godelian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 4:36 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 2:28 am
But what too few women figure out is that dating is a buyer's market, not a seller's market.
Their market power depends on what market it is about:
Well, for the "seller," it's about securing commitment and resources. It's pretty clear that the aim of these 30-something women is either permanent singlehood (rare, but then they would have nothing to complain about), or more plausibly, commitment from a man they regard as high-value...usually because he is attractive and replete with the resources for potential family.
However, in the casual sex market, even ugly/old women have more market power than average men. In other words, the casual sex market is very bad for men. Unless he is very handsome, it is a bad idea for a man to hunt for casual sex for free.
It's a bad idea for anybody, actually. Nobody actually wins at the casual-sex game, because the only possible gains are immediate and the medium-to-long term results are (definitionally) not available at all.
In the relationships market, however, average men have a much better position than average women. The same average woman who can reject an average man out of hand in the casual sex market, will in turn be rejected out of hand by exactly the same average man in the relationships market.
The average woman does not want the average man. These 30-somethings all assume a high-value man should still be competing for a committed relationship with them, even though they've burned up many of the assets that high-value men value. Women are keyed to "marrying-up," meaning to securing a man who can
improve their resources and social standing, somebody they regard as above them, not merely "average."
The "average" man has either to wait until the women grow desperate and out-of-options, or "marry-down." Women do not readily condescend to accept a permanent commitment to a partner they regard as bringing less to the equation than they see themselves as bringing -- and they have been told, by our Feminist social ethos -- that what they are bringing is always very high. But it's not. After 30, it's considerably less than they brought at 25, even if they don't like that thought. The "buyer" is less interested in the damaged and diminished "goods" they now have to offer. But an "average" man might be willing to settle, if he believes the gains are still reasonable; no high-value man needs to accept the loss, and so they don't.
In the escort sex market,...
Yeah, but again: in this "market" there is no problem for the 30-something woman. If "escort" opportunities are all she wants, she can disregard the relative value of the man in question, and she is waving commitment automatically. Marriage is not the aim. She'll take anything that gives her some immediate pecuniary gains. It's simply prostitution, not the marriage market.
But I think what we're talking about is what the 30-somethings want to secure for themselves, which is the commitment of a high-value man for the purposes of relationship and family, are we not? Having "sowed their wild oats," they're now expecting to step back and reap the benefits of being high-value women -- i.e., a partner they still regard as above them, with more resources and assets and the potential for commitment and fatherhood.