Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dating, education, and sex ratios

robkhenderson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 446 posts

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#31

Post by majormajor »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #12

What I find interesting and I am curious if these conversations can happen anymore. I no longer discuss anything related to gender, relationships, or personal life dynamics with anyone outside of my bubble. I would enjoy the conversation, learning about another's ideas and understanding although despite assurances of maturity and openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements. I do not believe id…

When you say the "general public" do you mean the general online/Twitter public or, say, an acquaintance from a hobby?

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#32

Post by andrewmcwatters »

sho_hn wrote: post #26
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #18

To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect…

> they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them I don't think this is female-specific. I see a lot of young men around me delaying "getting serious" into their mid-30s too, and have very high standards by that point. I'd include myself. I met my wife at 30, and by that time I was also looking for someone in a similar life s…

Yeah, I see the same problem with young men, too. People say the dating pool turns in their favor by the time they get to their 30s, but you've missed out on an entire possible era of your life together with someone at that point.

And the dating pool absolutely does not look the same.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#33

Post by scarmig »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #18

To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect…

They are outcompeting men in their premarriage years; in the most significant metros, single women's income matches or exceeds single men's. And as of 2016 40% of managers are female.

I agree that women tend to not be going for the riskiest jobs or those that require significant tradeoffs in work-life balance; for those, you need a supportive spouse, and there are both demand- and supply-side issues in pairings where males play the supportive role to a female primary earner.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#34

Post by swozey »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #18

To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect…

> they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them.

I'm in my 30s and never married. I fully expect someone to come as a full person with an education and career. I am beyond glad that I didn't get married to my high school sweet heart or someone I dated in my early 20s when I was still a kid. I am nothing like I was when I was 20, or 25. Maybe even 30.

I know way, way too many people who did that and are now divorced. And a lot of the women in those relationships had children very early and didn't have a chance to get an education or start a career so now that they're divorced and on their own they're having a very hard time securing good income.

Women are definitely not "asking for too much." I would rather be happily single than compromise heavily on my expectations, and I'd wager the sort of women we're talking about feel the same.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#35

Post by xpe »

salmonfamine wrote: post #5
churchill wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I think this is a conversation worth having, but this is a tech news board. This isn't exactly on topic, and is guaranteed to be inflammatory.

> is guaranteed to be inflammatory.

This is your prediction. It seems overconfident to me.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#36

Post by seniorThrowaway »

sho_hn wrote: post #17
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. or Most men who program aren't "good with socializing" let alone "good with socializing with women".

> More like most women don't find men who program interesting/fun. I hear a lot of heterosexual male SW engineers lament this, but I find it not true in practice. We live in a world dominated (and even inundated) by messaging that navigating technology is a recipe for success. It usually pays decently to well. Programmers don't have dating problems from their profession.

The issue is that the personality traits that tend to correlate with good programming and software engineering - logic, reasoning, detachment, analysis, thinking outside the box - don't tend to correlate well with interpersonal and especially romantic interpersonal relationships. In order to be successful in relationships, those types of minds have to consistently and constantly do things they consider completely irrational and uncomfortable, which is difficult to maintain.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#37

Post by sho_hn »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #32
sho_hn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the time they meet them I don't think this is female-specific. I see a lot of young men around me delaying "getting serious" into their mid-30s too, and have very high standards by that point. I'd include myself. I met my wife at 30, and by that time I was also looking for someone in a similar life s…

Yeah, I see the same problem with young men, too. People say the dating pool turns in their favor by the time they get to their 30s, but you've missed out on an entire possible era of your life together with someone at that point. And the dating pool absolutely does not look the same.

It's definitely true that my wife I say "I wish I had met you five years earlier" a lot, e.g. around things like starting a fam. There's something to what you say there, it gives you more runway in HN parlance.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#38

Post by redmerchant2 »

This is a known issue but the down stream effect won’t be felt for a while.

Let’s be clear we’re talking about general behavioral trend, not trying to police an individual, which is the crux of contention for these topics.

Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true.

The education gap between men and women are growing. More women enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young men, mostly lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel like the education system does not work for them.

Society and companies are reconciling the barriers for women’s advancement and we’re only observing this initial gap. That is well and good. But in 10-20 years women will out number men in many fields requiring higher education.

The real problem arises when that clashes with traditional expectations. The women in the article is a successful Yale grad who wants a partner with better pedigree. If you include looks and height requirements her dating pool is like The implication of the dating “market” not being able to match buyers and sellers would have some interesting dynamics.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#39

Post by maxsilver »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #12

What I find interesting and I am curious if these conversations can happen anymore. I no longer discuss anything related to gender, relationships, or personal life dynamics with anyone outside of my bubble. I would enjoy the conversation, learning about another's ideas and understanding although despite assurances of maturity and openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements. I do not believe id…

> conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements.

Where are you? In the US, most of us still have these conversations about gender, relationships, and life dynamics all the time. (If anything, this is arguably 70%+ of everything we talk about, among friends and acquaintances in the community).

> although despite assurances of maturity and openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements.

Is there a common thread here? Can you imagine what might prompt such a response?

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#40

Post by andrewmcwatters »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #29
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #18

To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over boards and middle management positions. Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect…

"what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of education?" Maybe a surplus of education just means...they spent more time and money on school? Dominating markets and leadership positions, building businesses...how much formal education you have rarely plays a big role in these endeavors... Just my personal experience.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. It's not a useful social signal: it just means you spent more time and money and incurred more debt than men without any additional context.
Post reply on HN