> Why women feel that dating suddenly becomes impossible at 35, even though they are as attractive as ever, skilled and confident, and have (with some technological assistance) many years of fertility left.
Skilled and confident, perhaps. Neotony is attractive, though, and most women have suffered severely on that axis by 35yo. It's not nice to say, but they are genuinely less attractive than they were a decade earlier. In many cases, much less.
They also really don't have much fertility left; if marriage is three years away, they're looking at a geriatric pregnancy with elevated risk for mother and child, *if* they can conceive, which may require expensive IVF cycles.
Good men are invisible to women who were taught to hate men for their good traits, or to associate good traits with bad traits. The good men can mature at any rate, and it won't matter if there's no one to appreciate it.
I agree with your first point (that there is a quality decline in men in the current generation, this is true of women as well by the way). But, it looks as though little can be done in regards to encouraging men to marry when the previous thing that did was a society in which sexual norms were stable and rigid. Having sex prior to marriage is what killed a lot of marriage prospects, it also makes women incredibly uninteresting to most men. Having the pursuit of a woman last months or years means that by the time you are married you are passionately in love to a degree that the people who slept together on the first date do not understand.
Men married previously for status (still do in many parts of the world). Now, there is no status associated with marriage, only with sleeping around. It is status that drives men to marry, sexual norms are just a means to an end
Clearly you are less aware than even an unread peasant, you only have to look around you to see what kind of women men want, mostly it has to do with who will look good on their arm.
Good article. Opportunities abound, work on yourself and your selection criteria. Be aware of the market conditions, but they don't dictate your outcome. You have agency.
From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint, males from 16 to 25 are designed to be reckless and slightly stupid. In caveman days when a lion approached, the women, children, and older men were all supposed to run away. The young men were supposed to move towards the lion, or pack of lions, to distract it or kill it. That is really stupid on a personal basis. But essential for clan survival.
The reward for the young men was that they demonstrated their ability to provide protection. Individual shows of heroics (particularly if dangerous and stupid) lead to increased standing and therefore mating interest from women. Demand for a high level of emotional intelligence in men wasn’t required, at least until they were older and joined the leadership group.
Younger women, conversely spent a lot of time with older women gathering food and minding children. They needed to negotiate a complex web of personal relationships within that women’s group to achieve their social standing. They were ready to have children and establish a stable mating by late teens (backed by that group of women helpers).
These gender differences are evident in the delay in male frontal lobe development towards the mid 20s, whereas female frontal lobes develop by late teens. We can’t demand that brain development and social hierarchy evolution changes fast just because our modern society wants it. The demand for these changes are very recent. In the 1910’s admired young male behaviour was charging over the top of a trench into intense rifle fire nearly certain to kill you. In the 1940’s young men were applauded for storming beaches despite the dire survival percentages. In the 1950’s men were rewarded for working years in coal pits or factories without complaint despite the dangers and boredom and the early deaths due to workplace pollutants or worn out bodies. Nobody demanded they learn high level emotional relationship skills. (I’m old enough to remember the dads of the 1950s and ‘60s - they weren’t high on the emotional intelligence scale, but they were respected members of the community).
So demanding that young males ‘just develop faster at the emotional relationship skills females require and stop engaging in stupid antics’ is doomed to fail. Young men today are emotionally better and less likely to be emotionally destructive than we ever were in the 1960s. Huge improvement. It’s just that young women have evolved faster and won’t ‘just settle for a stable guy’, like their mothers and grandfathers did.
This is vital as younger people are having fewer relationships and marrying less often and therefore having fewer children.
How do we match the understandable wishes of modern young women with the fact that many young men can’t fulfil those?
If you conceive of dating as “burdens” that one sex or another has to bear collectively, instead of as opportunities to exercise individual agency for individual outcomes, then you’ve already lost the game.
Because half of my other posts are about things that men could be doing, and this particular advice happens to be undersupplied for women (source: women I asked).
I deny the premise that women develop the soft skills earlier. I believe that the standard which we hold women accountable to towards men when it comes to emotional intelligence and empathy is just much much lower.
> Why women feel that dating suddenly becomes impossible at 35, even though they are as attractive as ever, skilled and confident, and have (with some technological assistance) many years of fertility left.
Skilled and confident, perhaps. Neotony is attractive, though, and most women have suffered severely on that axis by 35yo. It's not nice to say, but they are genuinely less attractive than they were a decade earlier. In many cases, much less.
They also really don't have much fertility left; if marriage is three years away, they're looking at a geriatric pregnancy with elevated risk for mother and child, *if* they can conceive, which may require expensive IVF cycles.
Good men are invisible to women who were taught to hate men for their good traits, or to associate good traits with bad traits. The good men can mature at any rate, and it won't matter if there's no one to appreciate it.
Interesting take. Huge assumption involved though:
1. Women complaining about a lack of good men is not an objective measure about the actual quantity of good men
2. Men complain about lack of companionship far more than women (though it is irrational to do so)
I agree with your first point (that there is a quality decline in men in the current generation, this is true of women as well by the way). But, it looks as though little can be done in regards to encouraging men to marry when the previous thing that did was a society in which sexual norms were stable and rigid. Having sex prior to marriage is what killed a lot of marriage prospects, it also makes women incredibly uninteresting to most men. Having the pursuit of a woman last months or years means that by the time you are married you are passionately in love to a degree that the people who slept together on the first date do not understand.
Men married previously for status (still do in many parts of the world). Now, there is no status associated with marriage, only with sleeping around. It is status that drives men to marry, sexual norms are just a means to an end
You need to deconstruct your own absurdity..men don't marry for status ..women do ..they can take anything inside to gain status ...
Clearly you are less aware than even an unread peasant, you only have to look around you to see what kind of women men want, mostly it has to do with who will look good on their arm.
Good article. Opportunities abound, work on yourself and your selection criteria. Be aware of the market conditions, but they don't dictate your outcome. You have agency.
From an evolutionary psychology viewpoint, males from 16 to 25 are designed to be reckless and slightly stupid. In caveman days when a lion approached, the women, children, and older men were all supposed to run away. The young men were supposed to move towards the lion, or pack of lions, to distract it or kill it. That is really stupid on a personal basis. But essential for clan survival.
The reward for the young men was that they demonstrated their ability to provide protection. Individual shows of heroics (particularly if dangerous and stupid) lead to increased standing and therefore mating interest from women. Demand for a high level of emotional intelligence in men wasn’t required, at least until they were older and joined the leadership group.
Younger women, conversely spent a lot of time with older women gathering food and minding children. They needed to negotiate a complex web of personal relationships within that women’s group to achieve their social standing. They were ready to have children and establish a stable mating by late teens (backed by that group of women helpers).
These gender differences are evident in the delay in male frontal lobe development towards the mid 20s, whereas female frontal lobes develop by late teens. We can’t demand that brain development and social hierarchy evolution changes fast just because our modern society wants it. The demand for these changes are very recent. In the 1910’s admired young male behaviour was charging over the top of a trench into intense rifle fire nearly certain to kill you. In the 1940’s young men were applauded for storming beaches despite the dire survival percentages. In the 1950’s men were rewarded for working years in coal pits or factories without complaint despite the dangers and boredom and the early deaths due to workplace pollutants or worn out bodies. Nobody demanded they learn high level emotional relationship skills. (I’m old enough to remember the dads of the 1950s and ‘60s - they weren’t high on the emotional intelligence scale, but they were respected members of the community).
So demanding that young males ‘just develop faster at the emotional relationship skills females require and stop engaging in stupid antics’ is doomed to fail. Young men today are emotionally better and less likely to be emotionally destructive than we ever were in the 1960s. Huge improvement. It’s just that young women have evolved faster and won’t ‘just settle for a stable guy’, like their mothers and grandfathers did.
This is vital as younger people are having fewer relationships and marrying less often and therefore having fewer children.
How do we match the understandable wishes of modern young women with the fact that many young men can’t fulfil those?
So much of the writing on this topic is based on stated preferences instead of revealed preferences, how can we account for that?
And what if your early bet just ends up building up the company for a PE sale? Aka you’re the starter wife
Why is the burden on women to “start practicing” and “bet on a guy early” instead of on men to grow tf up and learn how to be emotional intelligent?
If you conceive of dating as “burdens” that one sex or another has to bear collectively, instead of as opportunities to exercise individual agency for individual outcomes, then you’ve already lost the game.
Ok, rephrased: why is the focus on what women could be doing instead of what men could be doing?
Because half of my other posts are about things that men could be doing, and this particular advice happens to be undersupplied for women (source: women I asked).
I deny the premise that women develop the soft skills earlier. I believe that the standard which we hold women accountable to towards men when it comes to emotional intelligence and empathy is just much much lower.