I can't recommend this book enough on the topic. TLDR Women are more picky then Men in the courtship marketplace, and finding a partner with matching values is most important to growing and staying together. People expect a fairy tale, when they're signing up for a job (relationships require work and effort).
A quote from the author 10 years post publishing: “I think the book is really, ironically, about having higher standards about the things that matter, like the character qualities, generosity, kindness, reliability, and not getting so hung up on things like, you know, whether you’re going to go on a second date with a guy because of how he dressed.”
EDIT: @300bps (HN throttling, can't reply directly) Indeed. The book covers exactly this (census data for the dating marketplace and the dynamic between genders as age brackets tick upwards). The market is great for women 21-30, and it rapidly declines after 35. You can borrow the book from the Internet Archive with the library link I tossed in this comment for more context.
It’s important to note that part of the job is to make it a fun job at the least, and daresay a fairy tale at the most.
This includes positive surprises (though care needs to be taken), thoughtful gifts (especially on Valentine’s and birthdays), and some element of spontaneity. Flirting is also important.
Spontaneity can be considered as part of the job, but it’s important to keep it fun to avoid boredom in a relationship. I’ve read anecdotes that a faithful but boring relationship can cause another partner to unexpectedly break up at the least, or have an affair at the most.
I recommend a person to work on making the relationship exciting instead of breaking it off, but as evidence that this is important to factor in, a few anecdotes of people with this problem are listed below:
It's not. It's BS but it's apparently popular view among certain audience (maybe Americans?).
Why are you people so cold and calculating when talking about feelings? Love and care do wonders and you are able to work everything out almost effortlessly. I have seen it in couples several times in the past and I am experiencing it for over 8 years now as well. With the right person it works automatically and there's zero sense of "sacrifice" there. In 8 years I haven't felt that I've made a compromise that hurt me or her. None of us ever felt like they had to cut a part of themselves to continue being in the relationship. We develop and grow together.
I'll never agree to this work-ethic-like expression of relationships. To me you look miserable for even using that framework of a language.
> People expect a fairy tale, when they're signing up for a job.
Nope. BS. And I am saying this as a guy with one failed marriage and now with a super happy one going stronger than before even, 8 years down the line.
Stop perpetuating work ethic when it comes to feelings and partnership, please. Relationships can be beautiful in literally every way. Maybe just keep looking and don't generalize because that makes you look bitter. Is that your intent?
The key is to find someone who is actually attracted to you. Not in a "oh I guess I can tolerate kissing you" type of way, but in a "I often fantasize about touching your body" type of way.
Mutual sexual attraction makes it possible to develop that type of relationship, but a lot of the time men in particular settle for less.
I strongly encourage anyone who doesn't have that type of relationship and wants one to break things off. Even if there's only a 25% chance you think you could find someone like that, it's worth it: it makes everything nearly effortless, and the relationship becomes filled with joy and not drudgery.
Absolutely! I didn't even look that good when my wife found me; I had a belly and my teeth definitely needed attention (and after 32 months of bracers they look better than those of most people I meet nowadays ^_^). She still thought I was the sexiest man she has ever met, and her actions when we were alone confirmed it many times.
Without genuine attraction a relationship turns into a transaction. And it starts poisoning the sides involved.
I too recommend people getting a bit more courageous and stop settling for less than what would make them happy.
It's not so much work ethic as it is mental discipline. If you have not mastered yourself when it comes to the dishes, you cannot master yourself in tough periods of life, and so on. You have to be present in each moment, regardless of whether it's doing dishes or having the best day of your life.
IMO part of a relationship is to grow and develop together. If somebody stubbornly decides they are already as perfect as they can ever be, then the results -- them being lonely -- are predictable.
And yep, being present and aware is absolutely critical, I agree with you.
Just a tip, the throttling only applies to the comment thread, and I believe it is only a five-minute timeout.
You can always reply to a comment directly without waiting for the timeout, by clicking on the timestamp next to the username. That takes you to the individual comment page which will have a reply box.
> A 21 year old woman on a dating site has to be picky. She's getting constant messages from men anywhere from 18 years old to 100 years old.
Putting the rest aside for a moment, I never till recently knew how true this was. I'm gay(ish) and I had never been on straight Tinder, so I always brushed off my friends' complaints as histrionic. A month or two ago I decided, in a moment of experimentation, to set my Tinder to 'bi'. I do pretty well on gay Tinder - overwhelmingly the guys I'm interested in are interested back - so I expected great things. I got nothing. Not a word, not from a single girl.
Out of sheer curiosity I matched one time with one of the enormous acneous beasts who were the only girls to swipe right on me, and even she didn't send me a message. It's wild. If I were straight, I'd be an incel by now. I know from (very very little) real-life experience that I'm not that unattractive to (what I'd consider) good-looking girls, but the online dating apps are seemingly just a meat market. I struggle to make sense of it all.
What's unfortunate is that I can literally emphasize the words on average and use words like generally and still get the accusation that boils down to, "but not everyone is like that."
If you think my opinion is useless, the most likely reason is because you have little to no experience with the topic. Are you in your 40s? How many 47 year old women have you dated?
Well, I'm within a year or so of being forty. I've have been on about 75 dates over the last two years with women aged 29 to 50s.
IME, often the desirable ladies in their forties have been those who stayed in a dead end relationship for (way) too long. If someone has never been in an LTR by the time they're 35, they were always quite odd and I learned it's a good idea to double click and ask questions to learn what might be going on there.
Well, I'm within a year or so of being forty. I've have been on about 75 dates over the last two years with women aged 29 to 50s.
Huh, the first version of this comment before you edited it said:
Yes I'm in my forties, have been on dates over the last two years with about 50 women aged 29 to 50
Another comment from you in this same story says:
Soon I should probably ask if she'll marry me, advice on this would be welcome :) we are 9 months in
Congratulations on dating about 50, I mean about 75 women in about 15 months. Also congratulations on regressing in age!
Since you explicitly solicited advice in your other comment - I think a man in his 40s (or almost 40) would be insane to propose marriage to a woman he's dated for 9 months.
I'm 39, upon re-reading my post I didn't want to be dishonest. And tbh, it was probably more than 75. An epic quest full of interesting people and good learning experiences to discover what is actually out there! But alas, this isn't my primary account - so I try (and happily fail often) to keep it vague. Not that big of a deal either way in the end.
> Since you explicitly solicited advice in your other comment - I think a man in his 40s (or almost 40) would be insane to propose marriage to a woman he's dated for 9 months.
Haha, thank you! Because of previous trauma, I am also hesitant to rush anything. Then I also have my sister (who just had a baby last year) whispering and telling me to just have a kid with my gf, even if we aren't married. I think she's just baby crazy at present, or perhaps she really does hate me and is playing the long game :)
p.s. Not that you asked or that it's really any of my business, but I'll try anyway: One pattern I've noticed in our exchange is you seem to get a bit hung up on the small details. My interpretation is that you are probably a really great engineer, of the sort I enjoy working with the most (seriously). Just don't forget to zoom out and view the forest from time to time!
> As it is, men between 22 and 30 — nearly two-thirds of the male dating pool — focus almost exclusively on women younger than themselves. I’ll be investigating this phenomenon today, with gusto and charts. Ultimately, I’ll argue that they would be well-served to expand their search upwards, to women in their thirties and forties.
> The bar chart here shows how the woman to man ratio changes over time. As you can see, it’s basically flat. In a better world, this would imply that older people don’t necessarily have a harder time finding decent mates than younger ones, as the composition of the dating pool holds relatively steady from age to age. Put another way: a 45 year-old woman shouldn’t in theory have a harder time finding a date than a 20 year-old, because the female-to-male ratios at those ages are equal (roughly 11:9).
> Of course, we all know that 45 year-olds do have a much harder time, because the male fixation on youth distorts the dating pool.
> As you can see, men tend to focus on the youngest women in their already skewed preference pool, and, what’s more, they spend a significant amount of energy pursuing women even younger than their stated minimum. No matter what he’s telling himself on his setting page, a 30 year-old man spends as much time messaging 18 and 19 year-olds as he does women his own age. On the other hand, women only a few years older are largely neglected.
I don't want to pollute the thread with more quotes. Check out the graphs, it's illuminating; the data backs the assertion of the comment you replied to.
A quote from the author 10 years post publishing: “I think the book is really, ironically, about having higher standards about the things that matter, like the character qualities, generosity, kindness, reliability, and not getting so hung up on things like, you know, whether you’re going to go on a second date with a guy because of how he dressed.”
https://smile.amazon.com/Marry-Him-Case-Settling-Enough/dp/0... (Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough)
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23687614M/Marry_him
The Atlantic piece that was the genesis for the book: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/marry-h...
https://jezebel.com/lori-gottliebs-marry-him-was-always-a-ca...
EDIT: @300bps (HN throttling, can't reply directly) Indeed. The book covers exactly this (census data for the dating marketplace and the dynamic between genders as age brackets tick upwards). The market is great for women 21-30, and it rapidly declines after 35. You can borrow the book from the Internet Archive with the library link I tossed in this comment for more context.