-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
What Two Religions Tell Us About The Modern Dating Crisis (TIME)
- Thread starter entremet
- Start date
- Status
LegendofJoe
Member
My wife is a doctor and she married me for my good looks. She is definitely a pretty big outlier according to relationship research,
haha, just kidding. I have a graduate degree and I'm planning to go back for my PhD once our kids start school. She told me early on how hard it was to find someone that was both educated and compatible with her personality. It probably had a lot to do with her falling for me as quickly as she did. I'm thankful everyday that I thought just as much of her as she did me and that we found each other.
haha, just kidding. I have a graduate degree and I'm planning to go back for my PhD once our kids start school. She told me early on how hard it was to find someone that was both educated and compatible with her personality. It probably had a lot to do with her falling for me as quickly as she did. I'm thankful everyday that I thought just as much of her as she did me and that we found each other.
Women becomes considerably less fecund the other they get. In particular, chromosomal abnormalities (like Down syndrome) skyrocket the older a women gets.
But on a social level, the older you are when you have children the less energy you have to raise your children and the less time you have to enjoy them as people since you'd basically be on old person by the time they were full-grown adults.
Physicians seem to be my "thing". Invariably they're the ones I date. I guess I like that personality type.
entremet
Member
Looks like she adjusted her expectations to the realities of the dating market. Good for her and you.
If I remember right, it's something like, when accounting for attractiveness, the top 80% of women will gun for the top 20% of men with virtually no exception. There have been studies that suggest that when there are more women in a given population than men that there will be a drift towards hook-up culture because men are in incredibly high demand and low supply, meaning that the top 20% of men in terms of attractiveness can be as promiscuous as they'd like. I remember reading an article about the gender gap in US colleges forcing women to accept that their boyfriends might cheat on them, be unfaithful or sleep around but that they'd have to overlook this in order to maintain a relationship with one of the few attractive people on campus.
Given that right now the majority of schools have a 40:60 ratio of men to women this means that you have 48% of the student population actively seeking out only 8% of the student population, meaning that on average an attractive man has 6 women suitors to choose from at any point in time, which inversely means that most of the time 6 women are competing for 1 man.
On some liberal arts campuses, such as my own, the statistics are even more ridiculous. There's about a 30:70 ratio of men to women on my campus, meaning that 56% of the student population is actually seeking relationships with only 6% of the student population, which is something like 1 man for every 9 women.
There's also something to be said for the remaining 20% of women and 80% of men which, on campuses like my own, has 14% of the population vying for 24% of the population, which is a 10% disparity rather than a 50% disparity.
But I'm an English major and don't know how numbers work. Feel free to correct me on any of this math.
LegendofJoe
Member
There's a negative side to this for men as well from my experience. I grew up in a rural area and all but a few of my friends never went to college or left home. And now whenever I go back home I have almost nothing in common with people that I used to be really close with. It makes me feel like a stranger almost, it's not a feeling I enjoy at all. 
TheOctodad
Member
My wife and I met when we were pretty young and have been best friends for a long time. Both of us got our undergrads and then I got my masters. For awhile we've been making about the same, due to her field being generally more lucrative.
She's going back to school now so I'm supporting her for a few years, but when she graduates she'll be making significantly more than I probably ever will. For us though, it's a team effort. Because of me she's able to go and be insured, have a house, etc.
I can't imagine marrying someone that I don't at least see as my intellectual equal though. Money isn't everything, I don't care about income as much as I care about engaged and critical thinking. Some fields just make more, but I want a partner who isn't bored or disconnected from the concepts and things I think about and work with.
She's going back to school now so I'm supporting her for a few years, but when she graduates she'll be making significantly more than I probably ever will. For us though, it's a team effort. Because of me she's able to go and be insured, have a house, etc.
I can't imagine marrying someone that I don't at least see as my intellectual equal though. Money isn't everything, I don't care about income as much as I care about engaged and critical thinking. Some fields just make more, but I want a partner who isn't bored or disconnected from the concepts and things I think about and work with.
the harsh truth is they need to change what they're looking for then, or change themselves to make themselves more attractive to the suitable partners out there.
entremet
Member
Not quite. It's the opposite in places like China and India due to preference for male heirs and, in China's case, one child policy.
Are they type A and a little uncomfortable about it? If so, send them my way! Especially, if they're more interested in hiking than going to a bar.
Western world, yeah. Might be more extreme in the US though.
Except that Korea and China are also actively advancing in technology and yet are experiencing a growth in religion so that can't just be it.
The number of college educated men is surprisingly low to me. Wow!
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
How did such a huge gap in education even happen?
There's no way this went unnoticed...
There's no way this went unnoticed...
entremet
Member
Men had always more options in the labor market outside of traditional higher learning.
The jobs that have been reduced significantly over the last few decades due to America becoming a service economy and technology, have been male dominated.
Women, on the other hand, held jobs that traditional required higher learning--teaching, nursing, social work etc. And educational requirements for those have gotten higher.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
So men haven't adapted to the changing market fast enough?
entremet
Member
That and women have traditionally pursued jobs that require higher learning as the base educational requirement.
As degrees become more common, getting one is the minimum for them to enter the labor market.
Men still have greater options outside of traditional education (trades, police and firefighters, military are still heavily male dominated), but those are disappearing due to outsourcing and technology.
PeskyToaster
Member
I have a degree and a job, ladies.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
but you're talking about a trend that has been going on for decades... if the pool of available jobs that don't require a degree has shrunk, and men who would have otherwise done these jobs aren't going to college.. where are they getting their jobs from?
ok, so it's not that these men are unemployed, it's just that they hold jobs that are considered less attractive to college educated women?
entremet
Member
truck driving, logistics, construction, trades, airline pilots, mining, police and fire, military, etc.
That's correct.
Cizeta-Moroder
Banned
Wtf is this?
"i've been right here the whole time, give us nice guys a chance!"
And wtf is this
There are enough body image problems as it is
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
So there should also be a large group of men that aren't able to find a partner because of their job?
entremet
Member
Uh, traditional "nice guys" usually have college education and actually have better odds, internet caricatures and memes aside.
It's the traditional macho dudes, in traditional male professions that are getting ignored.
Not quite, because those men marry women of the same or lower status.
It's a numbers game. There are not enough educated eligible men compared to the educated eligible women. And trends show that women are less likely to marry down in status.
Last time I checked there are still a lot of diner waitresses, hotel maids, nannies, and hairdressers, typically low paying female dominated jobs, for those guys to find wives.
That's... not what he meant...
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
If there's a sizeable population of women that can't find a partner, there's a similarly sizeable population of men (somewhere on the socioeconomic ladder) that can't find a partner too.
This isn't China.
entremet
Member
You're missing the point. It's easier for those men to find partners because of asymmetrical preferences in the dating market.
A combination of this and the fact that men are typically left under-equipped to handle college. In the US boys are typically somewhere around a year and a half behind girls in their grade levels in literacy, The time that they traditionally need in order to exert all of their pent up energy during recess (physically) and lunch (socially) is slowly being taken, and the reading they actually do they find incredibly uninteresting, making it much harder to convince them to read, meaning they never develop the same literacy skills as girls, creating an education gap.
Starting from a young age we're making it difficult for boys to learn while making it easier for girls to learn and not catering to their actual educational needs, leading to high gender disparities in college enrollment.
We've accidentally been engineering this situation for years.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
We're misunderstanding each other. There's a pretty close to even split between the total number of women and men in any given age group.
We can ask if perhaps something else may be going on (such as men marrying outside their age group thereby "stealing" women from other generations) but before doing that we need to agree that if there's a problem finding a partner in a closed system, it should be affecting both sexes roughly equally.
entremet
Member
But you're looking at the issue too broadly.
The thesis here is the availability of college educated men.
Non college educated men still have options because there are non college educated women as well.
College educated women are less likely than their male peers to marry down.
So college educated women are competing amongst themselves and women without college educations, creating the imbalance in eligible partners.
It's not equal. At all.
This really gets under my skin. It is okay for women to have standards regarding height, income, and education, but if a man even mentions a woman's weight, all hell breaks lose.
What I wrote is applicable to anyone who can't find a suitable partner.
Change what you're looking for, or change yourself both, even. Or stay single.
It doesn't have anything to do with body image or nice guys or whatever other inferences you made from my post.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
gotta love armchair procreators
Do you seriously want to still be raising kids when you're in your fucking 60s? Plus increase the risk of birth defects, autism, etc? Possibly be too frail to play with your grandchildren?
Sure, we had our kids young and didn't get to party or w/e like our friends did but we'll be empty nesters at 42 and get to do whatever the fuck we want with the rest of our lives while everyone else is dealing with young kids or teenagers.
So glad I don't have to deal with dating anymore. My wife has a degree but decided to stay at home till the kids are in school; meanwhile I don't have a degree but have a job with great pay/benefits that provides for her and our kids. All this dating/hookup millennial drama bullshit has us like
saucyrobot
Neo Member
You're right, my special little snowflake. Never change. Never improve. Just force everyone else to change instead.
Nastrodamous
Member
I took what you said as make yourself attractive ie, get hobbies, travel, etc basically become interesting.
I mean, it'd be nice if beauty standards changed, but you gotta change what you can change if you wanna play the game.
See: every self help gaf thread where ppl are like "go to the gym"
entremet
Member
People don't like looking themselves in mirror when their dating goals aren't getting met regardless of sex.
If women pursue education more than men, it means there's a surplus of men that can't marry because the total numbers of them are the same. For men, that's uneducated men, for women, it's the educated ones.
CornBurrito
Member
Gonna be honest, I wouldn't consider seriously dating a dude who lacked a college education. Unless he was a genius and didn't obtain a college degree in order to pursue something worthwhile.
The asymmetry of the situation doesn't lend itself well to being viewed as a closed system.
The issue at hand is that women with college degrees are only willing to date men with college degrees, where men with college degrees are far more willing to date "down". Men and women without degrees are still dating and getting married, even without their degrees.
The true crux of the issue is that there aren't enough college educated men to sate the demand being placed on to the dating market by college educated women. The answer is to either get more men educated or to have women lower their standards.
entremet
Member
What if you had chemistry and he was business owner without a degree?
CornBurrito
Member
"Unless he was a genius and didn't obtain a college degree in order to pursue something worthwhile."
Like, I put it right in the post lol.
Cizeta-Moroder
Banned
Debatable. They are usually failures in all aspects of life, but there's probably no consensus on internet caricatures so I won't insist on this.
In any case, whatever group it is that lacks the preferred/sought trait, is not entitled to attention.
Educated women are plenty attractive as they are. To say that they owe the world even more, is madness.
entremet
Member
Who's saying these men are entitled to attention?
The premise is that these men are invisible to college educated men as potential mates.
No one is crying for these guys; we're looking at the data objectively.
It's like you've barged in the thread with very strange non sequiturs about entitlement, women changing their sexual orientations to meet these realties, and other strange topics.
It's just wacky honestly.
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked
- Locked
- Locked