> If men can increase their pool size, why not women?

Women can, it is just they don't want to due to what the majority express as desirable characteristics. It is a sad state of affairs that make both men and women worse off. I know several women in their mid-thirties who adamantly refuse to consider long term partnership with perceived low status males (along lines of status, power, wealth and education).

The main issue they seem to run into is this. The small pool of highly educated, high status and wealthy men are essentially at the top of the sexual marketplace. Considering the purchasing power (excuse the term, but it makes sense) these men have, they tend to optimise for traits many men find desirable.

Finding an "equal" man in your mid-thirties as a women is very hard. Funnily enough, polygamy in societies partly resolves this distribution problem for women. The problems it causes amongst a perpetually single mass of men are catastrophic however.

> Finding an "equal" man in your mid-thirties as a women is very hard.

Interesting. I'd have assumed that finding an 'equal' man is pretty simple, but moving up the social ladder by marrying up is what is getting harder and harder as the pool of men 'higher' than women is shrinking while simultaneously women themselves are moving up on their own.

I think it is mostly down to perceptions of equal between the groups. I do not think that the equality is equal.

I wonder what the statistics are for divorce for rich women who marry a poorer guy? I'll bet it's not wonderful.

>Finding an "equal" man in your mid-thirties as a women is very hard.

Finding an "equal" woman in your mid-thirties as a man who doesn't want to date down in terms of education, status, wealth, or mental health is just as difficult.

Of course. But most - obvsly overlapping bell curves, but on the median clear difference - men don't care about that as much.

It actually should be easier. Since there are more women at this level then men.

There are more women at this level, but some (many?) of them are not interested in an equal partner.

So just don't move "up", improve your dating life?

Or finding one who isn't traumatized too badly by past relationships.

I think that people who are "traumatized" by past relationships were the ones who had psychological issues of some sort to begin with, that that sort of damage happens when you are a child, and that your typical, emotionally healthy adult can get over it and force themselves to trust again, even if it happens repeatedly and with multiple partners, because the majority of people are "good" people, and you can't let people with personality disorders taint your entire view of humanity or a specific subset of it.

I went through the wringer with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder with significant narcissistic and sociopathic traits. I can't imagine a future relationship possibly being any worse, short of a pregnancy being involved (or another person with BPD). I was shaken up for a few months, but I'm over it now. She would blame many of her negative traits and behaviors (that, from my understanding and conversations with her mom, had been a part of her personality from an early age) on past lovers, as if they were the ones responsible for damaging her. I'm sure she brought me up to the next guy(s) as well. How dare I try to get her into therapy? All she ever did was love me, after all.

Nothing more to add to your comment here besides stating I had a similar experience.

BPD, narcissistic and sociopathic traits all derived or perhaps exasperated by significant and truly awful childhood trauma.

Had me in an awful state for a year. Being introduced to intermittent reinforcement by my therapist was the moment that the penny dropped and I started to relinquish my feelings of loss and guilt.

Could you expand on the intermittent reinforcement concept in the context of an interpersonal relationship? I think it might help me.

= = =

If you'd like to contact me direct to discuss any of the below, feel free. My e-mail is

jonathon at jdtay .com

= = =

I'd be happy to.

The following articles went a lot way to assist me in getting out of an incredibly toxic, abusive relationship. If you're anything like where I was at, the addictive qualities of an abuser will leave you with manic highs and lows. It's a manipulation tactic, you and the relationship you had were nothing special. You were seduced and it's a trait shared by most people in abused relationships in every sense.

Once I realised I was being spent and manipulated and I wasn't in anyway in love, I was just being led astray. My healing process started almost immediately and the strength I never could find to finally escape from my abuser came quickly and efficiently. This isn't to say it was easy. Withdrawal symptoms are very fucking real.

Realising it's not love that you're walking away from, it's something much more sinister and primal than that. You'll find strength and self esteem to start putting yourself first. It's also at this point that you'll start to notice just how horrid the experience was and it's here that I must encourage you to seek professional help if you are not already. You'll be tearing down walls that a professional will need to help you rebuild and unpack.

In another note. If you're like me and you're a man leaving an abusive relationship with a woman. You may find it distressing that almost every article you find online was written in the angle or perspective of a female victim and a male perpetrator.

Undoubtedly this is statistically going to be the most likely scenario in most abusive relationship though I personally believe from my experiences and those of my closest family and friends. That this statistic is less weighted in favor of male abusers than you'd suspect.

The number of articles written in a light to support and assist men who've escaped emotional abusive relationships is shockingly sparse and I was hurt that there was such little content for me to personally relate to.

Both sites, Out of the Fog (i) and Psychopaths and Love (ii) have a lot of great content. Word of warning though. Psychopaths and Love's website is a piece of shit. But the content is relateable.

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i) http://outofthefog.website/what-not-to-do-1/2015/12/3/interm...

"Intermittent Reinforcement - Intermittent Reinforcement is when rules, rewards or personal boundaries are handed out or enforced inconsistently and occasionally. This usually encourages another person to keep pushing until they get what they want from you without changing their own behavior." ...

"The personality disordered individual is often aware that he or she lacks appropriate self-control and that their abusive behavior is less than satisfactory in the eyes of the Non-PD. They may fear that their behavior will result in negative consequences, increased conflict, loss of trust and respect or even loss of the relationship. They often want to make amends and wish for a better result. However, most prefer not to confront the root of the problem and want to avoid the unattractive prospect of endless psycho-analysis, admitting their failings, being treated like a problem, being forced to take medications, being regarded as someone who has a "mental problem". So they straddle the line of acceptability, trying to maintain the status quo, occasionally trying to "make up for it" when they perceive they may have crossed the line. Once in a while, the Non-PD may blow a fuse and put their foot down or threaten to leave, but it is typically short-lived. Like the person who builds a house in the flood zone, they hope they can "ride out" the occasional storm and get what they want without having to change."

= = = = =

ii) http://psychopathsandlove.com/intermittent-reinforcement/

The following article I found slightly less helpful. The language is uses is both emotive and inflamed. There are a lot of shared behaviors that can be both from some one with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personal Disorder, a psychopath, sociopath or some one with deep, horrific trauma. It's important not to start labeling your abuser. You'll get it very wrong unless your a professional in this field. Instead just recognise the behaviors as being unhelpful and leave it at that.

This article (and almost the entire site) is purely targeted towards those who have been in relationships who are either sociopathic or psychopathic so do take this into account. It's also exclusively written from the perspective of a female victim which quite often left me with a poor taste in my mouth.

All the same, you'll find the analogies and the methods that are outlined to be familiar.

"There is nothing like the elation and bliss of new love. Especially when you believed you had found ‘the one.’ That took it to another level. You may have felt you never really knew what love was before. You were probably infused with incredible joy and happiness. You finally found what you were searching for, and it was even better than you ever imagined.

And then one day something unexpected happened. You got a queasy feeling that you couldn’t shake. You sensed deep in your gut that he or she was pulling away. Your heart sank and your stomach clenched with fear.

In the process of the psychopathic bond, the moment when the joy at finding love turns into the fear of losing it is called the ‘manipulative shift.’ When that happens, the psychopath takes control. This is when the devaluation stage begins.

Fear takes away our ability to think clearly. It’s an intensely powerful and uncomfortable emotion, and we want it to go away. In this case, fear was caused by the threat of losing our (supposedly) wonderful relationship. When we see someone as being the one who can take our fear away, we will give them just about anything. In this situation, hat would be the very person who caused it in the first place — the psychopath. He or she took our fear away by becoming attentive and loving again. If we asked him if something was wrong he told us that we were imagining things, or he blamed us, or made up some excuse, for his lapses"

> I know several women in their mid-thirties who adamantly refuse to consider long term partnership with perceived low status males (along lines of status, power, wealth and education).

Lowering standards aside, this attitude alone would be off-putting for most men, high-status ones especially. What do they bring to the table? Certainly humility isn't one of them.

Parent is using blunt language to communicate economically, don't read into it too much. The women displaying such mate selection patterns could easily be friendly, sociable, and well-liked.

...and also extremely reluctant to date men who are shorter than they are. (Yes there are studies here too.)

Men aren't better of course, we have other impractical (but evolutionarily significant) biases, needless to say.

LOL. I'm a cis white dude, 39, make ~300k year, skipped grad school, mild child prodigy, am in decent shape and am very tall. From my experience, women in major cities, especially in the U.S., are predominantly jaded, lack (or feign) general life-skills, life-experience, purpose, respect, manners, direction, trustworthiness and reciprocity. To me, the biggest turn-offs (sans personality disorders): materialism, strategic self-/other-sabotage, ignorance, uncoolness, selfishness, infantilism, lack of introspection and autonomous behavior. The hook-up pool for me is virtually all but the dating pool for me is basically zero.

Unreasonable, non-reciprocal selfishness compared to value offered (ie sanity, health, intelligence, etc.) isn't worth arguing with. Plus, gold-diggers feel entitled to "their half" in community property states.

For dudes looking for life-partners (sans marriage), look at other countries and college towns. If you just want to get laid, pay for it... it's much cheaper and simpler. If you want to make more money, find a decent woman whom is supportive, honest and fun and isn't divorce-oriented, one-side relationship-lazy or has a wandering eye.

For dudettes for the same, they ought to sex/relationship tourism or relocate to male-heavy ratio places like the SF Bay Area.

For both, don't get married or have kids, except after long-term stability.

So damn true. You nailed it. And hooking up the way you do pisses women off because they can't get their hooks in you then if you are otherwise satisfied.

I think this might come off as negative to some, but I feel the exact same way. Very successful for my age, and I can easily date women. I am constantly let down by how low quality they are. They might be physically attractive, but beyond that I feel like I am jumping from poor relationship prospect to poor relationship for eternity.

The common element in all of these relationships is ... ?

Why would this attitude be off-putting? I’d much rather be selected by someone I knew had high standards.

This is addressed in the article: "Mating psychology may not be that malleable." i.e. Biology.

Biological explanations for social phenomena are generally frowned upon these days, and they certainly have a poor track record, historically.

Both mating and sexual selection are fundamentally biological issues.

> they certainly have a poor track record, historically

Evolution: a biological explanation for a social phenomena with a poor track record, historically

Um, no? Biological explanations work great. Want to explain the social phenomenon of people going home every night? It's biology: they have to sleep. Want to explain why people smoke? They're addicted. Want to explain why grown up adoptees behave more like their biological parents than their adoptive parents? Genetics.

The parent is hinting at sociobiology. Similarly in biology, we have -nomics: trying to explain every biological phenomenon with genes. See Sydney Brenner's criticism on the latter as well.

I probably should have put 'explanations' in quotes, because I was thinking of the bogus 'biological' just-so stories that have frequently been advanced in the past to 'explain' why women should not or can not do this or that, and the alleged inferiority of various ethnic groups.

It is somewhat moot, however, as my comment is mostly about contemporary mores regarding the use of biological explanations (or 'explanations'), though perhaps I was not explicit enough. I don't know enough to have a definite opinion as to whether, or to what extent, biological explanations apply in this case.

Is mate selection primarily a social phenomenon?

Of course that's not necessarily a bad state. Sociology is fixed, biology is mutable - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biolog...

Because biology? Most women prefer a stronger (and taller) man, not just in the physical sense.

Also, for status in social circles.

That's precisely behind the purported problem outlined in the article. Women don't, on average, prefer younger or less educated/earning men as the other way around.

As always with social problems, no easy solution is in sight.

Women tend to desire men who are older, richer and more educated. Men tend to desire women who are young, hot, and of good character.

Men can't always get what they want, either, but nobody writes articles about how that's a crisis.

Realistically you only get 2 of those traits in my opinion.

I see "men can't always get what they want either" mentioned in articles all the time.

That's probably what'll end up happening. Right now people have a hard time imagining it because we've been living in a patriarchal society, but I'm willing to bet that in a generation or two there will be fewer hangups about house husbands.

that won't expand the pool as much as you think. it widens it on the education variable, but narrowers it to men who aren't threatened by women who are more educated (and possibly higher-paid) than they are.

>men who aren't threatened by women who are more educated (and possibly higher-paid) than they are

Do these people actually exist anymore? What kind of man is really going to pass on an otherwise suitable partner just because she's more educated and makes more money than him? I can't imagine a single person I know thinking something along the lines of "yeah, she's great, but she makes more money than me, it won't work".

3 of my friends make more than their boyfriends. 2 of my friends make less than their girlfriends/wives. I sure wouldn't mind.

Traditional gender roles and expectation still exist. It also seems that if the wife makes more than the husband, you're more likely to suffer a divorce[1]

It's easy to say I wouldn't mind, but I haven't faced the situation. In fact, I hope I wouldn't have to.

[1] https://hbr.org/2017/05/does-a-womans-high-status-career-hur...

From that link:

>We found that wives who believed they held higher status positions than their husbands were indeed more likely to experience feelings of resentfulness or embarrassment, feeling that their status was decreased by their husbands’ lower status position, which in turn had a negative impact on their marital satisfaction — and even increased the likelihood that they were thinking about divorce. Husbands, however, were unaffected by their wives’ status spillover feelings: They only experienced greater marital dissatisfaction and thoughts about divorce if their wives’ were outwardly unhappy with their relationship.

Right, it's one of those things where you sort of "know" as a gut feeling and applying a little of imagination.

It's good to see it recognized however.

If I'm being honest, this would bother me at some level. Certainly not enough to pass up the opportunity, but somehow I would feel less of a man. I'm sure I would get over it quickly enough, or maybe use it as motivation to become equally educated. I do think it's great that there are so many highly educated women.

I have only dated women smarter/richer than me so far, and yes, it is very motivating.

You’re missing the option that they wouldn’t dismiss such a woman priori, but many men’s egos wouldn’t take it well in a long-term relationship. (I cannot really speak from personal experience unfortunately.)

My wife has at times earned more than me but that's never felt threatening. After all, I benefit from her increased income. In fact I would love it if she'd earn enough for me to be a stay home dad without us needing to cut expenses too much.

That's more of an anecdote than any real data.

Why do you care/how do you know about their salaries in the first place?

> Why not increase the pool like men do: go for more younger, possibly less educated men (as the article implies for men)?

Because it takes women thousands of times longer to produce a child than men. It's just game theory.

Keep in mind also that the average woman doesn't have any magical ability to figure out which men will be successful in advance, otherwise all the top venture capitalists, producers, publishers, etc. would be women.

Because women typically have different mating strategy -- hypergamy, which goal is to decrease the mating pool size as much as possible down to the best candidate. Men's mating strategy is polygamy which is increasing the pool size as much as possible.

In other words most women would prefer to stay alone forever rather than marry a man who they consider suboptimal.

Add to the equation the "mating standards" that are overblown by Hollywood and social media and the picture of dating market becomes even darker.

I believe this exact mechanism (also aggravated by social media) is responsible for the decline of fertility rate below the reproduction level in countries with well educated population.

> Considering that we want to eliminate any gaps between the genders, why are educated women limited to educated men of their own ages?

Biologically and evolutionarily speaking, men want younger and more fertile women to mate with. Women want established males ( their age or older ) to mate with.

> Why not increase the pool like men do: go for more younger, possibly less educated men (as the article implies for men)?

As I stated earlier because men want younger women and women want established males.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54455482eab8ea36171...

http://www.businessinsider.com/dataclysm-shows-men-are-attra...

1. Many women want the option to stay home and raise their own children, at least for a few years. If a woman marries an otherwise-wonderful man who earns half her salary, she will not be able to easily stay home with her own child while maintaining their former standard of living. So there are some logistical concerns here that just aren't there for men. Perhaps in a country with a lot of paid maternity leave, these issues would not be as pronounced.

2. I have trouble with the blanket statement that women "want established males" "biologically and evolutionarily speaking." We live in a society. Peoples' behavior in a society is not some mystery that can only be deciphered by looking at chimpanzees. Our society has some very messed up rules about who gets to have the most power. People respond to and strategize around their current reality. If that reality were to change -- like, if we had free childcare or 4 years paid maternity leave, or some other radical shift -- many of these calculations would "magically" fall away.

> Many women want the option to stay home and raise their own children, at least for a few years. > So there are some logistical concerns here that just aren't there for men.

It's true that more women want this than men, certainly in the U.S., but you can't say the concerns "just aren't there for men" -- already in this thread there are men saying they want to be stay-at-home dads.

Indeed. This is an imaginary crisis invented by people who just want to whine instead of finding solutions for themselves. Travel and online dating are (relatively) cheap. If someone can't find an educated husband in Manhattan then take a trip to Shenzhen or Houston or wherever.

Traveling across the world ain't cheap. Maybe to you but not to the majority of people. When you add on the fact that your have to make multiple trips to meet people, as it's unlikely that you will meet your future spouse on the first trip you make to another area, most people will only be dating within their local area just as an economic necessity

The crisis, according to male psychologue, is that women end up ok being single and don't care about finding partner. Also, women being more competitive for existing males by having sex faster is some kind of problem.

Which is, according to him, something entirely different then dudes being single in Sillicon Valley where is surplus of males. Because, again, according to him, these dudes can find one night stands and care more about those anyway and thus everything is cool there.