Reply to "The Dating Cultural Norm That's Making Everyone Unhappy"

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Reply to ""The Dating Cultural Norm That's Making Everyone Unhappy""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is all very evident in the dating market.

Attractive, successful men can sleep around and decide to commit or not whenever they want. The apps make it easy for a select few of us.[/quote]

Just don’t decide too long. As a mid 40s attractive woman, I’ve met too many of these elderly 60+ “players”. They are funny in their ego centric world trying to land a 15-20 years younger independently wealthy heiress who would travel with them while he’s throwing her his stick and some money, 
No thank you - I would rather travel on my own or be an equal partner to someone my age. [/quote]

I'm 47 now and just spent the weekend with a woman in her late 20s who complains about the men her age (but eventually does want to get married and have children with a husband closer to her age). This has been my life for the past seven years post divorce. As soon as it starts to slow down (I think I have another two years max), I think it will be just as easy to meet someone closer to my age.[/quote]

A late 20s woman should be dating for marriage mid 30s men, not "spending weekends" with divorced dudes 20+ years older. I was that beautiful 20s woman 20 years ago. The only girls who dated that much older were not attractive. Being younger doesn't make anyone more attactive

Also, what men like you don't understand is that by jumping brunches chasing bodies in superficial relationships you waste time and ability to build a deep connection. You actually regress into your own 20s mentality and become a shallow, unattractive partner for someone your age. The things I look at in my potential mate in my 40s are totally different from what I was into in my 20s. [b]Older women with experience are way more demanding[/b] and thus prefer to stay single over dating someone immature, like you.[/quote]

Ding, ding, ding – one of you finally gets this.

DP.  Now ask yourself whether “demanding” is an attractive trait to men in their 40s (or any other age).  You’re so close to understanding why you’re really single, sweetie![/quote]
The “sweetie” is just so unnecessary, PP.

I’m not the PP you were referring to- but I think you have this backwards. I know exactly why I’m single, it’s because yes! I’m lucky enough to be demanding. I have everything I need - I have a happy healthy life, financial security, great kids.. Why would I not be demanding in my standards for others? mine are not financial but require attractiveness, high energy, and lifestyle/hobby compatibility.

I think it’s snide to use “single” as a diss- after my disaster of an exH I think of single as a hard earned badge of honor, I earned my peace and can value it - by both respecting men and being very selective.

Woman, 49[/quote]

Even if you can "afford" to be demanding, it's still going to limit your pool and turn off many men.  You indicate you want a partner, but your approach makes it much less likely that you will succeed.  That's the crux of the situation described in this article: women have an unrealistic expectation of what they should expect in a partner.  If you have money and kids already, maybe in your case, you really will be happier with a vibrator and trips with friends than partnering with someone you view as subpar.  But for the millions of women who would actually benefit from, and want, a relationship, the unwillingness to accept reality is a disaster.[/quote]

Disaster for whom? Just the women? I don’t think so because on the flip side, there’s millions of men who are deemed subpar and end up alone too. They’re not all going to get mail order brides as a solution because that leads to problems.

This stalemate is most disastrous for society as a whole and will lead to plummeting birth rates and population collapse. Using scare tactics on women (“you’ll end up alone! You’re going to be a childless cat lady!”) isn’t persuading anyone.[/quote]

PP you quoted.  I agree!  It's a disaster for men and society as well, not just the women.

I guess the issue is that women are driving this stalemate, not men.  They are the ones that are basically choosing to remain single unless they can get a man that is out of their league.  You could flip it around and say that maybe men need to be better or more feminist or what have you, but men are not going to overnight acquire more college degrees, double their incomes, or become more attractive (though they could and should work out more and eat better).  But women *could* overnight accept that they cannot find someone who checks all their boxes and be willing to entertain someone who checks 70% of their boxes.[/quote]

Women are not seeking anyone out of their league. Generally couples match by attraction level. If a fit person wants to sleep with other fit people it’s not “wanting to date out of your league”. [/quote]

Wrong.  I don’t understand why women cannot grasp this concept. BY DEFINITION, the very fact that women perceive that there are “so few eligible bachelors” who check all of their boxes means that these men are out of the league of most women, unless you are advocating for polygamy and for each of these men to marry five women. (Ironically, we now have de facto polygamy for these desirable men—except that they sleep with five women and marry none of them.)

You’re also wrong about a fit woman and a fit man necessarily being in the same league.  As everyone knows, men disproportionately value looks in a partner and women disproportionately value the ability to provide financially.  Therefore, it’s very possible for a schlubby man with a good income to be in the same league as a fit woman.  However, women now view the income as a baseline requirement and expect that the man should be fit on top of that.

Moreover, the fit, high-earning man may still not be a suitable partner if his high income comes from a plumbing business and not from an endeavor with the cultural pedigree that would appeal to a college-educated woman.  After all, intellectual stimulation, common culture and shared values are all important.

And on and on and on it goes.  I think it’s clear as day that while the current situation harms both men and women, women have largely created this mess.[/quote]

You are thinking in terms of some weird leagues, scores etc. As if women would pick fat higher earners over fit average earners all the time just for the money alone. This is simply not true. No matter what you think about a fat doctor being in same league with fit woman, it wouldn’t force her to have sex with him. And if she’s in need and forces herself into it, the relationship will be an unhappy one. Real life couples by at large match by looks, incomes etc.

So yes, women select solitude while they are in search (if they can afford a decent standard of living on their own). It’s a happier place than being with a fat doctor or nagging ex-husband. [/quote]

You’re making PP’s point. If women’s standards are rising as society becomes more egalitarian then women are chasing and increasingly smaller percentage of men.

Take the PP above who says she earns a lot and is willing to date down to a $150,000 earning male (but below that is an incompatible lifestyle).

If you search all men and set the filters as follows:

At least 5 foot 8 inches tall
Under 42
Not obese 
Not married 
Open to having kids
Doesn’t smoke

You’re talking about 0.52% of all men in the USA (exclude divorced and/or already has kids and that percentage drops).  That means a lot of single women are going to be left without a chair when the music stops.

[/quote]

Ok and? It looks like many women are fine with being single and left without a chair, as they are increasingly able to financially support themselves, unlike the past. Who is most bothered by this? I’m thinking men, because they’re unable to be alone indefinitely, and people like you. Why is that?[/quote]

Do you think men are having difficulty finding partners? The article isn’t about wealthy men having difficulty finding partners. It’s about women. It isn’t a competition. Most wealthy men don’t even have wealthy women on their radar.[/quote]

Yes, as we move closer to an equal society where women have greater job opportunities and less children hindering their careers, men will have difficulty finding partners. MC and [b]LMC[/b] men are already experiencing this. Increasing numbers of women are also fine with being single forever, so all the hand wringing about it is unwarranted.[/quote]

A lot of young men nowadays are failure to launch. My friend has a 21 year old son that flunked out of community college and got fired from Walmart for regularly being late and comes to me whining that girls don’t want to date him and he doesn’t leave the house. Go on the Adult children section and you will see a bunch of people talking about their failure to launch boys. A young woman who has done all of the right things she was told to do will not settle with any guy just so she can say she has a husband. Honestly it sounds like a punishment.[/quote]

Boys are failing to launch because masculinity is punished at every chance.  The fact that universities have more women than men is a huge civilizational failure.  [/quote]y

You would rather say there is a civilization failure rather than acknowledge parents coddle boys who don’t learn to buckle down and do better for themselves.[/quote]

+10000

Lazy parents aren’t teaching their kids basic skills and responsibilities.

Half of American children are BMW overnight or obese so they’re also feeding them crap juices, fried food, fast food, processed snacks. Sad.[/quote]

This seems to be an American problem specifically. The sons in immigrant families seem to be working and getting into college just fine.[/quote]

Majority of Hispanic immigrants’ kids are obese. [/quote]

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