Excellent men much rarer than women?

September 8, 2017 7:16 AM

As a youngish (30) woman wanting to date men, I can't help feeling that there are far more dateable women than men. Far more women seem to be compassionate, literate, articulate, cultured, interesting and thoughtful than do men. Is this real?

Or could it just be that by this age almost all the interesting men are taken? It makes me so sad to feel this way, but I feel like I'm in competition with many fabulous women for very few men I'd be interested enough to date. I sometimes encounter interesting men but they're in relationships.
I'd only ever date an emotionally-intelligent feminist, and, well, I do I prefer people who like fiction (sci-fi doesn't count), although that isn't essential.
(I live in London.)

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (22 answers total)

You're not wrong. I was looking up OKcupid profiles for my guy friend, and without looking at the pictures, just the descriptive stuff, it felt like they were way better matches than when I browse for men.

Side issue: I wish I were a lesbian as it would be far easier to find someone compatible.
posted by thesockpuppet at 7:21 AM on September 8, 2017

People inclined to say it's so much easier to be a lesbian: I understand why you might think that and I don't envy you wanting men.

But maybe think it through for a second. We're working with at best 1-10% of the population of women. If we don't "look gay" and/or we're not in a major city in a country where being gay is accepted, we have to find some way to find that tiny percentage of women, without endangering ourselves in the process.

Then once you do, what percentage of them do you think will be the right age and compatible? Lots of women are assholes too, or just not right for you.

I know this is a sidetrack and I have nothing but sympathy for women who have to deal with straight men, but can we not with the lesbians have it easy stuff? Being a lesbian is lonely as fuck. "Lesbian loneliness" is an understood and relatable concept.
posted by bizarrenacle at 7:30 AM on September 8, 2017 [15 favorites]

It's sad, I like to think that people are good, but I have found it very hard to date anyone at all. Good people are hard to find. I am happy to date across the gender spectrum and have just found very few people at all, of any gender, that I "click" with. Cis straight men have a certain specific set of issues with which I am very familiar, but that doesn't mean that women don't also have their own issues (or an identifiable set of issues).

The truth is that women are on the whole better at emotional labor than men as a general rule, but I know many married men who are good at it and I know many women who are terrible at it. I would encourage you to try to stop looking at gender as a factor, because it's a social construct anyhow and the general is not the specific.

Oh also, I would encourage you to really work to visualize what your perfect life looks like without a partner in it, and then work to build that life. The only certainty we have is ourselves anyhow. My life got better by leaps and bounds when I decided to do this. Best of luck.
posted by sockermom at 7:37 AM on September 8, 2017 [6 favorites]

I wish I didn't have to agree with your takeaway, but based on my experience, I have to (I'm 29).
It's very discouraging.
posted by Nieshka at 7:38 AM on September 8, 2017

I suspect that excellent men who want a relationship are less likely to be single than excellent women, and that when they become single they are likely to meet someone new relatively quickly.
posted by bunderful at 7:38 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

In my own experience, I don't think this is true. Maybe you should try moving to San Francisco. :)
posted by pinochiette at 7:39 AM on September 8, 2017

I know many wonderful single women who are smart, educated, self-sufficient and caring. I frequently hear other people say the same thing. I can't think of ever hearing anyone say "I know so many single men who are educated, caring people - why aren't there some smart and thoughtful women out there for them?"

Maybe it's related to the fact that women are more likely to attend college?
posted by bunderful at 7:42 AM on September 8, 2017

You might find it interesting that this is exactly what my friends and I were saying when I was in my 30s in the late 1980s, that there seemed to be no end of intelligent, thoughtful, interesting women, but men with those qualities were hard to find - or at least we weren't finding them. The fact that we were in graduate school at the time makes me think it was not about women being more likely to attend college - at least for us.
posted by FencingGal at 7:44 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

It's real and very hard. Dear Sugar did a 3-part series exploring this issue that I did find helpful.
posted by veery at 7:46 AM on September 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

It's true. And that's because gender equality is still in the works. Women have taken great strides and many have financial independence and ambition. Men haven't had to do anything do catch up because everything has been handed to them. Like, 100 years ago women weren't even working and making their own money, so we basically had no choice but to be with guys in order to survive. All a guy had to do to be with a woman, was basically to exist and maybe have a job of some sort.

Nowadays that has shifted somewhat, but lame-ass losers still haven't had to really work hard or better themselves in order to attract women because our standards are so low and have been for literally centuries.

I recommend the book Communion by bell hooks on how to imagine Love in your life in a way that isn't dependent on misogynistic, backwards-ass morons.
posted by winterportage at 7:48 AM on September 8, 2017 [9 favorites]

In my experience it is true, and I think the modern social-media dating scene really has opened my eyes to how little *effort* men are taught to (or inclined to) put into making themselves a desirable partner.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 7:49 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

If we use "college-educated" as a broad signifier for literate, cultural, and liberal-minded (in the US sense of the word), then yes, there are fewer college-educated men in the millennial cohort than there are college-educated women.
posted by muddgirl at 7:50 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

I wonder if this observation is somehow biased by the OKCupidness of it all - women are much more accustomed to the whole "you must present yourself super well and go the extra mile to be likable and attractive or you are basically worthless" patriarchy thing, so they are more likely to have better profiles, photos, etc. Also women tend to have friend groups which assist with photo-taking and profile-writing, etc, while I think a lot of men don't. Also, I think men are socialized to feel that it's not only unneeded but actively unmanly to try to come across as attractive, kind etc.

I feel like scientists tend to be good value for money on this front. This is a serious observation, by the way - many years of moving between various social groups suggests to me that the sciences (not people working in programming like for Google or whatever), especially historically left fields (social sciences, field sciences in general) tend to be fuller than other social circles of suitable people of all genders.

Also, I notice that lower middle/upper working class men tend to be...underrated? Or at least, over the years, when I've thought, "this is a swell straight fellow who is obvious marriage material, why doesn't he ever get a date", he's more likely to be a skilled working class guy, the kind of person who does back office work, internal customer service, etc, but does not have a classically "male" job and is never going to make a ton of money or become a professional. I'm not sure how this fits with OKCupid, but I feel like there's some kind of class/money/gender/social group angle on this. Like, I know a bunch of guys like that, and I'm constantly surprised that they're single - financially stable though not rich, can take care of themselves, decent-to-good gender politics, etc.
posted by Frowner at 7:53 AM on September 8, 2017 [11 favorites]

I know a lot of emotionally intelligent, compassionate men that are feminists and smart and funny and single in their 30s.

But they only read sci-fi and fantasy, so no good for you I guess.

My point is: it's fine to have standards, and I get that a lot of bro culture is idiotic celebration of the man-child. But if you're ruling out guys because of what they read, then you have to kind of own the fact that you are rejecting plenty of good partners.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:54 AM on September 8, 2017 [11 favorites]

Seconding Dressed to Kill and winterportage. Basically, the whole emotional labour thread.

As for this: In my own experience, I don't think this is true. Maybe you should try moving to San Francisco. :) A (male) friend of mine once said about the Bay Area, of which there are more men than women: The odds are good, but the goods are odd. (See also all the recent techbro/sexism stories coming out of the area.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 7:55 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Bizarrenacle is 100% correct. It's cool to bemoan the state of your love life and note that many women are awesome, but I've spent most of my adult life alone because finding other queer women who were out, comfortable with themselves, up for dating women, and in any way compatible with me has been next to impossible, and a lot of my lesbian friends are in similar situations. This is not even to count the number of times women have dumped me for men because being with someone socially acceptable was their highest priority.

Please, please don't go around saying how great it would be to be a lesbian because women are so nice. It minimizes what queer women go through living in a world that doesn't accept or value us.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:58 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

What? No.

I'm not sure what makes a man okay to have a relationship with in your eyes, or the eyes of many who are commenting here. I find men to generally be much easier to deal with -- kind of uncomplicated, I guess. The few friends I have are men. (I am a woman.) But I hate to generalize, one way or the other. What's with this broad generalizing about billions of humans?

I feel like there's some kind of class/money/gender/social group angle on this.

Yes to this, also.
posted by Vispa Teresa at 7:58 AM on September 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

On the other hand, as a bi man with a lot of male coded interests, it's a lot easier to find nice, caring guys to to date than it is to find women. And I think a good part of that is selection - I have a lot of male friends who share interests with and who are generally on the same wavelength as me, so people I meet through them are also more likely to be male, and on the same wavelength as me. Whereas online dating I can choose what balance of genders to message, but hoo boy is online dating kind of a mess.
posted by Zalzidrax at 8:00 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

On one hand, statistics agree with you. On the other, as a uni professor I know more than a few very interesting, handsome and dependable young men who have had difficulties finding partners until they were in their 30's, and when I was younger I couldn't see that type of mens' value. Men who are intelligent, but who don't take the straight career path, who are handsome, but can't find their way with clothes and style right away, who want a lasting relationship, but are confused by the sexualization of relations. There's more, but my advice would be to be open to a wider range of people and sensitive to their qualities. I wish I had back then.
posted by mumimor at 8:08 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

It's absolutely my experience.

Part of it I think has to do with changing expectations of what makes a good male and female partner. It used to be a man who didn't beat you, and was a decent provider, was a good catch. Ideals of what men need to bring to a relationship are much more demanding now, whereas the "guidelines" for wives (be supportive, loving, attractive, do whatever needs doing) haven't changed much. Women have always done the emotional labor. It wasn't til recently that men were asked to share it.

At the same time, all kinds of cultural elements have emerged that have a bad effect on the educated-male population. Example -- the other day I re-watched the movie Big, from the 80s. There's a scene where the woman sees the apartment of the 13-year old boy who is living in a grown man's body. His apartment is full of video games and giant toys and action figures, and it's supposed to be bizarre and funny. The impact of the scene is COMPLETELY different now than it was in the 80s. I live in Silicon Valley and there's nothing at all unusual about a wealthy man living alone in a fancy place full of oversize toys who would rather play video games than have sex with a woman. Plenty of men here are smart and solvent and successful and absolutely not interested in romantic partnership in a form that women would recognize.

Anyway, you're not imagining it.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:10 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

Yes, we're all clods.
posted by AugustWest at 8:10 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think educated women are more likely to seek out an educated man, while educated men don't necessarily care as much about having an educated partner.

A lot of men I see on OKC don't bother to fill out a profile and then message me something like "hi." Which I feel puts the burden on me on me to make that into a real conversation. And I'm not likely to do that for a blank or vague profile. Sometimes there's probably a perfectly decent human behind that profile but if he doesn't understand why some information about his interests and values might be helpful ... I'm already pissed the hell off.
posted by bunderful at 8:15 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]