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Comment by mellosouls | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it's long been known in scurrilous "manosphere" sections of the internet that "80% of the women go for 20% of the men" on dating apps (the 80/20 rule is an oft-quoted one but intended probably more as illustrative than researched).

It's an unpleasant and politically incorrect idea that despite clearly being the experience of most normal men you talk to about these things, is probably career-damaging to academics who would research it honestly so you see it backed up in that regard either by amateur blogs or very cautiously worded "respectable" research.

Think of harems in the old days and alpha males in some species in the animal kingdom.

Tinder and the like (so the theory goes) apply a massive magnifier affect to the natural tendency of "elite" men to clear up.

Side note: the tactics of average men mentioned elsewhere in these comments such as swiping on everything, and similar techniques are effects of this phenomenon, not the cause.

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An interesting corollary of this is that a lot of research has indicated that in societies with polyamory, the profusion of unmatched men actually destabilises society, leading to more frequent civil war.

https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2017/12/19/the-...

Honestly, this is what concerns me most about China. There are literally 30 million more men than women. That's equivalent to the entire population of a mid-size country who will never marry. Add in unemployment and drugs, and you get an extremely combustible situation.

The rest of the world should worry, too. There are countless examples throughout history where wars have been started to put a lid on internal unrest. What's more, unmarried men are inevitably the ones sent to fight, so it's a solution that kills (pun intended) two birds with one stone.

Polyamory is fairly rare in human societies, the link you pasted talks about polygamy. Polygyny has been practiced in a few societies and the numbers would be too few to conclude anything.

What might stabilize is it legalized sex work.

It's legal if you have the will. Most men don't want to meet prostitute. I think they have the desire to be desired, for what they are, and not for their wallet.

At some point when going out isn't any fun there's not much to do but polish your rifle and your gun.

It seems natural that the women would be highly selective as they have a huge number of potential matches to sift through before choosing.

Maybe a better question is: why are there so many more men than women on dating services? The ratio seems completely out of whack. It's not like there are 10 boys born per every girl, so somewhere along the way the women are filtering out. Perhaps women prefer face to face interaction?

These studies seem to be focused on a symptom instead of the cause.

It's not like there are 10 boys born per every girl, so somewhere along the way the women are filtering out.

Yes, that's the entire point of the original question and my response.

These comments are regarding mainstream dating platforms where male to female participation is reasonably balanced (or at least not exponentially imbalanced as you seem to believe). That massive imbalance is present in the matching.

> Maybe a better question is: why are there so many more men than women on dating services?

One answer can be found in census data. The number of childless male adults is almost twice of that of female adults, but the desire to have children has been found to be identical among women and men.

Women have to deal with near-constant harassment on dating apps. That's a pretty big disincentive to stay active on an app.

I’d say most women know that dating sites are mostly a cesspool of dickpics and stupid pick up lines and the chances of having an actual interesting conversation is pretty small. So most likely we prefer exhausting all other options before resorting to dating sites.

There are definitely different downsides for women, undoubtedly including those examples you give - especially when they are looking for a serious relationship, but my observations above are strictly on the number imbalance once on the dating site.

How have you been able to count the number of men and women on dating apps?

Only when the databases get leaked sadly. It's hopefully somewhat atypical, but I remember the Ashley Madison dump had something like 100 men per 1 woman once you filtered out the bot accounts.

I can't imagine AM would be representative of most dating sites. OkCupid has claimed that their user base had a roughly even gender split, depending on city and age group. This is immaterial though. Take a group of 100 men and 100 women, and 80 of the women will go for 20 of the men, making it seem imbalanced when it's not.

Do you feel that only women are pursuing the most attractive options?

What's certainly clear, and the data released by OKCupid bears out, that mean invariably send messages to women much younger, while women are more likely to message someone closer to their age.

Maybe the real advice to men is to pursue women closer to their age and leave the 20 somethings alone.

In the olden days, the ratio in bars was the same.

The culture is supporting that at the moment. Zoom back to the 1960's free love culture and the 'alpha' males are washed out or replaced by hippies.

The Pareto principle pops up in so many places, I don't think you can justify an arbitrary interpretation about harems and alphas on top of the principle. We don't know why the power law keeps popping up in earthquakes, mass of stars, size of trees in a forest and a whole slew of natural phenomena. When we finally understand what natural force is shaping these distributions, it'll stop being a nice fairy story which contributes to other stories.

> Zoom back to the 1960's free love culture and the 'alpha' males are washed out or replaced by hippies.

I wasn't around in the 60s, but the cynic in me suspects that even within hippie circles the 80/20 rule was still in effect in the dating game. Because the same thing is happening today within progressive/SJW circles - the "male feminist" types tend to proceed directly to the friendzone, regardless of the claimed preferences of progressive women.

Progressive guys conserve themselves. What else is new. The 80/20 hits across demographics with cultural highlights. The world is too narrow atm.

Don't forget that most hippies were alpha males, or at least from well off families. The free love culture passed my parents by as they were too busy making a living.

Your parents let it go by and it doesn't prove the rule.

The culture permeates every level. The "alpha male" culture benefited most men in 2015-2016, even if they didn't capitalize on pointless sex. The free love movement expanded it's own movement into most parts of the culture. These patterns aren't 'optional forces' that only the rich have enough spare time to participate in.

The culture force of elitism is the current phase and idolizing the rich is eternal in america.

There's a bigger picture than the current myth.

> the tactics of average men mentioned elsewhere in these comments such as swiping on everything, and similar techniques are effects of this phenomenon, not the cause.

Clearly that sort of behavior is just further feeding into the dynamic.

Women getting flooded with bad matches hurts everyone.

I think the main problem is that the prime selection criterion for most women is not looks. For women, online dating has a rather small signal to noise ratio. So then they are left with choosing the top % based on looks.

>I think the main problem is that the prime selection criterion for most women is not looks.

Says who? The men who do best with women are the most physically attractive. No other demographic does better. You can have $10M in the bank and still not elicit the same kind of attraction as the stereotypical tall, dark and handsome white man.

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