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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30069 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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I agree that the "date me" docs give me the willies, and Hana is someone I'd run a mile from in real life. But the thing is, with modern dating apps, I don't know if it's so much "revealed preferences" as "race to the bottom".

Sure, OKCupid etc. were the first ones. But Tinder was copied as a Grindr clone for straights, and Grindr was all about being a hookup app. The new, younger generation of customers were then looking for something like Tinder, and the long-form old dating app models had to adapt or die. And so now there is the swipe culture and the complaints about that.

The argument from demographics You already know.

More than 60 percent of young men are single, nearly twice the rate of unattached young women, signaling a larger breakdown in the social, romantic and sexual life of the American male.

Men in their 20s are more likely than women in their 20s to be romantically uninvolved, sexually dormant, friendless and lonely. They stand at the vanguard of an epidemic of declining marriage, sexuality and relationships that afflicts all of young America.

That's because of competition. Young men in their 20s are competing with men in all ranges for young women in their 20s, because men from 20-80 have a preference for women in their 20s. So a guy who's 24, maybe still in school, not doing much of anything yet with his life is competing with the 30 and 40 year olds who are established and have money to wine and dine the 22 year old women. Go to the 30-50 year old women and see what rates match up there. And even historically, this was so; May-December marriages because the man was richer and the bride's family thought this was an excellent match, or was a widower looking for a second (or third) wife happened. That put younger men out of the running too.

Are we going to ask men who are 30+ to kindly stick to dating women of their own age? I wonder how well that would go down, with the same people proposing that the answer is to deny women higher education and economically force them into marrying at a young age! I don't think we can blame 22 year old Cindy for preferring 35 year old George over 24 year old Josh, even if down the line George will still be chasing women in their 20s when he (and Cindy) are in their 40s - Josh will be doing the same thing, after all!

In conclusion, I totally agree that there is no such thing as a soulmate and it's a concept I'd love to kill with fire. It makes the pressure on romantic love and achievement that much greater, it makes people dissatisified and always with one eye out for the better, perfect partner instead of the one they're with, or could be with. There's both too much expectation around marriage (your spouse will be all-in-all to you instead of you having a range of friends and other relationships - not poly, let me hasten to add - outside the marriage) and it's too easy to get out of your current marriage and set out on chasing the soulmate this time round for a second marriage.

I think the part about the lack of friendships for men is very important, too, and part of that problem is the American set up that you make friends in school, then you move off to college, make friends there, then leave home and go somewhere completely different to get a job. And if you don't keep in touch with your college friends or make new work friends, then you're going to end up without friends (unless you marry and your wife does the traditional role of maintaining friendships by keeping the network of contacts going with the Christmas cards, emailing or phoning, invites to life events like marriages and so on). There's not the same "stayed in the local community" expectation anymore, so you leave all your early roots behind and then (seemingly) men find it harder to find and make lasting friends. That's what I was saying about making marriage the be-all and end-all to serve all these social functions, when there used to be things like friendships and membership of societies outside the home.

Another factor is polygyny, on top of the possible age and reporting differentials that have been mentioned in this thread.

Young women are sometimes, perhaps often, dating the same men. Whether wittingly or not, or somewhere in between due to preselection and female mate-choice copying, sometimes with a dose of willful obliviousness. "tee hee, my boyfriend is totally separated from his wife, but he's such a good father that he spends most of his time with them." Some are even more brazen and upfront about dating married men, or men with (a) girlfriend(s).

It's like a set-up for a Norm Macdonald (RIP) joke: "A recent report says that many more young women are in relationships than young men. Some of the men these young women are dating are even in a relationship with only them."

I genuinely don't understand women willing to have affairs with married men. Girl, he's already lying to and deceiving his wife, why do you think he's going to treat you any better or be faithful to you? "Oh he's going to leave her, oh it's her fault she won't divorce him, oh he's only staying for the kids" - no, you're the side piece except in the very rare cases where marriages do break up and the adulterers marry each other.

I do. Attraction is not a choice: For the most part, it's not a plan or anything, especially not initially. Men (including married men) who have credible signals that they have sexual access to other women in their lives induce more tingles than men who do not, just as tall men are more attractive than short men.

And, as the saying goes, the man who divorces his wife and marries his mistress leaves a job vacancy.

This is my best guess at the moment as well. I think the revealed preferences indicate that, for most women most of the time, being the 5th in line to a 9 or 10 is better than being the one and only to a 6 or 7. After all, generally the 6 or 7 is still an available option if the 9 or 10 doesn't work out.

Pretty much. Chicks often prefer being the n’th sidepiece of a Chad rather than having a whole Brad to themselves, especially if they can keep teasing enough crumbs to Brads to keep them orbiting as back-up plans.

Are we going to ask men who are 30+ to kindly stick to dating women of their own age?

We already do, at least a little bit. 2rafa's said below that this doesn't happen THAT much, and census data about marriage bears that out.

That's because of competition. Young men in their 20s are competing with men in all ranges for young women in their 20s, because men from 20-80 have a preference for women in their 20s. So a guy who's 24, maybe still in school, not doing much of anything yet with his life is competing with the 30 and 40 year olds who are established and have money to wine and dine the 22 year old women.

It's not really because of this, the data doesn't suggest any substantial number of 22 year old women are dating or fucking 40 year old men. Of course it happens (and moreso than the gender-inverse situation), but it's not the cause of the discrepancy.

The cause of the discrepancy is almost certainly just the long-observed difference between what men and women consider a 'relationship'. It's the same thing as when your buddy tells you his relationship of three years with a girl "isn't that serious", while she's telling her friends she thinks he's going to propose. In the end, he's posturing to his friends and she's posturing to hers. A woman has an ongoing monogamous relationship with a man, she puts down that she's 'in a relationship'. A man has a monogamous relationship with a woman, but thinks he's a lothario who surely could be fucking another chick if he put his mind to it which he doesn't, and puts down 'single' because he 'technically' doesn't call her his 'girlfriend' and hasn't yet introduced her to his parents.

I have observed this exact situation (a monogamous relationship on both sides that woman considers 'relationship' and man considers 'fwb' or 'a casual thing') countless times. Usually they end up together and get over their own coping strategies about settling down.

A woman has an ongoing monogamous relationship with a man, she puts down that she's 'in a relationship'. A man has a monogamous relationship with a woman, but thinks he's a lothario who surely could be fucking another chick if he put his mind to it which he doesn't, and puts down 'single' because he 'technically' doesn't call her his 'girlfriend' and hasn't yet introduced her to his parents.

Technically, they are both single but in a case like that (if it's going on for more than a year), I think the term for such a guy is "dickwad". If it's monogamous, exclusive, engaging in sexual activity, and long-term it's a relationship, Algernon. If you just meet up for coffee, lunch, and going to the movies, it's simply dating (by older definitions) but not serious and indeed need not be exclusive (women and men could have had several 'dates' like that with different people going on because they were seeing several people casually but nobody exclusively or seriously).

No wonder surveys are all biased towards the reported experiences of women:

Definition and measurement of cohabitation As with dating, there can be some variation in how cohabitation is measured across surveys. Questions used by recent surveys to assess cohabitation status at the time of the interview as well as prior cohabitation experiences include (but are not limited to):

Current Population Survey. “Do you have a boyfriend, girlfriend or partner in this household?” (current cohabitation status)

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. “Since the date of our last interview, have you been married to someone, or lived with a partner of the opposite gender in a marriage-like relationship where you established one household and lived together?” (prior cohabitation experiences) and “Do you have a partner that currently lives with you?” (current cohabitation status)

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. “How many romantic or sexual partners have you ever lived with for one month of more? By ‘lived with’ we mean that neither of you kept a separate residence while you were living together.” (prior cohabitation experiences) and, for those who reported that they currently have a romantic or sexual partner, “Are you currently cohabiting with [fill first name]?” (current cohabitation status)

National Survey of Families and Households. “With how many partners did you live before your (first) marriage (including your first husband/wife)?” (prior cohabitation experiences) and, for those who reported having ever lived with a partner, “Are you still living with this partner?” (current cohabitation status)

National Survey of Family Growth. “Some couples live together without being married. By living together, we mean having a sexual relationship while sharing the same usual address. Have you ever lived together with a man? Do not count ‘dating’ or ‘sleeping over’ as living together. Living together means having a sexual relationship while sharing the same usual address.” (prior cohabitation experiences) and “What is your current marital or cohabiting status?” (current cohabitation status)

Some surveys (such as the Survey of Income and Program Participation) also use lists of household members (i.e., household rosters), and their relationships to one another (“unmarried partner”), to establish cohabitation status.18

These differences in the various questions and methods used to study cohabitation have resulted in some inconsistencies in estimates of cohabitation experiences within the literature. Furthermore, prior to 2002, one of the primary data sources of cohabitation (and marriage) trends, the National Survey of Family and Growth, interviewed only women. As a result, many of the trends described in this brief—and in the larger literature—focus on women’s union status and experiences.

The article itself attempts to explain the discrepancy as follows:

(1) Women are more gay now (which I take leave to doubt) (2) Older men, younger women (which is my position) (3) Women are choosier (again, that well may be; if there are more men than women, then women have a greater choice. But if there are more men than women, then of course there will be some men who aren't getting dates).

Even seasoned researchers struggle to fully account for the relationship gap between young women and men: If single young men outnumber single young women nearly two to one, then who are all the young women dating?

Some of them are dating each other. One-fifth of Generation Z identifies as queer, and research suggests bisexual women make up a large share of the young-adult queer community.

Young women are also dating and marrying slightly older men, carrying on a tradition that stretches back more than a century. The average age at first marriage is around 30 for men, 28 for women, according to census figures.

The thing is, there are seemingly as many women saying they can't get a man who wants to commit as there are men complaining they can't get a date. It does seem to be that older women aren't finding men in their age range (and by "older", I mean 30+) and while that may be 'unrealistic expectations' and standards set way too high, I think it's also that those men are chasing - and winning - the younger women.

This study is a bit all over the place, as it is covering decades so it jumps around from 2000s to 2010s, but the key changes seem to be:

(1) Dating has declined, though this may be due to changes in terminology and what people regard as "dating" (2) Cohabitation has increased (3) Marriage rates have decreased (4) While divorce rates are down, so are remarriage rates

Differences in dating by age are not always straightforward to interpret. For instance, compared to teens and those in their early twenties, dating is less common among young adults ages 24 to 32, at about 23 percent in 2007–2008, but this difference is largely due to the fact that men and women in this age range more often live with a romantic partner or are married (discussed below). Among those who are dating, however, both teens and young adults (ages 24 to 32) characterize their relationships as serious, though perhaps in different ways. In 2014–2015, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of adolescents who were currently dating described their relationship as serious. Similarly, a large majority of young adults’ dating relationships are serious: In 2007–2008, of young adults ages 24 to 32 in dating relationships, 70 percent reported dating exclusively or being engaged.

So I think cohabitation has largely replaced marriage, and my own view has long been that if you aren't married within a couple of years of 'getting serious' then it's never going to happen, a view that seems to be borne out as below, and women should stop being surprised that "my partner of seven/ten/fifteen years just left me for a younger woman!" because yeah, he was getting free milk all those years and now has traded in the old cow for a younger heifer:

Cohabiting unions can end in one of two ways: Partners can either break up or transition into marriage. The share of cohabitations that transition to marriage has declined over the past 30 years. Research shows that two-fifths (42 percent) of women who were cohabiting in the mid- to late-1980s married their first cohabiting partner within five years of moving in together, compared to only about one-fifth (22 percent) of women who cohabited at some point from 2006 to 2013.24 Most cohabiting couples who marry will do so within three years of the start of the cohabitation.

At the same time, the share of cohabitations ending in dissolution has remained essentially unchanged. Research finds that 35 percent of cohabitations formed during 1983–1988 and 36 percent of those formed in 2006–2013 ended in separation within five years.

These simultaneous trends reflect the fact that couples are maintaining cohabiting unions longer. The overall duration of cohabiting unions has been steadily rising. In the mid-1980s, for example, first cohabitations lasted an average of 12 months, and this rose to about 18 months for cohabitations formed between 2006 and 2013.

Many people who cohabit and then break up go on to form another cohabiting union with a new partner. Forming these second, third, and higher cohabiting unions with different partners is termed serial cohabitation.

Serial cohabitation has become more common over time. Among women born from 1960 to 1964 who first cohabited during young adulthood, about 60 percent entered a second cohabiting union within 12 years of the end of their first cohabitation. For women born 20 years later (1980–1984), 73 percent had entered a new cohabiting union within 12 years of their first cohabitation dissolution. Furthermore, the time elapsed between the end of one cohabitation and the start of another has decreased for more recent cohorts. Among women who had two or more cohabitations, those born from 1980 to 1984 entered into a second cohabiting union just 26 months, on average, after the end of their first cohabitation, whereas women born in 1960 to 1964 took an average of 47 months to enter such a union.

Age of first marriage has also gone up, and I think that's in part down to the acceptability of cohabitation and the view that "you shouldn't just rush into marriage, live together first to find out if you're compatible". In the 70s women got married at 21 because 'living in sin' was frowned upon, nowadays that would be considered too soon and too young and you should live together first. Of course, if you do live together, you're less likely to get married. Another reason would be that women are no longer as economically dependent upon men; historically it was marriage or poverty, but now women can be self-supporting by work.

After steadily increasing for the past several decades, the age at first marriage has reached a historic high. The median age at first marriage in 2018 was 29.8 for men and 27.8 for women, compared to a median age of 23.2 for men and 20.8 for women in 1970.

The cause of the discrepancy is almost certainly just the long-observed difference between what men and women consider a 'relationship'. It's the same thing as when your buddy tells you his relationship of three years with a girl "isn't that serious", while she's telling her friends she thinks he's going to propose. In the end, he's posturing to his friends and she's posturing to hers. A woman has an ongoing monogamous relationship with a man, she puts down that she's 'in a relationship'.

In cases such as this, I'd say the crucial difference is that the woman expects the relationship to end in marriage, while the man has no such plans/expectations. Hence the two different sorts of posturing.

Often the man does end up marrying the girl, at least in my experience.

It's the three years. As I said, if he isn't proposing by then, it's never going to happen, which is why women think "yeah, this is serious and heading that way". If you're only together a year and one or the other of you gives the "it's not you, it's me" speech then sure, it wasn't that serious. But longer than that is - or should be - leading to definite committment.

That's why I think the Sexual Revolution was a bad deal for women, no matter how the feminists of the day thought they could take on male sexual values and enjoy the same kind of benefits. The saying about free milk and the cow has value because it's true: why will a man take on the responsibility of marriage if he's getting all the benefits, including romantic, without entering into the institution? The same goes for women, of course, but I do think women still are being socialised with the view that a relationship should lead to marriage.

IMO it's a birth control issue as much as anything. Back in the days of spontaneous unwanted pregnancies, these things were a bit more self-resolving.

Shotgun weddings didn't get their name from the nature of the problem being self-resolving.

The possibility made you put a bit more thought into where you were putting your genitals, especially with the threat of the half-decade go nowhere relationship.

So I think cohabitation has largely replaced marriage, and my own view has long been that if you aren't married within a couple of years of 'getting serious' then it's never going to happen

I think so. One of the things that’s most important for women to realize is “if he wanted to, he would”. This is true for women, too, but men usually encounter it in dating or friendships (ie the archetypal friendzone ‘should I confess my love to my best friend, who is a girl?’ post) while women usually encounter it in either hookup situations where the man doesn’t want to commit at all, or in long term relationships where he doesn’t want to marry.

I think everyone has seen the same man go from entirely relaxed and putting in minimal effort in one relationship to being the consummate gentleman in another (in everything from chores to holding open doors to presents) and the sole difference is that he meets a girl he likes more and doesn’t want to lose. Almost every quality man I’ve met who got married has said that they knew very quickly after they met the girl.

At the same time, I think men naturally waver more about marriage than women and it’s not an awful thing for a man to be concerned about making the wrong decision, as long as he does come to one. But it’s very sad to have friends where you struggle to tell them that it’s not going to be them, especially if they’re really in love.

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