I responded to a post in r/whereareallthegoodmen and u/where_muh_good_mens (who moderates both subs) suggested I make a post about it here. Rather than explain all the context involved, feel free to just read it yourself, it goes by the lengthy title of "Blue Pillers promote Sheryl Sandberg's dual-mating strategy unironically. "If a woman desires a badboy when she is younger that is her choice. If she also desires a provider later on, that is also her choice. You do not have the right to judge her. You do not have the right to her body.""

This is the final paragraph of my post:

The one thing most commenters got right was that, "people change and their priorities change." That's true, but it doesn't help them like they think it should. I had reason to take a walk down memory lane recently and have a short tale to relate. MANY years ago I had a crush on a girl in high school, but she didn't like me back. No problem... I don't blame her: I wouldn't have dated me either if I were her. I was a late bloomer and she was (at the time) well out of my league (SMV-wise). I asked - she very politely declined. No harm, no foul: I wish her well and to the extent I recall her at all I hope she's had a great life. That said, if we were both single now I wouldn't be interested in her. One reason? The price of being with me now that I'm a "catch" is her having been with me when she was one. That's where the commenters get "people change" wrong: if a man's potential to be a good husband/father isn't enough to get the girl THEN, then a woman's former desirability isn't enough for her to get the man NOW.

One saying floating around the manosphere is, "If the kitten didn't want me, I don't want the cat." The point of my story is not that I'm bitter about being a social pariah as a kid, or that one particular girl couldn't see past my pimples and braces to what I would become. That's water under the bridge, and as I wrote: I don't blame her... she was near her peak and I wasn't, and at the time she really could "do better" than me. I hope you're happy, Kathy.

This really isn't about her at all, but rather what she represents. I almost feel bad for young women, because while they have the world at their feet when they're young and attractive (and she certainly was attractive), they have to choose men based on their potential. That's why women tend to go for older men (generally safer bets as their "trajectory" is more discernible), and also why the idea of young women picking their own mates has very little historical precedent (they generally aren't very good at it).

But on to my point: She and the young women she represents are the kittens in this analogy (cute, cuddly, fun, energetic). Even people who hate cats think kittens are cute. Ask anyone who works in an animal shelter: which pets get adopted most easily? Kittens and puppies, and the cuter the better. Their cuteness is the hook that triggers the desire to take care of them: take them home, feed them, put up with their destructiveness, pay their veterinary bills. But kittens turn into cats, and after a few years they're just not as cute, and they don't want to play as much, and their cute habit of attacking your feet in bed gets annoying, and the vet bills go up. You still love them, but you probably wouldn't adopt one in that state. They're not kittens anymore: they're cats.

Of course all analogies break down at some point, and this one breaks down at the point that free will comes into play. Kittens don't "decide" that you're not good enough like young women do, so while I would never turn away an actual hungry cat, I absolutely would turn away a woman who decided that I wasn't worthy of her best, but was willing to offer me the rest when her inherent cuteness wasn't putting Fancy Feast in the dish any longer. Both men and women lose SMV/MMV eventually, although women generally start their slide at a younger age. Rollo Thomasi did a famous graph of relative SMV that I won't reproduce here, but the salient points are that 1) men pass women at some point in their late 20s, 2) everybody's SMV goes down in the end, and 3) later in life men are in a much stronger position than women their own age. But therein lies the rub: they don't want women their own age. That's good for older men who can easily get with much younger women (especially if they're willing to go the expat route), but its awful for the women who find themselves divorced or widowed (or life-long spinsters!) at that age. Take my hypothetical meeting with "Kathy" in which we're both single in <current year>. She was a very desirable "kitten." She didn't try to scratch my eyes out (she was unfailingly polite - no shade here), but she was definitely not interested in being my kitten. Still, if I met the "cat" now, I wouldn't be interested in adopting her (if I was even in the market for a feline), because although my "kitten-catching" days are over, I could still get a younger, cuter, more energetic, and healthier cat.

And even if I couldn't I would have a hard time making a commitment where the benefits are already largely dissipated and the kittenish playfulness is gone, but "the fur is matted" and the "vet bills" are high and growing. Her former status as a kitten wouldn't matter... I never got to experience it, which is the price she would have had to pay for my commitment now.

Now I have three (real) cats. Two of which were shelter strays we got as kittens. They're messy, destructive, and I'm apparently single-handedly buying their vet a new Land Rover. I'm willing to pay their vet bills, buy the good food they like, clean up their messes when they puke it up, and give them their medications, but I had them in their kitten years. They've never known another owner (I almost wrote "master" but we are talking about cats, after all), and they would be helpless without us... probably a meal for the local owls or coyotes.

Thus endeth the parable. I'm going to repeat one thing I wrote earlier lest anyone think I'm a monster: I feed adult strays... all the time. I've even been known to take them to the vet to get their boo-boos tended and their tubes tied. Cats and dogs are not people. "If the kitten didn't want me, I don't want the cat" is not to be taken to apply to literal cats.

[Edit. Lest some feminist troll or "researcher" label this an "incel" post (which apparently just means: not in 100% agreement with radical feminism), I will specify that the woman currently sleeping next to me (with two of our cats laying next to her) is just a few years younger than I am... a "cat" in this analogy. When we met, though, she was very much a "kitten"... almost exactly at the "half plus seven years" mark. I have no desire to trade her in on a newer model (I have had opportunities do so). She gave me her kitten years, and the cat gets me now.

Don't take that to mean that I'm only keeping her out of a sense of duty (although that alone would be enough), because as I have written elsewhere, 1) we have an excellent marriage of more than 30 years, and 2) she is one of two women who have kept me from going "black pill." The other is my mother who stayed loyal to my dad for more than 60 years. - End edit.]

[Edit 2. Spay and neuter your pets! - End edit.]