I stumbled upon this line of thinking yesterday. We all know the expression "sex sells", and I think we can all agree that's a pretty accurate sentiment. Sex is a product that women (and perhaps indirectly, powerful men) sell to men. I don't particularly take issue with this.

What is not so obvious, and what I think people should take issue with, is that love/romance is equally a product that is sold and marketed to men, brutally exploiting our greater natural disposition towards these things.

What triggered me to realize this was seeing a shit ton of advertisements for dating websites. I think they appeared in the sidebar of some website, maybe even facebook. Point is, the adds are drenched head-to-toe in images of beautiful women laughing and looking whimsical. Clearly, this tactic is designed to engage those hormones and chemicals in our brains that make us feel affectionate towards the opposite sex. You're supposed to see images like that and go "oh sweet, there's eager women at this place I could date and get affection/romance/love/etc and not feel lonely anymore".

Let's take a step back for a second, though. Do you ever see attractive men on these adds? Nope. It's almost as if the corporations aren't interested in appealing to women and making them want to buy the product (steep subscription fees). It's almost as if women aren't intrigued by the same things that would intrigue men, and thus make such ads effective, therefore de-incentivising the corporations to market to them.

Face it, guys. These things are a product designed for men and only men. They're not supposed to appeal to women. The promise of romance that products such as dating site subscriptions offer is merely a good that more intelligent and rich men, as well as women, want to sell to us because they know that we place value on it, as opposed to women who don't. Otherwise, they'd be marketing to both genders.

I bet most of the female profiles are fake anyway.

Now obviously dating sites aren't the only vessel that delivers this package, it's just merely the one that I noticed and triggered these thoughts.

However, if we take another step back out, can we not state that the idea of romance itself, as a concept, is merely a fake product we're being sold? That's what female manipulation is all about, isn't it?

Women who promise you love are nothing but fake adds, guys. That's how I look at them, anyway, and I think that's how you should look at them too.