I found this interesting:

[An] experiment with Tinder that claimed that that “the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men.”

A couple of years back I saw another analysis of one of the big dating sites which showed that most men considered something like 70% of the women to be attractive enough to date, whereas most women saw only 20% of the men the same way. The two studies suggest women who go on dating sites are unrealistically fussy, especially considering they’re on a dating site in the first place. Men, being men, appear to be more open to compromise on looks if it means getting laid and (possibly) having a relationship. None of this will be new to those of us who are over thirty and walk around with our eyes open.

The trouble is, I’m not sure women quite understand the dynamics of dating sites, which the statistics above confirm. I recently had occasion to watch a couple of young women swiping away on one of the dating apps, and they got all giddy over a dashingly handsome young Italian complete with a tailored suit and designer stubble. I expect they imagined the possibility of a romantic relationship, but what I saw was a chap who’s probably having a whale of a time ploughing through those 78% of women dumb enough to think he’s boyfriend material. Unfortunately, anyone who didn’t match this guy’s looks got immediately discarded. What’s even more unfortunate is one of the girls was about hot enough to attract a guy like that. I suspect this has always been a problem for pretty girls, but it’s likely to be accentuated in the era of dating apps: they’ll attract the attention of the best looking guys, who will find them average rather than special and have few qualms about ditching them in favour of the next one. While many women talk about their disappointment with dating apps, I’d imagine for good looking women it’s a rollercoaster of flattery followed by inexplicable rejection.

I’m not sure even those who run dating apps quite know what’s going on, or if they do they pretend they don’t. One of the biggest problems is men who sit there all day carpet bombing women with “hi how r u sexy?” messages or dick pics. Any woman will tell you that within weeks of joining a dating site in London or Paris, her inbox is full of vulgar messages written in atrocious English from manual labourers in Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Tinder attempted to deal with this by limiting “swipe-rights” to 100 per day, or something. Bumble took it one step further and made it such that only women could initiate a conversation, but as the statistics above show, all that does is fill up the inboxes of the top 20% of men while the other 80% wait in vain for the slightest interest, unable to chance their arm even with the biggest hound on the whole platform. In other words, they’ve sold rejection to the already rejected. The simple solution is to restrict men to initiating two or three contacts per day, but the business model is to get men using it for hours at a time and pestering them with ads, so they’re not going to do that. But if they were serious about hooking people up, which they’re not, that’s what they’d do.

I also get the impression women like their inboxes full of unsuitable proposals because it gives them an excuse for not making an effort. Every woman I’ve spoken to about her experience on dating sites says “Oh, I don’t have time, I get so many messages I can’t be bothered to go through them all.” From what I’ve read on blogs which cover this stuff, the sort of women who go on dating sites have a habit of not responding to genuine proposals for days or weeks, and only then grudgingly agreeing to a date because their days are crammed full of work, weekend breaks, yoga sessions, or after work drinks with the girls. One of the most peculiar aspects of modern dating is middle aged, professional women citing as a priority their desire to find a lifetime partner, but refusing to make the slightest effort to find and accommodate one. If women joined dating sites and found one or two serious, well-written introductions dropping into their inbox each week, they might be forced to accept their reasons for not responding were shallow indeed. Better to hide behind the avalanche of dick picks and conclude they’re above all that. By contrast, even the most eligible, suitable men who fall outside the top 20% must spend considerable effort writing thoughtful introductions only to receive a response once in every fifty or hundred attempts (I’m not exaggerating here).

If we are to believe dating sites aren’t the best way of showcasing your suitability as a mate, let alone finding one, the problem is compounded by the fact that most people below a certain age don’t know any other way. A few weeks ago on the recommendation of William of Ockham I listened to a Spectator Radio podcast which discussed the impact dating apps are having, and they speculated that da yoof spend all their time building online personalities at the expense of those they display in real life. This not only makes them reluctant to meet people in the flesh, but also pretty useless when they do, i.e. they have no idea how to flirt and interact romantically in the offline world. I can’t claim to understand the younger generation but I do meet a few of them these days, and I occasionally wonder if they put as much effort into developing communication skills and an interesting personality as they do their Instagram feeds, they may not need dating apps at all. One of the more amusing aspects of this era is when you hear a couple say they met in real life and they make it sound like a freak occurrence. Unfortunately, you more often hear a girl say she met her last five boyfriends on Tinder, without any idea of what she ought to deduce from that statement.

Me, I’m kinda glad I was born in 1977.

Back in 2015 The Federalist ran an article by a Sara Burrows on her new-found polyamorous lifestyle. Titled Polyamory Is Next, And I’m One Reason Why, we learned:

Four years into our relationship, we found ourselves in the typical rut of co-dependence, resentment, boredom, and fighting over the grocery bill. We’d had an unplanned baby, I’d quit my job to do attachment parenting full-time, and Brad was working long hours in a dungeon of a warehouse. I was stuck at home washing dishes, folding laundry and talking to a two-year-old, bored out of my mind. If we didn’t have anything to fight about, we’d find something, just to make life a little more interesting.

People who complain of a dull life rarely consider that they, not their circumstances, are the problem.

I had freed myself from the grips of government, religion, and parents.

As everyone knows, self-fulfillment is dependent on external forces and cannot be derived from within.

Enter polyamory. Polyamory means “many loves.” It is the practice of engaging in several emotionally and possibly sexually intimate relationships simultaneously, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

If polyamory is the answer, you’ve not understood the question.

We’re both nervous and don’t know what to expect. I’ve pushed Brad to “go first” in dating and sexually exploring other women. He’s been on two dates so far, and we even arranged a crazy one-night stand to sort of break the ice and test our feelings.

Nothing screams maturity and responsibility like arranging a crazy one-night stand.

Since we’ve discovered polyamory, we don’t care about new houses or new cars or vacations.

As we’ve learned, polyamorists consider themselves on a higher spiritual plane to the rest of us.

We’re actually looking forward to the rest of our lives together now. When we were monogamous, our future seemed pretty mapped out: have a baby, get a better job, buy a house, get a promotion, buy a better car, start our own business, buy a better house, make more money, go on vacation, make more money, buy an even better house… grow old in it together.

All because of being able to shag around? Who knew something so simple could deliver such wide-reaching benefits?

We’ve gotten a lot of warnings and admonitions from well-intentioned friends and family members that we’re going to destroy our relationship and hurt our daughter, but we feel exactly the opposite.

Pah! What do they know?

For us, this is the perfect opportunity to save our relationship, spare our daughter from the heartbreak of a broken family, and give her the blessing of happy parents and extended family.

Quite. There is absolutely no reason to believe psychological issues such as loneliness, boredom, and detachment can’t be addressed through meaningless sex with strangers.

In her spare time, she blogs about their new journey into polyamory at polyamorydiaries.com.

So let’s have a look at the entry for the 11th January 2019, shall we?

It’s time to set the record straight. Most of this blog is bullshit.

Oh.

I was no longer in love with the father of my child/partner of 4 years, and he was clearly not in love with me.

The newfangled concept of “polyamory” was just a trendy excuse to play the field and see if I could find any better offers.

As many have observed, polyamory is often used as cover for people who lack the courage to get divorced.

Either I’d find someone who’d love me better… or Brad, out of fear of losing me, would shape up and start meeting my needs for emotional and sexual intimacy. Either way, I win, I thought.

But my subconscious plan backfired.

The only thing missing from a plan this bad is an appearance by Roadrunner at the end.

I didn’t find a man who loved me more than Brad did, I just found a man who was more excited to put his penis in my vagina because I was novel and he’d gone without sex a lot longer than Brad had.

This is someone who, in a fit of childish pique, bragged of throwing off the shackles of family and religion. She’s now learned the hard way what her granny could have told her aged 16.

I was “in love” in a way, but it was the kind of love you fall into, like a trap, not the kind of love that you rise into, that has the potential to last and grow.

Is she a grown woman, or a high-schooler lamenting a one-night stand with the captain of the football team?

Because I couldn’t empathize with Brad’s pain over this betrayal, because I couldn’t even fathom it, he subconsciously set out to teach me a lesson.

Subconsciously?

He had to make me feel the pain he’d felt firsthand, so I could know it. So I could have sympathy and compassion for what I put him through.

So he went out and fell just as hard in love as I had, and rubbed it right in my face, until my soul was bloody and bruised and begging him to stop.

This doesn’t sound very subconscious.

Someway, somehow, we made it through the  two most awful experiences of our lives, and came out a million times stronger on the other side.

Maybe you’ll want to hold off on the grand pronouncements for a while, eh?

I think society should encourage and celebrate sexual freedom and exploration among teenagers.

I think because society does not do this, and instead represses our sexuality, we wander around still starving for that kind of passion as adults.

Someone whose life is an utter trainwreck thinks society should encourage teenagers to be more promiscuous? Should we ask the drunk sleeping under the railway bridge what he thinks of trade tariffs while we’re at it?

Now you’re caught between a rock and a hard place.

You’re in love with two people.

By now, they are both jealous of your affection and wanting you to choose.

Apparently this is a drawback of polyamory. Who would have guessed?

But you have more history, trust and deeper friendship with the old partner, not to mention a child or two.

Ah yes, the children. Let’s include them in a flippant afterthought.

As Osho says, it is the one we develop a spiritual friendship with who becomes our lasting soulmate.

As I’ve noted before, there’s a peculiar habit of modern, western women to loudly declare they’re rejecting Christianity before plunging headlong into the nearest weirdo cult.

The good news is there can be healing and deeper intimacy on the other side. Brad and I have been more in love in the last 6 months of monogamy than in our entire 8 years before that,

There’s nothing like 8 years of meaningless sex with a succession of insincere strangers to shore up a failing marriage.

and I KNOW it’s only going to get better from here.

Presumably on the grounds things can’t get a whole lot worse.

I don’t know if he’s 100% there yet, but I dream of the day Osho talks about, when we rise so high in love with each other that everyone else disappears.

She’s mentioned Osho 3 times, whereas all she says about her child is:

The sad part about option B is that children’s hearts are often needlessly torn apart along with their parents.

Which is why mature, responsible, functioning adults don’t engage in polyamory. From start to finish, this entire story can be condensed to “me me me”. Everyone else’s concerns are just a side-issue, to be ignored or reclaimed as necessary at her own convenience. And in case anyone thinks such selfishness is limited to female practitioners of polyamory, here’s a post on Reddit:

I’m a 34 year old man who is married to a 33 year old woman and we have a 13 year old boy. I recently went poly with an 18 year old girl, primarily for sex, but we have become increasingly close and she will be moving in soon. My son is very close to his mom, my wife, and I’m not sure how he will react to this. How can I introduce my girlfriend to my son?

What’s the betting this 18 year old has severe mental problems, possibly caused by an absent father and/or sexual abuse at the hands of an adult? Remember people, polyamorists are perfectly normal, just like you and me.

(Burrows story via Michael Story and several readers on Twitter. Reddit post via Robert Mariani.)