Why Dating Sucks for Average Guys

[lnlflwr]

Oh, my stars and garters! I'm a third of Helen Mirren's age and she's still far hotter than I'll ever be. Ok guys, I get it know, I give up as well. yikes

How dare men prefer younger women, predictable. Like I said,  playing the puritan card out of offence, or because it's the only cared left, usually from someone who gets to date when they're young.

At least I'm honest?

She's not unattractive but she's elderly looking. Should we be  attracted to elderly looking people? I don't expect younger women be attracted to 77 year old Robert De Niro either. That's kind of ridiculous.

You're being very harsh here and I don't appreciate this type of treatment from someone I don't even know. I was making a joke at my own expense, because this topic makes me feel insecure, uncomfortable and also because I wanted to be light hearted since people were starting to fight. You're rude.

 

[ardour]

Oh, my stars and garters! I'm a third of Helen Mirren's age and she's still far hotter than I'll ever be. Ok guys, I get it know, I give up as well. yikes

How dare men prefer younger women, predictable. Like I said,  playing the puritan card out of offence, or because it's the only cared left, usually from someone who gets to date when they're young.

At least I'm honest?

She's not unattractive but she's elderly looking. Should we be  attracted to elderly looking people? I don't expect younger women be attracted to 77 year old Robert De Niro either. That's kind of ridiculous.

You're being very harsh here and I don't appreciate this type of treatment from someone I don't even know. I was making a joke at my own expense, because this topic makes me feel insecure, uncomfortable and also because I wanted to be light hearted since people were starting to fight. You're rude.

I honestly didn't realize you were joking.

The intention wasn't to insult or imply women's value lies in their appearance.

 

[mgill]

It isn't delusional, it's a well documented function of insecure attachment where people repeat the same mistakes because they're more comfortable with the inevitable failure than unknown outcomes that might be anxiety inducing or present an amount of uncertainty they're not comfortable experiencing. It's not a personality trait or character flaw, it's just an issue that needs to be worked through so you can be successful in relationships.
What tells me you might have issues with this is how you're choosing to reply my posts. I wouldn't say that failure is lack of effort because that's very insensitive, people can only give so much of themselves and sometimes they still fail. That's fine, but you can't use that failure as a reason to 1. never try again, and 2. believe you're worthless and won't ever succeed.

i can assure you that i am in no way comfortable where i am at and would do just about anything to change it for the better. what you suggest may be true if it were a case of having another person's interest and then having things fail due to my intentional actions.  for me this has never happened.  not a single date in over 8 years and each rejection is worse than the last because it serves to reinforce the fact that i am just too physically unattractive to ever succeed.  sometimes giving up is the only way to stay sane and retain what little self esteem i may have remaining in this area. it is accepting this fact which has been the source of great misery & angst for me.

as i said, i am actually quite successful and confident in the other area's of my life aside from this one-which also happend to be the only one which is so completely dependent on physical apperance. imo, the idea that one can somehow be confident without ever having success over a very long period of time is delusional.  i don't consider myself worthless but am well aware that the evidence that i am simply not good enough is quite conclusive as that is what i have been taught by the women i have been attracted to for as long as i can remember.

I understand what you're saying completely and empathize with you a lot. I don't want to be the person who's just going to say "lower your standards" because that is wrong, but I do believe you can still be attracted mostly to people that will continue the cycle of getting rejected. It doesn't have to be about how they look at all, just about their way of conducting themselves in the world where there's a subconscious confirmation that they wouldn't give you the time of day. I'm saying this because I've had issues with this before, I have pursued people that wouldn't allow me to care for them because they were too closed off to the idea that anyone would ever care about them at all. I learned that it has a ton to do with how starved for affection and care I was as a child, and continuing the pattern of making effort to be loved and not getting it was my traumatic cycle, which is why I often pursue people who are avoidant and not willing to really allow themselves to get hurt anymore. I wonder if you're an avoidant type.

no-i am not an avoidant type and don't think i have especially high standards and would be extremly satisfied with my looksmatch of an average to below looking women in very good shape. as long as a women is physically fit and feminine i usually find her attractive regardless of her race or height. i routinely see men who have far less going for them than i do with attractive spouses/GF.  the one thing they do have in common is that they are all taller & better looking than i am. i have zero doubt that if i were even of average height (5'10) and had the hair i was born with, my life would have been vastly superior to what it has been being short & bald. 

i understand that it can be extremely unpleasant for most women & even many men to accept that this is the way the world really works because they have very rarely if ever experienced it directly themselves.  the fact that the Halo Effect is an unconscious bias makes it very difficult for them to recognize the truth that physical attraction is the primary driver of romantic attraction and those men below a certain basleline of looks & height are going to struggle tremendously in this area-regardless of whatever else we may have going for us. 

if it were instead a mental issue as has been suggested so many times, these issues would have invariably affected other aspects of my life but this has not been the case for me at least.  as i have repeated countless times, this is the one and only area which i have experienced total, catastrophic failure for almost a decade and is also the one and only area where looks & height are of such critical importance to success.  the fact that a man can have tremendous success with women by only being tall & facially attractive while a short, bald, average looking man can have everything else going for him but still never find a partner speaks volumes about the state of the modern dating world.

ps-i truly appreciate your empathy, interest and effort to try in understand this phenomenon.  it is a refreshing change from others who try and use baseless assumptions & false accusations against someone they know nothing about in order to try and protect their own fallacious worldview which is in such conflict with reality.  as i said before, ten or maybe even five years ago i would have been in complete denial of it also because it confliced with the way i was always taught the world works but having lived it these many years, i was forced to accept the only rational conclusion despite how devastating to my psyche is was and has continued to be.

 

[Xpendable]

I just need to date a younger person then

 

[ardour]

Are these the same women you've been around your whole life, or is this a new "group"? IMO it makes a difference, but I can understand why you'd have a  negative view and group them all together.

I didn't  want to turn the thread  into my personal blog, but yeah, while a couple of them seemed genuine, I did recognize a lot of the behaviour from when I was younger, except now they can't rely on men to approach, there's a bit of passive aggression if you don't behave they way they want.  I noticed a few times they might make some initial attempts to break the ice but then expect me to take over the interaction and show the kind of assertive Real Man confidence they expect.  In that sense it's barely any different than the kind of girls who in the past, who if my looks didn't put them off, would judge you within literally a few words then 'go blank' if you weren't confident enough.  Since I'm not that attracted any more and a family is no longer on the cards there's little reason to go there, even for purposes of finally getting some romantic/sexual experience. 

 My own age group was at the tail end of archetypal kiwi/aussie bloke culture which was still the norm in the '90s/2000's. Things have changed a great deal but I'm not young enough to benefit.  This gets tedious.  The average young male you'd come across back then was an aggressive dropkick who's main vocation seemed to be being a prick to everyone around him while being rewarded for it. There was a lot of nastiness; men were constantly  testing out each other's masculinity. "******" and "piece of ****" were common insults. I haven't heard those words uttered for years now.  Not really allowed to feel, not allowed to be interested in anything "different" i.e. creative. I'm exaggerating because individuals vary,  but this was the overall atmosphere at the time.  

And like I said, people have aged terribly. It applies as much to men if you think I'm using that as an excuse to take shots at women.  We come from a heavy drinking, bad lifestyle culture.  Overall it's a borderline uncomfortable thought, being physically intimate with a person my own age..

 I don't know about you. If you haven't been through relationships then perhaps you also look younger than the skeevy, grey haired, 40-going-on-60 men in your cohort, and have similar 'wtf?' thoughts about the prospect of dating them. Or perhaps you don't care at all about that and are a better person than me.

And nobody seems to want to do anything. Socializing  means heavy drinking at a depressing drinking hole somewhere. Always that same old thing. People rarely travel out of their habitat. Arranging things over the weekend is like pulling teeth, so forget it. 

So this is what there is for us now.  I spent important years focused on a family member and seem to be paying for it with the rest of my life. The only desire is to be 25-29 again, dating and socializing with people that age group. But that's not possible now. Not the most likeable admission perhaps. It's certainly in the category of a pointless/futile/first world complaint.

 

[kaetic]

Are these the same women you've been around your whole life, or is this a new "group"? IMO it makes a difference, but I can understand why you'd have a  negative view and group them all together.

I didn't  want to turn the thread  into my personal blog, but yeah, while a  couple of them  seemed genuine,  I did recognize a lot of the behaviour from when I was younger, except now they can't rely on men to approach, there's a bit of passive aggression if you don't behave they way they want.  I noticed a few times they might make some initial attempts to break the ice but then expect me to take over the interaction and show the kind of assertive Real Man confidence they expect.  In that sense it's  barely any different than the kind of girls who in the past, who if my looks didn't put them off, would judge you within literally a  few words then 'go blank' if you weren't confident enough.  Since I'm not that attracted any more and a family is no longer on the cards there's little reason to go there, even for purposes of finally getting some romantic/sexual experience. 

 My own age group was at the tail end of archetypal kiwi/aussie bloke culture which was still the norm in the '90s/2000's. Things have changed a great deal but I'm not young enough to benefit.  This gets tedious.  The average young male you'd come across back then was  an aggressive dropkick who's main vocation seemed to be being a prick to everyone around him  while being rewarded for it. There was a lot of nastiness; men were constantly  testing out each other's masculinity. "******" and "piece of ****" were common insults. I haven't heard those words uttered for years now.  Not  really allowed to feel, not allowed to be interested in anything "different" i.e. creative. I'm exaggerating because individuals vary,  but this was the overall atmosphere at the time.  

And like I said, people have aged terribly.  It applies as much to men if you think I'm using that as an excuse to take shots at women.  We come from a heavy drinking, bad lifestyle culture.  Overall it's a  borderline uncomfortable thought, being physically intimate with a person my own age..

 I don't know about you. If you haven't been through relationships then perhaps you also look younger than the skeevy, grey haired,  40-going-on-60 men in your cohort, and have similar 'wtf?' thoughts about the prospect of dating them. Or perhaps you don't care at all about that and are a better person than me.

And nobody seems to want to do anything. Socializing  means heavy drinking at a depressing drinking hole somewhere. Always that same old thing. People rarely travel out of their habitat. Arranging things over the weekend is like pulling teeth, so forget it. 

So this is what there is for us now.  I spent important years focused on a family member and seem to be paying for it with the rest of my life. The only desire is to be 25-29 again, dating and socializing with people that age group. But that's not possible now.  Not the most likeable admission perhaps.  It's certainly in the category of a pointless/futile/first world complaint.

All this time and I didn't realize you were from New Zealand... I read "kiwi/aussie bloke culture" and it threw me...
Maybe you should visit/move to the US. Your accent would trump any other issues that have gotten in your way in the past, and you wouldn't be limited the way you feel you are to 40+ year olds. It wouldn't help for online dating... they'd have to hear your voice. American women are crazy about accents.

I do often get surprised looks when I tell people I'm 40, but I don't know how much of that is them just being nice. I get what you're saying about not finding women your own age attractive... that's not what I was picking on in my last comment. Everyone has preferences. I've always liked older men, not that it ever really mattered, but I guess that puts me in an easier position than you at this stage of life.

I don't care for the bar scene either.
I think that's a mid-life... not crisis exactly... when you regret how your life has gone and feel like you missed out, or you're not where you should be. I've been feeling like that since my mid-twenties though...
I would love a do-over...

 

[mgill]

Kaetic has good advice as i seem to recall that ardour is also over 6' so in addition to his NZ accent, his height would be a tremendous advantage in finding a women in the US & Canada. too bad it would take travelling halfway across the globe just to have a chance at a relationship. sadly for me, no culture exists which finds short, bald males attractive so geomaxing is not a viable strategy for all men. also, unless one has actual options it really does not matter who they may or may not find attractive. it's like asking a starving person in africia what their favorite food is.

 

[Finished]

I would love a do-over...

Wow! Really? I'm so done with this life. I want this to be the final end for me. Once my life here is over I want to go into nothingness and end things completely. No do-overs for me. But, I probably said that during my last life and the one before that too. Blaaaaaaaaaa.

 

[ardour]

Kaetic has good advice as i seem to recall that ardour is also over 6'..

I'm just over 5'9".  Work visa's are difficult and expensive to get.   I doubt any 26-33 yo woman in the US, Japan, or wherever, will want to date a middle-aged loser just for novelty of an accent, and even if they would, I'd finally be experiencing this at a point where it doesn't matter any more.

 

[mgill]

Kaetic has good advice as i seem to recall that ardour is also over 6'..

I'm just over 5'9".  Work visa's are difficult and expensive to get.   I doubt any 26-33 yo woman in the US, Japan, or wherever, will want to date a middle-aged loser just for novelty of an accent, and even if they would, I'd finally be experiencing this at a point where it doesn't matter any more.

so only of average height-even with your accent that's not going to help you in the states unless you are also well above average facially. no idea about places like Japan or other countries. i have seen a some older women at the gym who take good care of themselves and who are very attractive but they are very few & far between and almost always have a high tier male partner.  guess the title of the thread & video is all too accurate but since dating sucks for average men, it's completely over for below average one's like me.

 

[LostintheBardo]

Sorry, but it sounds like you both are making great assumptions about dating in general. Where's the proof that women are only willing to choose extremely attractive guys that tick all of these boxes?
The majority of men are average or below, there's no plethora of Greek Gods roaming around, it's probably a very similar amount of males and females who reach that level of attractiveness. I don't understand this argumentation at all, why would all these man be available to an average or below average woman? Same way a Instagram model might not be available to you guys.

There is evidence that this does indeed happen and that it has been quite a persistent dynamic. See for instance:

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]https:[/font][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]//psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success[/font]

 

"[font=merriweather, serif]Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same.[/font]

[font=merriweather, serif]"It wasn't like there was a mass death of males. They were there, so what were they doing?" asks Melissa Wilson Sayres, a computational biologist at Arizona State University, and a member of a group of scientists who uncovered this moment in prehistory by analyzing modern genes."[/font]

Also see:

https://www.yourtango.com/2016285828/women-find-80-percent-men-unattractive-says-crazy-study

"[font=Lato, Helvetica, sans-serif]If you look at the gray line, you can see that women rate a whopping 80 percent of men as worse-looking than medium. That's pretty harsh, ladies."
[/font]

The end result of all this is a smaller percentage of men tend to have a lot of success and a much bigger portion struggle. It's just getting really difficult to deny this happens.

Also, from my personal experience on Tinder, yes girls have insanely high standards. Oh and there are stats to back this up:

https://www.cnet.com/news/tinder-plus-men-women-swiping/

"After a 2014 interview with Tinder CEO Sean Rad, the New York Times reported that men swiped right, or "liked", 46 percent of the time while women did so to 14 percent of profiles. Because men make up roughly 60 percent of Tinder's 50 million users, there are a lot less "likes" shared between the larger group of users."

I just don't get why there is this determination not to see what Mgill is talking about here, not saying you have to agree with him on everything.

I'm sorry but dating app data doesn't show much other than what happens in dating apps. It's not an accurate representation of the world or human relationships. The link to OKCupid's website wasn't working either, so I don't know what those numbers truly mean without reading the methodology of the study. It might mean that women are only willing to pursue the top, but that might also be due to what Ardour mentioned, about women not pursuing guys in general, just waiting for them to make the move.

The other study is very inconclusive and we might have better information in the future, but I can't just accept that this is or always was the case. If it was, we wouldn't have the population we have today. Also, just a fun fact, it reminded me of the Gengis Khan thing where they found 1 in 200 living males are directly related to him.

---

Women self-sabotage too but it doesn't seem to prevent them from dating.

We just have different life experience. Women go through the first half of their lives with an abundance mindset as most of them have had men show up for them.  Hence, they are pickier and slower to invest. Even when the attention is demeaning they're at least aware the opposite *** finds them attractive (basic sexual validation). 

A lot of men go through life like starving animals  latching on to the nearest source of attention; crushing on any women who's nice to them or just sees them platonically, or if they get a chance, ruining things by getting attached too early.

Many guys in their 20s  would have to go through a ridiculous number of rejections to get one date.

Aging really changes things though. I'm in my early 40's and notice how much friendlier middle-aged women are in comparison to the aloof and unknowable girls I remember 10-20 years ago. Suddenly they're engaging, talking to me... But why now?  Declining options, looks or ticking biological clocks? Gotta say I resent it. It's  as if they've finally *lowered themselves* to seeing someone like me as an option, when we're both obviously past the prime of life. What a joke.

I read your post earlier today and really resonated with a portion of it, but seems like you edited it out now. :[

---

No I disagree, whilst I think Tinder may yield somewhat harsher results for men then real life dating might, I still think it is very telling. Women are simply much more selective when it comes to sexual selection, it's just silly to pretend otherwise and notice that not one person who disagrees with Mgill has actually provided any evidence to back their disagreement whilst the dating app data does support what he's saying to an extent.

I actually think the Tinder data is quite interesting because it shows you the reality of what people are looking for. People often won't be truthful about their height, weight, age, racial, financial preferences when asked because they think it can make them look bad but they don't have to worry about that when swiping on Tinder.

 

[mgill]

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[ardour]

It might not be representative of real life but online dating is increasingly the only acceptable context. Better start cutting out those cat food coupons.

 

[mgill]

"Women don't want to be bothered at bars when they're out with friends, or meetups, certainly not at work"

while they don't want to be bothered by average or ugly men, they are always open for attention from top tier males even if they are not particularly interested in dating them. validation from attractive men is a very flattering ego boost while attention from lesser males can be very upsetting to them because they are offended that a man with such a low level of looks believes they are on the same level as she is.

 

[TheRealCallie]

notice that not one person who disagrees with Mgill has actually provided any evidence to back their disagreement

Actually, I'm pretty someone has before. But what's the point? He and the rest will just come back with why it's so wrong, because only what HE believes is actually true. Aside from that, he and the others claim that NO ONE would ever want them, but several people have told them that that's not true. Some of us don't care about height or hair or whatever else they use as an excuse, so clearly their "beliefs" aren't all that true because there ARE women out there that would give short bald people a chance. Why should we waste our time finding some stupid study that goes against what they belief and ultimately means nothing because none of them "study" enough people or a diverse enough set of people to actually find the truth?
What we likely won't give a chance to is guys who think they are better than others, who have a misplaced chip on their shoulders, who think they have failed before they even try, who have an ego problem or who refuse to even consider that maybe, just maybe they don't have all the answers. Mgill keeps saying that he is "below average," but he shared a pic and several people (both women and men) have said he's not.
Both ardour and mgill have a very selective pool they wish to have a partner come from. Obviously when they have such specific wants and refuse to stray from them they will have a much harder time finding someone to date. That's true of anyone, regardless whether they are tall or short, older or younger, bald or have hair. They are both so damn focused on their belief that NO ONE will want them that it's become a self fulfilling prophecy at this point.

And no, I'm not saying they should "lower their standards" or whatever else they want to come at me with, but if they don't have much experience, how do they really know what they want? What's the harm in giving people outside their specific wants a chance? Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out and they try again....but I don't really think they are trying at all now since they both seem to have given up.

So please, tell me what the point would be to even bother when they (especially mgill) are so stuck in their perceived truths.

 

[ardour]

How many men have you asked out, Callie? And please don't say you're not looking to date because I've heard that a lot from people who just happen to end up in the relationship. mgill learned his worldview 10-15 years ago when he was being completely ignored, not now, as women conveniently play the puritan card at the point where they can't rely on their looks. It boils down to men as active party again, as it always does. Which is laughable because baggage and moral superiority is all that's on offer now; Companionship with someone who takes their issues out on some poor witless guy they wouldn't even have spoken to a decade ago.

 

[TheRealCallie]

How many men have you asked out, Callie?  Go ahead. Shame men already well past their use-by date into continuing to show up for women well past theirs (to be blunt). Where were the lectures to the girls who wouldn't even talk to guys like mgill 15 years ago? He learned his worldview at that point, not now when women conveniently claim physical attraction doesn't matter right at the point where they can't rely on their looks.  In the end you're still expecting the man to approach.

I have probably asked at least 10 guys out, probably more because I don't remember half of what I did in high school.  If I see someone that interested me, I say something, I don't wait.  Waiting is pointless.  Also, very few of those guys were society's idea of what is attractive.  Most of those and the guys I've dated have been shorter than me.  The guy I married has a pretty bad receding hair line, is shorter than me, doesn't have all his teeth, and is not all that "good looking."  Also, I made the first move with him, which is how we ended up dating, so yeah, nice try.  I don't and never have "expected" a man to do the work....which I've said MULTIPLE times on this forum, so stop trying to categorize me into your generalizations.  I never have fit into the ideals people seem to expect me to fit in.

I say the same **** to girls, so not sure where that whole lecturing women is coming from.  As for 15 years ago, I was still in an abusive relationship, hated myself, wanted to die and had given up on life.  I was a ******* shell and couldn't direct myself, let alone anyone else, so yeah, I wasn't doing **** 15 years ago...for myself or anyone else.

 

[ardour]

Well I'm sorry about that, but still you'll need to go preach it to the sisters if you want things to change because this is not our experience with girls/women. I only ever come across women who claim this online, with the rare exception being fundamentalist Christians. It's fairly simple. If it were common then women should have approached mgill by now.
(Edit: I have asked out about a dozen women and I was made to feel like a monster or an ***** *every time*)

 

[TheRealCallie]

Well I'm sorry about that, but still you'll need to go preach it to the sisters if you want  things to change because this is not our experience with girls/women.  I only ever come across women who claim this online, with the rare exception being fundamentalist Christians.  It's fairly simple. If it were common then women should have approached mgill by now.

No, not that simple, especially since mgill has been in a long term marriage in the past.  So obviously he has dated.  It's also not that simple because you also have to take into account how approachable someone is.  Women (or men for that matter) are less likely to approach someone who isn't approachable, whether that's because of negativity, body language, etc etc.  It's not always about how hot or tall someone is, it also depends on other things.  From my observations, mgill seems to have a chip on his shoulder.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not, but from what I've seen, I would not approach him and it has nothing to do with his looks or his height.  Now with you, I have seem some willingness to at least attempt to see other perspectives, but you tend to yo-yo back and forth on that. 
I also never said it was common, just there are women like that out there.  Thinking otherwise is just ignorant because you can't throw all of a group into one generalization.  That's short sighted and just wrong.  But when you have such specific wants in mind and don't have any intention of straying from that, you will obviously have a much harder time finding someone. 
And again, I do "preach it to the sisters" when I see it happening with them.  I don't single men out, it just looks that way because with the forum being as dead as it is, it's mostly just the same people posting.  I don't think ANYONE should limit themselves to what they think they want because you (generalized you here) never know where you will find the perfect fit for you.  No one should count someone out simply because they don't meet all their wants, because worst case scenario, maybe you get a good friend out of it or you don't mesh in the end, but at least you tried. 

As I said, I know several women who date men significantly older than them, so yeah, it is possible, but it will be harder to find those girls.  You have the world at your fingertips with the internet, so maybe she won't be local, but you have more opportunity to be able to find that person you are looking for.  I just don't think you should rule out other people, no one should.

 

[ardour]

It remains that most women have normal relationship histories without ever having to ask men out. Only at middle age is there any willingness to relate to men, but that seems so convenient *at that point*, to be sincere, or play the puritan card. Too late for all parties.

FYI I don't want to be some old dude dating young women. I usually wince whenever I see a 50 year old white guy with a young Filipino woman.