By David Futrelle
There comes a time in every Jordan Peterson fanboy’s life when he starts to think about settling down with a high quality female for mating purposes.
And so one such fan recently turned to the Jordan Peterson subreddit to ask his fellow lobsters (yes, they call themselves that) to ask for some help with his mating math. At what age, he asked, should a man who is “progressing up the hierarchy ” allow himself “to be peeled off by a female” seeking marriage?
jtillery32 laid out his dilemma, noting first that
JP has often said women mate across and up [the] competence hierarchy. … Which is patently true. The problem that leaves me (and I’m sure a bunch of other lobsters vying for position) with is wondering when the appropriate time to allow yourself to be peeled off by a female.
Get out your calculators and lobster bibs, people, because things are going to get messy!
Essentially the question is this: if a man is progressing up the hierarchy (status, financial, getting into shape, etc), would it be in his and his future wife’s best interest to wait on settling down until he believed he was at his peak?
Because god forbid you marry some HB 7 you merely love and want to spend the rest of your life with when, if you had waited a few more years, you could have had yourself an 8 or 9 who was more interested in your money than your personality?
A good example of this problem is a 21 year old man who is handsome, articulate, athletic, in college, maybe works as a bartender and probably has pick of the women that attend the school or in some proximity, maybe from ages 18-25 VS the same man, 9 years later who is now in better shape, more handsome, more confident, more wise, financially “minted”, and has a much larger pool to choose from, maybe 21-35 year old women who are of higher quality (that sounds like a cut of beef) by nature of hypergamy.
Sounds a bit like that famous (if recently somewhat tarnished) “marshmallow test” where you offer a kid either one marshmallow right away or two if they’re willing to wait ten minutes. But with hot ladies instead of marshmallows. A whole pool of high quality hot lady marshmallows.
It would seem that if that 21 year old man was to marry someone at that age it would have been a grave mistake as he would have been able to have a higher quality partner had he waited 9 years.
Seriously, why settle for a One Marshmallow Stacey if you could wait a little and snag yourself a Two Marshmallow Stacey?
I would love an actual wise answer here and not some “well when you know she’s the right one when you just know” BS.
Fuck love, we’re all about Marshmallow Stacey Maximization here.
That sounds callous, but the reality is that you really can fall in love with many people and some people do multiple times in their lives, and could probably have successful marriages with more than “the one”.
Obviously this dude who rates women like cuts of beef has a great understanding of what makes for a successful marriage.
When should a man who is trying and succeeding to better himself in every way let himself be peeled off into marriage? And does preemptive peeling lead to resentment?
Dude, I suspect that with you EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD LEADS TO RESENTMENT. Waiting. Not waiting. EVERYTHING.
You see this a lot in professional athletes, and people who are aggressively climbing the hierarchy. The superstar dated and married the best girl (smartest, funniest, prettiest) at the high school, but now he’s the quarterback of an nfl team and has his pick of the best girls in the world. It’s a common theme among meteoric rises in men and I haven’t seen a good answer for it. Be loyal to the person who loved you before the status or keep aiming up to someone better?
And plenty of these “superstars” do in fact stay loyal to what you would see as sub-optimal partners. Because, you know, love?
I hate to tell you this, dude, but if this is really the way you think about relationships, you are NOT the great catch you think you are. You’ll make yourself miserable no matter who you marry — if you can find anyone gullible enough to marry you in the first place.
And the chances are good that nine years from now you won’t actually be “in better shape, more handsome, more confident, more wise” with “a much larger pool to choose from,” You will probably be earning more money. But you’ll also be nine years more bitter and resentful, and that’s not an attractive look for any man.
Don’t get married now. But don’t get married nine years from now either — at least not until you clear your head of this utterly toxic way of thinking.
Unfortunately, this being the Jordan Peterson subreddit, none of the commenters offered him the blunt advice he so desperately needs — though a few did warn him that by waiting too long for the “perfect woman” he might end up old and resentful and alone. (Might? Almost certainly will.)
He also got this less-than-optimal advice, from someone calling himself liberal_hr.
I agree that you should wait until your reach your maximum potential peak and then start looking for potential females.
There is just too much of a risk of you falling head over heels for a female and settling for less than you deserve.
Given that he literally deserves no one, I find this a little hard to believe.
And then there was NoelTrotsky, whose advice was somehow even worse:
It would be interesting to apply economic game theory to this problem. I’d bet that a young man’s best move would be to marry an older rich woman while young , take the help up the ladder, have kids, then leave at about 35 and marry young for a second round. Why not increase your odds with several marriages of significant lengths?
So, in other words he should act like a male version of every “Red Pill” dude’s caricature of a calculating, mercenary hypergamous woman who would drop any man she was with if in a second if she had a chance to “branch swing” to a higher-status man?
It’s almost as if the Red Pill notion of female hypergamy is less a reflection of how women actually behave in the real world than a projection of every Red Pill dude’s not-so-secret desire to trade up to a Victoria’s Secret model.
Jordan Peterson really brings out the worst in people, huh?
@StaceySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved
Don’t apologize. Your rant was spot on.
As for “toxic” femininity, first, while some aspects of femininity can hurt people, it’s 100% not valid to call sad bones toxic femininity (I mean, what the actual fuck?). Second, the kind of harm femininity does tends to be more in the vein of Mean Girls. While that’s certainly bad, let’s compare that to stalking, murder, domestic violence, and mass shootings that toxic masculinity leads to. And we’re back to the old, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Or in this case, “Men are afraid that women will turn them on. Women are afraid that men will kill them”
Hi. I’ve been an avid lurker for years, and would like to thank David for his brave work , and the community for being so vibrant, thoughtful, and supportive. I am finally taking the plunge and making a comment because… Jordan Fucking Peterson… 😉
These “Lobsterian Mating strategies” reveal two toxic threads of though pervasive in the Alt-Right, and mainstream right wing culture in general. The First is the reheated Social Darwinism peddled by Peterson. Everything is about being Top Lobster. His inaccurate-to-the-point-of -fraudulence misreading of biology and evolutionary biology have been called out by experts like PZ Myers as pseudo scientific justifications of social hierarchies. Strip away the psycobabble and you’re left with old school reactionary tropes like “There is no glass ceiling, women like to have babies”, “Women make good nurses, but bad engineers “et cetera.
The second is Neo-Liberalism/Libertarianism’s insistence that all aspects of human life can and should be understood only through Market Economics. Therefore the challenge of meeting someone you can love and share your life with is seen as a strategic campaign to leverage a market pool in order maximize the value of actualised assets… meeting a nice girl becomes aquiring a high value female…
I wonder what their mothers would think of them, if they knew?
I’ve spent much of this morning reading through a few Twitter threads, and I already knew this but it really just reinforced how much men don’t get sexism. I won’t claim I’m any kind of authority on it, because there’s always more that I have to learn, but in times like this I feel like the only way to really make the idea sink in for so many ignorant dudebros is to seriously do things like what WWTH proposed and forbid men from participating in the working world until we’re not so fragile.
The colossal degree to which so many guys completely miss the point of literally anything a woman or male ally says would be comical if it didn’t constantly reinforce harmful sexist ideas.
@kupo
You are so sweet. Thank you so much.
I think women are taught too much to be mean to each other in the Mean Girls way. One thing I so love about the owner of our salon is that she sets a strong tone that it’s our job to make every client feel absolutely beautiful when we are done. I remember from college classes there are all kinds of issues in feminist discourse about the beauty industry but in my heart I just really do love seeing our stylists make so many women *feel* like goddesses. I’m only the receptionist and hostess but I am honored that I can be part of that. It’s like art for us and it makes me happy.
@dslucia
You’re right. I think maybe the best thing men can do to help is to talk to other men and call them out, especially when there are no women around.
I’m not sure I’d even call mean girls type stuff toxic femininity. Because what it does is enforce patriarchy. It’s an example of women policing other women to ensure compliance with beauty norms. Or a lot of it revolves around slut shaming.
I feel like women can be slut shamed both for not complying and for complying too much or in the “wrong” way with beauty norms. I feel like this happens to me almost every day. I feel like we just can’t win.
I want to resist. Is it possible I wonder that something a woman finds joyful can also be an act of resistance? Putting together my outfit for each day is my pride and joy. But I want it to be my resistance too…. to slut shaming and to the idea that I have to censor myself just because some man I don’t even know will be upset.
Leave out the ‘only’. It’s a difficult job that takes skill and talent and you absolutely contribute to that atmosphere. ?
@ Kupo and StaceySPTR
Yeah, you’re literally the face of the business. I’ve known plenty of people, me included, who’ve decided whether or not to engage a company just on the basis of that first contact.
@kupo
You make me want to cry. ???
I can only hope I add to our atmosphere and vibe. 🙂 I just try to be sweet to every client and make sure she’s (or he, sometimes!) is taken care of has coffee or a glass of wine, and keep the reception area, retail section and lounge area organized for my manager…and keep up with the phones, gahhh!! 🙂 I’m not supposed to stand behind the desk but supposed to be out front so they can see me. 🙂 so what I wear and how I look is really important but I like that part and it’s fun. The owner is so amazing and said I was perfect for the job. She is so caring makes sure I get breaks to sit down because I’m in heels all day. She is so supportive of my outfit choices. I know that’s partly because it helps her business 🙂 and I’m kind of honored but I think she would otherwise.
@Alan Robertshaw
Oh, thank you! Yes in our business how you treat people means soooo much but my appearance means, well, **everything** too, and at the same time! I guess it’s kind of weird that way? Thinking about that makes me wish for my Intro to Women’s Studies class from college…our professor (she was do amazing ) would make us debate out stuff like that. She would probably ask me to think about whether I was only the face of the business or am I the body of it too?
Alan you always say things that make everyone think. Yours truly soooo saw that from reading the older posts my sir! 🙂
Yeah, I know how that feels, and it’s both depressing and dispiriting. The thing we all need to remember is that — in broad terms — it’s not true. However much things may suck at the moment, we can’t stop fighting to change them for the better, we can’t stop standing up for what’s right, we can’t stop speaking out about this crap…because the moment we do, we really can’t win.
I hate that I have to remind myself of that multiple times every day, but it’s necessary for me because otherwise I’d just give up in despair.
Fortunately, none of us are alone in this fight.
Not to be trite, but as long as you intend it as an act of resistance, it is.
Even if no one else knows or recognizes it as resistance, you will, and that will make you stronger and keep you focused.
…and, of course, you could also explain to others that it’s an act of resistance, what you’re resisting, and why. 😉
@Alan:
And, on the flip side, it’s a truism that you can tell a lot about what a person is really like when you see how they treat the ‘hired help’. Politeness is a social lubricant: it tends to make things go a lot more smoothly.
Previous comments about poker and immaturity reminded me of back when I was at University. Early in second year, I’d made friends with most of the people on my floor at the residence. I was down in the cafeteria when a young woman, chatting, when I spotted a couple of the freshmen trying to do ‘gross out the girl’ stuff. I looked at them, looked at her, and then casually said, “They obviously don’t know what you did as a summer job, do they?” “Nope.”
(Her summer job was as a nurse’s assistant at an extended care facility. Somebody who’s changed bedpans is going to be pretty much impossible to disgust by anyone with the lack of imagination those two were showing.)
I remain somewhat baffled at how somebody could get to 19 and still think that was appropriate behaviour at a University. I mean, intellectually I know the answers, and we see daily reminders of people like that at this website. But I just don’t grok it.
@Surplus to Requirements
I wonder if David is just letting less trolls through. He doesn’t let the nastier trolls out of moderation, after all.
@Jenora Feuer
Isn’t it amazing how so many young men and boys assume things about a young woman with no basis for thinking it?
I know there are men and women who could never imagine how feminist I *feel* inside because of where I work, how I dress and how I present in terms of gender. But they don’t know what a tough little goddess I am. 🙂 But they better watch it or they’ll find out! 🙂
@Gaebolga
Oh thank you so much for that! My goodness that is sooooo uplifting! ????
I am going to resist more and keep resisting! Every day my outfit is going to be not only my creation but my act of resistance to patriarchy and slut-shaming especially!
Oh trust me, save for the more nuanced stuff, we absolutely get it. Truth is, men are acutely aware that they routinely engage in sexual harassment and discrimination. Men constantly swap advice on how to get away with cheating, harassment and gas-lighting. It’s not that we don’t know better, it’s that we know we can get away it.
And when you do call out these people in these “locker room” talks, you get immediately excluded from the group. I’ve been cast out of many groups over this (no regrets) and it continues to be the norm. Selling out another man, regardless of whether you know them or not, is considered to be the greatest form of treachery among men. It’s like women are viewed as the entirely opposite team.
@Neil of the Nine S.
So wonderful of you to join us! Yes I lurked for a while too before commenting and agree that David’s work on the blog is amazing!
Welcome Neil! 🙂
@Tovius:
That’s been mostly my assumption. First-time posters get manually moderated. That’s enough to weed out the sort that can’t keep their words in check long enough to ‘pass’.
@StacySmartyPantsTwiceRemoved:
I think ‘annoying’ is a more accurate word than ‘amazing’. I went to University in the late 1980s; the era of rabidly misogynistic student newspapers wasn’t all that long dead, and was still seeing the occasional idiots trying to bring it back.
(I’ve told this story before, I think: by the time I was near graduation, both the President and Vice-President of the Engineering Society were women. Some chucklef**k took one of their promotional photos and posted a whole bunch of ‘for a good time call’ posters around the engineering buildings, along with a copy of the official approval stamp of the Engineering Society, which had obviously been cut off some other poster and added on here. I found one in one of the back hallways of one of the lab buildings, ripped it down and brought it in, and got asked where I’d found it because they’d been taking these things down all bloody morning and wanted to know where they’d missed one. There’s a reason my alumni donations go directly to the Women in Engineering support programs.)
@Diego Duarte:
A lot of the same can be said for racism, of course. What bigots will say when they believe they’re among purely like-minded individuals can get pretty horrible, as can the ostracization if you call anybody out. That doesn’t mean they actually believe they’re racist; those people just are inferior, how can it be racist to point it out? That and they’ve internalized that racism is a bad thing without wanting to admit that they’re doing anything bad.
It’s like how the number of young men who will admit to sexual harassment and rape goes up significantly if you don’t actually call it that.
As for your last line, the famous comment is “In the game of patriarchy, women aren’t the opposing team: they’re the ball.”
Podkayne Lives said of watching 9000 hours of Jordan Peterson
I think it sounds more like the closing scene of A Clockwork Orange because it would take strapping me down and clamping my eyes open to even get me started.
Diego Duarte said
Sometimes it’s more like they were born on third base and they think they hit a double and then stole third. Also, they blame the fans because they didn’t hit a home run.
That’s all the further I got today and now I have to log off for the day. Later!
@Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy – Gaah, that “toxic femininity” article is some nonsense. Even in its details – e.g. how does makeup “mimic an impending orgasm”? Does he think, for example, that women’s eyelids turn blue when they’re getting it on?* The only makeup that kind of relates is blush, but people’s cheeks also get redder when it’s hot or cold out, or they’re nervous, embarrassed, exercising… and it’s not a gender-specific thing!
*Which would be a cool, if not terribly useful, superpower 🙂
@StacySmartyPants – Welcome!
You got me thinking about my workplace and clothes… Basically, one of my bosses calls himself a feminist, but I don’t think he’d talk to a man the same way he used to talk to me about what I wore. The gist of it was that my clothes were too old-fashioned, not stylish enough. I don’t know how true this is. I don’t tend to spend a lot on clothes, but I’ve been an arts/craft hobbyist since I was a kid, and I like to think I have a style.
His comments aren’t sexualized, so I’d hesitate to relate it to sexual harassment. But it strikes me as a double standard. Stylishness would be relevant if I worked in the fashion industry, but this is a tutoring centre.
The last time I remember him giving me a clothes critique was last year, when he came up to me after class and told me, “I don’t think it’s professional to wear a shirt with shorter sleeves over one with longer sleeves. It’s sort of ‘cool’ but I’ve only seen students wearing things like that.”
I was wearing a 3/4-sleeved royal-blue collared shirt over a collarless green one. I liked this combo and was kind of fed up, so I said something like, “Okay, but you’ve criticized me before for not being cool enough, so isn’t ‘cool’ okay?”
(He deflected, saying I shouldn’t get angry at constructive criticism.)
True. Sometimes (often?) I argue when I shouldn’t. But in this case, I don’t regret it. He didn’t make that kind of comment again (and, to keep peace, I didn’t wear that outfit again when he was around).
…Eh, sorry for the wordiness. It’s petty of me to bring this up, because he hasn’t made comments like that in a while. Mind you, I work around him less since I have more students and less admin work. Anyway! Forward and onward!
@Hambeast, Diego Duarte: Can’t stand the fact that the minimal-state-right of USA has coopted libertarianism, which is still used for various ahierarchical solcialist positions in most other parts of the world :/
I….what? My salon is populated entirely by badass feminists (ok, it’s a small salon but still).
@Tovius, @Surplus
Possibly the recent changes to the site, too? It’s a teensy bit more complicated to sign in and comment than it used to be. That could be putting off the really impatient ones. I’ve definitely noticed the absence of trolls, whatever the cause.
@epitome,
That’s the problem with evo-psych; it’s so goddamn reductive. Human biology and evolution are fascinating topics, but these people boil it all down to the bare minimum. In any case, men also wear make-up, and historically they’ve sometimes worn more than women (e.g. Regency gentlemen, with their blush, lipstick, and beauty spots).
Your boss sounds way out of line to me. Like you said, it’s not sexualised, but criticising your clothing style? Grrrrr.
@epitome of incomprehensibility
Hi and thank you for the welcome! You are so sweet!
I am so sorry your boss said that to you and made you feel bad. I think it’s definitely a double standard if you felt that it was.
And even though it was not for him to say if you look cool, I think that three-quarter sleeve collared shirt over the green shirt could be a really cool look. And you liked the combo! So that will add to the energy and your students will see you shine confidently and learn so much from you. That’s just beautiful. And I so admire people in the arts/crafts hobby! I just love creativity. I made a cute top for when I want to do an outfit with a bare midriff by taking just a plain sports bra but that was the cut and style that I wanted and covering with with glitter. It was *so* hard because of the shape (it’s much easier to get the glue on evenly when you have something that will lay flat like a shirt or a skirt). It came out kind of OK and I’ve worn it but I might try to re-do one. I’m sure someone like you knows how to do cool stuff like that!
Oh please don’t think you are too wordy or being petty by talking about this. Thank you for sharing what you experienced. We should support each other in spaces like this especially. And I think you were strong and inspiring for speaking up.