Am I Bad at Dating? No, It's An Entire Gender Who's Wrong

The men haven't "gone anywhere." Women aren't "broken."

Photo by JD Mason on Unsplash

There’s one piece of oft-repeated fiction that won’t seem to die—the idea that having a career (not specifically delaying dating to work on a career, or being too busy) is romantic kryptonite for women. Much like the “people aren’t having kids because they’re too expensive” nonsense, this is peddled on the political right and left. The right sees this as a good warning for women—don’t become too educated or ambitious, or men of your station will become repulsed by you and instead date a small-town diner waitress (something I’ve actually looked into—and it isn’t happening.) Then, some on the left will parrot the same idea, but with a different spin—they agree men are turned off by ambitious women, but see this as a problem with men, not a problem with women. Their advice would be for women to work on their careers, men be damned, and just deal with being alone forever (which is, of course, preferable to being a pick-me who “centers men,” as I’ve written about too.)

But either way, everyone appears to be under the same delusion—women making more money is bad for dating. I will concede that this is a little true, but not in the ways people often cite. As my research has shown, single women are less likely than their male counterparts to “settle,” and prefer to stay single than to be with someone who they aren’t really into. In my latest survey, 56% of single straight men said that “finding someone I’m crazy about, even if it takes longer” is more important than finding someone they like in a shorter time frame, while 80% of single straight women agreed with this sentiment. If women don’t have the ability to financially support themselves, they don’t have the freedom to wait for someone who makes them head-over-heels. Thus, because women can earn their own income, we see a surplus of single women preferring to stay single than to do what they see as settling, as I wrote about before. But the issues these single women cite aren’t usually men’s subpar salaries—it’s usually about chemistry and emotional connection. And besides, there’s no evidence that this phenomenon is an upper middle class or highly educated thing. In fact, women with a college degree are more likely to marry than women with lower educational attainment.

Either way, this has nothing to do with men being turned off by women who make too much money—that just isn’t happening, even among politically right-leaning men (big surprise—I’ve also written about this.) In previous surveys, men across the political spectrum were more likely to see a woman’s high-earning career as a boost to suitability, compared with a woman’s desire to stay home and raise children. But time and time again, I see the message that high-earning women are screwed on the dating market, either because men don’t want shrill girlbosses (and all the men in their echelon are happy with their much less accomplished, less educated wives) or because wimpy men are just too intimidated by their ambition. And time and time again, the reasoning comes down to the idea that even if men aren’t downright disgusted by high-earning women, they’re at the very least scared of them.

My humble suggestion is this: regardless of gender, if you’re really struggling to date—especially if everything on paper about you is seemingly good—the issue is almost always with something you are doing (or not doing) and not with an entire gender.