If the prevailing arguments on this sub are to be believed:

  • Dating can be described using economics

  • People have a "semi-objective" dating market value

  • Women control the dating market

  • Even below average women can get men any time they want while average men struggle to even get attention

Let's start with "women control the dating market." Applying economic basics to this, women are on the supply side and men are on the demand side. If women control the market, that means they set the "price," or their standards in this case. And if even below average women can get men easily, that actually means that women's standards aren't high enough and they are cheating themselves out of higher value men by not raising them. You can complain all you want about tickets to a concert being overpriced, but if it's still selling out, then the price is actually too low. This is further compounded by the fact that women are, by all indications, far more willing to walk away from the table than men, driving their market power even higher.

On a related note, another common complaint is that women who are 3s and 4s are getting men who 7+ while men who are 5s can't get anything and that's not fair because of reasons. But, again, according to economics, the value is determined by whatever the market will bear. So if a women who is a 3 gets a man who is a 7, then either the woman's value is underestimated, the man's value is overestimated, or both. Similarly, if a man who is a 5 can't get a woman who is a 5, then he's not a 5.

I personally think it's dumb to try and claim dating functions like an economy and that someone's dating "value" is so subjective that it's absurd to try and assign a meaningful number to a person, but that is clearly not shared by most other men on this sub.