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The hacker ethos is "It doesn't matter whether the subject is popular, everybody who's interested is interesting". But the dating ethos is "Men with badly-groo

The hacker ethos is "It doesn't matter whether the subject is popular, everybody who's interested is interesting". But the dating ethos is "Men with badly-groomed beards who write harem anime reviews don't get dates". There's just no way around it, that's the problem here. Having a house and job are attractive characteristics, in the same sense that a functioning set of limbs is, but they don't set you apart. It's the personal details that matter.

jjdredd 7y ago
IMO owning a house in early thirties is pretty good. It should also be attractive for those people who want to start a family.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  It's really good actually but it's not a differentiating factor at the dating stage. Dating is an emotional competition, marriage introduces practical considerations. You need to get past the likeability filter before any woman is even asking herself whether she'd settle down with you. If you present yourself as marriage material without succeeding at being dating material, you're selecting for economic opportunists ("gold-diggers").
User23 7y ago
You can't fight a million years of evolution. Hypergamy[1] is a real thing. As you observe, the author of the piece strongly signals low social status and confirms it by declaring his lack of mating success. Fortunately for him, and others in his predicament, there are ways to signal higher social status and thus increase mating success[2]. Human behavior is far more complex than animal behavior, but pragmatically we should still understand a behavior such as going to medical school and becoming a doctor to be, in addition to its other purposes, an observably effective status increasing display. When it comes to mate preferences and thus what kind of display behaviors will be successful, always look at revealed preference and always ignore stated preference, as the latter is observably less accurate and matches revealed preference when it is. As this can be an emotionally sensitive subject I'll not offer examples, but many will readily come to mind on some consideration. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_(zoology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_(zoology)

jjdredd 7y ago

IMO owning a house in early thirties is pretty good. It should also be attractive for those people who want to start a family.

homonculus1 7y ago
It's really good actually but it's not a differentiating factor at the dating stage. Dating is an emotional competition, marriage introduces practical considerations. You need to get past the likeability filter before any woman is even asking herself whether she'd settle down with you. If you present yourself as marriage material without succeeding at being dating material, you're selecting for economic opportunists ("gold-diggers").

User23 7y ago

You can't fight a million years of evolution. Hypergamy[1] is a real thing. As you observe, the author of the piece strongly signals low social status and confirms it by declaring his lack of mating success. Fortunately for him, and others in his predicament, there are ways to signal higher social status and thus increase mating success[2]. Human behavior is far more complex than animal behavior, but pragmatically we should still understand a behavior such as going to medical school and becoming a doctor to be, in addition to its other purposes, an observably effective status increasing display. When it comes to mate preferences and thus what kind of display behaviors will be successful, always look at revealed preference and always ignore stated preference, as the latter is observably less accurate and matches revealed preference when it is. As this can be an emotionally sensitive subject I'll not offer examples, but many will readily come to mind on some consideration. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_(zoology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_(zoology)