you follow this kind of advice is that you're probably more likely to be happy, well adjusted, and able to give of your time and energy. Lots of women will value that over extra wealth.
mcbrown 11y ago
All the men I know who view the dating "game" as zero-sum in this way are divorced, on their way to divorce, or on their way to another marriage without having addressed any of the issues that led to their prior divorces (suggesting yet another one is in the cards down the road). Like Joshua eventually learned, the only way to win this game is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
gizi 11y ago
You will probably just want one that is good enough and which happens to be available. In the end, why would she need to be better than good enough?
vinceguidry 11y ago
It's not about being better, it's about doing better. I have a friend that I've been dating. She tells me all about the other guys she dates. This past weekend for her birthday a friend flew down from another state to hang out with her for the weekend. This guy is loaded. Way more money than sense. Among the things he got her that weekend was a $200 bottle of champagne that he must've paid $300 for because he got it in a restaurant. She doesn't drink. She had half a cup and they left the bottle on the table when they left. He does all this for a girl he sees a few times a year. When she told me this story, I went down to the massage place she likes, and got her a $200 gift card for massages. She was very grateful. I don't take her to expensive restaurants, I take her to the best places in town to eat, which are never really expensive. I take time to try to get to know her and try to work on my issues so that the time we spend together is better. As a result she spends way more time with me than she does with the others. Where other guys spend money to cover up their perceived inadequacies, I put time and effort into making every moment I spend with her special. That kind of effort is an order of magnitude more effective at finding and keeping the woman of your dreams. And you don't have to have a ton of money or a huge penis or be six feet tall to do it.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  > That kind of effort is an order of magnitude more effective at finding and keeping the woman of your dreams. And you don't have to have a ton of money or a huge penis or be six feet tall to do it. But you explicitly have not done this...
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    Not understanding. Have not done what? If you mean finding and keeping her, well, we're still dating after having known each other for several years and some nasty experiences. Our relationship gets a little better every day. I'm satisfied with where we're at right now. I'm not ready to get married and she's not ready to settle down yet. More to the point, you don't keep a woman by locking her in a cage. You do it by being the first person she calls or texts to tell about her day.
todayiamme 11y ago
As a woman, I'm not sure if marriage is as simple as a checkbox of wants, needs, desires, and luxuries. A lot of people seem to model these things as a game where there is some sort of fitness function that needs to be maximised and so on, but I'm not sure if that works too well. In the middle of the 20th century, von Neumann and his ilk predicted nuclear war with absolute certainty. So certain were they in their conviction that they in fact advocated a first-strike policy by the US, but that war never came. The models were adjusted to include repeated games and then people said, that's the reason why we haven't blown up. (see: http://www.scu.edu/business/economics/workingpapers/upload/Field-Schelling-paper-af2013c.pdf http://www.scu.edu/business/economics/workingpapers/upload/F... ) But rationally speaking the game of global annihilation was a single game - the person who moved first would have the fewest people die and then there would be no more games, so their analysis doesn't quite hold up. Indeed there have been times where people have tried to destroy the world, but someone, somewhere down the chain of command has said no and prevented that outcome. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov ) Maybe, just maybe, we should accept that while looking at the world through the lens of game theoretic models is useful for a lot of applications - it isn't the be all and end all of human society. There are women out there who do indeed care about those points and want to "better" their rank within the game they play. There are others for whom that game doesn't even exist and they can be just as desirable and amazing as the first group. So at the end, you could very well end up not playing the game and have a shot at a pretty decent life and find some happiness.
- aianus 11y ago
  > There are others for whom that game doesn't even exist and they can be just as desirable and amazing as the first group. The fitness function might be completely different from one woman to the next, but I think extremely few are the type to just buy the first car off the lot without some kind of comparison shopping / fitness function maximizing. And at that point, your standing relative to her other suitors indeed becomes more important than your absolute level of achievement.
- kami8845 11y ago
meric 11y ago
It is zero sum over the entire Earth, but not as zero sum as you think, locally in one country - It's quite possible for any middle class man with a decent job to travel to a less affluent country and marry a very attractive wife they would want. You have to share the piece of your pie your country has, but nothing is stopping you from grabbing at another country's piece of the pie.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by aianus 11y ago

How are you going to attract the wife you want if you're not better than other men (in some way, shape, or form)? That's always going to be the zero-sum game. Edit: s/a wife/the wife you want/

theli0nheart 11y ago

People of all socioeconomic statuses somehow find a way to get married. Ultimately, finding someone to spend the rest of your life with doesn't come down to the simple question of "being better"—the qualifications for a good mate are very specific to every person.

pixl97 11y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/fashion/weddings/falling-marriage-rates-reveal-economic-fault-lines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/fashion/weddings/falling-m...
aianus 11y ago
> the qualifications for a good mate are very specific to every person The set of qualifications is specific to every person, sure, but whatever is in that set for a given woman, you need to be better than the competition at those qualifications. Unless you're fine with marrying just anyone, the thesis of the blog post doesn't hold for dating; it's not enough to be 'decent' or even 'good'.

Bjartr 11y ago

Attraction is fairly irrational and subjective, it's also fairly random. Not everybody is everywhere all the time, so there's a "right place, right time" chance aspect to it. Now, if you're talking about attracting a particular individual you've chosen to pursue, well then things get a bit more difficult.

AlisdairO 11y ago

Presumably the way you might be 'better' if you follow this kind of advice is that you're probably more likely to be happy, well adjusted, and able to give of your time and energy. Lots of women will value that over extra wealth.

mcbrown 11y ago

All the men I know who view the dating "game" as zero-sum in this way are divorced, on their way to divorce, or on their way to another marriage without having addressed any of the issues that led to their prior divorces (suggesting yet another one is in the cards down the road). Like Joshua eventually learned, the only way to win this game is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

gizi 11y ago

You will probably just want one that is good enough and which happens to be available. In the end, why would she need to be better than good enough?

vinceguidry 11y ago

It's not about being better, it's about doing better. I have a friend that I've been dating. She tells me all about the other guys she dates. This past weekend for her birthday a friend flew down from another state to hang out with her for the weekend. This guy is loaded. Way more money than sense. Among the things he got her that weekend was a $200 bottle of champagne that he must've paid $300 for because he got it in a restaurant. She doesn't drink. She had half a cup and they left the bottle on the table when they left. He does all this for a girl he sees a few times a year. When she told me this story, I went down to the massage place she likes, and got her a $200 gift card for massages. She was very grateful. I don't take her to expensive restaurants, I take her to the best places in town to eat, which are never really expensive. I take time to try to get to know her and try to work on my issues so that the time we spend together is better. As a result she spends way more time with me than she does with the others. Where other guys spend money to cover up their perceived inadequacies, I put time and effort into making every moment I spend with her special. That kind of effort is an order of magnitude more effective at finding and keeping the woman of your dreams. And you don't have to have a ton of money or a huge penis or be six feet tall to do it.

JupiterMoon 11y ago
> That kind of effort is an order of magnitude more effective at finding and keeping the woman of your dreams. And you don't have to have a ton of money or a huge penis or be six feet tall to do it. But you explicitly have not done this...
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Not understanding. Have not done what? If you mean finding and keeping her, well, we're still dating after having known each other for several years and some nasty experiences. Our relationship gets a little better every day. I'm satisfied with where we're at right now. I'm not ready to get married and she's not ready to settle down yet. More to the point, you don't keep a woman by locking her in a cage. You do it by being the first person she calls or texts to tell about her day.

todayiamme 11y ago

As a woman, I'm not sure if marriage is as simple as a checkbox of wants, needs, desires, and luxuries. A lot of people seem to model these things as a game where there is some sort of fitness function that needs to be maximised and so on, but I'm not sure if that works too well. In the middle of the 20th century, von Neumann and his ilk predicted nuclear war with absolute certainty. So certain were they in their conviction that they in fact advocated a first-strike policy by the US, but that war never came. The models were adjusted to include repeated games and then people said, that's the reason why we haven't blown up. (see: http://www.scu.edu/business/economics/workingpapers/upload/Field-Schelling-paper-af2013c.pdf http://www.scu.edu/business/economics/workingpapers/upload/F... ) But rationally speaking the game of global annihilation was a single game - the person who moved first would have the fewest people die and then there would be no more games, so their analysis doesn't quite hold up. Indeed there have been times where people have tried to destroy the world, but someone, somewhere down the chain of command has said no and prevented that outcome. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov ) Maybe, just maybe, we should accept that while looking at the world through the lens of game theoretic models is useful for a lot of applications - it isn't the be all and end all of human society. There are women out there who do indeed care about those points and want to "better" their rank within the game they play. There are others for whom that game doesn't even exist and they can be just as desirable and amazing as the first group. So at the end, you could very well end up not playing the game and have a shot at a pretty decent life and find some happiness.

aianus 11y ago
> There are others for whom that game doesn't even exist and they can be just as desirable and amazing as the first group. The fitness function might be completely different from one woman to the next, but I think extremely few are the type to just buy the first car off the lot without some kind of comparison shopping / fitness function maximizing. And at that point, your standing relative to her other suitors indeed becomes more important than your absolute level of achievement.
kami8845 11y ago

meric 11y ago

It is zero sum over the entire Earth, but not as zero sum as you think, locally in one country - It's quite possible for any middle class man with a decent job to travel to a less affluent country and marry a very attractive wife they would want. You have to share the piece of your pie your country has, but nothing is stopping you from grabbing at another country's piece of the pie.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]