There is an approximately equal amount of men and women in the population. How is it possible that so many matches are "low quality" for women?
Only if you believe in the relatively modern human concept of two monogamous people being the only parents of a child.
Biologically speaking, a woman wants the sperm which will provide her the most survivable and resilient child, plus any number of other adults around who will help care for and protect that child.
This idea of a woman being choosy is a very new concept. You don't have to go back far in time at all to see where women had no choice at all (or look in some current cultures).
But if you go back further, or you go to places less touched by modern conventions, you find men and women of groups being generally sexual with each other, and being responsible for all the children in their group. This appears to be how humans survived and flourished for most of human history; or at least, it fits the existing evidence much better than the idea of a monogomous (and very 1:1 protective) couple.
Sure, if a woman knows she is only ever allowed to have one partner (and she's not allowed to be an equal participant in the world where income or resources are earned), she will choose the man more likely to guarantee that the basic survival needs are met or exceeded as much as possible. But she will still biologically seek the strongest, fittest, most genetically compatible and complementary man she can have sex with. From a modern human survival standpoint, this is the path of success.
> if a woman knows she is only ever allowed to have one partner
If each woman and each man can only choose one partner, i would expect the choosiness of men and women to become much more equal, because the reproductive investment of the man and the woman start to look a lot more equal (a lifetime investment for each). In reality we know that humans historically have not really been monogamous creatures, even in societies that are nominally so.
> Females have a biological incentive to be more choosy than men as their reproductive investment is much higher
until I saw you had also written
> If each woman and each man can only choose one partner, i would expect the choosiness of men and women to become much more equal
which is the missing piece I was going to add.
> In reality we know that humans historically have not really been monogamous creatures, even in societies that are nominally so.
But, to shift emphasis a little, in those societies, many many people really were monogamous, there absolutely were, and are, functioning lifelong pair-bonds, there were men who devoted a lot of themselves to being good husbands and fathers, and, I'd like to think, there still can be. But yes, such men will need to be choosy, because they're making the biggest investment of their lives.
I would bet that men (from couples) who have clear and open communication can be otherwise very loving partners and devoted parents without also having to be monogamous. If you zoom out just a bit and look at what is physically occurring, why should it be that physically touching someone else would prevent you from continuing to be a good parent and partner?
At a population level, it's hardly even up for debate that humans are not monogamous. This has been researched ad nauseum, although I am too lazy at the moment to dig up the research at the moment.
They really weren't. If anything, they were probably a bit above average.
Although, there is one thing that might have contributed back in the day. Female users of online dating might have been concentrated in tech areas. Being a rare female in a male dominated ratio area causes a highly skewed estimate of how attractive you really are.
With the dynamics of the game laid out the way you said, do you see any reason to right swipe on someone of a relatively similar attractiveness to you? Or given it’s current parameters, does it always make more sense for women to try to match “up” and aim for men objectively more attractive than them?