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>I wouldn't be surprised to see a serious push for legalized polygamy in a few years. I mentioned the same thing to my wife, only half-joking. Many of her fri

>I wouldn't be surprised to see a serious push for legalized polygamy in a few years. I mentioned the same thing to my wife, only half-joking. Many of her friends are single, professional women who don't want to date down. The problem is that all of the men they're interested in (millionaires in their 30s and 40s) get married quickly after they signal they're on the market. It seems to me there's presently an "inefficiency" in the market where they could take on a second (or more), willing wife if only it were legal. It might be dangerous to society to have so many permanently single men, but the status quo appears to negatively impact educated women.

ponker 6y ago
The status quo doesn’t negatively impact educated women, it impacts educated women who refuse to date men of lower educational attainment.
- eigenvalue 6y ago
  I don't think it's just about education. It's multi-dimensional and more about overall status, which is a combination of innate factors like looks/intelligence/humor and things like education and job prestige/salary.
  - hhjinks 6y ago
    Either way, women deciding to sleep around for a decade and then complaining that there are "no" men left is a problem of their own design.
wutbrodo 6y ago
As I enter my thirties, this dynamic has started to shift dramatically. All the women I know who haven't settled down by their early 30s are having crises about their inability to find a compatible mate, just as their physical attractiveness is declining precipitously[1]. As the priority shifts from sex/light companionship to deeper relationships, women's position in the modern dating market goes from very good to very bad: most of the age-30ish men I know who aren't in longterm relationships are dating attractive 25 year olds, while knowing that there's a deep bench of women their age that they can get dates (and sex) with relatively easily. This sudden fall of a cliff, which only takes a few years, has to be extremely disorienting for those women that don't enter committed relationships by that point in their life (or those who exit them). It's also very predictable, but it's hard to blame twenty-somethings for living in the moment and frittering away their most attractive years having lots of sex. Assuming that marrying down is a better fate than remaining a spinster, it's not clear to me how these dynamics balance out. I know this all sounds rather harsh, but it's an inevitability of looking at the "market dynamics" of a matching problem. [1] I don't say this to be insulting, it's just a fact of male attraction in the same way that the massive skew towards the tiny top decile is for female attraction.
- swat535 6y ago
  I'm not following you here.. Why would the attractive 25 year olds date 30 year old average men when they can have sex with top men? Your average 30yo men having access to women near his own age makes sense but not for younger women, since they seek the top 10% at that age.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > Why would the attractive 25 year olds date 30 year old average men when they can have sex with top men? They wrote a song about it. City girls just seem to find out early How to open doors with just a smile A rich old man And she won't have to worry She'll dress up all in lace and go in style Late at night a big old house gets lonely I guess every form of refuge has its price And it breaks her heart to think her love is Only given to a man with hands as cold as ice So she tells him she must go out for the evening To comfort an old friend who's feeling down But he knows where she's going as she's leaving She is headed for the cheating side of town You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes On the other side of town a boy is waiting With fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal She drives on through the night anticipating Because he makes her feel the way she used to feel She rushes to his arms They fall together She whispers that it's only for awhile She swears that soon she'll be coming back forever She pulls away and leaves him with a smile You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes She gets up and pours herself a strong one And stares out at the stars up in the sky Another night, it's gonna be a long one She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry She wonders how it ever got this crazy She thinks about a boy she knew in school Did she get tired or did she just get lazy? She's so far gone she feels just like a fool My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things You set it up so well, so carefully Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things You're still the same old girl you used to be You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes Honey, you can't hide your lying eyes
  - 6y ago
peruvian 6y ago
They should probably just be realistic, then. I have friends who had the same attitude but them they realized there's like, a few dozen men in their city who a) make more than them b) are single c) are sexually interested in women d) are attracted to them e) they are attracted to. They now OK with "dating down". This is just a result of women being able to get good jobs too.

ponker 6y ago

The status quo doesn’t negatively impact educated women, it impacts educated women who refuse to date men of lower educational attainment.

eigenvalue 6y ago
I don't think it's just about education. It's multi-dimensional and more about overall status, which is a combination of innate factors like looks/intelligence/humor and things like education and job prestige/salary.
- hhjinks 6y ago
  Either way, women deciding to sleep around for a decade and then complaining that there are "no" men left is a problem of their own design.

wutbrodo 6y ago

As I enter my thirties, this dynamic has started to shift dramatically. All the women I know who haven't settled down by their early 30s are having crises about their inability to find a compatible mate, just as their physical attractiveness is declining precipitously[1]. As the priority shifts from sex/light companionship to deeper relationships, women's position in the modern dating market goes from very good to very bad: most of the age-30ish men I know who aren't in longterm relationships are dating attractive 25 year olds, while knowing that there's a deep bench of women their age that they can get dates (and sex) with relatively easily. This sudden fall of a cliff, which only takes a few years, has to be extremely disorienting for those women that don't enter committed relationships by that point in their life (or those who exit them). It's also very predictable, but it's hard to blame twenty-somethings for living in the moment and frittering away their most attractive years having lots of sex. Assuming that marrying down is a better fate than remaining a spinster, it's not clear to me how these dynamics balance out. I know this all sounds rather harsh, but it's an inevitability of looking at the "market dynamics" of a matching problem. [1] I don't say this to be insulting, it's just a fact of male attraction in the same way that the massive skew towards the tiny top decile is for female attraction.

swat535 6y ago
I'm not following you here.. Why would the attractive 25 year olds date 30 year old average men when they can have sex with top men? Your average 30yo men having access to women near his own age makes sense but not for younger women, since they seek the top 10% at that age.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > Why would the attractive 25 year olds date 30 year old average men when they can have sex with top men? They wrote a song about it. City girls just seem to find out early How to open doors with just a smile A rich old man And she won't have to worry She'll dress up all in lace and go in style Late at night a big old house gets lonely I guess every form of refuge has its price And it breaks her heart to think her love is Only given to a man with hands as cold as ice So she tells him she must go out for the evening To comfort an old friend who's feeling down But he knows where she's going as she's leaving She is headed for the cheating side of town You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes On the other side of town a boy is waiting With fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal She drives on through the night anticipating Because he makes her feel the way she used to feel She rushes to his arms They fall together She whispers that it's only for awhile She swears that soon she'll be coming back forever She pulls away and leaves him with a smile You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes She gets up and pours herself a strong one And stares out at the stars up in the sky Another night, it's gonna be a long one She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry She wonders how it ever got this crazy She thinks about a boy she knew in school Did she get tired or did she just get lazy? She's so far gone she feels just like a fool My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things You set it up so well, so carefully Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things You're still the same old girl you used to be You can't hide your lying eyes And your smile is a thin disguise I thought by now you'd realize There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes Honey, you can't hide your lying eyes
- 6y ago

peruvian 6y ago

They should probably just be realistic, then. I have friends who had the same attitude but them they realized there's like, a few dozen men in their city who a) make more than them b) are single c) are sexually interested in women d) are attracted to them e) they are attracted to. They now OK with "dating down". This is just a result of women being able to get good jobs too.