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IMO algorithms have changed dating in recent years, as feeds will present women with highly attractive men outside of their extended social network at a considerably higher rate than in previous half-decades. In the past, a highly desirable man within one’s extended social network would be vetted to see whether he is dating half the town; if you are now being shown men outside of your network, there is no vetting possible outside of dedicated apps (which most women will never use). So an attractive man who goes viral on algorithmic feed social media can easily find 100 or 1000 dates across his state. If you are 18-25, very healthy, irreligious, why wouldn’t you do this? And for a woman, the idea of dating a man who is both attractive and famous (and with whom she can obtain fame herself) is as irresistible proposition. I think this explains why more young adult men than young adult women describe themselves as single:
This doesn’t apply in reverse. A highly attractive woman does not typically have an interest in dating more than two or three men at the same time. Affluent women where prostitution is legal do not typically pay for whores, but many men would enjoy meeting hundreds or even thousands of women. A man’s fantasy novel may involve dozens of partners, whereas a woman’s involves only 1 or 2 high quality partners. This is one of the strictly-biological asymmetries at play in our brave new decidedly-non-paternalistic world. A similar asymmetry is that women have higher standards for men in online dating than men do for women, and that political polarization will mathematically prevent lots of progressive women from ever finding a husband.
There is no quick solution to this problem. The solution requires bringing back the cultural technology that we lost, the rules that shame promiscuity and teach women to be humble and teach men to settle down early and not date half the town. The women who have been misled into thinking that they deserve the hottest man in the world will be miserable at the realization that their destined match is Literally Just Some Normal Guy With a Bad Haircut. For men who have exhausted their dating prospects, the best solution is probably just to look at different countries, where “American” adds extra points in dating. It is no more abnormal for a foreign woman to fall for an American man as it is for an American woman to fall for a Frenchman or British aristocrat, or a Midwestern girl who watched too many K-Dramas to fall for a Korean. There was a funny tweet that went viral the other day about American GIs finding European women more agreeable than American women, so much so that American women had to launch organizations and campaigns to stop all the marriages. But ultimately I think that should be a last option, and imho you should pick a woman from Europe or the Middle East or whatever your culture is, over anywhere else.
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