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Notes -
Strong agree with this post.
This is basically where I am in my life right now.
It's a combination of how good the expected rewards are, and how much effort would be required to attain it. I could probably get a wife if I expended an enormous amount of effort, but... why bother? I'm happy enough as it is, and living life as a single man in the modern world with all its comforts really isn't a bad deal at all. A highly-compatible girl could improve my life of course, but there are a bunch of very well known failure modes too. Not just divorce, but that kind of empty relationship where the man falls backwards into doing a greater share of the work and doesn't even really like his wife any more, but divorcing is too much of a hassle so he just stays where he's at. My dad fell into this hard.
If I were to put in a lot of effort into my life somewhere, going for a better job to earn more money would almost certainly have a far higher ROI for me.
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