Dalrock, a manosphere traditionalist with a great love of charts and statistics and other accoutrements of SCIENCE, has managed to figure out a way to stretch โdonโt be so picky, ladies, or youโll get old and ugly and no man will ever want youโ out to 1500 words.
Here are a few of them:
Men foot the searching costs in the marriage and sexual marketplace (MMP & SMP).ย This means bearing most of the risk of rejection and expending the bulk of the resources to facilitate the process of meeting and getting to know one another.
Oh dear. We’re off to a very unpromising start here.
As the ones who bear the costs of courtship, men have a strong incentive to minimize the number of women they court and the overall duration of time spent in the process.ย However, as the consumers of courtship, women have an incentive to draw the process out as long as possible and to receive courtship from as many men as possible.
Hereโs some surveillance footage of an average American woman being courted by several men.
But now — get this — the ladies are waiting longer to marry!
Just think about what this does to the dude navigating the marriage market hoping to โmaximize his Pareto efficiency,โ if you know what I mean and I think you do.
He needs to manage risk vs reward.ย When courting, there are two fundamental risks.ย These are the risk of wasting resources on the wrong women, and the risk of rejection harming the manโs reputation/MMV.
So watch out, ladies, because if you wait too long, guys are going to decide youโre not much of a bargain!
For a man who is managing the risks of courtship outlined above, the age of a woman is very important.ย The older a woman is, the more likely it is that she is very picky and/or not seriously looking for a husband.
Exactly! Because women never change their mind because theyโre, you know, in a different stage of their life or anything.
Older women also are less attractive from a courtship perspective because they have used up more of their most attractive/fertile years, and while their attractiveness for marriage has declined their expectations for courtship have only increased.
This reminds me of that famous joke, you know, where that woman approaches Winston Churchill at a party and says, โSir, you are drunk.โ
And he replies: โAnd you, Bessie, have used up your most attractive/fertile years. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still have used up your most attractive/fertile years.โ
That Churchill, what a card!
Consider the 25% of current early thirties White women who still havenโt married;ย unless they are terminally unattractive an awful lot of courtship has almost certainly been wasted on them.
Are there really a lot of guys who look back on the women they dated in their twenties and think, โboy, I wasted a lot of courtship on those gals! I mean, I wasted nearly 14 courtship on Jessa alone!โ (Also, who knew that the women are always the ones to blame when heterosexual couples in their twenties break up?)
They arenโt just bad bets for courtship today, but (in retrospect) they clearly were bad bets for courtship for the last 15 years. …
Put simply, the extended delay of marriage by women has placed marriage minded men in a dilemma;ย older women are (generally speaking) known bad bets for courtship, but half of early twenties women are also poor bets for courtship.
Well, you could always marry a dude.
There are only two logical ways men can respond to womenโs extension of courtship.
Wait, really? Please, please, please, let one of the ways be โmarry a dude.โ
The first logical choice is to recognize that these women are debasing marriage, and decide to โcourtโ for sex and not marriage.
Damn. Anyway, sexual relationships are fine, but you are aware that there are other kinds of relationships — sorry, โcourtingโ — besides sex and marriage, right?
Ok, we still have one more. Marry a dude. Marry a dude. Marry a dude.
But while โcourtingโ for sex is a logical choice, it is not a moral choice, and we still do see men courting for marriage.ย For these men, having a fairly low age cutoff makes a great deal of sense.
Thatโs your, er, โsolution?โ Marry a teenager? Or a woman at most in her early twenties?
As Dalrock knows, but doesnโt want to believe, those who marry when they’re very young are much more likely to divorce than those who marry when theyโre older. For evidence, see this chart, which I found elsewhere on Dalrock’s own blog:
But hope springs eternal for modern misogynistic manospherian marriage market minded men (MMMMMMM).
Qwerty, the person I was in my late teens, early to mid twenties, late twenties, early mid thirties and now are entirely different people. As life goes on you evolve, what appealed to you at one point might not in the future.
Contrary to what Michael thinks people change and develop. Neither spouse or I look like we did when we got married much less when we started to date. Neither of us miss that person we were. It’s funny how when you develop through life you don’t reflect the person you were before but that’s ok. ๐
Good luck & happy life!
Wow. Just finished catching up on this thread, and what a saga this is turning out to be.
Qwerty, I’m gonna join the chorus and say you really dodged a bullet here. And no, you’re most definitely not dumb…you were actively deceived by a lying, sociopathic narcissist. People like that just exist to jerk others around, so don’t feel bad — feel wiser! You are smarter, kinder, and a better quality person (yes, I used that word) than he will ever be. You have learned more in three years than some women do in a lifetime. You can do so much better than him, and now that you’re done with him, I am absolutely certain that you will. Just don’t feel that your next one has to be another human dog-rescue, okay? And don’t be in any hurry, you’ve got loads of time. Feel sad if you can’t help it, but don’t feel sorry for yourself..you are bound for better things. Look after your little girl, and especially, yourself.
Hugs.
I always seem to miss Michaels comments and have to scroll way back through the comments.
Your comment to me is just so laughable it’s not worthy of taking seriously. Nothing you have said is remotely based in reality. Again in case you’ve missed it, anyone with half a brain would rather be single anyway that married to someone like you. What do you have to offer besides your supposed wealth? Your hate and condescension are repulsive. You could look like Charlie Hunnam *drool* and I wouldn’t touch you. Some people have standards beyond just physical traits.
It’s also hilarious that you think I’m waiting for my bf to propose to me. He’s also not an investment that’s just so fucking weird. If he were to read your comments to me he would be scoffing at this as much as I am. Not everyone’s main purpose in life is to get married and have children. Life is what you make it buddy, and you seem to be making it miserable for yourself.
Qwerty,
It took me a while to get through some of the comments. Sorry to hear about your situation with this guy and I’m glad you saw his true colours. I wish you luck in the future!
Qwerty, David’s email is close to the top of the page under the About Man Boobz section.
Qwerty,
It sounds like he used your own empathy against you. I hope you turn that same tenderness toward yourself and take good care of you. You deserve it.
Meanwhile, I should clearly go to law school in my spare time. It must be a cake walk if that Bozo can hack it.
Jk, I know some very smart lawyers. Seriously, what diploma mill gave that guy a degree?
Meanwhile on As The Blog Turns…
The things I miss just because I’m offline taking care of my husband and his actual-honest-to-deity-doctor-diagnosed influenza*.
So, Mikey’s imaginary girlfriend turns out to be not imaginary, not as he portrayed her and not thrilled with his sorry ass. Whoo!
Mikey was still trying to hit on people based on their gravatars and being the world’s worst guess your age carney. I guess he needed to go refill his spittle dispenser because he’s gone strangely quiet.
Collectively and individually the regulars continue to rock.
And if my only options were marrying a jerk like Mikey or being an angry lesbian then slide over girls, I’m switching teams. But Mikey would still have been wrong because I’d be the cheerfully snarky elder lesbian with the bad habits and the cool hobbies.
* I got a flu shot. Someone else did not, he was changing jobs and travelling and yadda yadda. Then he got exposed to a confirmed case of H1N1. Then he was pretty sure he could fight it off with OTC meds and keep going to work. Then I dragged him to urgent care, got him a diagnosis and a scrip and brought him home for bed rest and hardly any I Told You So.
Did you click on David’s head at the top of the page? That opens an Outlook message. I don’t use Outlook, but it’s easy to copy his address that way.
I think Mikey is busted.
Mikey’s narcissistic supply is probably exhausted by now and he is probably lurking out there in the nether regions looking for new victims that he can use to refuel, when he comes back, he is going to come back very angry, he will blame everyone but himself for being exposed for the small, little person he really is.
I have seen this played out before, when a narcissist gets called out and exposed, they go ballistic.
Seeing “narcissistic supply” reminded me of a website I once visited called “Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers”. The emotional abuse detalied in the stories there was literally worse than I had thought possible.
Now I’m worried Mikey could cause some serious damage to people.
I know so little about mental health, though. Crap, now I’m worrying if my worry is baseless or not. >_<
Qwerty asked me to delete her comments here so I have. I also deleted a comment quoting her, and as I catch up with the thread I’ll delete any other quotes from her.
I know I’m a very new commenter, so I hope my previous comment didn’t come across as pretentious.
@Argenti: Um…if I ask nicely, would you be okay with coming over to comment? I’ve been lurking for a while, and you seem to know a lot about mental health stuff. Oh! I could also offer a puffer fish picture–you seem to really like fish. Here’s the link, hopefully it works and hasn’t already been used: http://www.gparho.org/sfondi/a144.JPG
Aw, I hope she has some support to seek out (and knows she can still do that here if she wants).
I am hoping not but I think he might have taken this out on her and demanded she retract everything she said in order to cover his tracks.
But still, I have to commend David for honoring her wishes.
Good luck, Qwerty. May the road rise with you.
Hi qwerty! Thank you for telling us your story, and best of luck to you.
Good luck Qwerty, thank you for telling us. Good luck, I hope you expel Michael from your life pronto.
Scott1139 — right now I’m more like massively annoyed with fish, but yeah, I have a few tanks (one of which decided to be a problem child this evening, I guess I should be glad it didn’t pull a three hour drama in he middle of the night!)
So then, thank you for the puffer, and I assume you wanted me to weigh in on whether a narcissist like Mikey can do damage? Short answer is yes. Most of us like some attention, you know, the hi how are you glad to see you and hey nice coat type stuff, to the close relationships, etc. Positive attention in other words. Narcissists? As long as they’re getting attention, they’re getting their ego stroked. It’s why they come across as wanting a free dom — it’s far easier to goad people into telling you to fuck off than it is to make friends. Toss I’m emotional manipulation and they can manage to make you feel like the bad guy for daring to question why they haven’t done things they said they’d do (add gaslighting and you’ll end up unsure if they ever said they’d do it at all)
In short, narcissists are toxic to be around. Whether Mickey here is one, idk, but he’s certainly striking me as the sort who just leaves everyone feeling like they aren’t good enough (unless he really is this transparent offline, in which case he’s probably fairly harmless)
Oh and hello! ๐
Echoing what everyone else said here, Qwerty – and I too hope that this deletion was entirely voluntary on your part. All the best to you and your daughter, whatever you end up doing.
@Argenti: Yes, I did want you to do that. So, thank you! I appreciate it.
You’re welcome about the puffer; sorry your fish tank is misbehaving. ๐
Yeah… Before I started worrying about him causing suffering offline, I found his posts exceptionally amusing.
Hello! ๐
Who’s Qwerty? Mikey’s girlfriend, it sounds like?
Yup, and has seen for herself how nasty and manipulative he is.
You’ll be shocked to hear that our Mikey hasn’t been entirely honest with us about himself – either to us or to her.
[edited by df]
Wow, what a surprise! Can you tell how shocked I am?