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Comment by tomhoward | Hacker News Reader

I have a theory that contemporary life causes many people great despair, relating both to dating/relationships and career, because our culture is not very supportive or accepting of personal growth.

So, if you get off to a good start in your dating life and career from your late teens and early 20s, you get plenty of approval and validation and compounding success as you progress through life, and acceptance that you deserve the success you're having ("they were always a high achiever, ever since school days").

Whereas if you're not in the top tier of "chosen" people and experience a few painful rejections and setbacks, you're made to feel that's just what you deserve and what you're stuck with, and there's not much you can do to improve your lot. I suspect this has become more of an entrenched belief since the discovery of evolution/DNA, and the generally accepted belief that most of our life outcomes are predetermined by our inheritance.

I think the dating apps (and employment recruitment platforms/techniques) intensify this further, by filtering based on a few simple characteristics, some of which really are genetically predetermined (height) and others that are downstream consequences of having had a blessed start in life (income/education level/job seniority/state of health).

Society generally, including/especially the dating/employment spheres, don't seem to offer much support for people who really sincerely trying to undertake a journey of personal improvement (outside of mainstream accepted practices like conventional fitness training and education). You're just expected to be "good to go". Someone who may have been dealt a rough hand in life but is trying very hard to improve themselves, including their social skills, their emotions, their health/fitness, their career prospects - all of which will lead them to becoming better romantic partners over time - can find themselves getting little support and encouragement along the way, and indeed can get a lot of discouragement from some quarters (including friends and family members).

I think a lot about how the world would be better if more people were encouraged and empowered to go on long-term journeys of deep personal growth, and what kinds of social platforms, including dating and employment platforms, could emerge out of that and bring much more opportunity and satisfaction to people who currently feel the despair of being left behind.

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Humans are the same as we were for millennia, the problem is that we seem to be having a bit of a self-denial crisis nowadays. We just can’t accept our flaws anymore, apparently, so we build these fake meaningless narratives that “everyone is special” and “all bodies are beautiful” etc. The truth is that dating is brutal; it works very well for a few people, but for the majority of average people it is a hard competition to which nobody actually know the rules. It’s completely asymmetric gender-wise and failing on it is basically failing on being.

So you find yourself in this situation where everyone is so nice and polite, so sophisticated and accepting, so inclusive, but for some reason nobody gives a single ** about having a romantic relationship with you. How’s that possible? Well it’s possible because it’s all fake. Deep inside, in our intimacy and our inner circles, we’re the same as we were a thousand years ago. The apps simply make it obvious and pull it to the surface.

Ugly people with lumpy bodies have been successfully reproducing for millennia. Many of them even had/have shit personalities to top it off. Dating sucks because in modern times we are coddled and are terrified of failure, many of us spend way too much time behind computer screens and on social media so our people skills have atrophied, and we also spend relatively little time around other people in fun and recreational environments so the opportunities are just missing in a massive way.

The apps completely change how we perceive ourselves and our potential sexual partners. I can't believe I have to say this, but the biggest things that have changed with regards to dating in the past 10 years vs the past 1,000 are social patterns and technology.

>It’s completely asymmetric gender-wise and failing on it is basically failing on being.

This kind of attitude is so harmful. If your life's purpose is 100% dependent on some idealized stranger granting you validation you are in for a bad time. Sex is great, biological imperatives are powerful, but you wont find animals falling into existential dread and despair because they haven't gotten laid yet (or recently). That is a particularly human trait, and it comes from obsessive and self-defeating beliefs about the world rather than reality itself. You might feel like this belief is out of your hands, but it very much is not. Your beliefs are one of the few things in this world that are entirely up to you to change and improve upon (or not).

I think we’re saying the same thing basically but my perspective was a bit too negative. Dating is brutal but we still do it, ugly or not, of course. We’ve been doing it for millennia and we never needed politically correct fashion ads to make that work. The problem is when you find yourself surrounded by this comforting mumbo jumbo of “every body is beautiful” and then when you get out there it doesn’t apply. I’d much rather have someone tell me “it’s a jungle out there, get ready, people will treat you like shit but find your path and be strong and unique in who you are”.

Your comment about the harmful attitude is correct, I 100% agree. But again, if you listen to what is implicitly conveyed in social media (where every human being is basically reduced to a single one-dimensional score), you would have a hard time reaching that conclusion. Nobody really “says” that, but as a human being you read between the lines. I guess it sounded like I was saying “date apps are fine, it’s us who are the problem” but I didn’t mean it, I think social media is very harmful.

The experiences with people need to be high quality if you want people to socialize often.

Speaking for myself, I'm not really interested in being around loud, raucous places where I have to spend money just to exist and socialize there. Those are businesses, not communities.

Third places and real communities don't really exist anymore.

I legitimately can't remember the last time I went to a public event and enjoyed myself.

>I legitimately can't remember the last time I went to a public event and enjoyed myself.

A public event you didn't pay for? Really depends. I can still enjoy a decent meetup here and there. But meetup issues come from the meetup itself or the people being inconsistent. Hard to build relationships when it's a revolving door that claims to meet "every 2 weeks" but ends up averaging 4-8 weeks.

> Third places and real communities don't really exist anymore.

I joined a book club last year, and it was great for a few months, but I noticed that most people, unless truly dedicated, petered off, or would only come and 'taste' for a month then ghost. I'm not saying I'm any better. When you've gone to 5 book clubs that have fallen apart, why would you risk committing and being sad when it falls apart again?

I believe our ability to commit is deteriorating; the how and why is a whole nother topic.

there are so many competing demands for time, and some of them are pretty dang good.

why take a risk on a book club when you can shitpost online? and watch netflix at the same time?

I think you answered yourself, in a sense. Our ability to commit is deteriorating, but the reason why is (partly) the risk of commitment itself. You risk being hurt or disappointed if you commit to the wrong event or wrong person. Figuring out what's "good" to commit to is possibly more individual than we realize.

I personally find it weird when people talk shit about someone being unwilling to commit, as if one should jump straight into serious obligations without any forethought. You didn't do that of course, but I see it come up in discussions sometimes, mostly concerning relationships. Commitment is more complicated than most people see it imo.

I have seen numerous interviews with people who are religious. They have that community. I know, I know, I'm not encouraging you to become religious, but it is pretty hard to beat as a community. However, for non-religious people, yes, I think in-person/in-real-life community is in broad decline. When I go to public events now, most people are looking at their phones, or talking with the one friend they came with. Drinking helps to lower the barrier a bit. Try a wine tasting event. They aren't very loud and only modestly business oriented. Mostly they are about mixing and pretending that you really are there to drink a little too much and chat with someone cute. Also, don't worry if the first wine tasting event doesn't feel right. You can use the first event as a springboard to find other small, inclusive wine tasting events. Those are the secret sauce and the gender balance can be good -- way better than craft beer festivals (sausage fest).

>you wont find animals falling into existential dread and despair because they haven't gotten laid yet (or recently)

I don't think I've heard of any animal falling into existential dread or despair, for any reason. But quality of life is absolutely impacted by ability to breed.

Years ago there was this elephant at the zoo pacing at his enclosure. I spent 30 minutes watching, and while it didn't explicitly mention anything about feeling existential dread or despair, it certainly looked like it did.

I feel you. Probably all advanced mammals have very complex inner lives and emotions.

Have you ever watched a nature program? 99% of animals are spending 99% of their time trying to survive and reproduce. They aren’t asking themselves “why?” hence the absence of any existential crises. That is the universal behavior, and it is totally valid for any being capable of knowing this to be depressed about it.

In truth, who really knows what animals think.

My pets certainly seem to appreciate companionship.

I think it's a bit of both. Humans are the same, but the tech and environment and especially quality of life isn't anymore. what was good enough in the 50's to attract a mate in a local town isn't good enough for the entire state or even country. I'm sure if Tinder existed in the 50's there'd be similar-ish issues.

At the same time, part of this is because there's been a lot of change in how and where we interact. There isn't really a "poker night" in a lot of modern 30's life with neighbors you chat with every day. young adults can't afford (in time nor money) to get out to a night life more than a few times a month, and even those night life places feel more like people come with established groups. Modern society doesn't pay enough and gets more and more expensive. It's no surprise it can feel soul crushing.

You raise a good point. I'll summarise: "Kids these days are broke." Get-off-my-lawn joking aside, the purchasing power of younger generations is definitely less than before. As a result, young people go to bars / restaurants / concerts / holidays much less, further reducing their social (and dating) opportunities. I blame global trade which makes a few much richer at the expense of stalled or slightly declining prosperity for the masses.

The only part I disagree with is the historical perspective. When was this time that people believed in personal growth? For most of history the nobels were nobels, peasants were peasants and that was that. If anything, the sense of having dynamic control of one's destiny throughout one's lifespan is a recent invention. (Well at least in the west)

Absolutely with you. The great dissonance is between people's expectations and their reality, not the past and the present. Life for someone born poor even a century ago was brutal and oppressive in a way most of us have difficulty understanding.

> Life for someone born poor even a century ago was brutal and oppressive in a way most of us have difficulty understanding.

Not really. A century ago people in many parts of the USA were dirt poor. I mean no savings, no electricity, no indoor plumbing. But they ate well—real food they grew, raised, and hunted themselves. They had deep communal bonds, spiritual fulfillment, and a sense of meaning in their lives that is increasingly absent. I wouldn’t be surprised if your average sharecropper’s wife would blow away your average urban girl boss in self reported happiness.

Reported happiness seems like a poor metric for comparison when the concept itself may be rather foreign to someone in the past. If your life is mostly hardship, you may not spend much time being introspective about how you feel about your plight. In a life of luxury, you have nothing but time to think about it and find things to critique. So, you may have an objectively better life, and overall more happiness, but report it as unhappy because there is more that you want to do that you feel should be achievable. Compared to someone who couldn’t comprehend their situation ever improving, so they. There is no basis for comparison of what it means to be happy between different life experiences.

If you think you're happy, you are happy.

Filtering your sense of happiness through some quality of life lens is absurd if you think about it.

It’s not about quality of life. Abuse victims will say they are happy, and stay with their abusers. War veterans can think fondly on their time at war, but neither are objectively good situations. Reporting that you are happy is not the same as being happy.

What do you mean by “objectively good?”

I guess what I’m describing is the difference of trauma/suffering (both physical and mental) vs not. There’s too much psychology in play when dealing with how we handle trauma to trust a self reported metric.

Both (emotional) trauma and suffering sound pretty subjective to me, as does psychology in general. How are we getting to "objectively good?"

The psychology being subjective is my point. The physiological condition is not subjective. My statement wasn’t that something was “objectively good” but that experiencing pain and suffering was “not objectively good” or rather (objectively) not a good thing. Pain is real, and the absence of pain is objectively better.

> Pain is real, and the absence of pain is objectively better.

But that’s observably false. There are persons who don’t feel pain, and they are considerably more likely to seriously injure or even maim themselves than normal persons. That’s hardly “objectively better.”

Furthermore, the existence of masochism shows that some people prefer pain to its absence at least some of the time. Thus “Pain is real, and the absence of pain is objectively better” is just your subjective opinion.

Since we’re talking about subjective reports regardless, we may as well rely on the subjective reports of the people having the experiences rather than the subjective opinions of others who aren’t having the experiences.

If you can’t agree that physically harming people is bad, I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye on this. But, your example of masochism is exactly my point. You can’t trust their reported state because people can bend their psychology to believe it to be fine. Nevertheless, torture/murder/rape, etc are all still objectively bad.

As an example: there are genuine cases of masochists that are subjectively happier because pain is being inflicted on them. In many of these cases no serious harm is done to their body. Your claim "you can't trust their reported state" is either 1) a claim that the outside observer knows better than the individual what their subjective state is or 2) that the health of the subject is more important than their subjective happiness.

If you are arguing for #1, I disagree. If you are arguing for #2, you should be more clear about why/how you keep using the word "objectively".

People can feel less happy when there is a lack of challenge in their life. Consider the example of the guy that spends his life wasting away in front of video games, going for impulsive pleasures instead of long term rewarding goals.

I would guess that each person has a different ideal level and variety of suffering (or responsibility, or challenge, or whatever you want to call it), for which their personality is best suited. We are so far removed from the challenges of the past that we don't know what the subjective experience would be like.

> they ate well—real food they grew, raised, and hunted

In a good year they might eat well. In a drought year, maybe not at all.

I'm sorry but that's just pining for a past that never happened. In the 20th century some 100 million people died from famine. Starved to death. We're down to 200,000 deaths from hunger per year, compared to an average of maybe 2M/year up to the 1960s, while the global population tripled.

Did some people eat well, some of the time in the 1900s? Absolutely. But ending hunger is maybe the greatest conquest of our time and it's barely recognised. That's exactly the sort of expectation gap I was referring to in my original comment.

> I'm sorry but that's just pining for a past that never happened. In the 20th century some 100 million people died from famine. Starved to death. We're down to 200,000 deaths from hunger per year, compared to an average of maybe 2M/year up to the 1960s, while the global population tripled. Did some people eat well, some of the time in the 1900s? Absolutely.

I'm sorry, but perhaps it wasn't clear from context that I'm talking about the USA. There has never been a wide scale famine in the United States even in its poorest communities. Even during the Great Depression there were virtually no deaths due to starvation[1].

> But ending hunger is maybe the greatest conquest of our time and it's barely recognised. That's exactly the sort of expectation gap I was referring to in my original comment.

Your goalpost-moving notwithstanding, I'm reminded of that famous Sufi tale with the refrain "Good thing, bad thing, who knows?" After all the environmental impacts of the population explosion that it kicked off are still just barely beginning to be felt. But for what it's worth the Green Revolution was part of the standard curriculum when I was in middle and secondary school, so I wouldn't say it's unrecognized.

[1] https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12297/how-many-p...

My personal impression, from what I've seen of the "third world", has been that people there are at least as happy as those in the rich world.

They were not well fed a century ago. The US had to start putting iron and iodine in all the food because all the young men were too weak and sick with pellagra to be able to fight in wars.

Umm have you seen pictures of what a share cropper looked like during the depression? Not much dissimilar to a concentration camp survivor

Yes. It’s easily googled. And they look like a normal healthy weight for the early 20th century[1]. Mama there has a healthy belly. Where are you seeing concentration camp victims?

[1] https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/media/sharecropper-family...

That woman is thin and six months pregnant.

The obesity epidemic has evidently warped your perception of what a normal healthy weight looks like.

I would be surprised if that was the case, especially in the hypothetical where she knows what she's missing.

Yeah this is a good point. I guess genetic determinism is just the contemporary scientific justification for a mentality that’s existed in some for a long time or indeed forever. (I’d be interested to know if other human cultures were more and accepting and supportive of personal growth.)

Explanation or justification? Does current scientific consensus (let's say there's one) say that this mentality is okay or that it's a bias that we should be aware (and try to correct against)?

I see genetics being used as a “just so” explanation for all kinds of things that the science doesn’t really support, by people with different ideologies depending on the thing they’re trying to justify.

We take obviously mostly-genetically-determined traits like height, eye/hair/skin colour, facial features etc, then extrapolate to argue/assume that all kinds of other things must also be genetically determined, like cognition, behavioral patterns, emotional patterns, for which there is far less evidence of them being hard-coded in DNA. This will be confounded by the fact that we can often see commonalities in these factors from parents to children and between siblings, and assume these commonalities exist due to genetic coding, not recognizing that there are other forms of inheritance/conditioning that can explain these commonalities, but that even if these inherited patterns are deeply ingrained, they can be altered via the right practices (emotional “letting go” being the most important in my experience).

Are you actually aware of the evidence on these matters? There have been studies on adopted children and identical twins. What are the results?

Here's a random study on criminality I was looking at a bit ago: https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/frisell2010.pdf

Genetics is not a credible science, ie, it's just another one of the many sciences that thinks correlation is causation. This is because it can't do experiments, so it can't really show causation.

(Identical twins are close to a natural experiment but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics.)

Genetics experiments are quite commonplace these days, for example in vaccine development, plant engineering, and many other applications

I mean on humans.

Your claim that genetics, a science affecting all life, is not a credible science, doesn't mention humans at all, so I doubt you did.

If you have to limit it to "humans only", the claim falls apart anyways, because genetics isn't human-specific

Your idea of an argument is to say that people don't know what their own posts mean?

Who are you to tell us to not trust our eyes? When you're wrong at trivia, can you just claim "I meant [the right answer]"? If that's what you meant, perhaps you would have said it, but if you would had said it, it would have ruined your argument.

Simply put, you haven't made a convincing case that genetics, a science affecting all life, not just humans, is "not a credible science", despite indeed involving experiments all the time.

Below is where you can make that case.

> Genetics is not a credible science

This is a far stronger claim than I think you mean. We have a ton of evidence that those bits of DNA in our cells govern cell expression and even know in some cases that bit X being malformed causes bad condition Y (sure, you could hypothesize that they both have a common cause, but how the heck would that work? Correlation being causation works if both common cause and backwards causation are implausible, as they are often in genetics).

> but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics

Uhhh... they have almost exactly the same genetics. To a similar extent that two random cells from your body will have the same genetics. Yes, there will be a handful of mutations, but that's very unlikely to have an effect on any particular trait.

Yes I’ve been exploring this topic (and undertaking personal growth work) for well over a decade. I know all about the twin studies and the way they’re used to support all kinds of claims but that don’t actually hold up to scrutiny.

DNA just encodes proteins. It can’t explain/predict detailed behavioral patterns. A prominent example of how genetics can influence aggressive/criminal behavior is due to variations in the MAOA (“Warrior”) gene, but the promotion/suppression of this gene is still strongly influenced by environmental factors [1].

Twin studies (particularly separated twin studies) claim to prove that all kinds of things are genetically encoded, because “they must be”, without considering how much is caused/influenced by other factors - the gestational environment and the experience of being separated from the birth family being the most obvious.

That’s not to say these behavioral patterns aren’t deeply ingrained and difficult/slow to change, but that’s very different from being hard-coded in DNA and impossible to change. For n=1 anecdata, I’ve significantly reduced my aggressive tendencies after years of growth work.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469457/#:~:tex....

Are you willing to have a detailed discussion on this? I don't want to spend a few hours refreshing my knowledge of the research and gathering papers only to be ignored.

(Also, did you check out the paper I linked?)

I read the abstract and skimmed the main content and couldn’t find anything that refutes what I’ve written or what I understand.

I’m fine to have a discussion if your intention is to achieve a shared understanding of the topic, which is what healthy debating is about and what this site seeks to cultivate (even if it rarely achieves it). It does seem a little like you’re more interested in “winning” an argument for a position you’re already invested in, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise and to engage in a discussion if you bring a spirit of shared learning to it.

Edit: rather than doing it here (in a thread that is already very long and stale) you can email me if you like (address in bio).

Further to my previous comment, before you write much on the topic, make sure you've properly read and considered what I've written (just the previous few comments relating to genetic determinism), in relation to the paper you shared. On reflection, I'm surprised you wrote "did you check out the paper I linked?", as if you assume it contains findings that contradict anything I've written, and it makes me think you might be intending to argue against something you assume I believe rather than something I actually believe. To be clear: (a) I believe very strongly in inheritance and common patterns of behaviour among family members; (b) I know of no research proving that behavioural patterns are entirely attributable to DNA code and/or are immutable, and (c) I'm aware of ways deeply ingrained patterns of behaviour can be significantly altered/abated when effective approaches are applied. The paper you linked doesn't make any specific claims relating to parts (b) or (c) of my statement.

This is a bad defense because you're using "genetically determined", which is either meaningless or not true.

Height is not genetically determined unless you add "in an environment where nothing else that affects it happens". Like, say, someone cutting off your legs.

And the same goes for every other trait.

The only other thing to affect height is nutrition. Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others. Denying that is just straight stupidity because you can observe the trend just by going outside.

> The only other thing to affect height is nutrition.

And puberty blockers, pituitary gland diseases, and lack of sleep.

…and cutting your legs off.

> Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others.

See, one thing about statistics is they're not necessarily valid for individuals, because eg not all statistical distributions have any values at their averages.

Saying something is genetically determined is not necessarily the same as saying it's completely genetically determined. And it's not meaningless, because there are things that aren't genetically determined at all, or at least are only genetically determined to such a small amount that they wouldn't be described as being genetically determined.

Nothing is "not genetically determined at all" because part of the causation of every human trait involves you being a human.

But you should be clearer than that about what your theory of causation is.

Agreed, I think this is all downstream from recent macroeconomic forces in the west/America. Namely the "land of opportunity" in the post WW2 era has disappeared and the class structure has largely calcified and will carry over multiple generations. The anxiety people feel about not being one of the "top tier and chosen" is because that's the only avenue for social mobility left.

Or maybe it was always mostly BS and the information age where the message is less controlled/manipulated by a few elite owned sources is making that obvious.

Belief in personal growth was one of the pillars of Victorianism. Then there was the American Dream.

I think you hit the nail on the head in a lot of aspects but I don't fully agree. Our society does endorse and actively support the virtues of personal growth. The issue is, as you pointed out, it only values the growth of those "chosen" to reach a high-percentile level at the end of their journey. There's nothing more abhorrent to our societal myths of a just road for everyone to take than someone who worked years to reach some level of success in a field they want to excel in but only hit a point barely above mediocrity.

> There's nothing more abhorrent to our societal myths of a just road for everyone to take than someone who worked years to reach some level of success in a field they want to excel in but only hit a point barely above mediocrity.

I think it depends on how we define mediocrity. Is it mediocre to spend as much time it requires to get a PhD becoming a good pastry chef or carpenter? In the west very likely yes, unless you're an "entrepreneur".

Ironically, despite being touted as individual work, this kind of success and excellence requires institutions to be recognized.

> Is it mediocre to spend as much time it requires to get a PhD becoming a good pastry chef or carpenter? In the west very likely yes, unless you're an "entrepreneur".

Or, unless you apply your skill into pursuing a bakery career, or a celebrity career (e.g. by running a baking channel on YouTube). Being good at something alone doesn't get you past being perceived as mediocre at best - you have to have an external institution attest for it. PhD, that's easy - the title is itself an attestation. Baking? Proof is in running a successful bakery[0], or in being called a great baker in mass media articles, or in running a popular baking show, etc.

I guess that's implicit in the whole philosophy of "self-improvement" being conditioned on how others see you.

[0] - However little sense this makes these days; "running business doing X" is 99% about "running business" and 1% about "doing X", and if you want money and control, you have to let other people to "do" X for you.

Never thought about it this way, but yeah makes a lot of sense. So the real approach should be: pick the kind of institution you care about first. Skill mastery might just end up being optional.

To be honest, I'm rather surprised how good we have it those days, when good skills and hard work at least have a quite good chance to lead to a decent life

Ironically, by relying on institutions so much, the value of their recognition becomes reduced over time, and we get stuff like credential creep, university bureaucratic bloat, and general mistrust in academia.

>In the west very likely yes, unless you're an "entrepreneur".

I think you live in some weird startup-obsessed bubble or something because that is quite unlike my experience living in "the west"

Not really no, I am quite far from the startup scene on the contrary. In French we'd call an entrepreneur anyone who runs a business, aside from a small shop owner maybe.

TeMPOraL nailed what I was trying to convey.

What is your experience like? Do you live in a place where high quality work alone is unanimously recognised as success?

Yeah I hear you, and no doubt Horatio Algers (and simplistic interpretations/retellings of his story arcs) have done plenty of harm in this respect.

I think we can do much better than “if you work hard and believe in your dreams you’ll make it”. There are many techniques people can learn than can amplify the impacts of their efforts and make them much better companions. They’re just not widely known/accepted as yet.

There are numerous studies confirming the effect you're speaking of, altough I'm not sure if dating apps have an influence on that.

It was shown that certain national ice hockey teams were comprised mainly of players who were born at the beginning of the year. It is theorized that this is because the date that cuts one class for another is at the beginning of the year. If you're born in January, and you start playing hockey at 5, you're gonna be significantly older than a child that's born in december. As a result, you'll be recognized and helped more by your coach, which improves your chances of becoming better, and drags into adulthood, up until you're in the national team. The same applies for academic and professional careers and I'm sure dating as sell.

> Whereas if you're not in the top tier of "chosen" people and experience a few painful rejections and setbacks, you're made to feel that's just what you deserve and what you're stuck with, and there's not much you can do to improve your lot.

You aren't "made to feel anything", it's a two way street. You have someone who says something negative, and you have the choice to listen to it or disregard it. That's a choice

> I think a lot about how the world would be better if more people were encouraged and empowered to go on long-term journeys of deep personal growth

I think if you're motivated enough to do this, you're already motivated enough to go out and get the career success or love life or whatever you're after. Frankly doing that is probably simpler and more straightforward than "self discovery" or whatever. There's a Carlin bit for this https://youtube.com/watch?v=4s3bJYHQXYg

> You aren't "made to feel anything", it's a two way street. You have someone who says something negative, and you have the choice to listen to it or disregard it. That's a choice

Right, this is why we can choose not to feel the pain of being punched in the face.

No.

You're taking the word out of context and using a different definition of it

You're literally "made to feel" certain ways. During your formative years someone was shouting you suck and generally acting as you're a burden and unwanted? You'll feel that shit for the rest of your life no matter what you "decide to think". It becomes ingrained in you. It becomes who you are. You can work on it like GP said and improve the situation but don't act like it's trivial or just a change of perspective. It isn't. It's like your body needs healing after a fractured bone. Your mind also needs that time and setting.

I'm not saying that trauma isn't real, I'm saying that it doesn't have to impact your prospects in life. You don't have to let it define you. There's a capacity to sidestep it

Here's a personal example: having abusive family members tell me I won't be successful or independent, being hurt by it but knowing in the back of my head that I would get out of there. It's hope

And I get it: not all trauma is equal here, but if I have to choose one extreme I'd prefer the one that gives people some shred of agency

I get your point, but would also like to add that to a certain extent (and variable by person) pain from physical injuries can be influenced by psychology.

There was a time I was cycling at night down a half-finished cycle route, the kerb separating it from the guided busway had been placed but not the tarmac, but I couldn't see that at night (I had a light but it still wasn't visible).

I tried to leave the cycle path, bounced off the surprise rise of the kerb, and it hurt before I hit the ground. Picked myself up, stopped thinking about it, went on to the cinema, watched the film, when the lights came up I realised quite how badly I'd been grazed.

Sometimes I can switch the pain off on purpose, sometimes I can't. The dichotomy isn't even just with regards to physical pain, it's also a sometimes-yes-sometimes-no with emotional distress, so I can go into a "public performance" mode on a stage and goof about no trouble, but I can't seem to shake my deep dislike of mere phone calls.

People are weird, I'm a person therefore I'm weird. :)

That's not a psychological response, that's adrenaline. It numbs the pain response because in fight or flight situations, it's a distraction. It's not a choice, and it's fleeting and transient, a few minutes to twenty minutes.

> a few minutes to twenty minutes.

How about minus one second and plus 169 minutes? (It was the first of the Hobbit trilogy).

>bounced off the surprise rise of the kerb, and it hurt before I hit the ground.

Sounds like a form of phantom pain. I don't know the exact term but it is a well studied phenomenon. one that, AFAIK, isn't fully understood.

But yes, your brain can very much lie to you. Just look up how much post processing your brain will do to help you see the way you see.

>Sometimes I can switch the pain off on purpose, sometimes I can't.

yeah, we have chemicals in our body to do that. It doesn't turn off pain automatically because it is in fact a good thing to realize when you're bleeding out of your leg. It only turns that off for you semi-voluntarily if your brain involuntarily determines (again based on other chemicals) that GTFO is more beneficial to survival than tending to your wound. I'm not going to say it's impossible to train these excretions of chemicals. I will argue that this is probably something you can train for years to do and fail, though.

There's so much about our bodies that still eludes the brightest minds. Even a function as basic as sleeping and why and how it benefits us is still not fully in our understanding.

I love Carlin and it’s a good gag with some truth in it.

But it assumes we’re all hardwired to be a certain way, which is the very assumption I’m arguing needs to change.

It’s true most self-help is ineffective, and it’s because you can’t change much in your life just by consciously making an effort to change, or just “trying harder”. There is a lot you can change by undoing subconscious self-sabotage patterns and undertaking “letting go” practices, over a long enough period of time. This kind of stuff is fringe now but is growing in popularity because people are finding it far more effective than mainstream self-help and therapy (I sure have).

> There is a lot you can change by undoing subconscious self-sabotage patterns and undertaking “letting go” practices, over a long enough period of time. This kind of stuff is fringe now but is growing in popularity

Can you please recommend further reading?

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is an excellent curriculum for training in the use of a set of tools along these lines (and many more skills besides).

Undoing self-sabotaging thought patterns is the essence of cognitive behavioral therapy though.

I think you both might be talking about the same thing. CBT is much more detailed and comprehensive than "practicing letting go," but in a sense, accepting reality and then letting go (of our maladaptive beliefs and coping behaviors) is at its core. GP may have encountered CBT from an alternative source, and thus doesn't associate it with 'mainstream therapy.' Which I'm not even sure if CBT is prominent enough yet to be considered the main clinical paradigm.

"Letting go" is suspiciously close to "be a doormat for others", it smells of BS.

I've gone to therapy with the CBT method and it's total garbage meant to keep you meek and accepting of the bullshit people pile on you in life.

The correct solution to abuse is a punch to the face. Civil actions and words have no effect.

> “Letting go" is suspiciously close to "be a doormat for others"

What I’m referring to is nothing like that whatsoever, and I’m not talking about/advocating CBT, or anything that involves adopting meekness.

>The correct solution to abuse is a punch to the face.

if you can afford it, sure. But that civil lawsuit you dismiss will suddenly crush you if you punch the wrong person in the face.

Maybe there is a bit too much soft footed training these days, but there's also a very good reason, financially and legally, to know when to hold your punches. At least be smart enough to get an explicit reason on record before you start swinging fists.

I like where you showed me that the civil way gets results.

Oh wait.

It may be ugly but people tend to leave someone alone after getting knocked out. Words are a warning, a substitute for violence. We use words because violence is ugly. When words don't work, you don't use more words. That's insanity.

0 tends to be more than a negative number. I'm not saying not to resort to violence. I'm just saying it has a higher chance to backfire than retreating.

> I've gone to therapy with the CBT method and it's total garbage meant to keep you meek and accepting of the bullshit people pile on you in life.

Really? I've never done it but have heard some negative stuff, like what do they teach you?

The gist of it is to question existing thoughts or reactions, which sounds good on paper because how else do you grow without introspection? However, it does little to solve real mental or emotional issues. I felt like I was talking through a workbook and not connecting to a real human.

It's led to reduced trust in psychology and psychiatry. Maybe in another hundred years we'll have a clue or two.

first off sorry if my initial response reads brusque, I've been burnt by the self help stuff and learned the hard way to be skeptical of it, didn't think that the skepticism would lead to this much argument...

> There is a lot you can change by undoing subconscious self-sabotage patterns and undertaking “letting go” practices,

What do you mean by this, like buddhism or something like it? Is there some kind of literature on this?

You don't think mainstream self help or therapy uses the concept of forgiveness or breaking self destructive beliefs and patterns? I implore you to tell me what it is you think therapy actually does and contrast it with whatever this newfangled fringe approach is.

> You have someone who says something negative, and you have the choice to listen to it or disregard it. That's a choice

This is just not true about human psychology. Like it is not true at all.

People are affected by what is said about them. And those few unaffected generally tend to have much bigger issues in relationships, because their lack of caring usually makes them into very uncomfortable to be around.

To everyone here, this is how a confident person with a healthy dose of self-esteem feels and behaves like (with a pinch of salt as this depiction is a bit idealistic).

To @mvncleaninst, not everyone has the same emotional strength and tools to cope with these sort of situations, and trust me, I am not apologizing for mediocrity and lack of courage, I absolutely loathe when people try to excuse what's under their control with made-up stories, disorders and whatnot.

Depression is a real thing, some people have gone through real shit. An example, many people grow up in completely dysfunctional households, you have no idea how that can absolutely destroy someone's perception of it's own value. Same thing with poverty, a lot of people had dealt with both of these things and most likely many more. The wounds inflicted by these circumstances stay with people their whole lives, one cannot just "shrug off these things and carry on" as they have become imbued with them.

Life can break absolutely anybody; if you don't believe this is true, congrats. you've had it easy, so far.

From (George) Carlin's wikipedia entry:

"Because of my abuse of drugs, I neglected my business affairs and had large arrears with the IRS, and that took me eighteen to twenty years to dig out of."

It seems that your motivation expert actually does much worse than the average person on things that require planning and self-control. Colour me surprised. Is this part of his comedy act?

I like this post. It rings true with me. One trend I have noticed in my life: If people grew up under difficult circumstances, it seems to sap their grit (ability to grind). They mostly give up more easily. However, at 1-5% of those can turn the difficult circumstances into a super power and "out grind" anyone. It is weird how it happens.

> You have someone who says something negative, and you have the choice to listen to it or disregard it. That's a choice

That's like saying "You have someone punching you in the face, and you have the choice to be hurt by it or not. Being hurt by being punched in the face is a choice."

You don't choose to be hurt and you don't choose the consequences of being hurt.

>You don't choose to be hurt and you don't choose the consequences of being hurt.

Only the first part is true. We don't get to choose our emotional responses, but we absolutely can determine how we react to all manner of discomforts and challenges. For instance, you can discover and put in the work of practicing healthy and sustainable coping mechanisms for the inevitable fear, rejection, and hurt you will feel in life when other people treat you in ways that don't suit you. You can also choose to put in work towards changing your outlook and core beliefs, so you are much more resilient to being hurt by the words and actions of other people. Emotional resilience is a skill (but it is not at all the same as being emotionally repressed, which is a maladaptive defense mechanism).

Being physically or emotionally hurt is not the same as being harmed. People can be punched in the face and yet recover with grace and equanimity. Indeed, even if that graceful recovery involves running the fuck away from a pointless fight. This isn't easy stuff, but it is possible.

>you can discover and put in the work of practicing healthy and sustainable coping mechanisms for the inevitable fear, rejection, and hurt you will feel in life when other people treat you in ways that don't suit you.

Thats a skill and like sports, there are certain affinities to having and tailloring that skill. It's why we call it "emotional intelligence". There will be some absolute saints that can manage their emotions to an almost sociopathic level, and 90+% of people can train their lives and never truly obtain such skill. We are shaped by early experiences, memories, and traumas too much to truly say "anyone can do this".

Likewise, being punched in the face is a skill. But not necessarily one that is "mastered", just mitigated. the best boxers in the world will get punched enough to have permanent damage, even with modern safety regulations. That's just a fact. Meanwhile, most people who don't spend time fighting will have different biology that determines how well they can take a face punch. Someone more muscular will take it better than a meek lad. You may not even realize the former got punched the next day wihle the latter has a scar that never heals. You can't fully control that without a major lifestyle change.

> You don't choose to be hurt and you don't choose the consequences of being hurt.

Yes you do. You totally do.

Someone throwing insults or punches at you that hurt is not something you choose, it's something you feel. Why do you think the attacker bears no responsibility?

How so? If you're just walking on the street and you happen to get sucker punched out of nowhere by a person you never met nor will never meet again, what could you have done to choose "not to get hurt"? enroll in martial arts and train your peripheral vision to always be on guard?

I won't even entertain "you choose the consequences of being hurt". Mike Tyson says it best: "everyone's got a plan until they are punched in the face"

In your analysis, it seems like the growing person should be recognized by the chosen class and be given a shot at relationships. Why though? If you don’t belong to the chosen class, find a partner that isn’t in the chosen class as well and grow together.

Maybe I am mistaken, but this has a subtext of "I want to be recognized, but I don’t want to deal with disadvantaged people myself".

Well, it’s not true of me, because I was lucky enough to find someone with whom to share a journey of growth (we got together in 2011, just before the dating apps took hold), and it’s worked out well for us.

But I see what life is like for friends who are trying to find serious relationships/life partnerships via the apps, and how much it’s all geared towards being/seeming “the best” and finding “the right person”, and how brutal it is for their self esteem and life outlook (a good friend is at the age where she’s probably missed the chance to have children, having tried to find the right guy via the apps for many years).

I often wonder how it could be better for her and other friends if there were apps/communities more geared towards finding people to grow with rather than finding someone who ticks the boxes now.

I'm sorry to hear that your friend is struggling to find a long term partner. When I think about dating apps, they are mostly about cold introductions. If possible, you should try to do some warm introductions from her. It seems easier to break someone's heart with shitty behaviour from a cold introduction, than a warm introduction. Cold intros are relatively anonymous so you can hide after your bad behaviour. With a warm intro, if someone does something awful, their friends will probably learn about it.

In some ways it may be even more difficult to find a partner to grow with than one who has already grown and will give you a chance, because there’s more questions involved. Do they have the same capacity for growth? Are they as tenacious? Will they keep up their efforts after receiving the gratification of acceptance? Etc, etc.

In the "good old days" dating was simpler, but also much, much worse for the average woman. People dated within their town almost exclusively. The best bachelors would be gone pretty quickly. That put a ton of pressure on the remaining women to quickly settle for an average guy in order not to be stuck with a terrible partner (an angry drunk or other kind of lowlife). Not marrying wasn't an option, and divorce wasn't an option. They had to choose, and their dating pool was small and constantly shrinking. Many women got stuck in unhappy marriages, but that was life.

I agree with you that many guys today struggle with dating because they haven't done the necessary work to be good partners, but the problem isn't that "contemporary life doesn't encourage self-improvement". The "problem", if you even want to call it that, is that women prefer being single over a bad relationship with a crummy guy. For the first time in history, women have the economic independence to walk away from a bad deal, and guys have up their game as a consequence.

Women don't prefer being single. Women want a relationship - but with a hot tall confident rich guy their friends will be envious of who makes them feel butterflies ("chemistry").

That's the definition of the ideal boyfriend for most younger women.

So the hot tall confident rich guys play the field, because they can. Worse, some of the hottest and most confident guys are narcissists - because narcissists and sociopaths are very good at seducing people with love bombing and future faking.

Inexperienced women get their hearts broken and decide that all men are jerks - partly because at this stage the kind funny not-so-hot guys don't register as realistic prospects on their dating radar.

There are subcultures within this, and there's certainly a niche of women who find clever, funny, and kind men more attractive than rich and tall etc men. But it's relatively small compared to most of the population.

At the same time there's a strongly gender-polarised and adversarial (actually hate-filled) culture in the US where wannabe manly men who hate everything woke etc are in a permanent war with feminists who are convinced that all masculinity is toxic.

It's not so much that "guys have to up their game" but that the entire culture is emotionally dysfunctional, and dating is stuck in a kind of permanent adolescence where healthy give-and-take relationships aren't modelled at all.

Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

>Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

Oh man this is such a big one. There's so much media out there that depicts total loser guys winding up with incredible women & vice versa. If you're a young man & didn't have dad or older brother guide you through your end of the responsibilities in a relationship, there's almost nowhere to get the correct information, and tons of 'malware' information out there. One might be inclined to point to feminist literature on the subject, but that will just make you a doormat.

> Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

The first thing that comes to mind is the relationship between Holden and Naomi in The Expanse. (Okay, so it's not a marriage. Does that really matter?)

I'm sure there are others, but they are difficult to recall precisely because they just are, without calling too much attention to themselves. So there's a selection bias in what we remember.

Bluey's parents, probably?

Damn dude my example number two is o Brian and his wife in DS9.

Star Trek and parodies are really coming in clutch for good examples of married life.

Naomi who has a kid she never tells him about and whose ex (who she also fails to mention) is the head of a lunatic fringe terrorist organization? Naomi who was also a part of that and was integral in executing an attack (also without a mention)? Naomi who disappears without a word to go infiltrate that organization in a move she thinks is likely to get her killed?

Holden is no peach of a partner either. Don’t play the “Holden does something the hardest way possible because he can’t ask for help” drinking game, you’ll be unconscious in a few hours.

Bruh.

> Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

The parents in "That '70s show" perhaps? I see the irony in this title tho.

Most often when a main character on a TV show has a relationship, it exists to increase the drama. So it makes sense that we’d see healthier relationships among side-characters.

A movie about unexceptional people doing unexceptional things? Nope can’t think of many movies that would have that. Exceptional people tend to be egotistical assholes that take extreme risks and they make movies about the ones that succeed or fail spectacularly

>Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

Sentimental and idealized are very vague, but there are a ton of US sitcoms that have this premise. But also, watching a couple just go about their day to day life that 90% of people go through seems boring as hell, who would watch that?

> Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

Before Sunrise trilogy comes to mind

That's like 28 years ago though.

Married with children. Al was a shoe salesman. Peggy was hot in high school. They had kids. They took care of them. They didn't exactly love each other, but they didn't hated one another also. The most realistically portrayed family on TV in decades.

> Al was a shoe salesman. Peggy was hot in high school.

They were both hot in high school. They peaked in high school and married/created a family with their high school sweetheart. That's the entire point of the show.

> They had kids. They took care of them.

They were also neglectful and callous.

> They didn't exactly love each other, but they didn't hated one another also.

Did you watch the show? They most certainly verged on hating each other, and were never as ambivalent as you make out.

> The most realistically portrayed family on TV in decades.

The Middle. Malcom in the Middle. That 70's Show. Any of a dozen "prestige" television shows that aren't sitcoms.

Come on. This entire argument is ridiculous.

> isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

TV shows are about drama. If you have "this relationship is too good" and "this relationship is too bad" as exit clauses here, of course you are going to have trouble.

Does Ben and Leslie from Parks and Rec count for you? Or is that "too idealized"?

Watch how many times Ben gets to do what Ben wants to do when it’s not his birthday, then tell me you’d want to be him. That relationship is about Leslie being enabled.

Ben runs for the house of representatives. That's an enabler?

Congrats, you found the one. Except he runs because she badgers the shit out of him. If Leslie were a guy he’d be a narcissistic love-bomber.

Pro-tip: if someone says that you should just do what they say because they know better than you, run as fast as you can because they’re a demon.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=upkQ6XYe3dE

The last three paragraphs are on the money. So on the money. The level of conditioned hate is just bizarre.

I have witnessed some truly weird conversations in hypereducated blue-state America. I never say anything, but I always take mental notes.

One example:

So I go out to lunch with this friend, and they invite a friend of theirs. A woman, in her 20s, from an Ivy League school. I'm not sure why we were all having lunch together actually, in retrospect.

Anyway, she's talking about how she has this boyfriend. I think he's in the Air Force or something (which at some level is icky to these people). And she has some time off from her career for some reason, so she has some time. And she's spending a lot of it just being with him, to the point that, she'll cook dinner and stuff. And she implies that she's having a lot of sex with him, and that she's being very giving in all this, and you can tell that at some level she just finds him very attractive and takes pleasure in delighting him (as he, I assume, does likewise in making her happy). Which is basically the description of a good relationship, right?

But she also has to justify this feeling to herself -- that she likes making her boyfriend happy. And she has to justify to herself that she's doing things like cooking dinner that, on the one hand, she's voluntarily chosen to do, but that, on the other hand, she clearly also thinks are somehow "beneath her". So she explains it to us at the table like this: She's intentionally ruining her boyfriend, so that when they eventually break up -- because that's what you do, right? -- then he will not be satisfied in any of his subsequent relationships. She has to frame her natural impulse to be kind and giving, as a political act that is actually a kind of cruelty -- because that's what she assumes we will approve of.

None of us ask for this justification, this is just a monologue that she volunteers. I don't say anything, but -- what the fuck? I think this has become a normal (if unnatural) trained attitude.

I could give other examples too, but that's enough for now.

Something is just very broken.

It's been a long time since I read something as aggressively condescending as the idea that "butterflies" are what women en masse consider to be "chemistry".

> Can you think of one movie or TV show which models a realistically happy working adult marriage which isn't either sentimental and idealised, or doesn't end in drama, tragedy, and betrayal?

Friday Night Lights

Those women also had far less competition. The men the next town over they now have access to come with a town full of women who are now able to access the men of the town the woman is in. Each time her dating pool increases, the competition increases too.

There's no free lunch, just tyranny of too many choices, endless analysis paralyses and FOMO.

I don't think is that simple, the happiness levels of women have not increased in recent years according to many studies, its more likely a complex issue and that aspect you mention may be a minor variable; I believe is more likely than us (our brains to be exact) have had not time to adapt to the new times where you have to watch hundreds of people with "better" partners than us just by scrolling through your feeds, and that is quite chaotic but soon enough we will adapt a bit better.

Why do you think that will happen soon? Absent extreme selection pressure, evolution tends to be quite slow.

Our brain means we adapt faster than any other species so we are not as dependend on evolutionary self-selection as other species, its the major reason we "won" the evolutionary race (e.g. same reason we would be the only species to survive a meteorite collision against earth -even if not for long- without any evolutionary progress to increase our adaptability to space)

It’s interesting you mention how much worse it was for women, because their reported life satisfaction keeps declining over the past many decades.

https://docs.iza.org/dp4200.pdf

Some people argue with the ‘no true woman’ fallacy, or don’t trust them to know how to self reflect properly, but clearly something is dying in society.

It's probably more a matter that women's lives have improved greatly, but not kept pace with rising hopes or expectations.

If I look at the plot in the linked study I see essentially the same trend for men.

You need to find some kind of proxy for life satisfaction otherwise you could just be measuring a change in society’s expectations regarding the answer to that question.

That is, if there’s less expectation to lie and say everything is fine, you could get declining life satisfaction numbers with no actual decline in satisfaction.

Anecdotally people I know from my grandparent’s generation are much less likely to admit to being unhappy.

p.7

> ...answers to subjective well-being questions have been shown to be correlated with physical evidence of affect such as smiling, laughing, heart rate measures, sociability, and electrical activity in the brain (Diener, 1984)

Unless you check that correlation at the beginning and end of the time period in question, it’s meaningless.

One of the most useful things you can do in debate is reveal yourself to be immune to evidence of anything you don't like. It is useful because it allows rational participants to stop wasting time with you.

The data says people are saying they are less happy over some time period. There are 2 competing hypotheses to explain the cause.

1) Society has changed in a way that has made people less happy. 2) Society has changed in a way that has made people less likely to lie about being happy.

If you stop to think it through for a second, you’ll quickly understand how the statement “we have some data from somewhere in the middle of the time period in question that self reported satisfaction and a actual satisfaction are correlated” isn’t evidence to support either side. That statement can easily fit either hypothesis.

This is quite easy to test in a longitudinal cross-cultural study of people over time. You'd probably find half a book shelf of research already which does exactly that, if only one bothered to look for it.

Happy to take a look through anything you might want to point me to.

My grandparents too, but what I've found out that they really are much happier, because they have seen so much worse. Try to imagine how you'd feel yourself at the moment if you'd have seen WWII, deportations, 50 years of communist occupation etc?

Historically, the % of women that were able to reproduce is something like 90%+, while the % for men was in the low 20s or something. At least from now on it seems that women will "become equal" to men in regards to biological dread.

How historically is this, caveman era with harems?

I have not (yet) seen any relatively modern stable society where 80% of men don’t have children. Having that many men with not much to lose would, presumably, be a destabilizing force.

[flagged]

It's still very rare even in Islamic countries. Look at this map.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-...

It's basically just Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and sub-Saharan west African countries that have >1% rate of polygamy and only the African countries that have more than 5%. Not exactly the most stable countries.

There’s an argument that monogamy is a requirement for what we’d consider a stable society, specifically for that reason.

There are so many factors at play and even when we try, we can only control for a minority of them. The average measured quality of life has gone down for everyone. A little steeper for women than men, yes, here are just some alternative seemingly plausible partial causes for that:

- The patriarchy is still here, but we now expect women to have a career while simultaneously taking care of children.

- Decades of hypersexualized media put the emphasis on sex during dating over caring relationships.

The age math sucks for women too. If she wants a career she has a short window to get experience and find a spouse before she gets pregnant.

If she wants a doctorate she has to be married before she enters the workforce.

She has time for maybe 1-3 long term relationships before she ages out of childbearing age.

So yes women have more options but they also have less time to pick the right one.

> In the "good old days" dating was simpler

"I am eighteen years old, have a good set of teeth, and believe in Andy Johnson, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the 4th of July. I have taken up a State lot, cleared up eighteen acres last year, and seeded ten of it down.

My buckwheat looks first rate, and the oats and potatoes are bully. I have got nine sheep, a two year old bull, and two heifers, besides a house and a barn.

I want to get married. I want to buy bread and butter, hoop skirts, and waterfalls for some person of the female persuasion during life. That’s what’s the matter with me. But I don’t know how to do it."

https://dustyoldthing.com/ad-looking-for-wife-in-1865/

The "of the female persuasion" part is where I burst out laughing. Apparently cringe is timeless.

> besides a house and a barn.

Still did better than most in the dating pool today.

This has Dwight Schrute energy written all over it

And yet women’s happiness has declined since the 1970s: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intel...

It turns out greater choice and rising expectations are an increasing burden on one's psyche. Many of our lives are much better on many objective measures, yet we're more and more unhappy. We're optimizing for the wrong things.

This is the worse kind of antifeminist argument. "Women say that they prefer the modern world to a more patriarchal system, but actually they are wrong and really would prefer the old ways."

You’re assuming that “women” asked for the full package of changes we ended up with. I’d argue that their focus was more on being able to vote and being able to have bank accounts, and the sexual revolution was driven more by liberal men than by a broad coalition of women: https://blog.ninapaley.com/2019/08/23/andrea-dworkin-on-the-... (“Norman Mailer remarked during the sixties that the problem with the sexual revolution was that it had gotten into the hands of the wrong people. He was right. It was in the hands of men.”). The package of changes was “women get to be able to act like men, in the workplace and in dating,” without regard to women’s distinct realities and preferences in both spheres.

More over, the disconnect here isn’t between what “women” want and what they say they want. The disconnect is between the beliefs and attitudes of a minority of elite liberal men and women, and the average woman, especially the average non-college educated woman.

>guys have up their game as a consequence.

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?

The "six feet" women are a small and ever thinning slice of society, if this is a problem you might want to adjust either your targets or your social circle.

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.

Quite a polarized way of considering the two sexes, as well as needlessly antagonistic towards contemporary males. They did not have a hand in the defects of a society that once was. Furthermore, two wrongs do not make a right.

Ordinary guys getting married to ordinary women = 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.

What if they want nothing at all? As in, women naturally aren't that attracted to men but through historical male domination, women's level of attraction has been mostly irrelevant historically.

Women preferring taller men will not go away because its desirability is rooted in biology. Taller men make women feel physically safe. Unless culture reconstructs how women view safety in sexual selection, this will continue to be the case.

> but there is something to the 'she'll have her fun with bad boys then settle down with you in her 30s

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.

> 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.

How do you even know about the other person's history? I have no idea how many partners any of my dates and significant others have had. Could be one, could be one hundred, I don't care. I never ask, I got never asked about it, and would find it both weird and concerning if my current partner wanted to know.

>How do you even know about the other person's history?

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.

> 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 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.

>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.

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.

The "she'll settle down in her 30s" is the wrong part of this plan. Women on her 30s fastly become lower on the totem pole than even men were in their early 20s. Girls should be taught that, but nowadays its a faux pax to tell the biological truth to people. The same should be explained to boys: it will get better when your life starts to come together in your late 20s. It would make the lives of a huge percent of the population, both male and female, a lot happier.

This is not secret information, people are just not likely to perfectly time the market (just like in financial markets).

Who doesn’t like to believe they are on an upward path so maybe they will be able to do better?

Then they should be taught earlier to get wealthy and successful first, not married, and be ready to buy when timing the market.

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.

Everyone knows that too. But obviously, everyone is not going to be wealthy, and everyone is not going to be “successful”, especially by their mid to late 20s.

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.

Strongly agree! At least if you’re wealthy/successful and alone, you have options, and is better than being poor and alone (imho). Relationships should be complimentary, not a critical component in one’s survival.

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]).

AI Waifus are about to solve that problem, and women are going to be the most negatively impacted.

Expect attempts to regulate out this industry led by mostly women’s groups.

> AI Waifus are about to solve that problem, and women are going to be the most negatively impacted.

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.

I have a very hard time believing heterosexual women are going to be negatively impacted by AI waifus. Thinking such things is a strong indicator one needs to go outside and touch grass.

No, AI relationship apps are more popular with women than men, because the main fantastical part about fictional men is that they're good writers and emotionally expressive.

I don’t know. Women could benefit from companionship of chatbots also.

I’ve worked with a number of 35+ year old women who think they will get married and have kids.

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.

Then a substantial portion of them become bitter and offer bad advice to younger women encouraging them follow in the same path, because misery loves company. Or because the sour grapes mentality has them conclude that they never actually wanted kids and their lonely spinster alcoholic lifestyle is actually what they wanted; they tell people they're happy and are models to be emulated. They set up a new generation for failure to validate themselves.

This is false. Many women conceive and give birth at 37, 38. In some rare cases even later. If you only want one or two kids, this is doable.

37 is a tight window if you meet someone at 35. And it’s still risky to both mother and child:

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.

Some can but most won't. https://images.theconversation.com/files/53777/original/2yc4...

>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. Every woman who decides to have one or two 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. China, Japan and South Korea have been below replacement so long their populations are now rapidly shrinking. Where are all these immigrants supposed to come from?

No one is obligated to have any children, let alone three. The population growth rate should have absolutely zero influence on your decision to reproduce.

People who have failed at relationships by 35 probably also bad at them or have other negative qualities. The pool isn’t great for men or women.

Men who have to have the “glow up” in their late 20s are going to spend that time acting ultra misogynistic to try to take revenge for their earlier life of being rejected. Seen this exact dynamic happen too often in SV circles. Billy the beta is usually not happy to be billy the beta, and given an opportunity, even billy will prove he’s had a latent fuckboy in him the whole time.

I watched American dating on recent trip. Even as a spectator sport, it’s enthralling.

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.

Yes that’s true. Dating wasn’t that great for me in my 20s - five foot four, decent job, in great shape physically (part time fitness instructor), somewhat outgoing.

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

5'7 here. Can't imagine 5'4. Good work.

Zoomer women will be progressive as hell political in how they claim to vote, but the moment in turns into interpersonal relations, they turn into eugenicist facists (six feet, six inches, six figures).

Dating is clearly impossible and hating women is the bestest and smartest course of action. All the couples you see around you must have something you lack. Give up and drop out already. Everybody eventually dies so everything is pointless anyway.

Geez.

You should get to know more women instead of crafting fictional models in your head.

That’s because tinder makes them think that those people are in their dating pool. In reality those men will happily sleep with them like they did with the 50 other women but aren’t interested in more.

Also 200k is the new 6 figures, 100k doesn’t cut it anymore

Exactly. They always talk about men as if we're all losers, and women are perfect.

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.

Well, considering that on these apps (and likely in the general population) men want to be in a relationship more than women, it's almost irrelevant what women should do to improve, there's already a brutal competition for them.

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.)

> men want to be in a relationship more than women

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?

Okay, maybe want is not the best word, but consider the lengths men go to get dates, get laid, to propose, etc. It would be hard to untangle the biological drive from the social pressure. (Plus then there's still the mix of desire for sex and for long term relationships.)

The problem I see is that we have seen progress for women in this space, but not for men.

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?

yes although you can be in your 30s and subsidize your bad boy lifestyle and persona to the 20s women and ignore the “now I’m ready to settle down” older woman. its even more fun and attractive if some women felt out of grasp in your 20s.

in fact you can do this in your 40s, 50s, 60s

as long as you don't fall on hard times

The interesting fact is that most most men are "below average" "bad" partners according to how women perceive men (I don't remember the exact numbers but it is something ridiculous like only 5% of men are worth considerations).

This is a joke made on Seinfeld, about men and women, 30 years ago.

The statistics is from a study. I don't remember the original but here's what google suggests «women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium.» http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/11/17/your-looks-and-...

I guess 80% in 2009 is better than 95% that I remembered.

Try tallying the men you think are above bar on such a site on a female profile and see how it adjusts your thinking

I guess that's the result of watching television for 4-5 hours a day, where every actor/actress is super humanly handsome. This changes your baseline, and makes guys/girls in the real world ugly by comparison.

That does not explain why men and women rate attractiveness so differently. Both men and women watch TV and consume media.

I hate that stupid OK cupid article because what is always missed is that it's not always the same set of guys for all women. Almost no guy was overwhelmingly considered attractive or unattractive by women. Women are picky, but what they are interested in about men varies widely. Men are are the opposite of that. They have a very liberal acceptance criteria and it doesn't vary much between men. This makes perfect sense from a biological perspective. Men want to have sex with as many women as possible. They don't have much pressure to be picky. Women can only be pregnant so many times, so they're very picky, but that pickiness would definitely vary because what would be an ideal partner would vary based what they have going on in environment and genes.

It didn't miss that. It just changes nothing. Women can be as varied as they like but if all that variance is falling within 20% of men then it's still pretty whack which is the point.

So sure one woman could pick x number of guys and another could pick a completely different set y. If x+y is only 20% then it means nothing. If anything, it just makes things worse for any individual guy.

In real life, you're way overstating the variance anyway. I think you kind of see that yourself when you use qualifiers like "overwhelmingly attractive".

The women selected by modern Hollywood as sex icons are, for the most part, nothing special. There are at least three women working at my local grocery store that make Scarlett Johansson look like a hag. They're more beautiful than anybody I've seen in a movie in many years, and I've seen hundreds if not thousands of women like them out in public.

I know these sort of tastes are subjective, but I've talked to a lot of guys who feel the same way. The women in media are mid, most women who are young and physically fit can match if not greatly exceed the looks of women in media. However I acknowledge that women themselves often do not feel this way; they compare themselves to the female celebrities and feel bad about themselves even though most men would rate them higher than the celebrities. They rate themselves lower than men would rate them because media is toxic and purposely makes women feel insecure to sell more beauty products, lifestyles, etc.

What you have realized is that attraction is more than just physical beauty. There are plenty of non-verbal and biochemical cues that generate attraction. That's why you find these women in real life more beautiful than women on screens.

It's why the article linked in the root of this thread was even written.

Human attraction happens best in person because there is more to it than just looks.

I understand that, but it's also true just in terms of physical beauty as well. Hollywood women are nothing special, not anymore anyway. There are no more Audrey Hepburns in Hollywood. Hollywood's beauty standards for sex-icon women have severely deteriorated.

Charitable explanation: Hollywood has become better at selecting for acting talent instead of beauty.

Uncharitable explanation: Fewer Hollywood casting directors are straight men.

Because women are more picky. Men choose quantity over quality :P For a man any reasonably good looking, reasonably slim woman is good as a potential sex partner (so they will swipe right on Tinder). Women want the best of the best.

There's also something to be said for women that read a lot of romance novels or fanfics and have warped "love maps". Probably not a big % of the population, but it changes the psychological waters of relationships with them.

My other favorite: men (in media) who are doing things ultra creepy/illegal, but given a 'pass' because "omghot". Twilight: "older guy lurks around high school girl's home, peering in her bedroom window at night". Fifty Shades: "guy stalks young college student to find her address and work, and steals her car".

(Don't even start me on the whole Christian Grey character, which will forever go down as one of the most over-the-top 'perfect male'. Let's see: 33 year old man is deca-billionaire in telco after coming from foster home. And it was so effortless to become said deca-billionaire that he also found time to become a commercial helicopter pilot, a concert pianist, someone who doesn't break a sweat cranking out Michelin-tier meals for idle snacks and brunches... and looks like an underwear model.

I will add "Time traveler's wife": "Naked man in the bush talks to a little girl, knowing that he'll marry her some day"

But the effect is not the same between genders.

It doesn't matter what women rated men on okcupid because "rating men" is not a useful outcome of a study. It costs nothing and doesn't mean anything.

‘You are telling me that 95% of the population is complete undateable?’ ‘Undateable!’ ‘Then how are all these people getting together?’ ‘Alcohol.’

Never tell me the odds.

> For the first time in history, women have the economic independence to walk away from a bad deal, and guys have up their game as a consequence.

I see variations of this statement all the time. This weird, almost gleeful misandry masquerading as a historical perspective. It needs to stop. It has poisoned all our interactions and it is hurting people.

I feel like anyone who feels this way should sit and talk to the older women in their lives and ask themselves would they want that. I've talked to happily married women in their 60s and 70s and I hear nothing but abuse and more abuse. I watched my mom and aunt fall into poverty when they got a divorce and have the marry the first man that seemed decent to keep their kids fr starving. My unmarried aunt is dissatisfied by never having children and never marrying, but she's always have independence and never been hit and never worried she would be homeless. When I consider old spinsters vs old married people well, it makes think I'd rather be a spinster if I can't find a decent guy. Of course there are true happy couple in there but they are so few it really makes me grateful no fault divorce exists.

For me, I dated a lot of men. Sometimes we're not a match, but a lot of the time these guys seemed angry I didn't need them. One guy actually became physically abusive when he came over to my house and saw how much nicer I lived than him. We'd been dating for weeks. Another guy, dumped me for paying for a whole date. Another guy, withdrew his interest upon learning my profession and considering I'd definitely make more than him whatever I made.

You know the advice female relatives give me? Hide how much I make. That is the state of heterosexual dating. It's where my friend who is a self made millionaire gets asked by her boyfriend when she's going to become a housewife so he can marry her. Women aren't perfect, but there's definitely got to be some kind of change for men as a collective. I know some great male partners, but I also know that they're out weighed by so many men I know personally.

I was with you until this part:

> Women aren't perfect, but there's definitely got to be some kind of change for men as a collective. I know some great male partners, but I also know that they're out weighed by so many men I know personally.

This is a bit like saying: “White people aren’t perfect, but there's definitely got to be some kind of change for black people as a collective. I know some great black folks, but I also know that they’re outweighed by so many blacks I know personally.”

(I suspect that this is the reason your comment has been downvoted.)

I'd be quite happy marrying an affluent woman as it means I'd have at least a potential chance of leaving corporate tech and having the time to write a novel (which is all my childhood self ever wanted.)

I think guys who are intimidated by successful women have a ton of growing up to do, clearly. Surely it would be amazing to be with someone ambitious and intelligent?

This was really interesting to read. I believe everything you said, but I have never met anyone like what you are describing. I only get complaints from friends that women expect them to pay for everything on a date.

I don't know anybody that complains that their wife/gf makes more than them. It's pretty rare, but those in that position are very grateful for the freedom to work lower paying jobs with higher satisfaction.

Yeah but would you date/marry a house husband? If you are earning big bucks you kind of need someone to stay home and take care of the kids/house/laundry/dinner etc. For one most mothers never trained their boys for that role but even if some did would you seek that man out for dating? I would guess not, so it’s an adverse selection problem with adverse results

I would. I'm intensively jealous of the women I know who have nabbed one. The issue is the one time I found a supposed homemaker guy he was still the same kind of abuse and stopped cooking/cleaning. It was kinda galling. How are you gonna threaten me with physical violence and I pay for everything and now I'm even cooking and cleaning every day please.

That is a very short term view. It’s essentially ‘Uber driving for relationships’.

Those same women will then complain bitterly when they get older or become a single mom, and no one pays attention to them anymore and have to start actually doing the work.

Like an Uber driver whose car has been worn to a nub with zero equity in anything, still living paycheck to paycheck, and no new skills. But 10 years down the tubes, and they never had to work for ‘the man’, and saw a lot of cool stuff.

The social construct of marriage tries to even this out - that ‘crummy’ man stays around and provides in many ways (social, financial, physical) even after she’s no longer hot and ‘marketable’. And who will help support and protect her while she has kids. The things that make them ‘crummy’ is exactly what is needed to support all that.

It’s the social/relationship equivalent of a retirement fund/pension. It’s not exciting up front.

Pay in now, (and keep him around) so you’re not eating dogfood in 20 years and have kids who can help you too. Instead of being terribly lonely, mentally ill, and then dying alone and getting eaten by your cats.

Which society has also been nuking social safety net wise, much to everyone’s likely long term regret frankly.

It’s folks losing the plot society wide. It’s how we end up with a lot of very sad stories later.

> Which society has also been nuking social safety net wise

If you mean "marriage with no possible divorce is a social safety net", then I have to protest that "safety" is pretty relative here. It's a system with absolutely no safeguards against the husband (or wife) becoming abusive or violent, especially if your society is patriarchal enough to encourage honor killings.

I meant pensions/retirement.

Nothing is perfect of course. Lots of pensions destroyed/raided, and retirements screwed up by greed too.

And going crazy in the other direction marriage wise definitely has very real downsides too!

I’d be curious to see how the majority of cases went though, overall.

We’re discovering the downsides of going too far in our current direction now, and I suspect this winter is going to be a doozy.

We currently are getting the worst of both worlds near as I can tell on both fronts (men and women), but it often gets worse before it gets better!

> Pay in now, (and keep him around)

Wow there’s so much to unpack here. We live in a world that is largely heterosexual and monogamous, meaning it takes two to tango. If there’s a bunch of women ending up single, then that necessitates about an equal amount of single men too. The “bitterness” will be bourne by both fronts equally, and the “hot and marketable” comment cuts both ways.

Rather than play the blame game and make gross uber analogies, It’s worth pointing out why some people would rather be single. Is it because they’d rather not be in unhappy marriages? If so, the focus should be on how to improve marriage for both parties.

Is it because on top of needing to have a career, they’re also expected to shoulder much of the burden of raising kids? Let’s think of how we can make it more fair to everyone, or work on supporting parenthood as a society.

> Wow there’s so much to unpack here. We live in a world that is largely heterosexual and monogamous, meaning it takes two to tango.

Is it really?

The world may be largely monogamous and heterosexual, but is that the case for Westernized societies? I remember reading stats on how native Western EU cultures rank highest in terms of infidelity and divorce rates, with Luxembourg enjoying a massive 40% divorce rate. The world may be monogamous, but I doubt that's only because repressive Old World societies are propping it up.

Costs became unmanageable and out of reach for the average folks once women entered the workforce, essentially doubling the supply of labor overnight. This could have been balanced out with men not being looked down upon for staying at home with the kids (although that raises more questions, considering men weren't really biologically wired for the task).

There's a reason most rich families have mostly stay-at-home wives/moms even today. The man earns the dough, while the woman stays home or works a very chill job, while her primary focus remains the house and the family (including its finances, social standing, kids - which tends to be a very high amount btw, etc). And in my experience, the ones that aren't structured this way tend to fall apart quickly.

> I remember reading stats on how native Western EU cultures rank highest in terms of infidelity and divorce rates, with Luxembourg enjoying a massive 40% divorce rate.

The entire country of Luxembourg has a smaller population than most big cities, with only slightly more than half of that population having the Luxembourgish nationality. It’s hardly representative for “native Western EU cultures”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography

It seems Portugal and Spain rank at the top for divorces (80%+!), followed by Luxembourg, then Russia and Ukraine. The EU average is 45%,just like the US average.

‘Crossing the streams’ with social roles is also an issue of insecurity. Which we can all point fingers at people and say ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’, but people don’t work that way.

I’ve personally seen women get really distressed when they see an actual good male parent (better than them, it appeared) with kids.

And I’ve seen the same with men (to the point of aggressive harassment) with a women who were better than them at ‘manly’ stuff, like welding/fabricating, or car repair.

All of them denied it, but for anyone paying even a little attention it was pretty blatant.

As a side note - it may be worth reframing ‘the world being largely monogamous and heterosexual’ to something more like ‘societies strongly enforcing monogamy and heterosexuality’.

Anyone who has ever spent any time in a gay club can report that many/most of the other patrons were heterosexual/monogamous too. At least until they entered the club.

Society doesn’t exist for long without a supply of children, and has very strong incentives to enforce certain behaviors.

These factors all interrelate, as does interpersonal expectations, societal roles, etc.

What you’re pointing out, IMO, is that expectations and roles aren’t realistic. People keep stepping on each others toes, fighting to justify themselves, burning out, etc.

But then, there have always been the ‘confirmed bachelors’ and ‘old maids’ no? It would be interesting to see the percentages over time however.

One thing that is easily confirmed by data and just by looking around - older, established men have no shortage of ‘market value’, as do young pretty women.

Also, there has never been a time where raising kids or stable long term relationships was easy, or when there was no abuse somewhere.

Without gender misbalance and polyamory you can’t assign a higher “market value” to either, as an older single woman will also have a single male counterpart. What you’re seeing is confirmation bias.

Nope, many women often have multiple men (and vice versa!), and prostitution is very much a thing.

It’s actually remarkably easy to measure ‘market value’ in these situations.

One can have several sexual partners and still be very much single, so we’re not taking about the same ‘market’.

One can have several sexual partners and still be non single too. It’s remarkably common, actually, among both sexes.

What market are you referring to that you think I’m not?

Ok, your point is? The article is discussing dating and relationships not sexual partners. Your original post was commenting on relationships/marriage as well. How you concluded that this was revolving around sex is unclear.

Look, I’ll reiterate it one more time: For every person who is single, statistically there should be another single counterpart of the opposite sex. That some people choose to stay single rather than get into a bad relationship/marriage says a lot about what it’s like to be in one for one or both parties. It’s worth having some introspection on why this is happening, instead of making gross comparisons and assumptions.

You’re the one making statistically unsound assumptions here. None of what you’re saying has any basis in actual fact.

Plenty of people are in relationships (formal) that don’t have sex with each other anymore. A few never had sex, but are in relationships where the social assumption is they did/are.

Plenty of people (including women) have multiple partners, some long term, some transitory. (Many to one). Sometimes they know of each other. Usually they do not.

Plenty of people have one or more partners of different ages (sex or relationship wise).

Plenty of people have no meaningful relationships (sex or formal) of any kind for long periods of time or ‘anymore’. Often by choice, sometimes involuntarily. I know several men who flat out ‘noped out’ in their 40’s because they got tired of what they perceived as predatory behavior. And at least one woman who did the same. All of them had been married for long periods of time.

Hell, one female sex worker can have anywhere from 20 to 100 clients (monthly) last I read on a regular basis.

It’s not that uncommon for some edge case men to sleep with that many women every couple months. I’m sure they’d be ecstatic if they could be paid for it, but male sex workers predominantly have male clients.

Many people consider things like this to be some kind of dating, or at least related/impactful to it. All of it interplays with relationships. The social expectation is that dating, relationships, and sex are all interrelated.

So what are you trying to say exactly besides ‘that’s all gross so I don’t want to believe it’?

If you think that’s bad, don’t get into the medical field! You won’t necessarily get the truth, but if you have even a decent idea of the STD transmission odds, it’s clear what the lies are!

Here is some data BTW -

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi...

Young men, and old women tend to be single more.

Seems like past 30, very few men stay/are single. Women > 50 start getting single dramatically faster, though I've noticed it often really starts kicking off ~ 40. (Some of this due to men dying sooner than women, and a lot of it later, but if you don't think menopause has something to do with it - you've never had a partner with menopause).

But also notably, women are not often single - unlike young men - until they're really old. Weird eh? Even though there are more women than men in the population by a measurable %.

My observation is that if not stably paired, women have it pretty rough past 30, and end up dating older and older men or 'settling' for folks they never would have given the time of day when younger. Women are also more likely to do 'Mistress' type arrangements.

Men have it really rough when young, until they figure themselves out, and then most of them have it easier (the more money, fame, popularity, infamy, etc. the better) unless they're actively driving women away.

Most homosexual relationships I've seen often end up playing out this same dynamic, but with members of the same gender. The notable exception being 'twins' [https://inmagazine.ca/2021/01/doubling-down-on-boyfriend-twi...], which was always interesting to watch. It wasn't just men either.

Trans, same but with one partner trans (of course).

> If there’s a bunch of women ending up single, then that necessitates about an equal amount of single men too.

A minority of those single men have numerous (sometimes >hundreds) short-term relationships. But far more of those single men have very few or even no relationships at all. I think this disparity is far more extreme for men than for women.

If that upper echelon of single and promiscuous men were socially pressured to stop man-whoring and settle into healthy long-term relationships, then the rest would have better odds. Of course those men will never voluntarily change their ways unless there exists a strong social pressure to change. In the past, this pressure existed in the form of men without partners [wives, but it doesn't have to be wives] being viewed with suspicion if they wanted to attain social standing at work or in their community. This pressure has all-but evaporated into nothingness.

And of course, people lie all the time too. There are a great many men (and women) that do things they would never, ever admit to. Regularly.

I never cheated, but I was very shocked at how much attention I got as a married man.

Take the ring off? Complete 180.

It’s also pretty easy to look at the reported partner counts between the sexes and see that it’s literally impossible that both are true at the same time.

> The best bachelors would be gone pretty quickly. That put a ton of pressure on the remaining women to quickly settle for an average guy in order not to be stuck with a terrible partner

So average women with average men, I don't see the issue. The problem is now a lot of women aims very high, even out of their league, when they don't have much to put on the table.

The average kind of sucks for everyone. Being average single is a lot better than average income family. Raising your average family of 4 on an average 61k salary just seems like hell in any major metro. Better just Netflix and seek other validation.

I agree with you and the person you responded to.

I don't see many men, old or young, doing much to improve their standing as a bachelor, given what is in their control. I've had to do a lot of listening and learning to be a man women would be interested in. Modern male culture in the US typically does NOT do that.

At the same time, I think you're right that women have more power over their life decisions more than ever. This is great and I want that for the women of earth.

Not limited to males. Most people have poor capacity for introspection and self improvement

> I agree with you that many guys today struggle with dating because they haven't done the necessary work to be good partners, but the problem isn't that "contemporary life doesn't encourage self-improvement". The "problem", if you even want to call it that, is that women prefer being single over a bad relationship with a crummy guy. For the first time in history, women have the economic independence to walk away from a bad deal, and guys have up their game as a consequence.

---

What if there actually are plenty of men who have 'stepped their game up' and are perfectly qualified peers to women and would make suitable partners, but the women just have wildly unrealistic expectations?

Or the women just aren't that interested in men in general?

Could those be factors, rather than men just being so beneath women?

Nah. Men who think like that are thinking like victims. Shifting the blame elsewhere.

No one owes you any love, except your family.

If you want to find love or a partner out there, you’ve gotta find it and earn it. It could take a long time, or not happen - but if you aren’t in good shape, don’t have any money saved up and aren’t interesting, don’t be surprised if you end up alone or with someone below your standards.

I didn't say men are owed anything.

I'm saying perhaps a major part of the reason so many men are single is not necessarily because they are lazy losers who refuse to level up like you suggest, but because they can't meet modern women's unrealistic standards or women just aren't that interested in them even after they've leveled up.

Many men can 'level up' to the maximum realistic extent, and still have few women interested in them. That doesn't make these men lazy losers who refuse to put in the work.

I'm not suggesting they are owed a woman for leveling up to the maximum realistic extent, I'm just saying it's very unfair of you to call them lazy losers for their effort not bearing fruit.

I'm baffled that you so easily dismiss the idea in an age in which unrealistic expectations for women is an issue that has been talked about to death.

Yeah but they will fail because they stuck at marketing. It’s like business sometimes you have the right product but you just can’t get it in front of your customers so they actually buy it

> In the "good old days" dating was simpler, but also much, much worse for the average woman. People dated within their town almost exclusively. The best bachelors would be gone pretty quickly.

Honestly, the ability to tell “the best bachelor” without experience together of the type that used to be frowned on before marriage was always weak; what has changed is that the social and economic compulsion/incentive (on both sides) to marry has become a lot weaker and the volume of exposure much greater, and norms limiting the kind of experience that reveals fundamental incompatibility before marriage have weakened.

When you're fresh out of high school and the push is to make a rush for the best bachelor or the cream of the crop in your small town, oftentimes you'd end up with the guy "who peaked in high school", because you only had high school to really go off of. The worst part is those guys were considered the best bachelors, and the "peaked in high school" bit wasn't discovered until later/too late.

If you scored the best girl in high school, you have less incentive to keep improving yourself, so the phenomenon is not altogether surprising.

I don't think things have changed much. Your explanation pretty much blames men which has been in vogue. The dating apps just expanded the size of the "town". Women still look for the top tier guys. I don't believe they are choosing to be single but convincing themselves they can do better when in reality they can't. Dating apps feed the illusion of choice that mr. right is easily obtainable.

I mean they can, kind of. Top tier guys will have sex with multiple women, some of which will be "lower" on the rankings than them. This leads women to believe they are in their league, since they are having sex.

Then time comes to settle down and those guys don't settle with those girls. Cue "Where have all the good men gone?" and "Why are men so scared to settle?". It's the same problem the average male faces, just in reverse.

> quickly settle for an average guy

These are average women too.

I don't disagree with your point, but still: there was plenty of pressure on the men, too, and "many men got stuck in unhappy marriages, but that was life".

Also, early pressure to marry "the best bachelor" often meant "the guy on the football team", "the guy that peaked in high school" (you just didn't know it yet).

Often they were the ones who became the angry alcoholics.

You are confounding social and professional outcomes. Social to me is much more genetic (looks, personality, etc.) than professional. Yes, IQ matters some for professional success. Grit, aka "The Grind" is probably the number one indicator of success. I'm not saying everyone can grind to wealthy, but almost everyone can grind to middle class. And the grind applies to all types of jobs -- professional or not, high income or not, corporate or start-up.

Also, you wrote your post (I assume) from the perspective of a man. Even the most unattractive women on dating apps get far more attention than the most attractive men. This has been shown time and time again. Also, most men are invisible to women, but the reverse is not true. (Do not read this post as disparaging towards women.)

What is really happening is that visual-only dating apps are refining the purest biological imperatives: women only seek the best physical mates (top 20%), where as men pursue whatever they can. As a result, most men get zero attention on dating apps. The craziest irony to me: I grew up before the Internet and dating apps became a thing. RARELY did I hear women talk about finding an attractive mate. They wanted to find someone compatible and supportive with good long term intentions. These visual-only dating apps have weirdly inverted the world as most women chase the very best men... who treat them terribly, but are very good looking and have a lot of practice seducing women. Rinse and repeat; almost everyone on dating apps except for the very top are much less satisfied than life before dating apps.

The first paragraph put into words what i've always been intuitively convinced of, but it seems difficult to make people understand it who haven't had to live through it.

>Someone who may have been dealt a rough hand in life but is trying very hard to improve themselves, including their social skills, their emotions, their health/fitness, their career prospects - all of which will lead them to becoming better romantic partners over time - can find themselves getting little support and encouragement along the way, and indeed can get a lot of discouragement from some quarters (including friends and family members).

What makes you think so?

> contemporary life

what you describing is human nature, the reality of it that people won't tell you directly.

i don't think it's just something modern, most people have always been superficial, judgemental, tribal and so on.

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