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Notes -
I sort of agree with you- being a normal person who settles down in a serious relationship became opt-in at some point, so some people got worse at it. But some people got worse at it is the actual mechanics of the thing even if not the root cause. Your hypothetical young man in 1955 didn't have the option to not date a lass seriously but he was also less likely to be addicted to porn, video games, or weed, had better social skills, and also was much more likely to be stably employed. Likewise your hypothetical young woman of the time was thinner, better at home economics(not that fifties cooking was in general very good[it wasn't] but that the women who straight up can't cook or keep a house weren't really a thing), and more pleasant to deal with on average. 'Pass' is a valid selection and for the bottom whatever percent of appealing partners I don't particularly blame them for taking it as regards their opposite sex equivalent.
I'm totally in favor of social/community support for solving these problems, and I do in fact spend time thinking about the problem. But the fact remains that both sexes are less appealing as partners on average- physically, due to obesity, social skills wise, expectations wise(there was no sexting before smart phones, and while I'm not delusional enough to think that courtship between the two sexual revolutions had a high rate of waiting til the wedding night there wasn't much sex on the first date either), in terms of maturity, etc. This is an actual problem that has to be solved in order to make these community support mechanisms functional.
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