I think those requirements are more onerous than they might appear. Wanting a good chance at having 3ish kids alone probably leaves you with an age cap of ~27-28, if you plan to have them 2-3 years apart, and if you need some time to actually get to know them first.
For context, I'm a man, turning 30 this year, and a recently appointed assistant professor in a computational department at a reasonably good school (probably ranked 10th or so in my field). I'm making much less than I would be in industry, but with no debts, and a nontrivial amount of savings, I'd still count that as financially squared away. I'm a few years younger than the average new faculty, so I'm ahead of the curve for my career track.
It's hard to say what's due to sheer bad luck, my individual circumstances, or the broader trend of society, but I've never been particularly romantically successful. but I must be below average in appearance, because online has never yielded any tangible results for me, and the vast majority of rejection I've experienced in real life comes before they've had any real opportunity to know my qualities as a person. There were some worthwhile experiences that in another universe could have led to my desired outcome, along with some terrible and regrettable ones, but I bungled at least some due to immaturity or inexperience. Yet despite having developed as a person, and accruing more accomplishments, wealth, and status, I feel that opportunities like that are growing harder to come by than before. I do agree with the above poster that the game is getting harder to play.
Maybe I should start going to church again, though I've been an apostate my entire adult life.
Adiabatic
1yr ago
What if I'm not just looking to get laid, though? What if I'm looking for a stable marriage and 2-3 kids with someone whose company I can tolerate, and whose appearance I'm not repulsed by/who I wouldn't be embarrassed to introduce to my friends? That, to me, feels like an almost impossible ask today, despite having been the norm several decades ago.
Unfortunately not everyone takes this approach when grading submissions. NSF requires that you address the 'broader impacts' of your grant proposal, which means in essence what you are doing to promote diversity.
I took the approach you described and wrote about things that I was doing to improve stem outreach and training in general, as well initiatives I was involved in at a nearby hbcu. I got solid scores from two reviewers, which would be well in the range of an acceptance, and got absolutely hammered by the third reviewer, who insisted I wasn't doing enough for minorities.
Ultimately my proposal wasn't funded. Thankfully I've been having better luck with NIH, who don't have this requirement.
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