The State of the Romantic Marketplace
What men and women experience as they navigate the world of dating and mating
Being single is both fun and difficult.
Fun, because we get to meet new people, have new experiences, and we’re not tied down to any one person or group—we can do whatever we want whenever we want, the zeitgeist of the modern era.1
Difficult, in that most of us are looking for a partner in crime, and while single, we are, by definition, not finding that person. Even if it’s a situationship or FWB, it’s nice to have at least someone we can count on for romantic companionship.
Before we get into this, understand: if what I am saying doesn’t apply to you, then it’s not about you, so don’t take it personally. Like, if you’re a woman who doesn’t flake or ghost, then my observation that many women do isn’t about you. Same with men: if you don’t play video games, and you take care of your physical appearance, then by definition, what I say below isn’t about you either.
The Frustrating State of Play for Both Sexes
Let’s start with a quick summary of what men and women experience in today’s romantic marketplace—we’ll break conventions here and go with men first:
Unless he’s a 9 or 10, he is rarely matching with women on dating apps he finds attractive. He then has to lower his standards, which has unfortunate downstream consequences we’ll come to later.
When he does match, or meet a woman in some other way, men experience an astonishingly high level of flaking and ghosting. Not saying this doesn’t happen in reverse, but one of the main things I have to do with clients is talk them off the ledge when dealing with the fact that a large number of the women they meet, however they meet them, won’t reply to texts after giving a number, flake on dates, or ghost at whatever point in progress of meeting.
Meeting IRL has never been more difficult. As much as women say they want men to approach, most will not give them a chance to shoot their shot. Social anxiety, surely, plays a role here.
The easiest girls to talk to and date are also the most attractive. I could offer explanations for this, but I’m not sure that’s useful. This is just true, while odd. For whatever reason, less attractive women tend to be meaner to men, which is incredibly unproductive for everyone. Despite notions to the contrary, men aren’t all that picky in relation to themselves, and many would be super happy to be with a woman who isn’t an IG hot but has a fantastic personality and is a wonderful human. But first impressions are important, and no one wants to hang out with someone who’s mean.
Modern women assume you are loser until proven otherwise. Fair enough, but a difficult place to start for men—to use a baseball analogy, it’s like starting every at bat 0-2, in which case a strikeout is the most likely outcome.
The standards men are held to are exceedingly high if not unreasonable: women expect to meet men like their fathers, who own homes and are financially independent, but this ignores the fact that Boomers were raised in an era of incredible economic growth while the cost of living and homes were extremely low. For a man in his 30s or even 40s, he would have to be 3x or more successful financially to achieve a similar level of wealth. It also ignores the fact that women are now doing quite a bit better than men in terms of wealth and education. More women under 40 now own homes and/or have a college degree than men by a substantial margin. This is GOOD! But it means that if you’re a woman who’s successful and wants to date a man who’s as or even more successful, the pool of candidates grows smaller with each income bracket.
Conversely, from a man’s perspective, many single women are bringing very little to the table: they don’t want kids, don’t want to support their man through hard times, aren’t proactive when it comes to dating and communication, and/or don’t care to make him feel loved and valued, which is really all most men want at the end of the day.2 If a long term relationship comes at a substantial cost and conveys little value, men are right to not enter into such an arrangement. After all, as a general rule, women don’t either.
You don’t have to like these observations. I don’t. But this isn’t an opinion. It’s the truth. And I know it’s the truth because as noted above, I’ve worked with hundreds of men who’ve had the same exact experience, and I’ve experienced it myself. It’s true even for highly successful, good-looking guys. One of my friends lives in NYC, is worth millions, vacations once a year for a month in the tropics—because why not—and when I showed my ex GF his picture, her comment was: “Jesus Christ he’s gorgeous.” And he wouldn’t disagree with a word above about what men experience, because it’s all happened to him too.
On the other hand, here’s what women experience—ladies, let me know if I should amend or add to this ledger:
The men women desire most are likewise flaky, and reticent to commit to a relationship. Moreover, this often happens to women after sex, which is extremely distressing and confusing, especially when the guy ghosts them. Relationships today are most often going to establish themselves after sex happens, but as a general rule, men shouldn’t have sex with a woman if they can’t at least talk to her afterwards about whether there’s a future or not—or said a different way, not all the people we have sex with are going to be right for a long term relationship, but we can at the very least show them dignity and respect regardless.
Many men don’t have their “shit together”—they’re like grown up children who are looking for a mom, not the confident, competent adults women prefer.
Few men today are, for lack of a better term, sophisticated. They don’t read books, have few interests other than gambling on sports or crypto, and are themselves bringing very little to the table. Many men lack hobbies or any clear sort of mission, seemingly content with muddling along through life with a menial job so long as they can play video games and drink beer. To elaborate further, some fairly large percentage of men aren’t serious adults. This is especially true of younger men. Part of this is the fact they’re young and don’t know any better, but there’s a huge problem of men not being “men.”
A lot of men struggle with addiction, or if not addicts, use alcohol and drugs far too often. It’s not uncommon for a woman to go on a date with a guy who shows up hammered, or gets hammered on the date itself. Not a good look.
Many men, even if they claim to want children and/or get married, would make terrible husbands and fathers, because they lack the maturity, resources, and/or integrity to play the role. There’s this guy David, on Survivor this season, who’s as good looking as they come, jacked out of his mind, but his girlfriend is going to leave him because she wants children and he lives in a trailer outside his dad’s house. Not every guy needs to make six figures, but it’s hard for women to take a guy seriously if he has a shitty job and no ambition, no matter how good looking or charming he is.
Many men are generally not well groomed, don’t dress well, nor do most take care of themselves the way they should in terms of physical appearance or presentation. Women spend hours every day working hard to look good and put their best foot forward, and they want the men they date to look presentable and attractive.
As with what men experience, we don’t have to like these facts, but it is what it is.
A final point here are political considerations: women tend to skew liberal, whereas men tend to skew conservative. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but if you have strong/crazy political beliefs, given the political polarization of men vs. women, it’s likely to be a huge turnoff to the opposite sex. No one wants to date a brain-dead, tribal drone who’s either a MAGA cult member or a Lefty who’s still obsessed with identity politics. Most political discourse is negative, mean, and stupid. My suggestions would be to have your beliefs, but disconnect from the most extreme voices on either side, and be willing to listen to what other people think, even if you disagree with them. Remember, it’s OK to disagree—it’s not trauma for crying out loud, and it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.
Men and Women Today are at Cross Purposes
We experience scarcity in completely different ways that run contrary to each other.
For men, attractive women are scarce. By “attractive” I don’t mean 10/10 hot blondes—it’s that most men struggle to meet and date women who are merely on their own level of attractiveness.3 Unless he’s the Chaddiest Chad out there, most men, even very good looking men, spend a lot of time, energy, and money to even have the opportunity to go on a date with a woman he finds attractive. And because today’s women are so flighty and flaky and random, many of those opportunities vanish without explanation like dust in the wind.
For women, relationships with quality men are scarce. A quality man = an attractive and capable adult who has a job and some level of social skill. For women, men are a dime a dozen—the difficult part is finding one who is both quality AND willing to have a relationship with her. The fact that modern society does an extremely poor job of raising men to be masculine and mature is a huge problem that exacerbates this issue.4
Another way of saying this is that where men lack for opportunity, women lack optionality—both with the type of people they desire most.
Dating apps put these cross purposes on steroids. Men can match with plenty of women who aren’t attractive, but very few who are, and women can match with plenty of men they find attractive, but who either aren’t quality dudes, or won’t offer them a relationship. This is why so many women get ghosted after a good date that leads to sex: men lack opportunity, so lower their standards to meet more women, but then don’t want a relationship because she’s ultimately not that attractive. Said in reverse: women on the apps tend to match with more attractive men, but that’s because those guys have lowered their standards to meet more women.
Now to touch the third rail: women are more attractive, on average, when they are younger, and men are higher quality, on average, as they get older—to a point. Obviously women don’t want to date grandpa. Point is: if you take a man and woman at say, age 25, her value is likely going to be higher than his, even if they’re both equally good looking, because men place a higher value on physical appearance and women place a higher value on quality—that same dude by 35 may be an absolute gem. This is purely evolutionary and isn’t going to change anytime soon. Men are geared to be attracted to women who are fertile, and women are geared to be attracted to men with status, who can provide and protect. Take your complaints to God or the Big Bang or whatever you believe is responsible, I’m just here to report the facts.
This means that it actually makes a lot of sense for younger women to match with men who are slightly or perhaps even significantly older than themselves, but if Reddit is any example, everyone is now completely panicked about age gaps. Like, I even see people wonder if a four year age gap between a 26M and 22F is too much.
NO. This has to stop. Once we become adults, age is but a number: if you like the other person and get along with them, it doesn’t matter. And if people want to do the reverse, where the woman is significantly older, who fucking cares? The panic surrounding this issue is utterly asinine. Erase this idea from your mind—it’s an unforced error and limiting belief. And if you’re a concern troll who thinks I’m wrong, I’ll remind you that GetBetterSoon is a reality based media outlet, so take your delusions back to Reddit or BlueSky or Twitter or wherever dumb people gather to share bad ideas online.
Since GetBetterSoon is also an action oriented media outlet, here’s what we can do:
Let go of the anger you feel toward the opposite gender. I know it’s frustrating out there if you’re single, and it can feel like all men are jerks, or all women are callous, but this isn’t true. There are tons of great men and women out there! We just haven’t met the right one yet. Don’t carry your frustrations with you when dating, because it will come across to the other person, and it’s a HUGE turnoff.
Be forthright and kind in your communication with the opposite sex. If you don’t want to go on a second date, tell that person—you don’t have to get into the “why” of it. Just say, “not interested” and move on. If you exchange numbers, and the other person is texting you but you’re not interested, say so. And if you have sex with someone, for the love of all that is holy, don’t ghost them. I’m lucky to not have had this happen to me, but I know many people who have, and it’s an awful thing to do to someone else’s psyche. Tell them you had a great time, but you’re not looking for a relationship, or make whatever excuse if you’re not interested, but I would also highly suggest not fucking someone if you’re going to discard them afterward so casually. Understand, the more bad behavior we all collectively exhibit, the more we’re poisoning the water hole and making everything more difficult for everyone.
Be optimistic and get out to meet people IRL. Online dating is honestly pretty gross—it has it’s place, no doubt, but the more time we spend on the apps and/or on social media, the easier it is to become jaded and have a distorted understanding of reality. If you go out and talk to men and women out there, you’ll find that most are normal, decent, and good. Remember, most people are good and want to be and do good.
Help other people. Introduce your single friends to you single co-workers, family, or other friends. Invite people out when you go to a concert or sporting event. If they’re a bit socially anxious or awkward, show them how it’s done!
Good luck out there, and remember, if you want some personal help with this, I’m happy to work with you.
You can get in touch with me at jallengetbetter@gmail.com, DM me on Substack, follow me on IG, or drop a comment below. If you like what I’m doing, please share this with a friend or family member who needs to GetBetterSoon, and if you really like what I’m doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. This will give you access to all of my posts and podcasts, and a free hour consult on anything you want to talk about. Thanks again for your support!
Zeitgeist is German for “the spirit of the times.” It’s a good word and I like using it.
I know women don’t like to hear that men will be less inclined to date, let alone marry them, if they don’t want kids, but put yourself in his shoes: one of the main reasons to get married IS to have a family and children. Like, marriage is actually quite pointless if it’s just a couple—you can be a couple together for as long as you like without signing a terrible contract that allows the state to intervene and split up assets arbitrarily if you decide it’s not working.
Remember the best looking 40% of men on apps get 99% of all the attention, but 80% of that goes to the top 20%, and 63% goes to the top 10%.
The idea that masculinity itself is toxic is bullshit. Women are attracted to masculine men, and society needs masculine men—men who are builders, leaders, protectors, and providers. Sexual assault and men who behave badly aren’t examples of toxic masculinity—they’re examples of sociopathy and criminality. We need to start realizing the difference.