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Why are there so few eligible bachelors?
...game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by "weak" bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the "strong" bidders will hold out for a really great deal. You can find a technical discussion of this here. (Be warned: "Bidding Behavior in Asymmetric Auctions" is not for everyone, and I certainly won't claim to have a handle on all the math.) But you can also see how this works intuitively if you just consider that with a lot at stake in getting it right in one shot, it's the women who are confident that they are holding a strong hand who are likely to hold out and wait for the perfect prospect.
This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders."
Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.
Here is the full argument. I don't, however, quite buy this as the explanation of the phenomenon. I view the real world auction as being held -- at least if you wish -- continuously rather than at discrete times. So the "strong bidding women" can always cave and settle for a "lesser man" after an optimal amount of waiting, yet many don't. The distinction between period-by-period happiness and overall lifetime happiness also shapes the market. As smart single women mature, their lives get better and better. "Settling" becomes psychologically harder, even if it would make some of the "settlers" happy in the longer run. So settling doesn't happen; decisiveness become harder to conjure up at the same time that its long-run value is increasing, or in other words behavioral economics is very much at work here.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 11, 2008 at 07:01 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
"As smart women mature, their lives get better and better."
Roissy, calling Roissy to the podium....
This isn't what I personally observe.
Posted by: Billare at Apr 11, 2008 7:49:29 AM
From what I observe, life gets better and better for just about all smart people.
Posted by: infopractical at Apr 11, 2008 9:11:45 AM
Isn't there a big assumption that relative value (desirability) doesn't change over time? Garth Brooks effectively addressed this in "Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." My observations are that people change enormously over time, due to events they can't control as well as to their own personal characteristics. For those who paired off early, how does one re-value this asset at a point in the future? I don't think that the elements of relative value remain constant, nor do they carry the same weights over time.
Posted by: Laocoon at Apr 11, 2008 9:12:49 AM
This article doesn't offer anything to support the idea that there is a shortage of quality men, at least compared to the supply of quality women.
Where are all the single socially-connected swimsuit model Rhode scholar women? Can they cook?
Posted by: Steve R at Apr 11, 2008 9:13:24 AM
I thought that male survival is weak, so that even though at birth there are slightly more boys then girls, boys get sicker sooner and suffer much higher rates of things like autism, retardation, etc. Also, there is a higher incidence of incarceration and accidental/violent death.
I think there may just be more eligible women than men. Maybe we should reevaluate polygamy? ;)
Posted by: JoshK at Apr 11, 2008 9:28:03 AM
Thats a very "narrow minded" point of view. One almost assumes a ubiquity of the "items" bid for, as well as the bidders them selves. If you scratch the surface with just a little more thought, you might consider the question of what is the metric of "eligible bachelor". Desirability is probably the most difficult thing to describe mathematically. (I'd rather take my chances with a differential model of the Dow, at least I can confine the range to some real numbers). One womans louse, is another womans husband. Regardless of what stage of life their at.
But setting all that nonsense aside, and all this BS about womens lib, perhaps theres been a renaissance of mens lib. Because Tyler Durden has them all out creating their own personal armies.
"A generation of men, raised by women. Is another woman really the answer?".
People forget that making the connection is a 2 sided decision. What does the math tell you if the item on the auction block decides it doesn't want to be bought? Oh we don't have a model for that yet.
So I find these 1 size fits all, analysis of why marriages are so scarce of late, rather disconcerting. Perhaps the author started out with a good idea, that might help to elucidate a problem. But it seems more like personal bias that meaningful inquiry.
The road to hell is paved with good intention.
Posted by: James at Apr 11, 2008 9:38:52 AM
Wait, Laocoon, wasn't that song about him being thankful he *didn't* marry a woman
he knew when he was younger, who *was* relatively desirable then?
Posted by: Person at Apr 11, 2008 9:58:27 AM
As I think other comments have mentioned (or hinted at), there is another side here. What about what men want? Are the women they see availible desireable to them and do these men even see value in being married.
In particular, men who do not marry early, have many reasons to not marry once they get beyond a certain age. Especially after they start to build wealth. In addtion, Im not sure as many women want to get married either, for similar and different reasons.
Posted by: Matthew at Apr 11, 2008 10:00:40 AM
I think Tyler has the stylized facts backwards. My experience is that the quality of the median available female starts declining at around age 24 or 25. Just my personal experience. The effect becomes quite noticable by 27/28.
Posted by: steve at Apr 11, 2008 10:01:42 AM
I think the phenomenon (if it truly exist) has more to do with what men and women look for in a mate.
Young women are much more likely to date an older man than vice versa.
A successful attractive unmarried man in his 40/30's can easily date/marry someone ten years younger than him. Women do not tend to have the ability or the desire to do the same (they may be able to date succesgul 40-50 year olds though).
So what does this do to the dating market. The value of young women is bid up by competition from young men and older men and the least desirable of each group is unable to pair leaving for older women a very weak market for men their same age.
Posted by: eccdogg at Apr 11, 2008 10:13:05 AM
As smart, single women mature, their lives get better and better and perhaps settling becomes psychologically more difficult. However, age (youth) still seems to matter more in the market for women than it does for men, so doesn't the concern over turning into a cat lady to some extent negate the psychological barriers to decisiveness in older women? Moreover, are their lives really better if they have been without stable companionship for so long? (This last part is an assumption)
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Apr 11, 2008 10:15:14 AM
I think Steve is on to something with his observation that many of the higher-quality women have been taken off the market by their mid-twenties, which reduces the average quality of available women.
It seems to me that many of the most desireable women get engaged or married in their twenties and never get divorced. More of the less desireable women are left in the dating pool. The situation continues in this direction because men often divorce the women they thought were very desireable but turned out not to be so. The dating pool becomes less appealing over time. There are still lots of desireable women but you probably have to look harder for them.
I see no reason this wouldn't be true for both males and females.
Posted by: mr. t at Apr 11, 2008 10:31:08 AM
However, age (youth) still seems to matter more in the market for women than it does for men
That's true. It may seem like a cultural construct but more likely is an inevitable recognition of the effects of age on fertility. If women remained fertile into their 60's and 70's, while men's sperm counts sank like the Titanic after age 35, we'd see age being a much bigger market factor for men than for women.
In a way, the decline in women's fertility at young ages is Nature's ironic twist, because by nearly all measures other than reproductive ability women remain younger much longer than men. That old line about women getting older while men get distinguished is pure crapola. Today it's commonplace to see young-looking, physically fit, and mentally vibrant women in their 50's and 60's, while all too many men of that age are, as the French would say, eating dandelions by the root. Diseases such as lung cancer, heart disease and prostate cancer slaughter men in massive numbers, with women either not getting these diseases at all or only being affected when quite elderly.
Posted by: Peter at Apr 11, 2008 10:35:52 AM
As a 24 year-old (somewhat socially, financially, culinarily (?) competant) nice girl, I would consider myself to fall into the 'Strong Bidder' category. And I am worried that my standards are too high and that my ideal mate has already been snatched up, so lately I have been taking riskier moves. For example, just two days ago, I was struck smitten with a guy at a work conference, so at the end of the conference, I boldly walked up to him and gave him my number. I have never done anything like that before, but I wonder if that move suggests that he might be out of my league and I was playing the part of the 'Weak Bidder', distressed that I would get outbid later. However, what was going through my mind when I wrote my name and number on a piece of paper was that my time with him is limited, and I wanted to make it clear that I'm interested. Perhaps I should have given him my email though, as he has yet to call...
Posted by: Kelly at Apr 11, 2008 10:53:51 AM
A man goes to the supermarket and picks up a frozen pizza, a six-pack of beer, a half-gallon of milk, and a bag of potato chips.
At the checkout, the cashier is a cute young blond. She asks him, "You must be single, right?"
The man is startled, and replies, "Oh ... right, you saw that because of what I'm buying!"
She answers, "Nope, you're just ugly."
***
Regarding Kelly's remark, it's very difficult for a woman to credibly make an offer like that because of selection effects ("What are the odds a woman will just fall on my lap like that?") The man will assume it's a trick. I certainly would...
There's a neat Dilbert comic about it too.
Posted by: Person at Apr 11, 2008 11:05:52 AM
Kelly,
You have 5-6 years left for "checking guys out" before you start to lose physical attraction. My best advice is to meet a LOT of guys (not necessarily sleep with them!). If you date one guy for 3-4 years, you miss alot of opportunities. So -- give out your number a lot, but use it to learn about a lot of men -- not rush into a relationship. /older brother perspective
Posted by: David Zetland at Apr 11, 2008 11:11:06 AM
Person, I disagree. I don't think anyone would think it was "a trick" (except you). The first step to getting what you want is asking for it- I think Kelly is on the right track. If he doesn't call, so what? Would not giving him your number make him more likely to call? Obviously not. Getting asked out by a woman is very flattering, although some men do not like it.
Posted by: Cliff at Apr 11, 2008 11:19:23 AM
"I don't think anyone would think it was "a trick" (except you). The first step to getting what you want is asking for it- I think Kelly is on the right track. If he doesn't call, so what? Would not giving him your number make him more likely to call? Obviously not. Getting asked out by a woman is very flattering, although some men do not like it."
Depends on the "attractiveness" of the man. I have friends for whom it's quite a common experience to be hit on by attractive women. I, on the other hand, would suspect a trap or practical joke in the making. :-)
Posted by: Affe at Apr 11, 2008 11:49:40 AM
OK, Tyler, that's a possible rationale. I think it's swamped by the well-understood rationale that distinguishes "quality" between the sexes.
Quality man: competent
Quality woman: pretty
These are admittedly very simplified, as is the constraint that a woman will not marry a man who is less competent than she, but the implications are clear.
Just run the clock. A man's competence steadily increases with age. A woman's prettiness peaks in her late teens, then gradually declines. The most competent men and prettiest women tend to get attached earliest. For the man who holds out, his choices expand as his competence grows since he will gladly marry a pretty girl who is either younger or older than he. For the competent women, her choices shrink, both because she is competing for competent men whose choices are expanding with age, and because her own attractiveness is declining with age.
As oversimplified as this explanation is, it remains the most powerful one I've come across.
I doubt my wife will ever find this, but I want to go on the record by saying that her beauty is exceptionally ageless.
Posted by: M. Hodak at Apr 11, 2008 11:55:02 AM
Person, there may be downsides in the form of risking negative signals due to selection effects, but it is the only game in town.
It's an egalitarian age: ask the guy out for a drink. Make selection effects work for you by sifting out those too stuck up to accept a woman's offer. Otherwise, sounds like the right track. /younger brother perspective
Posted by: Anglo-Burgundian at Apr 11, 2008 11:59:15 AM
If a cute woman gave me her number and I was attracted to her or curious, I would be fearless in calling her. I can't imagine why one would be suspicious. I think many men have little self confidence when it comes to women, which i think explains much of their silly behavior when it comes to women. Unless...of course...men somehow are assuming that women are thinking as they themselves would be thinking....it would explain a lot of homophobia.
Posted by: Not suspicious at Apr 11, 2008 12:36:45 PM
A man's competence steadily increases with age.
How so? That's certainly not always the case in career and financial terms. Sure, some men spend their 20's and 30's on an ever-upward career trajectory that eventually leads them to the corner office, but I'm sure no one is so naive to believe that is the normal order of things. More, probably far more men just sort of poke along, getting modest annual raises and maybe the occasional promotion, but hardly turning into captains of industry by 40.
Physically, outright decline is the general rule. Once past their college years a disturbingly high percentage of men become physically inert and begin packing on the avoirdupois. The popular stereotype of the former star athlete gone totally to seed as he approaches middle age is popular precisely because it is so common. Lastly, some men may see their social competence increase with age, but once again that is not common. I'm convinced that one's essential character - nerdy introvert, backslapping extrovert, or something in between - is pretty much set in adolescene and rarely shows much change thereafter.
Bottom line: if women aren't interested in you at age 25, they're not going to be any more interested in you when you're 35 or 40 or whatever.
Posted by: Peter at Apr 11, 2008 12:47:57 PM
It's a supply and demand thing. Fewer and fewer women are spending all their waking time looking for an "eligible bachelor." Instead we're continuing our education, seeking full-time careers (with the possibility of family later on, with our definition of family as unique and individual as we are), and last but not least -we have our friends. It's easy to "be alone" more often when you have an urban family and all its branches to fall back on! So we're not looking that hard or with too much serious intent. Thus the supply of said eligible bachelors dwindles even farther...
Posted by: Adrie at Apr 11, 2008 12:51:25 PM
The thing that strikes me as weird with his argument is that, on average, American men have their first marriage at an older age than women (27 versus 25, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_at_first_marriage). If this marriage auction model holds, where women are more holdouts and men get married younger, I think you would expect the reverse.
The argument also omits the point that, in general, men get more attractive with age and women get less so. I think it would be more likely that women try to get married younger because their looks will fade, while men wait till they have higher salaries and social status. Maybe the "bachelor paradox" is a result of women who delay marriage can't compete with younger women for husbands.
Posted by: Trey at Apr 11, 2008 12:55:48 PM
Articles bemoaning the lack of eligible single men betray the American media's East Coast bias. See this map:
http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2008/03/the-singles-map.html
Posted by: harryh at Apr 11, 2008 1:35:17 PM
People find it hard to settle for a lesser mate than they could have gotten earlier, for the same reason they found it hard to sell a declining dot-com stock and often rode it all the way down to oblivion, and for the same reason so many find it hard to sell their houses today at a realistic price. Coming to grips with reality and cutting your losses is sometimes hard and unpleasant. And it's seldom a good idea if there's smoldering resentment at the person you settled for, for being less than what you feel you're entitled to.
Posted by: at Apr 11, 2008 1:56:28 PM
Nice map harryh, but a per capita map would make more sense.
And I agree with Person. Since women never show any interest in me, I'd assume it was a joke or even some kind of scam if a woman gave me her phone number or email address. And for the record, I'm 25, which means women will *never* show interest in me, according to Peter. He's probably not wrong!
Posted by: Jacob Oost at Apr 11, 2008 2:02:23 PM
If a cute woman gave me her number and I was attracted to her or curious, I would be fearless in calling her. I can't imagine why one would be suspicious.
If a rich Nigerian prince gave me his e-mail address and a business proposal for mutual benefit, I would be fearless in replying. I can't imagine why one would be suspicious.
Posted by: at Apr 11, 2008 2:06:12 PM
Older women have trouble finding men, because older women want to date men their own age, or slightly older. However, men their age are usually either married, or interested in younger women(or both).
In addition, older women who want to date younger men may be turned down, due to fading looks, or men who want to wait before reproduction, yet are concerned by the ticking of the biological clocks of these women.
Posted by: kevin at Apr 11, 2008 2:06:33 PM
From what I understand, young men have great difficulty finding a wife in Egypt and some other Muslim countries, due to the increased prestige of older men, who tend to dominate the market for young females.(Older men are much more likely to be religiously moderate, or even secular.)
I imagine this is correlated with the rise of Islamic extremism. If only these young, impoverished men had girlfriends...who knows.
Posted by: kevin at Apr 11, 2008 2:13:26 PM
kevin, a comedian on Conan O'Brien once jokingly made a point that I had always thought explained Islamo-fascism's reign: lack of women saying "no." In some cases it's due to lack of rights for women, and in other cases it's because none of them have wives or girlfriends. :-)
My Asian friends tell me I'm ancient by single male standards in their countries.
Posted by: Jacob Oost at Apr 11, 2008 2:25:33 PM
Kelly,
You are on the right track, but I would approach it just a bit differently. Instead of giving the man your name and number, just ask him out directly, to a have a drink, or to lunch. That way you don't have to wonder very long on whether or not he was interested. Of course, this risks the possibility of a face to face rejection, but after the first few of those, they are not so bad- just a part of life.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Apr 11, 2008 3:52:21 PM
The biggest may be that the pool of women who want to get married is larger than the pool of men who want to get married. Divorce is costly and the milk is free.
Many women are not thinking of marriage in their 20's. I know very attractive, intelligent, single women who complain about how there are no men. But eligible peers who are looking for marriage pass them over because they spend their time "fooling around" with men who have similar attitudes. It's the merry-go-round method of dating: hook up with lots of people and eventually you meet one you want to marry. Women who purposefully set out to find an eligible man have different attitudes and behavior.
Posted by: 8 at Apr 11, 2008 4:19:41 PM
Ok, I haven't worked out the details here, but just throwing this out here... instead of applying game theory to this problem, could we instead apply Akerlof's market for lemons analysis?
As we grow older the risk of being stuck with a damaged bachelor (one with "baggage") increases, bringing down the average value of all the bachelors on the market. The "catch," faced with greater uncertainty over the true value of the bachelor in question and thus is only willing to "pay" the going rate for an average bachelor.
Meanwhile, the truly appealing bachelors still in the game, aware of their worth, are less willing to "sell" ("settle" ??) for something less than their own perceived value. Which also goes to explain why many eligible bachelors complain of the same problems that bachelorettes complain about -- for example the frustration of "nice guys" who complain that the "bad boys" get all the girls. (The "bad boys" of course, are getting more than they are worth, so are always happy to make the deal.)
Posted by: Ham at Apr 11, 2008 6:35:03 PM
All this assumes men aren't also bidding.
Posted by: Pony at Apr 11, 2008 7:42:04 PM
All this assumes men aren't also bidding.
Posted by: Pony at Apr 11, 2008 7:43:14 PM
The book, Reviving Ophelia, seemed to mark an inflection point in the relative status of females. Since then, women seem to be much better represented in higher education to the extent that colleges are using higher standards for female admission then male admission, in order to keep the sex ratio in reasonable balance. In addition, women seem to be doing better in their 20's then men, at least in New York, based on the NYT articles about how twenty something career women should deal with dating men that make less money, are slackers, etc. Totally anecdotal but there seems to be some substance to it. Also women's skill sets are more in line with the more contemporary corporate culture, with the emphasis on teamwork and less hierarchic structure.
Most of this is pure conjecture, but that plus demographics (men in prison, for example) is one reason that women are finding a shortage of desirable men. Not to mention that (the male) gender is the single biggest risk factor for a number of diseases - including average mortality. High status men have lower life expectancies then low status men.
Posted by: Ziggurat at Apr 11, 2008 8:30:25 PM
High status men have lower life expectancies then low status men.
They do? Can you offer a cite for this?
Posted by: Peter at Apr 11, 2008 9:36:07 PM
It's obvious, but I think a lot of eligible women put off getting married (or rather getting married and having kids) while they build good careers. Men don't have to do this so much. This would certainly be consistent with eligible men marrying off earlier.
I suspect this really does lead to a disproportionate number of successful & hitherto attractive single women in their mid-thirties who find themselves (by accident or design) really keen to marry off early enough to have one or two kids, but also facing a steep decline in their attractiveness to men as they age. Disproportionate to their women peers at a younger age, or to men of the same age, that is.
Posted by: jonm at Apr 11, 2008 10:50:11 PM
Woops... least deprived men to most deprived women.
Check out the graphic in the article. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/us/23health.html
Posted by: Ziggurat at Apr 11, 2008 11:45:46 PM
Isn't this really a settled issue? Don't we know there's a bell curve shape to this? You know, a handful of people are very eligible and therefore are only single if they choose to be. A reasonable size of people are reasonably eligible. Another reasonble size are mildly eligible. And, of course, there's a handful who are rather ineligible. Invariably the high-end men and women command a high price of which low-end people can't attain. Maybe Say's Law would go something along the lines of 'if you can't get any your standards are too high'?
Posted by: Gil at Apr 12, 2008 3:20:49 AM
As far as I can tell, the notion that there is a large pool of super-desirable late 30s/early40s women floating around who just can't find quality men is complete BS. I base this only on my experience, which is: I know a lot of men and women, both married and single in that age group (I am nearly 40). Every - and I mean every - single unmarried woman in that group over the age of 35 has some sort of emotional problem. Not a physical problem, BTW - I know quite a few chubby or homely women who are sweet and smart and funny and wonderful and they are all happily married. When I look at my wife and her married girlfriends, pretty much every one of them is attractive, has at least a masters/professional degree, and was or still is very successful in a career. They are usually more successful than their single friends, which I suspect has something to do with them having their pick of men. Not a one has the "MRS" degree. I have yet to see any evidence that man actually fear smart, attractive, confident, successful women. Every one of these that I know is married.
On the contrary, every unmarried single women in that pool seems to have some combination of a bad career, low education, "daddy" issues, body issues, low self esteem, or something like that. And they all tell each other that they are strong and single, where are all the men, etc., but they appear to be deluding themselves. In the years I have known them, they've dated losers or pushed away the good guys. "Men can't handle women as strong as us" is a lie that damaged older women tell each other.
It's only my personal experience, sure, but this set includes over 100 women (married and single), here in the SF bay area, and I can't imagine that it's a complete outlier. I love these women friends, but there's no way they are single because of a lack of eligible men.
Posted by: Ramie at Apr 12, 2008 3:40:55 AM
Ramie's comments are spot on - it's the same here in NYC. On the lighter side, I'm considering writing a paper for (nonexistent) Journal of Romantic Psychiatry under the title: "Why are the Pretty Ones Always Crazy - the Bayesian Approach" :-) All I got so far is the title, but it gives away the essence: when you meet an attractive woman over thirty, the chances are she is not capable of having a normal relationship - not because all pretty women are crazy, but because ones that are pretty but not crazy have already been taken. Let's not forget that women score higher than men on neuroticism scale (they are also more conscientious and agreeable), which in common parlance means the average woman is 'crazier' that the average man. Then, because of biological time pressure, well adjusted women find and marry whom they can, and the others keep wondering why they can't find 'the right one'.
In general, the thesis of the main post shows grave problem with this kind of social research - there are always a lot of unexamined assumptions (in this case that two genders have the same emotional and physical needs and limitations) that lead to absurd conclusions.
Posted by: James at Apr 12, 2008 10:42:47 AM
more women are becoming more educated / more easily integrated into the service culture
more men in prime age are unemployed:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/04/quelle-surprise-unemployment-stats-dont.html
educated/sucessful women want high status men - there are less of them to go around (easy pickings for successful men, less male competition)
what worries/interests me most about this picture is the growing pool of 'imperfect' men. Where are they? How are they faring?
Posted by: jansky at Apr 12, 2008 11:21:51 AM
I think there is a pretty well-noted effect of a woman's desirability dropping off with age faster than a man's. At it's most dramatic, there is the issue that post-menopausal women can't have children whereas men of that age can. And fertility is an attribute of desire (in general). Somehow, your pondering ought to include the aspect of this issue. In addition, I think you'll find that men tend to have first marriage at a LATER age then women. So I don't quite get your picture of women waiting and men jumping. Statistics and personal experience talking/observing people shows me that it's the reverse.
Posted by: TCO at Apr 12, 2008 3:09:45 PM
"A man's competence steadily increases with age." [M. Hodak, above]
Nah. There's a big variance increase, though. Men who would look pretty much identical upon casual observation as college juniors will look massively different at age, say, 30. This difference will also not be all that difficult to see (job quality, income, etc.)
But while there are lot of men who go on an upward track, there are a lot who don't.
Posted by: ZBicyclist at Apr 12, 2008 4:21:15 PM
There is no shortage of men for women ages 18-25. They have to fight the men off.
All the women complaining about the man shortage tend to be in their 40s and living in Manhattan. If they moved to some city in the midwest and would accept marrying someone with a five-figure salary who looked like a regular guy in his 40s and not a Hollywood actor, they'd have no problem getting hitched.
Posted by: Half Sigma at Apr 12, 2008 5:15:44 PM
Here are two anecdotes, from my personal experience, which inform my views which appear at the end.
1) In college I fell for a very pretty girl - one quite out of my league actually. But when I asked her out she said "sure" to my everlasting amazement. Then I really fell. It wasn't long though before she unceremoniously dumped me for someone else. He was pre-med. I was just pre-law. Years later she called me to see if I could help her. She'd volunteered with a prisoner outreach program, met a prisoner, married him and had a kid thanks to a conjugal visit. The state was transfering him to the SuperMax and there would be no more conjugal visits. She wanted to know if I could help. I had to tell her it wasn't my area of expertise. Wow did I ever dodge a bullet. (Thank you God! I don't know why you saved a wretch like me but you did!)
2) Years later, by then a partner with a corner office in a firm where the average partner profits were quite hefty, I had a temp secretary one week. She was hot. Gorgeous. Perfect really. In school I'd have been a mere worm to her, had she noticed me at all, as she strode past in all her sexy glory. I was by then engaged to a strong bidder who had asked me out to start things off. Well, the temp secretary was quite a flirt - which I must admit was fun and flattering. My full time secretary returned the next week though and that was that - or so I thought. The following Saturday, not long after I got home after dropping off my fiancee, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and there was my temp in a full length coat. She said "Hey, I missed you and wanted to see you, can I come in?" I said "Well ... I, uh ..." at which point she opened her coat to reveal a flawlessly perfect and totally unclothed female form. She then made me an offered which, upon a time, I might have died for. Instead I demurred and sent her on her way - I swear. (Thank you God for letting me see that and not then burning out my eyes or killing me with a lightning bolt.)
So my view, contrary to that of Peter (whom I suspect of not having one), is that certain men do indeed become more valuable in the eyes of younger ladies over time. Money, prestige and power are powerful aphrodisiacs it seems. My wife (I married my one and only fiancee), perhaps sensing this truism instinctively, laid a nice trap indeed. Now she spends her days raising the kids and riding her dressage horses. Me? I worked 2,350 hours last year.
Accordingly I'm quite certain that women in fact rule this world.
Posted by: Thanatos Savhen at Apr 12, 2008 10:39:34 PM
"As smart women mature, their lives get better and better."
Um, I'm not sure which world you found this in, but here on Earth, women generally get more and more miserable as they age. They develop the anger that men had in their teens, because -- like teeen boys -- they find themselves "invisible" to a world that has no use for them. The looks and attention they used to get are gone. There's no more free coffe or dorrs being opened.
Even rich, married women seem to struggle with this. Also, what does "smart women" mean? Do you mean that when stupid women mature, their lives get worse?
Posted by: Days of Broken Arrows at Apr 12, 2008 11:55:04 PM
A lot of high quality guys in their teens and 20's who are spending all of their time in school and working (in order to increase their value) while expending limited energy honing their social/dating life at this time of their life don't like the fact that high quality women at their commensurate age at this same time are getting involved with as many guys as they can and want because they have the ability to. Speaking as someone who, when I was in my early to mid twenties and had limited dating experience at that point due to the fact I didn't put time and energy into dating for the stated reasons above, chose not to ask a couple particularly high quality women to get married because I hated the fact that these women had significantly more dating experience than me. I refused to accept being looked upon as the nice, reliable, marriage material guy who swept in to make everything right for her. At that point, she didn't deserve to have me if she had just spent the previous ten years choosing to engage in excessive-attention grabbing from multiple guys, even at times playing one off the other at the same time covertly. That doesn't impress me, because it is way too common. That was not going to be the story the grandkids find out about grandma and grandpa- that grandma had lots of fun in her younger days while grandpa was a good worker- not going to happen, not going to be my story.
So what happened to these perceived high caliber women I know and passed on? They soon married strikingly mediocre guys who are good providers but average at best in looks and below average on the sociability/talent rating (I would score average in the provider category today and above average in looks and the sociability/talent ratings), which might give you some insight into what many perceived high caliber women ultimately value when pressed by friends, family, and society with the marriage outcome - a financially comfortable lifestyle acceptingly offset by a likely permanent boring man behind it. I know that as soon as they figured out that I wasn't going to move on making a bid for them they concluded that the best they could do was the guy they just settled for. This will likely end up becoming a mistake for them. I feel bad for those women and for guys like myself who have been in this situation before.
What's the message for the young, talented, beautiful woman? Be careful not to always take advantage of and exploit your bountiful dating options in your youth and young adult life, because the best guy you could ever hope to marry for life for all the right well rounded reasons when you meet him later just might hold your ripened level of dating experience against you based on principle. How unfortunate for both parties involved.
What's the solution? Not necessarily for women to change their dating ways but for men to get acclimated to dating much earlier to even things up. How do you do that? Start at the base by hiring 50% more 1st tier male college graduates to elementary and secondary education teaching positions regardless of graduating major and pay them a provider's salary so they stay as teachers for the longevity, not as administrators. Overall, boys lack quality male role models growing up. We need to socialize boys drastically different than we are collectively today.
As it stands right now, I sit at 31 happily unmarried, working toward vibrant and quality dating options, no dependents, bought a house six years ago, no debt, positively impacting underprivileged sixth graders on a daily basis, have hobbies which women would find extremely desirable yet I currently receive high level but intermittent quantifiable demand from the "strong bidders". (They should already be impressed!) Are some of the desirable women in denial about their ability to hold out for the top prospect? Deep down, I think a fair percentage of the strong bidders don't want to have to measure up themselves because they want room for error in their relationship(s)- that's why in a lot of cases the perceived high caliber woman will indeed settle for the across-the-board mediocre provider guy because it allows her to have a comfortable lifestyle while having room to be less than her best in her work, looks, character, and skill when she feels like it. It can be a detriment at times for a guy to be too desirable unless he finds a woman who continues to raise the bar for herself in every aspect of her life as well on an ongoing basis.
Guys, stay on the early, active, continual path of well rounded self improvement in your work, education, hobbies, social skills, and character and you will be able to hold out for the highest bids from the best women, however you choose to rate that.
Posted by: Steakhouse at Apr 13, 2008 1:08:36 AM
Of course there is a shortage of eligible bachelors out there. It's why I get laid so frequently.
Posted by: Dave at Apr 13, 2008 10:13:31 AM
Hollywood probably has a lot to answer for, for creating unrealistic expectations. Actors are not only selected for their highly above-average facial features, but often spend several hours a day in the gym in preparation for a role. They recite carefully scripted and rehearsed witty dialogue as if it were spontaneous, and are often depicted as having living arrangements and wardrobes and abundant free time and product-placed consumer goods beyond the reach of most.
The ideal mates that some hold out for have the significant disadvantage of not actually existing.
Posted by: at Apr 13, 2008 11:19:41 AM
Do men really have a different bidding strategy than women? If men are engaged in the auction too, wouldn't "strong bidders" also hold out? If hold-out males engage in a prolonged period of youthful promiscuity while waiting for Mrs. Right, wouldn't that imply a reward for hold out females? Perhaps for hold-out females of a younger age cohort.
Posted by: K. Larson at Apr 14, 2008 1:34:52 AM
in regards to peters comment "if women aren't interested in you at age 25, they're not going to be any more interested in you when you're 35 or 40 or whatever."
I know that in my 20s I was just a nerdy engineering guy and dated a nerdy programmer girl and her roommate.
In my 40s I was still the nerdy engineering guy, but now I date as much as I want and can be as choosy as I want. There's a 2 date rule. Women under 30 don't bite much... but the 40s are hungry!
Posted by: J B Books at Apr 16, 2008 12:32:36 AM
This is the most interesting site i've ever come across!
Posted by: Christy at Apr 30, 2008 11:49:11 AM
Hi there, now some of these comments are indeed food for thought however, any broad generalisation is always risky...I'm slightly offended at the notion that a woman loses her apeal as early as 30yrs. Obviously it does depend highly on the woman in question but there are so many variables. Namely if a woman is genetically appealing and continues to look after herself and her looks then the only thing one cannot change is the fertility issue. If a woman isn't interested in bearing children (shock horror!) then this problem is taken out of the equation!
I'm a fairly attractive (or so I'm often told) 36yr old who could pass for 8-10yrs younger (also often told)I'm recently separated and while I'm really enjoying being single I have noticed that society has changed markedly in the last decade. Courtship and chivalry is all but dead. I don't agree that it's only 'undesirables' that are getting divorced -this is a very narrow-minded and often grossly inaccurate view. I do meet a lot of 'eligible' men but most of them are either confirmed batchelors or players. Also, there's no shortage of married men who are on the 'singles scene'...
I'm very particular in my taste and have no problem being single for extended periods of time -dating is fun! Chemistry is often harder to find once you've been on the dating scene for 10-20yrs. I have never ever felt the 'need' to have a partner. This scent of desperation is always detectable and impossible to camouflage completely. It is unfortunate that we do live in such a disposable society but divorce is often the best choice in the long-run. If your issues aren't workable and you're no longer happy, then why fake it? It's your life and you only get one shot at it. None of us is perfect and we can't predict the future. A choice is made with the current information available. Circumstances often change. People change. Perhaps human nature dictates it's unnatural to stay with one partner monogomously for indefinite period? We can only aspire to such perfection.
Posted by: Miriam Keen at Jul 12, 2008 6:15:55 AM
