How are you going to attract the wife you want if you're not better than other men (in some way, shape, or form)? That's always going to be the zero-sum game.
Edit: s/a wife/the wife you want/
Edit: s/a wife/the wife you want/
In the middle of the 20th century, von Neumann and his ilk predicted nuclear war with absolute certainty. So certain were they in their conviction that they in fact advocated a first-strike policy by the US, but that war never came. The models were adjusted to include repeated games and then people said, that's the reason why we haven't blown up. (see: http://www.scu.edu/business/economics/workingpapers/upload/F... ) But rationally speaking the game of global annihilation was a single game - the person who moved first would have the fewest people die and then there would be no more games, so their analysis doesn't quite hold up. Indeed there have been times where people have tried to destroy the world, but someone, somewhere down the chain of command has said no and prevented that outcome. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov )
Maybe, just maybe, we should accept that while looking at the world through the lens of game theoretic models is useful for a lot of applications - it isn't the be all and end all of human society. There are women out there who do indeed care about those points and want to "better" their rank within the game they play. There are others for whom that game doesn't even exist and they can be just as desirable and amazing as the first group. So at the end, you could very well end up not playing the game and have a shot at a pretty decent life and find some happiness.
The fitness function might be completely different from one woman to the next, but I think extremely few are the type to just buy the first car off the lot without some kind of comparison shopping / fitness function maximizing. And at that point, your standing relative to her other suitors indeed becomes more important than your absolute level of achievement.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assortative_mating#Assortative...
So, yeah, sure the model explains quite a bit and explains why we find certain things attractive, but it says nothing whatsoever about why certain people marry each other - which is what the question is.
I have a friend that I've been dating. She tells me all about the other guys she dates. This past weekend for her birthday a friend flew down from another state to hang out with her for the weekend.
This guy is loaded. Way more money than sense. Among the things he got her that weekend was a $200 bottle of champagne that he must've paid $300 for because he got it in a restaurant. She doesn't drink. She had half a cup and they left the bottle on the table when they left.
He does all this for a girl he sees a few times a year. When she told me this story, I went down to the massage place she likes, and got her a $200 gift card for massages. She was very grateful.
I don't take her to expensive restaurants, I take her to the best places in town to eat, which are never really expensive. I take time to try to get to know her and try to work on my issues so that the time we spend together is better.
As a result she spends way more time with me than she does with the others. Where other guys spend money to cover up their perceived inadequacies, I put time and effort into making every moment I spend with her special.
That kind of effort is an order of magnitude more effective at finding and keeping the woman of your dreams. And you don't have to have a ton of money or a huge penis or be six feet tall to do it.
But you explicitly have not done this...
More to the point, you don't keep a woman by locking her in a cage. You do it by being the first person she calls or texts to tell about her day.
But she still seems to need to meet rich guys who live in another state despite all the quality time with you? Perhaps you're deluding yourself and she's just spending time between the more interesting guys with you because you're more available.
The availability aspect is interesting. I used to try to play availability games with her. They mostly just got in the way. I much prefer to be generous with my time, and set boundaries rather than be arbitrary.
Her time is very limited too. She has a full-time job that keeps her occupied sometimes during the weekend as well. She doesn't have a lot of available time for dating herself. Despite this, she regularly makes time to come see me.
She shows me the text messages of the "more interesting guys" she also dates. Nasty, ugly, controlling, the lot of them.
The impression I get from her is that she doesn't really understand guy psychology and so doesn't really grasp why it's all a waste of time. But I can be patient. I date other girls too. My dating life isn't as full as hers, but I like to think my 'others' are way better quality than her 'others'.
By the way, $200 for a bottle of real Champagne in a restaurant while pricey is not anything to crazy. And yeah, some of the best places in town to eat are expensive. Not all, of course but some. So if you were her, would you rather the option to eat at any of the best places or only the ones you could afford? Would you rather drink sparkling wine if you drank or real Champagne? Money and good looks are not everything, but when all else is equal they certainly do matter.
I'm 32. She's mid-twenties. She's a gorgeous girl, I'm not going to hold it against her for exploring her options. If she does decide that a rich, handsome guy is right for her, that's fine by me. I have plenty of options too, and that works both ways.
> By the way, $200 for a bottle of real Champagne in a restaurant while pricey is not anything to crazy.
You're just thinking about the Champagne. He flew down there, took her on a trip to a nearby town, dinners, drinks, and dancing every night. Sure, $300 isn't that much when it's just for the one dinner, but my guess is that he blew well over $5k on this one trip.
That's a lot of money. Worse, it's a lot of time. Were I him, I'd just have hired an escort got on with it. She enjoyed the parts she enjoyed and didn't enjoy the parts she didn't enjoy. To me it's an extravagance that is wholly unnecessary. I would not trade my life for one of that kind of luxury. If I could add the ability to pay for that kind of luxury onto my current life, sure, that would be fine. But the best things in life really are free.
> And yeah, some of the best places in town to eat are expensive.
Depends on where you live. If you're in NYC or LA, where all the talent flocks to, certainly the top restaurants there are great. Generally in a mid-size city like Kansas City or Atlanta, the ethnic restaurants available are amazing the best of those simply blow all but the very top-tier ones away. At my company, we go to Houston's sometime on the CEO's dime. The $30 plates there are decent, but I always come away wishing I'd been able to go to my favorite Korean taco place.
> So if you were her, would you rather the option to eat at any of the best places or only the ones you could afford?
I think she's coming around to my way of looking at things. I took her to a Korean yesterday (different from the taco joint) and this girl, who has been wined and dined by crazy-rich guys, was over the hill about how amazing the food was in this little hole-in-the-wall strip mall joint and how it was some of the best food she's ever had in her life.
I go there twice a month.
Certainly she'd like to have the best of both worlds, but Hugh Grant isn't knocking on her door. I don't have to compete with movie stars, I can just compete with the other guy she dates. And from what I hear from her, you can be rich and handsome and still be an insufferable bore.
If anyone's using anyone, it's her using these guys for spa treatments and dinners.
Run man, run!
In your example, if every man was thoughtful enough to know to get her massages, then the gesture would no longer have any differentiating effect. Similarly for muscle tone, education, penis size, money, or whatever she happens to care about.
Of course, not worrying about how others are doing and focusing on self-improvement is probably the best strategy to becoming better than other people. But to say it's irrelevant how others are doing relative to oneself is just wrong.
- She's very unlikely getting that spoiled by other men. Girls say that all the time to pump their value and push you to higher standards.
- Unless she is: 1. texting you 3-5 times a day and 2. having sex with you; she's using you literally for any penny you are spending.
Girls will kill for men they like. They'll spend all their money on him. I had a girl save for a month to pay for a train ticket just to see me. You are very likely being played here.
She used to ask for me to pay for her nails and massages and stuff, I would do it once, then not do it anymore. If I were making more money, I could budget it in, but as it is I just don't have it. I encourage her to get her other guy friends to pay for that stuff for her.
And on the 'using' issue: If I had the kind of money these guys have, and the willingness to use it on dating, I'd regularize it. I'd have accounts at all her beauty spots and have them just send me the bill every month. I would of course talk to her to keep it from getting excessive, (more likely I'd negotiate with the business for better rates) but I would not begrudge a lady for taking advantage of my generosity. That's what it's there for.
I never say Women or Girls are evil. They are not that cute creatures that you think they are, though. They are completely acting on their own self-interest which is fine and logical.
You'll be in for some surprises/lessons. But that's how we all learn I guess.
When did I say she wasn't?
> yet try to make it look like you have it all figured out.
I have the kind of lifestyle that allows me to learn these kinds of lessons very quickly. Beautiful women, and their attendant problems, have come into and out of my life for as long as I can remember, and I've read everything interesting that I could find regarding human attraction / connection, tested the methods, and come to my own conclusions. The lessons / surprises you say I'm 'in for', I've learned over and over again.
There is still room in the world for love and trust and tenderness. You need to be emotionally mature and be willing to be vulnerable. Heartbreaks happen but you move on. If you let yourself get scarred then you'll never find truly honest and open love. That honestness and openness is so important for me to find that I will allow myself to get hurt as many times as it takes.
I do not see myself as playing a game with this girl that one of us will win. I see it as two people exploring life together. It's not a game, there are no points, only experiences to share.
Like Joshua eventually learned, the only way to win this game is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
The set of qualifications is specific to every person, sure, but whatever is in that set for a given woman, you need to be better than the competition at those qualifications.
Unless you're fine with marrying just anyone, the thesis of the blog post doesn't hold for dating; it's not enough to be 'decent' or even 'good'.
Now, if you're talking about attracting a particular individual you've chosen to pursue, well then things get a bit more difficult.
You have to share the piece of your pie your country has, but nothing is stopping you from grabbing at another country's piece of the pie.