> More than 50% of men just never receive a like, and never means maybe 2 or 3 likes in the lifespan of several weeks
As someone in that more than 50%, it’s very annoying to constantly get told to get on the apps to meet women. I’m surrounded by men in the top 20% because I’m affluent, well educated, and spend a lot of time at the gym. Sadly, I’m just around these people and wasn’t born into the same kind of family. I’m an outsider. I was born poor and ugly. I’ve solved the poor thing but being ugly is incurable. I’m going to Beverley hills next week and getting more surgery to try to alleviate the ugliness but it’s pathetic what a man in his mid-30’s has to do now to even get a single like back on his profile.
Women don’t need men anymore in the developed world. Men are luxury goods and women are completely happy to live without. A man isn’t needed but merely wanted and only wanted if he fits a very particular set of criteria.
> Women don’t need men anymore in the developed world. Men are luxury goods and women are completely happy to live without. A man isn’t needed but merely wanted and only wanted if he fits a very particular set of criteria.
I’m not accusing you of being an incel (I’m really not trying to be sarcastic). But this has some real incel vibes.
Are you a 2 only trying to date 10s?
And I am not looking down from you from on high. I’m not wealthy. I’m doing okay. I’m definitely not tall. In my younger dating days I was in great shape (a part time fitness instructor) and if I weren’t out there as one of the few straight men without any feminine tendencies (is that a PC thing to say?) in a industry mostly with women and gay men, I wouldn’t have fared as well.
But I wasn’t 5 foot 4 trying to step to a 5 foot 10 supermodel.
They probably are literally involuntarily celibate.
Women in the west are choosing, quite reasonably, to hook up with the top 20% of men and ignore the rest. I'm not saying that as a blame thing - I don't blame them, I might make the same choice in their position. But the result is that the bottom 80% of men have practically no options - and no, lowering their standards doesn't help, it's not a problem of having potential partners they don't want, it's a problem of not having potential partners at all. I wish we could at least be honest about this rather than victim-blaming.
Yes I know that not all women are heterosexual. But I also didn’t include women who are in a heterosexual relationship but are not living with someone.
It’s statistically impossible for only 20% of the men to be in a relationship or having sex.
> 61% of women in the US are married or cohabitating and that doesn’t include those who are dating.
> It’s statistically impossible for only 20% of the men to be in a relationship or having sex.
That's a backward-looking number though. Look at how fast the lines on your link's graph are dropping, and what that implies the rate might be among the newest cohorts.
> Among those ages 25 to 54, 59% of Black adults were unpartnered in 2019. This is higher than the shares among Hispanic (38%), White (33%) and Asian (29%) adults.
Many people don’t want to get married until they are financially stable.
(On a side note: I had no idea that there was such a disparity between Black weslth and White wealth and I’m Black).
Ignoring race, but males aren’t doing as well financially as in the past and they may have something to do with them dating less and getting married less often.
While the previous commenter's numbers are exaggerated, the data from articles like this (and a decade ago, from okcupid), consistently shows stark asymmetry between the dating preferences of men and women - to the disadvantage of men in the "bottom" 50%. Before marrying, most of those 61% of women dated other men, and likely with a strong skew towards the top 20% as claimed.
I finally get a chance to pull this obscure study out of my back pocket. It supports your thesis. I’m short by the way and married for the first time at 28 and the second time at 38 (still married). Short men are never in the top 20%.
Tall men were found to marry sooner in life, but were more at risk for divorce later on, as shorter men had more stable marriages. However, researchers note that the link between short men and stable marriages could be because they chose to marry later (or didn't have the option until later).
Tall men were also more likely to marry women closer to their age, and who were better-educated.
> Women in the west are choosing, quite reasonably, to hook up with the top 20% of men and ignore the rest.
Ive been living abroad the past few years and it was night and day. in america, intimacy was a rare thing. outside the country, I've had zero issues finding partners who I find extremely attractive. Some of my well meaning friends back home warn me that they are "only interested in money" but I've never spent more than a meal at a decently priced restaurant for two. My current gf is significantly hotter than women who reject me back in the states and the only expensive thing about her is her love of instax photography. (that film ain't cheap, learn from me and do not get one of those cameras for your gf)
TLDR: if western women arent' interested in you, do everything you can to be able to sustainably live outside the bubble.
This kind of advice only works if you’re not interested in a woman who works. You’re not going to be getting an ambitious woman from abroad and bringing her back to the US. Most of those women would already be in the US if they were interested in such a path to begin with.
> This kind of advice only works if you’re not interested in a woman who works.
Personally, I don't want a woman that works because I travel and I'd rather she travel fulltime with me. However, in my experience, latinas and asians are some of the hardest working women you'll ever meet. They seek out education and a lot of them want careers. they just arent' super entrepreneurial. Thats more about the culture they come though. people in the third world get drilled into their heads the importance of getting the right certifications. Once you get that shrink wrap off, you'd be surprised how many do start thinking about starting their own businesses.
> Most of those women would already be in the US if they were interested in such a path to begin with.
I couldn't disagree more. most latin people dont' wanna come to the united states. they value family and community more. Besides, the united states is notoriously difficult to come in legally. I'm trying to get my gf a visa and the application process requires a full interview, a year of waiting AND a nonrefundable fee. its not a surprise to me at all that people try to come in illegally.
How much of what you want is really representative of what an average American man wants? You want to travel fulltime, probably don't want kids, and are okay with a woman regardless of her income.
It's a very niche target you're aiming at. Most people want kids, most people want someone who works, and most people don't want to travel fulltime. Your advice really seems tailored to you and no one else.
> Your advice really seems tailored to you and no one else.
not at all. yes I have specific needs in a partner but there are plenty of women in colmobia, mexico and elsewhere that would be happy to live in the united states and start a family. my partner and I discussed it and she's happy to do so when the time is right. She's young enough that we have plenty of time.
by all means, if you like the attitudes of american women, go for it. but if you're a good guy and jsut can't seem to be valued by them, I also suggest getting out of the country and seeing what you can find. even if things dont work with my partner, I personally would never date another american woman. I wont say why because I would rather not get downvoted.
He wants a wife that will be both attractive, loving, AND pulling in a $500k+ salary.
While I personally think it’s a pretty bad way to live life and I more agree with your overall stance (my wife is American but she is second generation immigrant from an Asian country and I can quite appreciate the difference in culture you are hinting at, thankfully she grew up with strong values from her parents more consistent with the ones of a first-generation immigrant like myself), I admit it’s going to be hard for him to fit the last requirement with someone from abroad (it still can be done though).
My speculation is that he comes from certain cultures that tend to be extremely aspirational, and given his looks and general transactional attitude he is going to be extremely disappointed in the long term, and he is robbing himself of precious years of love, affection and meaning chasing silly pursuits like cosmetic surgeries to improve his dating odds.
But I agree that if he wants all those requirements he probably should look for someone who is already a professional in the US.
> He wants a wife that will be both attractive, loving, AND pulling in a $500k+ salary.
And if she has all of that, why would she date “down”? She can pick anyone she wants. I don’t know anything about the parent commenter. He said he was “unattractive” and I assume lacks self confidence. I’m in no way trying to criticize him.
And if he were born “poor” (again his words), he probably still comes across as someone who has “imposters syndrome”. Women can smell someone who lacks self confidence a mile away.
I didn't put any of those specific requirements out there. I've said a professional working woman. If she made $500k+/yr, that'd be very nice but I don't think that's even remotely plausible for someone of my looks. I've known several women who fit that criterion and all have expressed that I'm way below their looks threshold. Women at or above that income tend to get exactly what they want from a partner. I've yet to meet one that is lacking in great options.
Overall, I'm interested in a more balanced relationship. I want to be involved in my children's day-to-day life and be a present partner as well. I can certainly make enough on my own to afford a $3m mortgage, private school for the kids, and so forth. I've already done it but it has a great cost in terms of my time and energy. I'm not interested in a transactional relationship where I'm used for my financial resources. I don't want someone to be with me due to their reliance on me for financial support either. I've been in that situation already and it's not fun to question whether someone actually loves you or just loves your ability to spend money on them.
I'd rather be with someone who genuinely loves me for who I am and can keep up with the demands that living in the bay area requires. I come from an incredibly poor background and don't expect someone to be where I'm at but if they can't even afford to support themselves adequately with their own labor in some place like NYC or SFBA then we're going to be incompatible.
You also said that you would want a wife who could have your back it you lost your job and help pay $20K a month mortgage for a $7 million dollar home.
I hate to tell you. But really attractive women don’t have to work.
Do you realize how hard is with the price of childcare to have a woman who works and have kids?
In my circle of professionals, most wives with small kids don’t work and even many of the wives that do work, the husbands can afford for them not to work. One entire income goes to things like college funds, investments, vacations, etc.
But you said in another reply that you made $700K and you really still need to worry about having a wife that works or her income?
I’ve travel full time for a year when I was making $225K with my wife and next year we plan to travel at least through the summer.
Honestly, after you get a certain age, a lot of American women expect you not to need them to work.
So I was downstairs at my hangout spot at the bar where I’m good friends with the bartender. A group of us started talking and this 45 year old lady who was attractive, a lawyer, multiple paid off properties, with two small kids going through a divorce and she was saying if she gets serious about someone, it would have to be someone who could pay all of the bills so if she didn’t want to work, she didn’t have to.
But if she did work, her money was her money. She would use it to buy for her kids, help her family (aging parents mostly). Her husband shouldn’t expect “her” money to be used for household expenses. Funny enough, I have a cousin who is in her early 50s also a lawyer with her own practice, divorced with two grown children and a 14 year old who feels the same way.
She wants to be able to stop working. You would be surprised at the number of self sufficient American women who really don’t want to work.
For me personally, I’ve been married since I was 38 and my wife was 36 and we agreed for her to stop working when I was 46 and she was 44.
First I didn’t want her working during Covid in 2020 and then after Covid we started traveling a lot including a year of doing the “digital nomad” thing flying one way across the country. I had just gotten a job that was paying 7x more than she was making.
She has her hobby/passion projects that bring in a little money. But that’s about it.
As far as I know, you're also not spending $3m+ on a home. Even at $700k/yr income, I still need another income to afford a decent bay area home unless I want to live on the absolute razors edge. It also means that if I lose my work, we're completely fucked and I better find another job very fast. That $20k/month you gotta pay for the home ain't gonna disappear on its own.
I too could live in a world of not needing a wife with any income if I chose to live in BFE or moved to Thailand. However, I want to raise my kids in a decent community with ample opportunities and be in a region where I have a good amount of career options rather than being tied into the singular (low-pay) employer that exists within the region or be stuck in remote-hell.
Then don’t live in the Bay Area? I make less than a 3rd of that and live in a nice condo with multiple bars in walking distance - including one downstairs, restaurant downstairs, multiple pools, two gyms. Max out my 401K and HSA and we have over a dozen trips planned this year including a few to see family. But most just to check things off of our bucket list. We are flying out to Las Vegas next week just for concert.
I didn’t make over 200K until 2021 at 47 and I have had two nice houses built over the years, we just bought our condo three years ago.
There is an entire United States outside of the Bay Area and there is a such thing as remote work.
The median home price in the US is $410K.
I had my second home built in north metro Atlanta in the “good school system” in 2016 - 5 bed/3.5 bath/3100 square feet for $335K and sold it last year for $670K.
Funny enough, in 2020, an Amazon Recruiter reached out to me about as an SDE job that would have required me to relocate after COVID. Even with the $100k more than I was making I could have negotiated, I couldn’t have reproduced my lifestyle in Seattle.
I did keep talking to the recruiter and they suggested I apply for a “permanently remote”[1]/“field by design” role at AWS Professional Services based on my background. It only paid $55K more. But allowed me to work remotely and a year later, we moved to state tax free Florida saving more money.
[1] As of this year, even the “field by design” roles have an RTO mandate when they aren’t on a customer’s site. Luckily I left in late 2023.
> I also means that if I lose my work, we're completely fucked and I better find another job very fast. That $20k/month you gotta pay for the home ain't gonna disappear on its own.
You’re really thinking that statistically the chance of you finding a spouse who has an income that can support your budget if you are out of a job is likely?
Guess how little I stressed when I got Amazoned in 2023? I didn’t need to chase BigTech compensation to be comfortable.
My Plan B was a regular old Enterprise CRUD job. I’m now making around what I did at AWS working (remotely) at a third party consulting company. There are some remote jobs out there. At some point, I’ll probably try my lot as a “fractional CTO”.
BTW, when I was living in Atlanta in 2020 with the big house in the burbs in the good school system, our total budget including our mortgage was around $8000. I only put 3.5% down to have it built.
> I too could live in a world of not needing a wife with any income if I chose to live in BFE or moved to Thailand
You don’t need to move to Thailand - just out of the Bay Area.
Again, your lifestyle might work for you but it doesn't work for everyone. What you want is to travel a lot and nowhere do you mention anything about kids. If you're wanting to make sure your kids have every option available, they need to have the option of feeder schools like Harker. If you're serious about providing options to your kids, you're gonna have a hard time getting away from these very expensive regions and therefore needing a high income that most remote options won't provide.
If I didn't give a shit about the future of my kids, I could live in BFE or travel a lot too.
How’s your lifestyle working out for you right now? Are you happy?
Don’t you think it is strange that you make $700K a year and can’t find the same sort of contentment that many have making literally 20% of what you make?
Guess how many kids lead fulfilling lives without getting into prestigious “feeder schools”.
Do you really want your kids to also be chasing money and status like you seem to be doing at the expense of their happiness?
Your fallacy is thinking that all of these kids are miserable. I know a lot of these children and they're very happy. They work reasonably hard in school but then after they get out of school - everything is so incredibly easy. They went to the right schools from an early age which allowed them to get into target colleges which lead to target jobs and good marriages from college or from being in the right social circle (which target school+job allows).
It's mostly people like me who have grinded to high incomes that are the miserable ones. We have had to struggle at each step and had no one to help us at any point in our journey. I struggle to meet anyone with my background in any of the social circles I'm in. (In fact, I never have)
They're welcome to go down different paths. It's about giving them the options from an early age. I never had the option to go to an Ivy League (which would've made my life such a joke in comparison) because I was born into an incredibly poor and unknown area.
> Are you happy?
Don’t you think it is strange that you make $700K a year and can’t find the same sort of contentment that many have making literally 20% of what you make?
You are worried about your potential children being “happy” when you can’t find anyone to procreate with to create children. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
You’ve worked hard, make good money and still seem to be miserable. Just maybe the answer isn’t money?
I am French, not American so I may not get all the subtleties, but for me this woman is simply an egoist or is looking for financial support in exchange for something.
Pay for me with your money, but what is mine is mine.
I think we’re going through a cultural shift. Looks is becoming the most important thing across the board. Most people won’t meet your partner but they’ll see them on social media. You need someone you feel proud about and secure of. On top of this, women are becoming more superficial than in previous years due to relationships being luxuries.
If a man was a solid laborer, upstanding citizen, and otherwise a dedicated family man - he would’ve done alright in certain periods of our history. But now, that’s not really that attractive. Women are much more susceptible to shifting societal trends. You can see this around the world. As women become more online, marriage rates plummet.
We’re moving further and further away from meeting your partners in real life. It’s going to be an uncommon way to meet in the future and what we will find isn’t that everyone just meets online - it’s that most people refuse to be together overall.
Ugly by most standards is simply not being desired by anyone. You don't have to be an acid victim like two-face to be ugly. I'd say someone is definitely ugly if you swipe on a few hundred average looking people and get zero matches back.
> if you swipe on a few hundred average looking people and get zero matches back. That's ugly.
What's ugly is using an anemometer to measure a distance. I mean, using number of matches in a dating app, to measure uglyness. Dating apps are products designed by psychologist and built by engineers to generate frustration and make people pay, not to serve as a measurement stick of the average person's attractiveness.
Dating apps are utterly broken. Don't do that to yourself, or to anyone.
Meeting women in the Real World through common acquaintances. That's where the moat is.
Do you think if a non-profit open source dating app existed, with a sizable userbase, results would be different for the average guy?
People are quick to blame the greedy for profit business model, and I'm sure that has something to do with it, but with women swiping left on 95% of profiles (according to the article) it's hard to imagine designing a dating app that changes the math meaningfully. No matter the business model, you're not likely to turn that 95% into 75% or 50%.
I don't think so, because there are more factors. For example, that women are extremely much more picky in apps than in real life. That's something that a FOSS product wouldn't solve, because it's a behavioral thing.
Let’s say that you meet a few hundred average women in real life and none express physical attraction to you. I’d say you’re still ugly.
Meeting single women in real life through acquaintances is pretty uncommon. Most of the women I meet through friends aren’t single. For good reason, most men burn their bridges with eligible women and most women have no interest in showing you to their friends.
The only person who ever introduced me to any women was a very kind gay man and it was abnormal even for him. He really reached for me but both women rejected on the spot due to their lack of physical attraction.
Can confirm from personal experience. Do not even think of installing Tinder as a male with intention not to pay. Tinder with platinum is frustrating enough for a male. In revenge, every relationship initiated with gold and platinum I threw out to the bin after some sex.
The article says it all: paying is the losing strategy.
> Likes received [by men] have a positive impact, but it is very light, which is a good thing from a monetization standpoint (you can make guys pay and not show them to anyone; they will keep paying, just a bit less than if they received likes. [...])
I can confirm. Payed once for a whole year, and got absolutely buried. Went from a decent rate of interactions to 2~3 likes (not matches) per week. And after the premium period ended, exactly on that same day, the previous rate of likes was restored! That's how I know they were intentionally not showing my profile around to other users.
Taking revenge on other users because of the predatory design of a dating app is, sincerely, disingenuous, childish and even irresponsible. Just stop using the bad product and try to cultivate real connections with people out there.
I’ve experimented with both. Neither really values where you come from and what you’ve accomplished. What they care about is what you’re going to do for them.
In my case, I just happen to care about what they’ll do back because I’m not interested in super imbalanced relationships.
I think most people feel entitled to a romantic relationship in their life, and they're going to do whatever they need to do to attain that, regardless of whether or not you think it's "entitled".
You're not entitled to a relationship is the fact of the matter. It should be treated with respect and not as something you are owed.
You know why? Because the man or woman on the other end of it is a person with a whole lived experience, feelings and capacity for love. They deserve better than some bitter resentment at never getting something you were "owed by destiny".
I think pretty much everyone deserves to be in a relationship for the same reason I think everyone deserves to learn how to ride a bicycle, or read a book, or learn to swim or have a friend or get a job. It is simply an experience that I think everyone should experience at least once in their life.
People aren't entitled to a relationship? In what sense? Legally? sure. The fact of the matter is that on a basic level, most people expect to find love in their life. And whatever institution that interrupts most people from achieving normal life goals like having a decent-paying job and having a normal relationship will either be torn down or will tear down society with it, whether it's AI automation of jobs or dating apps or whatever.
I am also a human being with an entire lived experience, and I am done with people like you belittling me. I have my own goals, and I am going to achieve them regardless of what people like you think. Is that entitled? So what? A lot of my difficulty in dating has been building my confidence and overcoming this notion that I don't deserve anything instilled in me by people like you.
I am not resentful or bitter, but I am angry at people like you for misrepresenting my beliefs and presenting your own perspective as "fact", when in fact you are the minority. Most people do feel entitled to a relationship, whether or not they say so.
People say this to feel better about the situation with zero regard for the insidious societal issues it causes. It's absolutely true but it's basically never productive to make a point of it. For your own good and the good of society, develop more helpful insights or don't say anything at all.
Going through life with basically zero romantic opportunities will completely fucking fry the brain of an average human. Sex, romance, etc. are a top psychological priority to ensure the continuation of the species and most people on this planet are hardwired to be in pain in the absence of it. With some luck, people hurting like that hold on to some hope of things changing for them and it provides enough motivation to break even on societal contribution.
If they give up hope, our society is structured in a way that doesn't give them any reason to play by the rules any more. If you're holding down a good job, blow your money on stupid shit; you have no wife to disappoint and no kids feed. If your hobbies consist of jacking off and playing video games (these are super easy, so you should definitely consider them) just half-ass whatever job lets you squeak by on rent if you're not fortunate enough to crash at your parents' place indefinitely. Get super into drugs, you're not really hurting anybody but yourself. Your friends might think you're a fuckup, but they're busy with their family and don't have a lot of free time to spend with you, so you don't have to be ashamed of your situation all that often. 30+ years of no responsibilities other than don't die (and even that part is kind of optional). Gonzo lifestyle. It's all yours, baby. It's lit.
There are people out there that are just plain bitter, unstable, unable to be reasonably loved, and maybe even ugly to boot. There's not much to be done about that. That being said, in the modern era, it is very possible (maybe even easy) for good people to never form any romantic relationship that would tie them into productive society, and turn into burnouts with apathetic, bitter worldviews. "You aren't owed anything and you got what was coming" is not encouraging in the slightest.
As someone in that more than 50%, it’s very annoying to constantly get told to get on the apps to meet women. I’m surrounded by men in the top 20% because I’m affluent, well educated, and spend a lot of time at the gym. Sadly, I’m just around these people and wasn’t born into the same kind of family. I’m an outsider. I was born poor and ugly. I’ve solved the poor thing but being ugly is incurable. I’m going to Beverley hills next week and getting more surgery to try to alleviate the ugliness but it’s pathetic what a man in his mid-30’s has to do now to even get a single like back on his profile.
Women don’t need men anymore in the developed world. Men are luxury goods and women are completely happy to live without. A man isn’t needed but merely wanted and only wanted if he fits a very particular set of criteria.