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The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

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Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#101

Post by time_management »

electromagnetic wrote: post #95
Xichekolas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess that the reason is actually the opposite. The marriage wasn't doing that well to begin with, but there was a financial incentive not to rock the boat (the money). Once you lose that salary, the woman has less incentive to put up with a marriage she is unhappy with. If people will marry someone just for the money, I don't find it much of a stretch to assume they will stick together as long as the funds keep…

You also have to question the nature of the marriage to begin with. If he was doing a high-paid job when they got married, then I would likely say that she was a gold-digger to begin with. The marriage would end in divorce solely because he lost the reason why she married him in the first place.

Right. That most divorces follow economic troubles does not imply most economic problems lead to divorce. It's easy to ignore this and make a converse fallacy.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#103

Post by bitwize »

time_management wrote: post #53
dgabriel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do we refer to the low quality suburban men? Or is this thread limited to woman-bashing?

No, there definitely needs to be a term for such men. Lumberghs, perhaps? (This would be after Bill Lumbergh, the idiot middle-manager in Office Space .) I would say that, whatever the term is, it should evoke the image of a middle-manager petty tyrant who takes his emasculation (both in the home/family sphere, and by nature of his being subordinate to upper management) out on his underlings.

"Well... _Lumbergh_ fucked her!"

"Ohhh, ohh yeah, that's terrific..."

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#104

Post by electromagnetic »

vaksel wrote: post #97
electromagnetic wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why do you have this bizarre perception that marriage is like a primordial evil?

from seeing it suck the life out of almost every single married guy I know

> "almost every"

Compare the difference between your friends who are successfully married and unsuccessfully married (in your eyes) and determine what the difference between those guys are. I guarantee you it will be equally as insightful as comparing their wives.

I'd guess that the men who are successfully married have retained an equal share of dominance in their relationship and the unsuccessful ones are essentially pussy whipped because they never stood up to their wives for fear of ending up single.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#105

Post by geebee »

old-gregg wrote: post #86
geebee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The thing to keep in mind is that this works against men as well as women, it just hits them at different points in their lives. If women between the ages of 21 and 25 are interested in (and pursued by) men between the ages of 21 and 35+, while men between 21 and 25 are limited to women who are roughly the same age, then men will face a very difficult dating "market" in their early 20s, and women will experi…

You're right, life gets tougher for women after 30 but I am not following you in where does this benefit men? According to your analysis a larger pool of men 21-40 are always competing for a smaller pool of attractive women 21-30, so if you're a single male, the ratio is always against you no matter how old you are. And that's what I'm observing in real life. Perhaps I'm too young, but every public gathering I go to…

Some guys are like that. But in my example (or I guess you could call it my model), I had guys interested in women at or below their age, and women interested in men at or above their age. In reality, it differs for each person, but average age preference is probably a right or left skewed bell curve for women and men.

And of course, women probably aren't attracted to older men simply because they are older, they're probably attracted to the life and professional accomplishment, maturity, financial resources, and so forth - sorry bruddas, but merely aging is not going to help things here.

On the flip side, the numbers really do start to look grim for single women as they approach 40. A lot of women enjoy the dating scene when they are in their early 20s, get married around 30, and stay happily married their whole lives - and never really feel any of the frustration of being on the wrong side of the dating equation. However, this means that most of the disadvantage gets concentrated onto a fairly small number of women, who basically get the full brunt of it.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#106

Post by electromagnetic »

Xichekolas wrote: post #98
electromagnetic wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to question the nature of the marriage to begin with. If he was doing a high-paid job when they got married, then I would likely say that she was a gold-digger to begin with. The marriage would end in divorce solely because he lost the reason why she married him in the first place.

While that is certainly possible, I wouldn't argue it's required. Consider a couple that is living together. They might be unhappy, but bearing it anyway because they have a lease and moving out and separating all your stuff is a pain in the ass. However, once that lease comes up for renewal, suddenly the burden of breaking up isn't so heavy, which might be just enough to make it happen. What I was proposing for marr…

There does seem to be a lot of people (males and females) looking for an excuse to escape a relationship. Honestly I believe many of these relationships are already failed because both parties have essentially quit but are 'going through the motions' and when the 'motions' change then it becomes easier to quit than adapt, just like it was easier to stay together than split.

This behavior just reminds me of the concept of a philosophical zombie. They seem to make the choice not through conscious thought but through unconscious programming.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#107

Post by huherto »

miked wrote: post #44

It's been a while since I read his explanation, but an economist -- I believe it was Tim Harford in _The Undercover Economist_, but it may have been Tyler Cowan -- has already solved this, and with a very different answer. Several factors are operating. First, due to a higher death rate among males, the number of women begins to exceed the number of men (of a given age) starting at age 23. Next, there are about 10 ti…

"Several factors are operating...". Also lot of men are ineligible. (Drink too much, Do not have a stable job, very unfaithful)

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#108

Post by electromagnetic »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #99
vaksel wrote: post #24

I think additional part of the problem is that men are starting to realize that they really don't have anything to gain by being married. And they are so afraid of having to go through a divorce that can wipe them out, that they don't feel like trying. I mean a 50% divorce rate in this country, is pretty much a coin toss on whether or not you lose everything. Seriously the only thing to gain by being married is savin…

Europe is a big and diverse place. At least 10 European countries have higher divorce rates than the USA, and many others are about the same. The cultural mores regarding marriage are much different in Italy than they are in Sweden. Thus it doesn't seem like finding a "nice european girl" is going to statistically help you avoid divorce. European countries with low divorce rates generally have conservative laws regar…

IIRC it was last year (2008) that a judge in Italy ruled it legally acceptable for a wife to lie to the police to cover up adultery. I believe the police had to pay damages or something due to her adultery being revealed and ending her marriage.

I mean "nice european girl" is a fallacy. All the advertising on TV I see from the US uses Europe as an advertisement piece. I mean those BS high-definition sunglasses with 'modern european styling'... I'm sorry, I don't know a single European to wear anything that even looks like it and most wouldn't be seen dead in them. Then there's all the crap named 'Europe's finest', I'm sorry my fruit when I still lived in Europe came from South America!

There's this widely held perception in the US that European = Good, or at least thats what the advertisements explicitly state. It's a completely false perception.

The only problem with Americans is problems Americans caused. I mean the mere fact that Ayn Rand is universally known in the USA, and I'd never heard of her until I took a sociology course and she was highlighted in the US politics section and I believe my sociology teacher said "where america went wrong" after mentioning her politics.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#109

Post by Tangurena »

whacked_new wrote: post #84
huherto wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand your analogy. Please explain.

Women don't spontaneously mutate into bad women. The problem is likely deep, and societal. If it is societal, then we might (irresponsibly) say that the society produces bad women. If this is the case, then, speaking extremely, at some point you'll run out of the "good" non-native women, but the society is still a factory of bad women. Unsustainable. This strategy reminds me of: we need energy; drill oil; oil dries;…

This was part of the point of Naomi Wolfe's book The Beauty Myth - that our "standards of beauty" are dysfunctional and "the system" is, as you put it, "a factory of bad women." Many survive and thrive despite the faulty process.

Re: The Eligible Bachelor Paradox

#110

Post by homme »

vaksel wrote: post #87
time_management wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind my asking, where do you live? I've been well-aware of the low average quality of American women since college. In high school, I expected them to have horrible tastes in men (pro-meathead jock, anti-smart guy) because that's what the movies told me was "normal" for HS. Actually, HS was not nearly as bad as I'd been led to anticipate. It was the realization that women's tastes didn't improve when I w…

I live in NJ, so you being from New York can probably attest to the low quality of marriage material in the area. Not that it doesn't exist, but its more of a needle in a haystack problem. So I find that its easier to date, at least that way when you both grow tired of each other, you don't lose half your stuff in the divorce.

You are dead on about Europe and NJ. Nothing worse than Jersey dumpster diving, especially when you are unaware that is what you are doing.

Some friends of mine went to Europe and came back with 10s, all of them. The most shocking thing they told me was that to talk to women there...you don't even have to have anyththing, you can just be you

Unfortunately, I learned too late. For all the young college guys out there having a hard time, take heed. You get a dilution hit cashing out now, just hold onto your stock and ride it through. Time is on your side.

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