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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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So much clueless discourse and blathering on here really makes me think that a lot of people here have rather interestingly false conceptions of the gap between them and an attractive man in terms of dating success. That's not to speak of the absolutely massive gap between the average man and the average woman that I think could do with some amount of rectification though the use of a couple particularly pertinent examples. In short-- the average man i.e a guy who would probably get rated a 6 or 7 by most people is virtually invisible to women online to a degree that's frankly quite horrific when you compare it to the experience of an attractive man. The average guy could probably expect to reasonably manage about 5 to 10 likes a day, probably dropping off to less than that after the first week, with maybe a couple matches a week and perhaps 1 out of 50 matches actually converting to a date and an even smaller proportion converting to anything more significant than that. That doesn't sound too bad, right?

The thing is, an attractive man isn't just getting say 10% more matches, or even just doubling their matches. The amount of attention they get from women usually dwarfs the average male by several orders of magnitude. The top profiles on Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, are maxing out the like counter in give or take under an hour, the rungs below that with ease in under a day and so on and so forth. There are plenty of men who are not rich, not famous, not exceptional in any way really other than the face God gave them and perhaps the muscles Trenbolone gave them (though if you're thinking steroids alone will make you one of these men, you're living in a world of delusion-- women want the complete package) breaking 20,000 matches in relatively modest sized metro areas like Copenhagen, Stockholm or Denver. I should probably note that these profiles are typically white men though, as funnily enough even here racial gaps manifest, though this is frankly a matter of degrees, as even these disadvantaged attractive men of color are usually not lacking for women-- but it's going to be generally significantly less attractive and desirable women and they'll have to be a point or two better than their white counterpart to compete. These men have such an abundance of choice and easy access to women that they effectively dwell in a completely separate reality when compared to the average man-- they are the pickers and choosers and have no desperate need to compromise or settle down with one woman. Think of the gap between a man with 70 IQ and a man with 160 IQ in terms of capacity for intellectual output and perhaps multiply that gap a few times and you'll have a somewhat decent grasp of the dynamic in play here.

No amount of game or self improvement will ever get you close to that if you lack the genetic basis for it. It's like thinking a 70 IQ man can become a world class physicist and win the Nobel prize if he just tried hard enough-- the world doesn't work that way.

It's well known that attractive women have their pick of the litter, but I'll just add in that a woman need not be particularly attractive to be bombarded with options. The average girl you see on the street could open any dating app and find literal thousands of men throwing themselves at her within a day, maybe two or three if she's a bit ungifted in the face. Though as with attractive men, there's a pretty big gap between the kinds and amount of attention that white women get, and every other race of woman, including Asian women (of the northeastern and southern varieties) and having blue or green eyes supercharges this a surprising amount.

Here's an album of proof

  • -12

Okay, but who is using ‘dating’ apps?

Studies consistently show that approximately 75-85% of Tinder users identify as male, while women make up only 25-15%. In some regions, the disparity is even more pronounced, with ratios as high as 91:9 in Italy.

Even these numbers overestimate the actual percentage of female tinder users who would be willing to hook up with a man from the app, since a substantial percentage of tinder’s women users just do it to get some easy attention and never meet up with anyone from the app at all (whereas almost every man who uses it would probably be willing to hook up with an attractive woman he met on it).

So in reality, what do dating app statistics tell us?

They tell us that a substantial percentage of the male population is competing on the apps to have casual sex with the ~15% most promiscuous women, who as a result have their pick of the men. Given that this 15% run the gamut of hotness, that means maybe 4% or fewer of women are both attractive and open to casual sex with random men from dating apps.

This results in the genre of ‘sad tinder despair’ male posts. It also explains how most men who rack up high body counts (and aren’t celebrities, famous athletes or male models) are usually hooking up with less attractive women.

This does not tell us much about the dating habits of the vast majority of women. The kindergarten teacher whose hobbies are crochet and collecting Disney memorabilia who is far too shy to meet a man off the apps (and far too insecure to create a profile at all) is not fucking a new guy off Hinge every week. The average man never even encounters this kind of woman except maybe in passing.

You're correct about the gender ratio on dating apps.

You're missing that every app that allows users to interact can become a dating app.

"Twitter is a dating app" is a meme, but it is also true. Instagram's gender ratio is more equalized.

So consider how many women have instagram, tiktok, snapchat, whatever, and put themselves out there with photos of themselves, and then entertain proposals from men who "slide into their DMs."

So that Kindergarten teacher who likes to crochet and collect Disney Memorabilia would need only start up an Instagram account and post a couple photos of herself holding her cute Tinkerbell ornament wearing a hat she made herself and has a decent shot at getting a guy's attention.

So that Kindergarten teacher who likes to crochet and collect Disney Memorabilia would need only start up an Instagram account and post a couple photos of herself holding her cute Tinkerbell ornament wearing a hat she made herself and has a decent shot at getting a guy's attention.

This sort of implies that the optimal male dating strategy is shameless simping, which… would probably explain why there is so much male homosocial stigma against it.

Has this been the solution all along?

No. Simping is the wrong way to go about it.

I'm someone who has reliably slid into DMs. Leaving aside the first and second rules of dating, the third would be to not come across as desperate. Be charming, be funny, but don't come across as a simp. You want her to know you're interested, but without giving her the impression that you couldn't withdraw at a moment's notice if things don't work out.