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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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Came across the following post from the other site. The OP deleted it shortly after posting, so I'm pasting it below (strange that the mobile app preserves the text longer than the web app).

Title: I (29M) got 200 Hinge matches in 1 week, likely because of my job title. Am I wrong to feel some resentment?

I (29M) want to start out by saying I'm not a particularly handsome or good looking guy. I have a high hairline and a very weak chin. I'm a bit overweight, and not muscular. I'm 5'9.

After not dating for 3 years (I got brutally cheated on), in 2020, I finally made my first Hinge profile. I got maybe 20 matches over a month, then Trump went on TV and said he was cancelling all flights to Europe because of COVID and I ended up deleting the app.

During COVID, my career really became a rocketship. I had always been a hard worker (I don't drink and I'm kind of introverted, so I mostly focused on work), but things really came together for me during the pandemic in a really surreal way. Working remotely at my parents house, I spent a year rising up in my firm, and then because of my niche knowledge set, I was recruited to become a Partner at a very large venture capital firm. I'm currently making $350k a year, and depending on how the fund performs, up to $1.5M a year. None of it really seems real because I essentially didn't talk to anyone but my parents for two years and have basically been sitting all day on a computer in my highschool bedroom.

At the beginning of the year, I moved to a big city and started a relationship with a former friend. It was really tumultuous (she had much more experience than me and seemed to relish throwing it in my face) and it ended after half a year. It was my second relationship of my life, and she really hurt me in ways I'm still unpacking. She told me I'm lacking in confidence and inexperienced and immature and hard to love.

A few months after the break up, I decided to create another profile on Hinge just to see what was out there. I put on my profile that I was "Partner at VC firm" and HOLY SH*T. I got over 200 matches in a single week. Not to be shallow but these aren't mediocre people either. Many are beautiful women with serious jobs as doctors, private equity analysts, lawyers, etc and more. Several of them have messaged me first.

I feel absolutely and totally overwhelmed, and I've since stopped swiping on the app. I can't bring myself to message a single person, and over a hundred have already fallen into the "hidden" section because I never sent a message.

On one hand, I am feeling so overwhelmed by this female attention that I don't know what to do. All of these women seem to have their lives together, and meanwhile I'm this introvert with a weird internet job with no dating experience (seriously, I've never asked a woman on a date formally) and I don't know how to catch up. I seriously feel like if I meet in real life, they'll smell my inexperience on me. I also, for some reason, just don't want to be rejected if that makes sense.

On the other hand (and I'm doing my best to unpack this here), I can't help but feel disappointed at how much more female attention I'm receiving as a result of having a more prestigious job and title. I think the person I was 3 years ago was much happier, kinder, less jaded, more fun, more ambitious, more authentic and all around better as a whole - but I could barely get any matches. I literally miss the person I was. I look at these beautiful women in my matches now and I kind of feel a sense of resentment towards them for only showing interest in me now that I've climbed the mountain or become (at least outwardly) a "finished product" so to speak. I can't help but feel like I'm basically just being objectified for my money, and any relationship I start with these women will be tainted.

If anyone could offer some words of advice on how to get my footing or at least help me unpack why the way I'm feeling is incorrect, I'd be very appreciative. Thank you.

https://old.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/comments/161q6df/i_29m_got_200_hinge_matches_in_1_week_likely/

Once you've adequately formed your opinion on this, I would like to ask:

How quickly did you think that the story is entirely made up?

I'm posting this because I'm worried that I am more gullible than I thought. Hundreds of comments on the thread point out fairly convincing reasons why this is a creative writing exercise: some claim to have equally prestigious job titles and/or make more money, but did not experience anywhere close to the reported success here; others say they've temporarily changed their job titles to something made up and far fancier and it didn't move the needle; then some point out that 200 matches in a week would require he swipe 400 times at a 50% match rate, and that seems excessive for one who claims to not have bothered messaging any of them; finally, there are some vaguely incel tropes that make this seem more likely to have a hidden agenda in influencing popular opinions.

In my defense, the majority of comments seems to buy into the OP's story and responds sincerely; they also have more upvotes, suggesting the majority of lurkers tend to agree. But I think most people here hold themselves to a higher intellectual/rational standard than the average Redditor, so I do blame myself for not thinking critically enough. Are there any simple heuristics that I could have employed here to better avoid falling for creative writing exercises? I did think the post had challenged my priors about what drove dating app success rates, so perhaps one strategy is simply to be more faithful to your priors.

P.S. lol @ the new 500,000 character limit on posts. Seems excessive...

I wouldn’t claim to have particularly great bait detection relative to the modal Motte user, but there were three main things that tipped me off beyond the Bayesian prior that all things on the internet (especially Reddit) are of questionable veracity and sexuality:

  • Women messaging first
  • Partner at 29
  • Private equity “analysts”

Any story involving anything other than Bumble that mentions “several” women messaging first instantly makes me skeptical. Women are coy, and insanely passive and devoid of initiative when it comes to making the first move—especially beautiful women.

Normie chicks aren’t going to know what “VC” stands for—and even if they do and/or know what venture capital is, they don’t know if “partner” is a senior title is not. Eww what’s a “partner”? Is that what they call ranch-hands in “venture capital”? Ick. Thank u, next. And chicks that are familiar with venture capital (say, private equity "analysts") usually won't hold it in high esteem. Venture capital is like the greasy snake-oil sector of the "high-finance" realm.

Beautiful and not-so-beautiful female doctors, private equity “analysts,” and lawyers are constantly surrounded by high status, rich men who are generally taller than 5’9”: Other doctors, more senior men in private equity (including partners), more senior men in law (including partners). 5’9” can be a steep hole to climb out of, even with a robust income. Jamie, Table 5.5 of Height/Income Trade-offs, pull that shit up. And crickets are still a common experience for tall, high-income men in online dating and social media.

Furthermore, 29 would be an incredibly young age to make partner at a “very large” venture capital firm, regardless of a “niche knowledge set.” Multiple articles would be written about this person on Business Insider or whatever, and gossiped about in various online spaces. If a 29-year-old told me he was partner at a very large venture capital firm, I’d assume the firm was him and a few buddies in one of their parents’ basements. This is something most private equity “analysts” would suspect too, perhaps even some lawyers. Although I imagine many female “analysts” and lawyers would be willing to overlook such a technical detail if he’s sufficiently tall, good-looking, and/or famous, teehee.

I repeatedly put quotes around private equity “analyst(s).” Private equity “analyst” is a fairly uncommon position, so this aspect also rustled my Spidey senses. Sometimes there are private equity analysts (interns or straight-out-of-undergrad hires), but most junior private equity front-office personnel generally have the title of “associate,” having already served their sentencing spent at least two years or so as an analyst in investment banking.

Wealthmaxxing can certainly work in online dating and social media. However, that generally requires harder-to-fake signals like photos with exotic cars, expensive mansions/hotels/apartments, travel in exotic places. Photos with hot chicks are always helpful for the usual preselection and female mate-choice copying reasons, further confirmation that your wealth signals are credible. And that still wouldn’t boost one from crickets to 200 matches a week. Additionally, from an efficient markets perspective: A market as crowded as OLD from the male-side shouldn't have many $[X] dollar bills to pick-up.

The “let’s not forget that men bad” and “female hypergamy doesn’t exist, but if it does it’s only because men are so shitty and insecure”-type comments in that thread were all too predictable. I just made a reference to the quote “man who thought it was all so tiresome finds he is more tired than previously thought possible,” but it’s also quite pertinent here.

Agreed on analyst, good catch although people who aren’t in finance don’t know or understand the distinction between analyst and associate and so that alone doesn’t prove it’s fake. What does prove it’s fake is the VC thing which is 100% bullshit and that, as you say:

“Beautiful” and not-so-beautiful female doctors, private equity “analysts,” and lawyers are constantly surrounded by high status, rich men who are generally taller than 5’9”: Other doctors, more senior men in private equity (including partners), more senior men in law (including partners).

Rationalist or otherwise autistic online dating metrics obsession (of TRP, ‘cel and ‘normie’ variety) assumes class and social circles aren’t real and the market is efficient. In reality almost all mating is assortive, working class men aren’t competing with rich men and vice versa, dating down in terms of class is very low status and dating up in terms of class is more rare than at any time since the early 20th century. If one is an affluent white PMC, one is competing in the pool of this class. Even on apps, most people date in the same class, a working class makeup artist is subconsciously more likely to respond to the same guy with a good blue collar job, tattoos and a truck compared to in a suit or in khakis at the country club and with a generic PMC job, in part because she knows the former is more who she’s ‘supposed’ to date.

Rich women mostly don’t have to worry about losing on marriage to men of their social class to pretty working class girls who work as hairdressers or airport check-in agents. PMC men likewise need not fear handsome plumbers even if they make more on paper than they do.

Wealthmaxxing can certainly work in online dating and social media. However, that generally requires harder-to-fake signals like photos with exotic cars, expensive hotels, travel in exotic places.

Doesn’t this usually mean petty, low level crypto scammer / hustle bro now? It’s always funny how the drive of the Du Cap in Antibes is full of American and English tourists staying in some cheap shithole in Nice but getting the ‘iconic’ shot they must have seen on some rich person’s page that they follow for themselves. Every Ferrari is rented, every first class seat was bought via churning / points, travel is cheap since airline deregulation etc. The only way you know is when you get their full name and can look them up on LinkedIn, that tends to have enough to predict pretty accurately.

Rationalist or otherwise autistic online dating metrics obsession (of TRP, ‘cel and ‘normie’ variety) assumes class and social circles aren’t real and the market is efficient. In reality almost all mating is assortive

I don't think rationalist or other spaces that discuss online dating metrics assume markets are efficient, nor that social circles aren't real, nor that assortative mating isn't real. After all, dating and relationships come with tremendous search costs, transaction costs, switching costs, information asymmetry, conditions that introduce substantial friction and make markets less efficient. I'm quite certain such spaces are familiar with the notion of assortative mating, far more so than the complement of their union (i.e., mainstream blue-pill spaces).

I view dating market efficiency (or lack thereof) and assortative mating as completely orthogonal; one could just consider assortative mating as another factor in an agent's utility function just as one could allow assortative mating when setting up a population genetics simulation (instead of assuming random mating).

Rich women mostly don’t have to worry about losing on marriage to men of their social class to pretty working class girls who work as hairdressers or airport check-in agents. PMC men likewise need not fear handsome plumbers even if they make more on paper than they do.

I mostly agree that people tend to pair-up assortatively when it comes to marriage. However, mostly is doing a lot of work here, likely too much. At some point, pretty hairdressers and handsome well-earning plumbers do pose a sufficient source of competition, even if we're talking about competition for rich women vs. PMC men (I parse "rich" as more elite than mere "PMC", PMC women tend to be much more threatened by working class women than are their male PMC counterparts and working class men). Plus, someone from a working class background can always re-brand via some Russell Conjugation as they make the up-jump. The hairdresser becomes a stylist, the well-earning plumber becomes a small business owner.

As a side note, "airport check-in agents" (and flight attendants) can be PMC-adjacent, depending on country and perhaps airline, with multilingual and education requirements, de facto or de jure. I know in many countries they're basically like glorified fast casual restaurant workers.

Doesn’t this usually mean petty, low level crypto scammer / hustle bro now?

People have varying levels of naivete and cynicism, so you can fool some of the people all of the time, and some people will accuse you of being a fake poser no matter what you do. Of course, it helps to manage the lifestyle in their profile(s) to be consistent and authentic in a way that's perhaps reminiscent of the Diderot effect. There's also a notion of faking it until you make it: If you're the type of guy who can minmax your life to consistently and authentically fake being actually rich, at some point the hindbrain of a sufficiently large quantity of young attractive women will just view you as actually rich. You might actually have became the mask and are actually rich. Having evidence of other hot chicks in your life reinforces the illusion/reality.

Yeah, he became a partner at a large VC firm by working from home at his parent's house, big eggs dee. Something that is the career level achievement a very select few get to experience. This guys career trajectory is almost as believable as 200 matches a week whilst having a small chin.