“Women don’t find 80% of Men Attractive”: What is a Man to Do?
As we quickly approach the end of 2022, it is becoming increasingly clear that many men are struggling. The cause of this struggle is…
As we quickly approach the end of 2022, it is becoming increasingly clear that many men are struggling. The cause of this struggle is multifold; the result of centuries of traditions surrounding masculinity which are becoming increasingly antiquated (a topic for another article entirely).
While many people are doing just fine, an increasing number of men find themselves estranged by the modern era. Identity, purpose, meaning, love, and a general direction in life are more and more difficult to discern.
I was struck by a video on youtube (link below) by a woman dating coach who had interviewed a number of women about their preferences. These women seemed relatively young, in their mid-to-late twenties, upwardly mobile and educated.
When asked about their ideal partner from different metrics, it becomes increasingly clear that “what women want” may be unrealistic.
This was illustrated compellingly by asking the women what their ideal partner should contribute in terms of income. Each of these women answered from the perspective of the income which would allow them to live their ideal lifestyle:
“What kind of range would his income be?”
“I feel like this is going to sound bad, like 300,000?”
“Anywhere from 70 to 100k?”
“I would say 127K?”
“500,000 dollars? Is that bad?”
“I would say 150 to a quarter of a million a year”
“150 to 250 thousand a year would be comfortable for sure”
“Ideally? My husband needs to be making like 650,000.”
From just this convenience sample of interviewing women, the average answer was 294,000 dollars a year. If we remove the potential outlier of the one women who answered “650K”, we still have a whopping, 235,000 dollars a year.
If we generalized these results, it would not be difficult to interpret that the average women in their mid-to-late twenties wants a man who makes just shy of a quarter-of-a-million-dollars a year.
The youtube video in question goes on to compare the woman’s ideal income expectations to the marked “median” income.
According to the women in this interview, the ideal reflects an amount of income that less than one percent of men make, and that the vast majority of men will never make in their lifetime.
Take into account that this is just a single metric. Another common gripe of the internet surrounds women’s ideal for having tall men. Apparently, the “cut off” for many women is that a man be 6ft tall (give or take a few inches).
This is in light of the statistical reality that men of this height or taller make up only 14.5% of the population.
Our ideals skew our idea of what is “average”. When we imagine that a man should make 250k to be “ideal”, we also subconsciously raise our expectation about what we believe is average. Someone who wants a person who makes 250k might mistakenly believe that the “average” income is 100k, then in reality it is closer to something like 50k.
Thus, when they meet a man who makes 50k, they immediately assume that they are “below-average” based on this skewed perspective. While making 100k, a healthy margine above average, could be seen as only the bare minimum that a person is willing to “tolerate”.
In the dating market, being above-average is the new “average”.
(To be perfectly fair, men also seem to have skewed expectations for women based on metrics of physical attractiveness. But, again, that is the topic for a different article all together.)
The question remains, “What is a Man to do?” with this information?
If you aren’t a member of the “1% club” who makes a quarter of a million dollars or more, then this information can come as disheartening. If you make an “average” amount of money, you might feel “below average”.
Since median is a measurement of statistical centrality, we can assume roughly that half of men make LESS than an average amount. They are bumped down a tier from “below average” to an “invisible” tier; analogous to these women as living in poverty and to be ignored.
If you are a man in the dating market, you might feel that you are behind, disadvantaged and worthless. This isn’t exactly a confident leg to stand on if you are trying to “put yourself out there to meet people”.
And it certainly doesn’t help that dating apps only seem to exacerbate this “hot or not” discrepancy.
As a man, should you… make more money? Should you pour yourself into your career, finance strategies and try to improve your self-worth by improving your pay check?
Or should you reject the notion that your worth is based on your income and try to find other ways to affirm your identity? How else should you make a case for dignity and value as a person?
Many men find themselves reasonably frustrated by these perspectives and statistics as they try to interpret what these things mean for their own lives.
Men turn to support in the form of communities of equally frustrated men. “Men going their own way” (MGTOW), “Sigma Male”, “Red Pill” and other such communities emerge in effort to help men to cope with the disheartening reality of a world which seems to withhold intimacy from men as a result of them not being “worthy” based on some comparative statistic or another.
In this article, I have made an effort to guide the reader down a rabbit hole, as many men are guided daily.
From this perspective, it is easy to come to the conclusion that most men are doomed. While there are some elite men who really do seem to check all of the boxes of what it means to be “ideal”, the vast majority of us will inevitably fall short of that ideal.
You are doomed to accept the reality of perpetual loneliness and rejection, or doomed to strive endlessly in an effort to attain elite status; one which you may not achieve in your lifetime.
But what if the story wasn’t true…
The youtube video I described, as well as many like it, do exist on the internet. They are not particularly difficult to find.
But this story is an incomplete one.
Consider the reality that most people date people of similar socioeconomic status (SES), and of similar subjective levels of physical attractiveness.
If the people they interviewed were each top earners, belonging to SES families, and who were each very attractive, it’s likely that their “ideal man” would reflect these similarities.
In other words, the qualitative accounts covered in the youtube video (and in many like it) are not actually generalizable; it does not reflect the beliefs, preferences and attitudes of women.
Whether you are a man or a woman, it’s likely that you would prefer to have a partner who is of high of quality as plausible.
This means, if someone were to ask MOST people if they would prefer to have a partner who is more attractive, or more wealthy, they would likely say “yes”.
All things being equal, having more money is objectively better than having less!
It’s plausible, then, to twist a narrative to make it seem like any group of people are greedy, manipulative, or have unrealistic standards, merely by asking them, “Hey, do you prefer having more than less?”
The nail in the coffin of this myth is this: People do not forge relationships with others in the same way that employers choose potential employees.
If your only experience with dating is through apps, online profiles and technology, then it may certainly FEEL like dating is a matter of having the best “human resume” for others to choose from. If relationships were like getting hired for a job, then indeed it may feel like the comparison of one “applicant” to another creates disparities between people which are difficult to overcome.
The reality, however, is that people forge relationships through (1) proximity, (2) shared purpose and (3) shared experiences.
It can be thought that people also choose individuals for their “personality” but it seems that there is so much individual differences as to what we find appealing both physically and mentally about another person that we are likely to find someone who genuinely prefers our personality.
One of the most consistent findings is that people seem to prefer others who demonstrate a certain degree of interpersonal warmth. No surprise, we like people who are generally kind. So take whatever personality you have, sprinkle in a dose of “kindness”.
Online dating, especially dating apps, lack the fundamental ingredients of “proximity”, “shared purpose” and “shared experience”. It is possible for two people to meet on dating apps, but only if they are willing to put in the effort to engineer physical closeness, and a commitment to create a shared purposes and experience.
It is the “brute force” method of forging relationships which is all together too
What is a Man to Do? Abandon the Dating Apps.
The statistics don’t lie that there is a huge supply-and-demand issue on the app which creates a skewed and toxic environment for most men.
Instead, embrace seeking new experiences, finding communities to spend time in and contribute to. When we get out into the world and DO things, we naturally find other people do them with. When there are things we are passionate about and which we and intrinsically motived by, it is only a matter of time until we find others that feel similarly.
And these are things that you can start doing without having to make a quarter-of-a-million dollar salary first.
By all means, continue to work on yourself. Progress in your career, learn new skills and trades, and go to the gym to get closer to that dream physique, but do not do these things as a “means to an end” to try to be more attractive to a mate.
Trying to “hustle harder” to be more attractive will only lead to even more frustration when your bigger bank account and bigger muscles don’t result in more matches on Tinder.
The reality still stands then many men are suffering with trying to find their place the modern world.
However, much of this suffering is created by damaging narratives that make men feel inadequate, worthless and undesired. These narratives reflect present a skewed myth of human relationships which lead men down rabbit holes of frustration and feelings of hopelessness in an effort to “sell” them on costly solutions
Gone are the days that a single narrative or advice will be enough to determine what a “man” is. We should be encouraging men to seek communities, purposes and experiences which are fulfilling to them on an individual basis. By exploring and discovering one’s passions in life, we will inevitably find others whom share our passions (regardless of how much money we make).