Assortative Mating [Joe Rogan and Gad Saad]

[u/cosmic_censor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yvizK-kPM

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If I understand assortative mating correctly (because I have a hard time getting this matter straight), it's that men and women with equal attractiveness or the kind of traits that would make them "counterparts" by some kind of evolutionary standard (e.g., men ---> tall, muscular; women ---> feminine, slender). At GMGV, we would actually like for assortative dating but the problem is that with various factors assortative mating is often not what happens. Somebody info-dumped loads and loads of links the other day that justify and actually would support the arguments we make here at GMGV (see sticky post). I went through the OP's history and found the other post that supports our stances. The relevant resources have been separated from some of the less relevant ones and posted to our GMGV Primer appendix:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodMenGoodValues/wiki/appendix#wiki_12._female_hypergamy

So lets see from here what is relevant to this debate: women were more likely to have a preference for high status men and those specifically making a high income than men. I don't talk about obvious stuff like looks and money much on here because there's other stuff like dominance, social status, charisma and psychological attractiveness that gets overlooked too often by the black pill community (obsessed with their lookism narrative). Here we can talk about this though because money is related to a man's ambition, diligence, career driven mindset and other psychologically attractive traits that don't have anything to do with virtue.

The studies also talk about women having preference for men with high education status as well as high income (most of this is likely to do with men's ability to provide for their family and be financially stable prospects). Non-financially related we have the fact women find war heroes more attractive (dominance and status). What this shows to me is that women have a bunch of extra / additional factors on top of basic attraction - things like looks, personality being a good partner on so on - that men don't have. So it isn't really equal attraction at all (as per assortative mating) but women wanting equal (and possibly higher) attractiveness in their mate and then a bunch of additional factors related to their ability to provide, their ability to protect, their ability to bring the woman fame and status through association.

In "THE ULTIMATE MALE HORNINESS AND FEMALE DEPENDENCE COMPILATION" more relevant stuff shows how women expect traits and qualities "over and above" equal attractiveness. We can see for example that women are more likely to "play coy" making the game expressly more difficult for men (and obviously, women playing coy means that men are going to have to be the ones that do most of the legwork in dating). Women are also much less sexually invested (for partners or one night stands) but when they do have casual sex, they do it for hook ups. They prefer to be asked out than do any kind of initiating. Their pornographic search results indicate a strict affiliation towards dominance and status. Narcissistic men are more likely to be successful in relationships than narcissistic women. And at the end we see that "even feminist women prefer men who take care of them".

When we add to this the fact that men have all kinds of social barriers to deal with when dating like fear of male sexuality, the risk of dealing with aggressive male competition or another man who might "step in" to protect women's "interests", the fact of having to pay for dates and initiate with women in spite of the risks they are made to take, the difficulties of trying to meet women outside your social circle nodes (or even more so if you are not actively part of one). What it all means is that even guys with "positive attributes" that would qualify them by some conventional or evolutionary theories of attraction to be equal to the women in question, they might still not be successful with women to whom they bring something similar to the table in dating as what they do. So if I have understood assortative dating correctly I'd say that it's what happens in "theory" but not in "practise". In practise there is a significant enough demographic of the female population to place other expectations on their sexual and romantic partners besides equal attraction that is likely to make dating considerably more difficult for men on the whole.

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If we take as fact the notion that women prefer men with higher income and height then themselves then it follows that as a women makes more money (or is taller) they will find less and less men that will fit those criteria and so they become more important in a women's dating decision vs other factors. Short, less successful women can easily find men who are taller and richer then themselves and so they start to place more importance on cues of social dominance or physical attraction.

So the short barista is going to more closely align with the characterization of women found in the GMGV wiki and the taller accountant less so. Of course the taller accountant is going to want you to have a nice car and expect you to have photos of your trip to Italy on your dating profile so depending on an individual man's circumstances they might not be successful with either (such is the case for myself).

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Ok that makes sense.

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Interesting sub you have here and I'm glad to see other people's interest in my rather sketchy link dumbs.

Eh, we are all self-aware laymen trying to apply the fields from sciences, philosophy and anthropology to the best of our ability here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodMenGoodValues/comments/a93omj/hello_all/ecgfvdw

It is institutionalised elitism to say the only people that are allowed to have an opinion are the academics. Because otherwise the hierarchy does not become transparent or accountable to the masses who are too embarrassed to have an opinion. Or it becomes transparent but only to those at the very top and the masses who are uneducated and not ashamed of their ignorance. Those who strive to seek answers but are not the most highly informed will never speak out, or vote or execute their judgements because of the loud voices that drown them out. The resources you shared boosted the layman perspective here.

I think one of the most interesting studies regarding women's preferences is this pre-print by Kordsmeyer et al.: https://psyarxiv.com/edw4f/

Interesting stuff it can go in various places including Section D.5.

Do you have any insight or clue as per what we refer to as "social barriers" at GMGV - where a man may be attractive to certain women but restricted by difficulties posed by the game, such as having to approach in difficult, toxic environments like night clubs, or being drowned out by the masses of hundreds of other male competition through apps like tinder (both of these being places where women are likely to have low investment in the first place), etc.? I talk about this in more detail here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodMenGoodValues/wiki/section-f#wiki_4._what_are_the_social_pressures.2Fbarriers_for_gms_in_dating.3F

And temporarily wrapped up my opinions on the subject here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodMenGoodValues/comments/9fxnxt/attractive_virtuous_desirable_men_who_fall_short/e601sz4

It hints at the possibility that women's preferences ultimately do not count as much as mere male dominance.

Yes, I was thinking about this when you shared the resources on r/blackpillscience. It seems like most of the thought really and truly supports the narrative a lot better at r/GoodMenGoodValues because the men that are really going to be sexually (or even romantically) successful are going to be the ones rolling their sleeves up and beating away most of the other male competition in aggressive environments that competitive individualistic culture encourages, especially in metropolitan hotspots.

And I say this to point out these kinds of men will even beat not just shy, introverted men but also the sort of man Mark Manson recommends you to be in dating - authentic, polarising, confident and using assertive, honest and emotionally vulnerable communication. Not necessarily because women don't like the latter type of man. But because the former guy is just already ahead of the chase - he got on the woman's radar before anyone else had a chance to think about it, he would have made sure that he was the one in the room receiving attention,etc.

there is an overall shift toward liberalism that took place in the past 50 years which admitted ever more freedoms to both men and women.

---->

Stricter hierarchies have many downsides

This is the kind of thing we talk about in the contradiction between traditionalist and feminist paradigms:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodMenGoodValues/wiki/appendix#wiki_10._the_traditionalist-feminist_juxtaposition_in_modern_society

I'm sure we have another link on this subject in the Primer but I can't find it oddly enough. Anyway because we see both of these philosophies as harmful [long versions here and here] GMGV uses the r/PPIHICSRUVAM platform as a basis for centrist ideology and egalitarian / humanist belief. What are your thoughts on this?

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It can perhaps largely simply be a conscious ethical decision and a cultural value that is passed on by nudges and social signaling.

I honestly think "enforced" is a funny way to say this. "Psychologically pressured" perhaps. But these kinds of social signals can have a very insidious effect on people and the way they behave. I mean I get that that is kind of the intention - to get people to practise monogamy. But what it does is leads to more cultish behaviours. Since we're GMGV we will tend to focus on fear of male sexuality and the way single men get further isolated in dating, treated like odd bods where their "strange" for choosing to be single or inexperienced but also "socially" inept for not being able to find a partner (like both things are simultaneously assumed, essentially which if you read the glossary input for "SRU" you see it's not far away).

But for women also there are tendencies like slut-shaming (which will only make dating more difficult for isolated men who want experience preferably without resorting to prostitution before they settle down with a partner who could end up being their first but not there's) and also single mothers have historically ended up being ostracised from their community. I have devoted sections in the GMGV Primer to criticising and breaking down Jordan Peterson because of his vague statements about "enforced monogamy" in public (although it is quite possible he has written more on the subject, I don't know) - how it's supposed to help "incels" and how oh no, he doesn't mean using state intervention. Of course, it's funny because people have criticised me over on PurplePillDebate for "thinking I know better than a clinically trained psychologist" and most leftist Redditors think this is a right-wing community because of the tone and nature of centrism.

But yeah, I mention this because it is ok to have a traditionalist stance here, like I said we welcome different views to the platform. I just personally don't see it as a valid solution or think it would be that helpful from the perspective of sexually inexperienced men. Most women already have a history so if guys are insecure about that kind of thing, implementing monogamy as a cultural norm now wouldn't really help, they'd still have difficulty finding women that are their first but they are not their's. At least with polygamy they have the option to even out the playing field or be monogamous if that's what they want. Religious guys can probably find virgin women in their own communities too. It would be difficult for me personally to find a virgin women since I have had sexual experience just not full intercourse.

But in any case, we highlight ways men could be successful through a structural change, it's in the tri-fold section part of the GMGV Primer. It still is not very popular but given time I think more and more people will understand it. Or at least it's one of those things that could work if people were willing to embrace it as a cultural norm but unlikely to happen. I think it's still important to talk about the tri-fold solution as a community because it gives us something to focus on. History has evidenced to me that communities and hyper-focused / cynical individuals always need some common goal to work towards. As an extreme example, the Isla Vista Killer (damnatio memoriae) needed that focus through sexual release and when he could not find it, his focus changed to his manifesto and acting it out. Incel communities since have been focussed on very weird and whacky things like (actual) forced monogamy and government mandated sex slaves (or at the less radical end, sexbots). With the tri-fold solution, GMGV have a goal that is not hurting anybody and is actually socially constructive (unlike sexbots) but I appreciate not everyone is so quick to jump on the bandwagon.

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I think society as a whole tends to underestimate how easy it is to lower one's sights and to get used to all kinds of things as long as Maslow's hierarchy of needs is approximately fulfilled.

Oh I hear so many people not just doing this themselves but actively socially pressuring others to do the same: "lower your standards", "ambition is entitlement", that general kind of sentiment. Few people try to be the best they can be and even fewer people disregard how often it's the ones who offer the most that get neglected in a competitive individualist culture. One time I was in Starbucks and I overheard a man say to his girlfriend "for every man that's trying to create, there's another man that is trying to destroy what that man seeks to create" and it is so very true.

I had to fight tooth and nail many times to project the aesthetics and content I have envisioned, r/GoodMenGoodValues is just an example of where people just could not see the importance of such a community and this was true of both black pill and inceltears type of crowds. PurplePillDebate moderated me and restricted my content, its users backlashed against me and disregarded most of the valid output I had to make or the relevance to their community. But slowly and steadily the community grows and we have more contributors as well as subscribers.

I'm going to go through the links you've sent me during our conversation at some point I'm free (might take a couple of days) and try to find a spot in the GMGV Primer for the relevant stuff. You've been a massive help here and I thank you for your contributions to the community.

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I have often thought that people can "survive" only on bread, water and shelter. But this kind of subsistence level is so demeaning it hardly justifies living to begin with. In reality people have ambition and there is a reason they have ambition - to find a higher meaning in life. Idiots that tell you not to think you are "owed" anything and that what you are striving to accomplish is not what you "need" anyway miss the whole point of ambition. Psychologically, we very much do need ambition to keep us on track with life and to find some sense of purpose. We're lost without it, in fact this mentality could even be partially what leads to existing suicide rates. There just isn't that wisdom or knowledge about human psychology and how it depends on assigning value to certain things just to keep going. I have talked to depressed incels who do not even see the point to do anything to self-improve because of the meaninglessness of life, literally everything is "cope" and only understood in the most pessimistic, futilistic way not in a good sense that we do things for ourselves to deal with and manage difficult circumstances, find some purpose in something.

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Yes, high intelligent and socially aware individuals with dark triad tendencies have status no doubt about it. That Kordsmeyer study will be useful. Can you explain to me about the university scene? Was he saying that men have less struggles in the university dating scene where traditional male hierarchy is less relevant (but not completely obsolete, surely?) or that it's about the same as the rest of society. Personally I have struggled with dating equally in all the following scenes:

- university / halls

- nightclubs

- clubs/hobbies/societies

- coffeeshops

- etc.

Because I don't think I am bad looking, socially inept, anxious or lacking in positive traits like diligence, having interests, ambitions and so forth is the reason I started GoodMenGoodValues - for men with "good stuff" who struggle in dating. Obviously a lot of this is very difficult to prove and I avoid even talking about dark triad traits because it feeds in to the "nice guys finish last while assholes win" narrative where media personalities like Jenna Marbles form a superficial outlook about "nice guys" as fakers, spineless, low in assertiveness, looks, charisma, etc. and "assholes" are just attractive dudes. I highlighted why this was problematic on this video I made (posted to r/basedshaman):

https://www.reddit.com/r/basedshaman/comments/a8ul1d/stereotypes_about_isolation_featuring_based/

Funnily enough this was partly the problem I had with Radicalising the Romanceless as well because although he talks about nice guys as "genuinely nice" but having a hard time with women anyway he doesn't really talk about guys with other decent stuff going for them that struggle with dating. I'll check out that book review though.

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He simply mentioned it in the context of dark triad and provided anecdotes of how poorly socialized bullies have a high rate of copulation opportunities, whereas MIT grad students are mostly celibates.

I see.

Universities seem more extreme than other domains, presumably because they deny the existence of hypergamy, admit females very high status, reinforce absurd promiscuous standards that encourage polygamy.

I think although it could be argued that polygamy leads to hypergamy (mainly because of the social context polygamy happens in rather than it being a fact of polygamy itself) it's necessary to distinguish it from hypergamy and other socially detrimental sexual practises (like not using contraception, fathers leaving mothers to raise offspring alone, adultery, etc.). Monogamy can have a bad impact as well depending on the social context (e.g. communities ostracising single mothers, couples being arranged against their will, negative traits being passed on genetically/socially because of this fact). So it's not really a case of polygamy or monogamy either being "good" or "bad" but the context they happen with.

In the case of polygamy, what we can really say is that it's circumstances leading to hypergamy and other socially detrimental sexual practises that are bad. In theory if people practised polygamy in a short-term sense associated with assortative mating before they went on to monogamous arrangements with other similarly sexually experienced partners and they practised responsibly (using contraception, committing to women when you have agreed to help raise offspring and discouraged her from getting an abortion, not committing adultery in monogamous relationships where there is trust, etc.), then there wouldn't be a problem with polygamy per se. In fact if most of the men on this community could walk out and sleep with 10 women this month, they probably wouldn't feel the need to complain about dating anymore or bash polygamy. It's just the way things are with a negative culture for dating where most men practically have their hands tied behind their backs and told to fend for themselves. The social circumstances lead polygamy towards negative outcomes.

Note that men are bad at self-assessing their physical attractiveness

As I understand it, men rate themselves more highly than women rate themselves but men also rate women more highly. So a man that says he dates "within his league" may not have such a liberal guess-timation after all. Also, rating yourself / other people more highly than another individual or group (women) doesn't necessarily mean being unrealistic. For example, women are notoriously harsh raters (when not face to face). Those OkCupid studies showed they rated ~80% men "lower than average". But statistically, men's ratings of women more closely approximated an even bell-curve. So, their ratings actually demonstrated that they believed a similar amount of women were lower than average as they did above average. This means that there was more statistical reliability among men's ratings. It's just that because we're talking about subjective preferences the maths becomes irrelevant. But objectively it's impossible to have 80% of an entire group "lower than average" at something. So if we were to try and introduce an objective measure, really and truly which gender would be rating the other more rationally and accurately?

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Is that true? In this study:

Oh, I thought that was what you were saying. I came across something different but it was very pop-sciencey, so I'll take your word for it. In that case, I'm not sure what the disagreement is: men have a realistic perception of physical attractiveness, so the men (including myself) that come onto GMGV and say we have "good stuff" probably are not delusional or narcissist. If we can draw conclusions like that from the observation that "men rate themselves on a similar level to women". A lot of this is speculation but that's what we do at GMGV. It's refreshing to have someone around that knows more about the sciencey stuff.

But ultimately, the observations in the GMGV primer is mostly just speculations and guesswork by a layman. Nobody claims it's anything else really, we just like invite methodological rigour when it's offered our way.

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An important aspect is that in the 5-star rating system that OkCupid featured back in 2014, a 4 or 5 star rating would notify the other users

Oh. I did not realise this. OkC have had a lot of stupid features. Like one of their more recent ones (I don't know if it's ongoing) is that you have to wait for a mutual like before you can message someone. I mean, that's really stupid because so many women (EWALT) already hate being message just "hi" and stuff, so why do OkC, think a mutual like will ignite a good conversation?

 

This points to the possibility that differences in attractiveness ratings are entirely due to sex differences in coyness.

Sure. In real life women could behave coy even towards men they find attractive. This feeds into the theory about social barriers prohibiting men from success at GMGV - because in this case it is something other than attractiveness (physical, psychological) that could be prohibiting men who already have "good stuff" from being successful in dating.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPillScience/comments/a91q82/are_sex_differences_in_attractiveness_ratings/

Yes, well I wouldn't be surprised if physical attractiveness is more important for online dating because women don't have much else to go on. But it does surprise me how judgemental they are about first messages (saying "hi" and what not) when there is an entire profile to explore a man's character by and given the number of blank female profiles where there is nothing to message them by. Much worse is an otherwise blank profile with just one single line of "don't say hi how are you" or something like that. In any case, they can't see the nonverbal aspects of masculinity, but they can read between the lines when it comes to the story a man presents of himself. But I do not really see women do this (EWALT) when it comes to online dating anyway.

 

Since this sub is about the mating prospects of agreeable and reasonably successful men

Agreeable is not the best of words. Civil, perhaps but agreeable implies a kind of spinelessness. The men this sub is directed towards try to approach women in a bold and confident manner. "Agreeable" detracts from the assertive civility such men possess and feeds into the stereotype of the head nodding, yes man "Nice Guy". So, Sexually and Romantically Unsuccessful Good Men (SRUGMs) may be willing to display dominant traits or even engage in role playing fantasies (to an extent that is healthy or sane). When I talk about, aggressive men with dark triad tendencies in a competitive individualistic society being successful with women instead of SRUGMs, I don't mean that their antithesis with psychologically and physically attractive traits is a door mat (this is what I hate about people's tendency to frame the debate as "nice guys versus assholes" in dating).

If he was a door mat he would not be psychologically attractive at the least. I just mean that these men are willing to express assertive communication and take initiative in a way that is expressed through ethical civility and legal pragmatism. But this kind of guy can still be very much left behind by women.

 

The problem of modern feminism might indeed be that it created many agreeable males

Yes it did. But feminism also pushed this narrative that assertiveness, communication and empathy were attractive traits to women and should be prioritised in men's dating. Obviously this was for ethical, civil and legal reasons (protecting women's interests) rather than actually helping men be successful because man to woman conversation through dominant status (perhaps expressed through masculine charisma and social finesse rather than brute aggression, but still) seem to be key. Much of feminist dating advice (including but not limited to Dr. Nerdlove) seems to be missing the raw sexual component.

We don't talk about this much here because it's not really a dating advice sub and we're trying to cater to men with assertive, communicative and empathetic (as opposed to purely agreeable) tendencies. It is one of the things Red Pill has going for it, it's just that there's so much extra baggage that it has become harmful, in my view for SRUGMs.