What Men Don’t Understand About Female Selection
Thanks to the internet,
there has been an explosion of awareness regarding female mating
and dating behavior in recent years.
This has afforded the current generation
a uniquely privileged position to understand these dynamics
more clearly and precisely than ever before.
While some of this information can be a bitter pill to swallow,
it is ultimately of benefit to both men
and women that it is widely known.
The Reality of Hypergamy
One of the most important concepts in this cache
of information is hypergamy:
the tendency to mate and date up.
It is the tendency to choose men who are taller, stronger, richer,
and of higher status.
Hypergamy influences almost every aspect of female s*xual selection
and has significant downstream consequences.
Unfortunately, there are two common ways
in which the concept of hypergamy is misunderstood by men.
These misunderstandings roughly correspond
to the two general reactions men have upon learning
about the reality of modern dating.
Misunderstanding 1: The Payoff is Only About Women
The first and most prevalent reaction is discouragement.
When many young men learn that women
are primarily interested in the top 10 percent of men,
they inappropriately conclude that they could never enter
those upper echelons, or that even if they could,
the effort required simply wouldn’t be worth the reward.
They decide that the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze,”
look at themselves, and wonder why they should even bother.
Dating is not symmetrical.
Men initiate the vast majority of interactions
and disproportionately experience rejection on the front end,
while women terminate the vast majority of relationships,
leaving men to disproportionately experience rejection
on the back end.
It is understandable that men may rationally conclude that
a high-risk, low-reward endeavor doesn’t make sense for them.
However, these men misunderstand the actual payoff of hypergamy.
The payoff for expending the time
and effort to align with these criteria is not that
a woman is provided security,
or even that a man is offered s*x and a relationship.
The true payoff is the personal growth
and prosperity that redound to the man himself.
A top 10 percent man directly benefits from being
stronger, wealthier, and of a higher status.
These traits are primarily good for him
and only secondarily good for others.
Even in the event of a divorce or breakup,
he remains the source of that value because he
became that value in the transformational process.
Hypergamy’s criteria primarily benefit the man, not the woman.
Misunderstanding 2: High Status Guarantees Opportunity
Not all men get discouraged.
A smaller subset gets fired up,
viewing this information as a way to “hack the game.”
They believe that if they get rich, fit, and smooth,
they will bring themselves into alignment
with female selection preferences and easily win.
This is where men are often deceived.
Women do not grant s*x and relationships simply
as a consequence of men meeting their selection criteria.
The idea that doing “Behavior X” will solve “Problem Y”
is a masculine problem-solving strategy projected onto women.
Men assume that acquiring a six-pack
and a six-figure income means women will automatically reward them.
The disappointing reality is that this is not the case.
While a woman is more likely to choose a successful,
fit guy over one who isn’t,
meeting these hypergamous criteria should be considered
a necessary but insufficient condition for s*xual opportunity.
These traits might get a foot in the door,
but high value does not lead to effortless success.
The Never-Ending Need to Seduce
Despite spending ten to twenty years working
to meet women’s hypergamous criteria,
a man still has to start from scratch with every new woman he meets.
He could be a handsome, eligible bachelor with immense social proof,
but he still starts at square one—which often means convincing
the woman he is safe, making her feel heard,
and showing he is attracted to more than just her body.
If he says one wrong thing too early in the interaction,
the opportunity vanishes instantly.
You do not get to bypass the dating process just
because you have biceps and a bank account.
In fact, a man who spends years solely on his abs
and income but never learns how to seduce a woman
will likely not get as far as a man who lacks those traits
but has spent a year mastering social dynamics.
Meeting hypergamous criteria is not a silver bullet.
They are merely attraction proxies.
You can have all the markers of a high-status man
and still find dating difficult.
You still have to approach, make an effort, and seduce effectively.
Behind the broad hypergamous criteria of the female s*x
is an almost endless list of personal criteria held
by an individual woman—and failing to meet just one can remove the s*xual opportunity entirely.
Interestingly, both of these massive misconceptions tend
to have the exact same outcome: they generally motivate men
to walk away from women altogether.
