Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy | Hacker News Reader

Attraction Inequality and the Dating Economy

quillette.com

9 pointselsewhen17 comments

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> The revealed preference among most women to attempt to engage romantically only with the same small percentage of men who are perceived as attractive is consistent with the social system called “polygyny,” in which a small percentage of males monopolize the mating opportunities with all females, while many other males have no access to mates.

This whole article and line of thought is bat-shit crazy and needs to have more attention called to it so it can be debunked.

This is the second time this week I have seen this kind of thing on HN. Honestly I'm not well equipped to provide help and information to people that think this way, but this whole line of reasoning is horrible and in my view is on par with conspiracy theories, and can only harm society.

It doesn't seem too far out there. Its easy to recall evidence for and against the premise. But, if you'd like something to rest your skepticism on, consider that they are using dating services which are primarily visual based. Kindness, courage, virtue, money, loyalty, and other important qualities (like TALENT) are not studied well enough (ugly rock stars probably do better than handsome duds ). These attractive qualities in a mate don't come through as well, so their assessment is based on limited data.

If you're a big-time CEO, you can have 50 women in a night.

See also: Felix Dennis

OkCupid has a number of charts, stats and articles about dating dynamics. Here’s one. More searches would yield more results.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100324074028/http://blog.okcup...

Here’s a Hinge engineer talking about the dating economy.

https://web.archive.org/web/20171230141457/http://hingeirl.c...

There is an apparent imbalance. Women, in general, are more advantageous compared to men when it comes to dating.

If you're not well equipped to refute the claim, why do you feel equipped to call it horrible, a conspiracy theory, and a harm to society? The notion that women are more selective than men is something I consider neither harmful, nor particularly far fetched.

Because the attitudes about women that embodied in this kind of garbage are so abhorrent that they need to be called ou, debunked, and ridiculed. That's why my original point was that more attention needs to be drawn to this nonsense, so it doesn't quietly fester in corners of the internet.

If it needs to be debunked, why haven't you done so? You're spouting angry moralistic judgements but since you know this must be debunked and yet haven't done so, you're morally complicit. Until you can thoroughly debunk this, you are as much of the problem as anyone else. So come on, show us your data.

I live in downtown Austin. One of my neighbors brought home 14 (!) women, they barely all fit in an elevator, and you could tell what they were up to. Another time, I counted 3 polyamorous relationships in the span of two city blocks where a guy was affectionately holding hands with 2 women. This is the way life works, whether you want to believe it, or not.

I had a girlfriend who gave me/us three of her college girlfriends.

> consider that we live in a monogamous culture, and so the 20 percent of men who are regarded as attractive can only be in committed relationships with at most 20 percent of women. We may just as well pity the rest of the women, who are destined to be in committed relationships, if they pursue a relationship at all, with someone who they regard as unattractive

This discounts other outcomes, such as (a) men who lie to their romantic partners about being monogamous; (b) 'serial monogamist' men who will dump a woman then quickly find another partner; (c) relationships where the status is not explicitly defined and where the woman thinks 'it's serious' while the man thinks 'it's casual'.

As an anecdotal datapoint, let's throw down my selling on paper (believe me or not, it's alright):

- I'm a 43 old white dude who looks 35. No kids, no smoking, little drinking, blood donor, roughly vegetarian who can shoot a hair off an ant's head at 25 yards.

- I make ~$500k but I never mention it. I've been middle-class, poor, and relatively comfortable. I have a much wider range of life experiences than the average office worker.

- I was affiliated with a big name university and could've done a PhD if there wasn't a specific economic disincentive to do so. (Many moons ago, I was offered a dark matter research assistant job at 15.)

- I ride around on a pimped-out, overpowered scooter that can drag race most motorcycles and supercars, go almost fast enough to go on the highway, and semi-blast quality music.

- I have a big-ass, bitchin' apartment that somewhat matches my personality. It needs interior decorating and plants.

- I read big, meaty titles in history, literature, economics, philosophy, and psychology, but not much pop fiction.

- I fly powered paragliders (PPG), cook well, and am cleaner (not OCD), more domesticated, and DIY than most people.

- I have a very unique, rare dog that is visually-striking.

- I'm center basketball-player tall.

- I'm about 8/10 to where women might communicate with me on OLD, but I don't because it's such a fake, constrained, skewed, unnatural waste of time that doesn't spark actual chemistry.

- Women generally enjoy my company and say I'm fun. I've had polygynous arrangements with bi/pan women. In that department, I have been around.

- My confidence level is solid.

Guess what? I can't find anyone I would date seriously. I basically gave up because they don't exist or are inaccessible. Women may throw themselves at me to sleep with them all the time (including pulling over to shout propositions at me from their cars), but they're not dating material.

What I'm looking for in a woman: they have to be fit, any age legal (17) to 30, any ethnicity, any background, good habits, no kids, smart enough to complete an advanced degree, fun, sense of humor, sane, not entitled/bad attitude, and honest. Being realistic, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever find someone to have kids with who I could remotely respect. I might as well get over it even if it makes me sad and lonely.

> Being realistic, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever find someone to have kids with who I could remotely respect

This right here is your problem.

All of that stuff you listed before does not matter at all compared to this implication that you don't remotely respect women who don't meet your exact list of requirements. That's a huge attitude problem and a major red flag. Women who meet your laundry list of requirements are going to notice and avoid you.

Typical ungracious, taking things to extremes toxic judgement from a hater. Maybe you shouldn't comment if you don't have anything constructive to say. Good luck to you.

Limiting yourself to women 13 to 26 years younger than yourself is going to be a problem. Most women aren't even going to consider having children until they're in their late 20s at the earliest. In practice, you've narrowed your range to perhaps 3 or 4 year age gap... and of women who are willing to date more than a decade their senior. You're looking for somebody who could potentially have a lot of ambition, but wants instead to spend their 20s raising kids.

There's nothing wrong with that, and it's not that it doesn't exist. It's just that it sounds to me like it could easily raise red flags, and scare off a lot of women from an already narrow pool you've defined. If you were to raise your age limit just to 35 you might have more luck.

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