There is a lot of discussion about those issues, and a lot of misunderstanding, so I'll commit the masochistic act of trying to clarify about it.

First off, when I talk about "attractive" here, I am referring about the shallow, sexual attraction. Looks, confidence, dominance, success, charisma, masculinity on its most superficial level. I don't mean the "having a lot in common" or "the right set of values". A lot of women will say they find that attractive, but the silent part is [in people that have the other qualities already].

Now, when you hear the message of "You want to lower your standards", yeah, it will sometimes come from someone motivated by, well, the advantage that provides him. But there's another reason besides, and it's related to the other expression, choose better.

A man who is attractive (again, sexually attractive) will hit on a woman that he is okay with fucking, even maybe dating, but that he's not willing to commit to and sacrifice all his other "options" to. This is... unavoidable, and really I doubt anyone can say it doesn't happen.

So the average woman dating, who has a number of options from least attractive, to most attractive, will find a lot of those guys willing to fuck her, but not willing to commit to her and dedicate effort and resources to her among the most attractive ones.

It's not unusual for a woman that's not aware of this to spend a lot of time thinking her "value", the level of appeal she has, is as high as the highest man she can date. "dating" men that would never commit to her (but won't tell her, else they don't fuck), and coming to the conclusion that they are all averse to commitment, or full of shit, or cheaters or liars.

So when women are told to choose better, it translates to "pick the most attractive man that will publicly and openly commit to you and treat you well, not the most attractive man you can fuck". It doesn't mean "settle", it doesn't mean "fuck someone you're not attracted to", it doesn't mean "be with worse men".

It just means "if you prioritize men that treat you well over men that are the hottest you can get, you will be treated better", and to a certain degree, "The most attractive men you could fuck can fuck women that are more attractive than you, so they are less likely to treat you the way you want".

This is a relatively new problem. Sixty years ago, a man would not be able to get sex from a woman without some serious commitment first, so men that had a lot of options would not go for the "worse" ones, because that would have meant locking himself out of the "better" ones, so women were never decieved about their level of appeal.

And, as a pre-answer to those saying "there's no such thing as levels! People don't categorize others like that", yes you do. You might not word it like that, but no matter how blue-pilled, a man can say that an obese 35 year old who is jobless, missing one tooth, and a single mother of three has less dating appeal than a fit 25 year old that has no children, a conventionally beautiful face and who can pay for herself.

And no matter how staunchly against the red pill a woman is, she knows that an obese, greasy, poor hygiene, loner, no friends basement dweller with no job isn't on the same level as a charismatic, tall, confident and athletic businessman.

(Edit: off to a walk and do person stuff, will keep replying later)