Are men genuinely worse potential partners these days? If every man was successful, would these problems still persist due to hypergamy?

fakingandnotmakingit · 2023-04-10T21:47:31+00:00

It used to be that people coupled up due to societal expectations and the need for a homemaker/provider.

Now people would want to couple up for love and happiness and comfort.

Which means by definition you must be happier in your relationship than you were when you were single

Living with someone means you compromise on your living space. On your food. On your financials.

A relationship means you must compromise on your future plans. On whether you want children. On where you want to live. On how you want to live.

The fact is... All of those things are hard. Relationships need effort and work to keep going. You shouldn't stop "courting" or having date nights just because you're married. You need to keep appreciating and doing stuff for each other. And all of those need effort.

Now that it's not societally forced upon either gender to couple up and women are forced to depend on men for money, standards have gone up in general.if I'm putting effort and work into this relationship you need to be worth it. In market terms... I need more net happiness with you than without you

So there are more bars to clear. No longer is it "a good man able to provide". It's social calibration. Its how well you pull your weight in being an attentive husband, father and whether you generate more cleaning. It's whether our values and lifestyles and desired lifestyles are compatible. And I'd hope, vice versa

Tldr: men and women aren't just competing with other men and women. They're competing with someone's lifestyle and happiness when they're single. So everyone needs to make the juice worth the squeeze.

EulenWatcher · 2023-04-10T21:53:54+00:00

I’m not sure it’s purely financial issue and I think it isn’t solely on men either.

A lot of people seek the combination of a lover, friend and partner and it can be hard to find in one person. More men than women are okay with compromising one or two things, but for women it makes less sense so fewer of them are willing to compromise.
Heavy individualization combined with a lack of community. At this point it’s turning more and more into alienation and lots of people struggle with finding friends, let alone romantic partners.
Dating has become confusing. People seek different things and there’s no one acceptable way to find a partner or date.
People are viewed as replaceable. As Bradbury has said:

"This is the age of the disposable tissues. Blow you nose on a person, wad them, flush away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush"

daddysgotanew · 2023-04-11T14:28:26+00:00

I know several in shape, highly educated and very financially successful men who are alone. What do they all have in common? An average face.

NotARussianBot1984 · 2023-04-10T22:07:46+00:00

Based on how standards for height have massively increased from "be average height and I'm happy" to 6' top 15% of men, id say yes hypergamy would just increase if men improved.

Now I still say all men should go to the gym and get abs even if women never do, it's good for you. But making more money? Compared to 509 years ago we live like kings, more money isn't the problem, standards are. Renting a 2 bdrm apartment and a room for parents and a room for kids, and taking the bus is still better than vast majority of human history. And reasonable affordable outside of niche cases.

Spyro7x3 · 2023-04-10T23:08:50+00:00

Elite men configured the system so that women out earn men

Women have a big sugar daddy which is gov’t

women being more educated and more incentivized to get educated is a giant sugar daddy move by the elite of men

It makes it so that their hypergamy is only satisfied by the very top

This was purposefully engineered to steal the women and destabilize society

Look forward to more sex trafficking and more unhappy men

zaph239 · 2023-04-10T23:27:01+00:00

Sorry but women can't have it both ways. You can't demand equality in the workplace and then whine because you can't find a male breadwinner, who earns more than you to support you.

Why are the sexist dated expectations of women in the dating marketplace never challenged?

mikehawk1988 · 2023-04-10T22:04:04+00:00

I blame many things but especially the rise of Netflix shows and how the ideal man is portrayed as some rich snobbed highschool/college player with both intellect and social skills, and of course a dark and malevolent side.

KirthWGersen · 2023-04-10T21:23:13+00:00

It is perhaps not so much that broke men are ruining dating, as that the men with the earning power they desire don't want them.

It is a mismatch between what they want and what they can get: unrealistic expectations for people with of their level of beauty/age/personality.

Doesthisevenmatter7 · 2023-04-10T21:50:20+00:00

I don’t think it’s broke men ruined dating. It’s more women wanting committed relationships with rich men who could care less about them ruined dating. If your a man the only dating advice you ever really need is try your absolute best to become a high earner. Then you really can do whatever you want to woman and they can’t do anything about it. With dynamics like that is it really a surprise the high earning males are exploiting the fuck out of that?

Barneysparky · 2023-04-10T22:09:17+00:00

Before computers couples used to spend their relax time watching t.v together. There were shows that were on that half the nation watched together. Before t.v they would listen to the radio together. play games, read in the same room, etc etc.

This is the largest change in relationships, and men are more likely to be extremely focus on screen time to the exclusion of other hobbies, interests and ways to relax.

However women can become screen addicts too, it's just less likely to happen. (more men on Reddit, 4 chan, other chat, discussion places), video games.

Its not a gendered issue, but it does affect guys worse for dating because there are less screen addicted women, and those that are tend to not be in shape.

RatchedAngle · 2023-04-10T21:32:43+00:00

Women no longer need to rely on a man for a stable income, so women can afford to have a higher set of standards.

Men aren’t worse partners - it’s just that (as a whole) men were never the greatest partners to begin with. Remember: it used to be considered normal and acceptable for men to cheat. I work with the elderly and I’ve now heard multiple old women in their 70s and 80s talk about the “look the other way” attitude women had in the past in regards to their husbands’ infidelity. Boys will be boys, blah blah.

Women no longer needing men for money + men being extremely desperate for sex = women developing higher standards and men falling behind.

What do men have to leverage?

They say women want commitment and men want sex.

A major component of “commitment” is money. The man becomes your provider - you live in his home, he pays for your food and your clothes. That’s why women needed commitment from a man. If he cheats on you…you won’t divorce him because you can’t afford to survive on your own. You can’t pay your own bills. Hence why so many older women dealt with their husbands’ infidelity and/or general piggish behavior (staring at other women, commenting about how hot other women are in front of their wives, flirting with other women, etc.)

Well, now women can pay their own bills. So the demand for commitment is decreased dramatically.

If a woman wants emotional attention from a man or sex, she can easily get it. So there’s zero reason for women to lower their standards. Literally zero. Attention from a man is easier to obtain than dirt.

Men could’ve prevented this by refusing to give attention to porn stars and OF models (especially while married) and mistresses. But men have consistently shown women how much power we have in the sexual marketplace.

Why would I (as the hypothetical average wife) choose to be a wife sitting at home, knowing my husband is watching porn and staring at other women on the street and jacking off to my friends’ pictures on Facebook…when I could instead be financially independent and super hot and promiscuous with lots of attention from men?

Men destroyed women’s motivation to become wives. Women were in the beta bucks position (dumpy housewife versus hot stripper the husband wishes he could fuck) and decided to get out of it. Now men are mad because all the potential dumpy housewives became OF models.

eye_of_gnon · 2023-04-10T22:49:11+00:00

If everyone is great, then nobody is great.

By definition, wealth/power/beauty is rare and MUST only refer to a minority of elites. It's zero sum.

MistyMaisel · 2023-04-11T02:51:32+00:00

I don't generally think the issues most plaguing men are a lack of major financial success. I'm just being honest here. Do I look down on men who aren't financially stable, yeah, but it never prevented me having relationship because that tends to be easily solved via job and/or education.

I think men are generally worse potential partners for more personality, character, virtue, and such related reasons.

Put most bluntly, if most of what a man has to offer is a paycheck, then most women will not select him at this point. That isn't to say being a jobless bum is attractive, but, a job is more of a requirement than a virtue at this point.

The expectations have drastically changed and so have men, but not largely for the better.

BingChilling19 · 2023-04-11T00:45:27+00:00

If every man was successful, would these problems still persist due to hypergamy?

No because if every man is successful that means women aren't taking our jobs.

People say immigrants take your jobs. Not really. Women take your jobs.

Give $100k engineering job to a woman, she take care of herself. Give same $100k job to a man, he cares for himself, his wife, his kids, his extended family, etc.

Women being generally employed is socioeconomic suicide.

(I say generally becuse some of you socially inept will say "but some women need jobs", sure but a few women with jobs isn't a big deal. The problem happens when it is general.)

Thizzlebot · 2023-04-11T01:27:54+00:00

Naw women's standards are blown way out of proportion which is why most of them are depressed and on pills.

AidsVictim · 2023-04-11T06:00:08+00:00

I think that men haven't gotten worse over time, instead the metric of a successful man is more extreme these days. A lot of women say men have to step it up, but its irrational to expect most men to be 6 figures + educated + attractive. I would say that men are stepping up, as they generally out earn most women.

Men have definitely gotten worse. On average they are fatter, weaker, more addicted to electronics, less social, mature later (or not at all), have higher drug abuse rates, higher suicide rates, even have lower IQ, and so on.

Of course this is mostly mirrored by the same dysgenic trends among women so womens complaints about men tend to ring hollow. Furthermore hypergamy has increased since many women no longer find their "match equivalent" acceptable.

Because of the low fertility levels associated with this arrangement this can't be anything more than a temporary dysgenic arrangement.

8won6 · 2023-04-11T17:28:59+00:00

Men are the same as we've always been. What changed over the last few decades is the internet/social media/dating apps have given average women sexual access to men at the top, and women end up believing their "level" is the top. Those guys at the top never consider these average women to be wives, but in this "manifest it girrrl" society women believe they can just wish for a top guy real hard and make it happen.

HighestTierMaslow · 2023-04-10T23:32:56+00:00

Relationships nowadays tend to be a net negative for women. Working like a man yet still doing the majority of household management and childcare, being expected to keep up your looks more and bearing the social and emotional brunt. My husband is wonderful and defies this, however he is not common and not to brag...But I've met very few women married to a man like him. I'm someone who defies the "women in marriages are less happy than men in marriages" study. However I didn't settle while dating alot. Many of my female friends did. I don't think it's a coincidence that my female friends who got married older (32+) picked better men.

neetykeeno · 2023-04-11T00:26:53+00:00

Women as a group have a greater central tendency. So if everyone pairs up according to income ranking for their gender and then the women stop earning to have babies there's going to have to be at best some women going from having by themselves a halfway decent wage on the lower side of average but still livable to two people plus kids living well below the poverty line on a very meager wage with a husband who thinks he's king dick and head of the household despite having required his wife to do without a bunch of stuff like health care that she used to be able to afford with only moderate efforts at frugality.

It's very understandable that a lot of women who are broadly speaking average but on the lower side of average don't want to do that and they do not see the men who are their income ranking match as "stepping up" at all.

To say that most men out-earn most women sounds fair and just... until one remembers that one doesn't marry "most" of the other gender one marries what individual one can get. And to be average but on the poorer side of average nowadays means an income it would be ridiculous to attempt to raise kids on.

Would things be improved if all men were just given six figure incomes?. Well that would be really nice for low value men to just be given that but seriously what the fuck would they be actually doing to warrant that? In effect the whole system would have to revolve around giving economic success to low value men. Would you if you were on a software engineers wage be willing to pay 50 percent income tax so that some guy who works at a retail job but isn't particularly good at that gets to fuck a woman who is basically just as attractive as your wife? Would you be willing to see yourself, your wife and your own kids get less of everything so the low end of average guy who is always nowhere to be found when you want him to do his job could proudly come home from his job every week and get a blow job and a roast dinner?

No. You fucking wouldn't. And that's the thing that is missing in your hypothetical, isn't it. You personally if you are on the higher side of average would not be willing to pay for this. You would want to be able to afford to buy each of your kids a nice secondhand car and sent them off to college and Bob the inadequate can fuck off and die if he's getting in the way of that.

As a man you're just as pissed off about what you'd need to be doing to get Bob a wife as the women who are Bob's economic match are.

Same goes for if you're an employer. You don't really want to hire Bob who is below average if you can hire Betty who is just a bit less below average. You as an employer...you've got about as much time for Bob as Betty has for him as a wife and you as a taxpayer would have for him as a recipient of assistance.

And of course it is all exacerbated by men's desire to marry up in terms of appearance. Bob the Inadequate's match when that is taken into account is a woman substantially more productive than he is and probably fatter.

Bob the Inadequate isn't "stepping up". If you accepted the ridiculous amounts of taxation it would require to enable him to pretend to be stepping up...he still wouldn't be stepping up you'd be stepping up for him and at considerably more expense than just paying for the occasional welfare baby costs right now. Right now you share the tax price of those welfare babies with a whole shitload of working women who didn't decide to marry Bob, go insane trying to deal with his inadequacy then leave him because he's worse than welfare.

In effect, for Bob the Inadequate to get a wife...it is going to be you stepping up as husband to his wife materially. Paying for the raising of his kids. Idk dude that sounds like a shit deal to me...at least if you marry a single mother and raise Chad's kid as well as a couple of your own kids you'd be getting something out of it. You get nothing from paying for Bob the Inadequate to have and raise a family. Like...soooo cucked.

Nobody likes Bob the Inadequate, nobody wants to pay the price of his happiness and no he has not stepped up.

lighthub · 2023-04-11T00:24:05+00:00

Duh

Men STILL don’t help much with household chores and childcare, if at all. Most men bring little benefit to women’s life and bring more pain, work and burden.

It’s a wonder, women even get with men at all in such high numbers. You should feel lucky. (Sure there are some wealthy men that can bring a high quality life to a woman, making somewhat all the bs worth it, I suppose).

We have heard the statistics, single women are happier and live longer than married women. Women initiate divorce more and tend not to remarry. As the phrase that’s usually loved on here, truly the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

MaleficentAd7142 · 2023-04-10T21:30:28+00:00

Women dont need men as providers anymore. They can easily get a job to support themselves these days. So in terms of a partner, they only really care for looks.

DumpApe135 · 2023-04-11T00:08:47+00:00

For the younger age group less than 30 women are out-earning men and this does seem to be one of the bigger factors in them being "potential's worse partner's"

abaxeron · 2023-04-11T11:43:12+00:00

As a general rule, as women's conditions and options improve, and issues and obstacles vanish, they tend to complain more.

As an example, women's loudest complaints about "male violence" came when homicide rate kissed historical bottom.

gate18 · 2023-04-11T14:30:17+00:00

Are men genuinely worse potential partners these days?

No

If every man was successful, would these problems still persist

Yes, it is has little to do with success.

Various articles state that "broke men are ruining dating" since educated women can't find someone on their financial level

I doubt that's true as latter on you wrote "as they generally out earn most women". So it's not the money

but its irrational to expect most men to be 6 figures + educated + attractive.

I doubt most women are looking for 6 figures. Else marriages would be way lower rate than they are.

I think men are already "stepping up" since they out-earn most women, but it's socially acceptable to tell men that being average is unacceptable. I feel that hypergamy is a never-ending loop that can't really be satisfied, even if every man was successful. Would you agree?

No, it's not about money. You just want to focus on money.

I don't know if it's possible to get this information but if you go to your local town hall, or any place where they keep records of marriages, you'll find that married men are married not because they can provide, not because the wife does not have to work. Get info for all US states, UK, Germany, anywhere you like. You'll find it's not the 6 figures.

Or go on the street and ask every man if they are married and if so do they make 6 figures. Don't just youtube it as there's a little thing called editing.

HighestTierMaslow · 2023-04-11T15:55:53+00:00

Men are not generally worse, women just don't accept the bare minimum/being a slave/being undervalued/having a power imbalanced relationship. Men up until recently have wielded all the power and of course they are going to be reluctant to let it go. People in general who hold more power fear equality. This doesn't just apply to men versus women.

Billsandasonom · 2023-04-11T17:42:48+00:00

> Broke men are ruining dating

> buTt ThE WaGe GaP!

MrHustleTopG · 2023-04-12T02:36:30+00:00

Women’s standards have just gotten higher and higher it’s not that men are worse partners

Aubrey_D_Graham · 2023-04-11T01:04:41+00:00

In terms of career? Yeah, men's wages have stagnated and they're not as educated.

Historically, haven't men always dated women who are less educated, less financially secure; so, why is it when the roles have reversed women refuse to step up in the name of equality and equity? That's not very feminism, isn't it.

Coolio_Street_Racer · 2023-04-11T02:33:26+00:00

I genuinely think no matter how good men become, women will always want more.

Stunning_Thing4208 · 2023-04-11T04:56:44+00:00

No. Every man being successful would actually help solve the problem because women are trying to date equals but they are not finding them as men aren't catching up.

Nate_Reborn · 2023-04-11T00:17:48+00:00

I don't think broke men ruined dating, as many broke men have, and will always, be successful with dating.

I also don't think simply out earning someone is enough to qualify as stepping up.

I think one of the main things that's changed has been women gaining equal financial/social freedom, and with that came different expectations. These aren't the days of old anymore.

Let's call it for what it is: People have access to potential mates at a level that I honestly think our internal biology wasn't ready for. Before social media, tinder, etc. you were more limited to your social circles and the people you ran into in real life. Now someone is always a swipe away.

I think all of this combines into the fact that we've entered a social inflection point. People are working more, making more money, spending less time in person, and more time on screens. The effect? Both men & women are increasingly quite present on dating sites, etc. And because we're learning the importance of creating successful lives we can join on our own, marriage rates are plummeting. In my honest opinion, this is ok.

I don't buy into the hypergamy thing much, but here's my prediction: I wouldn't be surprised if the rates of casual sex start to actually increase, while marriages continue to plummet. I think people are only hopping into relationships when it truly suits them best. This is a good thing.

In terms of men, I think it's also wise for any man to become attractive enough to command a fulfilling sex life with or without a relationship. Maximize whatever strengths you can, so you can enjoy women in any capacity. Because women are certainly doing the same thing with men. It's time to level up or level out.

Safinated · 2023-04-10T21:28:07+00:00

No, there’s just more online entertainment and less social incentives. Male entitlement continues to linger, resulting in delayed/decreased marriage and reproduction and educational underperformance, but those trends started more than a generation ago

notseizingtheday · 2023-04-10T22:22:27+00:00

I think men just complain out loud more and it's a turn off for women. They complain about everything.

jellybeanzandtings · 2023-04-10T23:15:09+00:00

Post changed to CMV for making affirmative claim. Please follow CMV rules.

AutoModerator · 2023-04-10T21:18:33+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

WilliamWyattD · 2023-04-11T06:32:48+00:00

TRP is wrong when it says women only judge men against one another, and then choose the top X%. That is part of it, but not all of it.

There are absolute factors, as well as factors relative to the woman. The core hypergamous instinct is to want a man that is somehow above the woman herself. The criteria for being 'above' her are somewhat malleable and can manifest differently in different environments. But the biology is by no means perfectly malleable here.

But yes, if men all raised their game equally somehow, it would improve the dating market. Nonetheless, core hypergamy is always going to stand in tension with egalitarianism and widespread monogamy to some extent. When women do as well as men, overall, at everything women might use as a basis for a hypergamous comparison, then there will be issues with logistics of matching every woman with a man 'above' her by these hypergamous criteria. We just don't have a sorting mechanism that efficient.

Rumin8ting_ · 2023-04-14T00:41:33+00:00

Not in my opinion. I would date/marry a walmart cashier if i loved him. I intend to major in STEM so money wont be an issue, i could probably provide for the both of us if need be. Might just be me though

Comments