I’m completely astounded by the depravity of your rationalizations:
The less attractive man will 'commit' (i.e., have the mindset of a peach), but only because he must, not because he wants to. His commitment therefore cannot be trusted.
If the less attractive man does not supplicate to the more attractive woman - i.e., has a backbone, self-respect, wants a normal relationship and not a power struggle - the attractive woman will grow to resent him. Quote: "hey, you should adore me, I'm above your level".
The less attractive man may grow to resent the woman, after he realizes he was 'settled' upon (obviously). He will then reject the woman, who is left no closer to finding a peach.
The less attractive man may simply use the more attractive women as an 'ego boost' to 'level up' on his future mates. He will reject the woman, who is left no closer to finding a peach.
The less attractive man may grow jealous and possessive of the more attractive woman, as he understands that she is likely an unique opportunity, and should therefore be modelled as a potential threat to the woman's physical safety.
If the less attractive man has the vulnerability to commit, he should be seen as a desperate loser who cannot be trusted.
If the less attractive man has the audacity to want dignity in a relationship, he should be seen as arrogant and insufficiently grateful to be with a more attractive woman.
And if nothing else, the less attractive man should be thought of as untrustworthy (might be using her as an ego boost), resentful (likely nursing a Napoleon Complex) and potentially violent (could try to possess her).
He cannot win.
You have concocted a whole suite of rationalizations which constitute a no-win scenario for the less attractive man. Not an unattractive man – just a *less* attractive man.
You claim women want to avoid lemons and find peaches (which is supposedly based on mentality, not looks), but your suppositions suggests that a man is either a peach or a lemon *because* of his looks.
In other words, an attractive man may or may not be either a peach or a lemon (he needs to be evaluated), but the less attractive man is *always* a lemon (for the reasons described above). There is nothing he could ever say or do or be to change this.
And this is the *men’s* fault.
Did I read you correctly, Tov?
P.S. I note you state the obvious – that softer men are not inherently more respectful, trustworthy, or safe – but you never so much as acknowledge that it works just as easily in reverse: neither is this true for more attractive men.
No, although much of what you write is a good summary of my post, there are a few misunderstandings. My point is definitely not that superficially attractive men are morally better. My point is just that superficially unattractive men are not morally better either. I rather often stumble over the question “Why don't women trade their attractive looks for commitment?” and you listed the answers in your comment: Because marrying a man who is less attractive than oneself doesn't in itself solve the problem of finding a man who is a genuinely good partner. I think there is a reason why pairs tend to be rather equal in looks: Because beauty can't easily be traded for other important things.
»but your suppositions suggests that a man is either a peach or a lemon because of his looks.
Absolutely not. There are peaches and lemons on all levels of looks. I just suggest that a man should not be assumed to be a peach just because he doesn't look good.
With respect though, you’ve assumed rather more than that.
You’ve modelled superficially mismatched relationships (female > male) as inherently volatile and undesirable, due to the putative mania of men who have been imbruted by partnering up with more attractive women. Moral fiber does not appear to be an element in this dynamic, despite your admission that such men may very well be peaches – so there’s a contradiction in your reasoning.
It appears you’ve offered up this theory to explain why women prefer to, and mostly end up ‘dating up’, having decided that hypergamy is unflattering to women.
Question: do you think your rationale make women look any better?
More importantly, is it even helpful to women?
Which is to say, does it help them locate the peaches if, as you say they should do, stack the deck (with these *dehumanizing* assumptions) against all men they perceive to be superficially ‘beneath them’? Once again, you acknowledge that such men are just as likely to be peaches as more attractive men. I mean, what gives?
Your essay tacitly acknowledges that women’s superficial standards have risen beyond a rationale correspondence with the continuum of the male cohort (hence your advice to cap this rise, however tangentially).
If this is how you’re telling us that women (most, all?) are approaching the task of evaluating their male suitors, may I suggest you amend the title of your essay?
I'm not saying that women should avoid marrying down and I'm definitely not saying that they should strive at marrying up. In some female-heavy dating markets, like those of metropoles, they will on average need to marry down.
What I'm saying is that women systematically marrying down to win commitment is not a great strategy.
I don't even deny that women might be too picky on today's dating market. If men say that this has happened and that it happened fast, I find good reasons to believe it.
»You’ve modelled superficially mismatched relationships (female > male) as inherently volatile and undesirable, due to the putative mania of men who have been imbruted by partnering up with more attractive women.
I don't think I'm doing that. What I'm saying is that there are pitfalls to that strategy too. I could easily have written a similar post on the pitfalls on marrying a too attractive man. But since I assume that is self-evident and everybody knows it already, I haven't done that. (Don't marry a super star, girls! Chances are he will feel justified to cheat on you and exchange you when you complain.)
Women are inherently more picky than men. They’ve been this way for all of history. It’s just more evident and more of a problem because now they have more options with online dating.
I agree with most of what you say and genuinely think the issue is that men have internalized bad lessons about asking women out post covid.
There’s… enough men that I know that believe any approach outside the apps is rude at best and harassing at worst.
Gym? Off limits. In public? Off limits. Bars? Off limits if they’re either on their own or in a group. Friends? Off limits, don’t be creepy. Meetup groups? Off limits.
On limits? Speed dating and online dating.
This belief is wrong but I think it speaks to something idk what though
Jeez, well....it seems like maybe we used to have these decent vetting mechanisms when we actually lived in communities, like human beings.
In a normal, functioning community, you could look at the family of the man in question and get some sense of the type of person he would turn out to be. You probably went to school with people who know him - perhaps your siblings know his, or maybe your cousins know his cousins.
The Ted problem could be avoided by having familial pressure placed at key times. For example, when I was a young man, I was also a "nice guy" who wanted to get laid. However, if I had treated women like Ted treated them, my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles would have come down on me like a ton of bricks as soon as they learned about my behavior. The disapproval would have been onerous. As a result, I didn't get laid much, but I did manage to marry a quality woman who was a good match for me, and now later in life I have no regrets about my early lack of adventure, as I get to share the adventure of life with my wife.
This is why large, functional families are so bloody important. They can act as a vetting mechanism to make sure you don't end up with the wrong person, as well as a social enforcement mechanism to make sure you don't dishonor yourself and by proxy your family by behaving badly towards potential mates.
It's all about options as presented thru social media. Women have always had more options.. before SoMed. These were limited to visual in person contact. Now with the dating apps eye.. her options have exploded.
I was married for a long while. I never experienced anything indicating my wife or the women in her social circle were hypergamous.
After my divorce I dated mainly through the apps. I experienced some of the issues men associate with hypergamy for the first time - not every time, but often enough that I could describe general traits and tendencies consistent with such theories.
I never went all the way in on it as a theory of love or the sexes generally, however - I never swallowed the redpill - because I had the counterexample of my first marriage. I also had that of my parents, who were happily married and in love for 44 years until my mother passed away in my father's arms.
Your framing explains my experience and observations of the data, or at least significantly and helpfully advances my theories and understanding. Merci
"Men can be everything from extreme peaches to extreme lemons, and it isn't easy to see who is who."
Seems like there would be an easy way to solve this: community. Men will have reputations, it's not easy for a guy to completely hide who he is for long from those who know him.
What is ironic is that if you look around, this exact method by which women might ascertain this knowledge is considered "creepy" or "the wrong way" to get relationships now. That, I think, is the more interesting story in how and why is it seen as the preferred way to connect is a completely random stranger approaching out of the blue.
This article doesn’t say anything which decreases the importance or relevance of hypergamy to the current dating market. It simply justifies and explains it. Anyone with a good foundational grasp of red pill or evolutionary psych/bio would already know that hypergamy is a feature, not a bug.
That said, I do still think that unfettered hypergamy is a primary cause of current dating woes. Peaches and lemons applies to women too.
I can see why women would want a man like Ted to be content with his fellow homely bride. But women caricaturize how important looks are to men. Yes, they’re important, but hoe_math’s categories of “personality“ and “purity“ make a big difference too, if we’re talking relationships and not hookups. And our feminist gynocentric culture ensures that most women are lacking in these areas. His bride probably got pumped and dumped by the same Alpha Chads that the hotties he was simping for got heartbroken by. And his bride probably sees herself as settling for him, rather than seeing him as being of equal SMV.
And just because a minority of women are on dating apps, doesn’t mean they’re not hooking up. It’s just seen as part of growing up nowadays. And even the pick me’s don’t really understand or sympathize with men beyond a superficial level, let alone the typical woman. The lies of blank slate equalism and social constructionism in a gynocentric order make that impossible.
Is there a minority of chaste, understanding women out there somewhere? Probably, but you’ll never know who they are.
So then it’s a stalemate, right? Uncertainty about a partner’s internal qualities is pushing both sexes to overvalue the certain, external ones, right? Everyone is to blame?
Not in my opinion. The sexual revolution didn’t happen because of men’s lack of commitment or their pursuit of casual sex. What changed was birth control, and their agreeability towards casual sex. Women remain the gatekeepers of sex, in virtually all cases except for the top 4.5% of men that women find attractive enough to pursue. It is these top men, and the majority of women, which together are responsible for the shift towards more casual sex, and the subsequent decline in relationship quality.
"Surveys reveal that men are much more likely to use dating apps than women. Tinder, for example, is estimated to have about 75 percent male users and 25 percent female users. "
To take an even more extreme example, when the Ashley Madison user files were leaked, it turned out that nearly all the users on the site were men. About the only women were hookers and bots, even though women could join and message for free. This was especially underhanded, as men needed to pay to be able to read and send messages.
Anyway, as you pointed out, women don't use dating sites as much as men. Sort like how, a female in heat spreads her scent around. She doesn't need to go looking. The tomcats come to her.
Well I'm referring to attitudes while dating, not how receptive someone is to having sex. I'm also very hetero presenting. In my experience the women I've dated either think it's hot or just don't care. I also mostly date women so I'm pretty sure I'm more attractive/approachable to women than men.
The difference is see between men and women in relationships is in effort and entitlement. Women these days seem to see themselves as a prize and often act like dating is 'for them'. They expect the guy to make the moves, make the plans, put in most if not all the effort in an attempt to 'win them over'. Men, straight or otherwise, simply don't have that attitude.
Yes. My guess is that many women are on the casual or semi-casual dating market exactly because it is possible to have such an attitude there. Numbers are on their side. That probably attracts some women who simply like it where numbers are on their sides.
It is interesting, because it is so unlike the way those of us who were dating 20 years ago were: The general mood was still a certain desperation to be liked.
As a bisexual who has tried dating both on and off apps, women are absolutely too picky. It comes from a culture of telling every women she is a "queen" which is great for confidence building but has led to many women thinking they are more attractive or valuable (in a relationship) than they actually are in reality.
1. Homosexual men are known to be much more promiscuous than heterosexual women. How is it possible to know that it is not just that the men are more promiscuous?
2. How do you know that it is not you that appeal more to men than to women? I'm clearly no expert, but from what I have read, homosexual men tend to have certain tastes (I have read about tastes for dominant men and heterosexual men). Meanwhile, although I have no numbers I believe heterosexual women tend to prefer straight men to bisexual men.
>Those women tended to see Ted as a safer alternative to those macho men who had exhausted them emotionally.
Only a woman could possibly think that being the retirement plan for a used up pseudohooker by being a shoulder to cry on is a W
Keep talking ladies let the worker bee middle class men know they're wasting they're time doing anything but cumming in whatever is open and then deleting number
I’m completely astounded by the depravity of your rationalizations:
The less attractive man will 'commit' (i.e., have the mindset of a peach), but only because he must, not because he wants to. His commitment therefore cannot be trusted.
If the less attractive man does not supplicate to the more attractive woman - i.e., has a backbone, self-respect, wants a normal relationship and not a power struggle - the attractive woman will grow to resent him. Quote: "hey, you should adore me, I'm above your level".
The less attractive man may grow to resent the woman, after he realizes he was 'settled' upon (obviously). He will then reject the woman, who is left no closer to finding a peach.
The less attractive man may simply use the more attractive women as an 'ego boost' to 'level up' on his future mates. He will reject the woman, who is left no closer to finding a peach.
The less attractive man may grow jealous and possessive of the more attractive woman, as he understands that she is likely an unique opportunity, and should therefore be modelled as a potential threat to the woman's physical safety.
If the less attractive man has the vulnerability to commit, he should be seen as a desperate loser who cannot be trusted.
If the less attractive man has the audacity to want dignity in a relationship, he should be seen as arrogant and insufficiently grateful to be with a more attractive woman.
And if nothing else, the less attractive man should be thought of as untrustworthy (might be using her as an ego boost), resentful (likely nursing a Napoleon Complex) and potentially violent (could try to possess her).
He cannot win.
You have concocted a whole suite of rationalizations which constitute a no-win scenario for the less attractive man. Not an unattractive man – just a *less* attractive man.
You claim women want to avoid lemons and find peaches (which is supposedly based on mentality, not looks), but your suppositions suggests that a man is either a peach or a lemon *because* of his looks.
In other words, an attractive man may or may not be either a peach or a lemon (he needs to be evaluated), but the less attractive man is *always* a lemon (for the reasons described above). There is nothing he could ever say or do or be to change this.
And this is the *men’s* fault.
Did I read you correctly, Tov?
P.S. I note you state the obvious – that softer men are not inherently more respectful, trustworthy, or safe – but you never so much as acknowledge that it works just as easily in reverse: neither is this true for more attractive men.
No, although much of what you write is a good summary of my post, there are a few misunderstandings. My point is definitely not that superficially attractive men are morally better. My point is just that superficially unattractive men are not morally better either. I rather often stumble over the question “Why don't women trade their attractive looks for commitment?” and you listed the answers in your comment: Because marrying a man who is less attractive than oneself doesn't in itself solve the problem of finding a man who is a genuinely good partner. I think there is a reason why pairs tend to be rather equal in looks: Because beauty can't easily be traded for other important things.
»but your suppositions suggests that a man is either a peach or a lemon because of his looks.
Absolutely not. There are peaches and lemons on all levels of looks. I just suggest that a man should not be assumed to be a peach just because he doesn't look good.
With respect though, you’ve assumed rather more than that.
You’ve modelled superficially mismatched relationships (female > male) as inherently volatile and undesirable, due to the putative mania of men who have been imbruted by partnering up with more attractive women. Moral fiber does not appear to be an element in this dynamic, despite your admission that such men may very well be peaches – so there’s a contradiction in your reasoning.
It appears you’ve offered up this theory to explain why women prefer to, and mostly end up ‘dating up’, having decided that hypergamy is unflattering to women.
Question: do you think your rationale make women look any better?
More importantly, is it even helpful to women?
Which is to say, does it help them locate the peaches if, as you say they should do, stack the deck (with these *dehumanizing* assumptions) against all men they perceive to be superficially ‘beneath them’? Once again, you acknowledge that such men are just as likely to be peaches as more attractive men. I mean, what gives?
Your essay tacitly acknowledges that women’s superficial standards have risen beyond a rationale correspondence with the continuum of the male cohort (hence your advice to cap this rise, however tangentially).
If this is how you’re telling us that women (most, all?) are approaching the task of evaluating their male suitors, may I suggest you amend the title of your essay?
I'm not saying that women should avoid marrying down and I'm definitely not saying that they should strive at marrying up. In some female-heavy dating markets, like those of metropoles, they will on average need to marry down.
What I'm saying is that women systematically marrying down to win commitment is not a great strategy.
I don't even deny that women might be too picky on today's dating market. If men say that this has happened and that it happened fast, I find good reasons to believe it.
»You’ve modelled superficially mismatched relationships (female > male) as inherently volatile and undesirable, due to the putative mania of men who have been imbruted by partnering up with more attractive women.
I don't think I'm doing that. What I'm saying is that there are pitfalls to that strategy too. I could easily have written a similar post on the pitfalls on marrying a too attractive man. But since I assume that is self-evident and everybody knows it already, I haven't done that. (Don't marry a super star, girls! Chances are he will feel justified to cheat on you and exchange you when you complain.)
Women are inherently more picky than men. They’ve been this way for all of history. It’s just more evident and more of a problem because now they have more options with online dating.
That Ted story is depressing btw
I agree with most of what you say and genuinely think the issue is that men have internalized bad lessons about asking women out post covid.
There’s… enough men that I know that believe any approach outside the apps is rude at best and harassing at worst.
Gym? Off limits. In public? Off limits. Bars? Off limits if they’re either on their own or in a group. Friends? Off limits, don’t be creepy. Meetup groups? Off limits.
On limits? Speed dating and online dating.
This belief is wrong but I think it speaks to something idk what though
Dating apps made women picky. Women know that they can not date for years, and then fire up Tinder and have a huge amount of options.
Also, people do what the people around them do. Women increasingly were single and childless, and this encourages other women to do the same.
"Wherever they went on dating apps, there were hotties outrightly dismissing men who are not tall high-earners. "
The problem is that it isn't just the "hotties," but seemingly ALL women are dismissing men who are not like that.
That short story reminds me of some things:
1. Men really do more emotional labor than women do, it is just expected of men, and men are not allowed to complain about it.
2. Women are usually not worth being friends with for men. They just expect emotional labor, education, and entertainment.
But I like my woman friends
They’re nice to me and enjoyable to be around. They have good advice and are fun to hang out with.
I like them 🥺🥺
Jeez, well....it seems like maybe we used to have these decent vetting mechanisms when we actually lived in communities, like human beings.
In a normal, functioning community, you could look at the family of the man in question and get some sense of the type of person he would turn out to be. You probably went to school with people who know him - perhaps your siblings know his, or maybe your cousins know his cousins.
The Ted problem could be avoided by having familial pressure placed at key times. For example, when I was a young man, I was also a "nice guy" who wanted to get laid. However, if I had treated women like Ted treated them, my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles would have come down on me like a ton of bricks as soon as they learned about my behavior. The disapproval would have been onerous. As a result, I didn't get laid much, but I did manage to marry a quality woman who was a good match for me, and now later in life I have no regrets about my early lack of adventure, as I get to share the adventure of life with my wife.
This is why large, functional families are so bloody important. They can act as a vetting mechanism to make sure you don't end up with the wrong person, as well as a social enforcement mechanism to make sure you don't dishonor yourself and by proxy your family by behaving badly towards potential mates.
Atomized individualism is a damned disaster IMHO.
Give women welfare for their bastards/ divorce rape and they will use that freedom to slut around with 6ft tall chads.
It's all about options as presented thru social media. Women have always had more options.. before SoMed. These were limited to visual in person contact. Now with the dating apps eye.. her options have exploded.
I quite like this framing.
I was married for a long while. I never experienced anything indicating my wife or the women in her social circle were hypergamous.
After my divorce I dated mainly through the apps. I experienced some of the issues men associate with hypergamy for the first time - not every time, but often enough that I could describe general traits and tendencies consistent with such theories.
I never went all the way in on it as a theory of love or the sexes generally, however - I never swallowed the redpill - because I had the counterexample of my first marriage. I also had that of my parents, who were happily married and in love for 44 years until my mother passed away in my father's arms.
Your framing explains my experience and observations of the data, or at least significantly and helpfully advances my theories and understanding. Merci
"Men can be everything from extreme peaches to extreme lemons, and it isn't easy to see who is who."
Seems like there would be an easy way to solve this: community. Men will have reputations, it's not easy for a guy to completely hide who he is for long from those who know him.
What is ironic is that if you look around, this exact method by which women might ascertain this knowledge is considered "creepy" or "the wrong way" to get relationships now. That, I think, is the more interesting story in how and why is it seen as the preferred way to connect is a completely random stranger approaching out of the blue.
This article doesn’t say anything which decreases the importance or relevance of hypergamy to the current dating market. It simply justifies and explains it. Anyone with a good foundational grasp of red pill or evolutionary psych/bio would already know that hypergamy is a feature, not a bug.
That said, I do still think that unfettered hypergamy is a primary cause of current dating woes. Peaches and lemons applies to women too.
I can see why women would want a man like Ted to be content with his fellow homely bride. But women caricaturize how important looks are to men. Yes, they’re important, but hoe_math’s categories of “personality“ and “purity“ make a big difference too, if we’re talking relationships and not hookups. And our feminist gynocentric culture ensures that most women are lacking in these areas. His bride probably got pumped and dumped by the same Alpha Chads that the hotties he was simping for got heartbroken by. And his bride probably sees herself as settling for him, rather than seeing him as being of equal SMV.
And just because a minority of women are on dating apps, doesn’t mean they’re not hooking up. It’s just seen as part of growing up nowadays. And even the pick me’s don’t really understand or sympathize with men beyond a superficial level, let alone the typical woman. The lies of blank slate equalism and social constructionism in a gynocentric order make that impossible.
Is there a minority of chaste, understanding women out there somewhere? Probably, but you’ll never know who they are.
So then it’s a stalemate, right? Uncertainty about a partner’s internal qualities is pushing both sexes to overvalue the certain, external ones, right? Everyone is to blame?
Not in my opinion. The sexual revolution didn’t happen because of men’s lack of commitment or their pursuit of casual sex. What changed was birth control, and their agreeability towards casual sex. Women remain the gatekeepers of sex, in virtually all cases except for the top 4.5% of men that women find attractive enough to pursue. It is these top men, and the majority of women, which together are responsible for the shift towards more casual sex, and the subsequent decline in relationship quality.
"Surveys reveal that men are much more likely to use dating apps than women. Tinder, for example, is estimated to have about 75 percent male users and 25 percent female users. "
To take an even more extreme example, when the Ashley Madison user files were leaked, it turned out that nearly all the users on the site were men. About the only women were hookers and bots, even though women could join and message for free. This was especially underhanded, as men needed to pay to be able to read and send messages.
Anyway, as you pointed out, women don't use dating sites as much as men. Sort like how, a female in heat spreads her scent around. She doesn't need to go looking. The tomcats come to her.
Well I'm referring to attitudes while dating, not how receptive someone is to having sex. I'm also very hetero presenting. In my experience the women I've dated either think it's hot or just don't care. I also mostly date women so I'm pretty sure I'm more attractive/approachable to women than men.
The difference is see between men and women in relationships is in effort and entitlement. Women these days seem to see themselves as a prize and often act like dating is 'for them'. They expect the guy to make the moves, make the plans, put in most if not all the effort in an attempt to 'win them over'. Men, straight or otherwise, simply don't have that attitude.
Yes. My guess is that many women are on the casual or semi-casual dating market exactly because it is possible to have such an attitude there. Numbers are on their side. That probably attracts some women who simply like it where numbers are on their sides.
More than some and more than just in casual dating. It is a real problem, hence why it's a topic for many men right now.
It is interesting, because it is so unlike the way those of us who were dating 20 years ago were: The general mood was still a certain desperation to be liked.
I agree, it seems completely flipped from the dynamic I saw in my parents growing up.
As a bisexual who has tried dating both on and off apps, women are absolutely too picky. It comes from a culture of telling every women she is a "queen" which is great for confidence building but has led to many women thinking they are more attractive or valuable (in a relationship) than they actually are in reality.
That seems difficult to compare, for two reasons
1. Homosexual men are known to be much more promiscuous than heterosexual women. How is it possible to know that it is not just that the men are more promiscuous?
2. How do you know that it is not you that appeal more to men than to women? I'm clearly no expert, but from what I have read, homosexual men tend to have certain tastes (I have read about tastes for dominant men and heterosexual men). Meanwhile, although I have no numbers I believe heterosexual women tend to prefer straight men to bisexual men.
If even he didn't want them, who would ever want them then?
NO ONE UNLESS ALL ARE MARRIED OFF AT PEAK YOUTH AND FERTILITY AS RHEY USED TO BE
THATS NOT SEXY BUT ITS THE ONLY WAY A SOCIETY CAN FUNCTION SORRY SPAT ON SLUTS GINEYTIMGLES ARENT A GOOD ORGANIZING PRiNCIPLE
>Those women tended to see Ted as a safer alternative to those macho men who had exhausted them emotionally.
Only a woman could possibly think that being the retirement plan for a used up pseudohooker by being a shoulder to cry on is a W
Keep talking ladies let the worker bee middle class men know they're wasting they're time doing anything but cumming in whatever is open and then deleting number