Economics seems to offer answers to most questions these days – I’ve always been fond of it as it applies to sex and relationships. Jessica Irvine is a New Zealand economics journalist who has laid out a good approach for recognizing when you’ve met “the one.” I think this is well worth thinking about, as we have witnessed the dilemma of women who decline to marry in their 20s, assuming there will be a steady stream of suitors in future. Recall Kate Bolick’s piece in the Atlantic:
Today I am 39, with too many ex-boyfriends to count and, I am told, two grim-seeming options to face down: either stay single or settle for a “good enough” mate. At this point, certainly, falling in love and getting married may be less a matter of choice than a stroke of wild great luck. A decade ago, luck didn’t even cross my mind. I’d been in love before, and I’d be in love again. This wasn’t hubris so much as naïveté; I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently.
Andrew Leigh, an award winning economist in Australia:
You’re solving an ‘optimal stopping’ problem. You know you’ve found ‘the one’ when you determine that the expected quality of all future matches is lower than the value of your current partner.
Another economist was also highly practical in his choice of spouse:
‘In the process of choosing, my assessment was that my wife had the highest weighted-average of all the things I felt were important: looks, ‘compatibility’, kindness, inherent optimism, competence, diligence, and general enthusiasm for a happy life and family.’
To an economist, choices are about tradeoffs, finding the best overall outcome – the most pros with the fewest cons. The idea of settling doesn’t indicate you’re a loser – settling is something that each of us does every day, assuming our lives are not perfect and that we can not get everything we want.
According to Irvine:
It was an American free-market economist, Gary Becker, who in the 1970s first began extending these principles from markets for goods and services to market for potential partners.
He argued that the market for marriage was like any other, with individuals coming together to make mutually beneficial trades and to sign a contract ensuring future beneficial transactions. And because individuals compete for mates, a truly competitive market for marriage partners exists.
If you believe in finding your soulmate, then your strategy is to search until you’ve found the perfect match, but that’s very costly:
- It’s expensive.
- The longer you wait, the smaller the pool of eligible mates.
Economist Tim Harcourt agrees on the importance of realistic tradeoffs:
The economics of love or marriage is like search theory in the labour market. You start out with preferences about what you may like in a partner, but over time you may, if searching unsuccessfully, drop your ”reservation wage” – ie lower your standards – to settle on a job or love match.
The biggest risk in the marriage market is the expenditure of time, especially for women, whose fertility is limited. You can’t just buy a great catch on Craigslist – the shopping process is a time consuming one, and it may take a month or more just to determine that someone is not a good match.
Economist Nicholas Gruen observes that online dating is making the market much more efficient, and has the added benefit of producing a wealth of data:
[That data is] showing that dating is very like a market with strong ‘objective’ values around which assortative mating takes place.
(This reference to assortative mating refers to similar levels of intelligence and looks.)
Online dating matches occur mostly between people of similar sexual market value, so it can provide real information to people about their objective level of attractiveness. For obvious reasons, this is a far more accurate gauge than extrapolating from the pool of males who may be willing to hook up with you with no strings.
When two people find a person with the highest-weighted average of qualities they want in a mate, they fall in love. That is the optimal stopping point. The optimal stopping point has many other applications in real life, including:
- Selling a house
- Hiring an employee
- Betting on a horse
- Trading options on the financial markets
Just for giggles, I’ll share with you the mathematical solution for deciding when to settle on a marriage partner. Known as The Marriage Problem, it establishes the maximum probability of selecting the best mate. The first step is in estimating how many potential partners you may get the opportunity to choose from. If you expect only one guy to fall for you, you should lock down the first promising candidate. That’s also the case if you expect two serious suitors. As your number of potential matches gets larger, depending on your attractiveness, you may hold out longer.
When the number of potential suitors is large, which is the default assumption for young women in The Marriage Problem, then the solution (via calculus) is to estimate that number, and reject the first 36.8% of suitors. Accept the next one who is better than all those you rejected.
A practical application might look like this:
A young woman of 21 would like to be engaged at 27 and married at 28, the average age of marriage for a female college graduate.
That gives her six years to find a husband. 36.8% of that time is about two years and three months.
She should reject all offers until she is 23 and 1/4, then accept the next guy who is better than all the men she rejected. That still gives her almost four years to find him. This strategy leaves little room for “playing around” or “just having fun” with guys in your 20s. It’s food for thought.
For the record, many older successfully married couples have reportedly used something very similar to this calculation in choosing their spouse.
{ 608 comments… read them below or add one }
1 2 3 … 5 »
Well I think “settling” for Mr. good enough is actually a decent strategy.
The mathematical strategy outlined here results in you getting the best possible mate 36.8% of the time, staying single 36.8% of the time, and getting somebody other than the best possible mate the remaining 26.4% of the time.
It might be a wiser strategy to lower your selectiveness so that you have a lower probability of marrying the best possible mate, but a higher probability of actually getting married.
One should also remember that the mathematical strategy outlined here assumes you are unable to deduce anything about the actual distribution of mating suitability. IRL, you might meet someone after the first 10% and realize that that person is someone very special and you’re unlikely to ever have that good a prospect again. Then, by all means go for it.
“Economics seems to offer answers to most questions these days “
Oh baby, just let me introduce you to her distant cousin – thermodynamics…
“Economist Nicholas Gruen observes that online dating is making the market much more efficient, and has the added benefit of producing a wealth of data…”
The data is not the issue. Online dating itself sends the message that no matter who you choose there will always be someone better out there — or someone with some interesting quality your current mate doesn’t have. This, in turn, I think will be the end of relationships as we know them. Men are able to troll for replacements while women can trade up. It’s like having an infinite supply of cupcakes in the drawer when you’re on a diet — temptation will win out eventually.
Susan, the flaws I see with “wait 36% then accept next best offer” are as follows:
1) It is not necessary to go on lots of dates to assess the overall conditions of the market. I knew what types of men were out there just by simply observing them, reading what they write (very easy nowadays online), and chatting with them on a friendly basis.
2) Your best offer may come at 1% or at 50% of the time elapsed. I met my husband within two months of becoming single again, but he was absolutely the best I’d met. It would be silly to say that I should have rejected him because I hadn’t dated around enough.
3) Stats are good at large numbers, but fail to consider the emotional toll/effect (Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational goes into this). My husband’s a mathematician, and even he would be against using math to find a spouse. From what I have seen, playing the numbers game often makes participants jaded and unhappy, and there is also the twin effect of “paralysis by analysis” and “overabundance of choice” in modern dating.
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-find-a-spouse-in-nyc
As much as my INTJ nature likes the facts and loves data, I simply can’t get over just how stark and unromantic all this is. I know, I know, romance is a farce, “the one” is a lie, and all that. Personally I don’t care. As much as I see the pragmatic approach as correct, I can’t help feeling it is also missing some human element.
I feel badly that it has come to this. That the best approach is to remove all emotion and feeling from the equation and instead simply focus on raw data. Love isn’t supposed to be about math, it is supposed to be about feelings, and that is coming from a person that shows very little in terms of emotional response to the world. I hate that our modern world has relegated romance to the scrap heap, along with integrity and honor.
I’m sad that the best approach for my children’s future happiness is for them to do a cost analysis on if having a mate is worth it, and if it is exactly how much it will cost in terms of resources. I’d rather they just find someone, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
Cypher – “Why oh why didn’t I take the blue pill?” Some days I can completely understand where he was coming from when he said those words. Yes, it is better to know the truth than toil away pointlessly. But it really sucks when the truth is, well, sad.
@Hope
I’m not literally suggesting that people use calculus to find a spouse. I found the analysis interesting. In particular, it demonstrates that finding the best possible partner can take a while, and therefore it makes sense to be searching for that early on.
I would never suggest to a 22 year old woman in love that she should reject that guy and keep looking.
@Ted D
The truth is, it’s good to settle. We all settle, all the time. Entitlement and a general attitude of refusing to ever settle in any way (particularly among women) has gotten us where we are today. It’s very important that we realize that finding a great mate is not winning the lottery, it’s not a search for one soulmate. There are many, many people any of us could be happily married to. It’s up to us to make our own happiness.
Susan, thanks for that clarification. I think some women do toss good ones back and wait for a bigger catch, like Kate Bolick. It would be a bad strategy to follow the 36% rule too literally.
@Susan
that’s…quite an interesting way to look at it. I smiled as I read it and it has the advantage of getting guys ‘n’ gals thinking about ‘just when am I looking to settle down anyway?’. It’s probably more critical for women (if they want kids) than men, but it does look applicable to both sexes to some degree.
Bringing over a concept from the last thread (but not the identities and details), do women change their minds about their objectives as they age?
There seems to be a lot of anecdotal ‘everyone knows’ about women getting to around 30 and suddenly becoming more marriage ‘n’ kids oriented. Do ‘we’ think that it’s true?
If so it needs to be folded into the planning of the 21 year old who doesn’t want to be tied down and let rip with the kids. This has the advantage of giving scope to make the model more complicated (with more numbers, an’ stuff), and you’ve clearly had fun so far…
“women who decline to marry in their 20s, assuming there will be a steady stream of suitors in future”
Where is this assumption coming from and why is the denial so rampant despite the constantly advertised angst among women just ten years older?
@Hope
that’s 36.8% I think you’ll find. No need to abandon precision just because we’re talking stats. If the precision is there we should use it.
Speaking of which
numbers please Susan. mean and standard deviation (if that can acceptably model the data). Maybe a table of the raw data for completeness.
You were doing so well with the maths, it’s a shame to let standards slip at the last moment.
p.s.
it’s like PUAs talking about a 6.5 they met last night on operations. I mean how do you tell a 6.4 (yuck, no thanks), from a 6.5 (yummy) whilst in a bar where conversation is limited? Maybe I should buy some DVDs?
Ha, you anticipated my new post and you are not going to like it
Susan,
I just skimmed it…and I didn’t find anything that offputting…just minor quibbles. No doubt, there is value in thinking and acting strategically. One would be foolish not to. Only the naive wouldn’t realize that a relationship has some element of quid pro quo value exchange. That said, at the end of the day there really is something very qualitatively different between a lifetime partner and selling a house or betting on a horse. I think the “falling in love” part is something more and deeper than a mathematical calculation of traits.
Ironic, but perhaps olloR is right, at the end of the day it is men who are the romantic idealists while women always retain some calculating nature
But then I read comments from someone like Hope, and I know that isn’t true.
“If you believe in finding your soulmate, then your strategy is to search until you’ve found the perfect match, but that’s very costly:”
Hear hear! A buddy of mine, mid-30s, looks young, attractive, fit, outdoorsy neo hippie type never had a problem attracting women and often dated college co-eds. He complained to us one day that “women today don’t want to have kids”. We informed that they do, just not at 21 while their still in school. He made an affirmation that by 40 he would be engaged to the future mother of his children. 40 came and went and his latest college aged gf moved out. He took off for California to live the beach life and has grown a full beard and really long hair to the point of looking like an old mountain. It adds 10 years to him and is not a good look. He went from surfer boy hipster to cave man so I guess he’s totally given up. He also drank the soul mate kool aid. I tried to tell him soul mates don’t exist, you have to be practical, but he’s pretty new agey like that. Soul mate is a myth that can devastate people when it turns out not to be true. They hold out for perfect while passing up the good.
Susan – “It’s very important that we realize that finding a great mate is not winning the lottery, it’s not a search for one soulmate. There are many, many people any of us could be happily married to. It’s up to us to make our own happiness.”
Oh I agree 100%. I simply don’t like the concept of “settling” when it comes to a mate. I agree that “the one” is a concept we need to kill off, and we all need to understand that we make our own happiness. Entitlement is terrible, but there are so few things left to feel “special” about (if we are all the same we can’t be unique snowflakes) that it would be nice to believe we are at least special to the ones we love. The red pill teaches otherwise, but knowing the truth doesn’t make me like it any better.
Just thinking about “settling” gets my panties in a bunch… As in I have to fight the urge to type BULLSHIT in all caps when I see it. It just sounds so mercenary and logical. It irks me to think I was the best option a woman could manage, not the perfect option for her. I mean, people usually don’t strive to be the best by default, they strive to beat everyone else to the top. “Settling” implies she just couldn’t make it to the top, so I’ll do. At least that is how I see it every single time it is mentioned. But I’ve always been a glass half empty kinda guy, so it is my problem. Other people seem to have no problem accepting that they were the best option their spouse could land, and not necessarily their ultimate choice.
My small bit of idealism is showing. Where is Jesus M. when I need him?
Mike C – “Ironic, but perhaps olloR is right, at the end of the day it is men who are the romantic idealists while women always retain some calculating nature ”
The first time I saw that I had to think long and hard about it, but came to the same conclusion. Women talk about romance more than men, but I think men actually believe (or want to believe) in it more than women by far. Oh, to be sure women want “romance” as in dinner, dancing, romancing, etc. But men are the ones that often wish for the deeper meaning/emotional part of romance, and are often left holding an empty bag.
@ Just1X
Actually, it’s 1/e. If you’re trying to avoid losing precision, you shouldn’t use decimals.
@Abbot (quoting Susan)
I’m sorry, Abbot. That was my fault. I spent too many years orbiting that first love when I was a star-crossed teen. She got convinced that there would always be someone around to do that.
@INTJ
My. bad, I just feel like I’ve let everyone down…
@Mike C
I don’t know why exactly, but it cracked me up that you adopted this goofy convention.
@Chi King Kong
Welcome, your friend sounds a little loony for sure!
I’m not sure how the soulmate myth got started, but I have read that that one concept accounts for many female-initiated divorces. Women marry expecting things to be perfect – a highly unrealistic expectation, obviously, and then feel great disappointment when the novelty wears off and life becomes mundane.
One indicator of this was that the percentage of women who say they expect to grow as a person as a direct result of getting married has gone way up. They view marriage as part of self-actualization. In fact, their spouse cannot give them that – their personal growth must be their own responsibility.
Basically, we need a huge reality check re marriage in this country.
@Ted D.
I think you’re holding on to the erroneous notion of what settling is. It doesn’t mean you’re not head over heels. It means that if you wrote down a description of your perfect 10 wife as a young man of 21:
gorgeous face
long flowing hair
fantastic body
sweet and kind
only has eyes for me
fantastic cook
etc.
The odds of your getting everything on your list would be nil. You might fall in love with a woman who isn’t a great cook, has short legs, whatever. In fact, flaws can wind up being part of a person’s charm. None of us really wants to live up to perfection every day.
Instead of settling, think of it as locking down the woman who has the greatest weighted average of everything you want. Economics is cold but it does often explain human behavior.
The Husband Store and the Wife Store
A brand new store has just opened in New York City that sells Husbands.
When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors and the value of
the products increase as you ascend the flights. You may choose any item
from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you
CANNOT go back down except to exit the building.
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.
The 1st floor sign on the door reads:
Floor 1: These men have jobs.
The 2nd floor sign reads:
Floor 2: These men have Jobs and Love Kids.
The 3rd floor sign reads:
Floor 3: These men have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely good looking.
“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the 4th floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4: These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and help with Housework.
“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it!”
Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads:
Floor 5: These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the sign reads:
Floor 6: You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.
There are no men on this floor.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.
Puzzled by his lack of success, the Husband Store’s owner opens a Wife Store just across the street.
The 1st first floor has cute wives.
The 2nd floor has cute wives that can cook.
The 3rd,4th, 5th and 6th floors have never been visited.
@ Mule Chewing Bears
Lol. That is hilarious.
There is quite a lot of evidence that men are more romantic than women. This is a great video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37zqzFSW_hc
@Just
That is a very good question. I’ve pushed back before on the idea that women ride the carousel then switch to “get a beta provider” mode. Some guys here are convinced that it’s true, though, and it would really only makes sense if those women wanted kids. If their desire to parent was strong enough, they might go with a “dad” instead of the “cads” they are attracted to.
I have not researched this question in detail – personally I still don’t see it in any great numbers. I do think there are many women who are rather thoughtless and fail to plan, or are unrealistic about what they can achieve. For example, the medical school route is years – most women will be 30 by the time they’re done, and most of those will be single. Quite a few women in my business school class never married, and I’m sure getting out with an MBA at 28 didn’t help. So I do think there’s a lot of “leaving it too late” unintentionally.
It doesn’t help that women are often ignorant about the reality of SMV declining with age, and also about the realities of fertility.
“There is quite a lot of evidence that men are more romantic than women.”
Sure is true. But we can’t let you know!
DLV! DeeELLVee!
Sorry to disappoint, but that was a line in the Marriage Problem math post that I linked to. I don’t have any hard data. I won’t be offended if you completely disregard that claim.
@Joe
Haha, that’s perfect!
Seriously, the constantly advertised angst is not really reaching young people. You see it at HuffPo and Salon, and in books purchased by other 30-somethings. AFAIK, I’m the only female nagging young women on this point.
There are many, many people any of us could be happily married to. It’s up to us to make our own happiness.
Hubby and I joke that we are going to sing to song for our vows renewal :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAzodf69rfk
@ Mule Chewing Bears
Heh already saw that joke. Very true sadly.
Actually, there are a lot of men who do not feel that men still teach or learn this. They look back with nostalgia on the Greatest Generation as the last batch of men who prized these values.
About “men are more romantic than women” — I’ve heard a joke that might be funny or sad depending on your perspective.
“Men love women, women love kids, and kids love elmo.”
@Cooper:
And perhaps that’s part of the problem. A woman can’t have a romantic husband and consider his romantic interest a DLV. Pick one or the other.
@Cooper
Burp if you can, it will help.
“AFAIK, I’m the only female nagging young women on this point.”
Quite possibly.
“Burp if you can, it will help.”
‘If I swallow anything evil, stick your figure down my throat’ – The Who
I knew it would take an MBA type to offer this kind of fascinating economic analysis. A free market type like me thinks this is a great strategy. Had enough Roissy sociology for the week. Will send this to my MBA daughter within the hour. Good work.
@ Susan
Who do you think they’re hooking up with while they “leave it too late”? I don’t think it’s the betas.
@Susan
A couple of threads back I suggested men search with an instinctive Colley’s rule. Simply Colley’s rule says:
1. Set your minimum standard.
2. Find something that meets the standard set in #1
3. Reject the item found in #2
4. Buy the next item you find better than #2.
You’re suggesting a variant strategy but I have one criticism: you are relying on the person having more information than I think is likely. You assume we know rates at which we’ll meet people including the assumption that the potential pool is large in this case.
Colley, by rejecting the first only, may not be optimal with all potential counts but does gain most of the marginal gain that your numbers do without the risk of having guessed wrong.
Yes, I’m working on an assumption close to 3 potential suitors in invoking Colley’s rule but I’d argue if the potential mating pool is filtered through the ready to marry when he is seeing you filter the potential pool isn’t as unlimited as you think, especially in days of longer engagements. In a post college environment with a target age of 27 we have five years. If a mean seeking time of 9 months is assumed and a mean time to marriage compatibility being know of 6 months then 3 is just about the number of real potential partners and selecting on the second doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Even at 6 and 6 we’re at five and I’m only one quicker than you would advise.
I once wrote a post here about using the 1/e rule to help with mate selection. The thing that comes up re: the SMP is that the user needs an accurate forecast of his or her peak attractiveness window.
So let’s say that the girl in the example starts her peak at age 21 and then has 10 years of peak attractiveness before her SMV will decline. She takes 10 * 1/e and needs to basically use the next (approx.) 3.5-4 years to calibrate her baseline. By age 25, she is meant to know the highest SMV/MMV/whatever-exotic-bespoke-composite-score male that she had attracted up to that point—let’s say her best during that calibration period had been a 7.5-SMV man. The next man she dates who rates over 7.5 should be her “Mr. Right” target.
Here is the rub: if the equivalent young man doesn’t begin his peak until age 27 and then has 10 years of high value (it could arguably be a lot more than this; see the previous thread), then he shouldn’t even start looking for a wife until he’s almost 31. If he has an even longer period of peak attractiveness, he would wait until even later before he starts looking to settle down.
Use of 1/e obviously doesn’t mean that you necessarily *find* someone appropriate immediately after moving out of your calibration phase; that could in fact take years of searching. It just gives you a sort of learning/experimentation phase that is to be followed by a more informed and sober shakedown of potential candidates.
I think that a previous poster correctly pointed out that the system needs a failsafe mechanism—if you meet someone with an extraordinarily high score while you are meant to be building your baseline, you may want to bail on the whole approach and take advantage of the opportunity. It could pay to quit the game early with the knowledge that you had in fact won the mating lottery and should quite while you are so far ahead.
@INTJ
Go check out the comments within the post “Guys acting like Jerks to get relationships?” from Oct.2011.
@Senior Beta
I take that as very high praise. Economics is our friend!
What I Want In a Man- Original List (age 22)
1. Handsome
2. Charming
3. Financially successful
4. A caring listener
5. Witty
6. In good shape
7. Dresses with style
8. Appreciates finer things
9. Full of thoughtful surprises
What I Want in a Man- Revised List (age 32)
1. Nice looking
2. Opens car doors, holds chairs
3. Has enough money for a nice dinner
4. Listens more than talks
5. Laughs at my jokes
6. Carries bags of groceries with ease
7. Owns at least one tie
8. Appreciates a good home-cooked meal
9. Remembers birthdays and anniversaries
What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 42)
1. Not too ugly
2. Doesn’t drive off until I’m in the car
3.. Works steady – splurges on dinner out occasionally
4. Nods head when I’m talking
5. Usually remembers punch lines of jokes
6. Is in good enough shape to rearrange the furniture
7. Wears a shirt that covers his stomach
8. Knows not to buy champagne with screw-top lids
9. Remembers to put the toilet seat down
10. Shaves most weekends
What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 52)
1. Keeps hair in nose and ears trimmed
2. Doesn’t belch or scratch in public
3. Doesn’t borrow money too often
4. Doesn’t nod off to sleep when I’m venting
5. Doesn’t re-tell the same joke too many times
6. Is in good enough shape to get off the couch on weekends
7. Usually wears matching socks and fresh underwear
8. Appreciates a good TV dinner
9. Remembers your name on occasion
10. Shaves some weekends
What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 62)
1. Doesn’t scare small children
2. Remembers where bathroom is
3. Doesn’t require much money for upkeep
4. Only snores lightly when asleep
5. Remembers why he’s laughing
6. Is in good enough shape to stand up by himself
7. Usually wears some clothes
8. Likes soft foods
9. Remembers where he left his teeth
10. Remembers that it’s the weekend
What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 72)
1. Breathing.
2. Doesn’t miss the toilet.
The recent post on college stats proved that many betas do hook up. I would assume that most women go for the same men after college as they went for in college, and the less hypergamous women who didn’t hook up in college are more likely to go for betas afterwards, YMMV.
In my experience, the best matchmaking algorithm would be to get a woman to select all the qualities they’re looking for in a partner and then to pair them up with someone who is the opposite of that.
Women often make up their list of qualities they claim to look for in men by taking the qualities they noticed most in their previous partners and selecting the polar opposite. The problem is that they were attracted to the men they were previously involved with, and by looking for qualities that are the inverse of what they’re attracted to they will only find men they’re unattracted to.
@ Cooper
Yeah was looking through that. Especially #454 that you pointed out. It’s just sad to read.
@Susan
@M3
I’m not even sure HUGE is a big enough reality check.
@Mule Chewing Briars
re: Husband store
You realize Gottlieb opened “Marry Him” with that joke (different version including the very Manospherism comment that the Wife store came from women filing a discrimination complaint about how the Husband store ended).
@BB
Yes, the search for men should start later and last longer.
Totally agree. Don’t ever throw a big fish back. Some number of people will reject #1, then never meet anyone as good. This is just about probability – and many will beat the odds. Others, obvs, will lose.
One problem with the “calibration phase” idea is that you don’t *really* have data on the universe of people you can attract (for marriage) except when marriage had actually been proposed (if you’re a girl) or agreed to (if you’re a guy.) You may be absolutely sure that Jim who was your boyfriend in your sophomore year and was totally wild about you would have wanted to marry you if you only hadn’t ditched him that fall…and you may well be kidding yourself about that. You may be 99% certain that Linda would have married you if you hadn’t left her sobbing with a broken heart when you left her for Laura…and that certainty may be badly misplaced.
@Chi King Kong
The joke would be funnier, and more realistic in my experience, if the 32 list was 2x the 22 list and the 42 one 2x the 32 one…my experience is women get pickier with age.
@Chi King Kong
Hilarious!
@INTJ
Especially coming from men whom, I can only assume, have years of wisdom on me.
So settling in during my early thirties would be statistically beneficial?
I think I can live with that.
@Susan
I hear that but I don’t see it that strongly. Maybe it’s the military background (both my own and my family’s) but I was raised that way.
Plus, men seem to get it at a very rudimentary level regardless. Look at street gangs and the loyalty they build. Sure, a lot of it is very negative methods but they’re related to military methods at times. I think there is a maleness to that (going all evo-psych maybe it’s because men were more often the hunters instead of the gatherers so the team player aspects have some genetic selection in men?)
David, that is indeed one of the problems with 1/e in this context (“noise” in the environment). The propose solution is unfortunately quite Machiavellian and involves leading people on during the calibration phase in order to determine their true willingness to commit.
I suspect that some serial monogamists may in fact be doing something like this on an intuitive level, which could make them ethically worse than honest players.
Re: BB’s comment. Seems similar to the last thread debate about age differences. I think this is consistent with what Susan has been preaching. The 20 something gals who want to settle down ought to be ogling the early 30ish guys.
Chi King Kong, funny.
Herb, “The joke would be funnier, and more realistic in my experience, if the 32 list was 2x the 22 list and the 42 one 2x the 32 one…my experience is women get pickier with age.”
The older they are the likelier they are to have children and thus they should get pickier because they are choosing not only a man for themselves but a step father for their children. One must tread very carefully around that.
@ Cooper
I’m going to go back for my final semester at college soon. For logistical reasons, any relationship that starts during this semester would be temporary. I think knowing this will give me confidence and a high value attitude that I don’t normally have. I’m going to use this to try and approach girls with a mindset of just looking for a temporary relationship or just sex. Hopefully just the act of cold approaching girls with a relative indifference to the outcome will give me experience and confidence that I can carry over for serious relationship searches when I’m back in the Bay Area.
@ Senior Beta
Damnit.
If Shadow Over Santa Suzana weren’t making such verbose posts, I’d think she was Plain Jane.
@INTJ
lol, we’re too alike.
@ Cooper
Hehe yeah.
” The 20 something gals who want to settle down ought to be ogling the early 30ish guys.”
Who does that leave for the 20 something guys?
@Shadow Over Santa Suzana:
Ask Cooper or INTJ.
If Shadow Over Santa Suzana weren’t making such verbose posts, I’d think she was Plain Jane.
Give it time
Wow, Susan, you are *fantastic* at writing posts that spark great debate.
It’s funny (to me) that we want to quantify, measure and precisely evaluate something as intangible as love. Though it would be nice if we could!
I think we can get things to “optimal” but there are no guarantees, just very good odds.
I just believe that so much of being “ready” rests on inner work that defies precision before we are truly ready for a relationship. It’s like asking a flower to bloom by a certain date. You have an idea of what’s going to happen and the timing, but you can’t force it.
@INTJ
How far to do you travel to college?
(Wouldn’t be north, would it?)
<..>
Getting “ready” is the big thing. I’m 28, and while I fulfill all the conventional measurements for being more than ready for an LTR/marriage, I have a hangup or two that needs to be taken care of first.
Hopefully I’ll be over it by my early thirties, cause if I got the gist of this discussion right, I shouldn’t even hope to find a spouse among the early-to-mid twenties after rounding 35.
INTJ: “Well I think “settling” for Mr. good enough is actually a decent strategy.”
Awww…I’m flattered.
Interesting post Susan.
Reject 36.8% of suitors? Interesting. I need to chew on this a bit more.
*Rubs chin*
Re: Who is more romantic, men or women?
Y’know, I think it may be men– but only when they are really, really in love. Not just attracted.
You could make the analogy with an egg:
Men are like the eggs in the carton; very tough shell but it’s absolutely necessary to protect the soft stuff inside.
Women are more like a hard-boiled egg. No shell at all, really (has to come off anyway) but they are more solid all the way through to the core.
I’m not saying either one is better. And some people hate eggs altogether! But I have observed many men whose shell concealed a really, really gooshy yolk.
I was thinking about my dad– He has the most stoic demeanor, but would take a bullet for me or my sister. I’ve seen him sit up all night, without a single complaint, to take care of us or the dogs. Also: For birthday gifts, he would give very sappy, traditional things to us (and AAA gold– thanks, Dad!), in a way that my mom never would.
My mom was someone who you would think would be romantic, dainty and ethereal, but, really, she was as strong as steel!
@ Cooper
Nope, UT Austin. By up north do you mean Seattle or Portland? Where are you?
@ Sassy
How old are you? You’ve probably already rejected all of them.
@ INTJ
I’m 24. I very well may have already rejected 36.8% of my potential suitors. Now I guess I need to accept the next best one that appears.
It’s a little weird to think about men and dating that way. Who knows though? It may work.
“By up north do you mean Seattle or Portland? Where are you?”
… Canada. A couple of people already know the city (*eyes* Emily, and KenG), and I don’t think I need anymore knowing. (although it’s easy to guess)
@Ms. SOSS:
“Who does that leave for the 20 something guys?”
O: Well, to be frank…SOL. LOL
Nah, but seriously – in Nature, throughout the mammalian kingdom (and indeed, beyond!), *most males do not get to mate, ever*. Life is mean, brutish and short – and, you don’t get to bust a nut. Simply put, this happens either because you as the male wasn’t strong/big/fierce enough to beat the reigning Alpha Male in the round, and/or what you had to offer females was lacking in their eyes…and so, you simply faded from the scene. If you didn’t get killed or eaten first.
In the history of Humanity, particularly the ancestral part of it, things were fairly close to this way of doing business. Now, tweaks and changes to that way of doing business has brought us to the point where the most amount of guys had a shot at getting a mate – hey, something is better than nothing coming, ahem, and going – but the situation we’re facing now, is that the overall number of Spinsters is going up. This is due to a number of reasons, and to be sure, the “wanting” factor on the part of at least some of the guys, is indeed a factor; but given what I’ve laidout above, this really isn’t anything new; again, down through human evolutionary history, most guys simply didn’t mate to begin with. What IS new, is that we’re going to see more Spinsters than we have in previous eras that didn’t include massive wars and the like. In fact, it may very well be an unprecedented global event in the history of our species.
I’ve long held the view, that most Women – and by that I mean, ranking anywhere from 4-7 on the scale – were the ones who are really kinda catching it from both ends, so to speak. Today’s world affords them opportunities and the like to where they don’t *need* their SMP counterparts – indeed, more often than not, they are competing directly against them on the college campus, in the workplace, in the gym, you name it. Even poor(er) Women don’t *need* their poor(er) male counterparts, because the system is setup in such a way that they can do just well without them. And so, more often than not, they do just that.
Of course, they aren’t in a position to be able to appeal to higher placed males in the SMP, as LTR options; so they, unwittingly or otherwise (and you’d be surprised how often quite a few Women will go for the “five minutes of Alpha”) offer themselves to said males, in a misbegotten bid to lock it down – and often fail. Badly. That is, of course, assuming they were trying to do that to begin with. There are indeed Women – by no means a plurality, but there nevertheless – who will be more than happy to mate on a STR basis, in order to get what some have referred to as “sexy son” genes – and a piece of his wallet. I was just watching a Dr. Phil episode where NFL wide receiver and former Philadelphia Eagle Terrell Owens was in such a situation (at last count, *four* Baby Mamas – two of his kids being the same age, 7 years old). There is an entire subculture/society of ladies who can and will attempt to “catch” such a Man. NBA All-Star Weekend, is another very well documented event where this sort of thing is known to take place. It’s a social scientist’s paradise.
O.
Terrific post, SW. I’m sure that many people do finally choose in the manner your post describes.
The truth is, it’s good to settle. We all settle, all the time. Entitlement and a general attitude of refusing to ever settle in any way (particularly among women) has gotten us where we are today. It’s very important that we realize that finding a great mate is not winning the lottery, it’s not a search for one soulmate. There are many, many people any of us could be happily married to. It’s up to us to make our own happiness.
Gold! You nailed it! THIS!!!!!
@ Cooper
Ah. I’ve always wondered what the SMP is like up there. Apparently it’s no different from the U.S.
The first time I saw that I had to think long and hard about it, but came to the same conclusion. Women talk about romance more than men, but I think men actually believe (or want to believe) in it more than women by far. Oh, to be sure women want “romance” as in dinner, dancing, romancing, etc. But men are the ones that often wish for the deeper meaning/emotional part of romance, and are often left holding an empty bag.
Ted, I’m sure this will come as a big surprise to you and everyone else, but I am not particularly romantic. *dramatic pause while J waits for laughs*
At least not in the hearts and flowers way. I suppose its because I am a T, not an F. The deeper meaning is hard for many people because it takes time and patience. And living long enough to realize that love isn’t a heart-shaped box of candy–it’s not yelling while you mop up puke.
@Ms. Walsh, Ms. J:
Wrt “Settling:..
The big problem here, is who’s gonna actuallt pull all these ladies’ coats? As I said on the other thread, it is deeply politically incorrect to tell a gal to stay in her lane; if you’re a guy, you got a small d*ck; and if you’re a gal, you’re just a hater. I mean, the culture has really done a serious mind you-know-what on so many ladies in our time.
So how are they gonna get the memo – by osmosis?
O.
There’s an alternative to settling: increase your value. For every item you demand in a partner, you need to offer an item of comparable value. Look at your list and think to yourself: “What kind of person would my deam-mate want to marry?”, and then try to be that person.
For example, I want a woman who is responsible with money. Is a responsible woman going to be attracted to a man who blows his whole paycheck on beer and video games? Probably not. Since I want a fiscally responsible woman, I need to act fiscally responsible myself. Whenever I find myself procrastinating on taxes or spending money on stupid stuff, I have to remind myself that this is not how a responsible man behaves.
@Shadow Over Santa Suzana
The following are qualities a 40+ woman with a child had on her 60+ item list:
Sexy
Over 5′ 10″ but under 6′ 0″ (I usually write that 5′ 11″ but that’s how she put it)
Has a full head of hair
Stylish
Has good taste/sense of aesthetics
Now, I can buy the rest of the list as at least tangential to carrying about kids but even then you’re asking for Mr. Brady instead of a real guy. I mean, “not moody” is good if you have kids but how important is “Quirky but not weird” relative to that one. Or Generous for that matter or intuitive.
Now, she has 60+ because it’s either a shield or she’s princessing. Read Match.com or OKCupid and there are plenty of these women out there.
Every time I want to even think about getting married I think about the risk vs reward – another economic concept – and it stops me dead in my tracks.
Using economic concepts to describe love is like horrible tasting medicine. Good for you, but god is it hard to swallow.
Same place there are now but with a logical reason for it, hope for the future, and incentive to work towards being desirable in a method other than fake douchebag.
Remember, one reason PUAs and other Game teachers get mind share is:
1. A certain subset of men aren’t getting any.
2. Their methods work to fix #1
3. Women have shown no alternative but instead give advice 180 from #2 that keeps failing for guys.
If guys saw their age peers dating the 5 year older versions of themselves it would be an example other than douchebag.
I think that would be a good thing. YMMV.
“Ah. I’ve always wondered what the SMP is like up there.”
I’m also in a extremely liberal city. Traditional minded people are a small minority, when it comes to hookup culture.
Also, it’s very multicultural here. (very!) Which is all great and all, but quite often men/women prefer to date within their backgrounds – so the city ends up with segregated markets.
Chi king is recycling Plain Jane’s old anecdotes from a year or so back.
@ Cooper
Yeah I remember seeing that extreme segregation in Toronto (we lived not far from the border when I was a kid and would visit).
That’s the nice thing about Northern California. It’s multicultural, but very desegregated. From my observations, the liberal hookup culture is crazy near San Francisco, but isn’t so bad in Silicon Valley.
@Gudenuf true, you can increase your value. Though there is a cap as to how much can be done, even for men, and it has to be balanced against increasing age. I can be a millionaire by 40 or 45 at the latest if all goes well, but if the previous posts are any indication it won’t help me snag someone in their early 20s.
Susan -”I think you’re holding on to the erroneous notion of what settling is. It doesn’t mean you’re not head over heels. It means that if you wrote down a description of your perfect 10 wife as a young man of 21:”
Ah well that makes sense. You see, I never once in my entire life made a “list” of what my perfect wife would be, because I’ve always known perfection is an impossible dream. Sure, I have always wanted someone caring, nurturing, and loving (to me and my children at least) but in all honesty I never even had a “type”. As it stands I prefer curvy women, but not every woman I’ve been with has been curvy, and I don’t think it was ever a conscious choice on my part regardless.
So maybe it isn’t “settling” that bothers me so much as lists of what I’m expected to be. If such a list was never created, there would be no need to “settle” at all. And other than general traits I think it is offensive to make such a list and then “compromise” on someone later. It implies that they are simply the closest you can get to what you want, not so much that you really want them. It implies that you know what perfection is, but realize you must settle for the closest you can get. Isn’t it better to have no real expectations and fall in love with the person you discover they are? To love them for exactly what they are instead of loving them for how closely they fit your ideal?
Romantic indeed…
“I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently.”
“She should reject all offers until she is 23 and 1/4, then accept the next guy who is better than all the men she rejected.”
So Bolick stopped rejecting way too early, then when Mr. Right came along she had trouble pulling the trigger as she had difficulty discerning if he was the best she could do due to her dearth of prior experience with different men (compared to what a woman of her SMV could have had).
Young women are having trouble finding boyfriends because their slightly older peers blew up serial monogamy. Hookup culture has become an over-reaction, but the original reaction to serial monogamy was entirely rational.
Some experience with monogamy = good.
Serial = not good enough.
@OTC
Re: PJ
Dang, OTC! You don’t miss a trick!
@GudEnuf
LMAO! It is really good to see you. You were one of my earliest commenters – it’s got to be three years now. I hope all is well with you!
Such a great school!
@ Desi
Yeah I’ve always considered hookup culture to be less of a problem for me than highly serial monogamy.
“Today I am 39, with too many ex-boyfriends to count and, I am told, two grim-seeming options to face down: either stay single or settle for a “good enough” mate. At this point, certainly, falling in love and getting married may be less a matter of choice than a stroke of wild great luck. A decade ago, luck didn’t even cross my mind. I’d been in love before, and I’d be in love again. This wasn’t hubris so much as naïveté; I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently.”
Why the fuck would anyone want to date someone like this? This sounds like she openly admits to using men, being incapable of living on her own, and thinking she is straight-up entitled to male attention whenever she feels the need for it.
She expects a good guy to date her? Why would he, when she has made it so perfectly clear that he is merely one in a line and no big deal, and she can always find better later so why work hard now?
@GudEnuf
Wow, you have really matured nicely. You’re just a year or two out of college, and I’d say you’re unusual in your level of personal accountability. Your mom must be proud.
Zero hypocrisy – I love that.
Even if you find a good match, there’s still the risk that the person’s going to become bored with you by the 7-10 year mark.
It’s always fun to watch couples when that happens.
@Bully
I’m a funny combination of romantic and analytical – is that possible? I believe in true love that can last forever. (I love My Heart Will Go On from Titanic.) At the same time, I’m very oriented toward figuring out what works. Those who employ a strategy will win over those who bumble and fumble along. It’s not so bad to recognize our animal nature, and at the same time, our capacity for higher order thinking.
I don’t know what you do for a living, but I feel like you should work for the CIA.
@Herb:
“I mean, “not moody” is good if you have kids but how important is “Quirky but not weird” relative to that one.”
You mean if you want to avoid the Silicon Valley AS problem?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html
“One provocative hypothesis that might account for the rise of spectrum disorders in technically adept communities like Silicon Valley, some geneticists speculate, is an increase in assortative mating. Superficially, assortative mating is the blond gentleman who prefers blondes; the hyperverbal intellectual who meets her soul mate in the therapist’s waiting room. There are additional pressures and incentives for autistic people to find companionship – if they wish to do so – with someone who is also on the spectrum. Grandin writes, “Marriages work out best when two people with autism marry or when a person marries a handicapped or eccentric spouse…. They are attracted because their intellects work on a similar wavelength.”
That’s not to say that geeks, even autistic ones, are attracted only to other geeks. Compensatory unions of opposites also thrive along the continuum, and in the last 10 years, geekitude has become sexy and associated with financial success. The lone-wolf programmer may be the research director of a major company, managing the back end of an IT empire at a comfortable remove from the actual clients. Says Bryna Siegel, author of The World of the Autistic Child and director of the PDD clinic at UCSF, “In another historical time, these men would have become monks, developing new ink for early printing presses. Suddenly they’re making $150,000 a year with stock options. They’re reproducing at a much higher rate.”"
Actually Jessica Irvine is an Australian economics writer – she just happened to publish this piece in a NZ forum.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/by/jessica-irvine
@Bully
Would you settle for a hot 28 year old?
I’m a funny combination of romantic and analytical – is that possible?
I consider myself like that too. I used my logical brain to keep my distance from bad prospects but after the filter does its job falling deeply in love with your best choice of mate shouldn’t be a problem, neither unromantic.
I get the feeling that was the ancient purpose of dating. Hanging and spending time with a group of eligible people (meaning that you already have a selected pool filtered by family and/or the community) and then falling in love with one them, thus there was space for both, strategy and love. Trying to do that in combat individualized dating seems to be the problem nowadays, YMMV.
“Why the fuck would anyone want to date someone like this? This sounds like she openly admits to using men, being incapable of living on her own, and thinking she is straight-up entitled to male attention whenever she feels the need for it.”
Because I haven’t exactly been perfect either. Learned from my mistakes. If she’s learned from her’s I’d be willing to give her a good shot. She still has a lot going for her.
@Obs
No, trial and error. Aim too high, and you’re left standing in the game of Musical Chairs. Everyone needs to know when to lower their price. Even the guy at the swap meet knows that prices plummet at closing time. If you’re employing a luxury pricing strategy, you’d better be offering a luxury good. Many women will overprice themselves and fail. That’s the free market.
There is nothing new about this article. The Secretary problem is a classic problem and very well known among mathematicians. It makes me wonder if economist do anything worthwhile in their research.
The trouble with planning your romantic future based on stochastic data is that there is no certainty that you will or won’t find someone who meets a particular set of criteria. Even if you do, they may not like you when they meet you. I’m more in favour of the minimum standard approach – decide on a small set of deal breakers. If they don’t trigger any of those, and there’s chemistry, give it a shot!
Susan I’ve found since arriving in the US that women here are much more forward about their intentions. I’m in my mid 30s now so I guess that puts me in the crosshairs for women looking for marriage. A woman I met at a work function last week said, within 5 minutes of meeting me, that I was “the sort of guy I’d like to marry”. Sorry love, you’re not my type. This isn’t rare either, it seems to happen most times I’m at a social gathering.
Perhaps I’ve been stamped with “eligible” by my new social circle here in San Francisco? This could be a SF-specific thing – I’ve been told that single heterosexual men are in short supply. Even telling women I’m a single father hasn’t put any of them off.
“too many ex-boyfriends to count”
“Why the fuck would anyone want to date someone like this?”
If the rest of the slut class [women who are five to sevens] were as honest, men would have a much easier time weeding out non-commitment-worthy women
@robber
“A woman I met at a work function last week said, within 5 minutes of meeting me, that I was “the sort of guy I’d like to marry”
Sounds like a nice challenge to have. If you are lucky, they won’t be too drunk or blabbing on about their greatness at work or the last random guy that disappointed them in his post-coitus antics between their direct inquiries regarding your availability – something that seems to happen to me in increasing regularity.
“Perhaps I’ve been stamped with “eligible” by my new social circle here in San Francisco? This could be a SF-specific thing – I’ve been told that single heterosexual men are in short supply. Even telling women I’m a single father hasn’t put any of them off.”
SF is up there near Manhattan on the hookup culture scale. With such a high concentration of young, career-minded, well-educated people all rubbing against the backdrop of an extremely liberal culture, it is no wonder. Women I know who live there have often said that men ‘just won’t commit’, yet 10 years back those same women were getting their MBA/JD, working at a start-up, traveling extensively for work, and generally enjoying the hell out of all of those slightly older guys making good jack and were just too busy or focused or about to move or just arrived to lock anything down. SF was Awesome! Now it is Great! but a tough place to date. Ah the myopic blur of the now…
5-10 years back I did a lot of work in SF and aside from my married friends there, it seemed like SF was ripe for assortive mating, but I rarely saw it play out that way. A lot of casual, FWB, the consultant’s-carousel, and serial relationships that were outlasted by Pets.com. I think SF was an early mover on the hookup culture. Particularly back then when the last feverish economic boom had everyone scrambling to ‘get mine’. I still think there is a lot of that theme playing out there only now more of the awkward techie guys are getting laid and the smooth-talking whiteshoe lawyers-consultants-bankers carry on with a full sail, so good luck turning that ship around.
As a side note, I think the homosexual element is a convenient complaint, but really, like most western cities there are more men than women to start with. And women seem to see all of the gay guys but none of the lesbians? The second most densely populated city in the US, a lot of young single people, great cultural outlets, commerce, parks, transport, diversity and all that fun stuff. Doesn’t seem too bad. I’d take that slice of America over many other places, even if I don’t play hookup. Which is probably some strange inverse power in SF – playing around is so dominant that commitment potential is like a drop of blood in the bay, all those sharks come sniffing around. Good for you. If you can afford to own/rent in the city, I think you are set.
“I get the feeling that was the ancient purpose of dating.”
The ancients dated?
@Susan: I suppose a hot 28 year old doesn’t sound too bad, no.
And I also have to echo Gudenuf’s sentiment – I’m in a leadership program at work and one of the basic tenets always spoken is as a leader you never ask anyone to do something that you would not be willing to do yourself. I think people would do well to incorporate that into their relationships. If you have a deal breaker of some kind, then be damn sure that you apply yourself rigorously to that aspect of your life and it (ideally) should allow you to become more selective, and it will increase your value too – e.g. if weight is a deal breaker for you, then work your ass off in the gym. It’s worked well for me so far.
@Chi King Kong
“Hear hear! A buddy of mine, mid-30s, looks young, attractive, fit, outdoorsy neo hippie type never had a problem attracting women and often dated college co-eds. He complained to us one day that “women today don’t want to have kids”. We informed that they do, just not at 21 while their still in school. He made an affirmation that by 40 he would be engaged to the future mother of his children. 40 came and went and his latest college aged gf moved out. He took off for California to live the beach life and has grown a full beard and really long hair to the point of looking like an old mountain. It adds 10 years to him and is not a good look. He went from surfer boy hipster to cave man so I guess he’s totally given up. He also drank the soul mate kool aid. I tried to tell him soul mates don’t exist, you have to be practical, but he’s pretty new agey like that. Soul mate is a myth that can devastate people when it turns out not to be true. They hold out for perfect while passing up the good.”
Oh, my.
This is a perfect example of the kind of man I was talking about in the other thread, the type who should NOT be putting off marriage until he’s 35 or 40 unless he wants to marry a fellow 35- or 40-year-old. Not every man out there is an NYC investment banker . . . around where I’ve from, I’ve met plenty like the guy you just described.
@Susan
“One indicator of this was that the percentage of women who say they expect to grow as a person as a direct result of getting married has gone way up. They view marriage as part of self-actualization. In fact, their spouse cannot give them that – their personal growth must be their own responsibility.
Basically, we need a huge reality check re marriage in this country.”
Co-sign. And the soulmate or “The One” concept is incredibly silly and it’s amazing to me how many otherwise rational and not particularly hippie-dippie people still believe in it. I absolutely believe in falling in love, and some people have a wider net of compatible partners while others’ may be relatively narrower, but the idea that there is only ONE person out there for any one person is just crazy.
@Tasmin I’ve only been in San Francisco for a short time. I’m really enjoying it so far. Moved here from Australia to kick off a cleantech business with business partners here. Yes I’m a tech guy (engineering, not IT). Must say it’s a bit of culture shock. Women here are much more up front about what they want than I was used to. I do like it here though. I’m not so young anymore (mid 30s) but it feels a bit like I’m back at university sometimes.
I’m easing into dating because I lost my wife during our son’s birth a few years ago and have only just decided I’m ready to restart that part of my life. The past few years have been pretty full on – caring for my son and working on my business. Life’s short and I want to start enjoying things again.
“And the soulmate or “The One” concept is incredibly silly and it’s amazing to me how many otherwise rational and not particularly hippie-dippie people still believe in it. I absolutely believe in falling in love, and some people have a wider net of compatible partners while others’ may be relatively narrower, but the idea that there is only ONE person out there for any one person is just crazy.”
This is right on, but you don’t have to find the “one” for a marriage to offer personal growth opportunities not available to those flying solo. In some sense, it is your own responsibility, but the best way to carry out that responsibility is in the context of a healthy, supportive marriage.
@robber
“I’m easing into dating because I lost my wife during our son’s birth a few years ago and have only just decided I’m ready to restart that part of my life.”
Oh, wow, that is horrible! And horrifying to read that that can still happen in developed countries even in this day and age.
All the best in San Francisco! Definitely make time to explore Northern California outside the city–it is absolutely stunning.
@ Susan:
Can you please link to the evidence? This statement runs counter to all of my experience.
Oh wait, I forgot that I am a women and therefore my anecdotal data doesn’t count.
Geeeez, GudEnuf! Stop being all damn unicorn-y.
Corrected.
It’s late here, why am I still up. -__-
@Robber
“Sorry love, you’re not my type”
hmmm, sounds like you might come from the same part of the world as me.
I visited Savannah, Georgia when I was in my early twenties and was flummoxed when a woman in her fifties, who was serving me in a shop, said, “I just love your accent! Say anything, just keep talking”
I was bewildered because I don’t have an RP accent, just a generic southeast of England one. I ain’t no geezer, I just have the accent you get growing up where I did, when I did. Though I’ve been back to my old town more recently and everyone seems to come from the cast of Eastenders, nah wat I mean?
If a marketing genius could do such a job for Persil, as the(! there are hundreds) British accent, well…this time next year, they’d be millionaires (Rodney). And Ariel would go bust.
On the other hand, when Hollywood wants an evil bad guy, what nationality do they choose? (honourary mention to Germany) English guy with RP.
So, I guess that it’s a mixed bag, but at least it can work.
To all concerned, it’s just a local accent (for local people (Jackie)), with some fluke good luck in marketing, it doesn’t mean that we’re a grown up Little Lord Fauntleroy. But thanks… (BTW I’m sure there are people for who it has the opposite effect, but ‘we’ don’t deserve that either)
Oops sorry Robber (just read your later comment), you use that phrase in Aus as well? my bad.
Susan: LMAO! It is really good to see you. You were one of my earliest commenters – it’s got to be three years now. I hope all is well with you!
All is well. I’m spending a year in a new country (see my IP address), having all the fun I forgot to have in college. I have a low-stress job and low cost lifestyle that allows me to save most of my paycheck. I feel like I’m being paid to go on vacation.
Isn’t the “problem”actually much more complex than everyone here has been discussing?
Because it’s a two-way market. It isn’t enough to select the one you want. they have to be willing to select you as well. And the economic optimal stopping problem is converted into a two-way stopping problem…nobody gets to unilaterally choose when they can stop, they have to get agreement with the person they want to stop with!
#5, 14 -Ted
This is pretty much my response… INTJ, it makes sense, but still kind of sad.
One of my favorite games is Starfox 64, in which the hero and his team fly spaceships to dispense justice and freedom across the galaxy. In order to reach different levels special requirements must sometimes be met, and your pals will let you know whether you’re doing it right. One example: in Sector Y, if you haven’t killed enough enemies, Falco will shout at you
“Is that the best you can do?”
And I strongly believe in improving yourself and not waiting for a relationship (excuse? crutch?) to do it, but if after the self-improvement I am still asking myself Falco’s question… well, I stink at acting. I won’t feel anything for that person -and for me that isn’t saying much anyway -and he will know that I don’t after he sees all the things I won’t bother to do/have with/for him. He’ll probably end up either sad or resentful (maybe both), and the best possible outcome is one of us leaving or ejecting the other. So I’ll be alone again (naturally) anyway. Neither do I wish to give somebody else grief like that.
The way I am is to say, “I don’t absolutely NEED this, and I am not going to put forth any effort if this is all I get for it. I’m going home.”
“There is quite a lot of evidence that men are more romantic than women.”
GUILTY
It’s still good of you to be so honest with us, though.
Maybe I should give porn a shot. Anybody know of any good(looking) Russian actors?
SayWhaat: “Geeeez, GudEnuf! Stop being all damn unicorn-y.
You’re so sweet SayWhaat.
Hum, I will be turning 29 in 2 weeks so reading all isn’t very reassuring. It feels like I should maybe put my name down on the convent waiting list or something.
One thing I have to say is that I wouldn’t trade where I’m now for finding a partner earlier. I’m a much happier, optimistic and self-actualized person now than I was in my early 20s; for example, I can really contribute qualities like discipline and resilience to a family since I had to develop those qualities with having to move abroad for school and work; I’m also generally patient with people as a result. Also, I now know that I want children, independently of having a partner; if I had found someone earlier, I’d probably have had some by now but not necessarily because that was something I deeply knew I wanted, maybe more like “so I guess this is the next thing to do”.
Regarding strategies, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that there is “finding someone” and “keeping someone”. You could be so lucky to find your best catch yet when the other person considers you just ok in his/her 36.8 rejection box.
One last note; I get the chuckles when I hear men say that they are the most romantic. Guys admit they have lower standards than women and are ready to give away all that “romantic” stuff if sex is attached to it. It really has very little value then. I don’t believe women are romantic either; I think we get caught up in identifying male gestures as romantic or not because we understand that since expressing feelings is not men’s forte, doing stuff might be a better outlet. However, once we realized that a guy is unable to express/communicate his feelings and fails at demonstrating them in actions as well, it’s time to bolt. Our time is precious and you can’t be “romantic” when it’s going to cost you in the end.
Hey Susan – Jessica Irvine is actually an Aussie. She writes for the Sydney Morning Herald but the NZ Herald syndicates her column.. I couldn’t let the kiwis claim one of our own
@ ruralcounsel:
This is one of the main issues with the model. Another is that it neglects the importance of attraction. Selecting a spouse is not the same type of transaction as selecting an employer/employee, attorney or business partner. Even if the prospective spouse satisfies all the points on your checklist there is no guarantee that you will want to spend the rest of your life with him or her. Conversely, you can fall in love with someone who do not have all the attributes that you consider important.
A successful marriage or LTR requires both attraction and compatibility. The optimal search approach is designed to secure the latter but cannot deal with the former.
@J
Ted, I’m sure this will come as a big surprise to you and everyone else, but I am not particularly romantic. *dramatic pause while J waits for laughs*
At least not in the hearts and flowers way. I suppose its because I am a T, not an F. The deeper meaning is hard for many people because it takes time and patience. And living long enough to realize that love isn’t a heart-shaped box of candy–it’s not yelling while you mop up puke.
No laughs from this fellow T!
A few weeks ago, on JT’s blog, someone asked what value there is in getting married, and I gave him very nearly the same answer I once gave someone else when I was asked why I wanted to be a nun!
That is, to me, it’s about “going the distance”: when you’re married, you get to do it with a partner. A little later, another woman chimed in to say that it’s truly wonderful when that you and the partner who are committed to going the distance are also in love, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, the ‘being in love’ thing . . .” It had honestly slipped my mind!
@Mireille
Hum, I will be turning 29 in 2 weeks so reading all isn’t very reassuring. It feels like I should maybe put my name down on the convent waiting list or something.
Actually, most convents have a cut-0ff age for postulants that’s far less forgiving than what most men have!
This is a very literal reading of your joke, but my own sense of humor had to respond.
@robber
Whoa, that is some poor Girl Game there. Even if she was your type, what man wants to hear that as part of an introduction? That sounds a bit psycho. It’s hard to say precisely why you’re getting this from women in your social circle, but I imagine it’s a combo of the following:
1. You’re very attractive. (As I recall, a woman walked up to you on the street and invited you for coffee.)
2. Women in SF are indeed hungry for straight men.
3. You’re not divorced, you’re a widower – it’s preselection without the fail, and it shows you are commitment-oriented, something that is probably unusual in your age bracket.
I’m curious to know the age of the women doing this – are they 30+? If so, it’s pretty clear you can easily go younger. Sounds like you can be extremely selective in any case.
SW: “Can you please link to the evidence? This statement runs counter to all of my experience.”
I don’t see it as men being more romantic. Just the typical men has less options than women, so they can’t be as choosy. To those men, those women look very harsh and mercenary unromantic in what they want. Thats merely because they usually havent had the experience of turning down tons of women.
Then again, the men with the best options act the exact same way. So to women, those men look very harsh and mercenary in what they want, too. Add a little apex fallacy, and then magically they think all men must be jerks, since they only see the ones at the top.
In short – any man would lose his romantic side, at least as described by Tred, if enough women threw themselves at him.
@SayWhaat
Did you watch the Helen Fisher video?
@Just1X
I remember telling a British friend that I thought Tony Blair had a sexy accent. She was horrified – she said he did not speak properly. I think most Americans can distinguish a bit – Cockney/Eliza Dolittle, Yorkshire – but the rest of you sound pretty similar. And we love it!
An English guy in the U.S. gets an SMV point or two just for the accent.
BTW, I’ve read that in Shakespeare’s time, you all probably sounded a lot like we do today.
@GudEnuf
Looked it up, that is AWESOME!
@ruralcounsel
Good point. The whole construct is artificial, but I do think it’s interesting to consider that in general, the highest probability of maximizing value occurs about a third of the way in. Obviously, knowing the total number of opportunities is crucial to know when you’ve hit that point, and we can’t know that.
For me, the takeaway is, By all means date, shop around, then when you have a basis for comparison, and you’ve learned what you seek in a mate, be prepared to go all in when you find it. Don’t delay, thinking there will always be more chances. This is especially crucial for women.
@Mireille
If it’s any consolation, I certainly didn’t follow this script. I just married the first person I really fell for, and first I had to convince him!
You raise an important point about timing. Today, it’s easier to meet someone than to keep the relationship going through the various life moves that 20-something routinely experience. You can meet your “greatest weighted average” person, but if he gets transferred to another city, the relationship may be aborted.
The stars have to align in more ways than just the qualities of the person.
Apologies to Jessica Irvine and Aussies for the traitorous error!
“I don’t see it as men being more romantic”
Ah, but men ARE more romantic, OTC.
Stands to reason. They are the pursuers.. The wooers..
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent! Byron.
************
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Andrew Marvell
@ruralcounsel
That’s why I argue for Colley’s rule: take the second offer. Very few people will only get one bite at the apple and for age and other reasons the second will almost always be better than the first. However, very few will get more than three real bites (mutually compatible and mutually interested) so jumping on two factors in the risk of having no chair.
“In short – any man would lose his romantic side, at least as described by Ted, if enough women threw themselves at him.”
Maybe. I don’t think I would have when I was younger. Now? I know too much and find myself having a hard time even having any faith in “romance” at all.
I’m a T, but one of my quirks is that I am VERY emotional within my relationships. I don’t mean emotional as in “crying and yelling”, but more along the lines of only allowing emotion within my private relationships at all. To most people, I appear to be very calm, cool, and emotionless. In fact, my closest co-workers didn’t even know my ex-wife left until I mentioned it, because as upset as I was (and believe me I was very emotionally torn up at the time) I never once showed it. To me, one of the primary purposes of a “romantic” relationship is to use it as a place to allow those types of emotions to come out. Unfortunately, the red pill says otherwise, and I’m now trying to figure out how to properly vent some of my more negative emotional crap. Yes, I have male friends, but honestly I’ve never gone to them with that kind of stuff because frankly I hate to bother them. But I’m told that the best place for men to vent such crap is with other men, so perhaps I need to give it a try. Truth be told, I had a long heart to heart with my closest male friend while we were in Vegas. I didn’t know that I’d never told him about my family history, how I never knew my dad, and all that stuff. Like I said, I’ve never been one to go to my male friends with emotional trauma, so I guess I just never mentioned it. I found the conversation to be very therapeutic in a sense.
So when I say “romantic”, it isn’t flowers and candy. To me, the “romance” was all about being able to truly be myself with another human being. To have such a strong emotional connection that I can fully rely on my partner to support me. But, like I said, I know better now and wont expect my wife to be my emotional support network. I still can’t help feeling sad about that, but at least I know. Now I have to get over my aversion to discussing all this personal stuff with my buddies. We mostly talk about music, sports, politics, and religion. OH, and preparations for the Zombie Apocalypse of course…
“If it’s any consolation, I certainly didn’t follow this script. I just married the first person I really fell for, ”
It was the same for me Susan.
Though unlike you , I didn’t strike pay dirt first time around.
“I don’t see it as men being more romantic”
Again, I think men are often more romantic, but not in the traditional sense. It isn’t about candy and gifts, but more about that deeper emotional connection many men crave. Every man I know well, even the ones that play the field, crave it. I don’t mean to get all creepy, but I suspect it probably has roots in the relationship a boy has with his mother growing up. I can honestly say that a part of me craves that sense of security that comes from knowing a woman loves me unconditionally. But the hard truth is, the only woman that will ever love me that way IS my mother, and no other woman will feel the same way. Perhaps this is common knowledge that I somehow missed growing up, but one of my blue pill notions was that my wife would someday love me the same way. Well, my ex certainly proved me wrong there!
@Susan
“BTW, I’ve read that in Shakespeare’s time, you all probably sounded a lot like we do today.”
I’d heard speculation on tht as well, it’s an interesting idea that ‘we’ drifted more than ‘you’. Isn’t the Spanish ‘th’erveza vs L.A. ‘c’erveza a similar thing? (not a language that I know). The ‘th’ sound is an affectation that occurred in the ‘mother’ country after the split.
The printing press didn’t standardise spelling before our split, allowing lots of s vs z, ou vs o etc.
Aluminium vs aluminum was down to the discoverer of the element using both spellings in the early days. we picked different versions and pronounce them according to those spellings.
All the kind words on here give a grotesque mockery, a vaguely human-shaped thing like me some hope
Other people, real people, have these thoughts, too!
Seriously, it’s great seeing something like this. being a 41 year-old unmarried male, it’s nice to know other people worry and think about this too.
Thank you all. Thank you so much. I really mean that.
@SW
“An English guy in the U.S. gets an SMV point or two just for the accent.”
Absolutely! Something for men in the UK to keep in mind.
I agree with Thrasymachus that there are problems with the model. Attraction (emotional not just physical) is not a weighted average of criteria, it is a gestalt.
@Susan & Courtley
cool – good to know (I’ll take all the help that I can get) – but what happens when one looks behind the curtain and finds it’s just an accent? Enquiring minds need to know… LMAO
@Ace
it’s not just you that gets an optimism-about-people bump around here.
nice to meet you
@Susan, Courtley
Having visited a friend of mine who lives in London a couple of months ago, and gone out to London bars, I can say this pretty much holds true for Americans in England as well. The following is a completely true story btw:
I was in a (somewhat swanky) bar in London, ordering a drink. Completely uninvited, an attractive English girl walks up to me, and when she hears I’m American, this is her line: “You know, you’re American, tall, and good-looking. You could have any girl in this bar tonight.” The emphasis was on my being American before all things.
I’ve heard/seen this from other friends who’ve lived in London as well.
All persons who want to find sex partners have to compete in a market. Something like the way everybody who wants to buy a house has to compete with other house-buyers. A market allocates scarcity by setting prices, such that items in greater demand command higher prices. The currency in the sexual market is not money (for the most part, although there certainly is a cash-based sex trade, and a man’s wealth influences his attractiveness to women) but instead the sexual market is a barter system, where men and women essentially trade their SMV. That is, having a certain SMV qualifies one to choose from among some of the members of the opposite sex who have similar SMVs. This assumes, of course, that most members of each sex have a certain amount of similarity in what they find attractive.
That warrants a brief elaboration. Most people notice the apparent diversity in attraction. A particular man who is highly attractive to some women may be just neutral to many other women. This might make it seem that every woman wants something different, hence for every man there should be a woman.
But in practice we easily observe there are some people who seem to be unattractive to just about everyone. Which is to say, men and women may not agree exactly on who is most attractive, but they seem remarkably harmonious when it comes to who is least attractive.
This is why a market analogy is useful. A house could be undesirable to most buyers, but it would only take two buyers to bid up its price if they both wanted that particular house badly enough. In practice that would be unlikely, of course, because there are a lot of houses, and it would be rare for just two people to have some inordinate desire for one particular house. With houses, what matters are features and location. There are usually other nearby houses with similar features, and this prevents individual house prices from getting out of whack with the general market.
Now that we have established what the market will pay, we can turn to what the person will accept. Standards are what they are. You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to. At this point, I’ll invoke the 0-10 scale that popular culture has applied to SMV. While I feel that it is possible to lower one’s standards by a point or so, if the difference between what you’ll take and what the MOTOS in question currently is, is so large that your loins will not respond to their advances, then it’s better for both of you if you forget thinking about that particular person in a sexual way. Someone will end up getting patronized and then hurt. True love is about two people thinking they got a good deal.
This leads us to Bolick’s Folly Principle: The old bromide “There is somebody for everybody” is true…if you’re willing to take anybody. But if you have any standards, then the aperture of success narrows according to (1) your own SMV and (2) how rigorous and unchanging those standards are. Once this is recognized, it becomes apparent that they’re isn’t somebody for everyone, particularly someone who’s own SMV has dropped far, far, below the threshold necessary to pull what she, in turn, finds attractive.
Welcome, Ace! I hope you find someone.
1 2 3 … 5 »
{ 1 trackback }