So I see a lot here the claim that settling is natural and healthy. I would say there was some truth to that and that it used to be healthy, but no longer is.

Settling used to be two people trying to date while young and realizing no one is perfect and accepting that their partner is going to have flaws. Modern settling no longer is this.

Some settling will still resemble this and heck a good chunk of people won't settle however most people in their 20s or younger will experience more of this scenario:

Girl - Sets and extremely high bar (paper qualities - looks, money, social/group status) where the guy has to be top 20%, in some instances even higher. Holds out hope for a very long time and inevitably fails. Grabs some poor shmuck she would have easily rejected prior to the peer pressure, fear of being alone, and her bio clock ticking.

Guy - Struggles with dating, maybe some success here or there but is mainly passed over. Women start to finally give more of a chance after either building himself up or she comes to grips that she isn't going to get what she wants and will have to settle.

Again this won't be everyone, but I would say most people who have to settle. Disagree? There is literally a FT article that spells this out ‘thank u, next’: how dating apps are transforming relationships | Financial Times (ft.com) yes it focuses on Apps, but let's be real a lot of women are holding out for Mr. Perfect regardless of apps or not. Still Social Media, Bars (that behave like OLD), and OLD are a big part of the market. (You can't just say OLD isn't a thing... it's 2021).

The end result of the situation I laid out isn't healthy. When you tell young people today to settle you are basically telling young men to accept a partner who doesn't truly want to be with them. A partner who if they magically had more time would pass them over again. All this arrangement is going to bring is resentment towards said man for not being good enough.

Additionally you are telling women to go into a situation where they will be miserable. A situation where if there younger self was with them would tell them how disappointed they are and how disgusted they are. A situation where if they had more time they wouldn't be going into it.

So no modern settling isn't healthy because people are settling with partners that truly have no interest in or people they really don't want to be with.

And let's be honest what do you think awaits those men who are struggling right now (regardless of their ideology, bluepill, redpill, blackpill). Women aren't going to magically start liking them. Oh, it's because they matured and grew as people. Keep telling yourself those comforting lies, most of those guys will be the same as they were 4-7 years ago when they were still getting rejected.