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Controversial opinion: Men are concluding that women don’t care about money as much as they used to, and having an amazing career to snag a great woman is no l

• bilsbie 4y ago
  What do women care about instead?
  • greatpostman 4y ago
    Confidence, a large social circle, fun hobbies, dynamic/carefree attitude towards life, low stress psychological states, opinionated, makes money on your own instead of sucking up to some corporate master
  • sillysaurusx 4y ago
    Height, intelligence, and a sense of humor. You can often get by with just two. Beyond a certain threshold, throwing money at women doesn't really yield more results. Or at least not the kind of results you'd want.
    • lupire 4y ago
      If you are tall, smart, and funny, but can't pull in good money, you probably aren't so smart. Unless maybe you are ugly? But then does tall still help?
      • bradlys 4y ago
        Tall always helps. Imagine you were short and ugly - tall and ugly is a big improvement. Cosmetic surgery can improve ugly a little bit too. If you have all that money then you’re able to afford it as well. Even with little money - you can fly to Turkey and get operations for significantly less.
      • yterdy 4y ago
        Intelligence is multi-faceted. Could be witty, could be street-smart, could be emotionally intelligent. Either way, you don't need it if you have the other two (with "funny" being a euphemism for "not dull"). Height especially. I don't have a dog in that race as a gay man, but the way that "preference" bleeds into the way people treat you in the office and in social settings (and even in the classroom) is pretty frustrating. Short guys (and, to a lesser extent, women) have to be within a certain range of personalities to do well; tall guys don't have to have a personality at all.
        • polio 4y ago
          Yes, those are all colloquially accepted meanings of intelligence, but what people in this thread mean is g, fluid intelligence.
          • sillysaurusx 4y ago
            Not really. Or at least it’s not what I meant. Charisma (rizz) is closer, but on the opposite side of the fence. You want to aim for charisma, not fluid intelligence. But getting there requires creativity and confidence, which often go hand in hand with intelligence. In other words, if you have a high g spot, you’re in a good position. Fluid intelligence good to have. But you have to translate it into something social-facing: jokes, a hobby, something other than merely being a meat-based database of knowledge. People can get that from google.
      • greatpostman 4y ago
        Women don’t think like this
    • bilsbie 4y ago
      Is height a bigger deal than 10-20 years ago? I feel like I keep hearing about it.
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I am guessing it is more explicitly stated as a preference than in previous decades. And globally, proportionally, a lot more people are taller due to drastic decreases in malnutrition, so there are wider variations in height.
      • fullshark 4y ago
        I think it was always a big deal and kind of a key attribute women consider for physical attractiveness, but it was kind of not spoken about in general and in the internet age cat got out of the bag on psuedoanonymous forums and things like that okcupid data analysis got shared.
      • zozbot234 4y ago
        It might be perceived as a bigger deal simply because it's a hard, objective factor. In practice though, there's so many other things you can do to improve your chances that there's no point in even thinking about it.
      • tbrownaw 4y ago
        I keep hearing that online dating had elevated the importance of outward appearance - which would include height - even higher than what it used to be.
      • HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
        So do I. I've been with the same woman for the last 20 years but before that I had no trouble dating online and I'm definitely not tall.
      • bongoman37 4y ago
        The thing with online dating is filters kill a lot of opportunities that earlier you could compensate for. Most people and women can't easily tell between someone 5'11 and 6' and subconsciously someone who is dominant is perceived as taller than they are. But on an app, women will set a hard filter cutting out men at the edges who might have a chance earlier. Interestingly, women have ensured there is no weight filter, so things are further stacked against men looking for fit partners.
  • pickledish 4y ago
    (if you are asking this question ironically, I appreciate your sense of humor! If you are genuine, then I should tell you this is a pretty silly question to ask since everyone is different (and thus looking for different things in others), and even if that weren’t the case, asking “what do women want” in a male-dominated space like HN might not yield the most accurate responses :P)
• throwaway98797 4y ago
  broke bar tenders have always been cool next penny-less musicians doing well too??
  • grugagag 4y ago
    Bartenders can also make a lot of money in cash remaining with plenty of expendable energy to pursue other things in life that make them whole. All that together make up for and put in perspective to a stressed out engineer chasing to keep up to date with their skills at the expense of everything else.
    • LeanderK 4y ago
      The bartenders I know are very social, confident and, that's maybe just coincidence, good locking. They are easy to talk to and know how to command a room, even if it's full of drunk people. If we compare stereotypes, they would tick all the boxes that are not typically associated with engineers. I know a few so hard "into the grind" that they are not bothering to learn the language, since it's always english at work and they do not really interact with people outside work. A different approach to life I guess, but probably not more successful on the dating market.
• xyzelement 4y ago
  Nearsighted view that's probably not common among those raised with a long term values perspective. Being a broke bartender is maybe cute in your 20s and maybe they are enjoying the "great women" they are dating. The problem is - once you hit 30 and beyond, being a broke bartender ain't that cute, and the kind of women stuck dating them aren't that *great" either. And there's no easy leap from a broke bartender in your 20s to someone who can buy a house and support a family in your 30s. So what I hear in this story, is maybe someone who would otherwise do 130% to go from "director" to "senior director", doing 120% instead so they can play with their kid and extra few hours a week. It's a very different choice than opting into broke loserdom.
  • bradlys 4y ago
    I’d also argue that for young men - unless you’re an absolute unit and breathtakingly handsome… you’re always going to need to make more than your partner for a long term relationship. Being a bartender or taking a lower wage job is a surefire way to only being able to sleep around. I’ve only met a few women who earn more than their spouse and can actually only think of one off the top of my head. Every other couple has the husband making significantly more even if their ages are exactly the same.
    • nixgeek 4y ago
      This in itself is a huge problem and addressing it requires some combination of: (i) regulation backed up with investigations and significant fines for violation; (ii) transparency into pay equity; (iii) corporate action, optimally because it’s the right thing, but pessimistically because you can’t ignore the prior two points.
      • xyzelement 4y ago
        Why is it a huge problem?
        • nixgeek 4y ago
          Why is it normal or acceptable that men earn more than women? It’s been studied for a long time and there’s evidence [1] of some closure across recent censuses, but we’re far from done. [1] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/what-is-the-gender-wage-gap-in-your-state.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/what-is-the-g...
• lupire 4y ago
  Why would a bartender be broke? Are they ugly? An ugly broke person (with no economic prospects) dating a great woman is interesting news indeed.
  • tomcam 4y ago
    I am totally wondering the same thing, and GP knows a lot of them. Maybe time to level up on the bartender friend side of things
• andrewclunn 4y ago
  Agreed. Except that it goes further in that many men are forgoing the family aspirations in general. Women are also far less... motivating these days. Who's going to work hard to provide for overweight ladies who rant about how horrible men are? Save your money, save your time, and if you really want a family, the key isn't more money, it's to find women from cultures that value men and fathers, which isn't the West.
• bradlys 4y ago
  > Men are concluding that women don’t care about money as much as they used to, and having an amazing career to snag a great woman is no longer the best (or even a good) strategy I disagree. It’s not that women don’t care about money as much as they used to. They actually still care! It’s that other factors are more important now than they used to be. Your looks is very important because women aren’t gonna die without a man (social media and dating apps hasn’t helped men either here). In older times, you needed a man or to be married to make a lot of things happen. We’re in a place now where women don’t need a man for financial purposes. This is a good thing but it comes with the downsides that now women are much more concerned with looks than they were in the past because they can be. You’re still not going to attract women when you make less money than them. It’s still as important as it was before. For high earning women, the bar is even higher. You can’t just be income match - you often need to make significantly more. If she’s making $300k, you better be making $500k. If you don’t believe me - try getting on some dating apps and getting into a LTR with a woman in nyc or sf. You’ll find out that they care about money as much as they ever did. Also, dating doesn’t mean long term.
  • zozbot234 4y ago
    NYC or SF is hardly your average dating market, though. You're playing on hard mode.
    • rhino369 4y ago
      NYC is easy mode due to the gender imbalance. Harder to attract women by flaunting income since there is a ton of money there. But there are more single women than men.
      • bradlys 4y ago
        If only this was true. https://imgur.com/a/Ji6ZoMV https://imgur.com/a/Ji6ZoMV Only Manhattan has more women living in it. Once you account for how many men come into the city at night and date women in Manhattan - it's kinda irrelevant. It's obviously better than SF for gender ratio but - tbh - it's not any better when it comes to realistic standards for a partner. I'd say it's worse if anything. Yes, the ratio is theoretically better but I find you run into more demanding women here who are constantly shopping around due to the sheer density of people. Ratio might be good but it doesn't stop people from constantly looking for something better. I've never been in a city where more women in relationships are constantly shopping around - even when they've been with said partner for years and are on their way to marrying them. It's a bonkers place.
• lightbendover 4y ago
  > Unless you are making huge money I don’t see how your statement becomes less true as income increases. More true if anything in my experience.
  • greatpostman 4y ago
    Actually I agree with you. But a lot of money can buy you a great life.
• alistairSH 4y ago
  I’d posit that women still care about money. But, they don’t need a man’s income to support themselves. They are generating their own income. And parallel/related, the social pressure to marry and settle down is less than ever.
• wolongong942 4y ago
  > Men are concluding that women don’t care about money as much as they used to Is there evidence to suggest women lining up to date forklift drivers?
  • havelhovel 4y ago
    Probably the same amount of demand as for snarky tech workers.
• subpixel 4y ago
  My bartender bought a house in the country a decade before I did. All those tax free tips add up over time.
  • px43 4y ago
    Ha, what? Tips are income, and you need to pay taxes on those too. Sounds like your bartender was committing tax fraud. Not a great idea to cheat on your taxes, and then buy a house with it.
• koonsolo 4y ago
  Women select on success. With success probably comes money, and a lot of people confuse the two when they think about how women select their partner. But it's clearly "success" or the potential of success. How are you considered successful? When you're winning at some kind of game. Let's just say a successful soccer player. Or an actor. Or a musician. Or you have success in business. With that comes money, I agree. But when you're domination some kind of game, the women will follow.
  • zozbot234 4y ago
    Self-actualization in general gives you a confident, care-free attitude to life and social relationships that's often quite attractive to others. Plausibly, when women look for "successful" guys that's what they care about for the most part. If you pick your playing field carefully, it's often not hard to look "successful" in some way - couple that with a genuinely likeable, fun, confident attitude and you should do OK. Working 90 hour work weeks to "win" at some silly corporate career game is neither here nor there.
• Der_Einzige 4y ago
  This is correct and im glad people are bringing this up. Blind is too full of sad and chronically single dudes for "beta bux" to be as successful as it's claimed to be.
• iancmceachern 4y ago
  Correction, - men are realizing that women never did (care about money) and just want to spend more time with their loved ones.