Whenever I hear the “when you’re a 20 year old guy, the world tells you you’re worthless” thing, I’m like damn, me and the girls certainly didn’t get the memo when we were 20 and our main hobby was worshipping 20 year old guys because they were on a sports team or whatever
Were we really yearning for a 38 year old banker with an impressive record collection? I guess we’ll never know because we all married our peers
“One of my pet theories is that women resent being the “project manager” of their households so much not because it’s a lot of work (although it is) but because a man being so complacent oozes a lack of masculine dominance and is horribly unsexy.”
Straight to my veins. You could write a series of articles on this.
I think it’s helpful to push back against the idea that women are just constantly stressed out and overwhelmed by household management and that’s every woman’s chief complaint in every marriage.
I think a lot of women would be much more okay with being the project manager if their husband acted as CEO.
I don’t mind doing all the monthly budgeting and purchasing. Because my husband makes all the money, is responsible for our big picture finances, and casts the vision every year for what we’re working towards financially.
Yeah that can definitely be part of it. I don’t mind a lot of this stuff either because my husband isn’t complacent or passive and I’m not telling him what to do
Another element worth exploring might be generational signaling -- we now have several generations of men who were told to NOT be so domineering and suck up all the oxygen in the room and not to assume you are automatically in charge of everything because of your maleness, but there are also still lots of women who want men to do exactly those things, just in very specific circumstances and in certain ways.
Culturally, there are also a lot of assumptions about masculine coded behaviors that have lost their mooring a bit, because we still kind of want men and boys to be a certain way, but not to be assholes about it.
A few years ago I read a letter to a writer on another site (a relationship/advice site) and this woman was complaining about her boyfriend. One of the complaints was that she didn't feel like he could protect her if they were attacked (like by a mugger or murderer or whatever).
When I read that, I thought 1) that's a weird thing to ding your boyfriend about; 2) what types of places are you going where you feel like you're going to be attacked? I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag, so I don't go places where I might to do so; 3) the letter writer was an educated, confident, adult woman, but still had this expectation that any man should be prepared and equipped to successfully get through a bar fight or something. The only men I've ever met who are worth anything in a fight are professional fighters, some bouncers, and horrible guys who run around starting fights on purpose. Is that what you're looking for in a husband?
Boys need some kind of primer on how to be whatever level of confident/masculine seems right, but without being a dick or going on the Joe Rogan show to talk about how strong your neck is or whatever that Zuckerberg guy was going on about.
I think you are right. If the husband brings in the money and is responsible with it, and has a vision, then it’s just division of labor to be the project manager. You’re a team. You’re not taking care of Yet Another Big Kid.
Yes, exactly. We’re a team and I think things flow more easily when the team has a captain. My husband isn’t perfect but he is not an additional child.
I wonder how much is being stressed out and how much is the perceived unfairness of it. Here are some things I see with some folks I know:
I see women who are ok on doing the household management because their husband is doing stuff they don't want to do/don't have the skills to do (remodeling the bathroom, rotating the tires, rewiring the house, etc). That's the "we each have our jobs" model. "He's terrible with computers and phone calls and I don't know anything about motors and I don't want to know anything about them." These folks seem to be content as long as each party is doing a fair share of the work. The "I clean the house and he changes the oil," does not qualify, unless you only clean the house very briefly every 10,000 miles.
But it gets weird when the guy is a white-collar guy who does project management at work, keeps track of things, schedules meetings, does purchase orders, whatever, all using phones, computers, emails, etc and those skills don't transfer over to keeping the household running or getting the kids to the dentist, and it's a family that hires out the trade type jobs so he doesn't have the excuse that he's repairing the roof or something.
I think this is a good point. If you’re a team, or at least both of you are doing a lot of hands-on work, then that’s one thing. But if the husband is doing a desk job, isn’t really bringing in more than an average income, and yet can’t pull any weight around the house, that’s maddening. Or if he’s always half-assing the trade jobs or leaving them mostly undone “I swear, honey, I will finish the kitchen” that’s extremely maddening.
I think that it's a combination of factors - guys like this often do and act in ways that are just not attractive on a visceral level. And obviously, once couples are living together things are going to get casual and people are going to spend time chilling on the couch with movies and video games.
But it is supremely libido killing to watch one's boyfriend play video games in sweats while you're cleaning the kitchen. As much as men hate nags, women also hate nagging - repeating the same thing over and over means you're constantly frustrated, and that dynamic is very Not Hot (for either side, I'd imagine.)
More seriously, I think the problem is that "married HS sweetheart" is a nice one-time story, but "Still single and very much Going Through It" is a constant, never-ending stream of conversation until you settle down. The second isn't inherently more viral than the first, but it dominates time in a way the first doesn't.
What you need to do is get into a series of high-stakes, socially complex situations together where you only narrowly survive only because you "know each other that well."
You know, like going undercover on a bank heist or getting into polyamory.
*A man and a woman run together, giggling and holding a black duffle bag. They push open a door to daylight*
Another woman stands in their way: "Didn't expect to see me here did you? I didn't want to see you here myself."
*She turns away from them and towards the camera, eyes welling up with tears*
She continues: "It's not that you betrayed me for the money, that hurts the most... it's the thought of you leaving without ever saying goodbye."
*dramatic pause, his face is broken and conflicted.*
She continues: "Your betrayal is no surprise to me, in fact I counted on it. That bag doesn't have the money. My partner arranged the switch."
*She whirls around, meeting his gaze defiantly.*
She continues: "That bag is filled with letters, every night we were apart I wrote you a letter. Like a thousand pieces of my heart. By switching the bags you see, it was the only way we could be together..."
*Her eyes casts down, vulnerable, unable to meet his gaze*
A third woman steps into view: "It was the only way we could all be together."
*Like five other people step into view with alternative haircuts.*
Man wearing a black jacket and holding a duffle: "Just one problem with that. I want the money."
*He pulls a gun and points it out at the crowd*
Third woman: "No!"
*She lunges for the gun. The gun goes off*
*Camera pulls back to reveal that the first man has been hit after jumping forward to block the bullet*
Third woman, eyes welling up: "I always hoped, but I never knew you cared for me like that..."
Sometimes I hear my coworkers talk about such things like dating strategy and women and what not, I want to say, just find someone you like and who likes you? Worked for me and my husband!
I think most people’s lives are very boring and hard to monetize. “I’m happily married to my husband, we love one another very much and don’t have big fights or disagreements of opinion, we have one well behaved kid, two cats and a dog who are also well-behaved, and yes, I can cook but I don’t have any super fantabulousa vegan gluten-free recipes to share, just Grandma’s chicken and dumplings recipe which she got off the back of a Pillsbury box in the 50’s” - that is not going to rake in any influencer bucks. You’re going to get an audience of ten, eight of whom are your family and your long-term friends.
I don’t have any studies to back this up, so I’m going with my gut here. I find men in their twenties to be less interested in serious relationships than women of the same cohort. Women might be less enamored of twenty something men because the guys are all “yeah, this was fun bruh off to play some Fortnite see you next week”
Since I’m a midwesterner, I have examples of sensible down to earth young men - my nephew for example, just bought a house at 25, and most of his friends are homeowners - but his priority right now is his job followed by his yard. Women like him too but his head is not in the serious relationship space.
When I was dating, this was my biggest challenge - so many guys who signaled in various ways that they just weren't serious relationship material. Not because they didn't have enough resources yet (I was broke too!) but because everything about their lifestyle screamed "I'd like a girl to fuck me on my unwashed sheets and then do my laundry while I play Call of Duty"
I kind of had the thought that maybe the issue isn't "guys in their 20s don't have enough resources" or "guys in their 20s aren't mature enough yet", but rather "guys in their 20s are in an unattractive life phase". And then I thought "well, I'm just being a jackass gen-X-er who is kids-these-days-ing gen Z cuz it's a day ending in the letter y."
But I think "I'd like a girl to fuck me on my unwashed sheets and then do my laundry while I play Call of Duty" *totally* captures that vibe. :-)
This was also my observation, back when I was in my 20s (and even early 30s). Women looking for something serious and the men just messing around. (Didn’t apply to me, already in a relationship, but I watched it play out over and over and heard a lot from both male and female friends.)
When I was in my mid-twenties, I met my now-wife and knew pretty much instantly that she was the one. I had a job and could afford my own place to live, and generally had my shit together.
And yet...i had *no* sense of time urgency in the relationship at all...none. I lived in the present like some kind of labradoodle.
At one point one of my older co-workers said to me "when we get out of this project crunch, you should propose..." and ... he was clearly right, but not in a "I've been avoiding this and it's time for a confrontation with myself kind of way", just in a "I'm a 20-something guy so that just kinda didn't occur to me" way.
As a man in his forties, I'd tell young men the opposite. Dating is not something you wait until after achieving emotional maturity to do, it is *part of how you learn emotional maturity.* Being "good at relationships" is a skill, and like any other skill, it's not something you get better at by refusing to practice.
Women not realizing how surrounded they are by high potential men in college and not settling down. Then having far fewer options later and being reluctant to “settle” because they remember the better options (and plethora of options) that were available in college.
Men not wanting to settle until they actually build their life. Viewing marriage as a capstone instead of foundational. Not realizing that one of the best way to engender loyalty and mutual sacrifice in a marriage is to build your life together.
I don’t necessarily think these decisions fall along gendered lines, but do agree that people undervalue building a life with someone v. doing it yourself and trying to find a perfect mate to match your fine-tuned, curated life later on.
I think men and women tend to have different issues with of course some overlap. This is what I have observed to be more common amongst each gender. I of course could be wrong and things could be different outside my social circles.
I don’t think that’s the meta anymore. Taylor Swift dated her Super Bowl winning boyfriend at the zenith of her career. More & more we are seeing people live their fulfilling lives then pairing up with another person on their level.
I’m not really talking about “meta”, I’m talking about the reality that I see around me. And the people I personally know with the strongest marriages are people who got together in their 20s and worked to build everything together.
Taylor Swift just got engaged. Who knows how successful that marriage will be. And men who are putting off settling down until their whole lives are figured out are probably not comparable to Travis Kelce. It will work for the top tier of men who will still be able to have lots of options later in life, much more of a gamble for men who let their prime time to meet eligible women pass them by.
My point is I believe the current zoomer culture is going to be influenced on the “build yourself then find an equally great partner” We see this phenomenon in the rise of “situationships”, decentering men, decreased alcohol consumption (since less social at the bars), and more of the celebs & role models delaying marriage.
As you pointed out, most good marriages are where people build a life together. It will be interesting to see how these diff philosophies play out
I’m not sure. The zoomers I personally know who have been successful with the opposite sex are still getting together younger and just delaying marriage and children. I just went to an engagement party for my zoomer brother in law, who is very attractive and popular, and almost all of his and his fiancé’s friends are in serious relationships.
I still think it’s going to be that the savvy, relationship-minded people are going to recognize the goldmine that is college and get paired off in their early 20s. And there are going to be a lot of people who delay and then look around and realize everybody they would have liked to marry is already taken.
One caveat, when women start out dating I don't think they care very much about projected or future "resources". A fifteen year old girl, hopefully, isn't thinking about high school boys as future providers.
I do feel like, looking at my fellow nerd friends, that a lot of us saw our attractiveness rise once women started looking at guys as potential future husbands and fathers. We were all losers in high school and sometimes in college as well, we all got married in the end. But yes, this shift starts happening well before 30.
I think about how the dominant energy of high school dating is "insecurity." Most of us were just figuring things out and very worried about what others think, which leads to the piling on of everyone agreeing that Joe/Jane Stereotypically attractive are our type. Then you get some experience and confidence and start to discern what it is you actually like and not what you think others think you should like.
A lot of my nerdier guy friends hit college already sort of bitter. They mostly fully recovered, but I wish we could all just write off those early years of "dating" and not read too much into them. I say this as a nerdy girl who also did not date at all in high school but, in traditional girl fashion, I just blamed myself and assumed I deserved it.
I feel like the advice "women want put together men who have emotionally maturity and money" is nearly opposite to the advice "women want bad boys who take risks and play games with them". What these have in common are just-so stories about why men aren't getting laid and why the content producer has the secret. Men could do worse than disregarding both pieces of advice and just trying to talk to irl women on their own terms.
There probably is a higher synthesis though. Women want emotionally mature men who are wild just for them. This is like the female equivalent of men who want chaste guileless women who suddenly turn into a frisky freak for one lucky man in particular.
As someone who got married at 34 while meeting my wife at 32, I feel like i learned some skills or knowledges through some (failed) dating - in other words, if I had not started much earlier than 32, I really don’t think I was able to marry now.
And i guess another tricky thing about loud minority who is picky and stay single in their thirties is, esp for PMC folks, it is not that hard to find those ppl around us too.
Like I know a woman who’s a year older than me and is still single - she constantly complained about lack of worthy guys despite her “not wanting much”
But it was very obvious that she, a doctor at a prestigious hospital who went to HYP undergrad and HYP med school and attended HYP tier residency program did not consider anyone who’s “way below” her - and “way below” in this case is like… 90% of population…
I'm in Paris celebrating 41 years since my wife and I met and 40 years since married. And so for this week I'm reposting an essay I like called "You had Me At A Glance,"about when I met my wife when I was 22 and she was 21. I think there's a good story in there, but the sentence below rang out to me!
"There is also a very limited market for people who want to read five-minute articles called “I Met My Spouse At 22 And It Was Great."
“There is a big difference between a college student and a vagrant, although you wouldn’t know it from the state of their bathrooms”.
CHH, these thrown-in LOL-ers are always excellent.
Bragging: After my first marriage, I dated in NYC regularly for 17 years before I met my wife. Younger, Older, everybody. I have seen/heard amazing shit, yep.
I think you're definitely onto something about the ages of the people giving out this advice. "Men are so much sexier in their 30s" says a woman also in her 30s. And I should hope so!
They are! That's why I'm surprised you said that your college guy friends had not gotten more attractive. Every one I knew at age 20 was undercooked compared to 35!
I think generally it’s true, going off of movie stars. 30 year old Will Smith & Leo DiCaprio look like men compared to their 20s. Obviously they looked good at all ages but a more mature look has cross generational appeal
Another banger!
Whenever I hear the “when you’re a 20 year old guy, the world tells you you’re worthless” thing, I’m like damn, me and the girls certainly didn’t get the memo when we were 20 and our main hobby was worshipping 20 year old guys because they were on a sports team or whatever
Were we really yearning for a 38 year old banker with an impressive record collection? I guess we’ll never know because we all married our peers
“One of my pet theories is that women resent being the “project manager” of their households so much not because it’s a lot of work (although it is) but because a man being so complacent oozes a lack of masculine dominance and is horribly unsexy.”
Straight to my veins. You could write a series of articles on this.
Honestly I’m a little afraid to, but now I might! Lol
I think it’s helpful to push back against the idea that women are just constantly stressed out and overwhelmed by household management and that’s every woman’s chief complaint in every marriage.
I think a lot of women would be much more okay with being the project manager if their husband acted as CEO.
I don’t mind doing all the monthly budgeting and purchasing. Because my husband makes all the money, is responsible for our big picture finances, and casts the vision every year for what we’re working towards financially.
Yeah that can definitely be part of it. I don’t mind a lot of this stuff either because my husband isn’t complacent or passive and I’m not telling him what to do
Another element worth exploring might be generational signaling -- we now have several generations of men who were told to NOT be so domineering and suck up all the oxygen in the room and not to assume you are automatically in charge of everything because of your maleness, but there are also still lots of women who want men to do exactly those things, just in very specific circumstances and in certain ways.
Culturally, there are also a lot of assumptions about masculine coded behaviors that have lost their mooring a bit, because we still kind of want men and boys to be a certain way, but not to be assholes about it.
A few years ago I read a letter to a writer on another site (a relationship/advice site) and this woman was complaining about her boyfriend. One of the complaints was that she didn't feel like he could protect her if they were attacked (like by a mugger or murderer or whatever).
When I read that, I thought 1) that's a weird thing to ding your boyfriend about; 2) what types of places are you going where you feel like you're going to be attacked? I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag, so I don't go places where I might to do so; 3) the letter writer was an educated, confident, adult woman, but still had this expectation that any man should be prepared and equipped to successfully get through a bar fight or something. The only men I've ever met who are worth anything in a fight are professional fighters, some bouncers, and horrible guys who run around starting fights on purpose. Is that what you're looking for in a husband?
Boys need some kind of primer on how to be whatever level of confident/masculine seems right, but without being a dick or going on the Joe Rogan show to talk about how strong your neck is or whatever that Zuckerberg guy was going on about.
I think you are right. If the husband brings in the money and is responsible with it, and has a vision, then it’s just division of labor to be the project manager. You’re a team. You’re not taking care of Yet Another Big Kid.
Yes, exactly. We’re a team and I think things flow more easily when the team has a captain. My husband isn’t perfect but he is not an additional child.
I wonder how much is being stressed out and how much is the perceived unfairness of it. Here are some things I see with some folks I know:
I see women who are ok on doing the household management because their husband is doing stuff they don't want to do/don't have the skills to do (remodeling the bathroom, rotating the tires, rewiring the house, etc). That's the "we each have our jobs" model. "He's terrible with computers and phone calls and I don't know anything about motors and I don't want to know anything about them." These folks seem to be content as long as each party is doing a fair share of the work. The "I clean the house and he changes the oil," does not qualify, unless you only clean the house very briefly every 10,000 miles.
But it gets weird when the guy is a white-collar guy who does project management at work, keeps track of things, schedules meetings, does purchase orders, whatever, all using phones, computers, emails, etc and those skills don't transfer over to keeping the household running or getting the kids to the dentist, and it's a family that hires out the trade type jobs so he doesn't have the excuse that he's repairing the roof or something.
Very well put, and I lol’d at “you only clean the house very briefly every 10,000 miles.”
Trying to channel my inner CHH
I think this is a good point. If you’re a team, or at least both of you are doing a lot of hands-on work, then that’s one thing. But if the husband is doing a desk job, isn’t really bringing in more than an average income, and yet can’t pull any weight around the house, that’s maddening. Or if he’s always half-assing the trade jobs or leaving them mostly undone “I swear, honey, I will finish the kitchen” that’s extremely maddening.
It's not "masculine dominance" as much as plain incompetence and low energy. It's low energy that's unattractive.
A safe topic to explore, for sure; punching up at men and their feminization is easy.
Conversely, an article about the downsides of the masculinization of women (hard-won victories of feminism!) - now that's the real ragebait.
I think that it's a combination of factors - guys like this often do and act in ways that are just not attractive on a visceral level. And obviously, once couples are living together things are going to get casual and people are going to spend time chilling on the couch with movies and video games.
But it is supremely libido killing to watch one's boyfriend play video games in sweats while you're cleaning the kitchen. As much as men hate nags, women also hate nagging - repeating the same thing over and over means you're constantly frustrated, and that dynamic is very Not Hot (for either side, I'd imagine.)
Chief Vibe Officer over here
Rebuttal 1) I am unmarried at 32 2) all men other then me don’t actually count.
Lmaoo
Need to figure out how to turn "Married my high school sweetheart" into a grift
pls advise
More seriously, I think the problem is that "married HS sweetheart" is a nice one-time story, but "Still single and very much Going Through It" is a constant, never-ending stream of conversation until you settle down. The second isn't inherently more viral than the first, but it dominates time in a way the first doesn't.
What you need to do is get into a series of high-stakes, socially complex situations together where you only narrowly survive only because you "know each other that well."
You know, like going undercover on a bank heist or getting into polyamory.
I would totally watch a K-Drama about a polyamorous bank heist, just saying.
(Giving it a whirl, no AI).
*A man and a woman run together, giggling and holding a black duffle bag. They push open a door to daylight*
Another woman stands in their way: "Didn't expect to see me here did you? I didn't want to see you here myself."
*She turns away from them and towards the camera, eyes welling up with tears*
She continues: "It's not that you betrayed me for the money, that hurts the most... it's the thought of you leaving without ever saying goodbye."
*dramatic pause, his face is broken and conflicted.*
She continues: "Your betrayal is no surprise to me, in fact I counted on it. That bag doesn't have the money. My partner arranged the switch."
*She whirls around, meeting his gaze defiantly.*
She continues: "That bag is filled with letters, every night we were apart I wrote you a letter. Like a thousand pieces of my heart. By switching the bags you see, it was the only way we could be together..."
*Her eyes casts down, vulnerable, unable to meet his gaze*
A third woman steps into view: "It was the only way we could all be together."
*Like five other people step into view with alternative haircuts.*
Man wearing a black jacket and holding a duffle: "Just one problem with that. I want the money."
*He pulls a gun and points it out at the crowd*
Third woman: "No!"
*She lunges for the gun. The gun goes off*
*Camera pulls back to reveal that the first man has been hit after jumping forward to block the bullet*
Third woman, eyes welling up: "I always hoped, but I never knew you cared for me like that..."
Trad influencer
I feel like there’s no market at all for individual stories that are likely true for large swathes of the population:
“I’m married to my husband for ten years and we still find each other very sexy”
“We have two kids and don’t argue about household chores”
“We got married young and have never regretted it”
Etc.
Yeah literally! Just like nobody wants to watch 90 days fiancé who just goes through process w/o much issue or cultural shock lol
Sometimes I hear my coworkers talk about such things like dating strategy and women and what not, I want to say, just find someone you like and who likes you? Worked for me and my husband!
But I get how that sounds obnoxious
I think most people’s lives are very boring and hard to monetize. “I’m happily married to my husband, we love one another very much and don’t have big fights or disagreements of opinion, we have one well behaved kid, two cats and a dog who are also well-behaved, and yes, I can cook but I don’t have any super fantabulousa vegan gluten-free recipes to share, just Grandma’s chicken and dumplings recipe which she got off the back of a Pillsbury box in the 50’s” - that is not going to rake in any influencer bucks. You’re going to get an audience of ten, eight of whom are your family and your long-term friends.
All 3 of those apply to me! I feel so seen all of a sudden!
I don’t have any studies to back this up, so I’m going with my gut here. I find men in their twenties to be less interested in serious relationships than women of the same cohort. Women might be less enamored of twenty something men because the guys are all “yeah, this was fun bruh off to play some Fortnite see you next week”
Since I’m a midwesterner, I have examples of sensible down to earth young men - my nephew for example, just bought a house at 25, and most of his friends are homeowners - but his priority right now is his job followed by his yard. Women like him too but his head is not in the serious relationship space.
When I was dating, this was my biggest challenge - so many guys who signaled in various ways that they just weren't serious relationship material. Not because they didn't have enough resources yet (I was broke too!) but because everything about their lifestyle screamed "I'd like a girl to fuck me on my unwashed sheets and then do my laundry while I play Call of Duty"
I kind of had the thought that maybe the issue isn't "guys in their 20s don't have enough resources" or "guys in their 20s aren't mature enough yet", but rather "guys in their 20s are in an unattractive life phase". And then I thought "well, I'm just being a jackass gen-X-er who is kids-these-days-ing gen Z cuz it's a day ending in the letter y."
But I think "I'd like a girl to fuck me on my unwashed sheets and then do my laundry while I play Call of Duty" *totally* captures that vibe. :-)
Oh shit, we gotta wash our sheets?
Yes, this is a thing although I’m being told it’s reversed for the younger generations (or that everyone is afraid to leave their houses)
This was also my observation, back when I was in my 20s (and even early 30s). Women looking for something serious and the men just messing around. (Didn’t apply to me, already in a relationship, but I watched it play out over and over and heard a lot from both male and female friends.)
When I was in my mid-twenties, I met my now-wife and knew pretty much instantly that she was the one. I had a job and could afford my own place to live, and generally had my shit together.
And yet...i had *no* sense of time urgency in the relationship at all...none. I lived in the present like some kind of labradoodle.
At one point one of my older co-workers said to me "when we get out of this project crunch, you should propose..." and ... he was clearly right, but not in a "I've been avoiding this and it's time for a confrontation with myself kind of way", just in a "I'm a 20-something guy so that just kinda didn't occur to me" way.
I’m in my early twenties and this has 100% been my experience!!
As a man in his forties, I'd tell young men the opposite. Dating is not something you wait until after achieving emotional maturity to do, it is *part of how you learn emotional maturity.* Being "good at relationships" is a skill, and like any other skill, it's not something you get better at by refusing to practice.
Mistakes I see the genders making:
Women not realizing how surrounded they are by high potential men in college and not settling down. Then having far fewer options later and being reluctant to “settle” because they remember the better options (and plethora of options) that were available in college.
Men not wanting to settle until they actually build their life. Viewing marriage as a capstone instead of foundational. Not realizing that one of the best way to engender loyalty and mutual sacrifice in a marriage is to build your life together.
I don’t necessarily think these decisions fall along gendered lines, but do agree that people undervalue building a life with someone v. doing it yourself and trying to find a perfect mate to match your fine-tuned, curated life later on.
I heard this described as "startup" marriages vs "merger" marriages. Both can work, but they may face different challenges in the early years.
I think men and women tend to have different issues with of course some overlap. This is what I have observed to be more common amongst each gender. I of course could be wrong and things could be different outside my social circles.
I don’t think that’s the meta anymore. Taylor Swift dated her Super Bowl winning boyfriend at the zenith of her career. More & more we are seeing people live their fulfilling lives then pairing up with another person on their level.
I’m not really talking about “meta”, I’m talking about the reality that I see around me. And the people I personally know with the strongest marriages are people who got together in their 20s and worked to build everything together.
Taylor Swift just got engaged. Who knows how successful that marriage will be. And men who are putting off settling down until their whole lives are figured out are probably not comparable to Travis Kelce. It will work for the top tier of men who will still be able to have lots of options later in life, much more of a gamble for men who let their prime time to meet eligible women pass them by.
My point is I believe the current zoomer culture is going to be influenced on the “build yourself then find an equally great partner” We see this phenomenon in the rise of “situationships”, decentering men, decreased alcohol consumption (since less social at the bars), and more of the celebs & role models delaying marriage.
As you pointed out, most good marriages are where people build a life together. It will be interesting to see how these diff philosophies play out
Got it, I see what you’re saying.
I’m not sure. The zoomers I personally know who have been successful with the opposite sex are still getting together younger and just delaying marriage and children. I just went to an engagement party for my zoomer brother in law, who is very attractive and popular, and almost all of his and his fiancé’s friends are in serious relationships.
I still think it’s going to be that the savvy, relationship-minded people are going to recognize the goldmine that is college and get paired off in their early 20s. And there are going to be a lot of people who delay and then look around and realize everybody they would have liked to marry is already taken.
But we’ll see!
One caveat, when women start out dating I don't think they care very much about projected or future "resources". A fifteen year old girl, hopefully, isn't thinking about high school boys as future providers.
I do feel like, looking at my fellow nerd friends, that a lot of us saw our attractiveness rise once women started looking at guys as potential future husbands and fathers. We were all losers in high school and sometimes in college as well, we all got married in the end. But yes, this shift starts happening well before 30.
I think about how the dominant energy of high school dating is "insecurity." Most of us were just figuring things out and very worried about what others think, which leads to the piling on of everyone agreeing that Joe/Jane Stereotypically attractive are our type. Then you get some experience and confidence and start to discern what it is you actually like and not what you think others think you should like.
A lot of my nerdier guy friends hit college already sort of bitter. They mostly fully recovered, but I wish we could all just write off those early years of "dating" and not read too much into them. I say this as a nerdy girl who also did not date at all in high school but, in traditional girl fashion, I just blamed myself and assumed I deserved it.
yeah, 15 not so much. 25 definitely.
I feel like the advice "women want put together men who have emotionally maturity and money" is nearly opposite to the advice "women want bad boys who take risks and play games with them". What these have in common are just-so stories about why men aren't getting laid and why the content producer has the secret. Men could do worse than disregarding both pieces of advice and just trying to talk to irl women on their own terms.
There probably is a higher synthesis though. Women want emotionally mature men who are wild just for them. This is like the female equivalent of men who want chaste guileless women who suddenly turn into a frisky freak for one lucky man in particular.
Great read!
As someone who got married at 34 while meeting my wife at 32, I feel like i learned some skills or knowledges through some (failed) dating - in other words, if I had not started much earlier than 32, I really don’t think I was able to marry now.
And i guess another tricky thing about loud minority who is picky and stay single in their thirties is, esp for PMC folks, it is not that hard to find those ppl around us too.
Like I know a woman who’s a year older than me and is still single - she constantly complained about lack of worthy guys despite her “not wanting much”
But it was very obvious that she, a doctor at a prestigious hospital who went to HYP undergrad and HYP med school and attended HYP tier residency program did not consider anyone who’s “way below” her - and “way below” in this case is like… 90% of population…
I'm in Paris celebrating 41 years since my wife and I met and 40 years since married. And so for this week I'm reposting an essay I like called "You had Me At A Glance,"about when I met my wife when I was 22 and she was 21. I think there's a good story in there, but the sentence below rang out to me!
"There is also a very limited market for people who want to read five-minute articles called “I Met My Spouse At 22 And It Was Great."
Also, the movie Oh Hi is a perfect CHH movie.
“oh yeah bro you totally shouldn’t date until after you hit the wall (twink death)” evil behavior
I Met My Spouse At 22 And It Was Great
“There is a big difference between a college student and a vagrant, although you wouldn’t know it from the state of their bathrooms”.
CHH, these thrown-in LOL-ers are always excellent.
Bragging: After my first marriage, I dated in NYC regularly for 17 years before I met my wife. Younger, Older, everybody. I have seen/heard amazing shit, yep.
I think you're definitely onto something about the ages of the people giving out this advice. "Men are so much sexier in their 30s" says a woman also in her 30s. And I should hope so!
I too believe men are most attractive between 35 and 40 😂
Very strange because when my husband and I met our freshman year of college I could have sworn men were most attractive at 18. Curious 🧐
They are! That's why I'm surprised you said that your college guy friends had not gotten more attractive. Every one I knew at age 20 was undercooked compared to 35!
I think generally it’s true, going off of movie stars. 30 year old Will Smith & Leo DiCaprio look like men compared to their 20s. Obviously they looked good at all ages but a more mature look has cross generational appeal
Idk if movies stars are good examples though. Theyre professionally beautiful people with access to world class health care and cosmetic procedures.
And I think CHH means as far as partners go. Saying someone is handsome on the cover of a magazine isn't the same as wanting to date them.
At least with sexiness, older 30ish guys exude more imo. Obviously with normies who get out of shape, they gonna look better at 20 than 30.