My wife raises an interesting point that I've never heard anyone discuss. Many of the single women of a certain age who are still actively in the husband-seeking market spend a fortune on themselves to look good and be in the right (i.e., expensive) places to meet Mr. Right. Thus, an awful lot of them have a lot of debt, especially credit card debt, which they keep rolling over to the tune of many thousands of dollars in interest each year.
The question is: when she finally meets a suitable guy, does her debt tend to discourage the fellow from popping the question? I mean, if a couple has gotten pretty serious, but then he finds out she has $40,000 in credit card debt, which she's paying $5500 per year of interest on, does the idea of a joint checking account start sounding kind of expensive? Especially, if they're thinking about having kids and he knows she's going to have to de-emphasize her career for awhile. If she can't pay off her credit cards now while she's working full time, she's not going to pay them off either when she downshifts her career to raise kids. So, marriage is going to cost him $40,000 right off the bat that he hadn't thought about before.
That can kind of put the damper on romantic impulsivity.
This trend is the opposite of the European tradition of the dowry, in which the bride's family gives the groom money in return for a lifetime of his work supporting their daughter. (Here in America, we have a quasi-dowry system in which the bride's parents pay the for the wedding reception and the guests give the couple gifts equal to about their share of the cost of the reception. Thus, when we got married, we received gifts roughly equal to the wedding reception's cost to my in-laws, which was a nice little haul -- maybe four or five months of my after tax salary.)
In contrast, this emerging system in which two thirtysomethings are interested in getting married, but the potential bride is heavily in debt, so her would-be husband is likely to end up on the hook for it, is more like the African "bride price" system in which the groom pays the bride's father (or maternal uncle in some societies) fifteen head of cattle (or whatever) for the woman. The groom pays in Africa because he's going to get a lifetime of hard work hoeing the fields out of his wife. (According to Borat, in Kazakhstan, the going price for a bride is 15 gallons of insecticide.)
But, certainly, the African system is less conducive to monogamy, paternal investment in children, and other socially beneficial things than the European dowry system.
So, maybe this explains some of the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate in America?
The question is: when she finally meets a suitable guy, does her debt tend to discourage the fellow from popping the question? I mean, if a couple has gotten pretty serious, but then he finds out she has $40,000 in credit card debt, which she's paying $5500 per year of interest on, does the idea of a joint checking account start sounding kind of expensive? Especially, if they're thinking about having kids and he knows she's going to have to de-emphasize her career for awhile. If she can't pay off her credit cards now while she's working full time, she's not going to pay them off either when she downshifts her career to raise kids. So, marriage is going to cost him $40,000 right off the bat that he hadn't thought about before.
That can kind of put the damper on romantic impulsivity.
This trend is the opposite of the European tradition of the dowry, in which the bride's family gives the groom money in return for a lifetime of his work supporting their daughter. (Here in America, we have a quasi-dowry system in which the bride's parents pay the for the wedding reception and the guests give the couple gifts equal to about their share of the cost of the reception. Thus, when we got married, we received gifts roughly equal to the wedding reception's cost to my in-laws, which was a nice little haul -- maybe four or five months of my after tax salary.)
In contrast, this emerging system in which two thirtysomethings are interested in getting married, but the potential bride is heavily in debt, so her would-be husband is likely to end up on the hook for it, is more like the African "bride price" system in which the groom pays the bride's father (or maternal uncle in some societies) fifteen head of cattle (or whatever) for the woman. The groom pays in Africa because he's going to get a lifetime of hard work hoeing the fields out of his wife. (According to Borat, in Kazakhstan, the going price for a bride is 15 gallons of insecticide.)
But, certainly, the African system is less conducive to monogamy, paternal investment in children, and other socially beneficial things than the European dowry system.
So, maybe this explains some of the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate in America?
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The African system only makes sense if, as in many African societies, the woman is expected to do the majority of the work. (This is what textbooks gloss over when they exalt the matriarchal "noble savages" conforming to feminist ideals) While some American women are indeed hard working, few of those are likely to rack up exorbitant debt before marriage.
In that event, the logic of the African system simply isn't there.
Heh. I don't think that's all that explains the illegitimacy rate. The husband's on the hook if there's a divorce whether or not the wife is in debt, and if she incurred the debt before marriage she can't dump it on him in case of divorce.
But a woman with that much credit card debt is probably used to making poor choices, and a guy with some experience (most guys have enough by the time they're in their 30s -- those of us who were fools in our 20s tend to spread the word) will probably steer clear of marriage.
Interesting point about reverse dowry. In China one pays bride price even today. It's something of an insurance deposit. If she takes off her parents have to give it back, and that doesn't make them happy. Here in the states, paying for the marriage is essentially a trick played upon the unsuspecting groom: he thinks "it's free, so might as well..." The poor, poor fool.
Hey Steve, I know this is unrelated to your post, but I wonder if you were able to catch Half Sigma recently.
Apparently Michelle Obama was right, Barack is going to make you work.
From the official Obama site http://change.gov/americaserves/
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
So, marriage is going to cost him $40,000 right off the bat.. This trend is the opposite of the European tradition of the dowry, in which the bride's family gives the groom money in return for a lifetime of his work supporting their daughter.
Not to mention the man who RECEIVED a dowry also got a young virgin at prime fertility still capable of singular romantic and emotional attachment to him, while the modern man who PAYS a dowry gets an older woman far past her prime who has had many sex partners, and has strong residual emotional attachments to previous high-status lovers who have used and debased her. Men who probably won't, but could return into her life and easily reclaim her from you at will.. completely regardless of the size of your reverse dowry payment.
My wife had a $100 000 student loan when we were married. We now have two kids, she is not working, and someone has to pay the loan back.
She is significantly younger than me and one day when I am old, she will work and look after me, and I will get the money back..haha..
We guys really do have to be the romantic ones these days.
'maybe this explains some of the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate in America?'
Obama was pushed over the top largely by the bastard vote and the single mother vote. So we need an explanation soon in order to get a reversal of the illegitimacy trend.
The 2008 election result statistical breakdown shows that Obama was unelectable according to the traditional American population in Red States AND Blue States i.e. the American population pre-1990.
It was recent immigrants and the modern ever-expanding broken family demographic that put this guy into the White House. That means Mission Accomplished for the Nation Wreckers and Fabian Socialists.
The election stats are a real eye-opener considering the horrible economy and Bush's record low rating. It should have been a total wipeout for the Democrats, but it was not.
One amazing stat considering the propaganda we were fed all year is that the overall turnout for this election was not as big as 2004! And the youth vote did not show up (as usual). And Obama's % turnout was barely bigger than Bush 2004 which itself was not close to a "mandate".
That story was on Drudge yesterday. But, of course, the facts are irrelevant to the "we create our own reality" crowd.
In my opinion Obama's popularity is peaking right now. He's not so brilliant and he is ideologically opposed to America as we know it. That will make for an uphill climb. And liberal senators make the worst presidents.
Our enemies are licking their chops. Obama just might break Bush's record low presidential rating. No way in hell Medvedev would have announced the new Russian missile initiative immediately after our election if Yosemite Sam had won instead of The Messiah. No way in hell.
Idealistic voters put JFK in and soon after that the Russians pushed us into a nuclear showdown via Cuban Missile Crisis, which is something they never would've tried with Truman or Eisenhower. History is repeating.
The Russians see Obama as confirmation of America's decline and they will act accordingly. And it won't help that the Chinese have zero respect for Africans. The Chi-Coms were definitely laughing their asses off on our election night.
Steve- I'm 40, single, and living in NYC and you can be sure when I meet a girl I do a lot of indirect, and occasionally direct, questioning on fiances. (It doesn't help that I work in asset management, a target of the gold diggers...normally I deflect my profession until I get a handle on who she is.) I've met more than my share of women who live beyond their means - and that is a huge HUGE red flag...
Bill makes a good point about the dis-incentives that the 'system' gives to men. Horror stories abound of men getting blind sided by divorce and getting taken to the cleaners.
It makes one very careful with the vetting. I'm dating a 'good one' now. Let's see where it goes.
Rgds.
The question is which way the arrow of causality runs. Or arrows! It may be that bride-price causes polygyny. Or it may be the reverse. Or (as I would guess), there is a feedback loop.
40 K in debt is not an issue to a guy who goes to the expensive places. If she is hot and reasonaby attentive. Now if she keeps spending over their income once she lands the fella, that is a serious problem. Once you make over 300 K you should be saving and investing some of current income, hence a 40K bill is no hardship.
I once considered marrying a woman who had over 100k in debt (student loans from law school and credit cards).
Even though I could afford to pay it off, that's still a ton of money to pay to get basically nothing. (Under our legal system, what does a man gain from marriage?) Honestly, it was a big factor in why I decided better of marrying her.
Not really Steve, it is more reflective of it. With all due respect, one of your blind spots is that you are older, married, and have really no clue as to what is going on with younger women and men. How could you?
In short, roles, the way men and women relate to each other, and the goals of men and women have radically changed.
Young women in their twenties have twice as many suitors as competitors. Men in their thirties and even early forties desire them, and compete on the basis of more money, status, and power versus better looks.
Nor are young women competing for "Mr. Right" with credit card debt. What they are doing is chasing after the few, very few, Alpha Men who are high in testosterone and testosterone-driven risk, social status and power, and good looks plus "game" i.e. the ability to manipulate and play women. This is about 5-8% of their male peers.
What women go into credit card debt for is stuff men don't care about but the circle of girlfriends DO: shoes, handbags, "cute" outfits, etc. A girl is hot or not, special shoes (guys wouldn't even know she had them on, they look considerably ... upwards if you get my drift), handbags, and "cute" outfits don't matter for guys. But they DO for status and pecking order among her girlfriends who form her emotional support group and validation. That's why women love to shop together.
Here is the cycle, better explained by "Roissy in DC" whom you should really take a look at -- his explanations are far better than mine and once you get beyond the pick up artist stuff, he and his commenters such as Thursday, Agnostic, PA, etc. have much to say and many insights. Anyway, here goes:
Young woman moves to big city, where urban anonymous living far from relatives and childhood friends allows lots of partners and chasing after, defacto "sharing" with other women, a few Alpha-type men who have the characteristics described.
Young women share expenses in cramped quarters in urban "edgy" areas to find and snare the hottest guys with the most money/status/power/looks. They spend like crazy on stuff that takes up little space, like nails, hair, makeup, handbags, that give them status over their girlfriends.
A VERY few get hitched in their late twenties to some power broker, most go on into their thirties, and find male attention drops off dramatically. As their looks and fertility fades, so does male interest.
They must compromise with "male losers" who they ignored in their prime. Who know that the woman brings into the relationship about 30-50 prior partners. And a decreased ability to form a bond, both due to prior bad experiences and emotional baggage, and decreased effectiveness in hormones producing intimacy and trust. The men themselves of course are far less attractive, socially dominant, and economically advantaged than the men who pursued the women in their twenties.
Pressure to conceive before the fertility window closes, less attraction for both partners, less effectiveness of the hormones producing intimacy, the knowledge on both sides that she is "settling" produces a high divorce rate.
This plus women who refuse to "settle" for a "beta provider" and instead want the offspring of an "Alpha" produces our high illegitimacy rates.
It's driven by the decisions of women who are not constrained in their pursuit of men, have too much estimation of the power and duration of their beauty (aided by the beauty industry which dwarfs the revenues of the Military industrial complex, to give you an idea of the global scope of this issue).
Give women absolute, unbounded freedom to choose, and they will largely choose to be single mothers. The number who actively choose this (not divorce-resultant single mothers) is skyrocketing in the US and Britain.
Women have the power -- there are fewer of them than men (men in twenties and thirties recall want women in their twenties), so they use it. This switches in their thirties, a woman with many partners (accurate assumption in urban areas) with much baggage and reduced fertility has reduced power in the marketplace. OK for sex, not marriage. The probability of forming a successful family with a woman in her thirties for most guys is pretty low.
THAT as much as "affordable family formation" drives marriage and family rates Steve.
Again, you are older, women's power and decision making radically changed in the late 1980's to early 1990's.
Or how about those Sex in City-types who were all proud to buy a one-bedroom condo in 2006 for $500,000 (currently worth less than half of that... and dropping)? I wouldn't marry my soulmate if she had a debt burden like that.
There are already a great many factors mitigating against marriage for a single man, especially when it comes to money. I agree this may be just another nail in the institution.
Also, one thing you might not have considered is student loans. A couple of my friends got married in their early 30s and had $20k+ of student loan debt instantly added to the family register. A woman who gets her masters in some kind of humanities-oriented major (or, heaven forbid, women's studies), is unlikely to be able to discharge those debts in a timely fashion.
Can't be true! Kazakhstan uses the metric system! No gallons for thousands of kilometers!
The only cases I know of have always been the woman passing the debt off to the new husband and when they divorced he wound up paying it off.
Steve, responsibility for paying the woman's credit card debt can come even without marriage.
Have you looked at the case of Brazilian underwear model Luciana Morad - she ran up a lot of credit card debt and got used to a lifestyle she couldn't afford so she arranged to get impregnated by Mick Jagger.
Jagger has now been compelled by the courts to support her in grand style so as to provide a good envirnoment for the resulting child.
This is sometimes a better option for women than getting married
Maybe financial lassitude is just a function of upbringing and culture. Think about it: daddy spent on them and so have countless guys. The concept of fiscal restraint or accumulation of assets in order to provide (or sustain) in the future is regarded as a male responsibility. Freed of financial accountability they can divert their resources to what's really important to them: self gratification and status seeking. Landing a rich guy is a means to that end but it's likely not the primary objective.
Just look at some of the frivolous purchases made: $400 shoes, $900 handbags? No straight guy I know cares about these things or even notices. But other women care deeply. Status is on the line.
Expensive vacations fulfill the self-pampering end. So are spa treatments and BMWs which they will use as their reason they can't afford to move out of mom and dad's house. I guess these help with status as well.
Prudent spending only signals to the world that your worth is low on the marriage market.
My wife has a friend who was being supported by her ex-husband until their daughter turned 18, at which time he cut her off. She was in her early forties, had no job, no skills, and only enough savings to last six months or so. What did she do with the money? She spent it on liposuction. I thought she was nuts, but within two months she had found a new man to take care of her.
Steve,
Check out roissy.wordpress.com
Lately, it's not as good but the old posts are really excellent on this subject.
Being a young person in this world is very very bizarre.
Speaking from experience. Women don't tell their Husbands about the debt until after they are married.
A year after I was married, I found out my wife had a foreclosure, a bankruptcy, and 20,000 in debt.
I now tell all single men to run a credit check on their spouses before getting married.
Another part of this is that by the time the prospective bride is in her 30s, her parents will be less likely to pay for the wedding. When their daughter has been working for ten or more years, it's hard for parents to feel the same way about paying for a princess wedding. But the bride will certainly want such a wedding, so she and the groom will pay for it. This easily adds $15,000 to $30,000 to the marriage cost.
This is only a whiter people issue, Steve. In flyover country, you couldn't go more that $5000 in debt for the push-up bras & manicures to keep you looking hot while at the local sports bar where no doubt someone will buy your drinks. You'll have to look somewhere other than your aging debs for the illegitimacy rate & probably at a younger demographic.
Except bachelorettes mostly do not have major debt, which may be why you never heard anyone discuss it. Women with $40,000 of credit card debt are rare enough to easily avoid.
According to the Federal Reserve Board's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances, median annual credit-card debt for single women was $1,900 ($2,000 for single men).
Women 25-34 carry $4,038 on average, men $4,369 on average.
Also, what is the social class of men & women who run in crowds that socialize in expensive locales? What class of women do the professional men who frequent these place tend to marry? Are any of these people from the groups most responsible for high illegitimacy rate in this country?
Steve, the CA divorce laws are a detriment to stable marriage in California, or to getting married in the first place if the young fellow undertstands CA's mortagage laws.
To summarize:
(1) Divorce is so-called no-fault divorce. Property is split 50/50 upon the marriage ending.
(2)Adultry means nothing. Adultry is not allowed to be an issue in divorce proceedings.
(3)The ex-wife usually gets primary custody of the kiddies.
(4) Even though property is split 50/50, the ex-hubster still has to pay child support.
credit card debt is nothing. Think student loans for graduate school in anthro .....
Credit card debt can be discharged in bankruptcy. Student loans can not. The only way to get out of student loans is to move to another country.
I came here to say "obviously the woman isn't going to tell him about the cc debt before marriage". But someone else already did, so instead I'll say:
T99, you often make a lot of sense when you aren't talking foreign policy.
Yes, the Chinese still do the husband to wife's family dowry (the wife is essentially sold to the other family as a sex+baby machine for the husband and baby+manual labor machine for the mother-in-law, and the way weddings work reflect that).
The way it's done in practice from my few experiences is that the woman's parents take the top and bottom bill from a stack, making it essentially ceremonial.
Of course, my father in law has children by at least 5 women (being the #1 man in what can be thought of as a rural county
Oh, yeah, thanks for the great pickup artist link. Not a surprise that the passive-aggressive know-it-all geek testing99 aka Evil Neocon is into PUA culture.
Fact: The emergence of a "Pick Up Artist" industry is a harbinger of doom for any civilization.
I read a review of a documentary out recently on an infamous PUA industry figure where the guy ends up balling his head off about his terrible childhood traumas. Big surprise. Absolutely pathetic.
And in the same vein Roissy blog offers this moronic animal wisdom:
Because fucking is the meaning of life ...
And there it is: the debased animal mentality most commonly found in Africa and African ghettos around the world...and occasionally adopted by broken units from other races and ethnic groups also.
I predict Roissy will eventually kill himself. Unless the coming economic apocalypse generates a force that culls him first...along with the other termites destroying our society.
"Women have the power -- there are fewer of them than men (men in twenties and thirties recall want women in their twenties), so they use it. This switches in their thirties, a woman with many partners (accurate assumption in urban areas) with much baggage and reduced fertility has reduced power in the marketplace. OK for sex, not marriage. The probability of forming a successful family with a woman in her thirties for most guys is pretty low."
Testie, I think you've confused Sex in the City with reality. In fact, I'm almost certain that 99% of the guys who post on iSteve have never had a female friend, let alone a gf & probably no sisters.
What's this with men outnumber women? This isn't China. Are you drunk, again?
Furthermore, I know of two actual married couples where the men were the spendthrifts. One couple almost got divorced over it because the guy didn't give full disclosure until way after the wedding. In the other, my friend trained her future hubby & got him in line before the marriage. That she was Asian won't surprise any of you.
30 - 50 prior sex partners? Now, you are just fantasizing. No woman has that kind of sex drive especially no woman who would be interested in the likes of you.
"It makes one very careful with the vetting. I'm dating a 'good one' now. Let's see where it goes."
Puts me in mind of an accountant I heard about. He'd take a woman to the movies. If she wanted something from the snack bar, he'd never take her out again. He actually found a woman this way.
even more annoyed said...
30 - 50 prior sex partners? Now, you are just fantasizing. No woman has that kind of sex drive...
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Girls can rack 'em up quick in the few years of high school, college and then dating in their 20s.
From ages 15 to 30 it really isn't that many. Two or three a year is far from inconceivable. Of course, they tend not to have the longest memories about these things.
This is just another reason why it is unwise for any man to get married in this society. If you really want to marry, you should first move to a non-western country and "go native".
"What's this with men outnumber women? This isn't China. Are you drunk, again?"
Actually, men do outnumber women in the younger age groups. Statistically there are slightly more male births than female. The total population has an excess of women, but this is due to the fact that women live longer on average. The extra women are in the older age groups (60+).
As for the mating game, the excess of males is magnified by the fact that older men and younger men all compete for the same pool of younger women. A man in his 20's has to compete not only with his peers, but also with older (and usually richer) men in their 30's and 40's. Women in their 20's have the advantage.
Reading iSteve on a daily basis, I've noticed that many of the problems addressed are caused by the inability of people to perceive the world as it is or, perhaps, the blatant discard for seeing the world as it is. My term for this is Madame Bovary Syndrome.
In the novel Madame Bovary, a shady dream merchant, M. Lheureux, the 19th century version of a platinum card, loans Emma Bovary the money she needs to pursue her romantic dreams without her husband's knowledge. When her bill comes due, she is reduced to begging her ex-lover for the money to pay off the mortgage her husband has taken out on his property. The modern condition can almost be defined by the refusal to realize that the bill will come due one day.
As I watched the estatic reaction to the result of the presidential election, I was reminded of a scene in another of Flaubert's novels, Sentimental Education, that takes place after the abdication of Louis-Philippe and the restoration of a republic. It's difficult to determine if the joyous atmosphere is based on the belief that a single act will create universal peace, freedom, and justice, or if the crowd is ecstatic, like Emma Bovary, because it offers them a release from the drudgery of their daily routine. We are desparate to escape our ennui, desperate for change.
But even though Flaubert could see through the illusions, he would have no more sympathy for testing99 than he did for Emma's husband, the quintessential "good guy", Charles Bovary. Women need heroes. Poets need heroes. Otherwise the beauty is drained from the world and life becomes tedious.
Is an alpha male the same as a hero? I believe this is a question posed, not only by Flaubert, but also by Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness (a novel referenced three separate times in Dreams from my Father). To equate the two is nihilistic, is it not?
Perhaps that's Obama's secret. All those single women that voted for him think that he's the hero that's going to pay off their debt.
$40K itself shouldn't be that big of a deal for guys who hang out in expensive places, but the habits that got her there are. If she spent all of her money and then some, she'll do her best to spend all of your money and then some.
Speaking as a man who makes a decent income, I wouldn't be put off too badly by, say, student loans, but I would be by credit card debt racked up buying shoes.
The western style of mating seems strange and frightening. Fortunately for myself, I never had to experience it, as I had an arranged marriage to my cousin, which is traditional in our family. Sometimes the old ways are better.
If, as Still Annoyed said, this is mainly a problem of the whiter-people, then it is a good thing. This will help decrease their birth rate and speed them on the path to extinction.
Annoyed -- read my post. Women in their twenties draw:
1. Men in their twenties.
2. Men in their thirties.
3. A few high-rollers in their forties, i.e. "Client #9" aka Eliot Spitzer.
By my count that's easily twice the number of men pursuing the same women.
You can easily check this by looking at any bar during Fri-Sat. It's so obvious it's funny.
I *DO INDEED* have a great many female friends. I listen and learn. It's fascinating. Women do indeed act like this. Moreover, both anecdotal evidence from my female, urban professional friends (lawyers, MBAs, etc.) and more importantly stats:
25% of Adults in NYC have herpes.
I stopped counting at 56 ... the national average according to the Durex Survey is 9 for women, but around 18-20 for women in NYC.
I know of a tall Chinese Man (Yao Ming) and a short American one (Verne Troyer). Does this mean I can extrapolate that most Chinese men are very tall and most American men very short? I am sorry to say you sound like a woman reacting emotionally to what is in fact the dynamics of male-female relationships and well ... logical conclusions you don't like.
PC is a female-oriented invention that pushes away ugly reality for comforting fantasies.
The ugly reality is that a good number of men get priced out of the marriage market, they DO take this out on women in petty, misogynistic ways, it will only get worse.
Anon is quite right -- Obama would not have been elected under the 1990 model of America. "Women's Voices" the Gloria Steinem group takes credit that the coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, and single women "defeated White Men" installed Obama.
Unfortunately culture has a janissary effect -- converting even religious and conservative young people to post-Christian dating morality -- because the realities of the dating market and mass-culture pressure in urban job centers demand conformity and punish adherence to conservative social values. Fidelity, restraint, not spending to enhance mating displays and social status among groups of women are all the mark of a "loser."
Ishmael -- the problem is that the bill comes due. Women did not used to be so inclined when social conditions had boundaries for BOTH men and women. And those boring old engineers and such make society go around, instead of romantic dreamers like Byron or Heathcliff.
Steve pointed out that Richard Florida's "creative class" of hip-cool young people and gays making designer whatevers is a fallacy, it's boring pocket protector engineers who actually make and build things (along with skilled blue collar guys) that make money. The gay designers are just a froth on the beer. Not the beer itself.
Roissy's good, but as mentioned here before, F. Roger Devlin knocks the ball out of the park on this stuff.
Vikram's right, though coming from a bio-culture not under assault he should try to feel a little better about the strangeness he feels, and instead look on the future as his to inherit.
The dysgenics on display in "the west", in every aspect of life, is a disgusting thing to watch. There's true tragedy in being yoked to this decayed, degraded race. It's so exceedingly difficult to possess values/views along the lines of many iSteve readers, and to try to raise a small daughter in this society. It's like Agammenon offering up Iphigenia.
I was active on the Orange County, CA, dating scene. I could tell you a lot of stories. Most of the women I dated did not have debts from student loans, but from shopping addictions at Bloomingdales, Juicy Couture, and Neiman Marcus. In bars and restaurants, these women never had to foot the bill. Plus, many of the single women in the OC dating world work as part-time "escorts" to supplement their income. I knew a couple of girls who were in debt due to the costs associated with DUI (DWI) programs, a result from all of that bar-hopping and husband-hunting. I met one girl who claimed to have been in 10 car accidents. It wasn't (and still isn't) a pretty scene. I got out of it (and reclaimed my sanity and self-respect) by marrying a conservative blonde Turkish Muslim girl from a good family, who among other things has all the right views on race, third world immigration, and Israel.
"The question is: when she finally meets a suitable guy, does her debt tend to discourage the fellow from popping the question?"
Hahahahahaha!!!! The sucker, er, suitable guy, doesn't find out until after the wedding. It's never expressly discussed; rather, she just assumes he'll pay, and has an outraged, entitled fit if he balks. She always wins.
What testing99 said is all true, but the people he describes area relatively small percentage of the population and are mostly found in few big cities. These people don't breed much so they will thin themselves out while white America becomes more conservative, Mormon and Amish.
Also, as another poster pointed out, these people don't have many out of wedlock children. White out of wedlock children are mostly born to poor and blue collar people in flyover country. Dad works as a mechanic, mom works at Walmart type people. Most of these couples eventually get married. They aren't following the black inner city model where both men and women have children with multiple partners.
"I know of a tall Chinese Man (Yao Ming) and a short American one (Verne Troyer). Does this mean I can extrapolate that most Chinese men are very tall and most American men very short? I am sorry to say you sound like a woman reacting emotionally to what is in fact the dynamics of male-female relationships and well ... logical conclusions you don't like."
You choose to live on either coast. Live with the consequences.
Around here we have a strong cohort effect. You marry someone very close to your own age from a similar background although not necessarily of the same race. The norms don't get too far away from this standard. It generally means you don't have that many years to rack up lovers & even if you are a commitment phobe you'll at least settle into a pattern of serial monogamy that makes it impossible to rack up scores of ex-lovers.
As for logical conclusions, I realized a few years back that I probably wasn't going to get married since I had become isolated from my peer group. : (
I have nothing at stake here, Testie. But I have observed a very different pattern of interaction between the sexes. Therefore, I don't believe your stats apply anywhere but in the bizarre cultures established on either coast. You and your friends are statistical outliers. Of course you think otherwise.
I took a class on the family in Europe and, in the early middle ages, bride wealth was more common than dowry. At least that's what the books I read indicated. I think it started to change as Europe became more "Christianized."
Testing,
That seems to be a very unique milieu you're describing. I don't know anybody like that at all, but I know they exist. My I.Q. is 135, yet I married at 21 and was a virgin; my husband is a good looking tech nerd. I got lots of interest before marrying my husband, but was very religious as well as shy. I know I'm at the tail end, but I think the people you're describing are as well.
From my own personal experience, most men of all income brackets despise a spendthrift. I think the bottom line is that they want to be appreciated and a woman running through money like water doesn't usually convey appreciation, even if he can afford it.
I have an aunt who literally did bring $40,000 of debt to her relationship and this made her now husband nearly balk. When his dad came up with the idea of a prenuptial, she nearly ended it. They overcame this mostly because she earned good money, had good spending habits, and couldn't have children anyways. She did not rack up this debt because of outrageous spending. Her previous husband was a cad who put everything in *her* name and then divorced her. The IRS came after her and her lawyer said there was nothing she could do; her ex had put her on the hook.
Whoa... what about the guys?
Non-alpha guys in their twenties spend their time watching sports, playing video games, surfing the porn sites and getting drunk.
Why should any woman in her twenties want to have anything to do with them? How does this help them socialize with women when they get to their thirties and forties?
25% of Adults in NYC have herpes.
I stopped counting at 56 ... the national average according to the Durex Survey is 9 for women, but around 18-20 for women in NYC.
I'll make a reasoned guess and say that most of the NYC adults with herpes, and many if not most of the NYC women with lots of sex partners, are not affluent white SATC types, but low-income blacks and Hispanics.
Steve, you really should take the advice offered above and read Roissy's blog (http://roissy.wordpress.com). Roissy and his readers are a cynical bunch, and they're talking about a statistically small (but influential) slice of population; however, it is eye-opening if you're out of the dating market.
It's not just about economic independence. Another thing that has changed in the last 20 years (if Roissy and the like are to be believed) is that women are much more willing to have sex with multiple partners. This has killed off one of the primary motivations for men to marry, just as being able to support themselves has killed off one the primary motivations for women. Why buy the cow when you can get a whole dairy farm for free?
The thing is, it's a little tiresome to hear men whining about this because they bring it on themselves. Women have power over men in these matters only to the extent men give it to them. If you're willing to put up with a pile of crap just so you can screw a "10," then you're going to have to take whatever crap she wants to hand out. If you only hang out in bars and will only date the prettiest women in them, then don't be surprised that you end up with superficial, self-centered girlfriends who are always looking for someone better.
As a man, I'm sympathetic to many of the horror stories I read at Roissy's blog, but it's hypocritical and self-defeating to complain that women are cheating, evil bitches while simultaneously devoting a huge chunk of your time and energy to efforts to have sex with as many of them as possible ... but only if they're hot.
First,guys go to Amazon.com and check the reviews for a book called "How To Exploit Her Inner Psycho" by somebody named Dr. Brett Tate.This is a pick up guide with an attitude,as he declaims against "gold diggers" with vengeful zeal. I thought he was a bit over the top--but now I'm not so sure! BTW,marriage and kids is becoming more a staple of higher income whities,and the highearning man does not marry the low IQ tramp with the bodacious tits!! He marries a smart educated girl. The mad cap Sex and the City girl is how much of the population of attractive young females? I dunno,but hope it aint TOO high!!!
"even more annoyed said...
Puts me in mind of an accountant I heard about. He'd take a woman to the movies. If she wanted something from the snack bar, he'd never take her out again. He actually found a woman this way."
A corollary to Richard Feynman's golden rule for picking up women: never buy them a drink until you KNOW they'll sleep with you.
A friend of mine told me about one of his old college buddies, who had a pretty good system - while walking with his date to the theater or restaurant (this was a college town), he'd pause in front of a drug store and tell her "I need to stop in here and pick up some condoms". Then he'd go inside and buy condoms. If she wasn't there when he got back, then he figured he'd saved himelf a wasted evening.
Who knew that iSteve readers were such romantics? And that's part of the problem, because I heard recently that the average British woman reads 8-10 romantic novels per year. And it's not just books; ever since the BBC's seminal 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, there've been a whole string of romantic period dramas. How can your poor average British slob compare with Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester or Heathcliff, to name just a few of the brooding devils?!
testing99 - Are you whiskey?
Uh huh...
Ummmmm...
So in some comments here, it was hispanics + blacks + (eeeek! cooties!) women vs the white males.
And we white males lost!
Because white males all voted for McCain after 8 years of bush's successes....
Re Testing99's stat that "25% of New Yorkers have herpes", that may be true, but that is due to the ethnic composition of NYC. From a June 2008 emission of the New York City Board of Health and Mental Hygiene (yes, that's it's actual name):
The new study suggests that genital herpes is more common in New York City than nationally (26% of adults versus 19%). Among New Yorkers, the rate is higher among women than men (36% versus 19%), higher among blacks than whites (49% versus 14%), and higher among men who have sex with men than those who don’t (32% versus 18%). This is the first measurement of New York City’s infection rate, but the national rate has declined in recent years.
This doesn't invalidate the point T99 makes, but it puts it in perspective. Correspondingly, the idea that illegitimacy is the new normal is overdone. College-educated women are not swarming to be single mothers; that is chiefly a phenomenon of less-educated lower-income women. As the excellent Kay Hymowitz describes it:
Far more dramatic were the divergent trends in what was still known at the time as illegitimacy. Yes, out-of-wedlock childbearing among women with college diplomas tripled, but because their numbers started at Virtually Nonexistent in 1960 (a fraction of 1 percent), they only moved up to Minuscule in 1980 (a little under 3 percent of mothers in the top third of education distribution) to end up at a Rare 4 percent.
Things were radically different for mothers in the lower two educational levels. They decided that marriage and children were two entirely unconnected life experiences. That decline in their divorce rate after 1990? Well, it turns out the reason for it wasn’t that these women had thought better of putting their children through a parental breakup, as many of their more educated sisters had; it was that they weren’t getting married in the first place. Throughout the 1980s and nineties, the out-of-wedlock birthrate soared to about 15 percent among mothers with less than a high school education and 10 percent of those with a high school diploma or with some college.
Many people assume that these low-income never-married mothers are teen mothers, but teens are only a subset of unmarried mothers, and a rather small one in recent years. Yes, the U.S. continues to be the teen-mommy capital of the Western world, with 4 percent of teen girls having babies, a rate considerably higher than Europe’s. But that rate is almost one-third lower than it was in 1991, and according to up-to-the-minute figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, teens account for only about a quarter of unwed births—compared with half in 1970. Today 55 percent of unmarried births are to women between 20 and 24; another 28 percent are to 25- to 29-year-olds. These days, it is largely low-income twentysomethings who are having a baby without a wedding ring.
Tatra -- yes I am Whiskey.
Per CJ's comments, I am not so sure that Hymowitz is correct.
The NYT had an article about the mass of upper-middle class women in their late thirties and early forties desperate for a sperm donor and IVF, many already having semi-steady partners whom they found unsuitable for fatherhood.
Certainly in the highest classes, such as the Kennedys the Spitzers, the Edwards, the Newsomes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and so on, marriage is THE social event and a mark of class.
But it is fascinating to see middle class and upper-middle or lower-Upper class women adopt Single Motherhood. You see more and more featured on Home and Garden Television (along with Gay Couples) and that network certainly knows it's audience. Which is mostly female.
The dating cycle goes like this: HS girls mature earlier than their male peers, date a few early maturing, high status peers, many of their male peers are "locked out." Situation changes in College, with 60-40 female/male ratio, outside elite schools, and lots of parties, etc with liberal amounts of social lubricant booze to encourage hooking up etc. Most men in college can and do have girlfriends.
After graduation, the only venues for mutual pick-ups etc are bars and other party scenes. At that point, a few, socially dominant, high-testosterone, high status men tend to monopolize most of the women. It's "soft" polygamy with most of the women sharing a few of the men. Not the harem-style of Arabia, but free-floating. As noted, men in their twenties and thirties compete for women in their twenties.
Men in their twenties after College often experience a "dry spell" lacking social status and wealth to compete with the dominant men in the bar scene. Pickups in most workplaces are discouraged, and awkward at best. Long hours mitigate against romance, and there are no real institutions like the booze-filled parties with like-status girls in College to match men and women.
In the Thirties, women have far less power, particularly since the number of partners of the women makes them less desirable for a number of reasons (emotional baggage, reduced ability to attach, old boyfriends reappearing, often with memories of intense attachment in the passionate twenties).
It's not just "get the milk for free" but that a woman in her thirties with a sexual history of that is larger than recent historical norms is not very likely to make a wife that will stay with the man. Much less be a loving, supportive spouse.
The brutal competition of the bar scene is destructive of romance, the learned behavior of most men who are not the PUA is failure and resentment. Women in their thirties dating complain about this, they are correct, but it is inevitable.
However, unbounded by social construct choices of women and men's sexuality leads to this soft polygamy that does not serve society.
Social institutions matter just as much as demography. It doesn't matter how many religious children are born if the urban living turns them into either Sex and the City girls, or dweeby nerds outside the bar scene.
And sadly in urban job centers the bar scene is all there is for finding dates. That's it.
I disagree with those who say that this only applies to a few big cities. I live deep in flyover country and I see the same dysgenic trends happening here: fewer marriages, more promiscuity, more illegitimacy. It might not be as extreme as on the coasts, but it is definitely happening.
Here in the sticks we get the same electronically transmitted pop culture as NY or CA, and it has an effect. There are no barriers. We hicks are not immune.
The modern mating process seems almost deliberately designed to discourage marriage and stability, rather than promote it. Maybe this is the intended result of the Left's long term campaign to detroy civilization.
"I'll make a reasoned guess and say that most of the NYC adults with herpes, and many if not most of the NYC women with lots of sex partners, are not affluent white SATC types, but low-income blacks and Hispanics."
Yes, we all know that low-income blacks and Hispanics fall all over themselves to take surveys.
A lot of you people surely either live in denial...or in a bubble.
Back when I lived in Sailer country (The San Fernando Valley)a few years ago, I 'dated' a successful (white) hairdresser with her own shop. 'Wendy' was in her late 30's, beautiful and, well, healthy. We only dated a few times but I kept contact with her for probably 8 years, and I can honestly say I knew at least 20 guys she had slept with (including me) From this, and from what she had told me, I can ascertain that she was probably pushing quadruple-digit sex partners since loosing her virginity at fifteen.
Her friends were not quite as randy but were far from innocent and I slept with a few of them also. It was like sport to them, have a few drinks go to a bar, get picked up, so folks, join the real world. Samantha is not nearly the caricature you think she is.
Picking up a fortyish hairdresser. Wow you're really making us jealous here Truth.
Annoyed slightly overstated her (or his) case, but she/he is much closer to the mark than nutty neocon. The vast majority of women have no more than one sexual partner in a given year. If you're competing for NYC bar sluts, then yeah, the numbers will be higher.
The modern mating process seems almost deliberately designed to discourage marriage and stability, rather than promote it. Maybe this is the intended result of the Left's long term campaign to detroy civilization.
Here's a question for younger guys:
If it were possible, would you return to the sexual roles and behaviors of, say, 1960? That is, on the one hand, you would have less premarital sex, much less choice in sexual partners, earlier marriage and children, and total financial responsibility for your household. On the other hand, you would have the same level of economic, political, and social power compared to women that your grandfathers had. Would the trade-off be worth it to you? Remember, you're not time-traveling. You don't have to give up stem cell transplants and HDTVs, just screwing around and prolonged adolescence. In exchange, your sex gets to go back to being powerful and heroic, among other things, and you get to bask in the collective glory.
I ask because the two are directly related: Women's increased economic power freed them from the need to marry young (or at all, in some cases), which in turn allowed them to sleep around more, which in turn raised the sexual expectations of young men, which further discouraged early marriage, and so on and so on. I don't think you can have one without the other; and I wonder what younger men, who have no first-hand knowledge of another way, would choose.
the high earning man does not marry the low IQ tramp with the bodacious tits!! He marries a smart educated girl.
Lets be brutally honest here. Most of us are looking to marry the smart educated girl - with the bodacious tits!!
Lemme boil it down:
Happy assholes, with a lot of money, have no problem securing women in their twenties up till the men reach the age of about 55.
That's been my experience. I've dated Ford models, and everything in between, and the quality of the female was directly related to how much money I was making at the time, and my extroverted behavior to make life interesting for them.
By "quality" I mean, "amazing looking, traffic-stopping, crowd-gathering looks."
The best advice I could give is make a lot of money doing what you love, and women will never be a problem.
And don't get married. It's the worst business contract EVER, with a terrible success ratio.
If it was a company, you'd be crazy to buy the stock.
Marriage is about intimidation. You do it in a stupid heated moment, then by the time you've realized you've made a horrible mistake, you're too old, or you're unwilling to take the financial hit to get a divorce.
If men didn't have to give away half of what they owned, the divorce rates would skyrocket even higher.
If you want kids, compromise and get a shelter pup. You'd be doing yourself, and the world, a great service.
Don't hand your financial butt over to ANY person, ever. You'll regret it so hard, and in so many ways, later.
Beautiful women are predatory, not-so-beautiful women are desperate.
Either one is a really bad choice for a lifelong, legally binding "business partner."
"Her friends were not quite as randy but were far from innocent and I slept with a few of them also."
Yes, Truth, so you have herpes. This isn't the herpes dating/support group.
BTW, the stat on NY having a 25% rate of herpes probably isn't true either. But since I'm not going to sleep with anyone from NY, I wasn't concerned enough to look it up.
Here is an ariclt worth reading:
http://eternalbachelor.blogspot.com/2008/08/feminisms-success.html
Here are some excerpts:
Feminism is not the problem here. Its proponents have neither the brains nor the talent to advance this far on their own - high-status elite managerial men have allowed this to happen.
Men run the world. Men always have. Just a small number of alphas though. But that white technocratic political elite realised that in feminism they had found an unbeatable tool for cowing and demoralising lower status males who will always be potential usurpers
Feminism is part of the new class war whereby the right wing authoritarian elite have found they can use left wing dogmas to shore up their power. That is why elite managerial white alpha men like Tony Blair, David Cameron and Brown are so keen on it - it does not threaten them.
Feminism has finally achieved what Mrs Thatcher could never quite do - destroy workplace solidarity and ensure that collective action is largely a thing of the past. And it did not take billy-club wielding strike-breakers or labor camps. It took a generation of victimhood obsessed, unhinged females, who knew they could get away with saying and doing anything.
If the Wommen's Movement had been orchestrated and acted upon by women solely - and every man was either neutral or dead against it - those whining lezzers would have been bitch-slapped back into the kitchen so hard they'd smash through the wall and into the dining room with their burning bras round their neck.
Yet they seem to have been rather successful in inflicting their shitty ideology onto Western Society; and it does seem rather suspicious that virtually every man in mainstream-politics licks the unholy arses of feminisms. David Cameron forever being associated in my mind with his leadership acceptance speech when he bemoaned the horrors of the lack of women in his party, thus losing the vote of many men at a single stroke. The ponce.
Would I go go back to the mores of 1960? Absolutely. Hell, I'd go back to 1860. Maybe even 1760.
"The vast majority of women have no more than one sexual partner in a given year."
Wow, just, well...wow! That's all I can think right now.
"Picking up a fortyish hairdresser. Wow you're really making us jealous here Truth."
Beverly Hills Hairdresser though. she was hott and had a personality like a dude. She actually crawled under my car and diagnosed my brake problem once. It was just awesome.
"Yes, Truth, so you have herpes. This isn't the herpes dating/support group."
No, actually, Ive been very lucky, but I appreciate the concern.
Finally, I want to take a white race realist poll here; does this qualify as 'race traiting'?
I got out of it (and reclaimed my sanity and self-respect) by marrying a conservative blonde Turkish Muslim girl from a good family, who among other things has all the right views on race, third world immigration, and Israel.
Wow, now THIS is interesting. There are many schools of thought here. I would guess that most of the posters here would consider a tall minnesota blonde with a 'blonde' male Turk (hen's teeth) of the same description a race traitor, Am I right?
For all intents and purposes is race-trating only white female - anyone else, or is it only white female - black male. Inquiring minds want to know!
I see there are some skeptics of whiskey's/testing99's points here. So to the skeptics, I say: yes, this is real. It may be worse among the NYC/LA crowd than among Middle America, but it's spreading.
We live in a society where even successful millionaire computer programmers and entrepreneurs can now be so dreadfully unsuccessful with women that they find themselves taking expensive "PUA bootcamps" so that professionals can teach them "Game", i.e., the art of hitting those hardwired female attraction buttons.
This would be funny if it wasn't really sad. We have responsible, successful guys who have every aspect of their lives "together" -- and yet they can't find a woman -- while irresponsible bad-boy types often have more women than they know what to do with.
(Disclaimer: I myself am a millionaire computer programmer and entrepreneur who has been largely unsuccessful with women in my life, and who *has* in fact decided to take a bootcamp -- I've decided that this is a part of my life where I need professional help. Again, this would be funny that I've found myself resorting to such a thing... but it's not one bit funny to me.)
I can speak from experience to say that making a lot of money does not help you one bit with younger women these days. In fact, I would predict that you will do better telling women that you are unemployed than telling them that you are a software engineer.
You can criticize the "bar scene" and the often unsuitable women there, but if you do, you'll need to suggest an alternative. And if you suggest "meet them through your social circle", bzzzt, try again: my social circle consists of other nerdy guys, some of whom are significantly worse with women than I am.
You can criticize the PUA culture's obsession with casual sex over long-term relationships, but this would be a mistake. If you don't have Game, you will have difficulty finding either one. If you do, you'll have your choice of what you want. Indeed, there are even married guys who have found that Game is helpful in improving the quality of their marriage.
I was brought up on very traditional values that you study hard, work hard, and you will succeed in life. All wonderful advice. What no one taught me was that studying hard and working hard will make you money, but it will not get you any women.
Traditional dating really is dead for people in their 20s (I'm 26).
Read the roissy blog. Read F. Roger Devlin. You may find what they say exaggerated and somewhat offensive, but there is far too much truth to it to simply ignore it.
"(Disclaimer: I myself am a millionaire computer programmer and entrepreneur who has been largely unsuccessful with women in my life, and who *has* in fact decided to take a bootcamp -- I've decided that this is a part of my life where I need professional help. Again, this would be funny that I've found myself resorting to such a thing... but it's not one bit funny to me.)" - Zorgon
I still find all this hard to believe but on the off chance it might help, make this your mantra:
"It's easy if you don't give a damn..."
Also, note that you may be looking for 10s who appear to be 10s b/c of their push-up bras, make-up & possible plastic surgery. There are women out there who don't wear make-up unless they are going somewhere special & who wear comfortable clothes but who, if put in the same gear as those 10s, would look just as hot if not hotter.
Look for clear skin, bone structure & proportionality in a plain jane & presto she might just be what you are looking for. Plus she will be less superficial so you won't have to pretend to be cassanova to impress her.
We seem to have a consensus here that modern culture is broken in a vary important way: the mating process does not work. No one seems to be happy with it: women complain about it every chance they get, nerdy guys who can't get laid are obviously unhappy, and I suspect even the PUA's are not very happy with their lives.
So the question is: if no one likes the situation, why is it the way it is?
Nobody meets anyone worth a damn in a bar, you guys. Rarest occurrence ever.
You meet women at church. Or yoga class. Or the gym. Or at lectures. Or even (ew!) political campaigns and functions.
You want to meet models, take a modeling class and go to fashion shows. That's where they are, right? Can't imagine why though, most of them I've met are idiots.
Pick a function/hobby/whatever that has the kind of people you want to meet in it, and go there. That way you can meet people from your social strata who have the same general values as you do and you can avoid all the bug infested gold digger types that hang out in bars.
Bars suck, in my experience. Waste of time and money.
To see the male/female of cities by age, go to:
http://www.xoxosoma.com/singles/
When you eliminate the fact that women live longer (which skews the 55+ demographic) and isolate, say, the 24-34 group, the map shows lots of BIG BLUE BALLS.
"you may be looking for 10s" -- not even close.
"It's easy if you don't give a damn..." -- better advice than the classic useless advice "just be yourself", but not by much.
"Nobody meets anyone worth a damn in a bar" -- I think that's an exaggeration, but look at the alternatives for young guys who have already graduated and live in an urban/suburban area. Traditional social structures have broken down.
Church? Among highly educated folks of my generation, church attendance is pretty low.
Political campaigns? Maybe if you're a leftist guy. Look at Obama's % of the vote among younger people and among single women. On top of that, I live in a county where Obama won 2/3 of the vote (Travis County, TX), so I can only imagine how absurdly lopsided it was among young single women here.
Hobbies/clubs/common interests? This is a little better as options go, but a lot of my interests are male-dominated areas, and while this may get you female friends it will not necessarily get you a date. Once you wind up in the "friend zone" it's impossible to get out. In PUA lingo, "attraction before comfort."
I live in a suburban area, and many of the women I see day-to-day around these parts are middle-aged, often married and dragging their kids around, often obese. I would probably do better living downtown and not in the suburbs.
You didn't list online dating, but that's a good way to spend lots of time and money and get absolutely nowhere. Send 100 emails... get maybe 2 or 3 dates.
"if no one likes the situation, why is it the way it is?" -- the contention of roissy and Devlin is that feminism/women's lib caused it. It freed women to chase alpha males and ignore betas. The sexual revolution unleashed a bunch of forces we didn't really understand, and only now are we starting to see what its effects are. It's dangerous to mess with age-old social institutions -- imagine that!
The reason things are broken is that older married women used to create the social context in which their children could get married and make grandbabies for them but now they all have mostly completely useless jobs instead.
Some of them knew they were doing this, but most were just doing what they felt was expected of them. Mostly women do what they feel is expected of them. It's expected now that women have jobs. If they don't have a job, they need to be doing intensive childrearing or volunteer work. It's completely unacceptable for them to spend their afternoons playing bridge or touring each other's gardens or shopping for hats or any other ladylike pursuit. But those apparently useless activities BUILT THE ENTIRE FREAKING SOCIAL WORLD. Just like a world of women would never invent anything useful, a world of men will never have a nice party. You meet your spouse at a nice party that your mom nagged you into going to because her friend needs more people there. You have total plausible deniability about being there - you're not there cause you're lonely and desperate - you don't need game, you don't need the rules. The biddies took care of that for you. All you need to do is show up and be fertile/virile.
But middle-aged women can't do this, and have jobs, and take care of their elderly parents, and exercise, and worry about their husbands leaving them or have to take care of their children with no husband at all. Impossible.
I've given up on the whole mating game. I considered the PUA thing, but it is ridiculous to have to go to such lengths just to get women.
It's not worth the effort.
This is a little better as options go, but a lot of my interests are male-dominated areas, and while this may get you female friends it will not necessarily get you a date.
Most of my interests are in female (and gay male) dominated areas - sports, tech, etc. bore me to tears. However, I wanted to meet men so I forced myself to get involved in things that mostly men like, however boring or embarrassing I found it at times. And it worked. If you want to meet women, you'll have to do the same, just in the opposite direction.
Except last Anon -- women don't select "friends." Women select in BARS. That's it. In volunteer groups? Young women almost never volunteer, it's older married women in their fifties ... or older.
I've been in many a volunteer group, that one would assume would be ground zero for younger women (Sierra Club, Habitat for Humanity, etc.) and the women there were all over fifty. Mostly it was run by them. The "Singles" groups are a laugh -- mostly men and women over fifty, divorced. A useful service perhaps but of no use to younger men and women.
In fact, Volunteering in America has a useful city and national survey. Older people make volunteering happen. Younger people are too busy with the mating game which is dominated by the bar scene. Churches too are dominated by older women -- younger women don't attend. The workplace is a minefield.
As for women's partners, anyone catch the WE network series on girls in HS? I was shocked, but after reflection less so, on how many had not just had sex while significantly underage, but also got pregnant. Out of seven girls profiled, one had her baby (gave it up for adoption), one had an abortion, and one had a miscarriage. This was in conservative Kansas, too. The heartland. The others averaged two sex partners in the four years. Other surveys have put partners (Wolfe's Charlotte Simmons was fairly accurate) in college for girls at about eight to ten over four years. Booze, no responsibilities, removal from family and friends, expectation of sex, easily leads to two partners a year on average (the reality is more like a bunch of flings between boyfriends).
I'm more on the Roissy than Devlin side. I don't think Feminism is particularly significant, in it's widespread impact on how women live their lives. I don't think either that the problem is older women not matchmaking -- see the film "Crossing Delancy" to see why that is failed.
The Pill, and the Condom, plus physical mobility to live in anonymous, high-income urban centers, allows women absolute freedom to choose with no social constraints. Women, "empowered" to the same equal social status of men and roughly equal income will not, largely accept men of equal status and income. They demand a premium. Mostly, in testosterone-driven physical attractiveness, in the bar scene, where a split-second decision (often drunk, as Bridget Jones shows) to sleep with a guy based on his social dominance and aggressiveness is the norm. Women want the "Alpha" defined soley on his ability to attract women, and will share them. This happens across cultures, in Japan and South Korea and Taiwan and Southern Europe and Northern Europe and America and even Latin America.
It's the social position and control women have over their own lives that leads to them choosing what they want -- lots of sex with "Alphas" where they are willing to share and do so. Women absent constraints demand a premium over their own perceived social position. Which leaves most men out.
"to get involved in things that mostly men like, however boring or embarrassing I found it at times. And it worked. If you want to meet women, you'll have to do the same, just in the opposite direction."
So give ONE CONCRETE SUGGESTION about a social environment with a surplus of single, non-obese young women, where men are permitted*.
*Note that men are officially excluded from "women's Bible studies," "Curves," shopping for women's shoes, volunteering at many women's shelters, etc.
A woman can easily go to a seminar on home beer brewing, a hiking club, a motorsport club, an aviation club, a model train club, an anime festival, hiking club, gun club, golf club, Cichlid association meeting, etc., ad infinitum. But where should a man go?
Fat middle-aged knitting clubs and bridge clubs for the elderly don't count.
Even if an activity (like running) attracts men and women equally, the xoxosoma map shows that fertile single women will be in extremely short supply.
And you haven't addressed the obesity epidemic which disfigures a significant portion of women who would have been eligible a generation or two ago.
I married a Chinese woman, and there the man is expected to give a gift of money to the bride's parents. As peterw said, this may be related to the woman doing a lot of the work. Perhaps not coincidentally, I've read that China is one of the few countries in the world with a higher female than male suicide rate.
"I've given up on the whole mating game. I considered the PUA thing, but it is ridiculous to have to go to such lengths just to get women. It's not worth the effort." -- I know guys who seem to be in this camp. And even among the PUA community, it's a pretty common attitude that "most young women are no longer suitable for long-term relationships, and marriage is a horribly raw deal for men." Both attitudes speak ill for the future of our society.
"older married women used to create the social context in which their children could get married and make grandbabies for them but now they all have mostly completely useless jobs instead." -- Don't forget mobility. I am one of 3 brothers. Only 1 of the 3 of us lives in the same state as my parents. The other two (including me) live over 1000 miles away. I actually wouldn't mind hanging out with my parents' friends and their kids, but we scattered all over the place.
"you haven't addressed the obesity epidemic which disfigures a significant portion of women who would have been eligible a generation or two ago." -- well, let's be fair, plenty of guys are obese too. Anyway, these days, I'm in good shape, and that helps, but it only helps so much.
So give ONE CONCRETE SUGGESTION about a social environment with a surplus of single, non-obese young women, where men are permitted*.
Dancing classes. Learn to salsa, swing, tango, whatever floats your boat. Meeting single, fit women here, who are literally captive audiences (when you're dancing) is ridiculously easy (many of whom join for the same reason).
Most dance schools in turn hold dance parties restricted to the schools students where you will be introduced to additional women outside your class in a collegial environment where women are rarely in defensive mode & are likely there on their own (no girlfriends serving as a moat). If you're shy about approaching women, a place where you are matched up with various women by others for dancing purposes and you both work together to learn how to do something, can be great. Women tend to outnumber men, unsurprisingly, so that's another plus.
"So give ONE CONCRETE SUGGESTION about a social environment with a surplus of single, non-obese young women, where men are permitted*"
I hate to give away my own personal secret, but hey, we're brothers right?
Go to job fairs in your town. TONS of single women looking for jobs and they're in the mindset that they are there TO IMPRESS MEN. You can hand out business cards and say "we'll keep in touch I have a lot of contacts." That's kind of like catnip to Felix when the mortgage is soon to come due. Then you call up, offer lunch, be a little arrogant...boom! you're in there.
testin99,
How old are you? If you're 45 and not George Clooney snagging a hot 25 y/o is somewhat unlikely. Realistic standards are the name of the game.
as an old married guy, I'll tell you that intense preoccupation w/ looks is self-defeating. My first wife was beautiful but selfish and spoiled. After our divorce I married a woman who was physically less attractive but with a sweet soul and I haven't been sorry in 20 years. Even beauty queen will be old for a longer time than she is young.
In life you get what you look for. If you seek out beauty you'll find it but smarts, morals etc. might not be included. If you seek out smarts and morals you'll find them but beauty might not be included. Decide which one matters to you and choose accordingly. But don't whine that looking for a hot body doesn't result in finding inner beauty.
Holy hell Zorgon did you let slip that you live in Travis county? As in within at least a short drive of AUSTIN TEXAS. Damn it man that place is the MOTHERLOAD! You must be shy. That is the only explanation. Get thee to sixth street, fourth street and start talking to girls. Don't stop talking until you get a phone number. Friendliest place ever and people love to drink and socialize.
The advice about not giving a damn is a zillion times better than "be yourself" -- and almost a zillion times more difficult to pull off.
I'm a built, good-looking guy who spent years hanging out with Italian "mafia" wanna-be's. Girls have always been pretty easy for me. Mostly low-rent stuff in those circles, but still plenty of hotties.
Since leaving that world behind, I've graduated to the more cerebral set. It took a while to figure out they're really no different.
Guys phenomenally underestimate the importance of their own looks. If you're not good-looking, you're going to have to work damn hard to get just a 7; 8s and, especially, 9s, you can virtually forget about.
"PUA" material can be quite useful here. I first got interested some ten years ago, when I wanted to find out what the "pros" were doing better than me. Not a great deal, as it happened. I made some useful attitudinal adjustments, but they weren't anything radically different from the way I already was. If your mindset is radically different to what "PUA" prescribes, I really can't see the material, of itself, being much help. There's a world of difference between understanding it intellectually and displaying those behaviors yourself.
Still, the best stuff invariably comes down to lowering her value while raising yours, and few things do that better than resolute nonchalance, and that's a state of mind that, with enough practise, most could probably develop.
Personally, I'm in it for a wife these days. Most girls are almost certainly way more experienced than they let on, but that doesn't bother me so much (yeah, not even having been with "Truth" is a deal-breaker). Human nature is much more fixed than cultural anthros might believe, but it's also a lot less fixed than most hbd hardasses believe. Point: if she has enough positives, you can retrain the rest of her. At least, I feel completely confident that I can. (Seriously, I can hardly even conceptualize not getting my way with a girl who's into me. Not that it can't happen, of course.)
For an interesting post on the "whats your number" issue, see:
http://dlicioustastytoo.blogspot.com/
Guess I'm lucky. I am single and just retired from 30 years as a Law Enforcement Administrator in Southern California with a yearly pension of 230K with 5% pay increases every year. Over five million in investments, 1.5 million in the bank, plus full paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for myself and my wife if I was married. I have two homes one in the city one at the beach that are paid for. My vehicles are paid off and I have no credit card debt. I am a good looking guy who has had many offers from bachelorettes however so far I have not wanted to share my life with any of them.
Now that said I would like to meet Miss right and settle down. She would be well cared for and pampered.
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