27 ms·

Dating, education, and sex ratios

208 points by Melchizedek 3y ago

churchill 3y ago
[flagged]
- imwillofficial 3y ago
  Too emotional of a topic.
  - sproketboy 3y ago
    [dead]
  - xpe 3y ago
    We can't discuss emotions? We do, quite frequently, just under the guise of other topics. What I mean is that discussing even "purely technological" news has deep emotional connections -- not least of which is survival. Many or most of us work in/around the software industry. We aren't really neutral; valuing software is pretty deeply connected to how we e.g. make money and/or enjoy spending free time. Now, do we discuss emotions well? It seems to me that the U.S. population in general doesn't. But I admit this claim is quite vague, undefined, and hard to measure. The population with higher education probably does somewhat better? (I'd be interested to see what measurable metrics would best correlate.) Anyhow, it seems to me that most people have an inherent drive for close interpersonal relationships, of which dating is one. My opinion: Hacker News, as a forum, isn't really properly designed for it (even though it has people who are capable of being articulate and decent to each other). Even if HN was well-designed for emotionally-charged topics, the subset of people here might not be the best choice of a community for learning about romantic relationships with people who are often outside that community. :)
- salmonfamine 3y ago
  I think this is a conversation worth having, but this is a tech news board. This isn't exactly on topic, and is guaranteed to be inflammatory.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    Non-tech is explicitly not off-topic, even if most (it's certainly not all!) of us have a tech background/current job. Quoting from the guidelines linked in the footer: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
  - dang 3y ago
    HN isn't a tech news board - the site guidelines explicitly differentiate from that in the first paragraph: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. This article suffers from a baity title and sensational opening but then gets pretty substantive and, I think many readers would say, interesting. Topics like this have always appeared on HN and as long as (1) they don't come up so often as to feel repetitive and (b) the article is substantive, I think it's ok.
    - salmonfamine 3y ago
      Fair points —- I agree that the article is actually quite well researched and to-the-point, once you get past the title. I guess I just see this exact argument being made all over the place, so I’m a little weary of it. But this article is one of the best iterations of it that I’ve seen.
  - xpe 3y ago
    > is guaranteed to be inflammatory. This is your prediction. It seems overconfident to me.
- Fauntleroy 3y ago
  I read the whole thing, and it really isn't relevant to this particular forum.
john009 3y ago
The word is foundering not floundering.
- neonate 3y ago
  Both work.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
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- justsocrateasin 3y ago
  foundering = fail or break down floundering = struggle or stagger helplessly. both work! I actually think `floundering` works better in context - "men breaking down" versus "men struggling".
kholdstayr 3y ago
Programmers don't have time for love. /s
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. or Most men who program aren't "good with socializing" let alone "good with socializing with women".
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    > More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. I hear a lot of heterosexual male SW engineers lament this, but I find it not true in practice. We live in a world dominated (and even inundated) by messaging that navigating technology is a recipe for success. It usually pays decently to well. Programmers don't have dating problems from their profession.
    - seniorThrowaway 3y ago
      The issue is that the personality traits that tend to correlate with good programming and software engineering - logic, reasoning, detachment, analysis, thinking outside the box - don't tend to correlate well with interpersonal and especially romantic interpersonal relationships. In order to be successful in relationships, those types of minds have to consistently and constantly do things they consider completely irrational and uncomfortable, which is difficult to maintain.
      - sho_hn 3y ago
        All these things have their own kind of logic to them. It's possible to learn/train people/empathy. There's a lot of people who can't get themselves to believe that it's worth investing, in though. But people skills do come in handy, also when solving non-romantic problems at scale.
        3y ago
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
What I find interesting and I am curious if these conversations can happen anymore. I no longer discuss anything related to gender, relationships, or personal life dynamics with anyone outside of my bubble. I would enjoy the conversation, learning about another's ideas and understanding although despite assurances of maturity and openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements. I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the general public.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  > I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the general public. On the contrary, I love having these discussions.
  - murphyslaw 3y ago
    > On the contrary, I love having these discussions. Same, although my lawyer insists not to have them anymore when drinking.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  Huh. Over here in Europe, we have these discussions all the time. They do get opinionated, of course. But it's not yet taboo.
  - Tagbert 3y ago
    It's not in the US, but it seems some people have become socially fearful. I think that there is an artificial sense of risk possibly driving by 24x7 news and social media that prey on people's fears and anxieties.
    - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
      I would not say artificial. An individual with whom I work spoke a common word, with respect, and despite being a respectable term for another person, a term agreed by all parties as acceptable except the offended party, the accused was contacted by HR and advised to no longer use that term. There are other anecdotes of course but this is one example that even the best intentions the accuser is never told their position is untenable.
extasia 3y ago
Tldr, get your degrees up fellas
- tester457 3y ago
  And a masters if you are interested in getting a almost 2x chance of getting swiped right on.
HaroldBolt78 3y ago
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andrewmcwatters 3y ago
To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them. I don't see as much of a concept of growing up together off the foundations of who you are as a person today as I've heard it expressed from older colleagues I've worked with. Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  > Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life. Ah yes, the hive mind of women.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  > they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them I don't think this is female-specific. I see a lot of young men around me delaying "getting serious" into their mid-30s too, and have very high standards by that point. I'd include myself. I met my wife at 30, and by that time I was also looking for someone in a similar life stage to mine.
  - andrewmcwatters 3y ago
    Yeah, I see the same problem with young men, too. People say the dating pool turns in their favor by the time they get to their 30s, but you've missed out on an entire possible era of your life together with someone at that point. And the dating pool absolutely does not look the same.
    - sho_hn 3y ago
      It's definitely true that my wife I say "I wish I had met you five years earlier" a lot, e.g. around things like starting a fam. There's something to what you say there, it gives you more runway in HN parlance.
politician 3y ago
Towards the end, the article posits that the reason men fail to attain higher levels of education is video games. I would be curious to see how the effect of video games stacks up against the effect of the significant support industry established for helping girls succeed in STEM while comparable support for boys is nonexistent.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Stuff like this is actually researched. It would be better to first look at the research before comparing anecdotal hypotheses. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-beh... > Men are more likely than women to point to factors that have more to do with personal choice. Roughly a third (34%) of men without a bachelor’s degree say a major reason they didn’t complete college is that they just didn’t want to. Only one-in-four women say the same. Non-college-educated men are also more likely than their female counterparts to say a major reason they don’t have a four-year degree is that they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted (26% of men say this vs. 20% of women). > Women (44%) are more likely than men (39%) to say not being able to afford college is a major reason they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Men and women are about equally likely to say needing to work to help support their family was a major impediment. > In some instances, the gender gaps in the reasons for not completing college are more pronounced among White adults than among Black or Hispanic adults. About four-in-ten White men who didn’t complete four years of college (39%) say a major reason for this is that they just didn’t want to. This compares with 27% of White women without a degree. Views on this don’t differ significantly by gender for Black or Hispanic adults. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women-outnumber-men-college-enrollment https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women... > In this blog post, we argue against these explanations, showing it is unlikely that the gender gap in college attendance reflects some sort of failure on the part of educators or college admissions officers. A more likely explanation is that the labor markets reward women with relatively higher financial returns to college enrollment.
  - somebody78978 3y ago
inconceivable 3y ago
it seems like society has engineered itself into a real pickle as evidenced by all the hand-wringing articles on this topic. personally i find serious relationships to be a giant waste of time, probably because i'm no good at maintaining them or i just don't check all the boxes, or whatever. i like dating and commitment-free sex, so i really don't have much incentive to improve. i'm basically financially independent so i don't really care about paying for things most people would split. in the few instances i've sincerely tried to keep it going, it ended after no particular incident/fight/whatever. just fizzled out, or a non-dramatic breakup over text message, which doesn't really bother me. these things come and go and i have no real hangups about attachment or have any dependence issues. personally i think there is no "fixing" this, at least for 20 or 30 years until a brand new generational cohort come into their 20s and 30s. non-immigrants are simply just going to get married less and have less children than were historically 'normal'.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  I like that you put "fixing" in quotes. People are of two minds. They think they want some things while their revealed preferences are different. Id vs. ego, maybe. There's good things about relationships, but I don't think anyone ever got into committed relationships for fun; I think they were forced into them by their environment (finances, family). It's good not to be forced into them, but then you lose the good things to be found in them. But people want to have their cake and eat it, which doesn't make sense. So it's not a black and white thing; even to a singular person, the "fix" or the "problem" may seem both good and bad. I'm skeptical about future generations though. If you frame "not having kids/serious relationships" as "bad", then I think things will continue to get "worse". :p There's nothing for future people to figure out; the incentives that were once in play will continue to erode. It's like expecting war deaths to decrease as weapons continue to grow in power. UNLESS you're talking about the state growing people in pods. And generally going transhuman/posthuman (and post-"relationship" and post-"two people fucking"). I think that's the ultimate future, and it's way better than the setup we've had traditionally in all but romance and current Overton window.
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Off-topic, but on article, this starts to be the ratio at which disparate impact laws come in to effect (when it comes to hiring criteria, for instance): > Broken down by degree type across all ages in the U.S., for every 100 men with bachelor’s degrees, there are 130 women. For those with master’s degrees, for every 100 men there are 134 women.
redmerchant2 3y ago
This is a known issue but the down stream effect won’t be felt for a while. Let’s be clear we’re talking about general behavioral trend, not trying to police an individual, which is the crux of contention for these topics. Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true. The education gap between men and women are growing. More women enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young men, mostly lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel like the education system does not work for them. Society and companies are reconciling the barriers for women’s advancement and we’re only observing this initial gap. That is well and good. But in 10-20 years women will out number men in many fields requiring higher education. The real problem arises when that clashes with traditional expectations. The women in the article is a successful Yale grad who wants a partner with better pedigree. If you include looks and height requirements her dating pool is like <0.01% of the population. As that cascades to women in general with college education refusing to consider men in trade, that mismatch grows wider. The implication of the dating “market” not being able to match buyers and sellers would have some interesting dynamics.
- joker99 3y ago
  > Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true. I'm not sure this is absolutely true - at least for Germany. Here the figures show, that women and men, ceteris paribus, earn pretty much the same (+-3%). Until... children come into the mix. The lack of child care and societies view on parental leave (for men at least) means, that generally speaking the woman stays home to take care of the child and later on moves on to a part time position thus earning less and having to rely on the partners income again.
  - redmerchant2 3y ago
    I think that’s a good point but the idea your (male) partner has to make more seems silly. The core idea of finding a partner that is strictly better is the concern the article raises. If she makes 300k a year and he makes 150k a year, the studies suggest women would refuse to take that. But if we suppose they get together, even with the haircut in wages from taking time for childcare, they will still have a great standard of living.
thowaway6060 3y ago
I mean the research is nice, but I don't think that just a degree is going to up your chances. As someone who is using these apps constantly, I don't have any hope of finding a long term partner on there. I am on pretty much every app, except Tinder (Bumble, Hinge, okcupid, pof and even muzmatch (im south asian)). I have a bachelors, and I make good money. I've been told that I am a decent looking guy and I have quite a few hobbies. It's easy for me to make friends, so I don't think I fit the programmer stereotype. I am on these apps with the explicit intention of finding a long term partner and I've made it clear, but it seems that >95% of people are there for flings, fwb or casual hookups. I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are looking for a serious relationship - there's just no way you are going to find it on here. The focus of the study has been on guys with higher education, and from what I've seen girls here are not that well educated. Perhaps this is a small city phenomenon (pop. 1.5 mil), but it's quite shocking to see this disparity (That's another topic). Take this as you will, maybe it's just me venting or whatever, but it's tough out there and these apps are just not it.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are looking for a serious relationship" Dating apps are optimized for usage, not success. If you find a serious relationship, you stop using the app (Hopefully). A dating app that helps you find a long term partner has failed to maximize your LTV
  - Spoom 3y ago
    I found my spouse on OkCupid but notably it was pre-Match buyout. Maybe try to find some non-Match sites / apps if you're looking for long-term.
- redmerchant2 3y ago
  This is mostly for large cities. As someone who’s lived in many big cities like NYC and London, education and pedigree is extremely important. It’s also about the illusion of choice and “settling” for worse. When you know there are attractive Harvard lawyers, why would you bother with some state school government worker? Now there’s no guarantee these women can actually land the first group but why not try? As rational actors maximizing their utility, that’s the right move. The real question is what utility entails for that individual. But the default norm is by school and job prestige alongside physical looks.
deleted 3y ago
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keiferski 3y ago
I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily outcompete groups that don’t. It made me think that there must be a kind of cycle in human societies, where certain social values (like the ones mentioned in the article) are able to become popular for a short period of time (which can be over a century long) but ultimately have no ability to sustain themselves and then are outcompeted. The amount of “defectors” isn’t enough to sustain the population. Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space, it seems to me like a similar thing will happen over the course of the 21st and 22nd centuries.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  > Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space ????? Dating culture is substantially different than a decade ago.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    I meant to take off deliberately with the aim of correcting the problem mentioned in the article. Western society seems too self-absorbed to me to ever move past selfish motives at this point. In other words, some kind of cultural movement that tells people to put their preferences aside “for the good of society” seems like it won’t work anytime soon.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Oh okay I don't see that happening any sooner than the heat death of the universe.
  - zilti 3y ago
    Indeed, it, has become substantially worse, even though that seemed almost impossible.
    - 3y ago
mediaserf 3y ago
https://archive.ph/0L9ng https://archive.ph/0L9ng
rngname22 3y ago
Conversations about high income as a factor in attracting women often seem to neglect to mention that it's not enough to have a high income if you don't use it to signal wealth or to provide luxury experiences to women. Telling women you want to put your high income to work in enabling you to retire early but live a modest life and use that freedom to pursue creative pursuits doesn't have the same effect as taking them to the luxury apartment you rent or inviting them to join you on a romantic, paid for, tropical getaway.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  This doesn't match my experience at all. In my experience, in most adult heterosexual long-term relationships it's usually the female partner who is insisting on long-term planning, financial planning, avoiding frivolous purchases, etc. and are happy if men don't start conflicts over this. Your exaggerated example basically screams "husband material".
  - scarmig 3y ago
    Like most traits, I think men have a higher variance in focus on long-term planning than women do. Men are disproportionately both people who don't plan for the next paycheck and FIRE-enthusiasts. If you look at FIRE-oriented online groups, men significantly outnumber women. I think that's what the parent is referring to. And there are fewer women (relative to men) who are willing to take a significant drop in consumption in order to e.g. max a mega Roth backdoor. So a man who saves 20% of his take home income is husband material. A man who saves 80% of his take home income is a weirdo man child who needs to grow up and act like a "normal" person. Every female partner I've had (except my current one) has pushed me to scale up our consumption and save less.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Women who do this have told me it can sometimes be about 'trying to live life before it is too late'.
      - 3y ago
hkt 3y ago
A very longwinded essay whose obvious conclusion - that values will change in response to circumstances - is entirely missed, presumably to make problematising educated women the tacit point instead. People learn and change: increasing numbers of women in education now will mean more relationships where expectations have changed in the future. This is likely to mean that, actually, some men with lower incomes than their partners stay at home to look after the kids. It is a natural consequence of an unequal society with greater parity of educational access. That's all. It might suck for people who can't get over it, but on the whole, it'll improve society no end to see more fathers being full time carers for their children. In all likelihood, we'll see a change of attitudes so that women will look for different things: domesticity seems the obvious choice. And frankly, it'll be nice to live in a world where doing the dishes is a personal characteristic that someone might value equally with income. --- Not too related to the above, but the measurements of what women value is very likely to be WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialised, and the other two I forget. Economists have a hammer, so everything looks like a nail ($).
- dahwolf 3y ago
  Not going to happen, women do not want an unemployed man.
  - expertentipp 3y ago
    Stay at home woman will "take care of children and household". Stay at home man will be first of all "unemployed".
  - sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
    Unemployment is easily made up for by a combination of "bad boy" personality traits and sufficiently wealthy parents.
GoodJokes 3y ago
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Dudester230602 3y ago
[flagged]
yardie 3y ago
Hear me out. But maybe guys have discovered what women haven't. That higher education isn't the be all and end all to social status except to others who seek or have it. I have many friends who started working right out of high school in the trades. Now we have MOOCs, bootcamps, trades, and certifications. And the value of locking yourself out of the job market for 4 years while and paying 100s of thousands of dollars just doesn't feel as smart financially as it used to.
- dahwolf 3y ago
  I don't think that's the reason why guys are falling behind in education but I do agree that a career-focused lifestyle isn't exactly the paradise some people think it is.
snowpid 3y ago
Im not sure given the information from (my non - American) environment. 1.) I sometimes talk with young woman about this topic. A few mentioned who are ambitious and do wish having kids start to think about getting a house man as a father. Also when I mentioned this studies some women complain that man prefer women with lower earnings... We know that prestige, earning much etc. is a big thing in US. These observations should be checked and I think, only one mentioned study did it. 2.) The explanation with video games is very narrow. We know, that school teachers in high developed countries tend to prefer girls. 3.) Well I see myself as counter example. Though high educated I do have a lack of money as a long term CS student (well, a thing in Germany :D ) Though I have "manly" hobbies (sailing, techno clubbing, networking in mainly manly enviroments) it is not I have lack of interested women. Maybe, because I dont live in America.
- snowpid 3y ago
  Also incels movement are a thing and they cant be explained with the given text.
randunel 3y ago
The article omits the male preference for younger women and that the majority of couples are of an older male and a younger female. This is extremely relevant to the analysis.
- blackbear_ 3y ago
  AND women's preference for older men, because they are more "mature" or whatever. It's a two-way street.
nokeya 3y ago
Remember Japan. People just don’t need each other anymore. They are good alone - in gaming, leisure or travelling. More and more businesses are switching to single-oriented service.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Hard agree, I have no intentions of marrying let alone having children. I'm perfectly happy living my life going my way and my way alone as I see fit. Most human relations are straight bullshit and just aren't worth my time and energy in an age when there's so much to do, so much to see, and so little time. The people moaning about marriage and birth rates can go pound sand.
  - politician 3y ago
    I respect your individual right to this attitude, but consider that the wonders you enjoy today are sustained by a population of a particular size. As populations contract, the number of places that support the activities and adventures you want to have will necessarily contract as well. Imagine a campfire, throughout the night you'll have to move the dwindling coals closer together if you can't add more wood. So, on an individual basis, this "alone and my way" approach is valid, but if adopted at scale it begins to look parasitic.
    - knightofmars 3y ago
      The opposite side, consider the fact that overpopulation leads to the inability to access the activities and adventures a person may want to enjoy. Imagine a campfire, throughout the night you'll have to move the dwindling coals closer together because the forest has been stripped clear and there's no more wood to add. In this world, the parasitic nature of individuals on the environment robs it of its bounty.
      - politician 3y ago
        In the original, the analogy was that the fire and wood represented the economic capacity of humanity and the population, respectively. Your rebuttal doesn’t make sense.
JamesLeonis 3y ago
Counter-argument: Pushing Boundaries: Female Sexuality From World War II to the Sexual Revolution [0] * Millions of eligible bachelors were shipped across the ocean, leaving a huge imbalance. And yet the sexual morals became more promiscuous. > Much of the literature surrounding women during World War II focuses on women in industry, family life, and military services and largely ignores those women who sought sexual liberation and freedom through promiscuity, casual sexual encounters, and a wide range of sexual interactions. These women faced a nearly impossible set of conflicting messages. For an odd slip of time, a vast majority of the female population was effectively single (Israel, 2002), and although they might not have directly challenged sexual mores, these young women left a legacy of “sexual self-assertion that would generate both conservative and liberal responses in the postwar years, inspiring calls for female autonomy during the ‘sexual revolution’ to come” * Around the same time "Calling" was replaced by "Dating", with a complete flip of gender expectations. > During the first several decades of the twentieth century, however, the calling system began to lose traction, as “courtship became more and more a private act conducted in public spheres. Dating had been established in urban, working-class youth in the first two decades of the twentieth century. By 1920, however, middle-class youth adopted the practice (Spurlock, 2016). The primary difference between the date and the call was where the event took place. The call always took place in the girl’s home and almost always with some level of supervision from her parents. The central aspect of the date was that it took place in the public sphere, at such places as restaurants, theaters, or dance halls. Along with the shift in courting systems from calling to dating came a reverse in the roles for men and women. If a young woman wanted to date, she could no longer extend an invitation to her home or ask the young man to take her on a date. The control in the dating culture moved from the woman’s sphere, the private sphere, into the man’s sphere, the public sphere. * Dating in public became dominated by economics. With the flipped gender roles this economic burden fell on Men, while also introducing economic competition into the personal relationship. > “Dating also moved courtship into the economy” (Bailey, 1988, p. 21), which required money- men’s money. Money became a fundamental part of the dating system, which led to increased competition in the American courtship system. The centrality of money in the dating system signified a system of exchange, with the woman contributing her company and the man contributing his company as well as his money. In economic terms, the woman was selling her company to the man (Bailey, 1988). Since the man was responsible for expenses, he decided when the dates would occur and with whom he wanted to spend his time. The culture of dating supported the economic system of scarcity and abundance, and thus created a culture of competition amongst America’s youth for the greatest resources, or the most popular date. * With the competition there became a "rating" system (sound familiar?) > Under this complex, Waller theorized, college students used a system of rating and dating to place each other in a systematical hierarchy of eligibility based on traits they deemed desirable. Students, both men and women, who met certain criteria, were considered to be at the top of the social hierarchy: “they may be placed in a hypothetical Class A” (Waller, 1937, p. 730). For men to rate high they had to belong to one of the top fraternities on campus, be well-dressed, know how to dance, maintain a proper appearance, use good pick-up lines, have access to a car, and possess enough money to spend on dates. Women’s guidelines were similar in regards to appearance, but it was also important that she be considered a sought-after date (Bogle, 2008; Waller, 1937). * Finally, "Going Steady" was a method women could use to escape the sexual double-standard and have sex (and other fun sex-related activities) > These relationships brought new opportunities and meanings for sexual intimacy, and teenagers, especially females, had to navigate the complex and often ambiguous social rules set forth. Going steady offered teens a level of commitment that allowed for more sexual freedom and young men and women could more easily explore the erotic (D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988; Spurlock 2016). > any heterosexual teen couples that were engaging in sexual acts, including heavy petting and intercourse, were going steady and experimenting. These relationships allowed for young boys and girls to engage in sexual acts, basically hidden in plain sight. The level of commitment of these steady relationships “provided the context, setting, and rationale for widespread sexual experimentation among heterosexual teens and young adults in the 1950s” (Littauer, 2015, p. 118), which led to increased sexual intimacy for young people that were in these relationships. Engaging in intercourse while in committed, steady relationships allowed young girls the opportunity to explore the sexual minefield of contradictory beliefs. This “created a cultural middle ground between explicit sexual mores and tolerated sexual practices that would influence Americans’ beliefs about sexual acceptability for decades” (Littauer, 2015, p. 113). Teenage girls and young women had the opportunity to experiment sexually due to the belief that their actions were justified because of the loving nature of their relationships. * And yet the double-standard empowered boys and men, while only giving partial power to women. > Although going steady afforded opportunities for increased sexual intimacy, young women and teenage girls continued to live with the cultural expectation that sex only occurred within the confines of marriage. There was little acknowledgement from older adults, the media, or society that women had interest in and the desire for sex. Girls were expected to act as if they wanted sex, but not act upon their urges (Littauer, 2015). In contrast, to be popular, girls were expected to participate in a certain level of sexual experimentation, at the very least petting, but they could not go too far or risk a bad reputation. The double standard that developed during the early part of the twentieth century persisted through the 1950s. It was very clear to almost every young girl that a double standard existed, yet where the line was drawn between just enough and too much was very ambiguous. If a girl’s sex life became a topic of gossip, she would be ostracized from the groups who were concerned over reputation, and to a vast majority of American, reputation was everything (Bailey, 1988; Bailey, 1999; Spurlock, 2016) > The sexual “double standard worked mainly to the benefit of boys,” yet “enforcement came from the girls” (Spurlock, 2016, p. 93). Boys were free to express themselves sexually, while girls were expected to adhere to the confusing set of ideological standards. Since girls were expected to set the limits, if a couple went too far, it was the female’s fault. Boys, however, pushed the limits and often crossed the line from subtle pressure to outright aggression (Bailey, 1999; D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988). Young men were even taught by their peers and professionals various techniques to coerce women who expressed sexual reticence. Sexual coercion and aggression were seldom categorized as assault or rape during this time period. It was seldom that women reported sexual assault. [0]: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1891&context=gs_rp https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=189...
friend_and_foe 3y ago
All the data is good, but the way it is framed is a bit misleading. First, lets get one thing straight: dysfunction in the dating world negatively affects both men and women. So framing it as "men floundering, women most affected" is disingenuous. What is it about the prospects a man has that he has no desire to become desirable? If men's lives are less rewarding wouldn't it be them, not the women, that are the most affected? We are talking about these mens lives after all. "They just want to play videogames" come on. This has got to be the most surface level trope quality take I've seen. Maybe men use porn and play videogames not because they'd rather have that than a real relationship, but because modern relationships don't offer much more than that. Maybe men prefer casual sex because that's about the best they can hope for in today's world. Maybe with the divorce rate what it is, the birth rate low, and the social stigma against division of labor to maintain a household, it's not worth it to meet anyone's expectations anymore. Maybe men do desire more and maybe women aren't interested in satisfying those desires either.
- visihuge 3y ago
  Many of these kinds of articles are always seem to be slanted in how it negatively affects women. Women desiring more successful partners, yet men aren't keeping up. I'd be interested if there was any good article broaching that subject more, instead of remarkably pithy answers like "it's those damn video games."
  - monksy 3y ago
    People are afraid to be direct and call the article/researchers sexist in their framing of the situation.
    - Animats 3y ago
      This could be framed as female incels insisting they have a right to a man who will support them.
  - chad1n 3y ago
    I agree, I believe that this high difference between women and men in higher education comes from men being sufficient with a "physical" job that pays almost as a "mental" one. Women just can't these jobs and they have to choose between working at McDonald's or trying to find a job using a Bachelor's degree. Men have many more alternatives, hence the "unequal" pay.
epa 3y ago
I dont understand why they want me to login to read the article. I dont want an account, nor do i want to give you my email. I would rather leave the site than sign up. "Logins" are so antiquated.
EMCymatics 3y ago
Quotas in education is always a fun topic.
WastingMyTime89 3y ago
While the article offers nothing of value outside of its provocative title (but I clicked so I guess it works), I’m genuinely fascinated by why every article about dating here leads to such a slew of poor comments. I mean the discussion is full of entitlement, misogyny, cynicism or a mix of the three. A casual reading lends me to think that this is because this place skews rather young.
- watwut 3y ago
  My guess was always that HN has a lot of men who moved to Silicon Valley that has more men then women or work long hours in male only jobs. So, there is a lot of resentment over unsolvable situation.
- lacker 3y ago
  The nature of dating is that the people who have a good experience dating get married, and so they stop dating. People who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the people who are eternally struggling have much more experience at it and have far more to say about dating. It's kind of like job interviewing. If you do five job interviews, get three offers, are happy at the job you take and stay there for five years, then you're averaging one interview per year. If you're struggling to find a good job you can do ten interviews per week forever. So the people who are eternally struggling at the job interview process have much more experience at it and have far more to say about it.
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    > The nature of dating is that the people who have a good experience dating get married, and so they stop dating. People who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the people who are eternally struggling have much more experience at it and have far more to say about dating. It’s kind of untrue nowadays. Married people get divorced. People split. Plenty are not interested in marriage. As a data point, I am a currently single average looking and averagely successful guy with no intention of ever getting married (I will probably settle into a long term relationship at some point but I’m not planning to in the near term) and who has dates (as much as such a thing exists here) semi-regularly when I feel like it. I have nothing particularly bad to say about the experience. At its heart, it’s just meeting someone new. It’s not particularly complicated or difficult hence my puzzlement.
lsy 3y ago
This article points out what is probably real friction from shifting mores but seems mainly preoccupied with implying that a return to more conservative values around women's role in society would be called for. What I feel is needed is to understand what the fundamentals are and how those things could be achieved in a society that is also compatible with human freedom. Most of the problems described in this article stem from a totally artificial "bundling" of companionship, sexual satisfaction, child-rearing, economic support, and intellectual stimulation into a singular person who not only is expected to satisfy these needs for you (and sometimes fails), but often prevents you from satisfying those needs with other people. So of course finding "Mr. or Mrs. Right" becomes existential, and of course we turn to dependable sources of entertainment as the anxiety of picking the "right" life mate prevents any of us from actually committing to anything. But with some creativity we can think of actual escape routes from this dynamic that don't require a return to treating women as property, like supporting single child-rearing, allowing people to form mutual support structures with friends or family, detaching self-worth from relationship status, a further liberalization of sexual mores, expanding economic safety nets, and so on and so forth.
- dahwolf 3y ago
  Women's roles don't need to be reversed at all. Their success is earned, but that doesn't solve the problem of them selecting for men that do not exist due to their persistent behavior to exclusively select upwards. The simple fix is to come to more reasonable selection criteria.
dahwolf 3y ago
This problem seems statistically unsolvable unless people make vast behavioral changes. The education gap will not be closed, it might even grow further apart. A significant amount of men will continue to work in blue collar jobs and thus will never meet the standards of being highly educated and/or wealthy. There's exceptions, some are making a killing, but on average not really. To make matters worse, there's a growing political gap between blue collar men and white collar women. Another portion of "lost" men are described in the article as the unemployed gamers. A portion of them might be incels. The main thing to understand about this group is that even if they do better themselves, it's still not going to be a match. Because quite likely they're socially awkward and physically unattractive, struggle to socialize and make friends. Bottom line, the popular phrase "men should step up" isn't going to work out. You're waiting for something that simply isn't going to happen. You can make of that situation what you want: opt-out and don't compromise on your standards, or deal with the cards given. My advise: look for character in a person. The obsession with status, education and wealth is inhumane, superficial and greatly self-limiting. Character lasts. If a person is structurally kind, responsible, reliable and has a steady job, who gives a shit about anything else? Combined with your own "educated" income, it would be plenty to run a family. Why price yourself out of the market with steep financial demands? For additional luxury? A bigger house? One you never attend as you're always at work? Get real.
almostnormal 3y ago
> A study led by economics researcher Brecht Neyt of Ghent University found that, on Tinder, women were 91 percent more likely to “like” a man with a master's degree compared with a bachelor's degree. The researchers used the same male profiles, the only difference was level of education. No ethics board in the economics department?
- ayemel 3y ago
  I’ll bite, what’s unethical here?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
imtringued 3y ago
This makes me wonder if Karl Marx‘ analysis of Capitalism is all wrong and not because of economic reasons but rather because men feel compelled to climb the hierarchy, even if it means turning into "exploitative capitalists", to impress women.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  That's actually part of Marx's analysis in more words, specifically in how social status is a main driver for working people to give in to the logic of capitalism. Ultimately his argument is that this is fundamentally irrational and that even insofar as there is to be some kind of social status, it's more rational for working people to make that less dependent on capital as they are structurally prevented from achieving it. But yeah as an argument in general "people are selfish and only care about struggling for themselves", if that's actually true it does undermine his whole argument.
  - kelipso 3y ago
    Individual vs collective incentives no? An individual worker might have a say 1% chance of achieving high status in the capitalist society while the same worker will have a 100% chance of achieving average status in the communist society (though sure plenty of other ways to achieve high status than money).
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      Basically, except that it's so unlikely for a worker to achieve truly high status (basically, true financial independence, fat FIRE in today's terms) that it might as well be close to impossible.
more_corn 3y ago
The first line was all I needed to know. “Oh he doesn’t got to Yale? He’s out!” Online dating has is enumerating the qualities we think our ideal mate will have. We think that if we tick the boxes of what we like we can save time. Then we complain that there aren’t enough candidates! But this process eliminates people who might be an awesome fit because they don’t match some arbitrary metric. My favorite is must be 6’ or taller. Seriously? You think you could never love someone who’s five foot eleven and a half? If you have criteria like that and can’t find anyone to date I don’t feel sorry for you. But I do have some advice. Put down your list and go meet people. You’ll be blown away by how unexpectedly you like or just click with the oddest assortment.
xchip 3y ago
as somebody said below, the headline should be "highly educated women unable to find somebody even richer than them."
talldatethrow 3y ago
I've been a serial dater for 20+ years now (38M) I've been with 70+ women, and about 10-15 of those for long term. I think more about dating dynamics than basically anyone I've ever met. I'm not sure why. The main takeaway I see from relationships is that I'm expected to give, understand, listen, and bend to be some perfect modern man. I need to be beyond financially stable, I need to be tough, but also have some romantic comedy movie side of me. And she's expected to technically not sleep with anyone else but also I'm not allowed to think about that at all even or I'm insecure. Whenever I start dating a woman, even if she has a good job, I feel like I'm taking on a dependent. Which would technically be fine, if I was appreciated for it. But I'm not. I'm basically chastised if I even notice that I'm giving a lot. "What, youre giving a lot? This is a lot? You must not be as good as I thought you were if this is a noticeable amount of giving to you". I'm not talking about just money. It's everything. I can summarize my main problem with relationships via this old joke: Q: What do women want? A: More. And that's why I won't marry and more and more won't date. I have a big enough collection of previous partners that calls me every time their bfs act up or bore them or disappoint them. Another reason to stay away from them.
- naveen99 3y ago
  it might just be the type of women you attract and or are attracted to. There are definitely women out there who will give their fair share if not more.
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    Amazingly I haven't really met them, nor have most of my friends, even the married ones. Obviously women work and contribute to households. There are millions of well employed women. The question is, are they satisfied with their partners?
  - opportune 3y ago
    I am much younger than this guy and have dated way fewer people, and I’ve been involved with two people like that. So it’s almost definitely something they’re doing, given n>50. I’m also not convinced I should date forever and never get married, nor that women are all seeking to simply extract and be entertained by me. This could be related (lol)
oj2828 3y ago
I found Scott Alexander’s article on the same topic more informative and accurate to what I’ve experienced https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/hypergamy-much-more-than-you-wanted?r=22a7a&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/hypergamy-muc...
DrNosferatu 3y ago
Then why are “Incels” a thing? Then why are there dating coaches - always for men? Then why online dating platforms always have a lot more men than women?
zumu 3y ago
I'd love to see some data from Europe. The American education system is very limited and seems to reward obedience above all else. College graduation rates for graduates of all boys high schools would also be interesting to compare and contrast. 'Redshirt'ed boys is another demographic to look at.
expertentipp 3y ago
"you're out of swipes", then "oops, you missed a match", and "pay regularly and increasingly more to be even visible". Approaching in real life... my tolerance to being laughed off or ghosted is below zero. Can a man have any expectations and requirements these days?
testacct22 3y ago
Every time I see one of these threads, there's always a bunch of baggage in the comments. There's also a bunch of stereotyping I see, e.g. men "preferring" hookup culture Also on top of this, whenever there's talk about a so called "masculinity crisis", there's a bunch of tacit demands on how other people should live. This is regardless of whichever political camp the talk originates from It's gotten to a point that whenever I figure out a discussion or article is "directed" at men, I stop reading because I already know it's going to start telling me what I "need" to care about as a man I'm honestly fed up with it at this point. If someone has something to say to me as a person, go ahead. But if someone has something to say to me as a man, I'd prefer it if they'd take their bullshit elsewhere
stevage 3y ago
[flagged]

208 points by Melchizedek 3y ago

churchill 3y ago

[flagged]

imwillofficial 3y ago
Too emotional of a topic.
- sproketboy 3y ago
  [dead]
- xpe 3y ago
  We can't discuss emotions? We do, quite frequently, just under the guise of other topics. What I mean is that discussing even "purely technological" news has deep emotional connections -- not least of which is survival. Many or most of us work in/around the software industry. We aren't really neutral; valuing software is pretty deeply connected to how we e.g. make money and/or enjoy spending free time. Now, do we discuss emotions well? It seems to me that the U.S. population in general doesn't. But I admit this claim is quite vague, undefined, and hard to measure. The population with higher education probably does somewhat better? (I'd be interested to see what measurable metrics would best correlate.) Anyhow, it seems to me that most people have an inherent drive for close interpersonal relationships, of which dating is one. My opinion: Hacker News, as a forum, isn't really properly designed for it (even though it has people who are capable of being articulate and decent to each other). Even if HN was well-designed for emotionally-charged topics, the subset of people here might not be the best choice of a community for learning about romantic relationships with people who are often outside that community. :)
salmonfamine 3y ago
I think this is a conversation worth having, but this is a tech news board. This isn't exactly on topic, and is guaranteed to be inflammatory.
- OJFord 3y ago
  Non-tech is explicitly not off-topic, even if most (it's certainly not all!) of us have a tech background/current job. Quoting from the guidelines linked in the footer: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- dang 3y ago
  HN isn't a tech news board - the site guidelines explicitly differentiate from that in the first paragraph: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. This article suffers from a baity title and sensational opening but then gets pretty substantive and, I think many readers would say, interesting. Topics like this have always appeared on HN and as long as (1) they don't come up so often as to feel repetitive and (b) the article is substantive, I think it's ok.
  - salmonfamine 3y ago
    Fair points —- I agree that the article is actually quite well researched and to-the-point, once you get past the title. I guess I just see this exact argument being made all over the place, so I’m a little weary of it. But this article is one of the best iterations of it that I’ve seen.
- xpe 3y ago
  > is guaranteed to be inflammatory. This is your prediction. It seems overconfident to me.
Fauntleroy 3y ago
I read the whole thing, and it really isn't relevant to this particular forum.

john009 3y ago

The word is foundering not floundering.

neonate 3y ago
Both work.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
justsocrateasin 3y ago
foundering = fail or break down floundering = struggle or stagger helplessly. both work! I actually think `floundering` works better in context - "men breaking down" versus "men struggling".

kholdstayr 3y ago

Programmers don't have time for love. /s

MuffinFlavored 3y ago
More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. or Most men who program aren't "good with socializing" let alone "good with socializing with women".
- sho_hn 3y ago
  > More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. I hear a lot of heterosexual male SW engineers lament this, but I find it not true in practice. We live in a world dominated (and even inundated) by messaging that navigating technology is a recipe for success. It usually pays decently to well. Programmers don't have dating problems from their profession.
  - seniorThrowaway 3y ago
    The issue is that the personality traits that tend to correlate with good programming and software engineering - logic, reasoning, detachment, analysis, thinking outside the box - don't tend to correlate well with interpersonal and especially romantic interpersonal relationships. In order to be successful in relationships, those types of minds have to consistently and constantly do things they consider completely irrational and uncomfortable, which is difficult to maintain.
    - sho_hn 3y ago
      All these things have their own kind of logic to them. It's possible to learn/train people/empathy. There's a lot of people who can't get themselves to believe that it's worth investing, in though. But people skills do come in handy, also when solving non-romantic problems at scale.
      - 3y ago

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

What I find interesting and I am curious if these conversations can happen anymore. I no longer discuss anything related to gender, relationships, or personal life dynamics with anyone outside of my bubble. I would enjoy the conversation, learning about another's ideas and understanding although despite assurances of maturity and openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements. I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the general public.

aaomidi 3y ago
> I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the general public. On the contrary, I love having these discussions.
- murphyslaw 3y ago
  > On the contrary, I love having these discussions. Same, although my lawyer insists not to have them anymore when drinking.
sho_hn 3y ago
Huh. Over here in Europe, we have these discussions all the time. They do get opinionated, of course. But it's not yet taboo.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  It's not in the US, but it seems some people have become socially fearful. I think that there is an artificial sense of risk possibly driving by 24x7 news and social media that prey on people's fears and anxieties.
  - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
    I would not say artificial. An individual with whom I work spoke a common word, with respect, and despite being a respectable term for another person, a term agreed by all parties as acceptable except the offended party, the accused was contacted by HR and advised to no longer use that term. There are other anecdotes of course but this is one example that even the best intentions the accuser is never told their position is untenable.

extasia 3y ago

Tldr, get your degrees up fellas

tester457 3y ago
And a masters if you are interested in getting a almost 2x chance of getting swiped right on.

HaroldBolt78 3y ago

[dead]

andrewmcwatters 3y ago

To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them. I don't see as much of a concept of growing up together off the foundations of who you are as a person today as I've heard it expressed from older colleagues I've worked with. Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life.

aaomidi 3y ago
> Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life. Ah yes, the hive mind of women.
sho_hn 3y ago
> they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them I don't think this is female-specific. I see a lot of young men around me delaying "getting serious" into their mid-30s too, and have very high standards by that point. I'd include myself. I met my wife at 30, and by that time I was also looking for someone in a similar life stage to mine.
- andrewmcwatters 3y ago
  Yeah, I see the same problem with young men, too. People say the dating pool turns in their favor by the time they get to their 30s, but you've missed out on an entire possible era of your life together with someone at that point. And the dating pool absolutely does not look the same.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    It's definitely true that my wife I say "I wish I had met you five years earlier" a lot, e.g. around things like starting a fam. There's something to what you say there, it gives you more runway in HN parlance.

politician 3y ago

Towards the end, the article posits that the reason men fail to attain higher levels of education is video games. I would be curious to see how the effect of video games stacks up against the effect of the significant support industry established for helping girls succeed in STEM while comparable support for boys is nonexistent.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
Stuff like this is actually researched. It would be better to first look at the research before comparing anecdotal hypotheses. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-beh... > Men are more likely than women to point to factors that have more to do with personal choice. Roughly a third (34%) of men without a bachelor’s degree say a major reason they didn’t complete college is that they just didn’t want to. Only one-in-four women say the same. Non-college-educated men are also more likely than their female counterparts to say a major reason they don’t have a four-year degree is that they didn’t need more education for the job or career they wanted (26% of men say this vs. 20% of women). > Women (44%) are more likely than men (39%) to say not being able to afford college is a major reason they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Men and women are about equally likely to say needing to work to help support their family was a major impediment. > In some instances, the gender gaps in the reasons for not completing college are more pronounced among White adults than among Black or Hispanic adults. About four-in-ten White men who didn’t complete four years of college (39%) say a major reason for this is that they just didn’t want to. This compares with 27% of White women without a degree. Views on this don’t differ significantly by gender for Black or Hispanic adults. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women-outnumber-men-college-enrollment https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women... > In this blog post, we argue against these explanations, showing it is unlikely that the gender gap in college attendance reflects some sort of failure on the part of educators or college admissions officers. A more likely explanation is that the labor markets reward women with relatively higher financial returns to college enrollment.
- somebody78978 3y ago

inconceivable 3y ago

it seems like society has engineered itself into a real pickle as evidenced by all the hand-wringing articles on this topic. personally i find serious relationships to be a giant waste of time, probably because i'm no good at maintaining them or i just don't check all the boxes, or whatever. i like dating and commitment-free sex, so i really don't have much incentive to improve. i'm basically financially independent so i don't really care about paying for things most people would split. in the few instances i've sincerely tried to keep it going, it ended after no particular incident/fight/whatever. just fizzled out, or a non-dramatic breakup over text message, which doesn't really bother me. these things come and go and i have no real hangups about attachment or have any dependence issues. personally i think there is no "fixing" this, at least for 20 or 30 years until a brand new generational cohort come into their 20s and 30s. non-immigrants are simply just going to get married less and have less children than were historically 'normal'.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
I like that you put "fixing" in quotes. People are of two minds. They think they want some things while their revealed preferences are different. Id vs. ego, maybe. There's good things about relationships, but I don't think anyone ever got into committed relationships for fun; I think they were forced into them by their environment (finances, family). It's good not to be forced into them, but then you lose the good things to be found in them. But people want to have their cake and eat it, which doesn't make sense. So it's not a black and white thing; even to a singular person, the "fix" or the "problem" may seem both good and bad. I'm skeptical about future generations though. If you frame "not having kids/serious relationships" as "bad", then I think things will continue to get "worse". :p There's nothing for future people to figure out; the incentives that were once in play will continue to erode. It's like expecting war deaths to decrease as weapons continue to grow in power. UNLESS you're talking about the state growing people in pods. And generally going transhuman/posthuman (and post-"relationship" and post-"two people fucking"). I think that's the ultimate future, and it's way better than the setup we've had traditionally in all but romance and current Overton window.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

Off-topic, but on article, this starts to be the ratio at which disparate impact laws come in to effect (when it comes to hiring criteria, for instance): > Broken down by degree type across all ages in the U.S., for every 100 men with bachelor’s degrees, there are 130 women. For those with master’s degrees, for every 100 men there are 134 women.

redmerchant2 3y ago

This is a known issue but the down stream effect won’t be felt for a while. Let’s be clear we’re talking about general behavioral trend, not trying to police an individual, which is the crux of contention for these topics. Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true. The education gap between men and women are growing. More women enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young men, mostly lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel like the education system does not work for them. Society and companies are reconciling the barriers for women’s advancement and we’re only observing this initial gap. That is well and good. But in 10-20 years women will out number men in many fields requiring higher education. The real problem arises when that clashes with traditional expectations. The women in the article is a successful Yale grad who wants a partner with better pedigree. If you include looks and height requirements her dating pool is like <0.01% of the population. As that cascades to women in general with college education refusing to consider men in trade, that mismatch grows wider. The implication of the dating “market” not being able to match buyers and sellers would have some interesting dynamics.

joker99 3y ago
> Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true. I'm not sure this is absolutely true - at least for Germany. Here the figures show, that women and men, ceteris paribus, earn pretty much the same (+-3%). Until... children come into the mix. The lack of child care and societies view on parental leave (for men at least) means, that generally speaking the woman stays home to take care of the child and later on moves on to a part time position thus earning less and having to rely on the partners income again.
- redmerchant2 3y ago
  I think that’s a good point but the idea your (male) partner has to make more seems silly. The core idea of finding a partner that is strictly better is the concern the article raises. If she makes 300k a year and he makes 150k a year, the studies suggest women would refuse to take that. But if we suppose they get together, even with the haircut in wages from taking time for childcare, they will still have a great standard of living.

thowaway6060 3y ago

I mean the research is nice, but I don't think that just a degree is going to up your chances. As someone who is using these apps constantly, I don't have any hope of finding a long term partner on there. I am on pretty much every app, except Tinder (Bumble, Hinge, okcupid, pof and even muzmatch (im south asian)). I have a bachelors, and I make good money. I've been told that I am a decent looking guy and I have quite a few hobbies. It's easy for me to make friends, so I don't think I fit the programmer stereotype. I am on these apps with the explicit intention of finding a long term partner and I've made it clear, but it seems that >95% of people are there for flings, fwb or casual hookups. I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are looking for a serious relationship - there's just no way you are going to find it on here. The focus of the study has been on guys with higher education, and from what I've seen girls here are not that well educated. Perhaps this is a small city phenomenon (pop. 1.5 mil), but it's quite shocking to see this disparity (That's another topic). Take this as you will, maybe it's just me venting or whatever, but it's tough out there and these apps are just not it.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are looking for a serious relationship" Dating apps are optimized for usage, not success. If you find a serious relationship, you stop using the app (Hopefully). A dating app that helps you find a long term partner has failed to maximize your LTV
- Spoom 3y ago
  I found my spouse on OkCupid but notably it was pre-Match buyout. Maybe try to find some non-Match sites / apps if you're looking for long-term.
redmerchant2 3y ago
This is mostly for large cities. As someone who’s lived in many big cities like NYC and London, education and pedigree is extremely important. It’s also about the illusion of choice and “settling” for worse. When you know there are attractive Harvard lawyers, why would you bother with some state school government worker? Now there’s no guarantee these women can actually land the first group but why not try? As rational actors maximizing their utility, that’s the right move. The real question is what utility entails for that individual. But the default norm is by school and job prestige alongside physical looks.

deleted 3y ago

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keiferski 3y ago

I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily outcompete groups that don’t. It made me think that there must be a kind of cycle in human societies, where certain social values (like the ones mentioned in the article) are able to become popular for a short period of time (which can be over a century long) but ultimately have no ability to sustain themselves and then are outcompeted. The amount of “defectors” isn’t enough to sustain the population. Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space, it seems to me like a similar thing will happen over the course of the 21st and 22nd centuries.

paulddraper 3y ago
> Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural movement to take off in the dating space ????? Dating culture is substantially different than a decade ago.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I meant to take off deliberately with the aim of correcting the problem mentioned in the article. Western society seems too self-absorbed to me to ever move past selfish motives at this point. In other words, some kind of cultural movement that tells people to put their preferences aside “for the good of society” seems like it won’t work anytime soon.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Oh okay I don't see that happening any sooner than the heat death of the universe.
- zilti 3y ago
  Indeed, it, has become substantially worse, even though that seemed almost impossible.
  - 3y ago

mediaserf 3y ago

https://archive.ph/0L9ng https://archive.ph/0L9ng

rngname22 3y ago

Conversations about high income as a factor in attracting women often seem to neglect to mention that it's not enough to have a high income if you don't use it to signal wealth or to provide luxury experiences to women. Telling women you want to put your high income to work in enabling you to retire early but live a modest life and use that freedom to pursue creative pursuits doesn't have the same effect as taking them to the luxury apartment you rent or inviting them to join you on a romantic, paid for, tropical getaway.

sho_hn 3y ago
This doesn't match my experience at all. In my experience, in most adult heterosexual long-term relationships it's usually the female partner who is insisting on long-term planning, financial planning, avoiding frivolous purchases, etc. and are happy if men don't start conflicts over this. Your exaggerated example basically screams "husband material".
- scarmig 3y ago
  Like most traits, I think men have a higher variance in focus on long-term planning than women do. Men are disproportionately both people who don't plan for the next paycheck and FIRE-enthusiasts. If you look at FIRE-oriented online groups, men significantly outnumber women. I think that's what the parent is referring to. And there are fewer women (relative to men) who are willing to take a significant drop in consumption in order to e.g. max a mega Roth backdoor. So a man who saves 20% of his take home income is husband material. A man who saves 80% of his take home income is a weirdo man child who needs to grow up and act like a "normal" person. Every female partner I've had (except my current one) has pushed me to scale up our consumption and save less.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Women who do this have told me it can sometimes be about 'trying to live life before it is too late'.
    - 3y ago

hkt 3y ago

A very longwinded essay whose obvious conclusion - that values will change in response to circumstances - is entirely missed, presumably to make problematising educated women the tacit point instead. People learn and change: increasing numbers of women in education now will mean more relationships where expectations have changed in the future. This is likely to mean that, actually, some men with lower incomes than their partners stay at home to look after the kids. It is a natural consequence of an unequal society with greater parity of educational access. That's all. It might suck for people who can't get over it, but on the whole, it'll improve society no end to see more fathers being full time carers for their children. In all likelihood, we'll see a change of attitudes so that women will look for different things: domesticity seems the obvious choice. And frankly, it'll be nice to live in a world where doing the dishes is a personal characteristic that someone might value equally with income. --- Not too related to the above, but the measurements of what women value is very likely to be WEIRD - Western, Educated, Industrialised, and the other two I forget. Economists have a hammer, so everything looks like a nail ($).

dahwolf 3y ago
Not going to happen, women do not want an unemployed man.
- expertentipp 3y ago
  Stay at home woman will "take care of children and household". Stay at home man will be first of all "unemployed".
- sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
  Unemployment is easily made up for by a combination of "bad boy" personality traits and sufficiently wealthy parents.

GoodJokes 3y ago

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Dudester230602 3y ago

[flagged]

yardie 3y ago

Hear me out. But maybe guys have discovered what women haven't. That higher education isn't the be all and end all to social status except to others who seek or have it. I have many friends who started working right out of high school in the trades. Now we have MOOCs, bootcamps, trades, and certifications. And the value of locking yourself out of the job market for 4 years while and paying 100s of thousands of dollars just doesn't feel as smart financially as it used to.

dahwolf 3y ago
I don't think that's the reason why guys are falling behind in education but I do agree that a career-focused lifestyle isn't exactly the paradise some people think it is.

snowpid 3y ago

Im not sure given the information from (my non - American) environment. 1.) I sometimes talk with young woman about this topic. A few mentioned who are ambitious and do wish having kids start to think about getting a house man as a father. Also when I mentioned this studies some women complain that man prefer women with lower earnings... We know that prestige, earning much etc. is a big thing in US. These observations should be checked and I think, only one mentioned study did it. 2.) The explanation with video games is very narrow. We know, that school teachers in high developed countries tend to prefer girls. 3.) Well I see myself as counter example. Though high educated I do have a lack of money as a long term CS student (well, a thing in Germany :D ) Though I have "manly" hobbies (sailing, techno clubbing, networking in mainly manly enviroments) it is not I have lack of interested women. Maybe, because I dont live in America.

snowpid 3y ago
Also incels movement are a thing and they cant be explained with the given text.

randunel 3y ago

The article omits the male preference for younger women and that the majority of couples are of an older male and a younger female. This is extremely relevant to the analysis.

blackbear_ 3y ago
AND women's preference for older men, because they are more "mature" or whatever. It's a two-way street.

nokeya 3y ago

Remember Japan. People just don’t need each other anymore. They are good alone - in gaming, leisure or travelling. More and more businesses are switching to single-oriented service.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Hard agree, I have no intentions of marrying let alone having children. I'm perfectly happy living my life going my way and my way alone as I see fit. Most human relations are straight bullshit and just aren't worth my time and energy in an age when there's so much to do, so much to see, and so little time. The people moaning about marriage and birth rates can go pound sand.
- politician 3y ago
  I respect your individual right to this attitude, but consider that the wonders you enjoy today are sustained by a population of a particular size. As populations contract, the number of places that support the activities and adventures you want to have will necessarily contract as well. Imagine a campfire, throughout the night you'll have to move the dwindling coals closer together if you can't add more wood. So, on an individual basis, this "alone and my way" approach is valid, but if adopted at scale it begins to look parasitic.
  - knightofmars 3y ago
    The opposite side, consider the fact that overpopulation leads to the inability to access the activities and adventures a person may want to enjoy. Imagine a campfire, throughout the night you'll have to move the dwindling coals closer together because the forest has been stripped clear and there's no more wood to add. In this world, the parasitic nature of individuals on the environment robs it of its bounty.
    - politician 3y ago
      In the original, the analogy was that the fire and wood represented the economic capacity of humanity and the population, respectively. Your rebuttal doesn’t make sense.

JamesLeonis 3y ago

Counter-argument: Pushing Boundaries: Female Sexuality From World War II to the Sexual Revolution [0] * Millions of eligible bachelors were shipped across the ocean, leaving a huge imbalance. And yet the sexual morals became more promiscuous. > Much of the literature surrounding women during World War II focuses on women in industry, family life, and military services and largely ignores those women who sought sexual liberation and freedom through promiscuity, casual sexual encounters, and a wide range of sexual interactions. These women faced a nearly impossible set of conflicting messages. For an odd slip of time, a vast majority of the female population was effectively single (Israel, 2002), and although they might not have directly challenged sexual mores, these young women left a legacy of “sexual self-assertion that would generate both conservative and liberal responses in the postwar years, inspiring calls for female autonomy during the ‘sexual revolution’ to come” * Around the same time "Calling" was replaced by "Dating", with a complete flip of gender expectations. > During the first several decades of the twentieth century, however, the calling system began to lose traction, as “courtship became more and more a private act conducted in public spheres. Dating had been established in urban, working-class youth in the first two decades of the twentieth century. By 1920, however, middle-class youth adopted the practice (Spurlock, 2016). The primary difference between the date and the call was where the event took place. The call always took place in the girl’s home and almost always with some level of supervision from her parents. The central aspect of the date was that it took place in the public sphere, at such places as restaurants, theaters, or dance halls. Along with the shift in courting systems from calling to dating came a reverse in the roles for men and women. If a young woman wanted to date, she could no longer extend an invitation to her home or ask the young man to take her on a date. The control in the dating culture moved from the woman’s sphere, the private sphere, into the man’s sphere, the public sphere. * Dating in public became dominated by economics. With the flipped gender roles this economic burden fell on Men, while also introducing economic competition into the personal relationship. > “Dating also moved courtship into the economy” (Bailey, 1988, p. 21), which required money- men’s money. Money became a fundamental part of the dating system, which led to increased competition in the American courtship system. The centrality of money in the dating system signified a system of exchange, with the woman contributing her company and the man contributing his company as well as his money. In economic terms, the woman was selling her company to the man (Bailey, 1988). Since the man was responsible for expenses, he decided when the dates would occur and with whom he wanted to spend his time. The culture of dating supported the economic system of scarcity and abundance, and thus created a culture of competition amongst America’s youth for the greatest resources, or the most popular date. * With the competition there became a "rating" system (sound familiar?) > Under this complex, Waller theorized, college students used a system of rating and dating to place each other in a systematical hierarchy of eligibility based on traits they deemed desirable. Students, both men and women, who met certain criteria, were considered to be at the top of the social hierarchy: “they may be placed in a hypothetical Class A” (Waller, 1937, p. 730). For men to rate high they had to belong to one of the top fraternities on campus, be well-dressed, know how to dance, maintain a proper appearance, use good pick-up lines, have access to a car, and possess enough money to spend on dates. Women’s guidelines were similar in regards to appearance, but it was also important that she be considered a sought-after date (Bogle, 2008; Waller, 1937). * Finally, "Going Steady" was a method women could use to escape the sexual double-standard and have sex (and other fun sex-related activities) > These relationships brought new opportunities and meanings for sexual intimacy, and teenagers, especially females, had to navigate the complex and often ambiguous social rules set forth. Going steady offered teens a level of commitment that allowed for more sexual freedom and young men and women could more easily explore the erotic (D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988; Spurlock 2016). > any heterosexual teen couples that were engaging in sexual acts, including heavy petting and intercourse, were going steady and experimenting. These relationships allowed for young boys and girls to engage in sexual acts, basically hidden in plain sight. The level of commitment of these steady relationships “provided the context, setting, and rationale for widespread sexual experimentation among heterosexual teens and young adults in the 1950s” (Littauer, 2015, p. 118), which led to increased sexual intimacy for young people that were in these relationships. Engaging in intercourse while in committed, steady relationships allowed young girls the opportunity to explore the sexual minefield of contradictory beliefs. This “created a cultural middle ground between explicit sexual mores and tolerated sexual practices that would influence Americans’ beliefs about sexual acceptability for decades” (Littauer, 2015, p. 113). Teenage girls and young women had the opportunity to experiment sexually due to the belief that their actions were justified because of the loving nature of their relationships. * And yet the double-standard empowered boys and men, while only giving partial power to women. > Although going steady afforded opportunities for increased sexual intimacy, young women and teenage girls continued to live with the cultural expectation that sex only occurred within the confines of marriage. There was little acknowledgement from older adults, the media, or society that women had interest in and the desire for sex. Girls were expected to act as if they wanted sex, but not act upon their urges (Littauer, 2015). In contrast, to be popular, girls were expected to participate in a certain level of sexual experimentation, at the very least petting, but they could not go too far or risk a bad reputation. The double standard that developed during the early part of the twentieth century persisted through the 1950s. It was very clear to almost every young girl that a double standard existed, yet where the line was drawn between just enough and too much was very ambiguous. If a girl’s sex life became a topic of gossip, she would be ostracized from the groups who were concerned over reputation, and to a vast majority of American, reputation was everything (Bailey, 1988; Bailey, 1999; Spurlock, 2016) > The sexual “double standard worked mainly to the benefit of boys,” yet “enforcement came from the girls” (Spurlock, 2016, p. 93). Boys were free to express themselves sexually, while girls were expected to adhere to the confusing set of ideological standards. Since girls were expected to set the limits, if a couple went too far, it was the female’s fault. Boys, however, pushed the limits and often crossed the line from subtle pressure to outright aggression (Bailey, 1999; D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988). Young men were even taught by their peers and professionals various techniques to coerce women who expressed sexual reticence. Sexual coercion and aggression were seldom categorized as assault or rape during this time period. It was seldom that women reported sexual assault. [0]: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1891&context=gs_rp https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=189...

friend_and_foe 3y ago

All the data is good, but the way it is framed is a bit misleading. First, lets get one thing straight: dysfunction in the dating world negatively affects both men and women. So framing it as "men floundering, women most affected" is disingenuous. What is it about the prospects a man has that he has no desire to become desirable? If men's lives are less rewarding wouldn't it be them, not the women, that are the most affected? We are talking about these mens lives after all. "They just want to play videogames" come on. This has got to be the most surface level trope quality take I've seen. Maybe men use porn and play videogames not because they'd rather have that than a real relationship, but because modern relationships don't offer much more than that. Maybe men prefer casual sex because that's about the best they can hope for in today's world. Maybe with the divorce rate what it is, the birth rate low, and the social stigma against division of labor to maintain a household, it's not worth it to meet anyone's expectations anymore. Maybe men do desire more and maybe women aren't interested in satisfying those desires either.

visihuge 3y ago
Many of these kinds of articles are always seem to be slanted in how it negatively affects women. Women desiring more successful partners, yet men aren't keeping up. I'd be interested if there was any good article broaching that subject more, instead of remarkably pithy answers like "it's those damn video games."
- monksy 3y ago
  People are afraid to be direct and call the article/researchers sexist in their framing of the situation.
  - Animats 3y ago
    This could be framed as female incels insisting they have a right to a man who will support them.
- chad1n 3y ago
  I agree, I believe that this high difference between women and men in higher education comes from men being sufficient with a "physical" job that pays almost as a "mental" one. Women just can't these jobs and they have to choose between working at McDonald's or trying to find a job using a Bachelor's degree. Men have many more alternatives, hence the "unequal" pay.

epa 3y ago

I dont understand why they want me to login to read the article. I dont want an account, nor do i want to give you my email. I would rather leave the site than sign up. "Logins" are so antiquated.

EMCymatics 3y ago

Quotas in education is always a fun topic.

WastingMyTime89 3y ago

While the article offers nothing of value outside of its provocative title (but I clicked so I guess it works), I’m genuinely fascinated by why every article about dating here leads to such a slew of poor comments. I mean the discussion is full of entitlement, misogyny, cynicism or a mix of the three. A casual reading lends me to think that this is because this place skews rather young.

watwut 3y ago
My guess was always that HN has a lot of men who moved to Silicon Valley that has more men then women or work long hours in male only jobs. So, there is a lot of resentment over unsolvable situation.
lacker 3y ago
The nature of dating is that the people who have a good experience dating get married, and so they stop dating. People who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the people who are eternally struggling have much more experience at it and have far more to say about dating. It's kind of like job interviewing. If you do five job interviews, get three offers, are happy at the job you take and stay there for five years, then you're averaging one interview per year. If you're struggling to find a good job you can do ten interviews per week forever. So the people who are eternally struggling at the job interview process have much more experience at it and have far more to say about it.
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  > The nature of dating is that the people who have a good experience dating get married, and so they stop dating. People who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the people who are eternally struggling have much more experience at it and have far more to say about dating. It’s kind of untrue nowadays. Married people get divorced. People split. Plenty are not interested in marriage. As a data point, I am a currently single average looking and averagely successful guy with no intention of ever getting married (I will probably settle into a long term relationship at some point but I’m not planning to in the near term) and who has dates (as much as such a thing exists here) semi-regularly when I feel like it. I have nothing particularly bad to say about the experience. At its heart, it’s just meeting someone new. It’s not particularly complicated or difficult hence my puzzlement.

lsy 3y ago

This article points out what is probably real friction from shifting mores but seems mainly preoccupied with implying that a return to more conservative values around women's role in society would be called for. What I feel is needed is to understand what the fundamentals are and how those things could be achieved in a society that is also compatible with human freedom. Most of the problems described in this article stem from a totally artificial "bundling" of companionship, sexual satisfaction, child-rearing, economic support, and intellectual stimulation into a singular person who not only is expected to satisfy these needs for you (and sometimes fails), but often prevents you from satisfying those needs with other people. So of course finding "Mr. or Mrs. Right" becomes existential, and of course we turn to dependable sources of entertainment as the anxiety of picking the "right" life mate prevents any of us from actually committing to anything. But with some creativity we can think of actual escape routes from this dynamic that don't require a return to treating women as property, like supporting single child-rearing, allowing people to form mutual support structures with friends or family, detaching self-worth from relationship status, a further liberalization of sexual mores, expanding economic safety nets, and so on and so forth.

dahwolf 3y ago
Women's roles don't need to be reversed at all. Their success is earned, but that doesn't solve the problem of them selecting for men that do not exist due to their persistent behavior to exclusively select upwards. The simple fix is to come to more reasonable selection criteria.

dahwolf 3y ago

This problem seems statistically unsolvable unless people make vast behavioral changes. The education gap will not be closed, it might even grow further apart. A significant amount of men will continue to work in blue collar jobs and thus will never meet the standards of being highly educated and/or wealthy. There's exceptions, some are making a killing, but on average not really. To make matters worse, there's a growing political gap between blue collar men and white collar women. Another portion of "lost" men are described in the article as the unemployed gamers. A portion of them might be incels. The main thing to understand about this group is that even if they do better themselves, it's still not going to be a match. Because quite likely they're socially awkward and physically unattractive, struggle to socialize and make friends. Bottom line, the popular phrase "men should step up" isn't going to work out. You're waiting for something that simply isn't going to happen. You can make of that situation what you want: opt-out and don't compromise on your standards, or deal with the cards given. My advise: look for character in a person. The obsession with status, education and wealth is inhumane, superficial and greatly self-limiting. Character lasts. If a person is structurally kind, responsible, reliable and has a steady job, who gives a shit about anything else? Combined with your own "educated" income, it would be plenty to run a family. Why price yourself out of the market with steep financial demands? For additional luxury? A bigger house? One you never attend as you're always at work? Get real.

almostnormal 3y ago

> A study led by economics researcher Brecht Neyt of Ghent University found that, on Tinder, women were 91 percent more likely to “like” a man with a master's degree compared with a bachelor's degree. The researchers used the same male profiles, the only difference was level of education. No ethics board in the economics department?

ayemel 3y ago
I’ll bite, what’s unethical here?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

imtringued 3y ago

This makes me wonder if Karl Marx‘ analysis of Capitalism is all wrong and not because of economic reasons but rather because men feel compelled to climb the hierarchy, even if it means turning into "exploitative capitalists", to impress women.

sudosysgen 3y ago
That's actually part of Marx's analysis in more words, specifically in how social status is a main driver for working people to give in to the logic of capitalism. Ultimately his argument is that this is fundamentally irrational and that even insofar as there is to be some kind of social status, it's more rational for working people to make that less dependent on capital as they are structurally prevented from achieving it. But yeah as an argument in general "people are selfish and only care about struggling for themselves", if that's actually true it does undermine his whole argument.
- kelipso 3y ago
  Individual vs collective incentives no? An individual worker might have a say 1% chance of achieving high status in the capitalist society while the same worker will have a 100% chance of achieving average status in the communist society (though sure plenty of other ways to achieve high status than money).
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    Basically, except that it's so unlikely for a worker to achieve truly high status (basically, true financial independence, fat FIRE in today's terms) that it might as well be close to impossible.

more_corn 3y ago

The first line was all I needed to know. “Oh he doesn’t got to Yale? He’s out!” Online dating has is enumerating the qualities we think our ideal mate will have. We think that if we tick the boxes of what we like we can save time. Then we complain that there aren’t enough candidates! But this process eliminates people who might be an awesome fit because they don’t match some arbitrary metric. My favorite is must be 6’ or taller. Seriously? You think you could never love someone who’s five foot eleven and a half? If you have criteria like that and can’t find anyone to date I don’t feel sorry for you. But I do have some advice. Put down your list and go meet people. You’ll be blown away by how unexpectedly you like or just click with the oddest assortment.

xchip 3y ago

as somebody said below, the headline should be "highly educated women unable to find somebody even richer than them."

talldatethrow 3y ago

I've been a serial dater for 20+ years now (38M) I've been with 70+ women, and about 10-15 of those for long term. I think more about dating dynamics than basically anyone I've ever met. I'm not sure why. The main takeaway I see from relationships is that I'm expected to give, understand, listen, and bend to be some perfect modern man. I need to be beyond financially stable, I need to be tough, but also have some romantic comedy movie side of me. And she's expected to technically not sleep with anyone else but also I'm not allowed to think about that at all even or I'm insecure. Whenever I start dating a woman, even if she has a good job, I feel like I'm taking on a dependent. Which would technically be fine, if I was appreciated for it. But I'm not. I'm basically chastised if I even notice that I'm giving a lot. "What, youre giving a lot? This is a lot? You must not be as good as I thought you were if this is a noticeable amount of giving to you". I'm not talking about just money. It's everything. I can summarize my main problem with relationships via this old joke: Q: What do women want? A: More. And that's why I won't marry and more and more won't date. I have a big enough collection of previous partners that calls me every time their bfs act up or bore them or disappoint them. Another reason to stay away from them.

naveen99 3y ago
it might just be the type of women you attract and or are attracted to. There are definitely women out there who will give their fair share if not more.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  Amazingly I haven't really met them, nor have most of my friends, even the married ones. Obviously women work and contribute to households. There are millions of well employed women. The question is, are they satisfied with their partners?
- opportune 3y ago
  I am much younger than this guy and have dated way fewer people, and I’ve been involved with two people like that. So it’s almost definitely something they’re doing, given n>50. I’m also not convinced I should date forever and never get married, nor that women are all seeking to simply extract and be entertained by me. This could be related (lol)

oj2828 3y ago

I found Scott Alexander’s article on the same topic more informative and accurate to what I’ve experienced https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/hypergamy-much-more-than-you-wanted?r=22a7a&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/hypergamy-muc...

DrNosferatu 3y ago

Then why are “Incels” a thing? Then why are there dating coaches - always for men? Then why online dating platforms always have a lot more men than women?

zumu 3y ago

I'd love to see some data from Europe. The American education system is very limited and seems to reward obedience above all else. College graduation rates for graduates of all boys high schools would also be interesting to compare and contrast. 'Redshirt'ed boys is another demographic to look at.

expertentipp 3y ago

"you're out of swipes", then "oops, you missed a match", and "pay regularly and increasingly more to be even visible". Approaching in real life... my tolerance to being laughed off or ghosted is below zero. Can a man have any expectations and requirements these days?

testacct22 3y ago

Every time I see one of these threads, there's always a bunch of baggage in the comments. There's also a bunch of stereotyping I see, e.g. men "preferring" hookup culture Also on top of this, whenever there's talk about a so called "masculinity crisis", there's a bunch of tacit demands on how other people should live. This is regardless of whichever political camp the talk originates from It's gotten to a point that whenever I figure out a discussion or article is "directed" at men, I stop reading because I already know it's going to start telling me what I "need" to care about as a man I'm honestly fed up with it at this point. If someone has something to say to me as a person, go ahead. But if someone has something to say to me as a man, I'd prefer it if they'd take their bullshit elsewhere

stevage 3y ago

[flagged]