But otherwise, even if I'd found your analysis to be correct, I think a few decades of society adjusting to this freedom is well deserved after a millenia of patriarchy.
The Sultan having a harem of 40,000 = not patriarchy.
That really seems to be the attitude. Women haven't changed at all and want the same thing they always have. It was a brief bit of egalitarianism in history that gave us a "tradition" that was in fact an anomaly.
As a side note, I laugh at the 6-6-6 thing. It doesn't help. They want something else.
No, there isn't. The reality here is there's a bunch of men who have "here's my list of positive traits" and are leaving something out, because everyone is the angel of their own story.
Sure. Average men have flaws. But so do women. When I was dating around I met a bunch of girls who had a wild drugs & partying phase in college. A couple still had cocaine habits. I smoked some weed in high school then stopped. I’ve had sex with 7 women in my entire life, 5 of which were one or two night stands because we didn’t get on. I’m told I’m judgemental & picky because I’m not attracted to women with twice or more my sexual experience.
It’s true that a person’s sexual history does not define their worth as a person, just as height or weight doesn’t. But, what is ignored these days, every person absolutely has a right to their own preferences of attraction. But we insist that young men are terrible people if they don’t accept a history of promiscuity with anything less than enthusiasm.
I mean, it's kind of natural that you learn it as you get to know them. I don't ask 'what's your tally of sexual partners' out of any context on a first date. But someone describes their life and you pick up on it one way or another and then it comes up in conversation naturally. You can sometimes tell in the bedroom when exciting new things for you are old hat and boring to her. Sometimes they get dodgy about discussing it. And why? Are they ashamed? Or is it because they suspect I would prefer a partner who is more like me and they feel the need to conceal their decisions?
>Could be one, could be one hundred, I don't care.
Good for you! I wish I had such a lack of feeling on the subject, it would certainly make dating easier.
>find it both weird and concerning if my current partner wanted to know.
Why? This statement seems quite a bit like you're passing a harsh judgement on people like me for preferring partners with a similar amount of sexual experience. I see a similar sentiment on the internet all the time, that we're weird and concerning for anything less than unquestioningly embracing partners who may have had sex with 100 people.
I think exactly because the question of experience seems so easily to carry judgment (in either direction, too few / too many). I don't see how my or their experience should change anything in our current relationship, so if they asked, I would assume some judgment such as you have. And sexual judgment would be incompatible with my values.
I don't even know if my partner had long term relationships before me -- I suspect yes, and I assume they haven't been married. But I don't care about those facts either.
Huh, well I guess different strokes for different folks. The idea of dating someone & not picking up, as a matter of course, on whether or not they've ever had a previous relationship is baffling.
Who doesn’t like to believe they are on an upward path so maybe they will be able to do better?
Fairy tales are fiction, dating marketplaces are just as ruthless as capital markets. Get sophisticated fast and first. It doesn’t guarantee success (never assured!), but it will improve your odds.
The question is, what are you willing to accept, both of yourself and the other person. The big wrench here is when a significant portion of the market accepts being single and pulls out of the market. Now you have a fundamental mismatch in the number of buyers/sellers, which is a nearly unsolvable problem, without getting into things like restricting people’s freedoms.
There are 8 billion people in the world. With enough resources, you should be able to find someone somewhere to enjoy a time window of partnership or closeness. Accumulate resources, which gives you options, which leads to freedom (including freedom to find love [or your idea of healthy companionship]).
Expect attempts to regulate out this industry led by mostly women’s groups.
No, AI waifus are going to mostly impact incels meeting the strict etymology of the term, which, who knows, might make them somewhat less socially dangerous if not any less socially maladjusted.
Sure, other people might toy with them, but no one who was having any success in the dating world is going to be taken out of it by them.
> Expect attempts to regulate out this industry led by mostly women’s groups.
Literally no one cares that the worst and least desirable men are going to entertain themselves with yet another form of fantasy of having a girlfriend, and other than where it involves using imagery of real people in a way that intersects with the kind of behavior addressed by revenge porn laws or otherwise involves material prohibited for reasons unrelated to the specific use in AI companions (simulated CSAM, for instance), I wouldn't expect any eftorts to regulate it on its own.
Yeah, right. It’s too late. None of them did, and if they did, it would be at great risk to them and child.
35 + courtship period + marriage + 9 months = no kids.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418963/
And “risky” here means potential of death or serious defect in child, or death for the mother. It’s irresponsible, unethical, and I don’t understand any parent that would risk the health of their child.
>If you only want one or two kids
This is nuts. Remember, the minimum birth rate is 2.1. Every single woman you've ever met must have 2.1 children just to keep population constant. I'm sure you've met some women who wouldn't be great mothers... which just increases the burden on everyone else!
Just think about the timeline here. Start having children at 35, have your third kid at 38? By the time your youngest is 18 you'll be 56! This is supposed to be the standard life plan, the thing everybody does?
"What about immigration?"
Mexico, Brazil and India already have below-replacement fertility. Where are all these immigrants supposed to come from?
I would like to address the emotion you describe.
Firstly, I doubt it’s just men. I don’t know the simplest adjective, but I’d call the dating scene as “optimized” and “casino like”. Persistence and luck are not small components here.
If anyone’s self worth ends up getting linked to the outcome of such a system, dropping out isnt unsurprising.
It is also quite pointless, to tell someone who is lonely or young, to not treat the process personally.
Got married at 28 to someone who was physically attractive. But had nothing much going for her and divorced at 32.
Dating was somewhat better then. But didn’t really want anything serious and had close female friends who I travelled with and really gave me the emotional support and no drama.
I got remarried at 36 and have been happily married for 13 years.
That being said, short men do have what I call the “two strikes rule”. You can’t be short and anything. Meaning short and fat, broke, ugly, bad personality, etc. I fought the and part
Geez.
Also 200k is the new 6 figures, 100k doesn’t cut it anymore
It's always about how men need to change to appease women's desires, and never about how women need to change in any way.
That said, the problem with these apps is that their business model depends on long term user value. (If you register for free, quickly find someone, then you paid nothing to them. Maybe they were able to show you a few ads.) And those who are on it for long tend to have problems. And especially big issue are those who don't give up, but are ruining the mood for others. (Which leads to even fewer women on the platforms.)
Is this a commonly held opinion? I’d be curious to read any material on this, because nothing (to me at least) suggests one gender wants it more than the other. Is it simply because there are more men than women on the popular dating apps?
Women are objectified. The attention a woman receives is related to what she is, not what she does. It's very straightforward to apply this to dating: just look good and confident.
Men are subjectified. The attention a man gets receives is related to what he does, not what he is. It's very tricky to navigate this in dating. How does someone present their interests in a way that is attractive?
This is further complicated by the most common narratives we hear about men's behavior. Masculine behavior is a looming threat. Every man must prove himself not a predator. But how?
in fact you can do this in your 40s, 50s, 60s
as long as you don't fall on hard times
This sentiment is all over & is very demoralizing to guys who got an education, have a decent job, go to the gym and still get rejected by women who seem to be their peers. I'm not a fan of incel ideology, but there is something to the 'she'll have her fun with bad boys then settle down with you in her 30s when she's looking for someone with a stable income' sentiment that goes around. 20s dating is hugely depressing for men and it shows with all the stats of young men 'dropping out' of life. I got lucky and met someone sweet a couple years ago, but it was extremely rocky for a long time, and it still is for most of my friends.
But men just have to 'step it up'. Six feet, six figures, bare minimum right?