The big dating clarification thread:

1. High school warps people for *life* because it doesn't operate like the real world. It's confusing.

High school is the only time in your life where the laws that govern real life don't actually apply.

I'm not sure the precise reasons for this- forced socialization, maybe?

1a. This is why you get to college and girls "discover" that they're hot. It's because they got no validation in HS. This is super common, and is also a trope in a lot of movies/tv. Easy to forget this in the present landscape.

1a cont. I obviously experienced some version of this myself. Ask anyone who knew me in HS, you couldn't pay someone to date me. I probably would not date the same people who rejected me in high school today.

"Well, your standards were too high!"

Except that they weren't. Apex fallacy works in both directions.

Men learn over time they need to readjust their standards or that the women they were capable of attracting in HS aren't the same women they can attract as adults. Some men are just never successful.

2. No argument for me that a big pain point in dating right now is that women are competing for... what? Is it the top 20% or the top 10% of guys?

3. Men either eventually or are presently locked out of the dating market, big thanks to apps, which I view as pornographic...

...in that they incentivize you acting on your most base instincts and you end up throwing people out you would normally have considered had you met in real life.

4. What most the critiques miss is that the caveats to this are: regional and class variations. Yeah, that's right: if you're rich or in New York City things like height aren't going to behave like the same kind of disqualifiers they would in the rest of the country.

5. Dating for women *can* be hard, and this extends beyond the "competing for the top men" thing.

Dating friction happens on the basis of:
- looks
- class
- geography

And of course, everyone's favorite:
- age

6. If this wasn't true, there wouldn't be a cottage industry dedicated to comforting women about their dating failures. Trust me, if women thought they could get any man at any time, or even *a* man at any time, they would use that. It's not action oriented because

women preferred to be listened to. Whereas men are more likely to fall for PUA-style gurus because they want actionable advice.

7. Whenever you tell an undatable woman she's probably ignoring tons of viable options,

I challenge you to consider who you're not considering. The mythical balding 5'2" janitor of incel lore could always ask the obese femcel on a date. The fact of the matter is the bottom isn't matching with one another because they're both undesirable.