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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).
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.
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.
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