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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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> 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.

> 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.

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).

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