If you want to talk about society and not just yourself, then your entire analysis is is premised on the wrong idea. You're deliberately nignoring all of the people who are happily married or at least in a relationship and only zeroing in on the miserable few who are not.
This number is going down very fast. There are fewer people in relationships AROUND THE WHOLE PLANET. It's not a 'miserable few' anymore.
That's as objectively true and readily observable as possible.
Was this something you were aware of?
I'm trying to figure out why.
And what can be done about it.
People just want to quibble around definitions and criteria or claim the numbers HAVE to be wrong, without bringing their own numbers.
Gotta be honest, I've thought of every single objection you guys keep bringing up, and when I do the barest amount of research it actually makes the overall picture look WORSE than I thought.
So no, I'm not 'confirming my pre-existing incel worldview.'
My attempts to REBUT it keep making my worldview worse, every time.
And nobody has been able to provide any actual data or reasonable argument to the contrary.
Are you kidding me? You weren’t able to find real numbers
Incorrect, I found the real numbers a year ago. I linked it in my post:
https://www.themotte.org/post/1042/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/221415?context=8#context
I've been considering this issue for a long time.
That's as 'real' as any other statistical conclusions can be.
But this post makes a claim of objective reality that simply is not substantiated by its contents.
Possible its not correct, and I even acknowledge that.
That's why I said:
First, I’m hoping, praying someone can actually show me evidence that this is wrong. All of my personal experience, anecdotal observations, research, and my gut fucking instinct all points to this being an accurate model of reality. But I am fallible.
If I’m wrong I want to know!
So what else you got?
I get that you feel there aren’t many good women
As I told you before. IT IS NOT ME YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT.
You keep making it sound like I'm the only person with this belief.
Worry about all the OTHER guys who feel there aren't many good women.
It sounds like you just find the implications of this, if true, to be too uncomfortable to admit?
But if its true, surely its worth discussion.
faceh
3mo ago
How many marriageable and marriage minded men are there?
At least twice as many as there are marriageable and marriage-minded women are out there.
That's my bet.
Women have much much less agency than men and pressuring them to enact major social changes is essentially pointless; men act, women are and all that.
Except most cultural institutions and pressure are actively PREVENTING men from 'acting' and punishing them for doing so.
So we're still hitting the same problem.
faceh
3mo ago
I believe it's because dating norms and Tinderification have made dating a nightmare.
What do you think the mechanism for that is?
Gender Average Match Rate Male 0.6% Female 10% Overall 1.96%
What would all this excess attention and the APPEARANCE OF CHOICE do to a woman's psyche, and her tendency to settle for a man? Any guesses?
Just throw some thoughts out there.
Do you think that women will become more likely to marry?
"Actually, the solution is we should somehow contrive to force women to settle for... me."
Of course.
But more and more women aren't settling for ANYONE.
Objective fact.
What now?
faceh
3mo ago
There is not a strict correlation between high body count and divorce rate
There is between body count and STD rates.
And single motherhood.
And probably mental health as well.
Unless you're arguing that Body count is a GOOD thing for a partner to have... best you can say is that this is a neutral issue that can probably be ignored.
faceh
3mo ago
I don't actually understand why other men care so much about body count.
It has a noticeable impact on divorce rates once it gets 'too high.'. 0-1 previous partners is, it seems, the 'ideal' there.
(and women generally had fewer bodies at the same age in the past, using this same data)
Also it correlates with the STI criteria.
And it probably correlates with the mental illness criteria.
OBVIOUSLY it correlates with the single motherhood criteria.
So a man MIGHT compromise on this, but more women having more sex partners is still going to reduce the overall size of the pool of good marital partners.
faceh
3mo ago
You're not wrong.
And yet.
Mental illness rates among women are drastically higher then men (particularly for YOUNG women).
So if it were merely 'awareness,' why aren't we seeing a surge in men?
So either women are more likely to get incorrect diagnoses.
Or, women have been this way all along.
Or women are actually suffering from more mental illnesses now than before.
faceh
3mo ago
Yeah but your algorithm is explicitly excluding high ability, very much marriage material doctors, lawyers, etc.
Hmmmm.
Do you think.
its just possible.
That these 'very much marriage material' women.
Will probably get into a stable relationship at a relatively young age.
And will probably already be married before they get too old or too debt-burdened?
And thus would fall out of the pool very early anyway?
That's what the 'single' criteria is there for, after all.
faceh
3mo ago
And yet, do you think there's much competition for the 'unmarriable' men?
Is it fair to say that a marriageable woman is going to get a LOT more attention than your average 'marriageable' man?
I mean, I could probably keep going and match all of your points with equivalents.
Do it.
Please.
I beg you.
Run the numbers on it all.
Give me some evidence that counteracts what appears to be a very clear trend.
Also, your criteria probably excludes 95+% of the black male population.
Is >=5 sexual partners that bad?
You go much above that and it has a VERY noticeable impact on divorce rates which guys are aware of.
I would admit that many guys would accept it, of course. But that says more about THEM, I think.
But if you were talking to a 23-25 year old women who admits to 6, 7, 8 whatever, what does that imply about her decision-making?
And suffice it to say, even if you exclude that criteria entirely, it doesn't really fix the ratio problem.
I only observe the US dating scene from a great distance, but as others point out, people aren't suffering that badly.
Check in on Gen Z sometime.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-much-of-gen-z-will-be-unmarried-at-40
Your analysis strikes me as catastrophizing, directionally correct but magnitudinally wrong.
Show the countervailing evidence. I beg you.
Relationship formation is in freefall across the fucking planet, I think 'catastrophe' is actually a fair characterization.
Maybe it's because of my particular bubble, but this is the one requirement in your list that seems completely unreasonable.
Funny enough, this was the one that was easiest to clear, I think the LLMs said north of 90% fit under this ceiling.
Most women don't have much or any student debt, if you include the ones who didn't attend college.
There are a few with a lot more than $50k, but the overall average for women is around $33k, and I think that's limited to ONLY women that have debt at all.
And its even lower on average for white women. Black women have around $40k average.
Don't you think we could create a similar list of "minimum requirements for a marriageable single male" that would likewise exclude the vast majority of single men?
Yes?
And then what.
You think most men would be bothered more by a woman with a body count > 5 than a sex worker? Or would find drug use more acceptable than student loan debt?
I think a sex worker will ALMOST CERTAINLY have a body count greater than 5, so it'd be redundant to include.
And yeah, I think a guy serious about marriage would start to have second thoughts if he learned his GF had 5, 6, 7, bodies. Thats the point at which it has very noticeable impact on divorce rates. Guys are aware of that.
Of course, other factors could override that.
And for drug use... depends on the drug, doesn't it?
It's easy to ask ChatGPT to crunch some artificially-generated numbers to produce a blackpill.
My dude, I found the numbers myself, a year ago, no LLM involved:
https://www.themotte.org/post/1042/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/221415?context=8#context
The numbers are a 'real' as any other statistical conclusion can be.
so I'd like to ask if 90% of the single men you know are incapable of finding a decent woman?
YES.
Or damn near to it.
I'm surrounded by men who are great catches by all appearances, and THEY LITERALLY ALL HAVE THE PRECISE, EXACT SAME COMPLAINTS ABOUT TRYING TO FIND A PARTNER IN THE CURRENT SEXUAL MARKETPLACE.
EVERY ONE. I've got multiple friends whose women divorced them for seemingly no decent reason in the past 4 years. They are even MORE scarred and they're still scared of the dating scene they've been out of for a while.
I go on reddit's dating advice forum and its the same complaints. Note that one is complaining about the UK. It isn't just limited to America!
The young guys are cooked. Its hard to get even to a second date.. Guys will be single for years and years, despite living in NYC and checking all the boxes.
Its everywhere. These people are not outliers. Yet the advice always assumes they are the problem.
Almost half of Gen Z guys claim they're not even dating anymore.
Relationship formation is cratering across the globe
I talk to anyone, ANYWHERE and they're all saying the exact same thing about it. I DEFY you to find anyone who is having a 'good time' trying to find a partner.
Yes.
IT IS THAT BAD.
Guys who are CURRENTLY single are having a nightmarish time finding a partner.
Note: I have to exclude the guys I was great friends with in college (circa 2010) who are all still married with kids now.
Which just emphasizes how much worse its gotten since, say, 2013.
faceh
3mo ago
I'd say "cishet" and "no college debt"
Now now, I specifically gave them a $50k ceiling. "NO" College debt is a pipe dream, I know it.
This ceiling is safe for like 95% of women, according to the LLMs.
And women are less likely to pay off their debt than men are and so be carrying it years later. So its kind of an important factor, men will have to absorb this 'bride price' when he marries her.
when your post is primarily on how the average woman is apparently unmarriable.
Well, I can add in my point that THE SOLUTION HERE IS TO PUT PRESSURE ON WOMEN to actually choose a guy relatively early, and offer some guidance on choosing one that will stick around. And, presumably, disincentivizing those who delay.
Because You also have to increase the pool of desirable, wiling women for this to play out favorably.
But I felt that would distract from the more neutral data I provided.
Also, not sure what criteria is "acute" mental illness judged by.
In my mind it would be less than a "severe" mental illness that is actually debilitating, but still serious enough that it impacts their daily behavior. You can peek and see how the LLMs chose to interpret it.
In either case, you can look at the raw numbers and see young women are showing INCREASING prevalence of mentall illness. Something around 30% for the under 30s.
Its fair to say things have gotten 'worse.'
And suppose that we agree on a final set of reasonable criteria - how many men, of those who are looking to marry and restrict the search set in such a way, meet a similar set of reasonable criteria? (I'll let women of themotte decide what that would be).
Sure.
But I will go ahead and place my bet that the number of men who meet this has probably been steady for the last couple decades, whereas the ratio of women who are marriagable has been decreasing.
See my point above about the pressure being on the wrong gender.
I'm dragging up the gender, dating, and fertility discourse for one last rodeo.
The below analysis is a possible infohazard for young single males. It contains analysis done by LLMs, but I solemnly swear I drafted this through my own brainpower, using AI only for the analysis I was too lazy to do myself.
I'm following upon a comment I made about a year ago that pulled out some raw numbers on the quality of women in the U.S., and how this might impact the desire of men to actually develop themselves and find one of those women and settle down.
At the time I didn't bother doing the work to produce an actual estimate of how many women would match the basic crtieria, given that these are NOT independent variables. The though occurred to me that AIs are the perfect solution for exactly this type of laziness, and now have the capability to do this task without completely making up numbers.
So, based on my old post, I chose 9 particular criteria that I think would ‘fairly’ qualify a woman as ‘marriageable.':
-
Single and looking (of course).
-
Cishet, and thus not LGBT identified.
-
Not ‘obese.’
-
Not a mother already.
-
No ‘acute’ mental illness.
-
No STI.
-
Less than $50,000 in student loan debt.
-
5 or fewer sex partners (‘bodies’).
-
Under age 30.
And ask both ChatGPT and Grok to attempt to estimate the actual population of women in the U.S. that pass all these filters, accounting for how highly correlated each of the variables are.
Notable criteria I omitted:
-
Religious affiliation
-
Race
-
Political affiliation
-
Career
-
Drug use
-
Sex work/Onlyfans
I argue that a reasonable man would NOT want to ‘compromise’ on any of the original criteria, whereas the omitted ones are comparatively negotiable, or alternatively, are already captured in one of the original criteria.
Would you accept a woman who was carrying $50k in student loan debt into the relationship? I guess maybe if she was a doctor or lawyer or made enough money to justify it. Much higher than that and it starts to suggest financial recklessness.
5 as a body count is definitely an ‘arbitrary’ number, but again, you get much above that and it implies more bad decision-making. Ditto for being STI positive.
The age one is probably the most ‘unfair,’ but if having kids is a goal then this is pretty close to the ‘reasonable’ cutoff given the ticking fertility clock. Adjust upward if needed, I guess.
Here is the ChatGPT conversation. I used o3 in this case.
Here is Grok, specifically Grok 3.
In each case I used the “Deep Research” mode for the main query. I used identical prompts to start them off, they each seemingly did slightly different interpretations of the prompt. I was not using any fancy, complex prompt engineering to try and force it to think like a statistician or avoid hallucinations.
ChatGPT Gives this conclusion:
Bottom line: We estimate roughly 1 million women age 30 and under, equivalent to approximately 3-4% of that demographic (with a plausible interval of 2% on the low end up to about 5-6% on the high end), meet all eight of the given criteria simultaneously.
Grok comes to quite the similar conclusion:
Based on available data and statistical techniques, it seems likely that approximately 1.1 million biological women in the U.S. meet all the specified criteria, representing about 0.64% of the total female population, estimated at 171 million in 2025. The error range, reflecting data gaps, is ±0.3 million, or 0.8–1.4 million in absolute numbers, and 0.47–0.82% as a percentage.
Then I asked the truly cursed followup question: “how many men in the U.S. might be seeking these eligible women and thus how much competition is there for this population? How many are likely to ‘fail.’"
ChatGPT:
• Low-competition scenario (optimistic) – if male seekers are only approximately 9 m and women at the high end 1.4 m → approx. 6 : 1.
• High-competition scenario (pessimistic) – if male seekers hit approx. 16 m and women only 0.6 m → approx. 27 : 1.
Even under the friendliest assumptions, there are at least five single straight men pursuing every woman who meets all eight hurdles. The modal outcome is closer to ten-plus suitors per eligible woman.
Put bluntly, only about one man in ten who is actively hunting for this ultra-specific ideal partner can succeed; nine-plus will strike out.
Emphasis Mine.
Grok:
• Number of single men seeking women meeting all criteria: Approximately 4.5 million single, straight men aged 18–30 in the U.S. are likely seeking a partner, with an estimated 2.3 million (±0.5 million) specifically seeking women meeting all specified criteria (unmarried, not dating, straight, not a mother, not obese, age 30 or below, no acute mental illness, ≤5 sex partners, no STI, ≤$50,000 student debt). This is about 2.7% of the male population (171 million).
• Competition ratio: With approx. 1.1 million women meeting all criteria (from prior estimate), the ratio is roughly 2.1 men per woman (2.3 million ÷ 1.1 million), indicating moderate competition.
• Failure rate: Approximately 48% of these men (1.1 million out of 2.3 million) will fail to secure a partner meeting all criteria, assuming one-to-one pairing and no external factors (e.g., men seeking multiple partners or women remaining single).
Then the followup, when I tell it to extend the age range:
About 4.9 million single, straight men of all ages are likely seeking women aged 18–30 meeting all criteria, facing a 4.5:1 competition ratio. Roughly 78% (approx. 3.8 million) will fail to secure such a partner, driven by the scarcity of eligible women, age-related preference mismatches, and modern dating dynamics. Competition is high, particularly for older men, with failure rates varying by flexibility in criteria and dating market conditions.
The error bars are pretty large on this one... the 9-out-of-10 number doesn't quite pass the smell test... but I think the point speaks for itself.
I don’t want to say that this is bleak, per se. I mean, 1 million or so women in the U.S. with some decent marriageable bonafides. That’s not a small pool! The problem stems from noticing that said women will have somewhere upwards of 5 men, possibly near 27 who will be competing for their affections, or more if they’re near the absolute peak of physical attractiveness.
Hence my increasing annoyance with the bog standard advice proffered to young males “become worthy and put in some effort and you will find a good woman” as it becomes increasingly divorced from the actual reality on the ground.
It’s not wrong. It is incomplete. Insufficient. If we increase the number of “worthy” men, that’s just intensifying the competition for the desirable women… while ALSO ensuring that more of those ‘worthy’ men will lose and go unfulfilled, DESPITE applying their efforts towards “worthiness.”
You CAN’T tell young men both “be better, improve, you have to DESERVE a good woman before you get one!” and then, when he improves:
“oh, you have to lower your standards, just because you thought you deserved a stable, chaste(ish), physically fit partner doesn’t mean you’re entitled to one, world ain’t fair.”
That dog won’t hunt.
Thems the numbers. I’m not making this up wholesale or whining about advice because I find it uncomfortable. No. The math is directly belying the platitudes. I’m too autistic NOT to notice.
So where am I going with this?
First, I’m hoping, praying someone can actually show me evidence that this is wrong. All of my personal experience, anecdotal observations, research, and my gut fucking instinct all points to this being an accurate model of reality. But I am fallible.
If I’m wrong I want to know!
I’m also not particularly worried about ME in general. I am in a good position to find a good woman, even though I’m sick of all the numerous frustrations and inanities one has to endure to do so. I get annoyed when someone, even in good faith, tries to suggest that my complaints are more mental than real. I can see the numbers, I've been in the trenches for years, this is a true phenomena, the competition is heavy, the prizes are... lacking.
And finally and most importantly, I genuinely feel the only way we keep the Ferris Wheel of organized civilization turning is if average women are willing to marry average men, and stay married, and help raise kids. I’m all for pushing the ‘average’ quality up, as long as actual relationships are forming.
Objectively, that is not happening. And so I’m worried because if society breaks down... well, I live here and I don't like what that implies for me, either.
(Yes, AGI is possibly/probably going to make this all a moot point before it all really collapses)
faceh
3mo ago
Barring starving to death, it'll probably be quick and mostly painless.
I'm kind of, KIND of at peace with the idea of being paperclipped.
The futures that I can't bear to think about are the ones where the AI creates a slightly defective Utopia which is wrong in some critical way, OR it directly values human suffering enough to keep us alive AND miserable.
faceh
3mo ago
When you put it that way it makes me kinda pumped for being able to 'mash up' old actors with new ones.
Schwarzenegger in his prime against Statham.
Bruce Willis vs. Chris Hemsworth.
Anthony Hopkins can share a scene with Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson.
My brain might not even care that its not real!
faceh
3mo ago
I would feel duty-bound to wind up some stuff at work before embarking, but depending on how this year proceeds it might seem like a good move. I'm kinda sick of paying bills and being responsible when the world seems geared to go through some serious upheavals, and all my best laid plans could collapse in a week.
Its not even ennui, I enjoy what I do, but the world doesn't seem like its going to give me the outcomes that I've wanted since childhood, no matter how much I ask and work for it.
A good friend of mine is taking a trip through southeast Asia for a month while he's between jobs, and it seems like a helluva fun time. He got to fire off an RPG.
The one romantic prospect that I was sort of excited for has mostly fizzled (I may give it one more shot, but there's not much on the horizon now). Gambling on finding a soulmate while traveling appeals to the romantic inside me. The romantic who has been beaten into a depression by the realities of modern dating.
And you're a BIT more than a 'random internet stranger."
I mean, that's the whole reason for the hype, isn't it? To make sure you sell a bunch of the thing before people realize its not quite up to snuff. He's a much better salesman than other billionaire founders.
And he's also got a knack for finding ways to squeeze profits out of projects by some lateral thinking:
What to do with unused launch capacity on Falcon? Launch a network of satellites for a globe-spanning internet service. Satellites that need to be replenished regularly. Starlink is a great product in its own right and justifies Falcon launches, so it helps keep SpaceX solvent.
Then he pulled that switcheroo with Twitter by selling it to the xAI company, so that even if he never turns a profit on twitter as a service, he's already got a way to profit from the information.
To say nothing of how quickly Grok has become an important part of X's infrastructure.
This is why the claim that Elon is stupid and lucky don't make sense to me. Guy may not play 4d chess, but he's playing speed chess like a grandmaster, making sure his few mistakes don't ruin him by moving faster than his opponents, if only by a split second.
faceh
3mo ago
Agreed. Hence I generally support the Rationalist project, hopeless as it seems.
faceh
3mo ago
Yep.
But it starts to drive you (well, ME) a tiny bit insane to have to act 'normal' while you have an acute awareness of the impending moment.
I literally cannot believe that I'm sitting at my desk, at work, while some other dude, in a lab or office somewhere else, is engineering an AI that is going to replace my job or possibly kill me in a few years.
Its like if humanity discovered the massive Egg that Godzilla was about to hatch from. And scientists on analysis estimate that "This thing is going to hatch within 2-10 years, and there's not much we can do about it."
But I have to go back to work and ignore the Godzilla egg and do spreadsheets and contracts and all the stuff that keeps society moving, knowing that unless the hatching fails entirely, none of this will make a damn spit of difference.
faceh
3mo ago
If I may AKSHULLY for a moment.
He overpromises and never delivers on schedule...
And then STILL delivers an end result closer to the hype than any of his rivals.
That's been the secret. Hype something up and then deliver (eventually) a product that doesn't live up to the hype but is still better than anything else in its class.
There's yet to be an example I can think of where he made a promise then got beaten by a competitor to delivering on it.
So failing to deliver isn't fatal if nobody else can beat you to delivering.
Hah, that'd be a hell of a reversal. I bet they'd keep a physical person 'on staff' who can make in-person appearances pretending to be the actual actor, but in reality they're not getting paid like an actual celebrity.
The Job of 'actor' still entails acting, but now you've just become a body double for the digital version, you make a lot less money but all you have to do is not generate any really bad press and uphold the charade and you'll be comfortable for life.
faceh
3mo ago
Or the immortality of said celebs.
If they can keep casting well-liked actors in films via AI, even after they'd dead or retired, they're going to do it.
I do wonder, as with AI-Generated music, which is ACTUALLY INDISTINGUISHABLE these days, if one major reason people will still prefer 'real' artists is simply because they want to personally meet them or be able to experience them live, so they'll eventually shun the AI stuff not specifically because they know it is AI, but because there's no personal life/gossip/tabloid drama to follow, and they want to physically touch the person at some point.
That's part of the reason why the filter is for 'acute' mental illness, not just mental illness as a whole. If you can't deal with a partner who goes through mental health episodes every now and again then you probably shouldn't be getting married, that's true.
And its not just about the STIs, but more about the implications for a woman's decisionmaking if she ended up with an STI.
If you want to be frank, though, can you just say "Yes, I think men should be willing to settle for a woman who was diagnosed with 'serious' depression/anxiety/bipolar disorders, and/or who tests positive for Gonorrhoea."
And then we can see how the men looking for a committed partner react to that.
I'm also very willing to discuss men's sexual proclivities, since a huge factor causing many of the observed issues is some percentage of men (10% at a guess) who happily bed many, many women and toy with their emotions and make them 'less marriageable' with no intention of committing.
More options
Context Copy link