The Eligible Bachelor Paradox
slate.com
slate.com
have each man propose to the i'th woman on his list (if he's not currently matched, otherwise he does nothing). the woman accepts if she's not matched yet or if the man ranks higher on her list than the previous guy she accepted.
if you think for a moment you can see (and prove) that this equilibria favors the men.
Also curiously enough, this exact algorithm is used to match med students with residency programs
Seriously the only thing to gain by being married is saving a few bucks on taxes.
And you lose pretty much everything else. Every single married guy I know is MISERABLE. The sex pretty much stops within the first couple of years. And the woman gains mega weight, because now that they "got" you, they don't need to keep in shape. And then the whole bitchy wife comes out treating the guy as a second class citizen.
Marrying an American woman is pretty much the worst decision you can make. If you really want to get married, go find a nice European girl to marry, unlike American women, at least they know that marriage is not a one way street.
Yep. It's an utterly broken system where the wife can decide she's not into her husband any more and walk away with half of his shit.
Every single married guy I know is MISERABLE. The sex pretty much stops within the first couple of years. And the woman gains mega weight, because now that they "got" you, they don't need to keep in shape.
I think this is far from universal. You seem to know some really unhappy married people.
It seems like this is more often the case among less educated couples who marry too young.
Marrying an American woman is pretty much the worst decision you can make. If you really want to get married, go find a nice European girl to marry, unlike American women, at least they know that marriage is not a one way street.
Why European? My observation is that E. European, Asian, Latin American, and African women are around the same level of quality: very high, because the educated women from those areas are cultured and would be at the pinnacle of refinement by the US standard. Next is W. Europe, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest. Urban sophisticate and minority American women are probably at the same level as Pacific NW ladies: not bad, and not nearly as bad as the reputation of American women would suggest. However, the suburban-bred office cows, raised on Sex and the City and burned out on college casual sex, are at the cellulite-ridden, lumpy, bottom. They're the ones who give American women a bad name. In truth, you can find quality women anywhere, even in the US... it's just much harder in some places.
There seems to be a criticality situation regarding the number of decent women in a given nationality. What might be at root a 2% shortage (in quality American women vs. men) blows up, on account of some sort of a positive feedback loop. The advantage conferred by the shortage causes (some) women to become spoiled, which further erodes the quality of the women, leading to more shortage, and so on.
that is gold :)
I would say that, whatever the term is, it should evoke the image of a middle-manager petty tyrant who takes his emasculation (both in the home/family sphere, and by nature of his being subordinate to upper management) out on his underlings.
"Ohhh, ohh yeah, that's terrific..."
But consider this scenario. There are a group of farmers, who only know how to plant food X. For one reason or another, food X starts tasting bad. Then, the farmers discover a food Y in the vicinity, and decide to eat that instead. Meanwhile, they still only know how to plant food X, and they also don't know what is really causing food X to taste bad, nor where or how food Y appeared, and why it tastes better.
In this case, who can really excuse themselves, claiming that they are really an unfortunate victim of unexpected food spoilage?
This strategy reminds me of: we need energy; drill oil; oil dries; find new; repeat.
And never have I read someone talking about this, at least in regards to a sustainable society.
>>Every single married guy I know is MISERABLE. The sex pretty much stops within the first couple of years. And the woman gains mega weight, because now that they "got" you, they don't need to keep in shape. And then the whole bitchy wife comes out treating the guy as a second class citizen.
You do seem to know an awful lot of extremely unhappy couples. That's not my experience at all. For example, my parents are in their fifties and still have sex 3+ times a week, a fact I wish I didn't know. I know many other very happily married couples.
Obviously, my anecdotal evidence is just as useless as yours...I don't see how we can generalize that there is nothing to gain by being married.
The divorce rate is 50%...but the failure rate of startups is even higher. Starting a startup and failing can also ruin you financially and burn you out -- should we then assume that it is a stupid idea to start one?
>>Marrying an American woman is pretty much the worst decision you can make.
I am not an American girl, though I recently moved to the states. I am European myself -- and I have met just as many cultured, intelligent, kind American women as European ones. Why do you hate American women so much? Perhaps by "nice European girl" you are imagining an especially submissive woman? Perhaps your experience with American women only extends to suburban princesses and soccer moms?
Either way, I can assure you that your explicit hatred of American women ensures that you will never meet one that you will like.
I'm not sure it is. When you see a high figure like 80% quoted for small companies failing, that's mainly due to restaurants. Serious startups founded by serious people rarely fail. (Getting acquired by a public company is like staying married your whole life.)
The failure rate of relationships is very high. If you date 20 people before getting married, that's a 95% failure rate. But it's still worth it.
My guess (although I don't know vaksel at all) is that he is reflecting somewhat on his parents marriage.
I only say this because my parent's marriage was often so. While my mom has settled a bit with age, while I was growing up she used the threat of divorce as a weapon to settle arguments with my dad. She also tended to make stupid financial decisions (running up $8k in credit card debt on clothes when she had no job and without my dad knowing she even had a card) from which he would have to bail her out.
I often struggle with this innate fear I have that marriage means signing away all my earnings and being constantly treated as a child by my wife. For this reason I tend to choose extremely independent girlfriends, and ambition is one of my top attractors.
Compare the difference between your friends who are successfully married and unsuccessfully married (in your eyes) and determine what the difference between those guys are. I guarantee you it will be equally as insightful as comparing their wives.
I'd guess that the men who are successfully married have retained an equal share of dominance in their relationship and the unsuccessful ones are essentially pussy whipped because they never stood up to their wives for fear of ending up single.
I know a lot of unhappy men, not couples. In those relationships women seem to be fine. Why not? They sit on their asses doing nothing, while the man works his ass off trying to get the relationship humming again. Do I know some happy couples? Sure,but most of those have the european wife who wasn't raised on sex and the city.
Except the startup thing is your own doing and you know what you are getting into. With divorce, it can come out of nowhere, when you least expect it. And do you think taking a risk at 25 to do a startup is the same as losing everything you worked for at 30, 40, 50? At least with a startup there is a payoff at the end of the tunnel, with marriage you either gain nothing or lose everything.
Well maybe its just my personal experience, but the European girls seem to bring a lot more to relationships than the American girls. And its not a submissive thing, its more of a willingness to work things out.
The thing you need to realize is that the way the woman behaves when she is single or dating, is COMPLETELY different from the way she behaves when she is married. She doesn't need to hide who she truly is, because with the divorce option on the table she hit the jackpot. You think any of my friends would have married their wives if they acted the same way they act now? Hell no....hell one of them married his wife for the sole reason that she supposedly enjoyed having sex and couldn't get enough. That lasted exactly until they had their first kid, at which point she completely cut him off. The other, married his wife because she was supposedly the nicest girl he ever met, with that one she acted like bridezilla before the wedding, and seemed to have forgotten to turn that off afterwords.
Its not a hatred, its realism. I'll date American women, no problem. Because during the dating phase, they act just fine. The problem is, that for most of them its just an act until they tie the matrimonial knot, at which point the real them comes out, who you are stuck with.
Where I come from, it is taken as common knowledge that you should live together for a significant amount of time before getting married (2+ years is usual). Also, big extravagant weddings are not the norm -- most of my immediate and extended family got married by signing papers in a courthouse, or in a small ceremony at the most.
>>She doesn't need to hide who she truly is, because with the divorce option on the table she hit the jackpot.
I find this surprising also. From what I hear, divorce is terrible for everyone. I can't imagine that so many women marry into a relationship they don't expect to maintain (emotionally and sexually), especially with the way love and marriage are so glorified in the US.
I'm not sure about judges of character, but most of the guys dated their wives for 3-5 years and lived together for at least 2 years.
Divorce being terrible, mostly goes to the idea that the 2 people will end up hating each other. But its much more terrible for guys, who end up losing everything they worked for.
Yes, most women don't marry with idea of a divorce in mind. But its too juicy of a consolation prize, not to keep in mind when the relationship hits the rocks. Yes the idea of marriage is glorified in the U.S. and its part of the problem. It convinces people that all you need to do is get married, and the relationship will prosper all by itself
>>They may hate sex, but they do it
I don't know ANY women who hate sex itself. Perhaps the man has gotten lazier as well, in regards to sex?
>>They go to the gym...if they become a fat slob the guy will leave
Women's bodies are not the only ones that deteriorate. Are all of the men of your acquaintance perfectly fit as well? Furthermore, many women's bodies change in unexpected ways after childbirth...it is entirely normal to take up to a year post-breast feeding to recover, and that is provided that the women has time away from the child to exercise.
>>They act nice
As another woman on the thread mentioned, it is not only women who can be petty in relationships. Her "bitchy" behavior is almost certainly at least partially the husband's fault.
Perhaps the husband began working more hours, which combined with childcare, left the couple no time to be together?
It cannot be denied that marriage is hard. But it is far from impossible, and far from unsatisfactory when done properly. However, it takes work on both sides to maintain and adapt. I am not denying that the woman causes problems of her own, but relationships are rarely broken just by the fault of one person. You are probably getting a biased account because you are hearing it from the husband's perspective. Their wives may have things to say that would surprise you.
No idea, but I do know that one guy hasn't gotten laid in 5 years, and the other only gets sex on big occasions like his birthday. The rest just bitch that they don't get as much as they used to.
The main ones: One I know is in the shame shape that he was in when they got married. The other one has actually gotten better since he hides from the wife at the gym. The other ones aren't as close friends so I don't really know what they looked like when they got married but most of them are in decent shape. Recovery thing also doesn't apply, since those are the older friends so they had their kids 3-4 years ago.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I'd side with the guys in this situation since I know for a fact that they've been the ones trying in the relationship.
Nope still same 40 hour work weeks.
I disagree, if one person tries to fix things, while the other does nothing, its the one who does nothing that is at fault for relationship deteriorating.
And yeah I may be biased towards my friends, but I met the wives too and honestly I haven't seen an ounce of contradicting evidence in how they act towards their husbands.
Welcome to suburban America, where premarital sex is akin to treason against God, and the average wedding costs $20k.
I find it shocking and very telling fact about internal dynamics at most American families. You would think losing your job calls for your partner's support, while it seems to me that for significant number of American men losing a high-paying job likely means losing the family too.
Once you lose that salary, the woman has less incentive to put up with a marriage she is unhappy with. If people will marry someone just for the money, I don't find it much of a stretch to assume they will stick together as long as the funds keep flowing.
Consider a couple that is living together. They might be unhappy, but bearing it anyway because they have a lease and moving out and separating all your stuff is a pain in the ass. However, once that lease comes up for renewal, suddenly the burden of breaking up isn't so heavy, which might be just enough to make it happen.
What I was proposing for marriages->jobs is analogous.
This behavior just reminds me of the concept of a philosophical zombie. They seem to make the choice not through conscious thought but through unconscious programming.
I'm about to get divorced from my wife (we have discussed it and it will definitely happen, but we want to figure out asset distribution, child care, etc before we file Collaborative Divorce): I mention this to offer perspective.
The sex never stopped -- we're splitting up and still had sex three times in the last 24 hours (guys never seem to figure out that most women want sex as much as they do and if she loses interest, it's almost certain that he is part of the reason). My wife is sometimes bitchy but is not at all materialistic. She can be a royal pain in the ass, has a lot of bad habits and can be excruciatingly annoying at times. BUT SO AM I!!! This is the part he's missing: from the woman's perspective, these guys are probably just as bad. So "she can divorce him and take half his stuff." Did he get that stuff while they were married, sharing expenses, etc? Is it possible that it's actually reasonable that she have a proportion of what they acquired together? No, of course not, it's "his stuff." Waah. I can't take all my toys and go home!
The reality is that it is extremely rare for a long term relationship to end completely due to the faults of one person.
It's a lot easier to blame your life on someone else than it is to look inward and see the flaws in yourself.
Now let the downmods begin :-)
I'm very interested in, comparatively speaking, the pros and cons of marrying an American man. If a society produces X kind of stereotypical woman, we may look for a Y kind of stereotypical man, which would be what?
The only thing an American male has going for them in Europe is a foreign accent, currently being American is a con not a pro.
I've known many nice, intelligent and attractive Americans (both male and female) so I disagree with this point, but I'm sorry to say it's a common stereotype and not entirely inaccurate. It doesn't help that most tourists from America that I've met in Europe are very ignorant of everything.
I saw an American couple in a bistro in Paris getting the bitchiest treatment I've ever seen from a Parisian waiter, I've never even known them to be rude to a person before. I know where the stereotype is from though, they didn't know a single word of French and expected the waiter to know perfect English because they couldn't understand him speaking English. Well I get the same waiter, I try ordering in French and the man all but refuses to let me speak it and addresses me in English, reading me the specials and giving me better service than I ever had when I visited the USA.
Honestly, the French are magnificent waiters and polite to everyone if you show them respect. Even just saying bonjour and they'll be polite because you acknowledged the fact that you're sat in the heart of Paris and that they're French. The only rude person I met in 2 weeks was in a little cafe-restaurant on Boulevard Garibaldi, it was the Chef and I was trying to work out what he was saying because he wasn't even French so his accent was bizarre and after like 30 seconds the owner of the store came out back and started apologizing in perfect English.
Do all men stay in shape their whole marriage? Is pettiness always limited to the female partner? Please.
I work hard, I have always worked, and every woman I know works (aside from the ones still in school). I pay money to my ex-husband, NOT the other way around. Who are you, and how dare you?
What I feel is lacking, and very much so, is the other side of the perspective. (and by that I don't mean by merely pointing out that opinion is disrespectful; I mean by showing evidence for the opposite of the opinion)
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat2.pdf More than half of women work, and while that number is lower than the percentage of men who work (74%), it's hard to tell from the data presented whether or not advanced age affects the numbers.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/fa... Out of 49 million women between the ages of 21 and 44, there are only 5.4 million stay-at-home moms (98,000 dads, possibly not including the temporarily unemployed).
Honestly, I don't feel like debunking everything. I feel like the onus is on me to disprove specious claims, rather than the other way around. It's akin to arguing with a creationist.
Unless you have their balanced checkbook on hand to prove me wrong, I sincerely doubt any mom is spending all the money on herself. Working mothers don't have the freaking time to spend a whole paycheck on themselves, especially with their husbands hiding at the gym, leaving the bulk of the housework and childcare to her. No wonder these women don't want to sleep with your friends.
And yes they are spending all the money on themselves, they can do that, since their husbands cover all the other expenses.
I've been well-aware of the low average quality of American women since college. In high school, I expected them to have horrible tastes in men (pro-meathead jock, anti-smart guy) because that's what the movies told me was "normal" for HS. Actually, HS was not nearly as bad as I'd been led to anticipate. It was the realization that women's tastes didn't improve when I went to an elite college that led me to think something might be rotten in America. A semester abroad confirmed that there really is a difference in the average quality of women, and that the US comes up short.
However, this is an incredibly diverse country, and I live in New York. So, although the average quality might be low, it doesn't need to affect me and, since college, the problem has never prevented me from having a solid dating life in spite of it. Amazing women are definitely out there.
So I find that its easier to date, at least that way when you both grow tired of each other, you don't lose half your stuff in the divorce.
No. New York is very diverse. This city's so big that I don't even know what the average quality is, but it doesn't matter; you can definitely find good women here-- including women who've never been corrupted by mainstream American culture, on account of having grown up elsewhere. Of course, there are also the disgusting, materialistic Sex and the City sluts, but if you're not an idiot, you can avoid them.
Not that it doesn't exist, but its more of a needle in a haystack problem.
If you know what you're doing, you can get the low-quality women to reject you pretty quickly. (You'll get rejected a lot.) Don't try to impress them by playing the infantile games that attract low-quality women (e.g. pretending to be aloof to project high status) and don't buy them shit.
The strategy a lot of men use to get laid is to play to the lowest common denominator. It works for racking up a lot of casual sex. It sucks for finding a marriage partner. It's like trying to make an ice sculpture using a battle axe. Keep your sets of habits separate and, if you can't do that, then play it straight and don't fuck around.
Some friends of mine went to Europe and came back with 10s, all of them. The most shocking thing they told me was that to talk to women there...you don't even have to have anyththing, you can just be you
Unfortunately, I learned too late. For all the young college guys out there having a hard time, take heed. You get a dilution hit cashing out now, just hold onto your stock and ride it through. Time is on your side.
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the Pacific Northwest?
For all the young college guys out there having a hard time, take heed. You get a dilution hit cashing out now, just hold onto your stock and ride it through. Time is on your side.
Nice way of putting it.
There was also a completely irrational market and bid up of low quality stuff due to shortages. The attitudes are proportionally high-maintenance. It is a very bad place for a young man to be. Avoid it at all costs. The only place I can think of that could be worse is possibly silicon valley.
As far as the Pacific NW, I don't know much of it and what the prevailing attitudes are. I'm guessing the distance from NY can't be a bad thing and you are more likely to run into females with a more naturalistic, feminine affect. Never been there though, so I am not the man to ask.
I'm dead serious about the dilution hit. Something happens around 30 that suddenly puts you incredibly at ease at the same time that the women are getting more anxious. Also, the younger ones (early 20s) start making themselves more available. I can't tell you how many propositions I have gotten from women who wouldn't look at me once in high school. The funny thing is, when you don't need them, the options keep increasing.
Rather than "evidence" I should have said something like, please provide us with priors that may reinforce the opposite belief. That isn't to say that you didn't already provide some, but it was also obvious that you took this personally, which detracts from what we are looking for (balanced priors).
Also, from a purely pedantic point of view (which I often take for its own sake, nor am I really partial to a particular viewpoint), I don't think any of those census numbers debunk anything, if we're talking about how a marriage may be a bad decision.
Nevertheless, there is only one kind of spurious claim going around here: blanket statements. Whomever believes them makes a fool of themselves, but we -- at least I am -- are still interested in hearing more perspectives :)
My suspicion is that his friends probably love their wives, and he's using their occasional and exaggerated venting to support his weird misogyny. That, or he knows the two unluckiest and easily fooled men in the country.
No one with a brain will say that all American women are bad. This country is way too racially and culturally diverse for a statement like that to be valid across the board. It's just much harder to find decent women if your selection pool overlaps significantly with the suburban American mainstream, because that section of society is a materialistic, vapid, and alienating cultural wasteland. Decent women exist everywhere, but the proportions are lower.
I'm married and extremely happy. My wife has a dominant personality and I have a comparatively relaxed personality, I take things much easier yet I learnt from an early age (with help from my father) that you have to establish your boundaries. When my wife is being snappy or pushy I simply say "do not talk to me like that, I do not appreciate it" and I rarely have a problem beyond that.
I know how I should be treated, I know exactly how much respect I should be getting from my spouse and despite being an easy going person I know I have to stand up for myself because if I don't I'll end up a pathetic divorced loser like so many people do.
Edit: I'd also like to add that most of my friends are in stable happy relationships. In fact I'd probably say my friends in relationships are happier than those who aren't, and I simply don't buy the whole 'getting married makes you unhappy' BS people purport.
No reason or need to take what he said personally. He's speaking of his own experience, and not accusing you of anything.
But now you're saying he's a misogynist. He might take that personally, and for good reason.
I don't believe that in every quarrel, both parties are to blame.
But in the months after that relationship I realized that I had at least as much of a stake in the pain as she did.
It's a mistake to think that bitchiness is the only thing that hurts deeply. Neglect and intellectual intimidation and letting my body go were my sins and having experienced the first two myself (from another relationship) convinced me that there are many ways to make someone feel worthless.
Given that we men are humans who are as prone to irrationality, is there any reason why women should think better of marriage than we do?
That is the #1 indicator of a valuable human being.
I'm married and I've never been happier. Since getting married I go out more, spend more time with friends and in fact have a lot more sex than I ever did before I met my wife. Do you even know if your married friends are actually miserable, or is that your assumption from the outside? Do you even know their spouse? Have you ever even spent time out with them when they're out with other married couples? You simply state they're miserable, with quite dramatic emphasis but not even a single piece of anecdotal evidence to back it up. Your comments are entirely clichéd and stereotyped.
Honestly, when I see a bitchy wife I also see a very spineless, ball-less husband. Also for the few wives that gain 'mega' weight, I also see far more husbands who are fat lazy pigs.
Oh and I am from Europe, if American males have problems with American females, they're going to be fucking dominated by European women. The divorce rate is lower in europe, only because it's socially unacceptable and in Italy your wife has the legal right to lie to police to protect an affair! I mean sure, marry a nice Italian girl, they're basically raised that if they're not getting it at home it's okay to get it somewhere else, so yeah don't worry you wont get divorced, but you certainly won't be the one having sex in that marriage either!
Please don't spout BS about Europe unless you actually know the cultures. Every European country has either a near 50% divorce rate, or you simply will not get divorced because your family and friends would cast you out. Losing 'everything' isn't the risk of losing 50% of your monetary value or income, losing everything is when you lose 50% of your money, your family, your friends and every person hence forth who you meet will judge you because you're divorced.
European countries with low divorce rates generally have conservative laws regarding divorce. Spain was one of these. It was financially and legally prohibitive to get a divorce in Spain until 2007. When Spain liberalized its divorce laws, it had the highest divorce rate in Europe almost overnight.
On a side note, the divorce rate in the USA is lower than it has been in 40 years.
I mean "nice european girl" is a fallacy. All the advertising on TV I see from the US uses Europe as an advertisement piece. I mean those BS high-definition sunglasses with 'modern european styling'... I'm sorry, I don't know a single European to wear anything that even looks like it and most wouldn't be seen dead in them. Then there's all the crap named 'Europe's finest', I'm sorry my fruit when I still lived in Europe came from South America!
There's this widely held perception in the US that European = Good, or at least thats what the advertisements explicitly state. It's a completely false perception.
The only problem with Americans is problems Americans caused. I mean the mere fact that Ayn Rand is universally known in the USA, and I'd never heard of her until I took a sociology course and she was highlighted in the US politics section and I believe my sociology teacher said "where america went wrong" after mentioning her politics.
Complaining about it on an online forum merely adds a flashing light to this ensemble.
If every one of your friends married a woman like that, then maybe you need better friends. And you should look at yourself, too, because people are typically friends with people of the same social standing as themselves.
I long for a day when more people realize that while you may think that you're waving a flaming sword of righteousness, everybody else understands that such complaining just means you are too weak to do anything to change it.
Several factors are operating. First, due to a higher death rate among males, the number of women begins to exceed the number of men (of a given age) starting at age 23. Next, there are about 10 times as many men in prison as women. Also, there seem to be rather more gay men than lesbian women. There are far more women in large US cities, where articles like this are written, than men (who are disproportionately rural). then, women like to "marry up", whereas men are willing to marry down.
Now comes the key point. Even a rather small discrepancy between supply and demand in an auction market can quickly drive prices thru the roof, or the floor. Great example: recent oil prices. Back when the economy was going well prices could shoot up rapidly as oil fields became exhausted and development of new ones was blocked. When the economy talked and demand dropped just a few percent, prices collapsed from $147 to $39, or some such. I read his account too quickly to fully follow it, and I'm sorry I can't remember it, but small-supply-imbalances-can-produce-huge-price-swings was the gist of it. Sorry, I don't have the book available to check it.
>> This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed).
I have so many great male friends that are single, and yet I don't know a good looking/smart girl that is single.
This is my major disappointment with the SF Bay Area.
It's probably still a nightmare for single women. I can't imagine that a dive bar with a mid-range computer programmer is on the list of a woman's dream dates.
On the other hand, SF is better than the rest of Silicon Valley.
A 40 year old man can be attractive to 20 year old women, but a 40 year old woman is rarely attractive to 20 year old men.
In other words, women past their prime who restrict themselves to mates their own age will may be in relatively low demand.
or combining folk wisdom and math: d(half your age + 7) / d (age) < 1
However, the fact that men propose and women decide creates an inversion. Early marriages take decisive women and attractive men off the market, leaving beautiful women and schlubs. Hooray for graph theory!
Furthermore, the theory that men are trying hard to marry, and the most attractive ones "succeed" to marry at a younger age, just does not seem to be realistic, especially not in modern society. There are good reasons for men not to marry early.
Case in point: Michelle Obama looked fairly awkward as a teenager, but is beautiful in her 40s.
Wait I think I just did.
What I never understood was the attraction to The Wicked Witch of the Northwest, aka Sarah Palin. She did nothing for me. Moreover, her husband was a secessionist.
If women between the ages of 21 and 25 are interested in (and pursued by) men between the ages of 21 and 35+, while men between 21 and 25 are limited to women who are roughly the same age, then men will face a very difficult dating "market" in their early 20s, and women will experience a favorable one. As men and women age, the inevitable symmetry switches the situation - women between 35 and 40 are now competing for men who are pursuing women between the ages of, say, 25 and 40.
This is something to keep in mind when you hear that the dating world is unfair to women over 35. It's "unfair" to men too, just earlier in life.
According to your analysis a larger pool of men 21-40 are always competing for a smaller pool of attractive women 21-30, so if you're a single male, the ratio is always against you no matter how old you are.
And that's what I'm observing in real life. Perhaps I'm too young, but every public gathering I go to features a disproportional number of guys. And if you subtract overweight people from the picture, the ratio gets downright scary.
And of course, women probably aren't attracted to older men simply because they are older, they're probably attracted to the life and professional accomplishment, maturity, financial resources, and so forth - sorry bruddas, but merely aging is not going to help things here.
On the flip side, the numbers really do start to look grim for single women as they approach 40. A lot of women enjoy the dating scene when they are in their early 20s, get married around 30, and stay happily married their whole lives - and never really feel any of the frustration of being on the wrong side of the dating equation. However, this means that most of the disadvantage gets concentrated onto a fairly small number of women, who basically get the full brunt of it.
I think this one quote from the article is important.
> What they understood is this: as your priorities change from romance to family, the so-called “deal breakers” change. Some guys aren’t worldly, but they’d make great dads.
2nd quote from linked article in original piece - an interesting Lori Gottlieb article entitled "Marry Him!" which I'm considering forwarding to a few of my 30-ish single and still serial-dating female friends (considering the negative repercussions).
"What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime."
I smiled as I read this because that's my exact choice of words when describing what I'm interested in.
I'm beginning to see no point in love - only solid, mutually beneficial friendships.
You can love a friend in that sense to a point, and that may be enough for many people. Obviously romantic love is an entirely different story: irrational and perhaps less efficient than a work partner, but the sort of thing that contrasts and enhances the purely logical.
Love takes that and raises it to the googol'th power. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I am getting divorced. My wife and I sometimes talk about the times when we were head over heels crazy about each other, but what we have now and are trying to maintain is perfectly described as "a solid, mutually beneficial friendship."
The difference is beyond night and day!
> Estimate how many people you’re likely to date in your life, dump the first 37% but keep a photo of your favourite on your bedside table. Then, marry the first one after that who beats your sweetheart! Of course, every rule has exceptions and sometimes you get an offer that’s too good to refuse, 37% or not. Sometimes, mathematics doesn’t have all the answers!
> Using this process, we find that we can be successful in selecting the best from a group of N by letting approximately 37% of the available positions go by, then selecting the first choice better than any seen before about 37% of the time. And this is true no matter how large N is! This is a strikingly high probability.
But, if he is right, then as a man you should be holding out.
I recall reading about some research showing that overweight women actually have sex more often than their peers, which seems to support this theory. (http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2008/10/31/Overweight_women_h...)