The Future of Dating…

The fact that dating is terrible happens to currently be the world’s worst kept secret. The reasons for this are many, but much of it comes down to the persistence of social conventions clashing with progress.

The principal of ‘hypergamy’ describes women’s desire to ‘date up’ and pair with men who earn or produce more than them.

This makes complete sense from an evolutionary perspective, since women are the ones who carry children, and the cost of pairing with a low quality man is very high. For much of history, women had few rights and the result was an imperative for them to pair with a husband so they had the potential for a prosperous life.

As women gained rights and advanced in the workplace, the requirement to pair with a man for a prosperous life has been lifted. Unfortunately, this has made it far more difficult for these successful women to pair with a romantic partner due to hypergamy, or the desire to date up.

What we are left with is a comparatively small number of men who meet the ‘desirability threshold’ for most women.

Is The Age of Monogamy Over?

The current dating phenomenon where a small number of men are most strongly desired begs a question for the men in this cohort. What is the benefit to them from monogamy?

To unpack this, I think it’s necessary to dig into the shadow side of traditional monogamous relationships, in that they are inherently possessive.

Possessive Relationships Become Toxic

The implied agreement of a monogamous relationship is that each partner ‘belongs’ to the other person. This implies an agreement that decisions will be made together and that neither person will pursue sexual relations outside of the relationship.

The problem comes when this turns into the belief that any needs not met by the relationship just need to go unmet. The result ends of being a situation where people pretend to be happy when they are secretly carrying the weight of unmet social/personal/sexual needs that they cannot addressed due to being ‘trapped’ in the relationship.

Because of this, it makes sense to be picky when entering an exclusive relationship…

Women Have a Right to Their Standards

With all this said, I don’t think it’s right to tell women what their standards should be.

Each person has the right to live their own best life, and none of us have any business preaching about what that should look like, so long as they are not harming other people.

What all this comes down to is that women have every right to whatever standards they see fit to for selecting partners. (Same thing for men)

What we are left with is a structural mismatch between the standards women hold and the number of men out in the dating pool who meet those standards.

There Aren’t Enough Men To Go Around

The other side of the coin is that for a monogamous social convention to continue with the standards currently in place, it will simply require a greater population of high achieving men than currently exist. To a certain degree, this is an unsolvable problem since there will always be a ‘Top 20%’ of the demographic curve, regardless of how high the average level of achievement grows.

Trigger Alert … The next paragraph is very unconventional

What If Women Agreed to Share Superior Men?

Since we have already identified that there is a major shortage of high achieving, superior men, there are two options that describe the resolution of this disequilibrium.

Option 1: Some women pair with the kind of man they want, and most go unfulfilled and possibly become bitter.
Option 2: The structure of relationships is re-imagined so that more women have the opportunity to engage with a man who is successful, sensitive, confident, self aware and capable.

Currently, the social expectations are fully focused on ‘Option 1’ and have resulted in widespread resentment over the state of dating.

The key question is whether social conventions are adaptable enough for a new paradigm to form?

Women Are Already Sharing Men … They Just Don’t Admit It To Each Other

The tricky part of all this is the fact that the top 10% of men in the dating pool frequently maintain multiple relationships, due to the options they have available to him. This isn’t something that is discussed in polite company very frequently, but it is still the reality.

Intrinsically, I don’t feel that a ‘winner take all’ structure in the world of dating is fundamentally healthy.

However, it is not my place to tell anybody what their standards and desires ‘should’ be. Because of this, it feels to me that we will likely need to think outside of the box to figure out a way for more people to live and love fully.

Final Thoughts

I’m well aware that this article goes against traditional social conventions, but please suspend your reactions for a moment to think about it, then let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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If this story resonated with you, I would truly appreciate buying me a coffee.

Also: They say you can clap up to 50 times. Try it and find out!

Your response is a way of saying “I hear it and I feel it.” 👏😊

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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