So everyone has approximately the same optimal strategy for creating a healthy & stable long-term partnership. But in the process of finding partners, women optimize more for attractiveness, because physical attractiveness matters more as a selection criteria for men, whereas women traditionally are looking more for traits like success and commitment. Is this more correct? I feel like that does address my objection above.
[Edit: from the following quote: “Women who are excellent lovers, girlfriends, and wives presumably pick up these skills in private [...] there is almost a universal pact to prevent any of this from becoming part of mainstream culture.” This quote makes it look like you really did mean that women in relationships also have no info on being good partners, not just during the searching phase. It seems like the only evidence you present is that you couldn’t find any books on how to be a good wife, which do seem to exist, even ignoring that all the best books like Nonviolent Communication are completely gender neutral.]
Some of the problem could just be in how the market is structured. Whenever I’ve gotten lame answers to messages on dating apps (short self-focused responses with no questions in return), my default assumption is not that the women aren’t taught how to have interesting conversations / don’t know how to contribute to starting a relationship, but more that they have many, many matches and I have fewer, so they can afford to be lame conversationalists and only go out with the guys willing to sweat over prolonging a dry conversation.
Something about my model of the situation must be deeply confused, because if both of the charts you include are accurate, I don’t see why women would bother spending time on hair/makeup/whatever. It seems like all >=20th percentile women have an easy enough time getting matches, and if higher attractiveness doesn’t lead to more fulfillment in relationships, why not just not bother too much with that part and then spend more time enjoying whatever matches you do get?
Anyway, thank you for the post and the reply. Apologies if I’m talking past you; something about this topic in particular is making me notice a lot of confusion, and I’m no longer sure to what extent I’m properly moored in your original argument.
So everyone has approximately the same optimal strategy for creating a healthy & stable long-term partnership. But in the process of finding partners, women optimize more for attractiveness, because physical attractiveness matters more as a selection criteria for men, whereas women traditionally are looking more for traits like success and commitment. Is this more correct? I feel like that does address my objection above.
[Edit: from the following quote: “Women who are excellent lovers, girlfriends, and wives presumably pick up these skills in private [...] there is almost a universal pact to prevent any of this from becoming part of mainstream culture.” This quote makes it look like you really did mean that women in relationships also have no info on being good partners, not just during the searching phase. It seems like the only evidence you present is that you couldn’t find any books on how to be a good wife, which do seem to exist, even ignoring that all the best books like Nonviolent Communication are completely gender neutral.]
Some of the problem could just be in how the market is structured. Whenever I’ve gotten lame answers to messages on dating apps (short self-focused responses with no questions in return), my default assumption is not that the women aren’t taught how to have interesting conversations / don’t know how to contribute to starting a relationship, but more that they have many, many matches and I have fewer, so they can afford to be lame conversationalists and only go out with the guys willing to sweat over prolonging a dry conversation.
Something about my model of the situation must be deeply confused, because if both of the charts you include are accurate, I don’t see why women would bother spending time on hair/makeup/whatever. It seems like all >=20th percentile women have an easy enough time getting matches, and if higher attractiveness doesn’t lead to more fulfillment in relationships, why not just not bother too much with that part and then spend more time enjoying whatever matches you do get?
Anyway, thank you for the post and the reply. Apologies if I’m talking past you; something about this topic in particular is making me notice a lot of confusion, and I’m no longer sure to what extent I’m properly moored in your original argument.