"[In Tinder,] the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men" - from https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-g... (2015).

I dive a bit it that topic in "Dating for nerds (part 2): gender differences" https://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-diffe....

It is noteworthy that such statistics are not solely reflecting preferences, they may also reflect effects of the dating app itself! Among the many hidden psychological bugs in Tinder, an especially toxic one is that new users are presented with the most attractive profiles first. So the fact that many men don't get anything while others get a lot might be strongly amplified by a system that simply HIDES AWAY those other people.

It is however not the only data point which points in this direction. Population statistics from both Sweden and Norway show that men are about twice as likely to not have children that women.

It would be interesting to see more formal studies on the topic, but as far as I know there is no collaborating data to support the theory that the data we have is an artifact from the dating app.

Moreover, online dating is a different market. See "Online Dating and the Death of the 'Mixed-Attractiveness' Couple" https://priceonomics.com/online-dating-and-the-death-of-the-.... And well, it varies from an app to an app, when it comes to the details.

Interesting stories both.

Did you ever get around to writing part 3?

There are two drafts, ~1.5 year old.

"Social skills (not only) for aspies" and "Nice guys, friend zone and creepiness". Though starting is easy, finishing is hard.

I'd be glad to see them finished. But, I know, plenty of claims on limited time.

In the article, you write:

>If you firmly believe we are blank slates, and the only innate difference between the sexes is body shape, take a look at this thread:

But very few people believe this; it's better to characterise the argument as saying that many of the differences we see relating to the dynamics between the sexes are a product of society and culture, and the Reddit thread you linked underneath doesn't really refute that notion. I think it's more important that we try and understand the culture that produces these effects rather than inferring essential traits about humans without consulting the historical record.

You're correct that most sensible people understand that environmental and inherent biological differences both contribute to behaviors. But the pathological mode of thinking that people are becoming increasingly sensitive to is the willingness to assert environmental causes in the absence of biological or nonsociological evidence. It's precisely this having a default position that makes it an ideological way of thinking.

The gender wage gap is the clearest example at the moment, which was able to get people riled up on the 77 cents on the dollar figure, as purportedly being not only due primarily to environmental reasons, but specifically due to patriarchal socialization and sexism. The thing is, the initial figure was incredibly irresponsible, as it didn't control for field worked in, let alone specific profession, let alone seniority, output, hours worked, rate negotiated. The more of these figures are controlled for, the more the gap diminishes. But the problem is, people still look at the remainder as "okay well then there's a 7% gap, and that's still a problem." But my question is, "why?" They default back to the assumption that the remainder after what has since been controlled for is specifically the result of patriarchal sexism, simply because of a remaining disparity. That is ideological.

>But my question is, "why?"

Because they view the issue as being conditioned by today's society; while I admit it's not best to jump to such a conclusion without serious critical investigation, I find it tiresome that you call it "ideological" - as if an explanation which specifically seeks to avert any critical view of the development of Western society isn't itself "ideological". Is it the result of the sexism of patriarchal society? Let's find out by consulting sociology, critical theory and philosophy. A critical understanding of the issues wouldn't stop at merely controlling for the pay gap, for instance, it would ask why women negotiate less, why they tend to work fewer hours etc. Roswitha Scholz put it well:

>We have also to account for the fact that under capitalism reproductive activities emerge that are primarily carried out by women. Accordingly, value dissociation means that capitalism contains a core of female-determined reproductive activities and the affects, characteristics, and attitudes (emotionality, sensuality, and female or motherly caring) that are dissociated from value and abstract labor. Female relations of existence — that is, female reproductive activities under capitalism — are therefore of a different character from abstract labor, which is why they cannot straightforwardly be subsumed under the concept of labor.

>[...] Prior to this, women were largely regarded as just another variant of being-man, which is one of the reasons that the social and historical sciences have throughout the last fifteen years stressed the pervasiveness of the single-gender model upon which pre-bourgeois societies were based. Even the vagina was in the context of this model frequently understood as a penis, inverted and pushed into the lower body. Despite the fact that women were largely regarded as inferior, prior to the development of a large-scale modern public, there still existed for them a variety of possibilities for gaining social influence. In premodern and early modern societies, man occupied a largely symbolic position of hegemony. Women were not yet exclusively confined to domestic life and motherhood, as has been the case since the eighteenth century. Women’s contributions to material reproduction were in agrarian societies regarded as equally important as the contributions of men.

> an explanation which specifically seeks to avert any critical

This is false. The default of critical rationalists is not to avert critical view. It is directly the opposite. There is nothing to support the claim that criticism of the 77 cent theory is specifically out to avert critical review.

I would claim that it is very likely that those who disagree with the science behind the 77 cent theory are more than willing in participate in a critical view of the development of Western society. A common theory among those is that society forces men to prioritize higher income over other life choices, leaving them with fewer choices compared to women. Relative low income has a disproportional negative effect for men on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs scale compared to women. Thus men are more likely to take higher risk jobs if it rewards higher pay, have a higher risk profile in negotiations, sacrifice health in order to work more hours etc. It is just as much an critical view of the development of Western society as the theory of "patriarchal socialization". It just not the same view.

> under capitalism reproductive activities emerge that are primarily carried out by women

Those reproductive activities can be viewed across the near entirety of the animal kingdom.

And the societal "value dissociation" of child-rearing is not a product of capitalism. Across large communities, the value of child rearing is mostly realized within the context of a family unit. That just means that to entities outside of the family unit, the caring for the child has very little value. That's not to say that the general wellbeing of children across the society has no collective value to those within, which is why most people support access to education, child protective services, and things of this nature. Within a family unit, however, the person handling the child-rearing is of substantial value.

Your claim seems to be that:

1.) capitalism results in the dissociation of value for reproductive activities

2.) capitalism results in these activities primarily being carried out by women

3.) therefore, capitalism is responsible for assigning women a role and simultaneously undervaluing it

If this is not your claim, and please note that it is extremely difficult to actually discern a logical position from the text provided, please feel free to clarify.

If that IS your claim, then I would suggest that my counter is that:

1.) Capitalism only undervalues child-rearing if you fail to understand that the objectives of capitalism are predicated on the individual objectives of the entities within. The reproductive interest of a particular entity tends to be disproportionately valuable to that entity and their partner, much more than a third party. To say that capitalism undervalues that objective is simply contingent on the context.

2.) Capitalism "results" in these activities primarily being carried out by women only insofar as capitalism is a system in which individuals can act according to their own objectives. Many women do not want to reproduce at all. Many women do not want to be with men at all. This is completely fine, and never-married women with no children tend to be highly successful in other dimensions. Many women, however, do want to reproduce, and the fact that women and men tend to diverge in their roles regarding child rearing is not simply something that can simply be asserted as being a consequence of capitalism. Our capitalist systems are not collapsing under the increasing likelihood for a woman to be partnered with someone is less educated and makes less money.

> Capitalism only undervalues child-rearing if you fail to understand that the objectives of capitalism are predicated on the individual objectives of the entities within

I don't think this is true at all, since the ideological role of capitalism (and its class role) tends to encourage accumulation of capital above all else, so whatever can be made into capital-accumulating value will be, for instance over the past 50 years digital goods (and other otherwise freely reproducible goods) have been subsumed into capital - capital did this through its political arms, e.g the creation of copyright law. In the same way, capital may use its political arms to encourage 'family values', in a non-obvious alliance between the neo-conservatives in the 80s and the neolibreals. I understand value in the Marxian sense as a social relation, not value as in a purely "subjective" judgement. Value is both objective and subjective, in that it exists supersensibly but that existence is conditioned by a variety of objective social factors.

> Many women do not want to reproduce at all.

I find this line of argument relatively unconvincing, because it only works by assuming we are in total control of what we want, and that being ignorant of the origin of our desires, we assume them to come from within ourselves. It's a neat ideological point, but from social psychological perspectives is too simplistic to have much explanatory power. The point of my critique is that capitalism not only arranges society in a particular economic mode, but that this arrangement is therefore reflected in culture and society. Your argument is that capitalism gives the choice, and the choice is being taken, but this does not at all explain the context in which the decision is made in the first place, which is usually for economic reasons (whether the choice maker knows it or not).

>Many women, however, do want to reproduce, and the fact that women and men tend to diverge in their roles regarding child rearing is not simply something that can simply be asserted as being a consequence of capitalism.

I didn't claim that the difference in roles is solely due to capitalism, my claim is that the division of the roles between men and women works well with the liberal distinction between public and private - what is private ostensibly cannot be touched (by capital, by the state, by anyone) but what is public can be regulated by society in general (through the market) or by the government. The choices to remain an unmarried woman or to marry and have children are greatly dependent, before they reach the forefront of the mind, on the economic conditions of society.

The "family unit" is ideological, the free choice to "work hard" is ideological (see Weber's dissection of the "protestant work ethic" and capitalist society), the notion that many (even today) hold that women should be primarily caregivers in the home is ideological (along with its cousin, the belief that emotional or even reproductive labour does not truly count as labour because it is not valorized). These ideologies come about due to the economic system that underlies them, capitalism. Under different economic systems, or even different time periods, these ideologies are not present, or they are in a different form (see the last paragraph of my comment).

What?! The gap diminishes if you rule out all the results of the patriarchy (fields open to women; lack of seniority due to bias in promotions; negotiation that's not available to women because there's always a man who can fill the position)???

Its amazing to me that someone can claim "its not due to sexism" and then, in the very same sentence, make a long list of how its due to sexism. But its somehow ok.

"men" arent forcing "women" to work as nurses etc., nor are they stopping them from negotiating forcefully.

how is it sexism that nurses get paid less than office workers? thats wage inequality, not sexism.

And honestly, women tend to be more amicable... thats a trait thats hard to have if you want to get higher in the work hierachy, as thats often gained by walking over other people.

take a step back and reread his comment. each of his points are valid.

Let's break this down a bit in more detail. The most common claim against the 77/79 ratio can be summarized as 'if you control for occupation, seniority (interpreted as "time-in-seat" as opposed to some sort of rank gradation) and preference for reasonable hours/schedule, you effectively reduce the 20%+ gender gap to around 7%.'

There are many reasons for this, and the argument is that not all of this can be attributed to direct 'sexist' (bad) practices, but are instead the result of preferences that are more common to women than men (while this is indeed gendered, the accusation of 'discrimination' is more complex - if you somehow convinced all women to share identical preferences to men, these 'preference' differences would effectively disappear)

[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bolotnyy/files/be_genderga...

You're doing precisely what I described. If women are not in a field, it must therefore be that the field is not open to women. If there is a lack of seniority, it must therefore be due to a bias in promotions.

...and you're doing precisely what I described, saying its all ok because (?) men win? women don't want that career? we assume promotions are fair (citation!) because, again, men always win and (?)

You've attempted to claim my position as one that states that

1.) population outcomes being different are okay because men win

2.) population outcomes are different because women don't want certain careers

3.) promotions are fair

The problem is that I didn't make any of those points, nor do I believe them.

You can't make the case that our arguments are symmetrical, because they're not. Yours is an assertion, mine is a claim of insufficient evidence to substantiate your claim. The burden of proof is yours. I'm not making the claim that all population outcomes are the result of biology and everything is perfectly fair, you seem to just believe that this is my claim. What I'm actually saying is that I have a problem with an ideological position which assumes in the absence (or sometimes in the presence of) alternative explanations for why populations arrive at different outcomes, there is a tendency to be satisfied with a de facto position stating that outcomes are necessarily due to sociological forces, specifically patriarchy/sexism/racism. I'm saying that this is a totally unjustifiable position to work off of as a baseline. Working backwards from default conclusions, particularly when it comes to things that are as complicated as this, is not an acceptable strategy.

Maybe it is true that few.

Though, I used to interact (online and offline) with quite a few such people. In this case, even bringing a possibility that there may be any biological differences was crossing a taboo.

If you believe that were are both products of innate biology and culture, we are in agreement.

Well as I understand it there are two primary evolutionary modes of sexual pairing/selection, which humans follow.

The first model is where a supremely desirable male has many female partners, who get a little of his attention; and the second model, monogamy, where two partners pair up exclusively with the bulk of attention dedicated to each other [1]. Both are apt given different circumstances.

Without trying to put any morality on to it, dating apps/hookup culture seem more predisposed to tapping in to the first selection model.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evo...

Indeed, and it would also explain why it happens for young men in particular - as people get older, they start prioritizing monogamy, it being likely the better structure for raising kids (according to current social standards, at least) (technically, marriage doesn't mean monogamy - cheating is common - but I imagine not many men would sign up to raise children in a couple without having sex with their partners).

If by "people" you mean women in their thirties waking up to the biological clock/last maternity "all aboard" call, sure.

Young men have it worse list like older women have it: because men are attracted to youth and beauty and women are attracted to resources and status.

He probably means people when he says people. Men, too as they get older often have the same priority shift.

I've noticed this disparity within my friend circles. The objectively attractive men match/sleep with multiple woman a month where almost all of the men with near average looks get approximately zero matches. Interesting indeed. My female friends match with almost every male regardless.

This is the whole reason monogamy was standardized. It is a stabilizing force in society and creates equality instead of a winner take all situation. Without monogamy you end up with a small number of men having the attention of the majority of women. This causes huge problems, with the loosers being the average and below average men and women. Certain things about how society evolved to function are there for a reason.

In other places of the world polygamy was standardised.

And wide spread religiously backed monogamy stabilisation didn't save us from two world wars.

The stabilising effect of monogamy isn't to prevent wars between nations and societies, it's to manage violence and conflict within a society. It works too and is not just a small effect. Of the 20 most unstable countries in the world, all 20 are very to somewhat polygamous[0].

[0]https://medium.economist.com/big-love-and-big-war-exploring-...

You might consider that formal polygamy is directly linked to (a) religious authoritarianism, (b) gender inequality, (c) reduced education for women, (d) lowered economic productivity, (e) low standard of living.

When all those things travel together, it's not clear that polygamy should be viewed as the primary cause.

That's a good challenge, thanks. I suppose we'd have to do a historical analysis of societies to try and tease out the relative effects of each of those factors independently.

It’s not clear to me how the first three would lead to social instability though. There have been plenty of religiously authoritarian cultures that were quite stable. Similarly gender inequality and reduced education for women have been common historically and it’s hard to see how they would lead to social instability and violence. After all it’s not very common for women to rise up violently against gender based oppression, that just doesn't seem to be the dynamic.

I can certainly see how low productivity and standards of living could lead to violence. Desperate people can reach for desperate means. Nevertheless there are many very poor countries round the world and only some of them are significantly polygamous. The fact that the most unstable 20 are all to some degree polygamous seems to me to be a pretty strong correlation. If polygamy can be a driver of social instability though, it’s fairly straightforward to draw a logical causal link from that instability to all sorts of other social and economic ills.

It's hard to draw conclusions on that subject as many prosperous polygamous cultures in the past have been destroyed or assimilated simply because Christianity and other monogamist cultures were technologically superior and/or simply more aggressive. IMHO far too many variables were in play through ages to just pull a simple connection like that today.

The Economist article I linked to provides pretty convincing examples of direct causal links, and personal testimony from those affected and why and how it affected them.

As for conquest and Imperialism, Islam has strong polygamous tendencies and has been very aggressively expansionist in it's history. It even has formal rules spelled out in the Koran for acquiring women through conquest (their non-Muslim marriages are automatically rendered invalid on capture).

Funnily enough Muslim countries rank high on instability metrics, and we can see from recent history how stable and developed Muslim countries under autocratic rule collapse into chaos once that autocracy fails.

If even just the top 10% of men only have one extra wife, or 'girl friend' in a flat and secretarial role, as is common for middle eastern businessmen and politicians, that means the bottom 10% of men cannot ever marry. People will go to great lengths to get out of that bottom 10%.

I wonder to what extent the recent shift in sexual access for young men is a factor in political radicalisation in America. There seem to be a lot of angry young white kids around these days.

A, B, and C have existed in most societies below a certain threshold of per capita wealth, regardless of whether or not polygamy was practiced, so you may as well throw those out. And essentially every single highly developed country with an economy that is not primarily dependent on resource extraction has a long cultural history of enforced monogamy. Correlation != causation and all that, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on polygamy being a societal arrangement conducive to human flourishing.

Actually it makes sense when I think about it - one of biggest frustrations of young male life is not able to have a (sexual) partner. Hollywood makes fun of this in teen movies, but reality is much darker. If society is geared into perpetual state like this, the poor/unattractive folks become properly desperate and act accordingly.

Just look what long celibate does to priests. Soldiers in war have to be 'neutralized' via some mild suppressants in the rations (at least WW II was done like this from what I had read).

Anaphrodisiacs in soldiers' food is an urban myth, according to https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-saltpeter-principle/

Soldiers are typically supplied prostitutes, and one of the main spoils of war is the opportunity to rape the enemy women.

Also, if you survive the war and come home, being a war hero is very attractive to the ladies. You can speculate about an evolutionary background to that.

And even if they don't rape, they usually marry a lot in the conquered/liberated/whatever country they are victors in(just lookup war brides).

You are right.

I was surprised to learn that historically Islam allowance of four wives per men is actually a restriction. It's not an authorization to polygamy created in a monogamous context, it's a limitation put in a context where some men would have many more women.

Are the non-monogamous societies today that can rival the monogamous societies in their developmental state?

Yes: western society is notoriously becoming non-monogamous, and it is indeed unrivaled.

"is becoming" != "is". If it does, it might very well fall behind as inner conflict consumes too much energy.

I would argue that western society is already non-monogamous, since in many countries about half of the couples divorce. This results in "serial-monogamy", that is certainly non-monogamous.

FWIW, I think most reasonable people would call this moving the goal posts.

Most people in western societies at any given time are engaged in monogamous relationships. In fact, it's a crime in the U.S. to get married when you're already married to another person. Western governments don't recognize polygamous arrangements for tax purposes, etc.

I've noticed, and apparently the statistics as well, that this trend turns around the age of 32 to 34 for men. Men usually go for women 3 to 4 years younger than themselves. Which is around the age that women need to choose whether to procreate or not.

If you're a 28 year old woman without a partner you only have a few more years of being physically optimal to give birth to a healthy child.

So the average-looking men suddenly become more interesting. They have a career going, they are stable, aren't womanizers, and won't gather too much attention from the competition.

I'm definitely average looking and I didn't get much attention in my late 20s. Only in my 30s I started getting attention from women who would formerly only go with the types of men they now avoided like the plague.

One of those guys is a good friend of mine. Great looking guy, just a great person if you're... not a woman. But he's the "bad boy" women fell for when he was in his 20s. Now he's in his 30s and still playing his old game.

Take a pick:

Option #1: An 9/10 looking 6,2ft tall guy who had over 100 sexual partners, constantly plays the seduction game just to get laid, is constantly flirted with by younger women, can't hold a conversation unless it's about sex, booze, or soccer, still goes to clubs several times a week.

Option #2: A 7/10 looking 6ft tall guy who had 4 sexual partners in his entire life (all longer-term relationships), can hold a conversation, has female friends, worked on his career instead of being in clubs 5 times a week.

Sure, there are still women who fall for him. His most recent relationships were women in their early to mid 20s. He's actually trying to settle down and find a long-term partner, but he has no clue how. The last 5 of them he fell in love with, all left him hanging just a few weeks into the relationship.

I am in my 30s and when I was on dating apps I'd suddenly get a ton of matches. Obviously also from women who are like my friend: promiscuous (no judgment here) women who, in their 20s, got pregnant and were left by the father.

Similar experience here. No one prepared me for the roller-coaster effect of subjective male attractiveness. (I'm a Man) I've always felt that you could break it up pretty well by relative status. Here's how it went for me.

- 6th grade - extraordinarily unattractive to the opposite sex.

- 8th grade - not outwardly reviled.

- 9th grade - outwardly reviled again.

- 12th grade - actually dating, with a bit of interest here or there.

- Freshman year of college - lower relative interest.

- Senior year of college - enough girls are interested that they're fighting with each other.

- 1st year in the workforce - outwardly reviled again!

- 5-10 years into the workforce - hard say, got married, so I must have been doing something right.

So, did I change much between 8th and 9th grade? Or between 12th grade and freshman year of college? No, obviously not, but my status relative to the bellcurve of available men did change quite a bit. This was most evident from my senior year to college to my first year in the workforce. I went from amazing, to worthless all due to graduation!

Please bear in mind, I'm not complaining about the nature of female preferences here. However, I do wish someone had explained that this would occur, and also why it would occur. I remember being quite surprised at the time.

Sorry to break it to you, but women chose you not because you're suddenly more attractive than your friend, but because they've had 15 years or so to learn that your friend won't settle down and their biological clock is ringing real hard in their 30s.

It's quite cynical, I know.

I had the most interest from women when I was 21-22, in my senior year of college. How does your statement explain my result?

Because among college men, the more senior you are, the higher status; also the single women of your age either date you or they date some guy younger(naah, women don't do that) or they date some guy outside of college(a bit harder) -- plus single women feel that it's "now or never" since it's the final year in college.

It USED to be be the same thing when you were in highschool before tinder and social media: as a male, the more senior the higher status you had -- i.e. 9th grader males will just drool at their female coleagues going out with more senior males, until in 12th grade you finally hit payday.

Not so anymore because tinder and social media allow females to reach a much broader male audience.

It's the same thing with women in their thirties -- they notice they get a lot less male attention -- first the bad boys stop noticing them and a couple of years later even the nicest of guys won't give them that sweet validating attention women crave, so the smart ones settle down with a nice guy in her early thirties, the not so smart ones end up basically cat ladies.

I think those are all fine points, but you said "women chose you" (me in particular) -- I don't think I disagree with the general trends you've laid you, but you don't know the individuals in my life, or their motivations.

In this situation, the man would be scraps... Wouldn't him? How would that make him feel? As someone unlucky with girls I vowed to never let myself become scraps for any woman when I get older.

Enjoy the fun.

>I am in my 30s and when I was on dating apps I'd suddenly get a ton of matches.

Which is another problem men in their 20s face. They're competing with men in their 30s for the same women. There's simply a larger number of men trying to date a smaller number of women. The numbers mean someone gets left out.

Historically, not all men (or women, for that matter) procreated and I think that's OK, given the current state of overpopulation. Many men also died young at war, before being able to procreate. I think we can all agree that less wars is a universally good thing.

Even in western cultures where monogamy was pretty strictly enforced by the church and society, I doubt that more than 80% of men procreated (wish I could cite sources, but there doesn't seem to be good data about this)

We also need to do away with the stigma that you can't have a fulfilling, productive and contributive life without children.

You have significantly over-estimated the procreational success rate of men. Consider this research[1] - in the ancient past, the rate of long-term descendants was seventeen women to one man. Note that this is about long-term, multi-generational success, so the rate was higher in each single generation.

[1] https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success

Yes, in the ancient past.

If you read my post carefully, you'll see I only estimated the percentage for societies where monogamy is enforced (either through peer pressure, religion, or both)

I also did not cite the source you did, because I consider it of enough poor quality to be unreliable in debate.

In a monogamous society that has roughly equal men and women, everyone has the opportunity to reproduce. We're talking about a specific demographic that is struggling. In other words, those 18-29 men not having sex now (probably) will when they become 30-35. By that age most people are settling down into monogamy. And those men will be (probably) be in a better economic situation and therefore more desirable as mates.

This is an excellent point, and I wish it weren't buried so deep in replies. If dating apps make it easier for "desirable" individuals of both sexes to have lots of partners, then the effect you describe is amplified. That is, being "desirable" is partly about having money to pay for a nice date, a car to pick up your date with, etc. A 21-year-old is less likely to have these things than a 32-year-old (who is still young enough to be desirable to many women in their 20s).

I think you’re both onto something. There’s even a likely network effect where those men who sleep around are even more attractive to potential mates. Not as a rule, of course, but as a contributing factor.

It’s a very destabilizing trend. Not only are these same men being economically disadvantaged, but they’re being socially isolated. Perfect way to increase violent tendencies, drug addition, and so on.

How would that change though. I agree its a problem, but I don't agree its not within the control of those who are not being matched to do something about it. Some arguments:

* dating apps aren't the only way to meet people; you can still meet potential partners at parks/bars/work (Americans love office romances apparantly)

* dating apps do favor the conventionally good looking folks but its also about presentation, which can be gamed and its not a secret how to.

I agree that its a little unfair that the men who are good looking get all the benefits without having to put in any effort. But hasn't that been the case with inherited wealth too?

As someone who is definitely on the "not ugly but also not attractive" demographic, I have ditched dating apps completely.

The focus on the visual to the exclusion of body language and personality chemistry just makes it a bad all around deal. From my experience, naturally meeting girls in the world is a much more pleasant experience.

Smart move in many ways. Think about it - what kind of person goes to quick hookup apps? The one that likes quick hookups. Which is great if you look exactly this and nothing more. Men and women (but frankly, women much more due to many reasons) who behave like this +-consistently, have practically always have some deep unresolved issues, usually from childhood they try (and fail) to compensate for with this behavior. Think about Barney Stinson from HIMYM and his famous focus on 'girls with daddy issues'.

If you look for anything else, like long term happiness, its a very hard find a partner on such platform. Maybe I am naive but I still think this is what most people want in their lives. But it ain't as easy as swiping around - one needs to go out there, make some effort to look attractive, expose oneself to as many potential partners as possible. And have patience, tons of patience.

For my dating age range (28-33) and location, it seems most women I meet through Tinder are after a connection. This is heavily filtered through my selections though. It might also be the case that's the front they show while having tons of hooks up behind the scenes. It's just a really convenient way to meet people.

Virtually all women want a stable relationship, it's just that they want it with the dark and misterious bad boy, not with the average Joe.

It is how women are genetically programmed to be; it is why the Sabines accepted their raping-roman husbands, why Helen left with Paris, it is why Cleopatra accepted to be the mistress of Caesar and Anthony.

It is why women lubricate when they percieve a threatening male, it is why the Stockholm syndrom exists -- because it increases the chances of survival of a woman and her children if she can become the 10th wife of a man who just recently slain all her male relatives.

There is a lot of body language and personal traits that can be shown in photo's.

As they say: a picture is more than a 1000 words.

Sure, that can be true. But photos can also be posed and photoshopped.

It's much more prone to manipulation than direct, spontaneous contact.

>* dating apps aren't the only way to meet people; you can still meet potential partners at parks/bars/work (Americans love office romances apparantly)

Think about doing a job search. You could find a potential employer at a park/bar/whatever, but it's a lot more efficient to go to a job site where people are actively looking to employ you. It's similar for dating. It's definitely possible to meet someone to date in the real world. It's just a lot less efficient than doing so in a space where the only people there are those actively looking for the same thing you are.

Plus, people typically go to the same bars/parks and have the same circle of friends. The absolute number of single people will be relatively small and you can go through them relatively quickly. There's also the awkwardness of dealing with failed relationships.

hookup != dating and hookup app != dating app

I wouldn't put to much blame on dating apps in general, as the whole category of "dating apps" has become rather large and differentiated. And the more differentiated it becomes, the more I see it reflecting existing social behaviour.

On Tinder a small number of attracive men gets to hook up. But hasn't that always been the case when the objective has been to "hook up"? When you pick someone up for the night at you local bar and have rather free choice, hasn't the choice always rather fallen on the hot guy?

But there is a whole world of other dating services outside of Tinder, that are not focused on hook ups, but rather on finding a partner, and the difference shows!

My a piece of anecdotal evidence:

On Tinder I got ~0 matches - I'd say I'm "average" looking, not "hot" enough for Tinder - but on Bumble I get regular good matches. In contrast one of my "hot" friends has no problems getting matches on Tinder, but when he tried out Bumble his number of matches were just slightly more than mine.

I still prefer dating without apps, and the overreliance on them in my youngish (~25) age group is worrying me a bit, but the world for non-hot men is not as bleak as it's often made out to be.

> There’s even a likely network effect where those men who sleep around are even more attractive to potential mates

Of course, "attractiveness" is exactly this, the amount of partners you can get. We are certainly wired to consider the latter as an indicator of the former. Like a share's value is only marginally determined by its fundamentals, and more by how much is bought by others.

I think this problem will be addressed more and more by mail order brides or something like that for males in more prosperous nations, at least at the point when more men realize that they need to capitalize on their economic situation. The poorer countries are left with huge disenfranchised populations that will not be very friendly in the long term.

I doubt this will happen. The women on richer countries would put a very strong pressure against this.

I don't think there is a mechanism to restrict that. There are already countless "international" dating sites. You will get a vastly different response than from tinder as a male. Provided you select a prosperous country (your origin) and select you are looking for serious relationships.

Might be helpful for some guy to bolster their confidence. This is extremely superficial of course, so comparable with tinder.

But: Any advice on safer sex should include "do not marry" in this case :)

There's a sliding scale from mail order brides all the way down to women slightly lower class than the male with something in the middle like travelling to a poor country to meet girls. The third thing is definitely effective and on the rise (and incels are obsessed with it).

You have obviously never been to Australia then. Mail order brides from Thailand are quite common here.

Dating a dude that is cool with buying a bride would be profoundly bad idea. His ideas on what he expects from relationship are such that you really really don't want to with him.

I agree to an extend. It is an indecent proposal. You are leveraging your economic position for the dating market, plain and simple.

But from the position of a guy that has few or none experience in dating, this might not be a bad choice.

Especially, as you mentioned, because it is very true that relationships are about expectations and managing those. And starting a relationship with someone who has basically always been in a relationship is very difficult for someone that was not.

Especially if the plan changed that you suddenly want to have a "serious" relationship. That is not very realistic and for the guy it doesn't really make a difference emotionally at this point.

The woman looking for greener pastures actually do have quite high expectations for economic safety, but that would make it more manageable for some guys at least.

And there is still opportunity for love here, and guys having problems with dating should know their options. Everything is allowed in love, right?

Disclaimer: I only ever at least partially defend the use of mail order brides on mondays. damn...

In this situation, I would worry less about lack of love and more about presence of abuse and lack of freedom.

I think the risk there is more for the man than the woman. I don't think there is anything inherently bad in trying to circumvent the natural hierarchies of dating by means of your (unearned) social background. It's always part of the game anyway, and it doesn't mean that you want to "own" somebody or anything like that. But it's naive, as it won't last long in the new social environment. I.e. the beautiful wife will soon discover she has much better possibilities in the new country.

The risk for the wife is that he will turn possessive, controlling and as a result abusive. Because he bought her, he will want to have control over her. She will never be respected partner with equal agency.

The risk is also in sort of men attracted to this proposition. They are literally dangerous ones to date, whether physically or for mental abuse.

Having to run out of abusive marriage sux big time and have long term consequences for women.

I think your assessment is clouded by some strong moral issue you have with the idea of finding a spouse abroad, exploiting a differential in welfare between two countries.

You insist on the idea that the wife has been "bought", and that it implies some sort of dominant/ controlling attitude on the male's part. In fact I would argue that the opposite could be true: men who resort to "mail brides" are simply trying to find their way around a system that puts them at the bottom of the ladder, often exactly because they are not dominant enough. Dominant psychopaths don't need mail order brides, they are often successful and can find plenty of partners anyway.

Also, if we're authorized to draw psychological inferences from these choices: what do you think of women who choose to date (relatively) wealthy foreigners online, refusing to find a partner in their own country? It's not that there is a shortage of males in Ukraine or Brazil or the Philippines. These women are choosing to ignore local partners for the prospect of a life of comforts (because this is the idea you get from foreign media).

So if we inform our psychological insights to our moral biases, who's the psychopath here? The naive loser who thinks he can trick the system and get a partner above his level, or the ambitious girl who shuns her local suitors for the prospect of a wealthy life abroad with a stranger?

And that is the risk she is accommodating in. She could always divorce away before it turns bad and look for other options. That is what the parent comment means "the beautiful wife will soon discover she has much better possibilities in the new country."

Abusive marriages have nothing to do with if they wedded out of mail order or love. Either can turn abusive.

> Because he bought her,

Buying humans is illegal.

> She will never be respected partner with equal agency.

There is never a grain of truth in it except for vastly simplistic generalization.

> They are literally dangerous ones to date

Again! premature judgmental attitude.

Abusive relationships have a lot to do with one party believing to be entitled to control the other party. And those who order a bride are in that category. It is not like they would be ordering her for any other reason.

That is simple risk factor evaluation one does when selecting partners. Normaly you guess on small hints, in this case it is pretty easy to see where you stand.

For sex, there is prostitution. This mail oder thing is about other wishes. And plan to be cool with whatever she decides to do is not one of them.

Meh!

Men are not some robots that us pessimists programmed to turn into all the list of attributes that you just now prescribed when met with so and so situation.

Just because I bought a cat or dog doesn't mean I am going to abuse by feeling entitled and owning it.

With mail order women, women get just the same rights as any other women in marriage. Police would be after me otherwise. It is the responsibility of such women who voluntarily participate as mail order brides to educate themselves of their rights to assert them whenever apposite. Mail order transaction is perfectly legal and has no more abuse risk statistically than other kinds of mainstream marriages.

>It is not like they would be ordering her for any other reason.

Actually plenty said it is like they would be ordering her for other reasons - love, companionship and marriage.

You are again and again drawing premature conclusions like "People who own a kitchen knife are damn sure to be murderers!".

Udik explains it better -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19622835

> ReiserFS

Anyone remember that story?

I reactivated my OkCupid profile recently. I’m as undesirable as I always was. There’s nothing to do but to laugh about it.

Get some headshots taken with a professional photographer, make sure you dress sharp in your pics, etc. There's many things to do about increasing your attractivenes both online and IRL other than laughing about it and throwing up your arms, if you really wanted to.

A nice shirt cant hide a pot belly

Please don't do this here.

This is the old "paradox of choice" reflecting itself from consumerism now on to dating... I don't see any women complaining, yet, as it's been only around 7 years of this dynamic and young women seem to be getting much higher quality partners through this low upfront cost, mainly appearance based process.

However, I expect a lot of the consequences to society will reveal themselves when the female user base grows older, as it'll cause missed opportunity to raise children, childs without father and fathers uninterested in sticking around as they easily find younger partners as age generally favours men in attraction dynamics.

Also, a certain mass of single young men will end up broken in the exercice. They'll either urged to compete in dishonest ways or give up entirely.

> As the article points out, young men are having sex less often, but young women are still having sex at nearly the same rate.

No, the article points out thar fewer (proportionately) young men are having sex, while the same proportion of young women are having sex. That's not the same as the less often / same rate description you give.

> I wonder if dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, etc.) are leading women to have sex with a smaller cohort of desirable men.

Social acceptance of homosexuality has increased, and every study I've seen shows that it's higher among women than men (and I think also higher for homosexual behavior by women than by men). Why do you assume that women must be only having sex with men?

If we assume that people with homosexual orientation attempting to conform to a heteronormative society would tend to have more trouble maintaining stable relations and thus cycle through relationships more frequently (which I think is plausible though not necessarily true), then a greater reduction in the number of members of one sex trying to conform that way would result in the kind of unbalanced drop seen in these statistics.

> fewer (proportionately) young men are having sex,

Thanks. That's what I meant, but I certainly should have worded it better. I've updated my comment.

> If we assume that people with homosexual orientation attempting to conform to a heteronormative society would tend to have more trouble maintaining stable relations and thus cycle through relationships more frequently...

So if I understand you correctly, your theory is that closeted lesbians were sleeping with so many men that it inflated the statistics? And now that homosexual women no longer feel constrained by societal norms, a significant number of men are left with nobody to have sex with?

> So if I understand you correctly, your theory is that closeted lesbians were sleeping with so many men that it inflated the statistics?

Well, it's an effect which would explain the results. It's not really my theory, which is that it's a complex of different things, including several that the author explicitly dismisses without any significant basis (or by citing a basis which seems incorrect.) The homosexuality one is one of them.

Most of the series of things the author asserts affected both sexes similarly (“obesity, porn, video games, social media, dating apps, and wariness re harassment claims”) seem likely not to have done so similarly (that's seems particularly true of both porn and wariness re: harassment claims.)

Have you considered in complex of different things that people like myself are in gay relationships because they couldn't find a female partner?

You have to look at it from a statistical point of view. The homosexual population is insignificantly small in a statistical sense. A small percentage increase in homosexuality in either sex isn't going to skew the data much. Also, even if there are more lesbians, it doesn't necessarily mean they are having more sex. "Lesbian bed death" exists for a reason. We know that lesbians don't have as much sex as other sexual groupings. And though more women are willing to try lesbianism than men are willing to be gay, it's also true that more lesbians leave lesbianism and marry men than gay men leave homosexuality and marry women. But in any case, the numbers of gay and lesbians are so small that it really doesn't affect the overall trend we are seeing.

Re: OkCupid: do you mean this? https://web.archive.org/web/20170330131859/https://theblog.o...

I wonder why did okcupid remove this study

For the vast majority of men it makes zero sense for them to be on a dating site, it just won’t work for them. That goes against OK Cupid’s interests.

They were bought by Match.com, who weren't keen on undermining their own advertising ;-)

Lol that 3rd graph , it’s so sad !

This is true, and honestly, has always been true. But its exaggerated by online dating and the relaxation of sex in modern society. I think whats really different, is that lots of young guys are taking note. Many are keenly aware that they are being left out. As I approach my early thirties, its weird to see those same women turn around and marry the men they previously rejected.

There's plenty of evidence showing woman have different (and in many ways lower) standards for long term mating that short term mating. Which makes sense evolutionally.

The real concern, is why are they marrying those men they used to reject. Feelings and emotions don't go away, and "settling" is very toxic thing to most people. They usually get more resentful about it over time(both the people who settle, and the people who were settled for if they find out).

Some women do that, but a lot do so bitterly and a lot can't do that at all and end up single in the end.

I have single male friends in their thirties and they are generally content with life, holding no grudge to the opposite sex.

For every content single man in his late thirties I se 2-3 disgrunted and bitter single women ranting about how they are slighted by the patriarchy.

"swipe right, swipe left" acts as a filter but it's not how people choose partners.

People choose partners based on chatting after the swipe and the overall impression/feeling they have when meeting in-person.

The belief that the majority of women on the dating market choose partners primarily based on looks and status is a fiction that's part of a broader narrative insecure men tell themselves to help rationalize the resentment they experience-- and a result of men projecting their own preferences and motivations onto women.

See my other comment in the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19603329

Yes, for the tiny fraction of women on dating apps seeking hookups, attractiveness and status may be important factors. Many men may never have hookups. But the obsession with hookups is a male phenomenon, and the majority of women find them off-putting.

There is literally posts where someone made a profile with a really good looking man as the picture and he can say anything he wants. Take a look at this example: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=165905221&pa...

You make a regular guy say those things and his dating life would be dead quiet. If you want success with women you should do your best to become attractive.

I understand what you're trying to say, but Tinder disagrees.

Also, in your efforts to combat generalizations "against" women you did the same about men without skipping a beat.

This is how misandry spreads. When you put too much power at the very first step that is filtering out 99% of potential partners based on looks, then how would you even give the guy a chance to showcase what he truly is? Most women then miss out on the best experiences of "chatting after the swipe and the overall impression/feeling they have when meeting in-person."

The final choice is then made out of settling down by lowering expectations when prematurely optimizing for low priority variables in the first rounds.

I am amazed that men are adjudged to not have basic intelligence to see this through but are shoehorned as nursing their wounded ego. Nah man, Most men into adulthood are mature enough to not fall into simple biases unlike the feminist level misandry that concocts otherwise. Most men are optimistic than pessimist, more so, in the initial years of dating pool. That is why they test themselves repeatedly in dating market to draw such conclusions and eliminate the confirmation bias.

Why does your comment that you linked not explain the reasons and spend much/all the time in dispelling "myths"?

Abuse or PUA algorithms is all the more reason to not swipe left because you would expose yourself to more good people to bad people if statistics of society is anything to go by. Or why wouldn't you entertain the thought that women spread this rumour among themselves or play such hypothetical scenario in their minds more than the credibility associated with it?

> Yes, for the tiny fraction of women

If this sentence after this quote should continue to maintain what comes , then you must change the word tiny to majority. Match.com, Tinder and plethora of research contradicts you.

Men don't self select themselves out of dating pool. No numbers say that either in absolute or relative to women or men along time axis. That must bust the myth that they are somehow insecure.

The moment I read your "proto incel thoughts" as a warning signal in a HN community that isn't, is the same moment I got convinced the legitimacy of incels in this tiny subdomain of hatred they spew.

Chances are that you might get skipped in the first place with no chance to chat or meet in person. It's basically marketing. If the user doesn't click on the link or call the number you get no sale regardless how good your product is.

This is absolutely the case.

Sadly, we can see this kind of winner-takes-all dynamic play out in every part of our society now.

This worries me greatly.

This presumes that normal status/appearance actually can't find mates instead of merely not getting as much casual sex.

>actually can't find mates

It seems that things are even getting to that point.

To me there are two important factors that explain that:

* Dating apps, not good looking people have hard time getting any match on those kind of apps, so for those that use app and don't try to meet any other girls in real life I can easily understand that they don't have sex with any girls. Also these apps tends to increase expectations of people because they see beautiful people all day.

* Porno, porno is more and more present, and more and more flexible to people tastes, so it is not uncommon to find people be more happy watching porn than having real life sex

I think the only/mostly porn thing has a cost in the long term.

But I suspect they only watch porn because they can't have real sex or don't know how to get there.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of sexual fantasies out there that simply can't be fulfilled realistically. Even with relatively common and safe ones it can be quite difficult for two people into it to find each other.

Isn't porn be it movies or books also available to women?

Riiight, but it is much safer for a woman to hookup on Tinder with a hot stranger than to watch porn like the nerds who absolutely preffer porn to actual sex do.

I'm confident that it's down to the freedom of choice. That is, people are exposed to a lot more candidates nowadays and rely less on their own social circles for partners.

I believe everyone would like to get together with the most attractive people, however in practice it doesn't work like that and there's a distinct gender skew in that area.

This is what I suspect as well and seems like the most obvious reason.

That’s exactly the theory developed by circles like the red pill. More access to potential partners with less social control lead to a winner take all situation. In addition, and it is addressed in the OP, women try to get partners which are higher on the social scale while men mostly focus on beauty.

Which makes total sense, given the different evolutionary drivers that men and women are motivated by. The problem with most narratives is that they moralize what is essentially an amoral phenomenon.

It quickly becomes very much a moral question if any of the women become pregnant.

I do realise though that you're posting in the context of a society in which the necessary causal chain between sex and pregnancy has been broken, but the moral systems we have built around sex and relationships are predicated on that link for perfectly rational and valid reasons. Also ultimately we still need people to have children and bring those children up. The moral factor in sexual behaviour can't simply be discounted.

And I'll just add that the link between sex and children is nowhere near completely severed. I am aware of tons of people who have had children A) before they planned to, and B) with someone they weren't in a serious relationship with.

Morals and evolution are tightly coupled. For starters, if you consider the practical morals society lives by, many of them are about controlling reproduction. That's one of the primary purposes of our moral institutions (religion).

At a deeper level, both morality and evolution are all about encouraging survival of genes.

>That’s exactly the theory developed by circles like the red pill.

In the sea of disgusting theories and toxicity that is the red pill there is one thing that they got right: Men should approach and try to "pick up" as many women as possible. The guy that's 1/10 as desirable as another guy will get more dates if they attempt to "pick up" 20 times as many women.

Of course, it's a bit like the Red Queen running as fast as you can to stay still. If every man tries approaching 20 times the women eventually you end up back where you started but worse. You can see it online. The success rates for men outside of the top 5% are abysmal. You almost have to spam in order to have any reasonable chance of getting dates.

Just how is this a good advice if it's a bad thing if most men do it?

A better advice would be for men to understand this tendency of women, what it means to be attractive to women and make an informed decision if they want to play the game of becoming more attractive to women.

They can also learn to reverse the game in their thirties and only date women 4-5 years younger, thus penalizing women who wait until their last fertile minute to settle down.

>Just how is this a good advice if it's a bad thing if most men do it?

Because if you don't your outcome is worse than it otherwise would be. It's like weight cutting in boxing. Ultimately it serves no purpose. Both fighters do it so neither gets an advantage. Neither fighter can stop doing it, however, since it would give an advantage to the other fighter.

>A better advice would be for men to understand this tendency of women, what it means to be attractive to women and make an informed decision if they want to play the game of becoming more attractive to women.

These aren't mutually exclusive options. Making yourself more attractive will, of course, increase your chances for success.

>They can also learn to reverse the game in their thirties and only date women 4-5 years younger, thus penalizing women who wait until their last fertile minute to settle down.

Excluding a group isn't going to increase your chance of success.

> penalizing women who wait until their last fertile minute to settle down

And then you hear 'there are no good men'

Women would rather be the second wife of George Clooney than the first wife of Joe Average. Simple as that.

Some women pursue this strategy. But I don't think it's anywhere near most. Having a husband who will prioritize providing for you and your children above anybody else is a really valuable thing to have.

George Clooney is probably at least 1000 times richer than Joe Average. So he could provide better for 50 women than Joe Average for one.

Of course it doesn't seems as if he is taking on 50 women, so the women are stuck with Joe Average for the most part.

Just because women would prefer George Clooney, doesn't mean they can get him.

And sure, modern society (at least for a while) has made monogamy the norm. Doesn't mean it is best suited for women's preferences.

> George Clooney is probably at least 1000 times richer than Joe Average. So he could provide better for 50 women than Joe Average for one.

Assuming all of a woman’s needs are financial, sure. But unless he is hiring Joe Averages to provide personal attention and emotional support (and there are issues with the viability of that), not really in the universe of what appears to be real human needs.

Exactly this. And having a mate who is exclusively committed to you can have a much better distribution of outcomes at the bottom end than an allowance from some rich guy who isn't very invested in you. After all, if somebody isn't committed enough to make you their one and only, why should you believe that they'll keep sending money your way.

I'm not arguing women should prefer Clooney over Joe Average. Just what the general disposition of the human race is. Obviously there are all sorts of strategies for life, and all sorts of aspects to consider. It's just a general tendency, not a hard cut rule.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that it is a minority of women who pursue that strategy. The vast majority of women are seeking a monogamous and exclusive relationship.

I'm not convinced. Yes, they do, because in Western societies that is the main option (thanks to monogamy mandated Christiantiy, presumably). That doesn't imply it is their preference.

Maybe their preference would by monogamy - with George Clooney. But since that is not an option, the bets are off. In general, there may not be enough rich men willing to take on multiple women for a significant number of women to choose that option.

Turns out there are still more than enough women for all of us. Joe average actually has little challenge getting a mate same as before. The guy 3 steps down is the one with a problem that isn't manifestly different than its ever been.

Doesn't the data discussed in this threat directly contradict your statement of "there are more than enough women for everyone"?

And so does historical data, isn't it the case that many men didn't reproduce historically, which can be seen through genetic analysis?

Edit: cursory googling turns up this, for example: https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success (8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man)

Also from the article: "In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man."

A survey about how much sex respondents are having doesn't tell you WHY they are having less sex.

Historical reproduction ALSO isn't useful when contraception is now a prevalent thing the numbers would in no way match. Regarding the last I couldn't find the claim that 4 to 5 women reproduced for every man so I'm just going to assume you misread. I cannot imagine how this could possibly be so unless you meant within a narrow age range considering men can reproduce for most of their lives and women most do so within a narrow range.

Looking at the same graph at the head of the page in 1998ish there was about 20% of the most effected age range who hadn't had sex in a year. It's now 28 and in fact the graph goes up and down and it seems that other age ranges are less effected.

The sentence reads "In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man." - in my browser it is directly above one of the charts.

I think by recent history, the mean thousands of years, not the last ten years. So most of the time before contraception was available.

Men being able to reproduce for most of their lives doesn't help much if they have nobody to reproduce with. I guess it helps if you can afford young wives even as you get older.

Baumeister indicated this in his book that I read a long time ago, but it is more like 2:1,

> throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm

As someone who favours individualism and was brought up in a culture where arranged marriages are the norm I found this most shocking and interesting at the same time.

The MGTOW movement is really throwing a wrench into this.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdwyx/inside-the-global-...

I don't understand what you mean? Surely the MGTOW movement is not increasing the proportion of men who successfully reproduce, given that they seem to be about not reproducing?