Women tend to be more interested in taken men.

I had been talking to some girl in 2019, and I eventuality asked her out. She declined, claiming she wasn’t ready for a relationship.

A few days later, I’m with my best friend in the library. He asks me if I’m talking to anyone. I show him the girls profile on IG. He frowns and opens him dms.

I shit you not, this exact girl was trying to get him to break up with his girlfriend and go out with her. She also dmed him first. After he sent her his girlfriends picture, she pursued him even harder (i assume because his Gf is ridiculously pretty). He’s not some extremely smart dude, but after getting his girlfriend, girls can’t seem to get over him. Girls that didn’t give him the time of day before, now ask him stuff like “when are you taking me out?”

This is only one example of this phenomenon. I also see some women on social media saying stuff like “If nobody else wants him, why would I want him?”. This is a common trend on Twitter

You also see guys lamenting about how no girl wanted him when he didn’t have any “h**s”, like here

This is a huge catch 22 to me, because as a guy who’s never had a girlfriend, it seems impossible for me to get that first domino to fall. So it seems I’m doomed to being single forever.

There are more studies on the preselection phenomenon like this , this and this .

It’s interesting to me because you can see it in daily life too, where if a shop has no customers, even if they possibly have incredible food, nobody wants to go there. Also you can get a job easily, when you already have a job.

But some women vehemently deny the suggestion that they don’t want a man that other women don’t want. I’d be interested in hearing your viewpoints on the concept of preselection.