Live data from Hacker News

Most young men are single. Most young women are not

thehill.com

151–160 of 300 posts

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#151

Throwaway account due to sensitive personal stories. Me and my 4 close friends are reasonably successful in terms of societal standards; we all hit the gym religiously, earn over 100K in a big European city, speak multiple languages and we are all in our early to mid 30s. Dating wise, we each have our funnel of dates from dating apps, nights out where we collect numbers and one night stands. We regularly get around 2…

I assume you and your friends are also just naturally good looking too. (Taller than average, good face, preferred race, etc.) For places like the bar, online, and other cold approach avenues - looks are paramount to your success.

If someone thinks you’re physically unattractive - you’re not going to seduce them in such a short fashion. It takes a long time to build a rapport where most women will sleep with you if she doesn’t find you physically attractive.

Clothes and whatever obviously help but turd polishing doesn’t go as far as people often believe.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#152

The article is written in a weird way which suggests that women are pursuing better options and are happy about that, but statistics don’t bear that out. Self-reported life satisfaction for women has been declining since the 1970s: https://docs.iza.org/dp4200.pdf Something I’ve noticed is that American parents of the boomer generation have pretty much abdicated their role in getting younger people paired up. Young pe…

Better options, does not necessarily mean more happiness. The better options are usually independence and physical security, and they come with a price, of which happiness might be one of them. After all, western societies have long moved into a direction where actual happiness is not as important as the fake-happiness from economic factors and social standing, or recently the kick from entertainments.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#153

Boys addicted to computer games and porn, girls addicted to social media which allow and facilitate sexism (only one way), an increasingly bleak future, economic and geopolitical uncertainty, "intelligence" organisations running rampant trying to control citizen's minds.. Yeah I wonder why our societies are going down the shitter.

Reversion to the mean... "Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same." https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success

Why 'reversion to the mean'?

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#154

Throwaway account due to sensitive personal stories. Me and my 4 close friends are reasonably successful in terms of societal standards; we all hit the gym religiously, earn over 100K in a big European city, speak multiple languages and we are all in our early to mid 30s. Dating wise, we each have our funnel of dates from dating apps, nights out where we collect numbers and one night stands. We regularly get around 2…

> My advice is to not bother with dating until you reach certain status in life, earn good money, have good physique, have friends in high places and most importantly, provide fun.

When it comes to marriage, you need to realize that a wedding is not a capstone, but a corner stone. You don't crown your life with a wife, you build up one with a partner.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#155

Boys addicted to computer games and porn, girls addicted to social media which allow and facilitate sexism (only one way), an increasingly bleak future, economic and geopolitical uncertainty, "intelligence" organisations running rampant trying to control citizen's minds.. Yeah I wonder why our societies are going down the shitter.

I am highly skeptical that computer games and porn addictions are significant factors here. Sure they are problems that need to be solved, but I doubt it is a significant contribution to the problem. I can see how social media might bias perception though. I guess pre-internet era you just had to compete against people in your local community when you were looking for a partner. Way harder now to standout in the worl…

I think op has a point. Almost every woman I know, my wife included, expresses some level of disgust at the idea of an adult man playing video games. I don't think I know many women who are alright with a man who plays video games, let alone a man who spends 1 hour or more on it per day.

A few friends of my wife REALLY complain about men playing video games (dating prospects and current partners). It's a double standard, because they themselves use social media or consume media, but that's just the way it is.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#156
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life was so much better for me when wars killed so many young men that the survivors had an easier time dating, eh?

Only if you happened to end up in the group that was not killed.

If you get killed, all your sorrows go away. And as weaklings get more likely killed, the species evolves in a positive way.

So it is a win-win-win strategy.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#157

I grew up in Latin America but now I'm married to an American woman and thus out of the "pool". I hang out with coworkers still in their 20s and I'm blown away by how their teens and 20s differed from mine. When I was single, all my friends and I could think about was how to find the next date or sexual partner. We were all very active, and I personally had over a dozen "serious" girlfriends (3+ months) and another c…

How old are you?

I’ve found many men also severely underrate how physically attractive they are. I’ve had male models tell me they’re average looking, guys who are 6ft+ say they’re average height, and guys who literally have girls asking them out saying they’re nothing special.

You might think you know how to talk to women but it might just be a halo effect. It’s more often that than anything else. I’ve seen many men go through the exact same dialogue and have wildly different results because one guy is physically attractive and the other isn’t.

There’s a good example of someone I see in person regularly. Guy is a bit of a doofus but he’s tall as hell and has a jawline. Women are constantly asking for his number and interacting with him all the time. Yet, the women who have talked to him for more than ten minutes are like, “yeah he’s terrible. So awkward, unfunny, and the dancing - holy cow is it bad!” Literally he sells so well on his physicality but then he can’t deliver with personality. Women give him more chances than they’ll ever give any of his shorter peers.

I was pretty blown away when he told me about how he gets endless matches and dates from online because - again - dude is a total doofus. You couldn’t get a much worse person socially and yet he’s swimming in options.

Personality is overrated these days, imo.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#158

I find this very surprising. The first sentence of the article states that about 60% of men are single, and only about 30% of women. There's about equal men and women, so that would mean that 30% of women are dating each other, or are in relationships with multiple men? That's discounting men dating men. I find that surprising.

Nothing surprising, yes this is mostly about top 10% of men dating several women each. Inequality in action.

I see this talking point all the time yet never backed up by studies. That would mean that these attractive men put a premium on quantity over quality (because they’d have to date women less attractive then them for the numbers to work out) and have lots of time and mental energy at their disposal to manage these concurrent relationships. Whereas in general people tend to date people that are more or less as attractive as themselves, and the most prevalent form of relationships is still a two person couple. For casual flings it might be different.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#159

Is this surprising? My intuition, backed by approximately 0 data, is that there's a 5 to 10 year age gap preference, such that men prefer to be with slightly younger women and women with slightly older men. As a result, young men don't really have a dating pool. Once they hit 30, as long as they're not total wasters, women will take more interest.

it is definitely surprising...a big change in last 5-10 years. Women actually dont prefer a v large age gap--less than men and on the order of 2-3 years. Age def explains some of this statistic but isnt enough to explain it all. This is probably also result of slight harem effect and of people categorising relationships differently (man thinks he is single, woman thinks its monogamous etc).

I suppose that the age similarity might mainly be a peer group effect. People in the early twenties tend to hang out a lot with people of around their same age, e.g. due to college/ university classes or parties. As long as dating happens predominantly within the peer group, age differences usually aren't very big. But once online dating is used, larger age differences occur quite naturally.

Re: Most young men are single. Most young women are not

#160
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture matters. You can have the most "game" but if you grow up in Saudi Arabia or India you will almost certainly have a lower "count" than someone with no game who grew up in Brazil.

True, but what I'm saying is that the same overall approach - at least in my case - worked well in the US, even though things were harder at first (some tweaks were needed indeed). I bet things would be different in India or Saudi Arabia, however we're talking about the US here. I'm saying that if young American men had the opportunity to learn how to court women, they would have no problems finding mates.

> if young American men had the opportunity to learn how to court women

You growing up in a culture where courting women is encouraged makes a huge difference, you can't really practice if it isn't socially acceptable to court women badly.

Post reply on HN