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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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I remain entirely unconvinced that it is hugely difficult for an average young man to find a girlfriend that is looks matched (which in America usually means fat) and of approximately the same social status (we can include relative chastity here) and class.

What sort of evidence would you find 'convincing?'

I don't think @2rafa will find any evidence convincing. I say this because tI never got a response once from her when I push back on her repeatedly and tirelessly asserting that attracting a woman as a man is, easy (or just not hard).

I'll reiterate my response again anyways.


Just because it's done doesn't mean it's not hard. There are countless hard things that get done by almost all people universally. Raising kids, sending kids out of the home, burying your parents, all of it. All experiences almost everyone has, and all tremendously hard.

Much in the same way, males have a biological imperative, and they do what needs to be done to attract women. Asserting that its easy in the same way its easy for a woman to attract a man is glib and farcical. If every other man who has to experience and live it says its hard, I think that's more than enough evidence than theorizing.

And I push back on this only because one ought to have a model of other human experiences to speak about them. If I can understand that women have it hard too, but in a different way, in that they have a hard time attracting a mate that they find attractive, it shouldn't be too hard to understand that becoming the mate that they want also takes work.

Almost in all mammals males do the selling, the female does the buying. If you don't understand this, you have no business taking part in such conversations.


And I can see this coming from a mile away.

"Proximity is all that matters, most men are partnered with people from school and work". Alright, do you think it all happened serendipitously? Or the man didn't do any planning or asking out or navigating the social minefield and making any moves? Are any of these particularly hard? No. Is it harder than just sitting there an existing? Yes.

Yeah.

I'm going to revert directly to that question when I encounter them in the future.

People who INSIST that your arguments aren't convincing to them because they are so certain of their position should be able to articulate what kind of evidence might nudge them to change their mind a little. If they have an absurdly high standard that's fine, but they can't very well complain if others hold them to the same standard.

If they won't, that to me is proof of bad faith. They are taking the other side of the argument then, ultimately failing to support their side, and dismissing every form of evidence, data, anecdote, or even thought experiment without explaining why they disbelieve it.

Not particularly enjoyable to encounter repeatedly.

Alright, do you think it all happened serendipitously? Or the man didn't do any planning or asking out or navigating the social minefield and making any moves? Are any of these particularly hard? No. Is it harder than just sitting there an existing? Yes.

So you yourself admit it’s not “particularly” hard and something that the vast majority of men figure out, just like various other things?

By the way, I have never denied and would never deny that being a man involves a more assertive role, requires more gumption, more risk taking, than being a woman in the pursuit of a heterosexual relationship. That is obvious and the product of biology. It is also different, however, to the specific claim that being an average guy sucks when it comes to getting a date or girlfriend or wife (etc).

Okay here's my analogy.

Finding a girlfriend is equivalently difficult as finding a (well paying) job.

The act of sealing the deal is easy. Just go do the interview, sign some papers and you are done. But the leadup to the job is hard. Becoming someone they want to hire, and getting your CV to the top of the stack is really hard. It's the leadup to the easy part.

Same with finding a mate. Becoming the man a woman wants, and getting yourself to the front of the line is hard. Crossing the line is easy.

There are 8 billion people on the planet and counting, every single one of your ancestors found a mate. It may be "hard" however you chose to define it, but it is one of the most common and least exceptional things that humans do. Proximity is a big part of finding a mate, people tend to date and marry those around them (how could it be otherwise?), put yourself in a situation with lots of available partners and I'm sure you'll find one, unless you're ugly as sin, absolutely insufferable and poor all at once.

It helps if you're funny and like to party! I tend to see a lot of joyless posts when people talk about relationships like math problems on here, where is the FUN?! If you don't have any zest for life or don't know how to enjoy yourself and have fun with others, then yes, it is going to be hard for someone to appreciate what you bring to the table.

Optimizers suck the fun out of every game in the world.

2 females reproducing to 1 man is the historical minimum.

I would love to see those stats for the united states since inception.

Becoming the man a woman wants, and getting yourself to the front of the line is hard.

Sure, again I agree that if you want a woman who is very beautiful and high status and has her pick of men you probably need to work to stand out in some way (at least unless you’re also extraordinarily handsome, and perhaps even then). I’m less convinced that attracting a woman similar to you is as difficult, although I concede that Dubai is probably a very weird place to date and men are very much overrepresented among expats there.

Most women I know make similar amounts (some more, some less) to their boyfriends, have similar bodies (ie the fit gymgoing ones are with fit men, the fat ones with more overweight men), are similarly facially attractive, come from similar backgrounds. If a regular man had to be very successful and fit to attract an average partner, then one would expect to see a widespread phenomenon of handsome and successful men with average-to-ugly women of few means, and that simply isn’t something I’ve seen at all. One occasionally finds a woman with a more generally attractive partner, but it isn’t the norm.

Dubai

Doesn't matter all that much because:

  1. The overrepresented men are in the bottom quartiles of income, i.e laborers who can't speak english. So for the most part they are invisible (and irrelevant).
  2. There is still great volume. Dubai is overpopulated af and growing daily.

It's still nightmare difficult mode compared to other parts of the world for other reasons. The only analogies I have in hand are:

  1. I get 5-6 weekly matches when I use Tinder in the tri state area. I get 5-6 matches in 2-3 months here. Those too mostly from tourists. Girls mostly don't use dating apps here and when they do, they experience the same thing any girl does on a dating app, but turned up to 11 thousand.
  2. Expats are transient, most people are here for a few years and then dip. So the friend group and proximity part is an actual issue on top of all the other ones !
  3. Social life here is so bad (see above), a lot of expats end up leaving exclusively on that basis!

But I don't really need to discuss my personal details (I'm seeing a girl so this topic isn't very salient to me ATM), I'm speaking more in the abstract, for the modal genz male.


widespread phenomenon

The widespread phenomenon of male sexlessness is a proxy for that.

If you don't live in an urban core, or work in tech, and only have to use the dating apps (which is a more and more common mode of finding partners), getting proximity in and of itself requires a lot of time and money and effort ! Just like getting a well paying job.

What evidence might convince you that men are struggling to find available and eligible women, and especially that they're struggling more than usual?