Not sure if this should be a discussion or CMV - this is entirely anecdotal.

But I've noticed in my friend circles that men tend to be more realistic about their dating odds. I was at an event a few weeks ago and a conversation I was partially involved in with some friends was wild.

It centered around two of the girls there. We're all late twenties, early thirties. Katy and Heather are best friends.

Katy is a doctor. She owns a house, is very conventionally attractive, has interesting hobbies, and is nice and down to earth. Katy's previous boyfriends have been very high-value men: other doctors, lawyers, etc. Basically the top 1% of dudes. As you can imagine, she has absolutely zero issues finding dates.

Heather has been single for 6 years. She lives with her parents, is overweight (not fantastically obese or anything), works a dead-end government job, and is rather plain. All of her hobbies center around reality television.

The conversation started with Heather lamenting how she can't snag a "prince charming" like Katy does. If this were a conversation among guys, there would be a lot of advice doled out (hit the gym/delete reddit/etc.) and a lot of "that sucks, man".

Instead, all of the girls involved in the conversation encouraged Heather to not settle for anything less than one of these top tier guys, told her she's perfect, not to change, etc. Basically, all of the blame is on the men not asking her out, and not on her for being unattractive on a number of levels.

I talked about it later with my girlfriend (who didn't attend) and her take was "well, she's their friend and they want to build her up, but she's kinda fucked lol".

Again, super anecdotal. It just highlighted - for me - the stark differences in how men and women think about dating.