Why women lose the dating game - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/society-and-culture/why-women-lose-the-dating-game-20120421-1xdn0.html <comment><USER2> Interesting to see this get coverage. One of the factors that makes for this phenomenon is simple math. Say there is a 55-45 ratio (with more women) among 30-something college-educated folks. Say, moreover, that by then 80% of the people are in relationships. That makes for 40 women paired up with 40 men, leaving 15 single women and just 5 single men.

I think a lot of this is self-inflicted, though. Professional women often still carry with them some of this 1960's mentality and refuse to "date down." As the demographics change and women being overrepresented among the college- educated, this puts them at the wrong end of a supply/demand imbalance.

On the other hand, some of the voluntary decisions are due to unfair social pressures. I think women wouldn't wait so long to get married if doing so didn't start a timer on their downshifting their career. My wife and I got married at 26/27 and had a baby shortly thereafter. My wife is a corporate lawyer and gets a lot of flak for working long hours, especially from family. Nobody ever gives me flak for working long hours. Painting in broad brush strokes, men tend to find that when they get married, society reinforces their career ambitions. Women tend to find that when they get married, society chips away at their career ambitions. Other women, particularly other moms, are the worst about it.

<comment><USER3> A professional, educated guy will marry the receptionist if she's funny and hot. But a professional, educated woman will rarely marry the maintenance guy. Brutal but that's how it is.

<comment><USER4> >>A professional, educated guy will marry the receptionist if she's funny and hot.

Try to sleep with maybe, but marry? I doubt it.

edit: This wasn't clear in my post, but I was speaking for myself. To each his own of course. :)

<comment><USER5> It is not my experience that most men are even willing to consider how well a woman will be able to support them financially, since that is considered emasculating.

<comment><USER6> From the age of 18 onward, I selected on a quirky combination of intelligence plus subjective cuteness. I did not consider financial stability but I wouldn't have been emasculated by it either. I was by no means an alpha, but I was a straight A student and that did help with attracting the smarter ones (which the alphas, frat boys and jocks mostly ignored anyway).

That said, this was a really bad algorithm. My divorce sucked.

Since then, I've selected on a maxmin of a quirky combination of intelligence plus subjective cuteness combined with financial stability. So far, so good. I had to rule out several otherwise promising contenders on the way using the second criterion though.

I would not consider marrying the receptionist, no matter how hot, unless I noticed that she was reading O'Reilly books and/or managing her multiple rental properties between visitors to the front desk. You do not want to marry a boat anchor and make beautiful concrete galoshes with her.

Finally, while looks are a mediocre measure of long-term compatibility when one is young, as one approaches and passes 40, one's looks become less a matter of genetics and more a matter of the consequences of conscious choices along the way and so I got pickier on that axis as my pool of potential partners aged.

Women who are selecting for financial stability early on are way ahead of you if you truly consider a financially competent woman emasculating. Get over it.

<comment><USER7> >> I would not consider marrying the receptionist, no matter how hot, unless I noticed that she was reading O'Reilly books and/or managing her multiple rental properties between visitors to the front desk. You do not want to marry a boat anchor and make beautiful concrete galoshes with her.

Wow. What if you enjoy each others company immensely?

<comment><USER6> Turned down two potential partners whose company I enjoyed immensely because the first one (ivy league degrees, spoke 4 languages, virtuoso musician) could not hold a job for more than a couple months and had zero life-savings and the second one (beautiful, charming, popular) turned out to be a narcissist that was over $1M in the hole due to the housing crash. Both had expensive tastes despite this.

So yes, if I found out the receptionist was falling ever deeper into debt and/or wasn't doing something on her own to rise above the seemingly unstoppable ongoing wealth redistribution to the top 5%, I would not marry her. OTOH if I found out she was a diamond in the rough like I alluded to above, I wouldn't let her out of my sight.

Fights over money are marriage-killers. And to quote Faye Valentine: "Beautiful skin can only be maintained by tireless efforts which are ultimately totally futile." So what's in it for me in this case other than transient enjoyment followed by a lifetime of sorrow?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I propose not distinguishing the "winners" and "losers" by sex to understand who has the upper hand, but by those who act on what they want and those who don't.

I suspect the people who end up not getting what they want tend to be the ones who don't put in the effort, especially taking the emotional risks in attracting others, initiating relationships, and making the relationships work the way they want.

Many men and many women put in this effort. Many men and many women also don't put in this effort. I suspect the former group has much more success than the latter group in the long run whether male or female, though I suspect they face a lot more rejection and emotional pain in the short run. I suspect the latter group faces less short-term pain and rejection, but is lucky to get what they want from relationships if they ever do.

The emotional challenges of making yourself vulnerable are harder for most than pursuing a career or hobbies so many men and women go the emotionally easier route of working hard at their jobs. In my experience, along with overcoming those challenges comes tremendous emotional growth.

(Btw, I disagree with the zero-sum mentality of winners and losers because people can have more than one deep, meaningful relationship and relationship come in many forms, but adopted it for consistency with the article).

<comment><USER4> >>Effort

Well, sure, effort is important. But there are also many "hard-coded" factors outside one's control. For example, I'm 5'9", which makes me average in that category. To make up for it, I need to dress extra nice and be athletic/muscular. Whereas someone who is, say, 6'2" will be attractive to women solely on the virtue of being tall.

<comment><USER9> >>Whereas someone who is, say, 6'2" will be attractive to women solely on the virtue of being tall.

Lol no. As a 6'2" man with social anxiety, being tall is not some magical doorway to getting the ladies.

Effort is more important, grooming is more important, being able to hold a conversation is more important, etc.

edit: I'm not saying height isn't an advantage. I'm saying that there are MANY other factors which matter MUCH more than just height.

<comment><USER10> Take two people who make the same amount of effort, groom as well as each other, can hold conversations, etc.

One of them is 6'2", the other is 4'10". Which one is going to have an easier time?

Hight is an advantage.

<comment><USER9> Now unbalance it a bit, if the 6'2" can't hold a conversation he's going to fail. This means that holding a conversation is more important.

Same thing if he's not well groomed, same thing if he's out of shape. Same thing good career vs unemployed.

And these are all things that can be improved if you work at it.

Height is an advantage, but it's not the most important one.

<comment><USER11> >Now unbalance it a bit, if the 6'2" can't hold a conversation he's going to fail. This means that holding a conversation is more important.

This is wrong reasoning. You may just well say: if someone can hold a conversation but is 3'10'' he is going to fail hence height is more important. Let me improve it for you: Some minimal level is necessary in all respects: height, holding a conversation, not being awkward, not being disgusting. Once you have that various factors counts at various degrees - height is one of the most important ones (if not the most important one). Status is a contender but guess what: height helps with achieving that too (as it does with acquiring wealth as well). Also you can work on improving almost anything (holding a conversation, money, athletism) but you can't improve your height. It's huge inherent advantage, nothing comes close.

<comment><USER12> As a pretty short, straight-seeming bi guy (5'2), I have a unique perspective that might be enlightening about the importance of height to women.

Although I hate projecting people onto the 0-10 spectrum, I'll do it here for illustrative purposes.

With women, I have a great deal of difficulty attracting anyone: it's less that I match with numerical ones and twos than not matching with anyone at all. Not no one--and those I do succeed with are typically even middling on the spectrum--but it's a massive crapshoot.

With men, I can go out to a bar on any night of the week and bring home someone in the top half and usually an eight or nine. Sure, that's meaningless shit, but converting those into relationships isn't difficult at all (or at least no more difficult than anyone in the gay community has converting hookups to relationships).

The difference is incredibly striking, and anyone who says height isn't a factor in women dating is so wrong that it's incomprehensible that they've ever bothered to even talk to a woman about how she feels about height in dating partners.

<comment><USER13> I have plenty of women friends who have told me flat-out they wouldn't date a man shorter than them.

<comment><USER12> That's pretty common as a phenomenon: I wouldn't say it's a cliff so much as a very steep grade. My current girlfriend is an inch taller than me, and taller than that in heels (and I love her in them!). But she's the tallest person I've ever dated.

It also shows the shortcomings (no pun intended...) of the 0-10 rating model: there's neither generic Man nor generic Woman. Your rating to women you're more than two or three inches taller than (could be 0, could be 10) is almost entirely independent of your rating to women you're two or three inches shorter than (0).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Dating is disgusting solely because of power dynamics. The whole thing _reeks_ of entitlement from both genders. From the rating system (which requires a highly reductionistic view of people, to the point that it is damaging to you), to the pseudo-scientific alpha/beta monikers, to the creepy game advocates ("she says no, but she really means yes!"). Both sides pull out shoddy excuses for what amounts to knee-jerk dismissal of potential mates.

I've been dumped over the hazy prospect of something better more than once. AFAIK, those exes are still searching. But, I'm 31 now, and really happy as a husband to a wonderful wife.

Dating is severely overrated. The best thing you can do is get in and get out without becoming cynical from it. Long-term relationships are satisfying in a way that dating can never compare to.

<comment><USER15> America has this unfruitful competetive-combative attitude to _everything_. You could instead think of dating as a mutual cooperative process of finding out if you two should really get together. The hate and dumping and gloating and sex exploits don't maky any normal emphatic person happy deep down.

<comment><USER16> _You could instead think of dating as a mutual cooperative process of finding out if you two should really get together._

I like your world...let's live there instead.

:(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are a lot of unstated values out there. I'm a great father -- really -- but it isn't hard to look at my divorce and think it happened because I didn't make the money my wife expected of me. This despite the supposedly anti- material, pro-family values of herself and her set.

Don't get me wrong, I made some SERIOUS mistakes of my own, and had some important problems to work through. She has her side of the story too, and neither of us could tell a simple story.

But money and earning was a huge problem, even when I was making two or three standard deviations more than the US average. And it was a shock to me to see how many people supposedly rejected the rat-race values, and knew my relationship with my kids, yet couldn't be bothered to call to see how I was doing. People say they want dads who focus on their kids, but I haven't noticed much effort to support those guys in the tight spots. At least not when Mom declares the guy a loser.

Again. No representation of personal perfection is made or intended. I had a lot to work on in the marriage, found more in the divorce, still finding more yet. Yay.

I hope this doesn't come across bitter. I think there is a lot of confusion in the discussions of gender roles and career and child raising, and I think a lack of candor is part of that. So it is important to notice that a great deal of the values declared, are declared for the nobility of the declaration and don't prove to mean much. A good many people are smarter / wiser / more careful than I was, and don't take those declarations at face value, and so find themselves making better decisions and on firmer foundations. But it is impossible to really talk to most of those people about their attitudes, because they all know that some of their opinions could bring a lot of flak. Why pay that price to be candid? Especially when, let's face it, many of these conversations are begun with an intended conclusion in mind.

From what I've seen, personally, we need a LOT more honesty in our discussions of gender roles and careers and child raising. And a LOT of that has to come from people on the "progressive" side of the discussion.

<comment><USER18> How exactly was money a problem? What kinds of conversations/arguments did you have about money?

<comment><USER17> We made some moves, and she some sacrifices, that expected I would make a lot more than I did. That is on me, as are some of the issues driving that. I have complaints about other issues bearing on this, but that gets messy.

That said, we were making enough, if we budgeted. And she wouldn't, and we fought about it a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reminded me of this... :)

A store has just opened in New York City that offered free husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:

"You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors to choose from. You may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the 1st floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs. The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids. The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely Good Looking.

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework. "Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims. "I can hardly stand it!" Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the Sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 71,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that you are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a Wife Store just across the street.

The 1st first floor has wives that love sex. The 2nd floor has wives that love sex and have money. The 3rd through 6th floors have never been visited...

([http://www.city-data.com/forum/relationships/276172-joke- hus...](http://www.city-data.com/forum/relationships/276172-joke-husband- store.html))

</comment><comment><USER20> It is interesting (kind of scary to me) that this is totally stripped out of all humanity. Dating is now a game, people are prospects and they receive rates from 0 to 10. These are not just metaphors anymore, this is how people are actually considering others human beings. It became the paradigm of finding a partner.

This formal meeting where both sides are constantly analyzing their partners and odds, i.e., dates, inevitably leads to this paradigm. It is just like job interviews, you can't possibly get to know deepily each candidate, so you have to create artificials proxies that will help you to chose wisely. And this proxies are wrong most of the times.

But when finding a partner you _can_ possibly have time to meet another person more deeply. Actually, you do that all the time, at work, at your neighborhood, with friends and friends of friends. But that is not longer a possibility if you have spent all your life not interest at all in people surrounding you, waiting for the time when you will chose a person from a shelf to marry you.

Tl;dr: I don't think is much about successfull women high expectations, but about women didn't have much interest at all in another humans and now think of a partner as a product. And they don't get how this 'product' has a mind of its own now.

<comment><USER14> You're hitting on a fundamental truth here: dating's crappy power dynamics actively chips away at our very humanity. We're to be content with these cheap proxies and massive game-playing, because, well, sorry, everyone else has bought in too. This is most closely evidenced by proponents of every creepy dating mindset: "it must be true, because this is what animals do!"

Maybe this is the fallout of mass consumerism, and a lifetime of being told that you can have it all. Dating sites pander to this too, by implicitly advertising love as just a mere SQL query away:

SELECT * FROM candidates WHERE gender = 'm' AND salary > 150000 AND height > 72

SELECT * FROM candidates WHERE gender = 'f' AND age < 27 AND looks > 9.8

I've always thought a dating site that was less search-y and more experiential (aka requires time to actually _meet_ people) could be a profitable niche. You meet people first, then get access to look at their profiles.

As for expectations, I love what my pastor said: "you probably don't deserve the person you think you deserve."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fairly relevant for female entrepreneurs. I have a professional acquaintance who has been toying with being the prototypical power woman (who, IMO, doesn't really exist): involved supermom, successful entrepreneur, good wife. My advice to her was that I've been successful and have a family and family is way more satisfying. Besides, once your kids are grown up, PLEASE continue contributing to society by being an entrepreneur. You're not going to keep having kids when you're 40. Enjoy your youth and love your kids.

Before people say "why don't men do the same?" here is why: [http://jobs.economist.com/article/when-women-dare-to- outearn...](http://jobs.economist.com/article/when-women-dare-to-outearn-men/)

"For the couples themselves, the dynamic may be a problem. As long as the woman earns less, her income does not cause trouble in the marriage. Once she earns more, however, marriage difficulties jump and divorce rates increase. Interestingly, it does not seem to matter whether she earns only slightly more, or substantially more—an indication that it is not female income per se, but the mere fact of earning more, that causes trouble."

I doubt that is changing anytime soon.

<comment><USER22> I think your comment is of kind intent, but if I were to summarize it, it reads to me like "Women, you should defer your careers by 20 years so you don't upset your spouse and, through his insecurity, risk divorce."

Maybe the advice should be that men should get counseling or something if they're so insecure that they divorce their breadwinner.

<comment><USER23> That assumes divorce is a bad thing.

Marriage comes from a time when women were unable to earn a living on their own, and we still hold up many of those ideals, even in our modern equal- oppurtunity society. Perhaps when a woman clearly demonstrates she is equally capable of being the breadwinner, the couple are freed to be more open to making relationship decisions on the basis of the relationship alone without feeling the obligations of marriage?

<comment><USER21> In the vast majority of cases, divorce is worse for the kids and usually leaves the women worse off for a variety of reasons (and if I hear patriarchy, /thread done.)

There are many situations in which divorce is the only choice but it is dangerous to imply that it is right thing to do more often than not because we are now supposedly more enlightened.

If you don't have kids though, go for it.

<comment><USER24> Divorce is bad for WOMEN?? Divorce is a disaster for men both emotionally and financially. Even prenuptial agreements are largely useless as they are normally overturned by the court system. A serious consideration (and study) of the chances of divorce and the normal outcome of divorce would have any man reconsidering (assuming he is thinking rationally rather than emotionally).

<comment><USER25> And now that we have decided that divorce is bad for the kids, the women, and the men, maybe we can be comfortable saying divorce is a bad thing.

<comment><USER24> After divorce in today's society, a man is 12 times more likely than his ex to commit suicide. This seems to indicate that men after divorce having a much harder time than women and the constant nature of these numbers indicates that these issues are not being addressed by society.

I remember reading about a man who was sent to prison for not paying child support and alimony. He was wealthy before the 2008 crash, but afterwards was un/underemployed and simply COULDN'T pay the almost $100,000 required by the state.

I have found no cases where women deal with this kind of discrimination in the courtroom while there is a staggering amount of cases where men are completely destroyed financially and left seeing the most important people in their life for a few hours every couple of weeks simply because they are men.

<comment><USER10> HN really needs to purge the wing-nut MRA accounts.

> After divorce, a man is 12 times more likely than his ex to commit suicide > in society today.

do you have a reliable source for that?

> I have found no cases where women deal with this kind of discrimination in > the courtroom

You haven't looked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Also it is interesting how a lot those women want a man with already established career, etc, but it doesn't work out like that. In most cases those men achieved such career heights with the help of their significant other and therefore already have one and might only be interested in an affair, not marriage. "How to become a General's wife? You marry a Lieutenant."

<comment><USER16> Similarly, it's unsurprising how much vitriol and poor behavior/misogyny these folks exhibit in their 30s.

Consider the number of guys who go through their twenties and don't have any luck--perhaps even having good female friends who are close but never take that additional step into a proper relationship because there are hotter guys around.

Now, go through a decade of this, and suddenly you "get your shit together", and now things are easier (really, perhaps, the girls are just better adjusted in their expectations), and how are you to treat these people?

People who looked on for a decade while you suffered? Why not treat them like pieces of meat--that's how you were treated, after all.

And if you _do_ treat them decently and settle down, you basically know that you are likely missing out on a whole chunk of life experience.

It's a horrible and toxic cycle.

It seems like we get to keep having this as a societal norm, or we get to complain about manchildren and not settling down--we do not get to do both.

EDIT: This is clearly not the case for everyone; there are many, many different life experiences out there. That said, for a certain set, I would wager this is fairly close to what they'll/they've gone through.

<comment><USER27> Well, it should be expected - by that time the majority is already married or 'settled-down' without marriage, so the nice guys and average guys are mostly 'out of market' while all of the douchebags and also the most frustrated ones are still right there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> On the assumption that the conclusions reached here are reasonably accurate and the generalizations aren't based on utter mistakes, and with the understanding that even in that case this is still just a set of conclusions and conjectures based on averages or pluralities leaving _many_ people to which it's simply not relevant...

...making those assumptions, I'm trying hard not feel just a little smug when realizing I'm one of those approaching-middle-aged men who's suddenly a lot more attractive (effectively) than ten years ago.

I don't sleep around rampantly, and never have, but I am with a 20-something woman (and part of that first paragraph I wrote comes in because I didn't pick her to settle down or because she's a 10, nor is that why she's with me). The description of relationships in that age range did make me think a bit.

I'm trying _not_ to feel smug because that's a terrible reaction: It's the same way you'd expect a hot 20-something girl to feel knowing she can get any guy she wants, at least temporarily. And feeling smug about this ignores the fact that, whether women who do fit this profile were jerks in their younger years or not, they're now more mature, more experienced, and facing prospects that just aren't pleasant and make the rest of their lives -- which they've worked hard for -- a lot more uncertain than they had reason to expect before. Regardless of how carelessly or inconsiderately you spent the romantic pursuits your younger years, if this is the problem you face, I can manage at least some sympathy.

That said... I still can't shake the doubts I expressed at the start. I obviously haven't seen the data or anything, but it's hard to look at this and say "yep, I have no doubt their methods are good and their conclusions are representative."

<comment><USER29> How did you meet her?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Natural selection is on the side of women in their 20's and on the side of men from then on.

All the crap women put us through most men read this article and cheer.

<comment><USER31> > All the crap women put us through

How can you expect women to select without testing us?

<comment><USER30> If mens test is success, the women's test is her looks.

And attractive young girls are men's equivalent of the rich handsome finance studs.

If we're going to allow men to be selected for we also have to allow women to be selected for.

In the spirit of honest natural selection leaving your sagging wife and marrying your young secretary is good for humanity as a whole.

<comment> muuh-gnu > the women's test is her looks.

No, a woman's test is her chastity. Nobody but the most desperate beta is marrying and having kids with the town bicycle, no matter how good she looks or how young she is.

<comment><USER30> Chastity? What planet are you on?

LOOKS ARE WHY WOMEN WEAR MAKEUP and mini skirts. If chastity were their test they would be doing exactly the opposite.

You're not getting turned on by porn because the woman is 'chaste'. You're getting turned on becuase she is HOT.

Looks, indicate fertility and health, and are widely know through out all of biology and the animal kingdom to be used by males to select fit mates no matter slutty and how many litters of animals the female has had. It indicates genetic fitness.

For men success is the test. It indicates accumulation of resources and ability to survive.

Plus, sex is a powerful primitive desire and no (matter what they tell you) they're all "bicycles" as you describe it, just like you would LIKE to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Has anyone here read The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter, by Meg Jay? As a young 20-year-old female, the chapter on relationships and marriage was, to put it politely, terrifying. If you don't start having kids by 30, the chance of it being possible in your mid-late 30s is slim. So - kids by 30, you want to have about 1 year of marriage kid-free, you want to date your future spouse for 4-5 years before marriage.... Do that math and basically who you're dating at age 23 (me) is who you're ending up with.

Terrifying.

<comment><USER33> One option, if you can afford it, is to freeze your own eggs. It's costly but is probably a better option than having kids before you really want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What these women don't realize is that a lot of the men who _want_ to commit find someone to commit to in their early to mid twenties. The men who are left, and have perhaps never found a women willing to commit to them (like some of the 'power women' mentioned in this article), have been trained that women can't be trusted to commit to them, and so there you are. Sure there are plenty of exceptions, but it seems to be a general trend.

</comment><comment><USER35> The article is pretty spot on, and I've noticed many of the same things throughout my early-mid 20's (late 20's now). Many of the women who couldn't be bothered with someone like me (not bad looking, pretty good shape, tall, but not 'alpha' enough) when I was 20-25, now throw themselves at me, especially when they realize I'm married (got married at 27).

And to add to this, why are so many guys douchebags? Because we've been treated like shit by women from our teenage years, and now know we have the upper hand.

Of course, I'm not like that (probably would be if I was single), my wife is very sweet and very pretty, and I'm glad to be out of the dating game.

</comment><comment><USER36> From my own personal experience I can say there's a lot of truth to this article. I live in NYC and in my early twenties attractive girls my age were hard to come by. Most were taken by older men, muscle guys or rich kids. I'm approaching thirty and all of sudden I'm getting a lot more attention from women of all ages. The younger girls either want a stable guy "who can help them grow" or a guy with money who knows how to have sex, while the older women are looking for a chair to sit on before the music stops. I'm married now so it doesn't mean much, but the thought is still there: "where were you girls nine years ago?"

<comment><USER37> I wonder if we are the first generation to come to this observation, as it seems to be a common observation across the board.

<comment><USER36> We're the first generation to express this observation on a global communication network.The truth is finally available to the masses!

<comment><USER37> I don't think that's all. People in past generations used to get married well before 30.

<comment><USER36> That's true but a couple of generations have already gone by that marry past 30.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> A big part of their problem is that they are not just competing against women their age: Men happily date younger women, and younger women happily date older men more successful, experienced etc. than the men their own age.

I'm 38. I get more attention from early 20's women now than ever before.

<comment><USER11> And to that you should say "justice!" because when you were 20 something guy competing vs guys in their 30's, late 20's with somewhat established careers/status/money was very difficult and/or impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Data from American colleges show 20 per cent of males - the most attractive ones - get 80 per cent of the sex"

damn it..its just like the app store.

<comment><USER40> Don't take it personally, it seems to be a fundamental feature of mathematics and human behavior that when a competitive and healthy market exists for a quality which is normally distributed, the resulting price curve follows a power law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I see a lot of this in the Netherlands as well; a lot of girlfriends in their 30s 'cannot find a man'. All of them are managers, judges and/or PhDs; they have a hard time finding a match. We often discuss the bar too high thing and they know this is the case but they first want to try it that way. When they get near 40 (and after that 'unable' to have kids) they lose this and marry and/or move in with someone they wouldn't have given the light of day before to make babies with. Seen it many times. Some of them are really happy they did it because they really didn't think they could live with someone that didn't meet _all_ their standards; now they realise those standards were nuts and anyone meeting them would be a freak.

I must say that I haven't seen anything as weird as I read here with people I know; guys getting their own back as some kind of revenge for their missed 20s? Maybe it happens; luckily I don't know these guys.

Another thing:

I'm 38 like Greg the writer from the article; unlike Greg the writer I had some idea how basic things work. You know; supply and demand. In (and a bit before) my 20s I was a big guy with glasses, a beard and long hair. I listened to metal music. So I must go to rock concerts and rock bars to meet girls? Of course not; that would be stupid; I went to parties with clean shaven, nice smelling, well dressed, upper class talking students. People studying law, business etc. In those days (still? no idea) math/physics/cs were real geeks and they didn't go to those things. Now all girls there wanted these guys and there were ONLY these guys; they all looked the same. There would be _always_ about 1-3 girls who went with friends or just because bored, but who hated the kind of guy there. Either because of look or attitude. They went for me, automatically, every time. I would talk about physics and they would sleep with me; I had/have great relations with some of them. It still works now (I'm happily married now, but it still is flattering).

I ran a successful dating site for a while and often explained to people that if you all fish in the same pond, nothing will happen. That's just useless disappointment if you're not Don Juan.

</comment><comment><USER42> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy)

</comment><comment><USER43> I think this article reinforces a lot of the problems with marriage in our society in the first place, and pinpoints a lot of the reasons why a majority of marriages fail.

We're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Marriage was born a long time ago and used for very very different purposes than what the 21st century 30-something career woman is hoping to use it for. Of course said demographic isn't getting what they want from it.

Both the criteria for a spouse and the reasons for getting married are either too superficial or overly vague. You need to first ask yourself why you want to get married and then develop criteria for a partner based on that.

Why do you want a spouse? To have sex? You don't need a lifetime commitment for that, it'd be a wiser life style decision to move to a place with legal prostitution. Do you want a spouse because you're lonely? Then make more friends. There's no need to make the relationship legally binding, go to places where people congregate with similar interests. Do you want to have kids? There's tons of charities out there where you can mentor children and make a very real impact on our society without creating new children with a spouse whom you selected based on criteria that are terrible predictors of being a good parent.

We as a society are never going to be able provide healthy guidance on marriage until we start to be very honest with ourselves about what marriage is for and what its purpose is for each us.

<comment><USER37> > Marriage was born a long time ago and used for very very different purposes

I think you are hitting the core of the issue here. Reason dictates that commitment/marriage and dating/hookup culture are completely incompatible. Of course, it takes decades for society to look itself in the mirror, but we are certainly in a transitory period, and things are not going back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Some of this is cute-ish: "* 20 per cent of males - the most attractive ones - get 80 per cent of the sex _" OKcupid used to have a blog with funny posts on stats like this.

Some bits, I don't really know if I should dismiss: "_It's wall-to-wall arseholes out there _". It's too easy to find negative anecdotes and sentiments that things are getting worse. Especially month the nonvoluntary singles.

"Women with degrees want a smaller group of men with degrees" will fix itself. A degree isn't what it used to be in exclusiveness. Women might even be doing more degrees specifically because they are under a little less pressure torn.

I think preferences at different ages plays a bigger part. Women tend to be at peak attractiveness in their 20s. Men in their 30s. Both want to settle down in their 30s. Also men _can* have kids later so even though attractiveness goes down they have longer. This makes it easier for men in the settle down phase and women in the play the field phase. The 30something women's complaint (can't find a nice guy to marry) just seems more reasonable than the 20something Men's.

</comment><comment><USER45> ... I'm not sure exactly who should be offended by this article - whether it's the conservative men, the feminists, the liberal men, the MRAs, the 20something gals, the 30-something gals, whatever... but I'm pretty sure they ought to be offended. This is rife with some pretty vile stereotypes and broad brushes.

<comment><USER46> For a topic as large as dating, broad brushes are all you have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is why marriage and civilization was invented. 80% per cent of men in their 20s not getting women would lead to revolution in earlier times, but today TV, internet and plentiful food distract them from this.

Eastern cultures (india/china etc) have a relative advantage now, precisely because of their culture. Think of all the lost productivity from emotional hardships from most men in their 20s and lots of women in their 30s in western countries.

<comment><USER29> You wait for Oculus Rift 5 and see what happens. Tech sex revolution will absolutely shake the society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> "Almost one in three women aged 30 to 34 and a quarter of late-30s women do not have a partner, according to the 2006 census statistics. And this is a growing problem."

Why? Because birthrates are declining? Or because people "need to" have a partner?

<comment><USER27> Is it a rethorical question?

Because recently a growing portion of late-30s women are single, and it's not because now more of them have chosen so, but because now more of them are unable a [suitable] partner, so they themselves perceive it as a problem. Of course, not every one of them "needs to" have a parter, but a majority does want a partner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Women don't lose the dating game. Men don't win it either. There's just a lot of really sucky players and a few people who got lucky. Stop playing the game and you'll find yourself a lot happier for it.

</comment><comment><USER50> There's two important issues at work here: 1\. "Pairing" is basically a barter market where every good is unique, information on them is noisy or downright deceptive, and you only get to trade once (hopefully). That's a recipe for having problems getting clearing trades and feeling good about a trade you've made.

2\. Behavioral psychology says we all tend to "high water mark". We want our eventual partner to be better looking than, smarter, more successful etc than the partners we had previously. Especially if you're getting older and your appeal is perhaps declining, that's going to make it very difficult to find someone who meets your standards, because your standards have risen over the course of your dating life.

</comment><comment><USER51> This following stat doesn't help if women want to "Have it all" which I assume means at least one child.

Each year, about 500,000 men in the US get a vasectomy, with rates higher among more educated and higher-income men.

</comment><comment><USER52> Having unrealistic, superficial, mythical "check boxes" for a potential partner (male or female) in the western world is so out of whack. Money, fame, looks can only take you so far. Why couldn't people just be honest i.e. be themselves and try to make a meaningful connection to a person? Sure, no one wants to see a "loser" (whatever that definition might be) but get to know somebody before accepting/rejecting them and not having preconceived notions.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's astonishing that having a serious relationship or not is such a planned decision for some. Do people really break up with someone they love just because they're "not ready" or keep going with someone they don't love just because they decided it's time to settle down?

That's weird. It all sounds rather medieval to me. I hope this is all just the kind of selective stream of colorful anecdotes that journalists are so fond of.

<comment><USER54> "Mercenary" was the word my wife used when I showed her the article and we were discussing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Shrug. As a thirty year old career driver successful programmer, it's hard to find a thirty year old woman with even half a brain.

<comment><USER56> She's supposed to be younger than you. Your connection with her is supposed to be heavily emotional -- from an expert, "Of _course_ women are _much_ more emotional than men; that's the cause of all the problems."

She is supposed to tell you about what's between her ears (thoughts and emotions), care about you, respect you, and respond to you (E. Fromm). And, really, being younger than you, she is supposed to look up to you as a leader. You are supposed to be a good leader of you both, but you have to use some subtle means I can't explain usefully here; we're not talking military or business leadership here. As in Eric Berne, the two of you are not supposed to be _equal_ \-- you are supposed to be quite different, "equal" in respect as persons but not the "same" (E. Fromm).

Actually, from Mother Nature, if she is already old enough and you are still young enough, then that's enough! Things she doesn't know or gets confused about are places where you need to apply some leadership. E.g., if you want your kids home schooled but she didn't go to college, then you have to _lead_ in how she can get materials, keep the schooling organized, and make good use of good tutors and other home schooled children. And if you want your kids taking the SATs at 12 and the GREs at 16, then you will have to lead in how your family does this. Did I mention leadership?

She can have a "brain" and even be brilliant (my wife was Valedictorian, PBK, Woodrow Wilson, NSF, and top research university Ph.D. and just brilliant but, still, was mostly run by her emotions) but will still be run mostly just by her emotions. She may care more about her _emotional security_ from you than even financial security.

I don't know about your school, but I went grades 1-12 with, from girls my own age in the school building, receiving a total of likely less than 100 words. Right, they ignored me. Then in the ninth grade I discovered that girls 1-3 years younger could be from eager to much more to talk to me -- some of them were both shocking and obvious and about much more than just talking. Girls are designed to like older men. The way of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Is there a model or a theory for gaming strategy in time domain?

<comment><USER58> The Secretary problem is quite related to marriage...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem)

Michael Trick, a well known Operations Research professor at CMU, wrote about applying it to his own life

[http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=1392](http://mat.tepper.cmu.edu/blog/?p=1392)

[Edit:] He assumed we wanted to be married to the best possible spouse by the age of 40. The optimal strategy, given his assumptions, is to date until age 26, and then marry the first person who is the best seen so far. You'll marry the best possible person 1/e fraction of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Here is my pithy theory that explains a lot of this, which in my opinion seems to fit the data and is backed up by copious anecdotal evidence.

"Men put more work up front -- making the first move, taking the women out and showing them a good time, etc. Women put more work once the relationship gets going (i.e. after much sex has been had). They put up with their guy's frustrating habits and work to advance the relationship forward."

Now, this is a description of the MAJORITY of interactions, not all, of course. Some women chase men (or are more open to advances from men). Some men are very marriage minded. But the majority behaves as I described. To see why, I highly recommend this article: [http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm](http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm)

Now, how does this affect the marriage market? Well, the conclusions follow directly from observing the trends that are occurring in the last 50 years:

* More women work

* Women work longer hours

* More women are educating themselves

* More young women are independent financially

* In fact, young unmarried women make more than male counterparts

However, in some ways the situation is pivoting again:

* Technology is making traditional college educations less useful

* The internet will soon disrupt college education

* Income inequality penalizes wage earning in favor of capital (running a business with clients is more inflation-resistant). Entrepreneurs are the new finance guys.

All this should combine to once again change women's perspective on who's dateable

Women respect risk-taking men (see the article), and want to have children with a successful man whose risks paid off.

And it looks like the humble folks on HN with their lifestyle businesses or those in successful startup cities will have the advantage in terms of earning potential, freedom to choose, and also women.

If they would just work out more... :)

</comment><comment><USER60> I predict that it will become acceptable for men to earn less than their wives, stay at home, and take care of the kids.

I also predict that those men will do so in a very masculine way.

Finally, I hypothesize that a lot of the demand for good breadwinners from women who already have all the bread they need is cultural rather than hormonal.

The best indicator that this is true is the massive difference in how couples behave in public (keep with the norms) and in private (endless variety). Another observation is that lots of "cultural revolutions" are simply formerly private activities becoming public.

</comment><comment><USER61> Why this is important of founders:

Being focussed is the key when you want to be successful as an entrepreneur. Finding the right one until you found the right one is the most distracting thing.

</comment><comment><USER62> The root of the problem is that women are behaving more and more like men and men more and more like women. We are equivalent but we are different, we must acknowledge it.

\- women want direction in life from men (not feelings).

\- men want beauty, support and kindness from women (not careers).

No one is giving the other what they want/need so they seek it in themselves, making the situation even worse.

</comment><comment><USER56> It's simple. Really simple. Just dirt simple. Not all of Mother Nature is so complicated. Did I mention it's simple?

Look, guys and gals, there's some quite good evidence that the genes of people of descent in Western Europe, Russia, and East Asia are essentially the same as the genes that were successful, say, 10,000 years ago although we could likely push that back to 25,000 years ago.

So, think was tribal or village life was like, say, beside a river in Europe 10,000 years ago. Right: The women gathered together and tended to the children, prepared food, and made clothing. The men and the boys old enough did men things, hunting, tool making, building, and fighting.

The talents of men for those men things led to more tools, fire, wheels, metals, ..., Windows 7, and these things enormously changed the economy and culture, built by men in ways convenient for men, wildly different from what the women did 10,000 years ago and not so convenient for women. E.g., a single women or a woman in a suburban house with 2-3 kids is in a very different situation, especially for woman, than the women in the tribe/village 10,000 years ago.

In simple terms, the women were happier with their lives 10,000 years ago, assuming there were no problems with disease, injury, hygiene, food, child birth, etc.

Then, women of 35, sorry: You are too late to the game. Way, Way, Way too late. How much too late? At least 15 years, more like 20 years, and for a really good answer on when to start looking for a husband, let me be clear (assuming good nutrition and rate of maturation) 22 years. Right: Congratulations on your abilities at arithmetic, 10,000 years ago you would have been looking for a husband at age 13 or so and getting married at age 14-16. Did I mention that you are late?

There's more from the side of the men: He wants her cute, sweet, pretty, precious, darling, adorable, something to cherish and protect. How to know? Easy: Look at the faces. Hmm? Right. Look at the faces of human females over the years starting at age 1. There they elicit their support from Daddy, uncles, etc. with their faces, facial expressions, and expressions of endearing emotions. That's just how it works. And (simple argument) that's how it worked 10,000 years ago (proof left as an exercise). Then look at the faces over the years. Notice something? Right: At age 10 with some work on hair style and makeup, she can look 17. Or, to be more clear, a young women of 17 still tries to look like an endearing 10\. And even more so for a young woman of 13-16. Why? Endearing. She's not trying to be _independent, autonomous, self-sufficient, and equal, crashing through glass ceilings, adopting and hiring a nanny,_ etc. Instead she's trying to be endearing, cute, sweet, meek, darling, adorable, precious, to be cherished, protected, and cared for by her husband as she has _babies_.

But, woman of 35, on endearing, etc., you just don't ring his bell, just don't _arouse_ his protective, caring emotions, are way, Way out of the game. Any pretty girl of 14 can totally blow you off the field of competition.

The way of the world. And the result? Right: In the more developed societies the average number of children per woman is significantly under 2.1. E.g., in Finland it's 1.5 which means that in 10 generations 30 Finns will become 1. We're going extinct, literally, quickly.

Why? It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.

The way of the world. That's just how it works and has worked for at least 10,000 years. That's how it worked for all the woman you descended from for nearly all of the last 10,000 years. So, go back to 13, and let's try again, if you can find a way to do that.

Today 13? Right: She has to (1) find him, (2) get into boy/girlfriend with him, (3) _go steady_ or some such with him, (4) get a diamond, (5) get married, all by about age 17-19. E.g., Lady Di decided at 15 that she wanted to catch Prince Charles, and she did, married him at age 20. Age 25, 35, etc. to start to be looking for him? You _gotta_ be kidding! Uh, honey, there are sperm banks -- check one out!

Wish I'd known this, this clearly, when I was 15. _Very_ much wish that.

"Marriage is about offspring, security, and care taking." \-- extra credit for knowing the source!

<comment><USER63> You seem to be forgetting the part where we've moved to a knowledge worker's society in which men's physiological differences no longer make him inherently more fit as a provider.

That is what has lead to a massive shift in gender roles over the past half century. It has had it's fair share of casualties due to maladjustment on both sides. One specific group of casualties just happens to be highlighted in this article.

<comment><USER56> I didn't mention "physiological differences", say, taller, stronger. I did emphasize tool making. I should also have mentioned team formation for hunting, building, and fighting. E.g., hunting is not nearly all size and strength but heavily understanding how to locate and kill the prey. And if the hunting is with a team, then need to be good at forming teams.

So, the women were back in the village concentrating on child care, food, and clothing, and the men were generating fire, tools, wheels, things made of bone, wood, and stone, making progress with metals, ..., a server farm with 20,000 computers. That was men's work, done by men, in ways convenient for men, that used talents of men, apparently from hunting, tool making, team formation, and fighting, that changed the economy, government, and societies. Alas, women mostly didn't participate and mostly still don't.

Look, there's a recent study about boys and girls shortly after birth. The girls are working on communicating with adults, especially about how they feel, mostly with facial expressions. The boys are looking at the construction of the crib, trying to figure out how the latch works, and wanting to write C++ code to control the toy fire engine on the floor! That's right from birth. The boys care about things, tools, strategy, etc., and the girls care about eliciting support from people. That's just the way it is.

In simple terms, the girls have plenty of strength for most tool making and for team formation, but mostly they just didn't and don't do it. That's just not what girls are interested in, and there's little promise they will be interested during our _knowledge worker_ society.

Girls don't want to think about tricky algorithms; some girls actually can, but still they don't want to. They just don't. "Fools give you reasons; wise men never try." What girls want to do is to gossip as a way to be a member of a group of girls and to attract boys. They like to be asked to do things so that when they do them they can get praise, acceptance, approval, and emotional security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I am an omega-man.

<comment><USER65> Gamma Rabbit here. I'm doing pretty well actually. [http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/04/my-thank-you-gift- to-e...](http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/04/my-thank-you-gift-to-everyone- who-pledged-to-the-counteract-a-bigot-drive/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> While interesting, the whole article really only applies to men and women who want children. I wonder if the trends would still hold if people who didn't want or couldn't have children were studied.

</comment><comment><USER66> You reap what you sow.

</comment><comment><USER57> I just had an intuition that the choices of gals in this article are kinda similar to various strategies for innovative products. Some products target the alpha consumers, e.g. those early adopters and innovators, while some others target beta or gamma consumers.

</comment><comment><USER15> if there is potential for a couple to end up happily together but they don't , because of either one's later-regretted choices, can you call either one of them a winner?

</comment><comment><USER67> Great article. It looks like the women described in the article sacrified years of their lives to become kind of alpha males - lawyers, professionals, etc - in which time the real alpha males got young and willing chicks who are just that what alpha males are interested in - hot young chicks. So, now all these professional and I'm sure very successful women in their 30s are left with are beta males. How came I don't see it as surprising? Wouldn't you think that by trying to take social role of an alpha male while you are a female, you will fail? Probably in both roles? Will fail as a woman and in the perceived alpha-male role? Look, once she gets this beta guy to have children with, she will stay at home just so he doesn't run away to look for another willing 30-something successful woman. So her career is broken at that point too. Whoever the socialist that told women that they have to be just like men - thank you! I never knew it will work so well for my gender. After years of listening to this socialist BS, to see it fail, makes me feel good. Full disclosure: I'm a married male with a kid, so I won't take advantage of the situation. Just like to see how the laws of nature triumph over marxist craziness again and again. But some people never learn.

</comment><comment><USER68> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpYWQRpxzQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpYWQRpxzQs)

i would recommend watching this video if you want a different, non-mainstream perspective on the philosophy of the sexual, marriage, and 'dating' marketplaces.

you don't have to agree with it, but it's worth a watch. especially if you are having trouble 'understanding' women. women are actually very simple biological creatures, like men. they just operate under a different set of constraints which are generally invisible to men.

in my opinion he is able to see and convey things from the perspective of women, which is valuable insight for an audience of men.

</comment><comment><USER69> Anybody who uses 'alpha' and 'beta' and similar to describe dudes and ladies is, ipso facto, an asshole.

<comment><USER29> Nature is an asshole?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I am the same 'greenlander' that is referred to in the article. LOL, it's a small world.

The only thing I can suggest to all you of guys out there (and I know that 90%-95% of the readership here is 'guys' and not 'chicks') is to get educated.

Go read these blogs: [http://dalrock.wordpress.com/](http://dalrock.wordpress.com/) [http://therationalmale.com/](http://therationalmale.com/) [http://heartiste.wordpress.com/](http://heartiste.wordpress.com/) [http://www.rooshv.com/](http://www.rooshv.com/)

And why not some books: [http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Through-Honesty- ebook/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Through-Honesty- ebook/dp/B005EOTH24) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Male- ebook/dp/B00FK901R8/](http://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Male- ebook/dp/B00FK901R8/) [http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-of-Seduction- ebook/dp/B0032BW5...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-of-Seduction- ebook/dp/B0032BW5DY/)

And why not a Reddit too: [http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill](http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill)

The problem is that you must have the confidence to write your own rules in life. If you speak with confidence, move with confidence, dress with confidence, and act with confidence, you'll have your choice among women.

The irony of it is that you only get confidence from past success. You must move beyond your nerd persona from high school. If you adopt the mantra "I _AM_ the prize" and actually truly believe it, women will believe it too.

I cleaned up my act. I was just a cubicle nerd in Silicon Valley. (Although I must have had something going for me: I became a manager.) I hired a personal trainer and started to hit the gym like a wild animal. My abs came out: I hadn't seem them since high school. I changed my diet. (Hint: The Paleo/Atkins diet works.) I started a relationship with a tailor and ordered a lot of made- to-measure clothing. I subscribed to GQ.

I read HN every day. The technical articles are fascinating, and the writing brilliant. Yesterday I spent a large section of my day reading a set of about 450 slides about subtleties in the C language that was linked from this site. Today I spent a good fraction of my morning reading about elliptical-curve cryptography. I am a nerd at heart.

Yet, I'm not a nerd in the sense that you think of. When I meet a new girl, my frame is "I'm going to bend you over my kitchen table and fuck you like the dirty ho that you are." She knows it just by my speech, my body language, and how I act. Obviously, some women won't step into that "frame". It doesn't matter: the thing you have to realize is that men display, and women select. The key to catching women is approaching more women. Depending on your perceived status, a certain fraction of women will 'select' you. Don't waste time with women who don't 'select' you. Focus on the ones who do.

I can already hear the shrill cries of "oh, no GOOD girls would select a guy like that." It's a fallacy. Women are emotional, and when they step into the strong frame of a man with whom they resonate, all bets are off. The nice HR girl you took to dinner at a fashionable restaurant on University Ave. in Palo Alto will screw a guy in the back seat of a car if he has high enough status. Give up your good girl/bad girl dichotomy.

The problem I have now is described as the "players' curse." The sheer numbers of women riding the "cock carousel" (i.e., slut it up in your 20s, find the beta provider in your early 30s) has distorted the market. (If you don't believe me, shut the fuck up and go read the reference sources I cited above.) In my 20s I dreamed of children and family in my 20s. Lots of men are simply dropping out of the "mating market" and simply jerking off and not dating because women in their 20s don't select their twentysomething equivalents. A man in that situation has two choices: to kick up his game a notice, or just to retreat into porn and World of Warcraft. The paradox is that a man of willpower and clarity that can put effort into cleaning up his act can break into the side of "the selected" and score plenty of vj. Once you understand that, you can see modern-day feminism for the hoax that it is. It is a pox on the civilized world.

I can already foresee that somebody out there is going to some 'white knight' jerkoffs who are going to call me a 'misogynist'. For the record, a misogynist is someone that HATES women. I'm not a misogynist. Roissy/Heartist is not a misogynist. Roosh is not a misogynist. Usually, the 'misogynist' stick is used to say, "you're not being politically correct." If you want to say, "greenlander, you're not being politically correct," I'll accept that. I'll accept it even if you want to say, "greenlander, you're a self-absorbed, narcissistic, self-deluded dickhead." It's the truth. But don't call me a misogynist: I love women. One must simply see them for what they are.

The great thing is that it doesn't matter how many people out there slander me with politically-correct ad-homonyms. A man who is ready to see the truth will follow the path if even a tiny morsel of the truth is laid before him. And if I even help one nerd change his life for the better by nudging him in the right direction, the past hour I've spent writing this post will not have been in vain.

<comment><USER71> HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry, but you're the guy (as a type) I went on tons of dates with before meeting my current boyfriend. I always ended up running away, because I felt like you were out to impress me and not actually, you know, talk to me.

To me, had I gotten into a relationship with you, I would have had no idea of how to deal with your emotional needs - plus how would I expect you to take care of mine. There never was any hint of that on a date with that type.

Which is why I am not dating a guy like you at all...

<comment><USER27> This approach is the same as for 'Nigerian inheritance' scams - the whole point of an aggressive start is to ensure scaring away people who aren't going to fall for it, so you don't waste time on them.

Spammers deliberately make horrible e-mails that only the gullible will reply - with credible emails they have to waste time on 'unproductive' leads, there is research on that. The parent poster is perfectly happy with scaring away girls that want their emotional needs taken care of, since he's looking for something different anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Hmm.. It's not too hard. Know a bit of good music, read a bit, don't be super boring, be passionate about something. Go to meetups for your interests and meet people that way. Rarely fails and you're bound to find someone with the same interests.

Don't go on dating sites, except for maybe okcupid. But even then, things like Reddit meetups, concerts, meetup.com meetups, are where you should meet people. Don't go to the bar either.

If you're in public, go up to someone and say "Hi, I'm x and y" followed by something relating to wherever you are. I've had great success with this, at the very least, you'll get a coffee date, at worst, a fake number.

It's not hard, you just need to put yourself out there. Screw rejection.

<comment><USER68> just be yourself!

from someone who figured it out only slightly later than average (mid-20s) but can empathize to those who had a much tougher time, this kind of non-advice advice is the worst kind of advice because it deludes you into thinking you don't have to change.

yes, keep going to reddit meetups! you will surely get laid there if you are having trouble understanding how sexual dynamics work!

if you're having trouble romantically or sexually, seek actual help from the endless resources available to you in the year 2013, don't listen to this kind of drivel.

<comment><USER72> That's the whole point. You _do_ have to change, and not changing, then complaining about not getting dates, is hurting you. Find people in the same subculture as you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Seems way off topic.

Sometimes it seems as if HN-users are feeling so guilty about the whole bro- gramming topic, that they up vote anything that has to do with women..

<comment><USER10> Dating websites suck. Even the good dating websites suck.

Someone who cracks that is going to be _rich_.

Perhaps one of the steps to cracking it is understanding why the current situation sucks for participants.

<comment><USER74> I've never used one, so why exactly do these websites suck? (and is this any different from dating in general sucking?)

<comment><USER75> (1) Judging attraction from a profile is very difficult, so you can go spend a lot of time and energy going on dates with someone who is obviously wrong for you.

(2) Many, perhaps most people, misrepresent themselves in their profiles, making "shopping" all the harder. In my experience this is true of women, but women say that men lie too.

Attraction is much easier to sense in person. Once you're attracted, the answers to a bunch of fact-based questions don't matter so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Has there ever been a point where women haven't lost the dating game? It might not be right, but I think it's a social reality that men have an easier time finding a spouse than women do, and I think that's probably been the trend for hundreds if not thousands of years.

<comment><USER77> Through history, about twice as many women as men have successfully reproduced. So women have in some sense done better than men through history.

However I'm sure that stat includes a lot of single moms.

See [http://lesswrong.com/lw/h4e/differential_reproduction_for_me...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/h4e/differential_reproduction_for_men_and_women/) for more.

<comment><USER78> I think that figure is connected to do with high maternal mortality rates through history. Successful men could remarry when there wife dies giving birth.

<comment><USER27> And unsuccessful men can go die in a war for the successful men who'll remarry multiple times.

<comment><USER79> Again, you are not accounting for rape in war. Which the "unsuccessful men" on the winning side will do. Just look up conflict in Africa, rape is being used as a weapon.

<comment><USER77> Not true. The men who die in the fighting tend to be the unsuccessful ones. The ones who did not die, in addition to having the opportunity for rape (and in ancient times to take concubines home), would also come back as heros and have the opportunity to marry women from their own tribe.

These pressures are much more pronounced in polygamous societies, such as fundamentalist Muslim countries today, or ancient Jewish culture as documented in the Old Testament.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Looking for feedback on an article I wrote. - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone.  I wrote an article for InformationWeek and I was hoping to get some feedback from y'all.  The target audience is CIOs, Technology VPs, etc., so a little bit less savvy than the HN audience.
I am looking for feedback specifically on high level topics I might have missed that I should cover next time, things that I didn't explain well, or any other feedback you might have to make this better.
Basically, I'm looking for the answer to, "If you worked in  a big company, would you use this article to explain to your CIO what Big Data is?  Why or why not?"
Thanks!
Here is the article: http://informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/232301236 <comment><USER2> The higher up the food chain, the more concise you want to be and your article feels verbose to me. The line:

"Since I'm a big proponent of public clouds, my definition also includes the use of virtualization, but yours doesn't have to."

is a prime example of being verbose and has the added consequence of detracting the reader from your actual point.

Also, you say you'll cover the technologies more in depth in later columns so why bother beginning to go into depth about NoSQL now? More fat you can trim.

If I'm not mistaken the the point of this article is two pronged. First to introduce them to the idea that Big Deal is a set of tools and techniques. Second to get them to appreciate the fact that "This data screams to be mined for valuable insights." You introduced and developed the first idea enough but it feels like you only brushed over the 2nd idea. The google example was good, you just need to drive home the idea of valuable insight from large sets of data in as close to real time as possible.

Your opening is a little rough too. You essentially have two separate opening paragraphs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points about trimming the fat. The main reason about going into depth was as a teaser for the next article.

You're right, I didn't spend enough time driving home the point about mining the data. I think more examples (as mentioned elsewhere) would have improved that.

Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've always been a big fan of demonstrating practical utility/applications when trying to explain a (new) concept.

From this perspective, the article shines via the Google-flu-prediction- capability sub-story.

I'd say more such citations would grab more attention and drive your point home. A good piece and a good read on the whole.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thanks! I'll try to include more citations of practical examples for the next article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm new to HN but have a lot of experience writing and editing for non- technical audiences. It's a short piece, so if you're still looking for readability feedback we can google doc it, I can give it a blow-by-blow, and you're welcome to take whatever's helpful. Best.

</comment><comment><USER3> Clickable: [http://informationweek.com/news/global- cio/interviews/232301...](http://informationweek.com/news/global- cio/interviews/232301236)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Is there any way to make it clickable in the text above? Markdown doesn't seem to work.

<comment><USER3> AFIK, there's no way to do that.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HK: Any good black friday / cyber monday deal for devs? - <AUTHOR> I'll start with a few: Black Friday: - Astrill VPN, 50% off their yearly subscription: https://www.astrill.com/ - Codeschool https://www.codeschool.com  $75 off the 6 month subscription - http://www.oreilly.com/, 50~60% off ebooks and videos<p>Cyber Monday: - https://www.pluralsight.com/ Not sure what the deal will be <comment><USER2> Namecheap: [http://namecheap.com/campaigns/2015/bf-cm- deals.aspx](http://namecheap.com/campaigns/2015/bf-cm-deals.aspx)

RamNode: [https://twitter.com/RamNode/status/670041033317613568](https://twitter.com/RamNode/status/670041033317613568)

Online.net: [http://oneprovider.com/dedicated-servers/paris- france](http://oneprovider.com/dedicated-servers/paris-france)

</comment><comment><USER3> I collect the best deals for developers/designers/entrepreneurs here: [http://dealroundup.io](http://dealroundup.io)

<comment><USER4> how are you scraping the deals? Do you mind sharing the tech stack?

<comment><USER3> Just one level above editing raw html. I manually put the deals in a yaml file, and then have a ruby script render the static HTML whenever I push updates to the git repository.</comment></comment></comment>


DeepMind – StarCraft II Demonstration - <AUTHOR> https://news.blizzard.com/en-gb/starcraft2/22871520/deepmind-starcraft-ii-demonstration <comment><USER2> For those interested in building their own AI to play Starcraft II, here is a very comprehensive, 17 video series by sentdex (Python AI in StarCraft II): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3LJ6VvpfgI&list=PLQVvvaa0Qu...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3LJ6VvpfgI&list=PLQVvvaa0QuDcT3tPehHdisGMc8TInNqdq). He walks you through building and training a neural network to play Starcraft II via the same API used by DeepMind.

<comment><USER3> And for those interested in making their own AI to play Starcraft 1 BroodWar and become a part of the huge BroodWar AI community (get in touch on Discord at: [https://discord.gg/w9wRRrF](https://discord.gg/w9wRRrF)), they can follow the following tutorial: [https://sscaitournament.com/index.php?action=tutorial](https://sscaitournament.com/index.php?action=tutorial)

Your AI would then be able to participate in tournaments and fight other AIs on the existing ladders.

Additionally, one could watch BW bots fighting each other on: [https://www.twitch.tv/sscait](https://www.twitch.tv/sscait)

<comment><USER4> And those who would like to follow developing a bot from scratch, I'd like to plug in here my blog: www.makingcomputerdothings.com There, I also host a podcast about SC AI development, which can be interesting for everyone. The podcast is uploaded to youtube as well: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHPl6OFov2v8SK14oQUHY2w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHPl6OFov2v8SK14oQUHY2w)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "DeepMind has been hard at work training their AI (or agent) to better understand StarCraft II. Once it started to grasp the basic rules of the game, it started exhibiting amusing behavior such as immediately worker rushing its opponent, which actually had a success rate of 50% against the 'Insane' difficulty standard StarCraft II AI!"

Well, that's fun. I mean, if it works, it works.

<comment><USER6> That doesn't really sound like it understands the game... is this not training by playing against itself? How is it not learning the flawed reasoning behind this strategy?

<comment><USER7> "Cheesing" as it's called, is classic SC2 strategy. People absolutely hate it, but it occasionally works, even though it feels cheap. It's kinda like Blitzkreig in chess...

<comment><USER8> it's a valid strategy that brought some super exciting moments, like boxer bunker rushing yellow 3x at 2004 EVER OSL.

<comment><USER9> I believe the technical term you want here is 'legitimate strategy'.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLMYTQUw8Lc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLMYTQUw8Lc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how Starcraft2 compares to Dota 2 in terms of difficulty for the AI. Moreover, I'd be interested to see how OpenAI and DeepMind's techniques, models differ in approaching these games.

<comment><USER11> The main difference would come in the simultaneous control of all of the different units in Starcraft. Both MOBAs and RTS share many characteristics, since Warcraft 3 was the origin of MOBAs to begin with. For instance, micro, unit pathing, lowground highground, fog of war, spellcasting, etc. However, in a MOBA there is more emphasis on team-play, on the interactions of 5-hero team compositions, which is decided upon at the start of the game. There is also itemization, which is much more stylistic than anything that can be purchased in an RTS.

In Starcraft 2, it would be fantastic to individually control all 16 marines in your 2 medivac stim timing, pulling them back when they become the targets nearly instantaneously, perfectly shuffling them into/out of the medivacs, while focus-firing the defenses. Another example would be a reaper rush, a beastly AI could in theory micro 5-7 reapers individually, potentially breaking the game as human fingers/muscles/nerves have limits that CPUs and GPUs do not have.

The latter concern, about sheer speed and potentially limiting APM of the Starcraft 2 AI, is a very interesting one. It would be interesting to allow the AI to match the average APM of the Global Finals players, for instance, which might be around 300 actions per minute. If the computer was allowed to utilize 3,000 actions per minute, it could surely perform much greater feats of micromanagement.

The largest edge I see human players having vs the Starcraft AI would be something strategic, get a sense for how the AI plays then pull off a specific strategy which counters it. It may not work well in the current human-meta, but perhaps the AI will have its own meta that you can out-think it on?

<comment><USER12> > In Starcraft 2, it would be fantastic to individually control all 16 marines > in your 2 medivac stim timing, pulling them back when they become the > targets nearly instantaneously, perfectly shuffling them into/out of the > medivacs, while focus-firing the defenses.

Single unit pullbacks, medivac shuffling, and focus firing, all together, are commonly seen in pro-level matches. The guys are superhumanly insane. The current pro players can sustain 500 APM during battles. The only reason they don't do this even more is that they are usually fighting on two or three fronts at the same time, while managing base and unit production to the second.

The real limit of the players is the single viewport and the single instruction input pipeline. Managing dozens of units with those heavy restrictions is pure madness. That's the main difference between RTSs and MOBAs. MOBAs are defined by strategy and tactics, teams win and lose because of those two factors (at pro levels). A game like Starcraft II adds another factor: players can simply break down when they're not able to keep up with the game. Even at pro level, players can be overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to process in tenths of a second, over and over again, for 15-25 minutes, or they can get into a spot where there's too much to do and not enough time to do it.

AI has two advantages. It has better information channels, in the form of perfect vision, while humans have a single pair of eyes that have to scan through the screen. It also doesn't get tired over the course of the game.

<comment><USER13> > Single unit pullbacks, medivac shuffling, and focus firing, all together, > are commonly seen in pro-level matches. The guys are superhumanly insane. > The current pro players can sustain 500 APM during battles. The only reason > they don't do this even more is that they are usually fighting on two or > three fronts at the same time, while managing base and unit production to > the second.

Not to the level AI can do it. Did you see the video where zerglings dodge tank shot splash? a human could never do that

<comment><USER12> That zergling video depends on a zero reaction time, it's true that's an advantage of AI. No matter how high the APM, if the reaction time is high enough, some things just cannot be done.

Perfect micro against siege tanks is impossible for humans, because the time between the beginning of the shot and the moment the damage is applied is seen by us as instant. The game features other units where that time is bigger, and pro-level games usually feature perfect micro on those instances (e.g. widow mines, banelings, disruptors, locusts, hellions...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm confused, I don't see anything new here. I looked at the youtube channel and don't see a demonstration...

<comment><USER15> It's not published yet. It's scheduled for Jan 24.

<comment><USER16> then maybe OP should've waited until Jan 24 to post this...

<comment><USER17> But then I wouldn't know to set a reminder to see this live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wouldn't be surprised that an AI would be good at StarCraft. If it's allowed to have high constant APM, an AI could do micro maneuvers that most people can't reasonably do like consistent unit splits and fixing any weird unit pathing issues at bottlenecks.

<comment><USER19> They limit APM under 200 or something around that number.

<comment><USER20> 180 APM, specifically: pg6 [https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.04782](https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.04782)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a hypothesis and I'm curious to hear responses. The ability of Ai to work as a team with other AI has shown to be relatively weak. They can do individual tasks well but are relatively agnostic to others (thinking the Dota AI from a while ago).

Might this be improved by forcing the AIs to send messages to each other at a constant interval? I feel like this would lead to the development of simple language built around intentions and help the Ai to consider its allies.

<comment><USER21> Im woefully qualified to answer any AI related questions, but I must ask, why do you think forcing bots to send messages to each other at a constant interval would lead to the development of simple language and encourage bots to be more aware of each other? If you reward the behavior of writing in chat, bots would start writing gibberish in chat all the time.

Communication in animals can be traced all the way back to cells sending each other messages to organize themselves. Cells began to have division of labor and work together, and as multicellular organisms increased in complexity, so did the complexity in their communication. But what would happen if you put these cells in charge of playing Dota and force it to send each other messages? Would the cells somehow develop a simple language built around intentions? Or does it still not understand the concept of intention?

Video games like Dota are extremely complicated and made specifically for human biases. We've obtained these biases over many many many generations of evolution. Machines are getting better at doing human tasks, but they still do not possess all the human biases (and I think it'd be quite scary if we actually get there). That's why these bots/algorithms/AIs can do simple tasks like identifying objects really well but they don't know what to do with them, yet.

Having machines engage in meaningful conversations with other machines and plan together is a much bigger problem to solve than having them farm up, buy items, and attack things.

<comment><USER6> I don't think you understood my point. I'm not saying train the robots to say things by rewarding them for doing so. I'm saying "force" them to do so as a hard coded rule. And also force them to read the chats of the other AI allies as an input. Continuously train the model to map the messages into an embedding space and use the embedding for decision making.

This would likely benefit by some cherry picked training data, but I think AI could get good at communicating their state to each other. Star craft has too much entropy to make a simple example. Imagine the game was just, you pick a random number and your ally has to guess what it is. I think Ai's could learn to communicate this using a similar training design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I recently got my ass beat by a player that had a 400+ APM. Is that even humanly possible or is it one of these bots?

<comment><USER23> Definitely possible. A progamer like Serral for example can maintain 500+ apm on 20+ min games, and can peak to 700+ apm.

<comment><USER24> 70 real actions and 630 useless clicks.

<comment><USER25> This comment makes me think you have never played starcraft.

<comment><USER26> Have you? It's "easy" to get an APM over 1,000:

Step 1: Hotkey units on 1-9

Step 2: Slam face on keyboard numpad

Holding down a hotkey to build things (even if you don't have the minerals) also increases your APM.

Lots of players (especially the pros) will spam actions in the quieter parts of the early game to keep their fingers warmed up, or to start building a unit the millisecond they have enough minerals to afford it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> As though StarCraft multiplayer wasn't difficult enough!

In all seriousness, this is pretty neat. Does anyone know if it already knows everything on the map, or if it has to discover units like the rest of us?

<comment><USER5> > As though StarCraft multiplayer wasn't difficult enough!

But it just won't be the same without someone telling me that I'm awful and my mother is of questionable morals.

... machine learning will probably pick that up too.

<comment><USER28> Personally I've found that Starcraft is one of the less salty/bm games out there. At least in diamond 1v1, people doing "gl hf" at the beginning and "gg" when they lose is common. And you don't have much time to whine in practice because there's no downtime until either you or them are basically dead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I couldn't find an actual video of a game.

<comment><USER30> The demo is tomorrow on Twitch and Youtube (24th Jan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In other news water is wet

</comment><comment><USER32> tl;dr: wait for jan 27th

I really hate marketing pre-news...

</comment><comment><USER33> Everyone likes sci-fi. Star Wars, halo, Star Trek, etc. all these franchises have something in common: they depict AIs working alongside humans. I think that it's an important demonstration of cognitive dissonance about AI. Fans of these franchises aren't bothered by the glaring contradictions that _some_ fictional elements create. For example, Star Trek features transporters that teleport people across space and in reality the existence of such a machine would change the _economics_ of many different things very drastically. Life would look a lot different if teleportation were allowed to effect the economics of human life. Another example is communication technology. Star Trek had what we now call smart phones. But they still lived their lives the way people did in the 80s. We now know that when smart phones are present, people stare at them all the time, don't go out much, are never in trouble because they can't communicate (car broken down) and etc. it's not the best example but it's the only one that actually played out irl. My point here is that people in general do not seem to appreciate the change in economics that are prompted by new things — people are only able to imagine some new technology being used in some niche case. It doesn't bother anyone, or break their suspension of disbelief, when some groundbreaking new technology completely fails to alter the world and society in a realistic way in a fictional setting. But any other breach of "realism" is somehow very offending.

In halo, you have an AI that lives in your power armor and her name is Cortana. Cortana can sense what you see, hear, etc. Cortana is seen to be super smart on multiple occasions and it is clear to the player. This doesn't bother anyone. It bothers me now, though. If all of this is true, the following would happen.

Cortana senses the presence of enemies faster than you. she hears them and is able to identify how many based on their foot steps. She becomes annoyed with how sloppy you are, how many enemies you didn't even notice and how slow you are to respond to them. She suggests that she take over your power suit. You find yourself in a situation you can't handle and are forced to give her the reigns. She jumps into action dispatching enemies with speed and accuracy that you've never seen before. She shoots enemies _as_ they step out from cover. Your movements are so fast that you vomit. She wipes out army after army as you passively watch, bewildered.

As you go through the game, you are on a mission to unravel the mysteries of halo and find a way to survive. Cortana assesses the battle space and concludes that you need to travel east. She notices several patterns of ancient runes and directs you to investigate a hidden passage. Her assessments seem incredible and bizarre but they consistently prove to be correct and eventually she ends up making every decision.

At the end of the day, if Halo were real then it would be a story about a man who passively sat inside a suit and watched an ai save the world. He probably would die in the suit at some point due to experiencing high g forces during some adventurous fight or maneuver and it would be a story about an ai who saved the world with a dead guy in the suit. It doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy like halo is supposed to, does it?

<comment><USER34> Wrong thread?

<comment><USER33> My comment is about ai. The thread is for an ai post.

<comment><USER35> It's not about an AI in the sci-fi sense though. It is about an actual real world AI playing the game StarCraft II.

<comment><USER33> My comment is about ai. It is about how people perceive ai, and sci-fi is a very good demonstration of how incorrect human intuition can be when it comes to ai. This incorrectness is present not only in stories about ai, but policy and opinions regarding the very real and dangerous developments that are taking place. Developments such as the one that this thread regards.

It is therefore only through deep, contemplative and unintuitive ruminations that one can come to understand that AI is going to end human society as we know it, and that the result will be very unpleasant. This is not a guess, it is the truth. People have a huge amount of difficulty seeing this. I thought the example of halo and Cortana would make it easier for people to understand. I could have written it better but why bother? Nobody ever seems to get it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>