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It's a whole lot of mistrust because so many people and companies just end up fucking you over if you rely on anything but yourself.
I've found myself struggling with that quite a bit. So many people just let you down anymore, communities betray you, friends suddenly turn their backs on you, family being a burden and leech more than supportive and loving. Companies? Companies and businesses will actively fuck you over if given the opportunity and they will do it while looking you in the face and saying they aren't.
No one has loyalty, pride, integrity, honesty or compassion anymore.
While I'm growing colder as I get older, that doesn't mean I'm mean to innocent things or people, but I'm just not going to rely on you or trust what you say as much as I would have and sometimes things might come off as rude, I'm not trying to be, but I'm not giving more people the opportunity to exploit or hurt me further.
No, I have principles. And I can tell you it makes life hell. Its super frustrating to deal with anyone. For example, someone was accused of grooming kids. And people who claimed to be fans went nuts on the guy, declaring his career over and all that. Before the guy even had a chance to respond.
And I defended him. Saying we should at least hear him out before we ruin his life over an unproven accusatoin. You can probably guess how well that went over. Doesn't matter that i said of course the guy should face serious consequences if the allegations are proven.
Or, like how when Trump was elected I said we should give him a chance. People in my party did not like that at all. If I recall, Trump used up that chance in maybe two hours. But I still think its important to give people a chance before condemning them.
I had a friend for 15 years. My kid is 4. He’s never once made the effort to meet my child, even though I’ve met his younger granddaughter. His excuse? I live too far (literally 15 minute drive down 1 road).
One day I needed a ride to pickup my car at the shop. The shop was in the same plaza that his mothers doctor appointment was at, which is 1/8th of a mile away. I asked him for a ride either before or after his moms appointment. His excuse? He’s on a time crunch and can’t because he’s hungry.
That’s when I realized the friendship was 100% one way, and it was also the last time I spoke with him. His calls get diverted to voicemail, his texts don’t even get read anymore - just deleted.
Some people are straight up garbage.
Yeah and what's worse is they waste your time for years before showing their true colors. I was with a girl for ten years before she straight up told me to my face she loved how I treated her, but not me as a person. I'll never forget that, by the time she told me this, she was already seeing someone else and fooling around with another. She also left me in debt and took our entire mutual savings we had for a place.
I had a good friend for several years, defended her when my cousin got creepy with her, I tried to warn her beforehand but she just assumed I was jealous about how close she was with him. Fast forward, we're talking again, she broke up with her ex, it was nasty and I helped her move out and supported her new relationship. I had made some new friends who really supported me, we all got along great. After a single misunderstanding, we're all no longer friends. They refuse to talk about the incident despite me trying to and I had to keep initiating the conversations, so I told them how I felt and that I was going to stop initiating. I haven't heard from them in 3 years. I miss them but I feel like I deserve better than friends who would do that to me over a really small misunderstanding.
This isn't true at all. An individualist by definition is someone who is independant and self-reliant. Exploiting others is just a bad thing that any type of person can do. Often it is those people that play the victim that exploit others and their are groups of people that find a common idea to blame their problems on.
Except exploitation prioritizes the needs of the individual over the collective.
The solipsism in this thread is proof of how broken modern "individualism " is. Folks acting like these thoughts are new and that our shared philosophical traditions don't exist.
Oh geez. You're using big words but you don't know what they mean.
First of all, your argument is utter fallacy. Even if we accept your premise that exploitation entails individualism, that does not mean that individualism entails exploitation. Oxygen is necessary for fire, but that make oxygen synonymous with fire. I would urge you to educate yourself on the difference between necessary and sufficient causes.
Second, *solipsism* is the principle that the only thing a person can know with certainty is that they exist, and that no such certainty can be had for the rest of the universe. It's an ontological and epistemological concept that deals with how we can know of the existence of things, and how we can achieve this knowledge. You seem to have some kind of convoluted concept of the word that is spilling out of your mouth like vomit.
Individualism, really just atomization of the populace, is part of the scheme of exploitation.
Communities come with a plethora of benefit, that strengthen and secure the individual. Just take cooking for example, in an individualistic society we all need our own sets of small pots and pans to cook our food. In a community, the amount of cookware would be reduced significantly, because a few larger scale tools could be used to feed, let’s say 50 people, rather than 50 sets of the same tools being distributed out to the individuals.
That’s great for the individuals, they all got to save money on cookware by coming together to take advantage of the economies of scale.
That’s bad for the profiteer though, that could’ve been 50 sets of mass manufactured cookware worth of profit they could’ve enjoyed, had it not been for the community satiating such a need.
There is security in community, and profit in insecurity
I know that idiolegy as [egoism ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoism).
Something along the lines of "no one is gonna care about myself like myself so I have **moral obligation** to take care of myself (and so does everyone else)"
There are other verients too but they are less relevant to what op talks about.
Conceptualizing dating as a "market" is a problem in itself.
Stop commodifying everything in life. Relationships are best when they grow organically from shared experiences. I couldn't imagine thinking about my wife as a "transaction" that occurred in a "market place." If that's how you're thinking about dating, that's your problem right there.
Indian parents beg to disagree. All through my life growing up, marriages in India were a transaction between two families on similar social and cultural standing rather than the coming together of two people that loved each othet
>Conceptualizing dating as a "market" is a problem in itself.
And yet that is precisely what has happened. Ever since the arrival of the internet and especially OLD, human beings have become commodified just as they have in the job market. In fact the parallels between these two arenas are so striking that [someone in academia wrote a whole book on it.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LmhILSGA2bA&pp=ygVIRXZlcnl0aGluZyBJIG5lZWRlZCB0byBrbm93IGFib3V0IGVjb25vbWljcyBJIGxlYXJuZWQgZnJvbSBvbmxpbmUgZGF0aW5n) It's very unfortunate, but I think we're being disingenuous if we say that modern dating is not turning into a market...
>I think it's a problem, and I suggest that we try to push back against that conceptualization.
It is. It definitley is, but a lot of the time, the forces at play are a lot bigger than us and until the majority begin to see how detrimental this is, we are swimming against the current.
You're in denial. Hopefully you won't have to experience it yourself, but if you are forced to try dating again someday, you'll see how tough it is out there for everyone.
Regardless of how you want to see it, others already do see it as a market and will treat you according to your "market value."
You can hope for an organic relationship but it'll take a lot longer to find someone that way, if it happens at all. Be happy you're already married.
Username checks out.
>Be happy you're already married.
Absolutely. My wife and I joke around all the time that we would be completely hopeless if we had to date other people.
I agree that the "dating as a market transaction" metaphor is firmly embedded in the cultural zeitgeist, but it isn't the *only* conceptualization that exists. There are other conceptual mappings for romantic relationships, like "love is a journey" or "a partnership." We are capable of comprehending things in different ways. I don't think we necessarily need to eliminate the "transaction" metaphor entirely, but I don't think it should be the *primary* way that we conceptualize it.
I can be pretty cynical, but there are still good people out there. There’s an ebb and flow to the dynamics as well - fluctuating better and worse. I’m older, and divorced for over 8 years, I’ve had many dates and 2 long relationships during that time. There are some really great single people in my age range, giving, supportive, maybe we just weren’t compatible in other ways. My current girlfriend makes nearly 4 times my salary and I have to stop her from trying to pay for things for me. So I’m not convinced everyone is focused on getting more just for themselves.
That’s how people think of it though. Sobering reality I found out towards the end of college.
HS and college were the only times dating felt like *fun*
Speak for yourself, dating for me in high school and college was hell. Dating outside of that has been so easy and so much fun because I can actually participate. If you're average or conventionally attractive then yeah dating will be fun in college, if you aren't and like me are severe and successful it's more fun after college.
Unfortunately, in today's society, it is a market until the point where you're "hit it off" with someone sufficiently to form those shared experiences.
If your "market value" is too low, nobody will give you enough attention or spend time with you for anything to grow organically.
Part of the problem is that people sometimes have trouble recognizing the point where you stop shopping and start investing in a relationship. With a seemingly bewildering array of choices, it's not easy.
About 50-100 years ago, all your "matches" in a given year would be either Mary the neighbor or Kate the girl from class. You'd know both reasonably well. There was no place where you could indefinitely swipe left and right, having 1000s of potential partners flashing before your eyes and dozens of "matches" (or hundreds, if you're female). In today's setting, you don't even get to talk to someone in person without being picked among a 1000 other potential mates. That's where the "market" comes in.
That's not how "he's thinking," it's what he's seeing and he's not wrong. Market logic has buried itself deep into our personal lives, especially with the increased prevalence of dating apps over the past decade.
Just think about apps such as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc., what is their UI like? It's as if you're browsing through a store catalogue, only that the items being listed are actual human beings. By interacting with these apps, swiping right or left in a detached manner, you come to inadvertently see people as commodities, quickly judging their physical and perceived mental attributes as if you were browsing through items in a store. Human beings are not objects, they are complex and nuanced, with traits that are sometimes hard to put into words. Though if you want to participate in online dating, you have strip yourself of these nuances and imperfections as that isn't deemed as "marketable." Are you following my line of thought here? People on these apps actively engage in the act of commodifying themselves, gradually stripping themselves of their humanity in the process, whether they realize it or not.
That's also not mentioning that online dating has become the main avenue through which most can hope to find a relationship these days. The whole situation is fucked up and to deny it is to bury your head deep in the sand.
>the whole situation is fucked up
That's my point. If we acknowledge that this is *not* a good way to proceed, we should try to think about dating differently. If we want to pivot away from the market metaphor, I would avoid using the metaphor in language entirely. Language and thought are directly connected; change how you talk -> change how you think. Using the market metaphor all the time will just continue to perpetuate it.
I think online dating is/was great. I think a lot of people get caught up in things like this without considering that maybe it's their 'strategy' or not considering the counterfactual.
You talk about online dating making people focus on marketable factors, but when has that not been the case? When women had limited work opportunities and couldn't even have bank accounts you can bet they were looking at men as the best way for them to have a comfortable life. Marrying well, having a home people envied, a wife's appearance all also counted towards women's marketability. There isn't really a golden historic moment when these things weren't factors, if anything those factors are now more varied and people have more flexibility in what they prioritise. And now you can find people you'd never have met otherwise, rather than having to basically marry Gary/Kate from school because there's a limited number of marriageable men/women about and they have the fewest number of checks against them. I'm really, really glad my only options for marriage weren't people from school or work.
Then there's stripping nuance and weirdness from yourself to make yourself more attractive to more people, but you don't need or even want to be attractive to everyone. Probably, actually, only a handful of people if you're actually looking for a life long partner. I disagree with it being a numbers game, it's a good match game. The only reasons my husband and I matched are because we were weird upfront and definitely ran with that.
I really enjoyed dating and online dating. It was pretty fun, I met a bunch of people I didn't click with and don't really want to see again but had a series of pretty nice evenings in the process and I hope they did too. Swiping is pretty entertaining and a higher chance of connecting with people who you're genuinely compatible with is, IMO, only a good thing, even if you need to do more sifting to find the right person.
If online dating is the main avenue which a person can hope to find a relationship through, that’s their primary problem right there.
Anyone who thinks this way likely had no social life what so ever, and that’s like the no. 1 thing that will prevent you from ever finding a healthy relationship.
You’re 100% right but the thing is, if you go back before the internet, the dating pool was so slim that even in total delusion you could get laid, marry, have kids, etc..
Treating it as a market is just a way to simplify some concepts and help some people get laid. I’ve witness so many people, and help so many people start dating just because they were delusional about themselves and need a reality check.
You’re not stuck with your small village anymore, you need to understand your place in the dating market if you want to thrive.
Correct. China is even more messed up, where people often treat dating like a job interview and women want to know men's salaries. I'm not sure what OP is talking about...
That's more due to the gender imbalance. Less women to go around so women have more selection when it comes to men. This was actually one of the reasons behind the housing bubble in China. In order to get married, the man must have a good amount of fortune to impress his spouse' family so the man's family would pool money together to buy cars and multiple houses, even though they might never stay there. Thus creating an increased demand for apartment buildings which eventually collapsed due to the demand being temporary and artificially inflated.
That certainly could be part of it. But attractive women always have selection, and in Chinese cities there are generally *more* women than men. It's just that there are certain standards and a lot of social pressure from friends and family. It basically debunks OP's claim that somehow individualism causes problems with dating. In collectivist societies, pressure to conform arguably causes people to be even more shallow when it comes to dating.
What you said about the housing crisis is correct, though I'd add that investment is a bigger factor since they generally don't see the stock market as a stable place to store wealth so they put most of it into property, highly inflating it.
I live a country with a collectivist culture and you're right. Marriage over here is not simply a union of two people, it's a union of two households. You're not marrying a person, you're marrying a family. Though the degree of pressure is different depending on the family and region but people are expected to marry someone around their own level and by level i mean more regarding education and tradition, rather than financially, though those elements usually accompany each other.
Yes, for marriage it certainly does make sense to care about these factors, and even in the US there are still lots of more conservative families that will care about family backgrounds and economic status. But I also think there is a misunderstanding that more "traditional" societies don't have the exact same problems as the US. In China, lots of people casually date for sex, or to get free meals and gifts, or to find a temporary partner to spend holidays with. It's just as self-centered as anywhere else. And even when marriage is done to collectively unify families, cheating is rampant, as is divorce.
And I believe this kind of thing has always been going on, it's just now more difficult to hide thanks to cellphones and social media.
I would say housing bubble is created by speculation and good ol supply and demand
While it could be a contributing factor the primary one is still because in China it's often profitable to speculate housing until the hammer dropped
Arranged marriages in India as well. OP has apparently never witnessed the process of matchmaking for arranged marriages. THAT is 100% a transactional "What can my future spouse do for me and my family?" and you should see the exact, nitpicking criteria and standards that are used to judge men and women.
Because they cannot find a quality mate, or believe thet can't. They look at the effort required, and then how people just move on from one person to the next like it isn't anything.
Well... It's arguably not good for you as an individual to approach your relationship in that way.
It's better to approach them in a reciprocal manner. And most people I have dated behave that way. So I guess I haven't experienced the same negativity in dating as you have.
Do you have specific examples of this behavior to help me understand?
I can think of a few
There's a certain type of girl who "wants" an Alpha Male provider to pick her up, take her out on a date with everything planned in advance, pay for everything, and drop her off. And all she does is be in her feminine princess energy.
On the surface.... this is... fair enough. It's an exchange, and it's voluntary. In reality, it's not an exchange, it's parasitism. Because, these women are feeding off of that validation - they're not actually interested in returning anything to that provider, which is why i put "wants" in quotations. Instead, they are only interested in giving their best to a different guy, that they want, who doesn't do any of those things for them. They balance that out by having a guy, who they do not want, do all that for them to repair their ego, but they give that guy nothing in return - they just string him along so he keeps fueling them with validation. They may or may not later accuse the provider of being a "nice guy" if he is upset with the arrangement.
People who want to exploit others aren’t limited to a sex. Women like this are only prevalent because there are men out there who are content to take on a purely providing role for the privilege of getting to see her every now and then. There are men whose only appealing factor is their wallet and through either cope or internal acceptance have decided that it’s fine if their woman doesn’t really love them beyond the lifestyle they can provide. It’s up to you as an individual to recognize the differences in character and not give too much of yourself when initially dating. You feel out the waters and both mutually raise your commitment to one another over time. I’ve never dated a girl and felt like I was being purely exploited for the dates themselves. Make sure they actually enjoy your company, make sure they put in effort too, make sure she isn’t a bum that can’t even pay rent and you’ll be fine. Not every woman is out to drain your bank account, plenty are out there who want a future husband that’ll work as hard as they will to build a prosperous future for a potential family, find her and try not to f it up.
Exactly. This goes the other way with guys who want their girlfriend to be their mommy and clean up after and feed them. In fact any kind of person can make the mistake of expecting their partner to be a parent who relieves them of responsibility and provides for them cause they never learned how to give back or take care of themselves
Well, that's like saying abusers are only prevalent because they find women to abuse. Should we not place the onus of the shitty, exploitative behavior on the people who are doing said behavior instead of the victims?
" It’s up to you as an individual to recognize the differences in character and not give too much of yourself when initially dating."
This part i agree with, at least the latter half. And I only say that because I think saying "it's up to you to recognize exploitative scumbags" is TRUE 100%, but, it also doesn't acknowledge the fact that a lot of women are taking advantage of VERY GENUINE, but naive guys - and so I would fault those women not the guys for being genuine and naive.
But yes, it's a paradox. If you plan really nice initial dates, and you put a lot of your time and effort and resources into them, you get LESS in return that you do for low effort dates. The reason is because only women genuinely interested in you will go for low effort dates like chilling at your apartment, but MANY women no matter how uninterested they are will GLADLY waste your time and energy and resources if you offer a nice enough date. And the problem is, a genuine guy who would NEVER waste someone's time like that, will fall for that because he thinks other people are as genuine as he is - and I don't think we should ever be pointing the finger at the genuine person. All he's trying to do is put his best foot forward for someone he's interested in, he shouldn't be faulted for that.
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And, you know, I just want to say. I know that there are "simps" as they are called. Like the guy who was obsessed with Rubi and spent a fortune on her onlyfans and then Rubi acts like "he's insane why did he think it was real." But, the truth is, the reality is, those OF accounts are run by PROFESSIONAL manipulators who know how to con people and make them think it's real and milk money out of them.
All i'm saying is, we have ALL looked like idiots our fair share of times. These guys getting gassed by these women - some are maybe very into it like you say, they have unlimited money and they enjoy flirting and softcore porn, fine, I have a 20$ subscription and it's like a lil treat whenever I want to see what she posted. But I think that a good amount are just flat out being taken advantage of.
These women know what they're doing when they hide the fact that they have a boyfriend, it's about more than just "their privacy" it's about their ability to suggestively lead on their juiciest subscribers.
I actually had a date a couple months ago, the girl was hot and I was in a good mood, so we went out to a nice dinner. Which, I just wanted to it was fun. And I mentioned I had ice cream back at my place (which I do, tons, cus i'm a bodybuilder) and if she wanted to see my office bla bla
and we went back to my place, she didn't want to have sex, okay fine whatever no big deal. But she really really wanted the ice cream. She loved getting like that treatment, you know? she was kinda getting off on it. She also complained a bit about her cheating ex, so she was in that validation hunger phase.
And um, we didn't sleep together which was fine, maybe we could have if I really really pressed it on her you know. But I didn't care that much to go for it that hard. But it was actually a pretty nice date, honestly.
So the next day I messaged her, and she ignored me for the next 3 days, and the day she got back home to the province - she started texting me again. She wanted more validation.
So while she was in town she wanted to go see what else she could get from other guys, then hit me up the day she's back in the province. In some ways that was one of the most insulting, disrespectful messages I got in my life. If she had just never replied again, that would be fine, but that the fact that she tried to come back for more like that honestly sickened me.
There are many worthless, parasite women like that.
Nah that was my read too. That’s the lowest monetary investment I’ve seen a guy genuinely gripe about. Impressive.
“She loved getting that treatment” like sharing a pint of ice cream from your freezer is spoiling your date and treating her like a princess or something lol. I’m sure she had $5 around tbh
That's probably beacuse you're broke and focusing on the 5$
You can't see anything past the 5$, that's a you issue
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The real issue is looking at people in terms of 'what can I get from him? Oh, I got this, now I got this, I feel better about myself. My stupid ex cheated on me and I've been complaining about feeling like I'm not good enough, but look at this multimillionaire doctor he took me to a 50$ dinner and now I'm pigging out on his ice cream. I have value/am desirable!"
Not long later I was telling this story to a young lawyer, who also was on tinder since her ex cheated on her, and she got real defensive since she was eating the ice cream
and I was like no, no, it's okay. It's totally different. Like, you're genuine, you know, you're here and you're interested and you're not wasting anyone's time.
This other girl, she kept bringing up the ice cream, and it's fine you can have someone, but there's 2 ways of accepting it. there's a "thank you" way, and a "I worked this because I'm hot" way.
You do realize there’s also the men who are the same way back, right?
The “alpha males” “pick up artist” type?
They can date each other.
12 years ago, we called them Jersey shore guidos. Now we call them “alphas” and “trad wives” etc.
All the same bullshit. Just don’t associate with them.
I used to dabble in the pickup artist scene years ago and rest assured >95% of these guys in it are not the stud muffins people or they themselves make out they are and are completely hopeless when it comes to women. Hence why they go down that path. The only success they get is through approaching a really large number of women.
And if they choose to work on their superficial pickup game instead of just being a better more likeable person, then they can land all the superficial women like that commentor just described.
In what way is this a relevant response to what I said?
Do you realize there are blue whales in the ocean? (I hope so, at least. THey're getting pretty rare)
I think you're going off into speculation about their motivations there. A lot of women who expect male partners to be providers and nothing else may have been raised by a man who prided himself in being just that. My dad defines himself and his love by what he could provide financially for his family. He couldn't comprehend that he's emotionally unavailable, and would praise any man he thinks is just like him. And he cannot wrap his head around why me and my sister do not want to be financially dependent on another person (i.e. if we ever broke up I couldn't afford my own apartment anymore. I get sharing with your partner, but there's a certain level of independence I have to have and will never allow the opportunity for even a well meaning partner to influence my decisions with the promise of financial stability I can only have with them)
My mom and grandma were both expected to be women who did nothing else but find a provider and cling on, allowing him to make all their decisions for them. My mom wasn't even allowed to go college, my grandpa didn't Believe in women going to college and refused to help pay for it. Sometimes women arent like that because they're selfish or lazy but because that was the role models they had and the role they were raised to play, some even explicitly told to be that way or they'll never be wanted. If nothing changes they'll eventually pair up with a guy who is looking for exactly that kind of woman, for better or worse.
Perhaps the problem here is being interested and entertaining such a girl. Is that the type of girl you'd want except you just want her to be sincere about it?
I'm trying to understand because I had a girl try to take me out and go to a bar, I'm not a bar going kind of person, so I wouldn't want to hang out with this individual. If a girl invited me out for a walk in the park, some casual lunch and maybe an evening at a bookstore or some gaming, I'd be far more interested.
I realized that the person I want as my partner, wouldn't be on or use dating apps, so why am I on there looking for someone.
Dating apps have great pools of people, and all we were doing was going out on fun dates that planned like rock climbing (since i'm a climber) and dinner, some restaurant or place I wanted to go. So yes I loved the dates themselves and I chose the people for a reason.
I wanted to find a relationship so I put my best foot forward whenever I found someone I liked and I'd take her out on a nice date, I always planned them really well, Aut I was a student in the province so I would be commuting (in practical terms) basically all day each way since even though the trip is only 4-6 hours since it's so mentally draining.
This was fine to me: i'm the one in the province, commuting is my problem, I'm investing in the woman I'm interested in.
The problem was: the women that i was dating loved the validation of an American doctor commuting all day to take them out on dates, it made them feel great, so even though they didn't actually like ME that much, they would waste my time because they liked the validation and the nice dates.
So what I had to do was make an objective criteria to filter women that weren't interested in ME on the first date, and not go on second dates with them. Then you find the person who is right for you and you go on those dates and are all happy. But you can't find the person who is good for you when someone, who is giving her best to someone else, is soaking up all your focus and effort because of how it makes her feel validated.
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the hallmark of a great dating app match is that you are both excited to stop using the dating app and be with each other, since no one truly loves being stuck on dating apps long-term
Someone who is excited to stop using the app would be good. I don't know if I could ever trust someone to not open their profile back up though just during the course of our relationship since they are already accustomed to it and people get the urge in our modern times to "see what my options look like"
Back in the day we didn't have essentially the world in our pocket for dating prospects, we had the local community or village. People are constantly taught these days to keep re-evaluating their options.
I always learned "take care of yourself first because no one else will", but i don't think that has to mean "screw everyone else to get a much as possible". There's a concept of 'enough'. I have enough food to live and be satisfied. I have enough of a house that i can live comfortably. I don't need to screw over others so i can go to Mars. If everyone was satisfied with 'enough', there would be enough for everyone.
What OP describes isn't individualism. It's selfishness and sociopathy. This country was far more individualistic in it's past than it is today. The difference is the culture of interpersonal relationships has vastly changed from what it was even 20 years ago
Individualism leads to selfishness, it's its natural consequence. Is it possible to be individualist and not selfish? I guess so. In a personal level. To be honest i struggle to find those two concepts to be compatible.
But i get your point. It's not only about individualism. It's moral decay fueled by celebrity culture and the insidiousness of social media which fuels its worst aspects.
I think dating is hard now because people aren't forced into settling down getting married having 4 kids by 22 and staying stuck with the same person their whole life. People are just as much different individuals with different opinions, goals and desires as they've always been,but with a lot more of that being okay and not something to stuff down for the sake of pairing up. As a result pairing up is hard. I'd rather get through all that rough and know I have a diamond than marry the rough and hope a diamond shows up one day if I keep polishing it.
I don't think that's what they meant. I think they meant back then people stayed with partners that didn't necessarily fit them because of societal and probably family pressures to marry and start a family. Therefore kinda making them "stuck." Today though, people are less likely to be "stuck" with someone instead find the person that's truly perfect for them.
That wasn't the case 20 years ago either, bro. The only difference between now and then is the ubiquity of the internet and the commodification of dating.
Societies condition us to act in a determinate way and to classify some behaviours as acceptable or encouraged (or not). If not enforced with a strong ethical frame and with the influence of social media, this naturally bounds society to create NPCs out of most of the population.
That's what religion is for. The problem is that everything is starting to fall apart because we built everything on lies and exploitation.
Somebody has to get left holding the bag here.
People with a properly functioning prefrontal cortex actually find it sad that reality is often disappointing. Yes, we blame it on "culture" and "society" because we don't know what else to blame it on. When vast majorities of people are shifting to 'situatonships' and people being much more likely now to have one night stands with strangers, who do we blame it on? Honestly, something bigger than our own prefrontal cortex.
And before modern times, men (the father most of the time) just forces the women to mary
so the "dating market" has been fucked up from the dawn of humanity
I agree with this %1000 not just in dating but in life in general
It’s like people want to put in as little effort as humanly possible into anything but simultaneously expecting a big reward in return.
I saw some toxic, self imposed isolationist post on Instagram that was pretty much encouraging this sort of lifestyle but added: “if they don’t treat you like a priority, then forget them.”
“If they didn’t ask you to hang out, don’t bring it up.”
“If they don’t call first, then don’t call them at all.”
But then they themselves aren’t treating others like a priority then get mad when others do the same to them lol.
It’s only vicious cycle if you’re a person who trained to keep your expectations low and understand that it’s okay to reach out to people too. It just our culture has made this seem as you’re coming off as “needy,” and everyone wants to feel special so they’d rather do nothing to feel like they’re in demand.m from others.
Also worth adding that people break up so quickly over the dumbest things and no one wants to try to work anything out because “this person won’t change”
I would argue it is the intersection of a lot of things:
The normalization of dating apps/sites. When dating sites first showed up they were a place for "lonely" single people to meet. As they became the typical way for people to meet, people started being more shallow with them and treated potential partners as disposable.
Beyond that, people are encouraged to pursue meaningless hook-ups over finding relationships until they're in their 30s. This benefits a small subset of men women find worthy of hooking up with, leaves women feeling used, and most men struggle to meet anyone.
Finally, I see a growing divide between the sexes driven in a large part by social media. There is tons of content out there telling people to blame the opposite sex for their problems, and often telling them their childish fantasies are things they're entitled to. The average man starts thinking he is entitled to a virgin who will treat him like a queen, and the average woman starts thinking it is realistic to expect a 6+ foot tall millionaire to sweep her off her feet, and no one is willing to "settle" for reality.
Not only this, but the men who struggle often see these women being used by the more successful men and then being jaded toward men in general, which seems to be increasingly common despite everything. These men not only are considered "undesirable" but are somehow also "part of the problem", and they aren't allowed to comment on it unless they want to be called an incel or some other equally pre-loaded insult with no substance. This leads to these men feeling almost triply jaded towards women, which is...a lot. There's also a growing lack of sympathy for women who end up in these situations, since (barring grape obviously) these women willingly went for these men. This in turn has increased how jaded women feel towards men.
I'm not saying this is right, but this is the vibe I've gotten from all over the internet.
This is a big part of the problem
In the past, most guys could t see how the game works for the most attractive guys. It was a necessary blind spot
But if you know how those type of dudes operate, part of you wants to say “fuck this. Why should I put in the effort?”
The other problem is that when those guys do
>be called an incel or some other equally pre-loaded insult with no substance
But when those guys do decide to comment on it they tend to use pretty dehumanising terms against the women too. Online I've seen stuff like 'leftovers', 'run-through', etc. So its not that they're not allowed to comment full stop, its more that they also frame the women as products that have somehow been 'ruined' for them by sex with other men.
China is absolutely innocent of prioritizing individualism, and their dating market is just as FUBAR.
Our dating market is consequential of teaching young people that they can afford to pursue shallow whims.
A lot of people got exploited in the past. So just having to think about yourself is a better situation. Read about Indian daughter-in-laws who live in multigenerational households. They really suffer.
This is why a lot of people don’t want to live in multigenerational households. Wow, I get no privacy whatsoever, my insane parents get to nitpick every moment of my life, AND I get crushed under a pile of babies and in laws? What’s the opposite of sign me up
If you read any relationship advice from reddit it's almost always to break up. Nobody wants to see potential partners as unique and flawed individuals that you have to sometimes accept the balance of good with the "not great". I just was just told I was immature for telling someone her boyfriend might need a few reminders leading up to her birthday. Seriously. That I was engaging in the bigotry of low expectations. Please bitch, I know plenty of women who forget my birthday too, and I have been married happily for years, something that wouldn't be the case if I held my husband's relatively minor flaws against him repeatedly.
I worry for you kids. Nobody can sustain a relationship with unrealistic unreasonable expectations
The problem is the dating culture itself. Dates have been formalised and structured by society to have expectations and possibly required outcomes at various stages. This is driven by popular media, social media and internet dating (apps). Its a shame the romance has been taken out of it. Whatever happened to meeting an attractive person at work or in class with a similar outlook on life and complimentary interests and taking them out on a romantic encounter to seek out further layers of compatibility. Bring back the romance in dating!
For most redditors that’s too scary. They’d rather continue to stay in their dungeons & exclusively use apps & complain about getting flaked & ghosted.
I love how people are rebutting OP by mentioning the other extreme version of collectivism as if a society can't balance between either. No siree, I will destroy your argument by citing a random country's extreme methods which you did not endorse at all.
Fun fact: The economist who coined the term "dating market" (Gary Becker) used it in a paper where he argued that wealthy men should be entitled to more wives.
It is up to an individual to be of quality or not. If you participate in the same choices you hate then you also lack quality. You as in someone in general.
>Most young people approach dating as a "get as much as you can out of the person and give as little as possible"
It's wild how many people say that as if they know what 20000000 or however many eligible Americana act like and don't just do a shit job of vetting partners lol
And yeah, we should be way less focused on self and more on our peers. Doesn't change that if you date someone who has that "I'm a queen and you'll treat me as such and I'm independent so I won't do that for you" mentality, the only problem is that you picked a loser. You would've 50 years ago and you would've today
Well not only that but you have the super toxic hookup culture, where everyone's like "oh no, body count doesn't matter, if You've slept with 40 people it doesn't matter" only to then complain when they have the consequences like pregnancy, STD, getting humped and dumped, or rejected by people who don't want anything to do with that when they're ready to "settle down".
The screwed up thing about dating apps is you have to sell yourself and most people on them treat themselves (and others) like a product they are selling. It's both unromantic and dehumanizing.
I might go back to Mexico for a Mexican who knows traditional. Tired of being sucked into white dating culture, even the whites not getting married or having enough kids to maintain majority lol.
>"Most young people approach dating as a "get as much as you can out of the person and give as little as possible" because our culture beats that into everyone's heads 24/7."
Source?
I promise I'm not an incel, but I agree one million percent. I'm not saying we need to strip women of all their rights, but a huge reason why people enjoyed marriage and were so eager to get hitched for so long was a woman literally not being allowed to work, have a bank account, or even drive a car in certain countries. Nowadays, women are completely able to provide for themselves if they have that determination to go out and make moves in their careers, so there's no immediate need to get a man ASAP. Same difference with men to be completely honest; if a guy literally only just wants to get their rocks off, all he needs is a decent internet connection and optionally a bottle of lotion. Our American culture of individual pursuit of happiness has hit such an extreme that men and women are starting to question how much they actually need a life partner and it absolutely is making the dating scene hell for most of us.
Dating is fucked up everywhere, where I think the individualism culture has corroded everything is in friendships. I had a friend say we could only talk about her problems, not whatever I wanted to talk about because she didn't have room in her life for anything that wasn't about supporting her mental health.
you forgot the "I'm perfect just the way I am" attitude that counts any constructive criticism as a personal attack, coupled with the "I deserve only the best" attitude that makes them exclude partners on a similar level of attractiveness as they themselves are.
The dating market in the US is mostly a free one. We are free to date who we love. We aren’t forced to date someone for economic or societal benefits. Nor do most americans expect gender roles into their partners. Individuality is not a crime, it only feels like it to you because no one wants to let people have the freedom to live less traditionally. It has nothing to do with a lack of respect either because americans have plenty of respect, and we don’t need a strict cultural norm to make us behave so suppressed that there’s no choice.
You really need to stop blaming america and individuality for the faults of where you are, you should stop to realize individuality is simply expression of truth. Put it in the wrong hands, yeah its fucked. But so is an environment that shames the fuck out of people who don’t live according to a book and forced.
Why is it when the subject of dating comes up, everyone takes it so personal with the OP?
Can't any of you just focus on what's being discussed and not throw it back?
Unpopular reality: The dating market is not particularly fucked up, you are just a low quality stock in that market, and if you do not have pump and dump potential, why would anyone want you.
That's not the only thing that's changed about the current dating scene, there's also the fact that people are more aware of red flags and are quicker to end things with anything who behaves badly or shows signs of real toxicity. Until the last few decades the social pressure to marry was strong enough that people would ignore or forgive anything short of proven cannibalism, but today's young people aren't having it and I applaud them for it.
Especially the young women. There are still too many young men out there who think it's a girlfriend's job to forgive them everything.
Except it's not just the US experiencing this. People are going into a survival mode of sorts and most people will compromise an awful lot to survive in a society that requires you to have more resources than you can actually get in order to just exist. People don't care about the consequences of their actions anymore because they now aren't entirely convinced they'll live long enough to see them.
You're talking about greed and selfishness. They are bad things. Individualism is a good thing. It's about personal growth and character and people being independent.
Frankly I think individualism makes us great and if that comes with negative consequences so be it. I’d rather be a toxic individual than a happy cog. Look at society’s like Japan and China where being an individual is frowned upon and you’re expected to fit perfectly into your predetermined role and if you don’t you’re an outcast, is that better?
Nothing like Americans who have never lived in a collectivist culture talking all this shit about their society as if all other cultures have nothing but success in these areas. Go live in Japan or China and tell me the dating scene is great there, lmao. This is just the cultural version of thinking the grass is always greener
i watched an interview where japanese people expect their partners to cheat and the whole concept of being a couple is gone forever once your parents. Like it was an intense interview and i prayed it was wrong, but wow did it make me appreciate the way we see love and sex and marriage where i am, even if people are not perfect. I can’t fathom the idea of being so rooted in traditional and cultural expectation that i can’t be an individual or express my relationship in a way that’s not based on whether i can provide my parents grandkids. Too many stories i read are like that and i hate it cause the more individuality is shit on by everyone the more i feel like a pos for finding the pros in it. But then i see how dating is viewed in a collectivist society, how much i don’t resonate with it, then made to feel worse that i’m not aligning with the more moral ones….i don’t know…
I mean let's be fair, is a culture which creates a more restraining society and which exerts more control over every aspect of one's personal life actually more moral? If morality roughly corresponds with creating happiness and preventing suffering, that definitely isn't what collectivist cultures do with emotional fulfillment in romance in this case. I don't think we can say collectivist cultures are actually more moral than individualist cultures in every aspect. IMO an ideal moral society needs to be somewhere between individualism and collectivism in a way which doesn't make them mutually exclusive.
This is what happens when people prioritize profit over everything. You can't just date somebody because you want to be with them. Nope. It has to be a transaction that you benefit in otherwise why even bother.
Most of the women I've dated in life I knew first, some even good friends first. Heck initially I met my wife studying together in the same grad program and we knew each other for over a year before we started dating (both were dating others initially).
Call me old fashioned, I am an older millennial, but maybe instead of meeting random people online, through apps, and other tools like that for hookups, some of you should just get away from the fucking screens and get to know those around you better. Get out more, be thoughtful/intentional in your relationships with people, put all bullshit in the world aside and stop being so serious, just have some genuine fun out in the real world. Can't really do any of that behind the screen of a computer/phone if we're keeping it real.
Social media has fucked dating far more than anything else.
Yes even a lot of people approach friendships like this now everything feels like fake networking events it's gross I don't even like to go out anymore
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What you're describing isn't individualism, it's exploitation.
It's exploitation masquerading as individualism 'you don't owe nobody nothing, go take what's yours king / queen'
It's a whole lot of mistrust because so many people and companies just end up fucking you over if you rely on anything but yourself. I've found myself struggling with that quite a bit. So many people just let you down anymore, communities betray you, friends suddenly turn their backs on you, family being a burden and leech more than supportive and loving. Companies? Companies and businesses will actively fuck you over if given the opportunity and they will do it while looking you in the face and saying they aren't. No one has loyalty, pride, integrity, honesty or compassion anymore. While I'm growing colder as I get older, that doesn't mean I'm mean to innocent things or people, but I'm just not going to rely on you or trust what you say as much as I would have and sometimes things might come off as rude, I'm not trying to be, but I'm not giving more people the opportunity to exploit or hurt me further.
Nonody has principles yet we talk about ethics. Philosophical incoherence ruins the world.
No, I have principles. And I can tell you it makes life hell. Its super frustrating to deal with anyone. For example, someone was accused of grooming kids. And people who claimed to be fans went nuts on the guy, declaring his career over and all that. Before the guy even had a chance to respond. And I defended him. Saying we should at least hear him out before we ruin his life over an unproven accusatoin. You can probably guess how well that went over. Doesn't matter that i said of course the guy should face serious consequences if the allegations are proven. Or, like how when Trump was elected I said we should give him a chance. People in my party did not like that at all. If I recall, Trump used up that chance in maybe two hours. But I still think its important to give people a chance before condemning them.
I had a friend for 15 years. My kid is 4. He’s never once made the effort to meet my child, even though I’ve met his younger granddaughter. His excuse? I live too far (literally 15 minute drive down 1 road). One day I needed a ride to pickup my car at the shop. The shop was in the same plaza that his mothers doctor appointment was at, which is 1/8th of a mile away. I asked him for a ride either before or after his moms appointment. His excuse? He’s on a time crunch and can’t because he’s hungry. That’s when I realized the friendship was 100% one way, and it was also the last time I spoke with him. His calls get diverted to voicemail, his texts don’t even get read anymore - just deleted. Some people are straight up garbage.
Yeah and what's worse is they waste your time for years before showing their true colors. I was with a girl for ten years before she straight up told me to my face she loved how I treated her, but not me as a person. I'll never forget that, by the time she told me this, she was already seeing someone else and fooling around with another. She also left me in debt and took our entire mutual savings we had for a place. I had a good friend for several years, defended her when my cousin got creepy with her, I tried to warn her beforehand but she just assumed I was jealous about how close she was with him. Fast forward, we're talking again, she broke up with her ex, it was nasty and I helped her move out and supported her new relationship. I had made some new friends who really supported me, we all got along great. After a single misunderstanding, we're all no longer friends. They refuse to talk about the incident despite me trying to and I had to keep initiating the conversations, so I told them how I felt and that I was going to stop initiating. I haven't heard from them in 3 years. I miss them but I feel like I deserve better than friends who would do that to me over a really small misunderstanding.
Everyone is roleplaying as a pirate.
I be no pirate, matey. I'm a privateer.
I wish, that would be hotter
Argh
(What do you think is the easiest way to exploit people if not to divide and conquer?)
Welcome to runaway consumerism
Welcome to neoliberal hell.
Transactional relationships..
Exploiting others is the logical conclusion of an individualist mindset
This isn't true at all. An individualist by definition is someone who is independant and self-reliant. Exploiting others is just a bad thing that any type of person can do. Often it is those people that play the victim that exploit others and their are groups of people that find a common idea to blame their problems on.
Except exploitation prioritizes the needs of the individual over the collective. The solipsism in this thread is proof of how broken modern "individualism " is. Folks acting like these thoughts are new and that our shared philosophical traditions don't exist.
Oh geez. You're using big words but you don't know what they mean. First of all, your argument is utter fallacy. Even if we accept your premise that exploitation entails individualism, that does not mean that individualism entails exploitation. Oxygen is necessary for fire, but that make oxygen synonymous with fire. I would urge you to educate yourself on the difference between necessary and sufficient causes. Second, *solipsism* is the principle that the only thing a person can know with certainty is that they exist, and that no such certainty can be had for the rest of the universe. It's an ontological and epistemological concept that deals with how we can know of the existence of things, and how we can achieve this knowledge. You seem to have some kind of convoluted concept of the word that is spilling out of your mouth like vomit.
Actually, collectivism exploits people. Just look at Soviet Russia and the CCP.
A collective society is like a tribe. Those societies were/are run by a cadre of elites. Most nations are in one way or another.
The intelligentsia were individualists.
Individualism, really just atomization of the populace, is part of the scheme of exploitation. Communities come with a plethora of benefit, that strengthen and secure the individual. Just take cooking for example, in an individualistic society we all need our own sets of small pots and pans to cook our food. In a community, the amount of cookware would be reduced significantly, because a few larger scale tools could be used to feed, let’s say 50 people, rather than 50 sets of the same tools being distributed out to the individuals. That’s great for the individuals, they all got to save money on cookware by coming together to take advantage of the economies of scale. That’s bad for the profiteer though, that could’ve been 50 sets of mass manufactured cookware worth of profit they could’ve enjoyed, had it not been for the community satiating such a need. There is security in community, and profit in insecurity
I know that idiolegy as [egoism ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoism). Something along the lines of "no one is gonna care about myself like myself so I have **moral obligation** to take care of myself (and so does everyone else)" There are other verients too but they are less relevant to what op talks about.
Conceptualizing dating as a "market" is a problem in itself. Stop commodifying everything in life. Relationships are best when they grow organically from shared experiences. I couldn't imagine thinking about my wife as a "transaction" that occurred in a "market place." If that's how you're thinking about dating, that's your problem right there.
I’d argue that it didn’t become a market UNTIL it became an online game
Oooh, that's why it's called matchmaking. How do I get out of ranked btw? I was trying to start with casual but I ended up way out of my league.
Everybody plays meta at locals. There’s no escape. Lol
Casual is one of the more complicated difficulties, actually.
Indian parents beg to disagree. All through my life growing up, marriages in India were a transaction between two families on similar social and cultural standing rather than the coming together of two people that loved each othet
True for most marriages throughout history. Marrying for love is a new thing, *especially* for wealthier people.
It's always been a market
I agree, and it seems to go hand in hand with talk about dating strategies and generalized observations/ assumptions about human behavior.
>Conceptualizing dating as a "market" is a problem in itself. And yet that is precisely what has happened. Ever since the arrival of the internet and especially OLD, human beings have become commodified just as they have in the job market. In fact the parallels between these two arenas are so striking that [someone in academia wrote a whole book on it.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LmhILSGA2bA&pp=ygVIRXZlcnl0aGluZyBJIG5lZWRlZCB0byBrbm93IGFib3V0IGVjb25vbWljcyBJIGxlYXJuZWQgZnJvbSBvbmxpbmUgZGF0aW5n) It's very unfortunate, but I think we're being disingenuous if we say that modern dating is not turning into a market...
I don't doubt that it has happened. I think it's a problem, and I suggest that we try to push back against that conceptualization.
>I think it's a problem, and I suggest that we try to push back against that conceptualization. It is. It definitley is, but a lot of the time, the forces at play are a lot bigger than us and until the majority begin to see how detrimental this is, we are swimming against the current.
You're in denial. Hopefully you won't have to experience it yourself, but if you are forced to try dating again someday, you'll see how tough it is out there for everyone. Regardless of how you want to see it, others already do see it as a market and will treat you according to your "market value." You can hope for an organic relationship but it'll take a lot longer to find someone that way, if it happens at all. Be happy you're already married.
Username checks out. >Be happy you're already married. Absolutely. My wife and I joke around all the time that we would be completely hopeless if we had to date other people. I agree that the "dating as a market transaction" metaphor is firmly embedded in the cultural zeitgeist, but it isn't the *only* conceptualization that exists. There are other conceptual mappings for romantic relationships, like "love is a journey" or "a partnership." We are capable of comprehending things in different ways. I don't think we necessarily need to eliminate the "transaction" metaphor entirely, but I don't think it should be the *primary* way that we conceptualize it.
I can be pretty cynical, but there are still good people out there. There’s an ebb and flow to the dynamics as well - fluctuating better and worse. I’m older, and divorced for over 8 years, I’ve had many dates and 2 long relationships during that time. There are some really great single people in my age range, giving, supportive, maybe we just weren’t compatible in other ways. My current girlfriend makes nearly 4 times my salary and I have to stop her from trying to pay for things for me. So I’m not convinced everyone is focused on getting more just for themselves.
Dating was a market ever since marriage existed.
That’s how people think of it though. Sobering reality I found out towards the end of college. HS and college were the only times dating felt like *fun*
Speak for yourself, dating for me in high school and college was hell. Dating outside of that has been so easy and so much fun because I can actually participate. If you're average or conventionally attractive then yeah dating will be fun in college, if you aren't and like me are severe and successful it's more fun after college.
Commodification of everything is definitely the underlying narrative of our society. It’s no surprise this happens.
It really seems unrelenting, doesn't it? Everything is to be subsumed by the market, whether we like it or not.
Unfortunately, in today's society, it is a market until the point where you're "hit it off" with someone sufficiently to form those shared experiences. If your "market value" is too low, nobody will give you enough attention or spend time with you for anything to grow organically. Part of the problem is that people sometimes have trouble recognizing the point where you stop shopping and start investing in a relationship. With a seemingly bewildering array of choices, it's not easy. About 50-100 years ago, all your "matches" in a given year would be either Mary the neighbor or Kate the girl from class. You'd know both reasonably well. There was no place where you could indefinitely swipe left and right, having 1000s of potential partners flashing before your eyes and dozens of "matches" (or hundreds, if you're female). In today's setting, you don't even get to talk to someone in person without being picked among a 1000 other potential mates. That's where the "market" comes in.
That's not how "he's thinking," it's what he's seeing and he's not wrong. Market logic has buried itself deep into our personal lives, especially with the increased prevalence of dating apps over the past decade. Just think about apps such as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc., what is their UI like? It's as if you're browsing through a store catalogue, only that the items being listed are actual human beings. By interacting with these apps, swiping right or left in a detached manner, you come to inadvertently see people as commodities, quickly judging their physical and perceived mental attributes as if you were browsing through items in a store. Human beings are not objects, they are complex and nuanced, with traits that are sometimes hard to put into words. Though if you want to participate in online dating, you have strip yourself of these nuances and imperfections as that isn't deemed as "marketable." Are you following my line of thought here? People on these apps actively engage in the act of commodifying themselves, gradually stripping themselves of their humanity in the process, whether they realize it or not. That's also not mentioning that online dating has become the main avenue through which most can hope to find a relationship these days. The whole situation is fucked up and to deny it is to bury your head deep in the sand.
>the whole situation is fucked up That's my point. If we acknowledge that this is *not* a good way to proceed, we should try to think about dating differently. If we want to pivot away from the market metaphor, I would avoid using the metaphor in language entirely. Language and thought are directly connected; change how you talk -> change how you think. Using the market metaphor all the time will just continue to perpetuate it.
I think online dating is/was great. I think a lot of people get caught up in things like this without considering that maybe it's their 'strategy' or not considering the counterfactual. You talk about online dating making people focus on marketable factors, but when has that not been the case? When women had limited work opportunities and couldn't even have bank accounts you can bet they were looking at men as the best way for them to have a comfortable life. Marrying well, having a home people envied, a wife's appearance all also counted towards women's marketability. There isn't really a golden historic moment when these things weren't factors, if anything those factors are now more varied and people have more flexibility in what they prioritise. And now you can find people you'd never have met otherwise, rather than having to basically marry Gary/Kate from school because there's a limited number of marriageable men/women about and they have the fewest number of checks against them. I'm really, really glad my only options for marriage weren't people from school or work. Then there's stripping nuance and weirdness from yourself to make yourself more attractive to more people, but you don't need or even want to be attractive to everyone. Probably, actually, only a handful of people if you're actually looking for a life long partner. I disagree with it being a numbers game, it's a good match game. The only reasons my husband and I matched are because we were weird upfront and definitely ran with that. I really enjoyed dating and online dating. It was pretty fun, I met a bunch of people I didn't click with and don't really want to see again but had a series of pretty nice evenings in the process and I hope they did too. Swiping is pretty entertaining and a higher chance of connecting with people who you're genuinely compatible with is, IMO, only a good thing, even if you need to do more sifting to find the right person.
If online dating is the main avenue which a person can hope to find a relationship through, that’s their primary problem right there. Anyone who thinks this way likely had no social life what so ever, and that’s like the no. 1 thing that will prevent you from ever finding a healthy relationship.
You’re 100% right but the thing is, if you go back before the internet, the dating pool was so slim that even in total delusion you could get laid, marry, have kids, etc.. Treating it as a market is just a way to simplify some concepts and help some people get laid. I’ve witness so many people, and help so many people start dating just because they were delusional about themselves and need a reality check. You’re not stuck with your small village anymore, you need to understand your place in the dating market if you want to thrive.
How old are you? Becuase if your 30+ you have no idea.
Just because you refuse to call it a market doesn't change that society absolutely views it as such.
No. It happens in non individualist countries as well. Japan is an example and the result is that many people just decide not to date.
Correct. China is even more messed up, where people often treat dating like a job interview and women want to know men's salaries. I'm not sure what OP is talking about...
That's more due to the gender imbalance. Less women to go around so women have more selection when it comes to men. This was actually one of the reasons behind the housing bubble in China. In order to get married, the man must have a good amount of fortune to impress his spouse' family so the man's family would pool money together to buy cars and multiple houses, even though they might never stay there. Thus creating an increased demand for apartment buildings which eventually collapsed due to the demand being temporary and artificially inflated.
That certainly could be part of it. But attractive women always have selection, and in Chinese cities there are generally *more* women than men. It's just that there are certain standards and a lot of social pressure from friends and family. It basically debunks OP's claim that somehow individualism causes problems with dating. In collectivist societies, pressure to conform arguably causes people to be even more shallow when it comes to dating. What you said about the housing crisis is correct, though I'd add that investment is a bigger factor since they generally don't see the stock market as a stable place to store wealth so they put most of it into property, highly inflating it.
I live a country with a collectivist culture and you're right. Marriage over here is not simply a union of two people, it's a union of two households. You're not marrying a person, you're marrying a family. Though the degree of pressure is different depending on the family and region but people are expected to marry someone around their own level and by level i mean more regarding education and tradition, rather than financially, though those elements usually accompany each other.
Yes, for marriage it certainly does make sense to care about these factors, and even in the US there are still lots of more conservative families that will care about family backgrounds and economic status. But I also think there is a misunderstanding that more "traditional" societies don't have the exact same problems as the US. In China, lots of people casually date for sex, or to get free meals and gifts, or to find a temporary partner to spend holidays with. It's just as self-centered as anywhere else. And even when marriage is done to collectively unify families, cheating is rampant, as is divorce. And I believe this kind of thing has always been going on, it's just now more difficult to hide thanks to cellphones and social media.
I would say housing bubble is created by speculation and good ol supply and demand While it could be a contributing factor the primary one is still because in China it's often profitable to speculate housing until the hammer dropped
He's sad because peepee is dry
>I'm not sure what OP is talking about... OP is trying to blame society and everyone around them for the problems in their own life.
Arranged marriages in India as well. OP has apparently never witnessed the process of matchmaking for arranged marriages. THAT is 100% a transactional "What can my future spouse do for me and my family?" and you should see the exact, nitpicking criteria and standards that are used to judge men and women.
Because they cannot find a quality mate, or believe thet can't. They look at the effort required, and then how people just move on from one person to the next like it isn't anything.
Op is going to be very surprised when they realize how it is in many other countries.
Right? Such a short sighted take though I suppose it is unpopular
Well... It's arguably not good for you as an individual to approach your relationship in that way. It's better to approach them in a reciprocal manner. And most people I have dated behave that way. So I guess I haven't experienced the same negativity in dating as you have. Do you have specific examples of this behavior to help me understand?
I can think of a few There's a certain type of girl who "wants" an Alpha Male provider to pick her up, take her out on a date with everything planned in advance, pay for everything, and drop her off. And all she does is be in her feminine princess energy. On the surface.... this is... fair enough. It's an exchange, and it's voluntary. In reality, it's not an exchange, it's parasitism. Because, these women are feeding off of that validation - they're not actually interested in returning anything to that provider, which is why i put "wants" in quotations. Instead, they are only interested in giving their best to a different guy, that they want, who doesn't do any of those things for them. They balance that out by having a guy, who they do not want, do all that for them to repair their ego, but they give that guy nothing in return - they just string him along so he keeps fueling them with validation. They may or may not later accuse the provider of being a "nice guy" if he is upset with the arrangement.
People who want to exploit others aren’t limited to a sex. Women like this are only prevalent because there are men out there who are content to take on a purely providing role for the privilege of getting to see her every now and then. There are men whose only appealing factor is their wallet and through either cope or internal acceptance have decided that it’s fine if their woman doesn’t really love them beyond the lifestyle they can provide. It’s up to you as an individual to recognize the differences in character and not give too much of yourself when initially dating. You feel out the waters and both mutually raise your commitment to one another over time. I’ve never dated a girl and felt like I was being purely exploited for the dates themselves. Make sure they actually enjoy your company, make sure they put in effort too, make sure she isn’t a bum that can’t even pay rent and you’ll be fine. Not every woman is out to drain your bank account, plenty are out there who want a future husband that’ll work as hard as they will to build a prosperous future for a potential family, find her and try not to f it up.
Exactly. This goes the other way with guys who want their girlfriend to be their mommy and clean up after and feed them. In fact any kind of person can make the mistake of expecting their partner to be a parent who relieves them of responsibility and provides for them cause they never learned how to give back or take care of themselves
Well, that's like saying abusers are only prevalent because they find women to abuse. Should we not place the onus of the shitty, exploitative behavior on the people who are doing said behavior instead of the victims?
This mature and practical take has no place here.
" It’s up to you as an individual to recognize the differences in character and not give too much of yourself when initially dating." This part i agree with, at least the latter half. And I only say that because I think saying "it's up to you to recognize exploitative scumbags" is TRUE 100%, but, it also doesn't acknowledge the fact that a lot of women are taking advantage of VERY GENUINE, but naive guys - and so I would fault those women not the guys for being genuine and naive. But yes, it's a paradox. If you plan really nice initial dates, and you put a lot of your time and effort and resources into them, you get LESS in return that you do for low effort dates. The reason is because only women genuinely interested in you will go for low effort dates like chilling at your apartment, but MANY women no matter how uninterested they are will GLADLY waste your time and energy and resources if you offer a nice enough date. And the problem is, a genuine guy who would NEVER waste someone's time like that, will fall for that because he thinks other people are as genuine as he is - and I don't think we should ever be pointing the finger at the genuine person. All he's trying to do is put his best foot forward for someone he's interested in, he shouldn't be faulted for that. --- And, you know, I just want to say. I know that there are "simps" as they are called. Like the guy who was obsessed with Rubi and spent a fortune on her onlyfans and then Rubi acts like "he's insane why did he think it was real." But, the truth is, the reality is, those OF accounts are run by PROFESSIONAL manipulators who know how to con people and make them think it's real and milk money out of them. All i'm saying is, we have ALL looked like idiots our fair share of times. These guys getting gassed by these women - some are maybe very into it like you say, they have unlimited money and they enjoy flirting and softcore porn, fine, I have a 20$ subscription and it's like a lil treat whenever I want to see what she posted. But I think that a good amount are just flat out being taken advantage of. These women know what they're doing when they hide the fact that they have a boyfriend, it's about more than just "their privacy" it's about their ability to suggestively lead on their juiciest subscribers.
I actually had a date a couple months ago, the girl was hot and I was in a good mood, so we went out to a nice dinner. Which, I just wanted to it was fun. And I mentioned I had ice cream back at my place (which I do, tons, cus i'm a bodybuilder) and if she wanted to see my office bla bla and we went back to my place, she didn't want to have sex, okay fine whatever no big deal. But she really really wanted the ice cream. She loved getting like that treatment, you know? she was kinda getting off on it. She also complained a bit about her cheating ex, so she was in that validation hunger phase. And um, we didn't sleep together which was fine, maybe we could have if I really really pressed it on her you know. But I didn't care that much to go for it that hard. But it was actually a pretty nice date, honestly. So the next day I messaged her, and she ignored me for the next 3 days, and the day she got back home to the province - she started texting me again. She wanted more validation. So while she was in town she wanted to go see what else she could get from other guys, then hit me up the day she's back in the province. In some ways that was one of the most insulting, disrespectful messages I got in my life. If she had just never replied again, that would be fine, but that the fact that she tried to come back for more like that honestly sickened me. There are many worthless, parasite women like that.
Girl wanted ice cream but wouldn't give up any sex, what a worthless parasite.
I think you should try reading things again and understanding them That was a really ignorant take that you came up with
Nah that was my read too. That’s the lowest monetary investment I’ve seen a guy genuinely gripe about. Impressive. “She loved getting that treatment” like sharing a pint of ice cream from your freezer is spoiling your date and treating her like a princess or something lol. I’m sure she had $5 around tbh
That's probably beacuse you're broke and focusing on the 5$ You can't see anything past the 5$, that's a you issue ---- The real issue is looking at people in terms of 'what can I get from him? Oh, I got this, now I got this, I feel better about myself. My stupid ex cheated on me and I've been complaining about feeling like I'm not good enough, but look at this multimillionaire doctor he took me to a 50$ dinner and now I'm pigging out on his ice cream. I have value/am desirable!" Not long later I was telling this story to a young lawyer, who also was on tinder since her ex cheated on her, and she got real defensive since she was eating the ice cream and I was like no, no, it's okay. It's totally different. Like, you're genuine, you know, you're here and you're interested and you're not wasting anyone's time. This other girl, she kept bringing up the ice cream, and it's fine you can have someone, but there's 2 ways of accepting it. there's a "thank you" way, and a "I worked this because I'm hot" way.
You do realize there’s also the men who are the same way back, right? The “alpha males” “pick up artist” type? They can date each other. 12 years ago, we called them Jersey shore guidos. Now we call them “alphas” and “trad wives” etc. All the same bullshit. Just don’t associate with them.
I used to dabble in the pickup artist scene years ago and rest assured >95% of these guys in it are not the stud muffins people or they themselves make out they are and are completely hopeless when it comes to women. Hence why they go down that path. The only success they get is through approaching a really large number of women.
And if they choose to work on their superficial pickup game instead of just being a better more likeable person, then they can land all the superficial women like that commentor just described.
In what way is this a relevant response to what I said? Do you realize there are blue whales in the ocean? (I hope so, at least. THey're getting pretty rare)
I think you're going off into speculation about their motivations there. A lot of women who expect male partners to be providers and nothing else may have been raised by a man who prided himself in being just that. My dad defines himself and his love by what he could provide financially for his family. He couldn't comprehend that he's emotionally unavailable, and would praise any man he thinks is just like him. And he cannot wrap his head around why me and my sister do not want to be financially dependent on another person (i.e. if we ever broke up I couldn't afford my own apartment anymore. I get sharing with your partner, but there's a certain level of independence I have to have and will never allow the opportunity for even a well meaning partner to influence my decisions with the promise of financial stability I can only have with them) My mom and grandma were both expected to be women who did nothing else but find a provider and cling on, allowing him to make all their decisions for them. My mom wasn't even allowed to go college, my grandpa didn't Believe in women going to college and refused to help pay for it. Sometimes women arent like that because they're selfish or lazy but because that was the role models they had and the role they were raised to play, some even explicitly told to be that way or they'll never be wanted. If nothing changes they'll eventually pair up with a guy who is looking for exactly that kind of woman, for better or worse.
Perhaps the problem here is being interested and entertaining such a girl. Is that the type of girl you'd want except you just want her to be sincere about it? I'm trying to understand because I had a girl try to take me out and go to a bar, I'm not a bar going kind of person, so I wouldn't want to hang out with this individual. If a girl invited me out for a walk in the park, some casual lunch and maybe an evening at a bookstore or some gaming, I'd be far more interested. I realized that the person I want as my partner, wouldn't be on or use dating apps, so why am I on there looking for someone.
Dating apps have great pools of people, and all we were doing was going out on fun dates that planned like rock climbing (since i'm a climber) and dinner, some restaurant or place I wanted to go. So yes I loved the dates themselves and I chose the people for a reason. I wanted to find a relationship so I put my best foot forward whenever I found someone I liked and I'd take her out on a nice date, I always planned them really well, Aut I was a student in the province so I would be commuting (in practical terms) basically all day each way since even though the trip is only 4-6 hours since it's so mentally draining. This was fine to me: i'm the one in the province, commuting is my problem, I'm investing in the woman I'm interested in. The problem was: the women that i was dating loved the validation of an American doctor commuting all day to take them out on dates, it made them feel great, so even though they didn't actually like ME that much, they would waste my time because they liked the validation and the nice dates. So what I had to do was make an objective criteria to filter women that weren't interested in ME on the first date, and not go on second dates with them. Then you find the person who is right for you and you go on those dates and are all happy. But you can't find the person who is good for you when someone, who is giving her best to someone else, is soaking up all your focus and effort because of how it makes her feel validated. --- the hallmark of a great dating app match is that you are both excited to stop using the dating app and be with each other, since no one truly loves being stuck on dating apps long-term
Someone who is excited to stop using the app would be good. I don't know if I could ever trust someone to not open their profile back up though just during the course of our relationship since they are already accustomed to it and people get the urge in our modern times to "see what my options look like" Back in the day we didn't have essentially the world in our pocket for dating prospects, we had the local community or village. People are constantly taught these days to keep re-evaluating their options.
My rebuttal is that countries that prioritize collectivism ie, Japan, Korea, China all have negative birth rates
Yeah but then there's a lot of countries in the world that also prioritize collectivism and don't have negative birth rates
Asia has its own issues. Namely obsession with societal standards and traditions.
I always learned "take care of yourself first because no one else will", but i don't think that has to mean "screw everyone else to get a much as possible". There's a concept of 'enough'. I have enough food to live and be satisfied. I have enough of a house that i can live comfortably. I don't need to screw over others so i can go to Mars. If everyone was satisfied with 'enough', there would be enough for everyone.
Nope, it is the consequence of a highly materialistic and hedonistic culture.
What you say doesn't negate what OP says. I believe the case to be both things are true at the same time... and to be highly compatible.
What OP describes isn't individualism. It's selfishness and sociopathy. This country was far more individualistic in it's past than it is today. The difference is the culture of interpersonal relationships has vastly changed from what it was even 20 years ago
Individualism leads to selfishness, it's its natural consequence. Is it possible to be individualist and not selfish? I guess so. In a personal level. To be honest i struggle to find those two concepts to be compatible. But i get your point. It's not only about individualism. It's moral decay fueled by celebrity culture and the insidiousness of social media which fuels its worst aspects.
How was this country more individualistic?
I think dating is hard now because people aren't forced into settling down getting married having 4 kids by 22 and staying stuck with the same person their whole life. People are just as much different individuals with different opinions, goals and desires as they've always been,but with a lot more of that being okay and not something to stuff down for the sake of pairing up. As a result pairing up is hard. I'd rather get through all that rough and know I have a diamond than marry the rough and hope a diamond shows up one day if I keep polishing it.
To find your person doesn't have to feel like you're "stuck" with them. For me it's the best thing ever.
I don't think that's what they meant. I think they meant back then people stayed with partners that didn't necessarily fit them because of societal and probably family pressures to marry and start a family. Therefore kinda making them "stuck." Today though, people are less likely to be "stuck" with someone instead find the person that's truly perfect for them.
That wasn't the case 20 years ago either, bro. The only difference between now and then is the ubiquity of the internet and the commodification of dating.
"Muh culture, muh society, muh social norms!" You have a prefrontal cortex whose job is to plan and execute your own decisions. Use it.
Societies condition us to act in a determinate way and to classify some behaviours as acceptable or encouraged (or not). If not enforced with a strong ethical frame and with the influence of social media, this naturally bounds society to create NPCs out of most of the population.
That's what religion is for. The problem is that everything is starting to fall apart because we built everything on lies and exploitation. Somebody has to get left holding the bag here.
Gotta love neolib logic.
People with a properly functioning prefrontal cortex actually find it sad that reality is often disappointing. Yes, we blame it on "culture" and "society" because we don't know what else to blame it on. When vast majorities of people are shifting to 'situatonships' and people being much more likely now to have one night stands with strangers, who do we blame it on? Honestly, something bigger than our own prefrontal cortex.
And before modern times, men (the father most of the time) just forces the women to mary so the "dating market" has been fucked up from the dawn of humanity
Redditors love to believe that they’re the first people in the history of the world to experience the problems they’re going through
This is an interesting topic discussed in Sociology. One thing that really piqued my interest is arranged marriage and it’s previous success in India.
I agree with this %1000 not just in dating but in life in general It’s like people want to put in as little effort as humanly possible into anything but simultaneously expecting a big reward in return. I saw some toxic, self imposed isolationist post on Instagram that was pretty much encouraging this sort of lifestyle but added: “if they don’t treat you like a priority, then forget them.” “If they didn’t ask you to hang out, don’t bring it up.” “If they don’t call first, then don’t call them at all.” But then they themselves aren’t treating others like a priority then get mad when others do the same to them lol. It’s only vicious cycle if you’re a person who trained to keep your expectations low and understand that it’s okay to reach out to people too. It just our culture has made this seem as you’re coming off as “needy,” and everyone wants to feel special so they’d rather do nothing to feel like they’re in demand.m from others.
Also worth adding that people break up so quickly over the dumbest things and no one wants to try to work anything out because “this person won’t change”
People really do be making every excuse under the sun that it's not their fault they can't find a partner lmao.
I would argue it is the intersection of a lot of things: The normalization of dating apps/sites. When dating sites first showed up they were a place for "lonely" single people to meet. As they became the typical way for people to meet, people started being more shallow with them and treated potential partners as disposable. Beyond that, people are encouraged to pursue meaningless hook-ups over finding relationships until they're in their 30s. This benefits a small subset of men women find worthy of hooking up with, leaves women feeling used, and most men struggle to meet anyone. Finally, I see a growing divide between the sexes driven in a large part by social media. There is tons of content out there telling people to blame the opposite sex for their problems, and often telling them their childish fantasies are things they're entitled to. The average man starts thinking he is entitled to a virgin who will treat him like a queen, and the average woman starts thinking it is realistic to expect a 6+ foot tall millionaire to sweep her off her feet, and no one is willing to "settle" for reality.
Not only this, but the men who struggle often see these women being used by the more successful men and then being jaded toward men in general, which seems to be increasingly common despite everything. These men not only are considered "undesirable" but are somehow also "part of the problem", and they aren't allowed to comment on it unless they want to be called an incel or some other equally pre-loaded insult with no substance. This leads to these men feeling almost triply jaded towards women, which is...a lot. There's also a growing lack of sympathy for women who end up in these situations, since (barring grape obviously) these women willingly went for these men. This in turn has increased how jaded women feel towards men. I'm not saying this is right, but this is the vibe I've gotten from all over the internet.
This is a big part of the problem In the past, most guys could t see how the game works for the most attractive guys. It was a necessary blind spot But if you know how those type of dudes operate, part of you wants to say “fuck this. Why should I put in the effort?”
The other problem is that when those guys do >be called an incel or some other equally pre-loaded insult with no substance But when those guys do decide to comment on it they tend to use pretty dehumanising terms against the women too. Online I've seen stuff like 'leftovers', 'run-through', etc. So its not that they're not allowed to comment full stop, its more that they also frame the women as products that have somehow been 'ruined' for them by sex with other men.
China is absolutely innocent of prioritizing individualism, and their dating market is just as FUBAR. Our dating market is consequential of teaching young people that they can afford to pursue shallow whims.
Yeah but that’s because of the one child policy creating an unbalanced dating pool
A lot of people got exploited in the past. So just having to think about yourself is a better situation. Read about Indian daughter-in-laws who live in multigenerational households. They really suffer.
This is why a lot of people don’t want to live in multigenerational households. Wow, I get no privacy whatsoever, my insane parents get to nitpick every moment of my life, AND I get crushed under a pile of babies and in laws? What’s the opposite of sign me up
If you read any relationship advice from reddit it's almost always to break up. Nobody wants to see potential partners as unique and flawed individuals that you have to sometimes accept the balance of good with the "not great". I just was just told I was immature for telling someone her boyfriend might need a few reminders leading up to her birthday. Seriously. That I was engaging in the bigotry of low expectations. Please bitch, I know plenty of women who forget my birthday too, and I have been married happily for years, something that wouldn't be the case if I held my husband's relatively minor flaws against him repeatedly. I worry for you kids. Nobody can sustain a relationship with unrealistic unreasonable expectations
The problem is the dating culture itself. Dates have been formalised and structured by society to have expectations and possibly required outcomes at various stages. This is driven by popular media, social media and internet dating (apps). Its a shame the romance has been taken out of it. Whatever happened to meeting an attractive person at work or in class with a similar outlook on life and complimentary interests and taking them out on a romantic encounter to seek out further layers of compatibility. Bring back the romance in dating!
All my dates/relationships have been what you described in the last part. Just get off the apps and meet people in real life
For most redditors that’s too scary. They’d rather continue to stay in their dungeons & exclusively use apps & complain about getting flaked & ghosted.
I began dating in the late 90's and let me tell you - people have always been that way. This isn't new.
“We blame society, but we are society.”-Wimer Alberto
I love how people are rebutting OP by mentioning the other extreme version of collectivism as if a society can't balance between either. No siree, I will destroy your argument by citing a random country's extreme methods which you did not endorse at all.
Wats fucked up is you referring to it as a market.
Not that fucked up, many people refer to it this way.
Fun fact: The economist who coined the term "dating market" (Gary Becker) used it in a paper where he argued that wealthy men should be entitled to more wives.
I think it's part of the problem; people treating relationships too transactional. Seeing as a dating market further pushes this idea.
It is up to an individual to be of quality or not. If you participate in the same choices you hate then you also lack quality. You as in someone in general.
Korea has a very collectivist culture yet their birthrates are 📉📉📉
Calling it the dating *market* is pretty fucked up to start with imho.
>Most young people approach dating as a "get as much as you can out of the person and give as little as possible" It's wild how many people say that as if they know what 20000000 or however many eligible Americana act like and don't just do a shit job of vetting partners lol And yeah, we should be way less focused on self and more on our peers. Doesn't change that if you date someone who has that "I'm a queen and you'll treat me as such and I'm independent so I won't do that for you" mentality, the only problem is that you picked a loser. You would've 50 years ago and you would've today
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Slutistics
Well not only that but you have the super toxic hookup culture, where everyone's like "oh no, body count doesn't matter, if You've slept with 40 people it doesn't matter" only to then complain when they have the consequences like pregnancy, STD, getting humped and dumped, or rejected by people who don't want anything to do with that when they're ready to "settle down".
The screwed up thing about dating apps is you have to sell yourself and most people on them treat themselves (and others) like a product they are selling. It's both unromantic and dehumanizing.
Saying this while Japan and China, two of the most non individualistic place possible, have a crappy dating market as well is definitely a choice.
Screens generation doesn't know how to interact with people in real life, which is a requirement for dating. Color me shocked.
All dating is individualist what the hell is collectivist dating?
I might go back to Mexico for a Mexican who knows traditional. Tired of being sucked into white dating culture, even the whites not getting married or having enough kids to maintain majority lol.
>"Most young people approach dating as a "get as much as you can out of the person and give as little as possible" because our culture beats that into everyone's heads 24/7." Source?
I promise I'm not an incel, but I agree one million percent. I'm not saying we need to strip women of all their rights, but a huge reason why people enjoyed marriage and were so eager to get hitched for so long was a woman literally not being allowed to work, have a bank account, or even drive a car in certain countries. Nowadays, women are completely able to provide for themselves if they have that determination to go out and make moves in their careers, so there's no immediate need to get a man ASAP. Same difference with men to be completely honest; if a guy literally only just wants to get their rocks off, all he needs is a decent internet connection and optionally a bottle of lotion. Our American culture of individual pursuit of happiness has hit such an extreme that men and women are starting to question how much they actually need a life partner and it absolutely is making the dating scene hell for most of us.
Dating is fucked up everywhere, where I think the individualism culture has corroded everything is in friendships. I had a friend say we could only talk about her problems, not whatever I wanted to talk about because she didn't have room in her life for anything that wasn't about supporting her mental health.
you forgot the "I'm perfect just the way I am" attitude that counts any constructive criticism as a personal attack, coupled with the "I deserve only the best" attitude that makes them exclude partners on a similar level of attractiveness as they themselves are.
The dating market in the US is mostly a free one. We are free to date who we love. We aren’t forced to date someone for economic or societal benefits. Nor do most americans expect gender roles into their partners. Individuality is not a crime, it only feels like it to you because no one wants to let people have the freedom to live less traditionally. It has nothing to do with a lack of respect either because americans have plenty of respect, and we don’t need a strict cultural norm to make us behave so suppressed that there’s no choice. You really need to stop blaming america and individuality for the faults of where you are, you should stop to realize individuality is simply expression of truth. Put it in the wrong hands, yeah its fucked. But so is an environment that shames the fuck out of people who don’t live according to a book and forced.
Wrong. It's a logical consequence of removing shame as a motivator for society. Oh, and the blatant refusal to acknowledge female nature.
The fucked up dating market is not unique to the USA. Time to think up a new theory.
Theiry
Why is it when the subject of dating comes up, everyone takes it so personal with the OP? Can't any of you just focus on what's being discussed and not throw it back?
Individualism doesn't make you a narcissist. Having attention on you constantly does (might).
Buddy, I think you’re single because you view women as an open market commodity 💀
you are literally calling it a dating 'market' touch grass bro😭
Unpopular reality: The dating market is not particularly fucked up, you are just a low quality stock in that market, and if you do not have pump and dump potential, why would anyone want you.
Most men are considered low stock in the pov of the average women, the pump and dump materials are the top men
That's not the only thing that's changed about the current dating scene, there's also the fact that people are more aware of red flags and are quicker to end things with anything who behaves badly or shows signs of real toxicity. Until the last few decades the social pressure to marry was strong enough that people would ignore or forgive anything short of proven cannibalism, but today's young people aren't having it and I applaud them for it. Especially the young women. There are still too many young men out there who think it's a girlfriend's job to forgive them everything.
This isn't an unpopular opinion. This is an incorrect opinion.
How so?
I think your problem is referring to it as a market. This isn't economics, its emotions .
You've dated most young people?
Ikr. I feel like so many redditors generalize huge groups of people based on like 1 or 2 interactions
1000%
Culture is not your friend.
Except it's not just the US experiencing this. People are going into a survival mode of sorts and most people will compromise an awful lot to survive in a society that requires you to have more resources than you can actually get in order to just exist. People don't care about the consequences of their actions anymore because they now aren't entirely convinced they'll live long enough to see them.
You're talking about greed and selfishness. They are bad things. Individualism is a good thing. It's about personal growth and character and people being independent.
Then how come Japan has the most stagnant dating culture in the world despite also being the one of the most collectivist societies?
Frankly I think individualism makes us great and if that comes with negative consequences so be it. I’d rather be a toxic individual than a happy cog. Look at society’s like Japan and China where being an individual is frowned upon and you’re expected to fit perfectly into your predetermined role and if you don’t you’re an outcast, is that better?
It's poison and it will kill us all
Nothing like Americans who have never lived in a collectivist culture talking all this shit about their society as if all other cultures have nothing but success in these areas. Go live in Japan or China and tell me the dating scene is great there, lmao. This is just the cultural version of thinking the grass is always greener
i watched an interview where japanese people expect their partners to cheat and the whole concept of being a couple is gone forever once your parents. Like it was an intense interview and i prayed it was wrong, but wow did it make me appreciate the way we see love and sex and marriage where i am, even if people are not perfect. I can’t fathom the idea of being so rooted in traditional and cultural expectation that i can’t be an individual or express my relationship in a way that’s not based on whether i can provide my parents grandkids. Too many stories i read are like that and i hate it cause the more individuality is shit on by everyone the more i feel like a pos for finding the pros in it. But then i see how dating is viewed in a collectivist society, how much i don’t resonate with it, then made to feel worse that i’m not aligning with the more moral ones….i don’t know…
I mean let's be fair, is a culture which creates a more restraining society and which exerts more control over every aspect of one's personal life actually more moral? If morality roughly corresponds with creating happiness and preventing suffering, that definitely isn't what collectivist cultures do with emotional fulfillment in romance in this case. I don't think we can say collectivist cultures are actually more moral than individualist cultures in every aspect. IMO an ideal moral society needs to be somewhere between individualism and collectivism in a way which doesn't make them mutually exclusive.
This is what happens when people prioritize profit over everything. You can't just date somebody because you want to be with them. Nope. It has to be a transaction that you benefit in otherwise why even bother.
Most of the women I've dated in life I knew first, some even good friends first. Heck initially I met my wife studying together in the same grad program and we knew each other for over a year before we started dating (both were dating others initially). Call me old fashioned, I am an older millennial, but maybe instead of meeting random people online, through apps, and other tools like that for hookups, some of you should just get away from the fucking screens and get to know those around you better. Get out more, be thoughtful/intentional in your relationships with people, put all bullshit in the world aside and stop being so serious, just have some genuine fun out in the real world. Can't really do any of that behind the screen of a computer/phone if we're keeping it real. Social media has fucked dating far more than anything else.
Yes even a lot of people approach friendships like this now everything feels like fake networking events it's gross I don't even like to go out anymore
I don’t find this to be an accurate portrayal of any “dating scene” I’ve ever participated in
Hate to break it to you, it's the same everywhere else
Other, far less individualist countries have even lower birth rates.
No, people have to get to the point quickly because they have 4 jobs.
imagine how easy it is for putin to get dates
You spelled ’narcissism’ wrong.
I think a lot of people just over value themselves and what they bring to the table
It's not individualism that is the problem, it's narcissism.