The last 24 hours has brought a rush of new traffic to HUS thanks to a nice new link in the Atlantic. 
Alexis Madrigal, Senior Editor in charge of Technology, has challenged the legitimacy of one of the Atlantic’s own articles. In the most recent print edition, Dan Slater’s A Million First Dates claims that online dating is the death knell for monogamy, primarily due to the overwhelming supply of opportunities on offer. He shores up his argument with numerous interviews with executives in the online dating industry, and with the profile of a prize named Jacob.
Madrigal takes apart Slater’s argument in his new article There’s No Evidence Online Dating Is Threatening Commitment or Marriage.
First the ad hom fun part:
One guy’s commitment issues don’t mean the end of monogamy for the country.
…Narratively, the story focuses on Jacob, an overgrown manchild jackass who can’t figure out what it takes to have a real relationship. The problem, however, is not him, and his desire for a “low-maintenance” woman who is hot, young, interested in him, and doesn’t mind that he is callow and doesn’t care very much about her. No, the problem is online dating, which has shown Jacob that he can have a steady stream of mediocre dates, some of whom will have sex with him.
Jacob, a self-described average looking guy in his early 30s, confessed that he figured being in a relationship was better than being single and having to meet new women. According to Madrigal, ”Past girlfriends had complained about his lifestyle, which emphasized watching sports and going to concerts and bars. He’d been called lazy, aimless, and irresponsible with money.”
His most recent relationship with a 22 year-old ended when she moved out, but it was a blessing in disguise: as the lazy son of doctors he was uncomfortable with her blue-collar military background. He turned to online dating and is now happy as a
Now on to the logical debate. Madrigal cites Slater’s premise:
The argument is that online dating expands the romantic choices that people have available, somewhat like moving to a city. And more choices mean less satisfaction.
Does online dating increase or decrease commitment or its related states, like marriage?
Madrigal correctly points out that the online dating executives opining on the subject have a huge conflict of interest.
As Slater notes, “the profit models of many online-dating sites are at cross-purposes with clients who are trying to develop long-term commitments.” Which is exactly why they are happy to be quoted talking about how well their sites work for getting laid and moving on.
Here are some quotes from industry players:
“The future will see better relationships but more divorce. The older you get as a man, the more experienced you get. You know what to do with women, how to treat them and talk to them.”
SW: That’s what Booth Jonathan said!
Dan Winchester, the founder of a free dating site based in the U.K.
“Historically, relationships have been billed as ‘hard’ because, historically, commitment has been the goal. You could say online dating is simply changing people’s ideas about whether commitment itself is a life value.”
Greg Blatt, the CEO of Match
“I think divorce rates will increase as life in general becomes more real-time…It’s exhilarating to connect with new people…People always said that the need for stability would keep commitment alive. But that thinking was based on a world in which you didn’t meet that many people.”
Niccolò Formai, the head of social-media marketing at Badoo
“Societal values always lose out…As we become more secure and confident in our ability to find someone else, usually someone better, monogamy and the old thinking about commitment will be challenged very harshly.”
Noel Biderman, the founder of Ashley Madison
As always, follow the money trail. There was a time when Match was eager to promote the number of marriages it could take credit for. Apparently, they’ve shifted to a strategy of promising poon instead in the hopes of creating more repeat business. Ladies, beware, that’s going to mean more Jacobs putting up profiles.
Justin Parfitt, a dating entrepreneur based in San Francisco, puts the matter bluntly: “They’re thinking, Let’s keep this fucker coming back to the site as often as we can.”
Madrigal proceeds to look at the data (that’s where we come in):
First off, the heaviest users of technology–educated, wealthier people–have been using online dating and networking sites to find each other for years. And yet, divorce rates among this exact group have been declining for 30 years. Take a look at these statistics. If technology were the problem, you’d expect that people who can afford to use the technology, and who have been using the technology, would be seeing the impacts of this new lack of commitment. But that’s just not the case.
Madrigal cites other sources which support the role of the internet in promoting the formation of relationships and marriage. ”The possibility that the relationship “market” is changing in a bunch of ways, rather than just by the introduction of date-matching technology, is the most compelling to me. [A] 2008 paper found that the biggest change in marriage could be increasingly “co-ed” workplaces.” Other influences potentially include changing gender norms (the “end of men,” hookup culture), the economy, the rising marriage age, geography (77% of Millennials say they want to live in big cities), and the role of religion in America (declining church attendance but increasing evangelical fervor).
Maybe Jacob doesn’t want to get married. Maybe he wants to get drunk, have sex, watch basketball, and never deal with the depths of a real relationship. OK, Jacob, good luck! But that doesn’t make online dating an ineluctable force crushing the romantic landscape. It’s just the means to Jacob’s ends and his convenient scapegoat for behavior that might otherwise lead to self-loathing.
Madrigal says his piece is the first in a series. I look forward to future installments (with or without links) as he explores the changing nature of dating and relationships in America.
Update: Stuart Schneiderman just alerted me to Amanda Hess’ hilarious takedown of the Slater piece at Slate:
Online Dating is a Horrific Den of Humanity
Enjoy.
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Was Mr. Slater handsomely compensated for what is in effect a piece of brilliant pro-online-dating marketing aimed at shiftless men?
Online dating is a cesspool and will continue to be so precisely because its infested by feckless men like Jacob and his female counterparts. The pool of people willing to tolerate all the flotsam is actually very small, so the same profiles by the same people keep getting recycled over and over again. It’s certainly not the image the people who own and operate online dating want to present, but the reality is that their customer base sucks. All you have to do to prove it for yourself is randomly sample some male and female profiles and see how awful they all are.
If any online dating site is actually going to have significant relationship generation success — as opposed to endless coffee dates — they’re going to have to impose some rules on the men in an attempt to balance out the gender ratio. For example, limit men to one email to a new girl per day, to cut down on the spam and stop men from messaging the hotties to death when they’re a Jacob. BUT! If the flow of coffee dates slows, they lose their customer base. Hence why they sell serial monogamy and try to play this as the new norm. Marriage is bad for the online dating business.
Most Millennials want to live in big cities?
That’s SWPL White Liberals and NAMs right? Because they are shipping most Blacks and Hispanics (and bringing poverty, family dysfunction and crime with them) to the suburbs around big cities, after whitening and Asianing major cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
A few things he should mention in his series, but probably won’t:
1) The effect on beta males’ view of their future girlfriends/wives after more and more of those girls have spent time with Jacobs. The vast majority of men have come to accept that women have a past, but the contents of that past can be damning – I don’t recall the name of the post on this site, but the metaphor would be the Jacob is shelling out fifty cents for the new york times while future boyfriends are paying five bucks. That breeds resentment.
2) The effect of these past relationships on men’s standards. Having been a hopeless romantic prior to getting into Game (you know, normal manosphere stuff), it’s hard to go back once you’ve landed that first low-maintenance sex-only relationship. Last year I “dated” a girl I met online for three months, during which I had sex and home-cooked meals constantly, and into which I invested sex and home-cooked meals in return. A year ago I would have been appalled at myself; now I see it as a perfectly equitable relationship. Women are helping to shift their own goalposts, and not in a way that many would like.
3) The effect on women from more easy access to dates with alphas. Online dating still retains the appearance of regular dating – it has more plausible deniability than a bar hookup. Women can chase alphas in more socially-acceptable environments that resemble traditional dating, even though it will end the same way any alpha fling ends. I would be curious to see if women who rely more on online dating end up with longer sexual histories (with more alphas) and later marriages. Actually, if anyone has data on that, it would be awesome.
Great, now women will think all men have it as easy as Jacob. Which means, men are encouraged to act more like Jacob. Go Jacob, go!
Absolutely, Mr. Toes. Marriage is bad for online dating sites because it means that source of revenue from both people is gone. The later, rinse, repeat of serial dating garners far more profit.
/damn glad I never had to try online dating.
I met my wife using an online dating site back in 2004. It was NOT an easy process, and I devoted more time to it than I had anticipated. At one point I had memberships to three different sites. I must have contacted over 90 women over the course of a year. Out of those, about 9 or 10 replied. Out of those, I think there were 4 women where there were multiple emails with some mutual interest expressed. One woman I actually talked to once on the phone and then two others that wanted to date me. Ultimately, I married the thinner one. If there is interest, I could provide more details. I wonder how much has changed since then.
“It was fairly incredible,” Jacob remembers. “I’m an average-looking guy. All of a sudden I was going out with one or two very pretty, ambitious women a week. At first I just thought it was some kind of weird lucky streak.”
Is this a typical experience? Not from what I’ve heard.
Seriously. If he was, he’s a scoundrel, and if he wasn’t, he’s a chump.
Exactly. As someone who was long married before the first site ever popped up, I’ve never tried it. Young women have given me mixed reports, but overall have found it to be a huge amount of effort with little to show for it. Meaning, way too many Jacobs, which requires constant filtering and endless coffee dates.
I found some of the comments by industry execs truly despicable, especially (not surprisingly) the founder of Ashley Madison. Ugh.
@Holana
I heard that statistic on NPR last night as a matter of fact. They had a guy on who has written a book about the walkability of different cities, and he shared that. Pretty sure he was including everyone.
I’m curious to know what you mean by “shipping” minorities to suburbs? Are they being sent out of cities against their will?
Also, the Pacific Northwest has had a significant Asian population for well over a hundred years.
You sound like a crazy HBDer.
The technology of online dating isn’t driving serial monogamy. The people who want serial monogamy are driving the technology.
Off the Cuff:
“Great, now women will think all men have it as easy as Jacob. Which means, men are encouraged to act more like Jacob.”
Precisely. There have been many, many stories of average to middling men having no luck with online dating. From what I hear, the women and the alphas make out like bandits in online dating — pretty much as they do IRL.
@Eoin
Wait, are you suggesting Jacob is an alpha? If so, that just reinforces my claims about those f*ckers.
An excellent reason why women should shun unrestricted or promiscuous males. They’re ruined for monogamy.
No doubt you’ve heard about the OKCupid study where most women found 80% of men below average looking, yet messaged a high percentage of those men nonetheless. A woman doesn’t need to go online to meet alphas. They’re easily picked up wherever people congregate, and they’re actually pretty difficult to ID online. The women I’ve known have had far more experience online with cads running false beta game than cads being open about wanting casual sex.
@meistergedanken
Although the odds sound daunting, 90 messages leading to a wife in one year is not bad!
Interesting post, SW. I took the time to read all the linked articles and there was one point that no one ever alluded to that I firmly believe is true: There is no real difference between abundance and scarcity when it comes to making choices.
Consider the child who has a overfilled toy box and nothing to play with, the woman with 100 pairs of shoes and nothing to wear, the guy with 1000 cables channels who complains there’s nothing on. An overwhelming numbers of choices not only leads to devalving what you have, but it leads to decision-making fatigue. Sooner or later, that has to impact the ways in which people handle making their choices. People who are looking for real relationships will have to respond by looking for ways to simplify the process or by tightening their standards, lest they launch themselves on impossible searches for a perfection that doesn’t exist.
I wonder what percentage of online daters are explicitly looking for a life partner. I think it’s got to be well over 50%. With another 25% wanting a serious relationship that could potentially lead to marriage.
Obviously, it depends on the site. Ashley Madison is specifically for adultery. I’ve heard that OKCupid and POF draw a lot of cads b/c they’re free, and they tend to attract a younger, less serious clientele. More and more sites are popping up that are really hawking high priced escorts, including the Sugar Daddy sites aimed at college females.
I’m curious to know what you mean by “shipping” minorities to suburbs? Are they being sent out of cities against their will?
I took his comment to be hyperbole. I do think though that, in some cities, as formerly lower SES neighborhoods close to downtowns are being gentrified, minorities are being outcompeted for housing and thus pushed out of their old neighborhoods.
The Atlantic article gives the impression that Jacob is just an average schlub who is getting laid by hot women left and right and that there are tons of average schlubs experiencing the same outcome. However, this seems very different than reality. It is unlikely that Jacob is as low in SMV as implied. He likely has some sort of charisma, even if of the douche-bag variety. It’s also hard to know if the women are really as “hot” as implied. At least on POF there are usually 2-3x as many men as women so the typical “average” guy online isn’t getting tons of women. In fact, anecdotally, most men have a rather frustrating time with online dating.
Overall, this Atlantic article is perpetuating the apex fallacy, attributing to most men what is only happening to the few.
@J
For women at least, it’s got to be the latter, and they need to err on the side of caution. For example, on OKCupid you can say what you’re looking for – a relationship of long or short duration, or “friends with similar interests.” I advise women to immediately eliminate from consideration anyone who checks the friends box. That’s strictly for casual sex. I also rule out any guy who does not have the LTR box checked. Checking both STR and LTR is OK.
The girls I know who have abided by these guidelines have still found themselves dealing with guys pressuring them for sex on the second or third date. I think some people feel no responsibility because they met online, and are unlikely to suffer any real damage to their reputation as a result of bad behavior.
A bizarre reversal of white flight? This is happening in South Boston, and also in the North End (Little Italy) part of Boston. Of course, that gentrification is what makes cities economically viable. I recently read that there is no longer a real supermarket within Detroit’s city limits. The whole city is a blight. I’m sure the city planners are furiously dreaming up schemes to encourage gentrification.
Oh my God, do we have to do that again?
Men value looks first and foremost, filtering for character and general compatibility later in the dating process, when they are pressed to provide commitment.
Thus they spam every woman over a certain hotness cut off point.
Women try to filter for commitment first PLUS them being creatures with predominantly reactive desire, they have little experience in proactively pursuing a mate. Thus all they do is filter the spam responses they get and than set up second round of live interviews.
And since if you know what you are doing it is easy to mend the words in your profile in order to pass the first female filter – women get a lot of players in the second round, and some obviously get laid.
This is how human sexuality works. Online dating is human sexuality working as intended (!)
The fact that something sucks for you does not mean it is not working as intended. It just means it sucks for you.
Online dating is geared towards People with “Limited Affinity to Yield Emotional Response” Strategy (P.L.A.Y.E.R.S.)
I honestly believe that it could be changed to provide better precision of landing someone who is comparable with you in the long run, rather than someone who just managed to push the right short term attraction buttons. My company is pretty efficient in weeding out people, who try at the interviews to tell us the right words without being the right people for our job.
It would require a much more cynical and much more rigorous testing apparatus on the website’s side, as much as a fundamental shift of expectations from both male and female customers – but in my opinion it can be done.
In the end what is long-term SMP, but not the market where men sell “husband” and women sell “wife”. (credit goes to Ian Ironwood for this metaphor, though I don’t know if he was the first one to use it)
Jacob probably stole a lot of Josh Radner’s pictures off of IMDb and parlayed a superficial resemblance to said actor, coupled with a dilettantish knowledge of the indie music scene, into a successful mini-career as a rake.
Portland would be the perfect place for that.
[off-topic] I ran into Grace Slick forty years too late at a Shaw’s in Portland. I would have felt stupid asking her to sign my pirated “After Bathing At Baxters” CD, so I didn’t. Portland is like that. [/off-topic]
Over the holidays, I saw a couple of 女 bloggers openly trumpeting their preference for serial monogamy, so online dating should be a barrel shoot for them until their mid forties.
Let’s see what we know about Jacob:
Had difficulty meeting women when he moved to Portland.
Was involuntarily single for two years.
At 26, began 5 year relationship with older woman.
Doesn’t work full time.
History of stagnating in relationships but not breaking up. Always the dumpee.
Now, he’s dating several women at once, most of whom had sex with him on the first or second date. IOW, unrestricted gals. The one he likes is making him wait for sex, so he’s going to dump her.
Jacob says it best himself:
“I’m worried that I’m making it so I can’t fall in love.”
The girls I know who have abided by these guidelines have still found themselves dealing with guys pressuring them for sex on the second or third date. I think some people feel no responsibility because they met online, and are unlikely to suffer any real damage to their reputation as a result of bad behavior.
It’s also so easy to move onto the next girl if one girl responds poorly to bad behavior.
A bizarre reversal of white flight?
Kinda. I think that, in many cities, older low SES neighborhoods tend to surround downtown simply because those are the oldest, cheapest parts of a city. Those areas also tend to attract young professionals since they are close to work and nightlife. Yuppies buy cheap buildings and renovate, prices go up or former rental properties become private homes. With cheap rentals no longer available, minorities leave.
“I advise women to immediately eliminate from consideration anyone who checks the friends box. That’s strictly for casual sex. I also rule out any guy who does not have the LTR box checked.”
+1
—
One thing that has surprised be about online dating site is that girls don’t want to “just chat.” They want your first messege to leave an impression (I know, cause so many make a point of saying so in their profiles) – and for it to be one that gets them to want to see you for coffee. There’s rarely an in-between. Perhaps offering an invitation to get to know one another isn’t tingle-inducing enough. Can no screening be done via messeging? I know there are a lot bullshiters out there, but how many of them are going to invest very much time getting to know each other. (A few – for sure)
Another side note, on OKC there are questions you can answer and compare (if set public – as many of you may already know)
There’s one question that always gets me: what is more important to you: many meaningful relationships or true love.
I rarely see the true love answer selected – and will almost always messege when I do.
Susan:
I disagree with your reading of Jacob.
There are descriptions of him in Slater’s article that indicates he’s a “Jersey Shore” style douchebag.
–Lazy, aimless, irresponsible with money.
–loves going to basketball games and concerts, prioritizes them over the women in his life and dating.
–gets a lot of interest in his Match.com profile.
–doesn’t prioritize working (meaning he’s not really seeking commitment and therefore is “safe” for women who are also in it for fun and not commitment).
–getting texts from other women while on dates with women.
–he likes independent and low-maintenance women. (This indicates to me that he’s gone the minute a woman starts hassling him.)
–of the women he’s met online, he’s slept with most of them; and usually by the second date.
His 5 year relationship at 26 was with a SLIGHTLY older woman. We don’t know how much older and we really can’t draw a lot of conclusions from it.
There’s no description of him always being the dumpee in his prior relationships.
He says he wants to be a nice guy but knows that eventually he will “come across as a serious asshole”.
Susan, you misread Jacob. He’s a textbook alpha douchebag who’s having some pretty good success gaming these girls into bed.
Re: my last post
I’m not sure exactly, but the OKC question might be worded “one true love.” (If that makes any difference)
What’s amazing is that many online dating sites are membership due revenue driven (e.g. Match, EHarmony) while those that are ad driven (Plenty of Syphilis) do a horrible job of marketing. The obvious place to make your money in online dating is by getting a cut of the _dates_, a la Groupon style local deal buys. Not a single one of the major online dating sites has the ability to setup a date in a similar fashion to a Facebook event. That’s crazy, both in terms of loss of revenue (both from data mining and selling venues) and giving users the ability to police other users for bad behaviour like flaking or outdated/deceptive pictures.
I think something like 20 % of the population has tried online dating but only 2 % is practicing it at any one time. I think that’s a mark of a bad product.
There’s so many things that could be done to reduce the number of douchebags and douchebaggettes online, but aren’t. How about needing a credit card to join to stop scammers from Nigeria? Limiting the number of new people a user can contact every week to reduce spamming? Using tineye.com or a similar image search service to reduce the incidence of stolen photos?
@Susan
This raises the question. If he is such a schlub and average looking (we have no mention of what he does for a career) then why are all these women going for him?
Rather than an indictment on him (assuming the description is accurate and that the women really are so pretty with decent careers) it is actually a compliment about some other thing he has going for him that lures these women in and makes them want to have a relationship with him.
Yes, since he’s not a great partner things eventually sour and the women leave but that is ignoring why they get with him to begin with. We know that he gives “healthy” lol attention to his other interests and so the women aren’t feeling smothered by him–something that women love–a guy who is too into her just must not be of high enough value! /sarcasm off
So, I ask again, if he’s such a schlub and these women are so pretty, then why are they going for him? As portrayed, Jacob has a high SMV as evidenced by having lots of women after him. (I’m personally dubious, either the women aren’t so hot or he has some good charisma/game going on that makes up for his lack of looks and ambition. Did the author investigate his claims or is he just a braggart/troll?)
@Susan
Regarding two other points you made:
Actually it doesn’t state he doesn’t work full-time, just that “he didn’t think much about…a 40-hour workweek,” whatever that means. It’s vague. It could mean he doesn’t work full-time but not necessarily.
I would rephrase the unrestricted gals into not on the restricted end of the spectrum. There are some middle-of-the-spectrum gals that will have sex soon if they feel infatuated or attracted enough, at least once or twice in their life.
@deti
I thought it was pretty clear that he tends to stay in LTRs long after their expiration date, and women always leave him. The ones mentioned did, and what he said is that now he doesn’t dread a breakup as much because he knows he can meet new women easily.
Not sure why he’d be a hit online as a Jersey Shore type – EW! Or why he wouldn’t have been before that. Weird story, we probably are not getting a good picture here.
In any case, Jacob is the throwaway part of the article. To me at least, what’s interesting is the shifting nature of online dating to a model that promotes relationship failure and returning to the site repeatedly.
And of course, what Madrigal said – there’s no evidence that online dating is interfering with monogamy. Marriage is alive and well among the very cohort most likely to use online dating.
If this story of Jacob really is true and he is some sort of charismatic, Jersey-shore douchebag then this is an indictment of the poor taste in men that all the women have that are wanting to LTR him.
These articles miss out on the central theme of mating and dating. To a large extent, during prehistoric times and in modern society, women are the choosers and men respond. (The agrarian-patriarchal societies of the last several thousand years would be periods where women had less choice due to arranged marriages to the extent those happened.)
Men respond to what women demand.
Too many modern women (NAWALT) are choosing the Jersey-Shore douches. Then they wonder why they have to move out after 2 or 5 years, like with Jacob.
They reap what they sow.
I have no idea. Madrigal referred to his “mediocre dates” but I don’t know if that’s founded on anything real. My guess is that Jacob is OK looking and comes across as confident. I definitely doubt his claims about pretty women, and I don’t see any evidence that Slater checked out any of it.
Also, he’s having sex on the first date? Like, they go back to his place from Starbuck’s? What woman does that? A slutty one. He’s got 5 women in rotation, and each one of them probably has 5 men in rotation. Scumbags all around.
Were you made aware of this article because of Abbot?
That isn’t the point of the article at all. The point is that Jacob’s experience does not prove anything about online dating reducing commitment, including marriage. Madrigal made an excellent case to debunk that notion.
How about we stop focusing on whether Jacob is alpha or not? It’s such a derailer….
F for reading comprehension, Ramble. I was made aware of it because it linked to me and hundreds of readers from the Atlantic have been swarming the blog for two days.
“In any case, Jacob is the throwaway part of the article. To me at least, what’s interesting is the shifting nature of online dating to a model that promotes relationship failure and returning to the site repeatedly.”
I don’t think Jacob’s the throwaway part of the article. He’s held up as the example of what’s “wrong” with online dating. He’s touted as the example of why online dating is going to a “model that promotes relationship failure”.
All this to me begs the question of why online dating would adapt to this model, which pulls you to to question of “who wants serial monogamy? Why is the market demanding it?”
The answer is: Women in general, of course, and in this particular context, women using online dating. The current dating paradigm encourages dating and rapid escalation to sex followed by “well, let’s see if there’s relationship potential here”. Men don’t pursue serial monogamy as a strategy, i.e. dating a string of women in consecutive fashion. Men pursue concurrent dating strategies: date a number of women simultaneously. Soft harems, rotating women in and out. Women tend to pursue this strategy: trying out a man one after the other, to see which one or ones work out.
Lest I be accused of pushing an agenda here, I’m not. I’m just pointing out that online dating seems to be responding to market demands, and who is the most logical group driving those market demands.
@Cooper “There’s one question that always gets me: what is more important to you: many meaningful relationships or true love. I rarely see the true love answer selected”
Interesting! I wonder why.
@deti “Men don’t pursue serial monogamy as a strategy, i.e. dating a string of women in consecutive fashion. Men pursue concurrent dating strategies: date a number of women simultaneously. Soft harems, rotating women in and out. Women tend to pursue this strategy: trying out a man one after the other, to see which one or ones work out. “
Are there citations proving this? I knew plenty of male serial monogamists.
By MCB:
“Jacob probably stole a lot of Josh Radner’s pictures off of IMDb and parlayed a superficial resemblance to said actor, coupled with a dilettantish knowledge of the indie music scene, into a successful mini-career as a rake.”
-Excellent paragraph, could be the basis for a thriller
“The point is that Jacob’s experience does not prove anything about online dating reducing commitment, including marriage.”
Let me just point this out and then I’ll stop since you think we are derailing the thread with whether Jacob is alpha or not. I think it’s important but since you don’t, I won’t go there again.
This is about the market responding to what people who use the product/service demonstrate they want, plain and simple. From the articles it looks like a lot of people are using online dating to get hookups. Who does that benefit? Women (like Rachel, a 22 year old pretty girl) and Jacob (apparently an alpha who’s having smashing success with online dating, in contrast to most average men who labor away with piddling results at it).
I didn’t see Jacob as a Jersey shore type at all. He’s the slacker son of two doctors. I saw him as a bright but unambitious guy with a big sense of entitlement. A lot of teen boys in my neighborhood seem to be moving in that direction. Lots of time to play around and all on the parental dime.
Tomato:
“I know plenty of serial monogamists.”
Let’s assume arguendo that you’re correct. It only proves my point: Online dating is responding to market forces. It sure looks like more and more people using the services want to find a string of hookups, one after the other, if you like.
@J
You’re saying Jersey Shore types aren’t slackers?
I agree that Jacob’s a slacker and for whatever reason he’s getting lots of the kind of results he wants. Now why would that be?
No, he’s not. Madrigal says he’s a loser who doesn’t represent online dating at all – an outlier. He acknowledges that online dating companies are working hard to get more Jacobs, but he mostly focuses on the people who are finding committed relationships with the help of the internet. He also rightly points out that there are many factors influencing the relationship market, and that claiming online dating is destroying monogamy is unfounded.
I think you’ve got it backwards. The online dating companies are aggressively marketing to players. Whereas EHarmony and Match used to advertise with portraits of wedded bliss, now they market hookups. Naturally, that draws a completely different customer. They actually don’t care about the folks who want to marry, and no longer make claims they can help. Those folks are bad for biz. A Jacob will renew indefinitely on Match, creating a steady and endless revenue stream. IOW, the companies have abandoned one population, and gone after another. There are markets for both approaches, but monogamy is not profitable, so the companies choose to get out of that market.
And there are more sites like Ashley Madison, for married people who want to have affairs. There’s even a site for men married to women who want to have a homosexual adulterous affair. I don’t know how large that target market is, but they’re pouring money into video advertising.
Haha, I thought of a screenplay myself when I read that paragraph! It could be like the boy version of The Truth About Cats and Dogs, but with an unhappy ending.
Dan Slater’s A Million First Dates claims that online dating is the death knell for monogamy, primarily due to the overwhelming supply of opportunities on offer. He shores up his argument with numerous interviews with executives in the online dating industry, and with the profile of a prize named Jacob. online dating is the death knell for monogamy
Why don’t everybody just send the “dating industry” where it belong to?…that is to hell, for those who believe in it…. and move on to try have a go at a real interpersonal contat in the first place? The people mentioned in this post are all in it for business rewards more than anything else. I don’t think there is much room for debate here.
Good point. And he looks down on Rachel for her blue collar roots. He felt that his friends had nothing to say to her.
It depends on how you define “against their will”. Let me give an example:
In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a big deal. Not only are they the largest and most prestigious Uni in the city, they also have 2 large (and also prestigious) hospitals in the city.
Johns Hopkins makes major investments in Baltimore, however, they rarely, if ever, make any investments in the neighborhoods just west of the Campus. The neighborhood just south of campus is nice, though nothing amazing. The neighborhood just east is quite nice and the neighborhood just north is not bad.
However, the neighborhood just west of the campus is not nice at all and JHU currently has a lot of greenery and tall trees walling them off from the student body. Well, it is a somewhat well known secret that JHU purposely doesn’t invest anything in that neighborhood so that it can buy up dilapidated properties on the cheap. After they get enough property, the can start expanding the campus in that (cheaper) direction.
So, are these underclass blacks forced out against their will? Not really. JHU does not invest much in the eastern neighborhood either and they are doing just fine.
There are a ton of methods that politicians and major-movers can use to nudge along gentrification.
The Stop-and-Frisk policy in Manhattan disproportionally affects Blacks and Latinos and has had a major impact on the crime rate in Manhattan. These makes it that much MORE desirable to the “upwardly mobile” to move in an increase property taxes that much more.
Other things that you see are certain environmental policies being pushed to a crazy level to prevent low cost and Section 8 houses from being built. Instead of the nice white ladies saying that they don’t want undesirables living near their daughters they can rant and rave about how a certain type of Pigweed will be locally extinct if they attempt to build anywhere near that swamp (later on they install solar panels on that same property to improve their carbon footprint [and, you know, prevent anyone else from trying to build there).
Like I said, there are a bunch of ways to either increase gentrification or prevent undesirables from moving in and still look nice.
Are you basing this on Jacob’s story alone, or have you seen some data? Because this is one humongous leap your making, deti. Talk about anecdotal evidence…Madrigal did the research, and it does not bear out your claim.
There have always been players and sluts online, that’s nothing new. Most women are extremely cautious online for that very reason. They filter the players out, not in.
What is new are the marketing strategies of the companies, going after a market that may be one-third as large, but spend ten times as much. And of course, those who are seeking a life partner will continue to use online dating, because no real alternative to it exists.
Think of it this way:
Viagra was a drug developed for a rare condition called Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. Guess what percentage of Viagra users suffer from that disease? How many advertising dollars go into luring PAH patients? It’s all about the dineros.
Another good example is Febreze. P&G developed it by accident and didn’t realize it had odor-absorbing properties until the wife of a smoking lab tech noticed his clothes no longer smelled like cigarettes. It took the company years of trial and error – they could not find a market for the product. It turned out stinky people didn’t know they were stinky and were not motivated to use Febreze. In the end, P&G created the market from nothing. They convinced super tidy and clean housewives that Febreze is the finishing touch that makes a home perfectly clean. Those women had no need of the product, were not searching for the product. P&G found a way to make them believe they could not live without the product, and sales soared.
deti: “All this to me begs the question of why online dating would adapt to this model, which pulls you to to question of “who wants serial monogamy? Why is the market demanding it?””
Susan: “I think you’ve got it backwards. The online dating companies are aggressively marketing to players. Whereas EHarmony and Match used to advertise with portraits of wedded bliss, now they market hookups. Naturally, that draws a completely different customer. They actually don’t care about the folks who want to marry, and no longer make claims they can help.”
Hmmmmm. Chicken or egg?
These companies are marketing to players because those are the kinds of men the female subscribers want to meet.
SW: “claiming online dating is destroying monogamy is unfounded.”
Right. I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing online dating is simply going where the $$ is, and that’s finding more players and Jacobs for the women who want to hook up with them.
Online dating isn’t destroying monogamy. The hookup culture will probably destroy online dating.
Ah yes, Ramble, dogwhistle politics at work.
@deti “Let’s assume arguendo that you’re correct. It only proves my point: Online dating is responding to market forces. It sure looks like more and more people using the services want to find a string of hookups, one after the other, if you like.”
Wait, what? It looked like you were arguing that men pursue multiple women simultaneously while women pursue multiple men sequentially. And since women somehow dictate the online dating market, there’s a movement there toward sequential dating. That argument is fine, but I think such rigid gender breakdowns in dating strategies that you employ are simply untrue.
One thing to keep in mind when discussing this subject is that ‘gentrification’ has taken on a bad connotation because it is almost always associated with one race (usually whites) ‘pushing’ out another race (usually blacks).
However, there are tons and tons of examples of gentrification being homogenous. In Susan’s backyard, the charming Charlestown neighborhood has gone from being lower-middle class whites to middle and upper class whites.
In short, Gentrification is usually a good thing.
@deti
Why not finding more sluts for the men who want to hook up with them?
BTW, have you ever seen really promiscuous people? Swingers, polyamorists, nude sunbathers? I’ve seen plenty of pics of the former two groups and plenty of real life examples on the beach. The average SMV of these folks? 2-3. These people are butt ugly. I invite you to do a little research. Just because someone is getting dates on Match doesn’t mean a thing. He might be inviting messages from all women over 200 lbs. for all you know. It sounds like a joke, but it’s entirely possible.
@Susan
Focusing some attention on Jacob is not derailing since you devoted a couple of paragraphs to talk about him in a negative light right at the top of this post, quoting Madrigal’s description of him as a “manchild jackass”. But that naturally raises the question of then why is he attracting so many “pretty” women?
I certainly don’t begrudge you taking a potshot at a slacker douche but don’t be surprised then that people might want to discuss the douche in question.
Madrigal says that online dating is not the problem (and I largely agree) and chides Slater for ignoring that Jacob himself might well be the problem but he doesn’t afford equal culpability to the women choosing Jacob. However, neither Slater nor Madrigal notice the obvious elephant in the room: women are using online dating (and offline) to choose the Jacobs of the world.
I agree that the Slater article and Jacob’s experience don’t prove that online dating is reducing commitment. Madrigal says there’s no data set to definitively settle the question right now.
Ah, but where this is a will there is the Red Pill!
“Why not finding more sluts for the men who want to hook up with them?”
Yep. That too. That’s why I closed that last comment with “Online dating isn’t destroying monogamy. The hookup culture will probably destroy online dating.”
Deti – “The technology of online dating isn’t driving serial monogamy. The people who want serial monogamy are driving the technology.”
SW – “Think of it this way:
Viagra was a drug developed for a rare condition called Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. Guess what percentage of Viagra users suffer from that disease? How many advertising dollars go into luring PAH patients? It’s all about the dineros.”
Looks like you’ve just made Deti’s point for him. Their aggressive advertising is geared towards what most of their potential customers really want – Viagra for sex, on-line dating for hook-ups.
BTW, have you ever seen really promiscuous people?
Yes I have. College town bar sluts. Drunk college girls. Meathead jocks. Frat boy assholes (some of whom were my own frat brothers). All of whom varied in physical attractiveness from slightly below average to white hot and slammin’.
I’m gonna shut up now. Back to online dating.
OT–I/E and the holiday party
http://www.livebetteramerica.com/healthy-living/health/well-being/articles/Introverts-vs-extroverts?nicam1=CONTENT_PPC&nichn1= OUTBRAIN&nipkw1={ad_Title}&niseg1=TDCORE_LBA&ersc=16670
“There are markets for both approaches, but monogamy is not profitable”
That statement was like a seed crystal hitting a saturated solution. It is true in so many ways it boggles the imagination, from real estate to family law to cosmetics to fitness to organic foods and beyond.
Our twilit Empire of Manufactured Anxieties would founder against an outbreak of widespread domestic contentment like the Titanic against the iceberg.
@Han
Jacob is one example. I don’t understand how you can extrapolate from that, especially since Madrigal dismisses him as not representative up front. All we know is that Jacob went online and got some dates with at least five women. We know nothing about looks, profiles, sociosexuality, etc.
It’s legit to discuss Jacob as an individual, as I did in the post, but Madrigal is taking Slater to task for using him as an example, becasue he obviously believes he is not representative.
But he does provide several, ahem, sources that suggest online dating is not reducing commitment, and in fact that commitment among the educated is not declining at all. Madrigal clearly exposes Slater’s argument as specious, IMO. That’s the real reason Jacob is unimportant.
I have a confession.
I LOVE online dating sites.
Not because I need to get laid – as said before, I’m happily owned and kennelled, and my ears are scratched lovingly and regularly.
Rather, I love to laugh my puerile little ass off at the women who frequent these sites. While there are clearly exceptions, these are the women for whom PUA were made — women in their forties posting pics five years old b/c they can’t understand why it’s only “old men” who are interested; uneducated trash-mouth women who wonder where all the “good men” have gone….but still want a bad-boy; women who ditched their husbands in order to trade up, and suddenly can’t understand why nobody wants to pay for them to live the lifestyle to which they would like to get accustomed…..
Online dating sites are a smorgasbord of schadenfreude, and a constantly-updated textbook regarding the phrase “don’t be these people.” True and serious online romance is absolutely possible there, and I’ve known some folks who got results….but the majority of what’s there appears truly to be human wreckage.
I don’t think so. Alphas don’t need to go online to get laid. Why would they bother? And sluts don’t need to go on coffee dates to get sex with them. Online dating is an extremely inefficient mechanism for a market that works very efficiently already.
Reportedly, the fastest growing group online is aged 22-30. I think that’s mostly made up of young people who want an alternative to the hookup scene.
Russ:
You do realize, don’t you, that you’ve made my point for me?
Han, I am going to disagree with you here. I think it is a fairly small minority of girls that genuinely like that level of douchiness. However, guys with that level of douchiness can do better than your average schulb.
The reason why, IMO/IME, is that girls DO demand some amount of douchiness/cockiness/whatever-you-want-to-call-it and most betas/schlubs have none of it, or rarely display it when it would help them most.
So, a lot of girls are left choosing between “nice guys” and “douches”. From their POV, it sucks.
Susan (I think it was her) gave a great example of this the other day. Some girl was on a date with some guy and she told him that she had a tattoo. He asked about it, and she said it is not visible. It is a small star on her hip and you, again, can’t see it. Well, this proceeded to tell her that that star was his. He is going to own it and that he will be seeing it a lot.
SPLOOSH!
She loved it. Here, the d-bag prevailed. But, apparently, later on, he ruined it by being a d-bag.
Now, I am willing to bet that that guy probably, in general, does better with girls than your average nice guy. But that doesn’t mean that girls want d-bags.
I misspelt schlub a few times.
Fuck! I misspelled “misspelled”.
Actually, Deti, I wasn’t even aware that I was in the debate, let alone that I had a staked-out position. I think you’re assuming motives I don’t actually have.
@slwerner
I think the market is more segmented than that. There are people who want strictly casual sex online, there are people who want relationships of 1-5 years duration, and there are people seeking a marriage partner. All of that information is provided in the profile, presumably. (I’m just familiar with OKC.) The profile also indicates how many dates you expect to go on before having sex, ranging from 1 date to 1 year, or even marriage. So like seeks out like, by and large. The casual sex seekers function mostly independently from the other groups, where there is considerable overlap.
Online dating companies are working hard to woo more of the casual only, no dates required, group. They’re attempting to get them to come over from Craigslist Encounters and pay the fee for online dating instead. That will undoubtedly increase the percentage of casual sex seekers online, but there is no reason it will affect the other groups, other than the fact that they won’t be marketed to as forcefully.
Online dating offers a wide range of experiences – for every Blendr or Ashley Madison there’s a How About We or Christian Singles site.
It’s far too simplistic to say that online daters want one thing, or that all online daters are telling the companies to wake up and sell sex. It’s really a question of targeting with market segmentation.
Jesus Christ Susan, it was just a question.
I was curious because most people don’t respond to Abbot but Marellus did the other day in thanking him for the interesting links.
You know, I have asked you before if I come across as too abrasive or if I should tone things down, and you had said that I was fine. If you don’t like something, just tell me. I am not looking to fuck up your shit.
On review, yes, Deti, I’d agree with your assessment (and by extension, Damien’s rejoinder regarding online dating in general). The people who run online dating sites can’t afford to stay in business if they try to swim against their income base.
@Susan
I was actually dismissing Jacob as representative of men online, if you recall my initial comment:
I was pointing out that the Slater portrayal of the ease average-looking men have with getting pretty girls with online dating seemed false. Either Jacob had some unmentioned attractive traits (like charisma or some aspect of game) and was thus much more attractive than his negative portrayal or that the women weren’t as pretty as Jacob claims.
The Slater article does give the (unfounded) impression that Jacob is the norm for online dating (I don’t agree with that). I was simply pursuing the logical implications of that assertion: If he really is such a slacker and bad for relationships then why are the women pursuing him (and as is implied by Slater, others like him)? Especially when on POF there are 2-3x more men than women and surely some of them are looking for more sincere LTRs/marriage.
@deti
Well this is one post where we can’t use college students as our representative sample, because they don’t date online. But I can say that you forgot to mention the hairy legged Women’s Studies types and their manboob admirers, who drag the average way down.
Also, we know that men rate 80% of women as above average, lol. You guys are visual, but you’re not very discerning.
Check google images for the most sexually adventurous folks in the U.S., but don’t do it right after a meal.
More great wordsmithing from Mule. I live for these tidbits.
That sounds like Bastiat Blogger’s description of his crowd. It is my earnest hope that my readers will be in a position to enjoy that delicious schadenfreude one day.
Haha, that’s the best laugh of the day so far.
“However, neither Slater nor Madrigal notice the obvious elephant in the room: women are using online dating (and offline) to choose the Jacobs of the world.”
Temporarily, anyway. It appears that Jacob can initially attract women because of his appearance/charm/whatever but cannot keep them due to his selfishness and laziness. Men and women are often drawn to someone because of their initial qualities but become put off upon discovering their negative aspects. Such a relationship typically lasts as long as one partner is willing to put up with those negative aspects. Some people bail right away, others wait to see if the person can change or see if they can ignore the negative qualities in favor of the positive ones.
@HanSolo
Yes, I see. Thanks for clarifying.
Sorry, Ramble, I was just teasing you. That got lost in the written word. I guess I need to use more winky faces. You are more than fine. I have no problem with your demeanor online. And you’re fair, which also makes you a great commenter.
@Susan#75,
Yes, I’d hope so. Many very real social ills could be cured by women getting advice that was real and worked, as opposed to what’s being spoonfed to them now. “Sex and the City” is behavior suited for a very specific breeed of gay man, not for a romantically successful woman.
I’m the only one who found value in Slater’s piece then?
@Ramble
You’re not disagreeing with me because you counter what I said with a claim that isn’t in disagreement. I said too many women are choosing douches. Too many doesn’t mean most or even a large minority (like 40%). I think it is probably more in the 20-30% range that are choosing to be with them at least a few times.
That brings up the second point. I didn’t refer to women that “genuinely like that level of douchiness,” just that they choose it.
It constantly amazes me as I talk with girls and they tell me how they used to date assholes and are now looking for a good guy (I’m sure there’s a lot of hyperbole in their claims)–most recent example was a girl I dated for a while and had a low N so not some raging slut at all.
Just last night I was out with a girl who has a phd and told me about how she couldn’t get over the guy she had an intense 3-week, nearly everyday fling with a month ago who then balked when she said they were dating. From her description of his problems, this guy totally sounded like a slacker Jacob type (except that he wouldn’t even get into an LTR with her). She wanted to save him and be the one to make him responsible.
Now, some might try to sweep away my experiences by just saying these are all trashy girls but I really don’t buy that. They don’t seem trashy to me. They all have reasonable jobs and most don’t have raging N’s.
I’m not making the claim that a majority of women often choose assholes in their 20′s but enough do that so it really upsets assortive mating for many men (and the women who claim they want relationships but go for the players/cads/douches)*.
*players=/=cads or douches
No, don’t do that.
I am just a little sensitive and butthurt after you called me tiresome. I’m all better now.
SW – ”It’s far too simplistic to say that online daters want one thing, or that all online daters are telling the companies to wake up and sell sex. It’s really a question of targeting with market segmentation.”
Earlier, you made the point that:
”The online dating companies are aggressively marketing to players. Whereas EHarmony and Match used to advertise with portraits of wedded bliss, now they market hookups. Naturally, that draws a completely different customer. They actually don’t care about the folks who want to marry, and no longer make claims they can help.” You even lead off the title Online Dating Sites Find Selling Serial Monogamy More Profitable Than Marriage
Yes, it’s undoubtedly an oversimplification to say that the customers desires are driving the change from commitment-oriented to casual. And yet, you seem to be making that very point. And, if they ”… actually don’t care about the folks who want to marry, and no longer make claims they can help”, are they even still targeting that market segment at all? Or, are the larger services simply abandoning that segment to smaller niche players, clearly recognizing that the casual/sex market segment is more larger and more lucrative?
A wannabe player or Jersey Shore style douche-bag who does have some (sexual) success with women (who might think they are looking for long-term, but are apparently all too ready to settle for a series of ONS’s) would be more likely to continue to pay for a service than would a guy who was actually interested in a longer-term commitment, but who cannot seem to compete with the faux-playa’s and douche-bags for the on-line interests of women (who, again, are apparently willing to put-out for the latter). If frustrated commitment-oriented guys give up and stop paying for it, it makes more sense to simply target those who are likely to find their measure of success (sex). But, then again, that seems to be what you were saying to begin with.
SW – ” Why not finding more sluts for the men who want to hook up with them?”
Well, they wouldn’t advertise it that way. But, it is necessary either. Enough women are apparently signing up and putting out as it is.
Perhaps while we can easily understand the more promiscuous man’s measure of dating success (sex), we need to try to better understand what women consider “success”. Are woman who set out looking for commitment simply ending up selling out for sex as a proxy for dating success? Either the sluts were already going to on-line dating claiming to want commitment…until they got a date for sex; or those women who thought they were looking for commitment are giving up on that goal often enough that the douche-bags and Jacobs are satiated – and the money keeps rolling in.
Oh, OK, I hear you.
You are not alone.
One of the shames, here, IMO, is that these girls could serve themselves better by saying, “My decision making has been poor. I think that I am smarter, or at least, more aware, now.”
Or, something like that.
Unfortunately, in their attempt to paint the “appropriate” picture, and one that is supported in pop culture, they, like you said, describe the guys as being assholes (which they may very well be).
They don’t realize that they are basically saying to you, “Han, you have the wonderful opportunity to date a fucking idiot who spreads her legs for the worst guys”.
SATC is the most malignant cultural event to hit the SMP in the last 20 years.
@Escoffier
What was valuable about it?
@Han
Yes, this is the 50 Shades of Grey fling. I imagine many women could get caught up in this, and of course the success rate is extremely low. Do you have the sense that this was a one-time deal, or does she make a habit of trying to rescue men?
Consider this :
If you haven’t read the link, then the whole story is this :
A guy basically copied and pasted this profile on a dating site, and managed to snag a wife with that. So why is this important ?
The winners in online dating are the men with an ability to write well.
It’s that simple. And more like as not ole Jacob, despite his many faults, could spin an impressive yarn.
And how many men can do this ?
Not many methinks.
There are not that many regular male commenters on HUS, as compared to traffic. And all the male commenters are good writers.
Which begs the question; why are there not that many good male writers then ?
It has nothing to do literacy, and everything to do with an ability to elicit a response from a woman, any response from a woman, and then effect a seduction via subversion or sublimation.
And for that a man must learn how to write. Above all else, and in these times, a man must know how to write … and write well.
Not many men do.
… hence the wordsmiths have become the womanizers.
@slwerner
There have always been customers interested in casual. I see no reason to suspect that market is growing. I see mainstream online dating companies possibly trying to capture a greater share of that market. IOW, Match wants to get those people away from Ashley Madison, Craigslist, etc. For the record, I know very little about the dating industry. I’m going entirely off these two Atlantic articles and offering some theories.
I don’t know the answer to this question. They’d be foolish to abandon those customers, as they do produce revenue and represent extremely small incremental expense. I imagine a very large number of people do seek life partners online. At one point I think Match claimed it was responsible for something like 25 or 50% of all American marriages.
I don’t see those folks going to small, specialized sites, because the selection is small. The advantage of an OKCupid or POF for a 20 something is a huge customer group on that same site in their demographic. If an oboe player leaves OKC for the Woodwind Singles site, they’ve just lost access to 99% of the men online.
My guess is that online dating sites are trying to grow the market, make the pie bigger. They’ll no doubt want to hang on to the customer’s they’ve got. It was overstatement to say that companies “don’t care” about those customers. But I suspect the Strategic Planners at these companies aren’t focused on them.
Do you have information on this? Because it’s always been my understanding that women are extremely cautious and wary of players online, generally speaking. “Good guys” complain of the need for too many messages back and forth, phone calls before meeting, etc. And women are worried about letting men online know where they live. Evan Marc Katz talks a lot about this in his online dating blog/business.
All I know is that a guy named Jacob got 5 dates he seems psyched about.
I imagine that there are women looking for Jacobs at Match the way there are women making dates with Mr. Goodbar on Craigslist. There is a fair amount of NSA sex being set up online already, so there’s obviously a willing group of both women and men. That’s my point. The market is segmented, for both sexes.
I don’t think there are restricted women going on to Match to find a serious relationship, choosing Jacob’s low occupational status profile, banging him after coffee, and then returning to the Husband Search. I really don’t think so. All the evidence suggests that people mostly behave according to their sociosexuality. Sure, a restricted person may have an occasional fling, and a promiscuous person might get married, possibly even to a Craigslist sex partner. But mostly I don’t have a sense that these groups overlap.
Marellus,
It’s entirely possible that your thesis explains my success pre-marriage. I’m no looker (no false humility – I put a photo link in the christmas-greetings thread), and I’m not rich.
But when I was 17 one of my best friends posited that learning to build a fire was great, but *communication* is probably the best survival skill a man can have.
In retrospect, could just kiss the guy. But his wife would object. Or take photos. Both would be embarrassing.
@Marellus
Great link, great comment.
I sorta want to date Captain Strangelove now.
I once wrote a post on dating ads in the London Review of Books. Some of my favorites:
Have books destroyed your life too? Shy shallow Anglophile, 34, seeks young woman to recreate timeless epic romance. Ability to ride camels, bribe border guards and write letters by whale oil lamp a must.
If forced to commit, I’d say I feared geese more than ducks. Man, 47. Fears geese more than ducks.
I refuse to let my sadomasochistic tendencies and love of koi define who I am, but if our relationship is to progress to any meaningful level then we will be spending an awful lot of time in the Japanese ornamental garden section of Worcester Homebase.
My door is always open. Mostly because I live in a barn. Farm-dwelling survivalist and rural hedge enthusiast.
I’d go out with the ducks geese guy in a heartbeat.
@Russ:
True and serious online romance is absolutely possible there
Hahaha, do you mean it? The online dating stuff is no less than the abstract, although more immediate, version of our elders’ add in the newspapers “mating” column. I guess you used the word “romance” as something meaning something close to : Let’s put our savings together and see if it works out.
At least these two things:
1) I think the point about the dangers of choice addiction, and thinking “the grass is always greener,” is a real danger from the explosion in online dating.
2) Whatever Jacob may or may not be, it seems inarguable that online dating has expanded the options of some non-trivial number of men. Perhaps they were only constrained by proximity and logistics before the dating sites came along. Whatever the old contraints, the fact is they now have many more chances to meet and screw girls.
3) Similarly, I found valuable the implied point that women who want flings STRs with alphas now can get them more easily and with less reputational risk and, where relevant, pangs of guilt or shame.
Damien,
Yes. Believe it or not. I know a gal who got married with a guy discovered there.
Now, color me shocked. I don’t think her story was anywhere near usual (and she’s far out into uberubernerdland AND works on old cars, and thus to a certain kind of guy, qualifies as “a unicorn.”)…it did happen, though.
@Susan
She recently broke of an engagement that had become emotionally dead for sometime. Then met the fling guy. And then me. I don’t think she makes a habit of wanting to save a guy. She said she’s only felt that intensity of infatuation 3 times in her life and the other two weren’t restoration projects.
She thought that she just had her buttons pushed by him and he was all too happy to stay at her house most of them time and be in a mini-relationship that she assumed was going to last more. When she threw out the, “so we’re kind of dating, right?” he responded no and she ended it with him. However, she is still feeling some of the drug-like effects of intense infatuation and is thinking that it was her fault for bringing up the relationship thing too soon and part of her wants to give it another try with the guy with no mention of LTR for now. I told her that he likely wouldn’t have changed later on (though it’s possible) and after living together for 3 weeks it was not too soon to ask where things were at.
BTW, I’m not pointing her out in a woe-is-me way. I actually don’t want to date her but we have good conversations.
I started this topic in the HUS forums over a year ago:
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/forum/hooking-up/online-dating-the-discussion/
I wrote then that I disliked dating sites, always have. I’m glad my husband and I met in a different way, albeit still online.
Geese are mean creatures with razor bills and angry hisses. They stand up to anything. I don’t even like to bike past them! Ducks waddle and say please and thank you to a crust of bread.
Point for DucksGeese guy.
A movie I love, called 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, has a scene in which Gould reads aloud a personal ad he has just drafted. I wish I remembered it word for word but I do recall the phrase “Tristan-esque trip-taking.” It was wordy, ridiculous and brilliant. The he picks of the phone, dials, the person at the other and answers “Toronto Star Classified,” whereupon Gould giggles and hangs up.
UPDATE: I love the Internet, here’s the full text:
“Wanted: friendly, companionably reclusive, socially unacceptable, alcoholically abstemious, tirelessly talkative, zealously unzealous, spiritually intense, minimally turquoise, maximally ecstatic moon, seeks moth or moths with similar qualities for purposes of telephonic seduction, Tristanesque trip-taking, and permanent flame-fluttering, no photos required, financial status immaterial, all ages and non-competitive vocations considered, applicants should furnish sets of sample conversation with notarized certification of marital disinclination, references re: low decibel vocal consistency, itinerary and sample receipts from previous successfully completed out-of-town moth flights, all submissions treated confidentially… “
@Russ:
Yeah, maybe like my sister…
What on earth is uberubernerdland?
Damien,
I’m describing a girl who not only reads Tolkien, but can recite all the poetry.
And I mean, ALL the poetry.
Odd duck, that one. Also, she did ballet in college, which is how we met and I learned her weird story.
@ Marellus
Not all though.
I often have a poor ability to communicate my thoughts, and Ted D also often expresses the same frustration.
SW, responding to my statement: ”the on-line interests of women (who, again, are apparently willing to put-out for the latter).” –
”Do you have information on this? Because it’s always been my understanding that women are extremely cautious and wary of players online, generally speaking.”
Like you, I have little information about the industry. But, if the companies are aggressively and successfully targeting men who’s only marker for dating success is sex, then it seems an obvious conclusion that there must be women who ARE putting out for such men. We don’t need that stats (which have likely never been compiled anyway) to make a rational judgment about as to what seems to be going on, we simply need to know a bit about human nature.
SW – ”I imagine that there are women looking for Jacobs at Match the way there are women making dates with Mr. Goodbar on Craigslist. There is a fair amount of NSA sex being set up online already, so there’s obviously a willing group of both women and men. That’s my point. The market is segmented, for both sexes.”
The relative size of those segments seems yet another area where I doubt they are making any effort to gather stats and make distinctions (at least not that they are going to be willing to make public, they are likely doing some “internal polling”).
Personally, I don’t find either Slater’s nor Madrigal’s arguments compelling. As Madrigil himself points out, there is no ”… historical look at how commitment rates have changed in the past and what factors drove those increases or decreases.” upon which to try to make a determination if there has been any change due to on-line dating and/or social media.
I think the only rational point to be made is the very first one you made, Online Dating Sites Find Selling Serial Monogamy More Profitable Than Marriage, because that’s what their words and their (advertising) efforts point to.
In my opinion, there was a chicken before there was an egg in this situation – and that is, as you yourself allude to, a lot of NSA sex-seekers were already using on-line sites which purported to be out to match people in long-term relationships; and the services noticed that the best repeat customers were those who would report that sex was the ultimate outcome for their previous on-line dating experience. Those for whom the match-making is truly successful are only going to be one-time customers (statistically speaking, of course). And, if the aggressive advertising to the NSA crowd is as successful as it seems to have been, then serious relationship-seekers are going to have an even harder time finding one-another. If no effort is made on their behalf, then, yes, the services are effectively abandoning them (if not to smaller, more selective services, then to flounder about until they are frustrated enough to give up). The net message is clear, there is more money to be made in selling sex than in selling marriage/commitment. The on-line dating services aren’t (directly) ruining monogamy or commitment, they’re just increasingly ignoring it – just as their consumer-base (society as a whole) is.
@Tomato
“Interesting! I wonder why.”
Beats me.
@Susan
I will add though that she is feeling a lot of pressure from her family and herself to get married and have kids and so she is being “impatient” as she says. She’s wanting the end result so much that she didn’t filter well for LTR intention in the fling guy nor for sufficient love and attraction on her part with the ex-engagement guy.
Escoffier, I also found the Slater piece to be informative and thought-provoking and pre-order 1-clicked his book.
Susan, re: my group. I did make it sound pretty bleak! However, I have to say that the “happily married” men in the cohort are not exactly helping, as probably 75% of them advise bachelors to avoid marriage unless it is structured outside of the reach of U.S. courts; perhaps as many as 25% would even claim that this Jacob character is some kind of philosopher-king.
I think that this is a development that doesn’t get enough play in the MSM. When guys who are well into their careers hear or read (sensationalized?) stories about current campus hook-up culture or about men like Jacob cleaning up post-college, there are of course a certain % of males who are disgusted.
However, others, perhaps a larger number, become enthused and wish they could participate on some level. The thing is that a variation on Jacob’s lifestyle may actually sound highly attractive to many men.
A brief vignette: when I was a child, one of the most popular shows on television was “Magnum, PI” (for the young folks here, this was a long-running series in which former volleyball player Tom Selleck portrayed a former SEAL officer living in Hawaii and working as a private investigator). Here is a Wikipedia description of part of Magnum’s appeal:
“Magnum seemingly lives a dream lifestyle: he comes and goes as he pleases, works only when he wants to, has the almost unlimited use of a Ferrari 308 GTS Quattrovalvole as well as many other of Robin Masters’ luxuries. He keeps a mini-fridge with a seemingly endless supply of beer (‘Old Dusseldorf in a long neck’), wears his father’s treasured Rolex GMT Master wristwatch, is seemingly surrounded by countless beautiful women (who are often his clients, victims or connected in various other ways to the cases he solves).”
At the time that this show was aired, I think that guys may have enjoyed these antics from an escapist, voyeuristic perspective, but felt that such lifestyles were simply unavailable for average Joes. This may be entirely anecdotal, but I still feel comfortable making the statement that more and more guys are now seeing this kind of experience as legitimately attainable. I don’t think that this effect can be neatly pre-determined by using a stark, binary “unrestricted” and “restricted” schema to describe male sociosexuality, either; I think this is a case of normal men responding to incentives and to their perceived self-interests in very unusual, structurally uncertain dating/mating conditions.
While these articles may have had the intention of casting Jacob as an imbecile, this may not be the effect at all. To many, Jacob sounds like he’s playing the SMP on his own terms and being rewarded for it.
@Han Solo:
By the way, time to answer your questions about the fish bones. Just a French metaphor for your “red pills” overthere. Just a warning for your apparent naivety, but I don’t know you, and wish you well, like all of you here.
One last thing worth mentioning is the language used here sometimes. As shown in the last post, you put forward in a naive (yet I believe sincere) way all the love you had to offer to a woman, yet ended by delicately writing : In the meantime, I fuck the occasional Pussy…
It got me making yet another analogy: Instead of being decorated by Titian’s Bacchanal, what if this blog was ornamented by porn pictures or college students throwing up during spring break in Fort Lauderdale?
@Damien,
Except insofar as I’d never have gone more than a single click before closing the browsing window? A picture speaks a thousand words….
@Han
I hear this a lot. And I don’t think it usually ends well. If the guy can give an emphatic NO after three weeks, without stating that he is happy to see where things go and is open to a relationship, then she is right to get out now and stay out.
I agree with you that she definitely did not ask too early! She might even have asked what he was looking for about two and a half weeks earlier.
Playing casual is a very risky strategy for women who want commitment.
@Escoffier
That is a brilliantly written piece, but I suspect he would not have had many takers. Too offbeat.
@Russ
I remember GeishaKate saying something quite profound in one of Heartiste’s threads :
“… women NEED words …”
… and hence, the men must supply them.
*******************************************************************
INTJ,
… yet you and Ted are doing pretty well with all the women here … much better than Höllenhund, who communicates his thoughts very well …
Here is some food for thought :
The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says. -Oscar Wilde
@slwerner
I was with you up till the very last statement. I generally don’t find it very accurate to discuss society as a whole, because there are sub-SMPs that differ wildly by SES.
There is a greater incidence of serial monogamy, for the reasons that Madrigal pointed out, though that too varies a lot by SES group, and most educated people do marry. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jacob himself appears to be a card-carrying example of “the end of men.” Delayed maturation, prefers games and leisure to work, is entirely passive in relationships. He is not marriageable, despite his parents’ impatience that he settle down with “the one.”
I don’t see a time when online dating is all about casual sex. Subscribers don’t require much in the way of assistance to sign up and use the service. As long as people can filter effectively according to objectives, I’d still give online dating a place in the portfolio of dating strategies. It’s worth trying, anyway. For women looking for serious commitment, takeover by Jacobs should be fairly obvious.
@Suzan.
I’m reprinting this blog post in its entirety :
*********************************************************************
THE GIRL’S GUIDE TO… Men: How To Get Laid When You Place An Advert On A Casual Sex Website.
1. Be grammatically correct. Placing an ad that is badly spelled or with terrible sentence construction doesn’t bode well to anyone reading it; it just makes you appear stupid. Plus, you’ll look like you’re typing with only one hand, which although might be true, really won’t assist you: horniness is no guarantee of success in the field of sex (actually, it probably lowers your ability to get lucky, if anything).
Example:
I’m not sure where you might be going down darling, but it wouldn’t be between my legs, that’s for sure: I expect a man to be able to converse on at least a semi-intellectual level (when he comes up for air, anyway).
2. Don’t appear desperate (even if you are). Have a wank, get rid of your excess horniness, and then post the ad. Do not, in any circumstances, be tempted to write something like this:
Evidently. Looks like a weekend spent watching those new DVDs. Again.
3. Don’t appear too picky:
Specifying a particular ratio of a woman’s height/size is not going to get you in her pants. Fact.
4. However, don’t appear not to be picky at all – and then contradict yourself (using bad spelling and zero punctuation):
And if you’re going to request a picture, it makes sense to offer one in return. Otherwise women will just suspect you’re going to use their image to wank to and not take you seriously. (See below.)
5. If you want to get laid, try offering more than just a soggy photograph:
Been looking at too much porn, methinks, if a bloke cannot relate to a woman unless she is 2D.
6. Be thoughtful about what you are going to offer the woman:
Thank you – how generous of you.
7. Don’t be arrogant:
You won’t pull if you come across as a wannabe-Casanova. Men who appear full of themselves generally turn out to be shit in bed. Most women know this, and those that don’t soon learn – and spread the word.
8. Conversely, a man who shows basic wit and intelligence, and who can be mildly self-deprecating, would probably appear more considerate of a woman’s needs in bed. Thus, more women would reply to his advert, ensuring a higher probability of him getting laid:
I’m betting this guy has had a few offers.
9. Don’t bother putting pictures of your penis in the advert. Or, if you must, put a picture of your face alongside it. However nice your cock may be, in and of itself it isn’t going to market your worth as a potential lover.
If a woman was only interested in a phallus to play with, there are plenty of vibrators out there – and she’d be guaranteed a good orgasm with one. So please, be funny, be honest, show your face in the ad, and you’re much more likely to get a response – and perhaps get lucky.
10. However, if your objective in the advert is not to get laid, and you don’t mind women printing off pictures of your erection and using them to masturbate with, then please, feel free to post the cock pics – I need a few more for my collection.
@Russ
Hence the need to have that pathetic “men talk” toned down here. I don’t know if you ever had to deal with the army at one point in your life, but for me it was something more than ridiculous. Men put together in a large group can become potential rapers/killers. Women put in the same situation equally can become venimous defaiming vipers, and so on. Group culture is something I always tried to avoid. This here is already an open debate how every culture “breeds” its individuals…
@BB
I’m curious about a statement you made earlier. You described how men are very loyal to the women they are in relationships with, and loath to trade up or even date serially. Yet this suggests that the founder of Ashley Madison speaks for men:
Societal values always lose out…As we become more secure and confident in our ability to find someone else, usually someone better, monogamy and the old thinking about commitment will be challenged very harshly.
Are men becoming increasingly hypergamous, assuming “better” in this case means hotter and younger?
Slater certainly gives him ample praise – I believe his point is exactly as you say. Madrigal doesn’t call him stupid, he calls him:
immature, callow
selfish
unempathic
lazy
aimless
irresponsible
a worry to his parents
All of this was true before Jacob found Valhalla. My greatest hope is that all of the Jacobs pursue their boyish dreams, rather than clog the drains of female filters. I have no doubt that some good guys will go that route, and find it “hard to go back” as a commenter said upthread. Jacob is afraid he’ll never be able to fall in love again. His agentic and self-indulgent behavior today precludes it in future. We all make choices.
@Marellus
That blog post is hilarious. I don’t know why, but misspelling always makes me laugh.
And the one most celebrated by young women, in general.
Fucking great move. I am stealing that.
“My greatest hope is that all of the Jacobs pursue their boyish dreams, rather than clog the drains of female filters.”
Care to explain that one? Isn’t Jacob clogging the female filters in his pursuit of his boyish dreams?
I have always struggled with words.
This has been my experience.
The advice you get from the older divorced guys is a little different (and not nearly as bitter as you might think, though, that may be the specific people I choose to associate with).
“The effect of these past relationships on men’s standards. Having been a hopeless romantic prior to getting into Game (you know, normal manosphere stuff), it’s hard to go back once you’ve landed that first low-maintenance sex-only relationship. Last year I “dated” a girl I met online for three months, during which I had sex and home-cooked meals constantly, and into which I invested sex and home-cooked meals in return. A year ago I would have been appalled at myself; now I see it as a perfectly equitable relationship.”
Eoin what would you have been “appalled” by?
No, because unless he pretends to be a “dad” – if he makes his preferences for casual sex known, most women won’t waste a coffee date on the guy at all. Yes, women filter on the dating sites themselves, but I meant the more active phase of nexting guys who are in it just for sex.
@ Mr. Nervous Toes:
On a side note, IME I preferred the free sites to the paid membership ones. You would think paying for the service would yield higher quality, but they allow people who haven’t paid to create profiles – and these folks CANNOT message you back. There’s no distinction between full members so it’s frustrating.
@SW:
+ 1!
Especially the Match exec. They used to tout marriages and it’s sad they’re selling “meet new people” (I.e., find new tail!) instead. At lease eHarmony still keep the values it was founded with..
Traditional marriage, even the kind we know of now, will be completely finished in this country within two decades. That’s not bad for adults. I just worry about the children.
Spot on Susan! That’s my demographic and that’s exactly why I tried online dating. It’s hard to meet folks in a big city when we spend most of our days in the office (mine had no eligible bachelors!).
PJ, is that you???
Damien,
Or, simply having taste. I don’t want to poo-pooh popular culture, because it comes up with good and interesting things (to this day I can still remember several albums worth of Weird Al Yankovic lyrics).
But regarding pop culture? The “battle” of the sexes? Yike.
Susan, re: men being loyal, etc. I have no idea what is going on, but I seem to be surrounded by married men who simultaneously claim to be quite happy, to love their wives, etc., AND who say that they’d have done things if they had started dating in today’s SMP. One would think that such a person would be a wild cheerleader for marriage, but these guys just aren’t. I suppose that I would best describe their positions as “sober”.
…And these aren’t the dregs and slackers, either—the guys I am talking about are typically senior portfolio mgt professionals with deep and varied qualifications and skillsets. Some do fit a gregarious, risk-taking playboy lothario stereotype and it is easy to see why they would chafe under marriage, but most are soft-spoken and serious quants. They aren’t angels, but I don’t think any of them would consider leaving their wives unless something unspeakably heinous happened.
I think that a problem with Madrigal’s easy description of Jacob is that it basically implies that a “responsible SMP winner” should be committing himself before sex, working harder to provide provisioning resources, and seeking high-maintenance girlfriends who dominate his life and take priority over his other interests.
But the hard-nosed Sexual Economics/SMP framework for understanding the mating game typically posits a social marketplace in which a Buyer who wants something (SEX) seeks to find a Seller who has SEX and wants something else (COMMITMENT) discover an agreeable price for the SEX in COMMITMENT units, at which point the market successfully clears.
If someone subscribes to the SMP model of human sexual relations, then it might appear to that person that, ultimately, Madrigal is basically taking Jacob task for being too effective in his role as a Buyer. But Jacob is not asking Madrigal to have sex with him—unless Jacob is some kind of coercive figure or date rapist we must assume that multiple Sellers (perhaps all low SMV females, we don’t know) are willingly sleeping with our little fun-loving sports- and live music enthusiast.
I can’t say that I understand his appeal—he may have been being very modest when he said that he was average-looking, he may be holding out on us when it comes to the black Aston-Martin that he recent purchased with trust fund money. I would guess that he doesn’t explicitly tell girls some of the darker elements of his personality profile (that he prioritizes sports and concerts over relationships, etc.) , so he may well come across as a popular man with developed “inner game”— fun, non-needy, artistic, highly developed hobbies and interests, and so on.
@ Susan
Whoa there! Did you just use the manosphere definition of “hypergamous” (trading up)?
@Iggles#127:
I hope so! She’s been so far one of the few to have something original and independent to say. Well, if she’s on her meds, that would be very intersting to read her comments. And I am not sarcastic.
PJ doesn’t strike me as the type that would be a rebound girlfriend for a Cuban lazybum. My gut tells me the story is true, and that The Rebound Girlfriend is definitely not PJ.
Traditional marriage, even the kind we know of now, will be completely finished in this country within two decades. That’s not bad for adults. I just worry about the children.
It’s already finished in the western world, at least in terms of “traditional marriage” and I doubt there will be some kind of turning back towards it anytime soon.
As for the children, I don’t think it has anything to do with marriage in terms of their well being…
@Russ:
I guess there was some kind of, how do you say in English, miss/passed or crossed understanding? Can’t remember. Whatever you say about pop culture (which I despise and ignore), I agree as well, but I was talking about something entirely different.
Sometimes, trying to look smart and cultured hurts the effort. A trend not unknown neither in New York nor in Paris…
@Damien#133.
While I am profoundly cynical, I believe this is overstated. Plenty of women are marrying, and plenty more regard marriage as “aspirational” in nature.
Once the feminists have finished discrediting themselves (a process that’s well in hand), I think this will rebound, to everyone’s benefit.
That is strange. I understand a guy saying to another, “Dude, the sex dries up, she starts looking haggard 5 years in, don’t do it. Don’t get married.” I do not understand people saying, “It’s awesome! I’m happy! Don’t be like me!” Perhaps there is a grass is greener element at work here, IDK.
I remember reading a statistic that something like 80% of American men believe they could throw a 96 mph fast ball if given the chance. And we know that men tend to overestimate by a mile the degree of attraction females feel for them. Perhaps these men with awesome wives figure they coulda been a contendah of the Clooney variety if only they hadn’t been suckered into marriage.
I think you’re being a bit hard on Madrigal there. He didn’t dwell on commitment at all – and seemed to disrespect the nature of Jacob’s prior relationships. I think he views Jacob as a slacker in the way that men will – a dude who obviously grew up with privilege scratching his balls with one hand and going for low hanging fruit with the other. If I were a guy, men like Jacob would disgust me. But then, I’d be a benevolent alpha of the old-school variety. Imagine what General Patton or even FDR would think of men like Jacob today.
As for Jacob’s like of “low maintenance” gf’s, that clearly translates to “has no expectations of me.” It’s like the guys who scream “Psycho!” the minute a woman asks what their intentions are.
If that were true of our fun-loving friend, I would have expected a more adventurous carousel-provider type decade in his 20s. The guy was incel in Portland for 2 years. There’s definitely something missing in his story. I truly suspect something very offbeat – morbid obesity seeks same, that kind of thing.
It’s just as likely that the misunderstanding is entirely mine, Damien. I am frequently not only clueless, but VERY clueless.
@INTJ
Where you been? Did you forget my recent post?
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2012/11/14/whatguyswant/the-hypergamy-acceptance-movement/
I think the Rebound Girlfriend is the genuine article with some sass and a lively manner. Smart too. Yes, please.
Well, that is something to think about.
Patton seemed to prefer spending his time in a place where he ate terrible food and had a good chance at dieing and FDR married a lesbian and had at least one affair.
It would be interesting to get their take.
Damien Vuluame…you’re French, right? How about a guest post here on the dating/mating environment in France?…Susan, is that something you think would be worthwhile?
It’s far from proved that ER was a lesbian.
Patton had a rather tolerant attitude about soldiers going to hookers in France. He even procured condoms in bulk for his boys in WW1, much to the dismay of Mrs. Patton.
@Russ
I agree.
Plenty of women are marrying, and plenty more regard marriage as “aspirational” in nature.
Yes…..and yet so many novel have been written about it, and plenty more to go…
Free sites like POF and OKC are ad based and make money in proportion to page views. It’s in their interest to maximize views even at the expense of user (not customer: the advertisers are the customers) satisfaction. So they do everything to encourage use of their sites as social-networking platforms with lots of features to encourage page loads. It’s not in their interest for users to marry or otherwise stop using their sites. And the pay sites want subscribers to continue subscribing, of course.
The suggestions for improving these sites by, e.g., restricting the number of messages that men can send to women, aren’t likely to be implemented because they won’t make anybody money. These sites are zero-sum environments where the interests of significant user subgroups (e.g., players vs. LTR guys) conflict. In this respect the sites resemble search engines, and it’s naive to think that you can optimize a site for one type of user without penalizing another type and thereby creating incentives for fraud that degrades the system, as when players pretend to be LTR guys. A user who wants to do well needs either a natural advantage, such as good looks, or a way to game the system. There is no getting around the competitive nature of mating.
I would love it. It might be nice to get Mireille in too.
I hope she was, because God knows FDR didn’t want to screw her. (I hope Hillary is a lesbian too.) Didn’t ER have a sort of Petit Trianon with a lady friend?
I just read a book about WWI and the soldiers going to hookers in France. I wish they could have had that every night. Nowadays the military is dealing with all sorts of adulterous affairs within its ranks. I sat next to a woman on a plane who has served as a prison guard at Guantanamo and Bagram. When she finished telling me all the incredible tidbits about her total dominance of terrorist thugs (feeding them with the left hand, always) she described the sexual hijinx she witnessed in the army in Afghanistan. Woof.
“the hypergamy” is a distraction, and a rather hoary one at that.
“We live better than you Romans; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you are debauched in secret by the worst.”
Predates “the manosphere” by, you know….a bit.
ER’s petite Trianon was more than a little one: it lasted for years, and we have letter after letter after letter. If you’re really curious, I can look up the gal’s name. Fairly talented photog, if I recall.
@David Foster:
No, I’m actually Monegasque, or maybe Wallonian
No, I’m kidding. I am French, originally from Toulouse (south western France) but I have been living in Prague for the past 10 years now, meaning that I’m already a bit cut off from the current socio/cultural evolutions of my country right now. Thus I’d be very presumptuous to tell you about what the French MDH looks like right now. But about the general “!mentality”, interactions between the genders, rules, family anecdotes, yeah, I could go on for ever…. Not tonight though
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