So recently, a situation came up in my social circle, and I thought I'd get y'all's take on it, because I think it presents an interesting view, as related to RP theory.

The subjects of this story, let's call them Aaron and Betty, broke up about four months ago. This is not the first time they've broken up, but it definitely appears to be the last.

Aaron is your textbook alpha, I grew up with the guy. He did basketball, football, soccer; the ultimate jock, popular with the ladies, so forth and so on. None of those women stuck until college, where he met Betty.

Betty was, at the time, your classic "nice Midwestern girl who thinks she's a 5 but is actually an 8." She grew up sheltered; quiet, demure, chaste, from a fundamentalist Christian household.

When they met, they fell head over heels. They were fine for about a year, and then the breakups started. Aaron would dump her and go dumpster diving, Betty would cry to me and all of our other friends. Eventually he would apologize, they would reconcile, and they would be fine for a while. Until the next breakup anyway.

The last time they started to argue, Betty came to me and told me "this is it, I'm done if he does it again." Sure enough a few weeks later he called it off again, going straight to the bars while she moved in with a friend of ours.

Only this time, she found a new fella, let's call him Claude. He couldn't be more unlike Aaron; quiet and studious, a little chubby, a long-time nerd who runs in the same videogame and TTRPG circles that I do. And Aaron is FURIOUS.

"He's fat, he's boring, he's lame," the list goes on. Claude doesn't make as much money as Aaron, doesn't own motorcycles or a membership to a gym. And yet, despite all the flaws Aaron keeps yelling about, I have never seen Betty happier than she is right now.

So I put it to you guys- how would you categorize this? It's not AFBB, obviously. Claude is a primo beta, but he has significantly less resources at his command than Aaron does, so it's not about money or security. I wouldn't exactly call it hypergamy either, since on paper, by RP standards, Aaron is the better choice.

I have my own opinions on the subject but I'm interested to hear yours.