Q4Men: If your standards for women are low, why are many women still unsatisfied in their relationships?

Drippyskippy · 2018-04-17T11:24:19+00:00

Some people are incredibly hard to make happy. I'm not sure if its a gender specific thing, or if it has something to do with their upbringing. I work with a woman who is never happy with anything that people do. She has to pick everything apart and complain about things being imperfect, the most minor mistakes are made out to be a big deal when they aren't. I don't know how her husband deals with it, unless she is a different person outside of work.

I also believe that its human nature to want more than what you have. It isn't gender specific as both men and women have these tendencies. If you're thinking about what you could have instead of what you do have, you appreciate it less because you feel that it is inadequate.

daveofmars · 2018-04-17T12:52:54+00:00

One reason is that the average guy is pretty pitiful. That'd explain why they don't meet her standards.

But another valid reason is that the average woman has overly high expectations of what they think they deserve. Just as men are bombarded with images of beer babes, women are bombarded with athletes and movie stars. If all you see are 7's-10's then you'll think the average is an 8.5, plus here in America everyone thinks they're above average, which is not only false but statistically impossible.

The elephant in the room is that women spend more time on social media compared to men, and social media only shows a highly-controlled and narrow view of other people's lives. The average woman might see everyone else living it up while hubby is on the couch with a beer, and they wonder if they can do better. What they don't realize is that all their grilfriend's hubbys are also on the couch and that their girlfriends feel the exact same way, because everyone online is only presenting their best.

Then it could be money problems - our economy sucks. It could be work/life balance - few people have it. It could be health issues - the obesity rate just broke another record. It could be the lack of engaging activities - most people sit in front of screens.

This problem, like every other big problem, is multi-dimensional.

TheGreasyPole · 2018-04-17T11:37:30+00:00

I don't think it's completely true that men as a whole have lower standards for women

They certainly do for casual sex, that’s been extremely well demonstrated again and again. I’d also argue they do for relationships as well. It’s a natural outcome of the biological setup that females will be more selective than males. Largely to do with the differing investment required in the ancestral environment where sex == babies.

Then why is it that many women feel unsatisfied with their partners?

Because high quality partners are important to females, and they always feel they could perhaps do better due to the fact that higher quality males will always be sexually available to her than those that are available for a relationship.

It leaves women with a constant nagging feeling they could do better.

Surely if men were lowering their standards where only an above average man could obtain an average woman, then the woman should be satisfied in the partnership.

Not if she thinks she could get a man even further above the average.

Women are optimised to seek male quality. They’re going to feel dissatisfied if they suspect they could get a higher quality male than the one they have.

Just as men are optimised to seek quantity, and often feel dissatisfied if they suspect they could get more women than they are currently getting.

[deleted] · 2018-04-17T11:53:30+00:00

When women are unhappy with their relationships, it's usually either because they were blinded by some aspect of their man (usually physical looks or status), and the halo effect caused them to ignore other things that would otherwise be red flags. Women more often than men seem to be under the impression that they can "change" or "fix" men, and often realize too late that this is impossible.

The other side of the coin would be that a lot of men simply lie about who they are in order to get women. They pretend to like her hobbies, they pretend to be good at things they're not good at, they pretend not to be annoyed with things they're annoyed at etc - and when they actually get into the relationship, they stop pretending to be someone else, and then suddenly the woman realizes she didn't actually know the man she fell for. This echoes something that's common in the professional world: A lot of people give excellent interviews and have seemingly great resumes, yet somehow fail to perform in accordance with this when they're hired. As you get to know them, it turns out their resume is exaggerated by a lot, and they'll typically brush this off with comments like "Well, everyone does that - that's just how the world works".

EvilBananaManRD · 2018-04-17T11:45:51+00:00

Apart from hypergamy you must consider that women lose interest in their partners once they have secured them. Once she knows the man's not leaving, she becomes uninterested.

There's a reason why the wives of Einstein, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Michael Jordan, Elon Musk, Channing Tatum and many others divorced them. You can be Elvis or Bon Jovi and your girl will still cheat on you. They'll never be satisfied.

[deleted] · 2018-04-17T12:17:13+00:00

Because women seem unsatisfied overall. I've dated two (still with one kinda) who seemed genuinely happy with life. And that's the key.

I think allot of it had to do with FB and other social media. They see other people only posting the good times and they compare their own lives to what they think everyone else is doing.

I think it's a dissatisfaction with life overall, not just their love life. Some men are the same way to an extent. Always worried that someone might have something slightly better.

People who are happy with themselves are more likely to be happy in relationships

concacanca · 2018-04-17T11:34:22+00:00

Because women always want more.

At the beginning of relationships it's all hormones and desire. Over time this gets replaced by comfort and familiarity. If a woman isn't willing to settle down she branch swings. If she is then she slowly becomes less satisfied unless the man actively works to maintain that initial honeymoon period via more artificial means, all the while increasing the comfort and provisioning to her and their kids.

Ultimately that's pretty much impossible as you can't have perma desire along with all of the comfort and provisioning traits - they counteract.

Barely-moral · 2018-04-17T11:22:19+00:00

A few reasons I can think of

-Men let themselves go/ Stop putting effort in the relationship. The woman gets used to certain standard and later in that relationship the man can't/won't keep the same standard.

-No reason at all. Women (and men) are irrational beings, they may be insatisfied just because. No logical reason at all. People are stupid like that.

-The woman can actually do better than her current partner.

-The man is not dating below his league enough.

-When a man dates below his league he gives the woman the impression she can do better.

-If all men were lowering his standards, lets say all 7/10 men were dating 4/10 women for the sake of argument. Then those 4/10 woman would have a lot of options to choose from. She will not be satisfied if she thinks she can do better, and in this case, she probably can do better.

-Entitlement/getting used to. Women (and men) get used to their partner and take it as "normal" or "bare minimum" they stop being grateful and start demanding more.

the ideal situation would be one where the woman feels like she can't do better than the man.

I agree, but most men want a woman they can actually be attracted to.

I am with you though, I prefer to date waaaay below my standards and keep improving myself in order to know with some degree of certainty that I am the best my partner has and the best she will ever have so she better act accordingly.

The thing is, I don't think women dissatisfaction in relationships is only related to the men they are dating but also to the man they think they deserve to date or to the man they want to date.

Edit: format Edit 2: grammar

says_harsh_things · 2018-04-17T12:45:41+00:00

Why are you asking men about why women are unsatisfied in their relationships? Why don't you ask women?

I agree with you that men as a whole don't have lower standards for the women they offer commitment to. What happens to a lot of men is that once commitment is offered, she starts mistreating him and he puts up with it. And she finds out he's willing to put up with a little shit, so she flips some more shit his way, to see if he'll put up with that. And when he does, she flips even more, and more, and more, until some breaking point is reached. So what happens is that he goes in with relatively high standards and expectations, and lowers them to keep her "happy".

This is just one reason why women are unsatisfied - because men don't put down and enforce hard boundaries.

But mostly it's because of what u/concacanca and u/vandaalen said. It's never enough for women. Women always want more. Women are never satisfied with anything or anyone.

[deleted] · 2018-04-17T13:15:14+00:00

That's not how it goes. Just because man lowers his standards doesn't mean his new woman will be happy. Life isn't like some application/program.

vandaalen · 2018-04-17T11:08:57+00:00

why is it that many women feel unsatisfied with their partners?

Because it's never enough for a woman. Never ever.

Archibald_Andino · 2018-04-17T12:29:49+00:00

The reason they are unsatisfied is that they are unhappy with themselves and life in general. Women then put the onus of their personal happiness onto their partner. "Something's missing... how come I don't feel like the girl in that Ryan Gosling movie? It can't be me, so that means it must be my partner's fault"

BirdManBrrrr · 2018-04-17T14:13:57+00:00

Men become placating, boring, and generally unattractive over time. Just as the meme of the bride "now i can get fat", men make excuses to let their looks/weight go, become good plowhorses but shitty lovers. Women get bored easily and men don't help themselves in this regard.

Lack of societal pressure for relationships (marriages in particular) to have meaning; women no longer have an externally imposed duty to perform. This is self reinforcing as the sheer number of unhappy situations/divorces remains as a high level; the echo chamber is strong, along with the circlejerking in feminist-oriented media. Add in recreational divorce for good measure.

Hypergamy and sisterhood uber alles applies also; want to see a seemingly ok relationship go to shit quickly is for the woman to start hanging around with her divorced or discontent friends. "Awww gurrrl you can do better, come party!"

kick6 · 2018-04-17T14:25:57+00:00

Hypergamy can never be permanently satisfied.

Priene · 2018-04-18T15:28:25+00:00

Because relationships aren't about how a man looks but how a man feels and how the man makes her feel and how he treats her. Johnny Depp was a sex symbol for a large majority of women for a long time but that doesn't mean the women he was with were happy. Maybe he's distant. Maybe he takes them for granted. Or maybe he enjoys beating the living shit of women and then paying tens of millions to each wife he marries to keep them from throwing him into jail.

> According to this sub, most men have lower standards than women.

According to the few mentally ill people who believe Aliens are responsible for the creation of Mankind, Planet earth has been visited by dozens of alien species who mixed with Mankind. Guess what? This is just me. And the entirety of the people who studied the origins and evolution of mankind so don't take me seriously. Those people. Are wrong.

Most men don't have lower standards than women. Men only see women who are above their own league as women, and they don't make any effort into getting a woman who matches their own looks, or they do find themselves in a relationship with said woman and they treat her the same way a kid treats the teddy bear he's had in his bed for the past 5 years.

As an averag- sorry I mean Chad - I mean not fat - yes chad, man who was raised in different settings, like the beach, the Country, the City, I can tell you that men at large have higher standards in men than women have in men. I remember seeing guys in high school and then later on University who had pretty, thin, girls who wanted to fuck them but they only had eyes for the hottest chick they ever laid eyes on and as a consequence they spent 4 years without getting laid. These men weren't even attractive. 5'8'', that van dyke facial hair ''oooh i found out i can finally grow facial hair lemme try'' slim builds and average faces.

I've met men who were dating blonde bombshells and they still cheated on their partners, and I've seen guys I brought along with me to nightclubs go home empty-handed because they had their eyes set on yet again the most attractive of women and the women who were giving them body language signals for them to approach, were left alone.

If you're talking bipedal landwhales calling themselves 'average' and their standards, sure. They have low standards. Because they're the sort of guys who'd need to pay a prostitute for sex.

> Since hypergamy can't be avoided

Hypergamy doesn't exist. Most women date and hook-up with men in their league, or someone who is lower. Now, now. I don't mean slim, pretty 21 year old girl is going to fuck obese, 5 feet tall bald, ugly 'average' man. I mean she's going to be down to fucking a guy who is closer to her looks as much as spoiled, entitled middle-aged obese men who lost their hair at 17 are ever going to be when it comes to fucking their wives.

> Then why is it that many women feel unsatisfied with their partners?

Because life isn't perfect and relationships aren't a gentle summer's breeze and many guys just give up or never bothered in the first place with making their relationships work?

> Surely if men were lowering their standards where only an above average man could obtain an average woman, then the woman should be satisfied in the partnership.

Brah, Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt and his wife asked for a divorce, and before that every relationship he was with turned into shit. Many relationships aren't going to work no matter what.

Virtue_Signaler · 2018-04-17T12:29:11+00:00

Since hypergamy can't be avoided, surely the ideal situation would be one where the woman feels like she can't do better than the man

Realistically, she can always do better for a short-term relationship. Men will sleep with anything. That's where the low standards come into play.

It's just that many women are convinced that this means they can lure an extremely high-value man into a long-term relationship. But the truth is that the vast majority of women aren't valuable enough for top-tier men to commit resources and time to them, not even close.

quicklogaccount · 2018-04-17T12:05:35+00:00

The answer for that is pretty much RP 101. I should add some comments before.

As a standard rule, the more links an explanation has, the less likely it is to be true. To regard this I've first looked upon this explanation with a lot of skepticism, and yet, although I've only seen this phrasing formulated in TRP, I've heard the same explanation from various sources, ranging from internet to common knowledge among women savvy men around me. Its most sympathetic explanation goes a bit like this:

When men fall in love they act differently and look into pleasing and soothing their partners, as well as disregarding minor annoyances and reading them as natural. Women dislike this, as they feel their men are becoming whipped and they dislike such weak men. So in due time it is expected that women grow do dislike their partners, or like them less, and become unsatisfied, leading to the end of the relationship, cheating, or endless escalating demands.
RP would state it as this:
With time, men enter scarcity and come to believe they need their partners because they need sex and willingly ignore that it can be sought elsewhere. At this point, they'll bargain for it. When they do, their women will realize they have power over that men, meaning these men are beneath them by definition. As such, these men don't fulfill the hypergamy anymore, and to stay with them the women will either dual mate, (and/)or endlessly increase their demands of benefits, (and/)or get used to live in some frustration.

Anyway, I've seen that happening flawlessly when the man grew spineless. When the man doesn't grow spineless I've seen it go both ways, women fabricating fights over the absence of comfort to entitle them to leave (some very rare women cheating with more meek men) and successful relationships. Of those, successful relationships happen so much more often, even when the men are losers or unambitious/low life, that I could basically disregard the women fabricating fights as exceptions. But truth is, these were instances in which the men were alcoholics, or way less educated, or unambitious, or set themselves to pursue childish dreams (to be a famous soccer player). So, these men, although not having grown spineless, won't fulfill the demands of women's hypergamy, and women with foresight will notice it.

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wtknight · 2018-04-17T12:34:38+00:00

Many women are just that picky and will move to a man who is better than the one who she is with in some aspects but worse in others, and she’ll soon become dissatisfied with him as well. Of course some women are with men who started out good but ended up either showing his true colors or who ended up letting himself go and they are right to move on.

Entropy-7 · 2018-04-17T13:49:46+00:00

Men, as a group, have lower standards for casual sex partners in terms of looks. Women, as a group, have higher standards for casual sex partners. I say "as a group" because there are exceptions to both.

Things sort of get turned on their head regarding marriage partners such that men tighten their standards on the assumption that they will be waking up with that body and looking at that face exclusively for the rest of their life. Women - especially when we talk about post-Wall women - lower their standards for looks to take into account provider ability and personal compatibility.

So the premise of the OP kind of falls apart at this point.

In terms of satisfaction there are two things. One is the drama divide in that women crave it and men generally abhor it in a relationship. The other is that men are happy being comfortable but women are not comfortable unless they are happy.

Guys will get complacent in a relationship because they are comfortable going putting in their 40 hours at work and then coming home for some dinner, some beer and some TV. And that makes them feel happy. On the other hand, women want more than mere comfort to be happy. They need that sense of happiness in order to be comfortable. They want more romance, affection and attention.

You just have to make a man comfortable and he will be happy, but you actively have to keep a woman happy to keep her comfortable. A lot of guys don't do that and so the woman ends up unsatisfied in the relationship.

says_harsh_things · 2018-04-17T14:33:14+00:00

Then why is it that many women feel unsatisfied with their partners?

Complacency.

Surely if men were lowering their standards where only an above average man could obtain an average woman, then the woman should be satisfied in the partnership.

You can't assume average to be satisfactory.

If I go to a shitty used car lot, the worst car is going to be unsatisfactory. The best car is going to be unsatisfactory. The average car is going to be unsatisfactory.

If woman dates men from the Olympic swimming team, the worst guy on the team is likely to be head and shoulders above any other guy (physically) she is used to.

Overall, the human race is getting fatter and more sedentary, which doesn't bode well for attraction.

Reven311 · 2018-04-17T16:51:21+00:00

Because their standards tend to remain high even when settling.

Tedesche · 2018-04-17T16:59:26+00:00

Surely if men were lowering their standards where only an above average man could obtain an average woman, then the woman should be satisfied in the partnership.

That does not necessarily logically follow. It could be that women’s standards are just that unrealistic, such that even though they actually have access to above-average men, they aren’t satisfied, because they want exceptional men, not just above-average.

Also, it’s entirely possible that below-average women over-estimate their worth, thereby thinking their standards should be higher than they actually ought to be. This too will cause their standards to be unrealistic.

If I may toss my two cents in, if it actually is the case that more women are dissatisfied with their relationships than men (and I’m not sure that is the case, but let’s just say we assume it), then part of the issue may be that men need less from these relationships than women. Perhaps the guy is really just looking for a stable source of sex and basic companionship, not love, but women are more frequently looking for romance, financial support, ability/desire to be a good father, etc? If true, that would explain much of the discrepancy to me.

blackedoutfast · 2018-04-17T17:02:40+00:00

women are never happy

Jcart105 · 2018-04-17T17:34:09+00:00

Because of hypergamy, they're constantly inquiring themselves consciously and subconsciously whether they could do better.

trail22 · 2018-04-17T20:47:11+00:00

Because looks and status dont make for a good relationship.

mistercheeez-o____O- · 2018-04-17T20:57:42+00:00

It's all about perception.

newName543456 · 2018-04-17T22:45:08+00:00

Ummm, it's not THAT hard.

There is not enough "satisfactory" men for all women to have LTR with. Rest has to settle for scraps.

ThrowFader · 2018-04-17T23:42:38+00:00

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MisterJose · 2018-04-20T06:27:08+00:00

It's all about expectations. I've never dreamed of my wedding day. Not once. Never really fantasized about being married and settled and enjoying togetherness. OTOH, I've totally fantasized about 5 women I know taking turns riding on my dick.

None of my fantasies ever came to fruition, so I'm unhappy. Perhaps if you have a fantasy of marriage in your head for your whole life, you can't help but be disappointed with what it actually turns out to be.

Taipanshimshon · 2018-04-17T11:21:27+00:00

Hypergamy means she always wants better. As realistically as possibly but as perceived by her at the time. If suddenly one were to make all men in the world into the top 1% of men as they are now what would happen ? Simple - the one percenters would no longer be the one percenters. Anyone who has gone up in rank in anything and then met with their peers knows this.

CursedLemon · 2018-04-17T23:40:33+00:00

Without engaging the idea that men have lower standards than women (I think what either gender will settle for is far more relevant), human relationships aren't the two-piece jigsaw puzzle that sex is. We are far too psychologically complicated to be reduced down to regarding our partnerships as only a numerical weighting.

couldbemage · 2018-04-17T14:47:40+00:00

Your math is wrong. The premise "women have higher standards (on average) than men"; paired with "most people have partners" requires that most women be unsatisfied with their partners.

I don't agree with the premise, but the logic hangs together, and the OP logic does not.

Offhisgame · 2018-04-17T17:30:38+00:00

Mostly penises below 7 inches and guys that suck in bed. Which is the majority of RPers.. Hence all the 'women are cheating whores' coming from the RP side.

exhibitionistcouplez · 2018-04-20T15:15:29+00:00

Men often have shallower standards.

And women have different standards than men. A guy will marry a hot girl he doesn't want to talk to and be miserable. Girls want a guy they can hang out with as well as fuck.

Girls date down in appearance more than guys though.

Title	Q4Men: If your standards for women are low, why are many women still unsatisfied in their relationships?
Author	lemonfloss
Upvotes	8
Comments	227
Date	April 17, 2018 11:06 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/8cvoos/q4men_if_your_standards_for_women_are_low_why_are/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/q4men-if-your-standards-for-women-are-low-why-are.262844 https://theredarchive.com/post/262844

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