And then she’ll fall in love with a 5’6 serious, sweet, timid dude with no money and no Ivy League diploma but honest and kind, and they’ll be enormously happy together with their three children and two dogs.
I’ve seen it a million times.
Signed: a woman who was very certain she’d never date, let alone marry, a Russian guy.
This is dedicated to all the incongruous, unexpected but rock-solid couples.
And then she’ll fall in love with a 5’6 serious, sweet, timid dude with no money and no Ivy League diploma but honest and kind, and they’ll be enormously happy together
Statistically speaking, she won’t. Especially if she is college educated, over 30 and of liberal/leftwing/feminist propensions.
The data available suggests that an increasing number of Wokerized women (close on 40% and growing) in North America will never pair up stably with ANY man throughout their lifetime.
Which, from a purely evolutionary point of view, is the only excellent news in the dismal political landscape in which we currently live.
The data available suggests that an increasing number of Wokerized women (close on 40% and growing) in North America will never pair up stably with ANY man throughout their lifetime.
I’ll add to Avi’s post. Data from apps (which is the primary way that people meet each other these days) show that 90% of the women want to match with 10% of the men. In the past there was a clearing mechanism that would remove these top 10% men from the market, making way for other men; it was called marriage lol. This clearing mechanism was enforced through societal norms and values, but these norms hold no power over people anymore. So these men are incentivized not to get married when they can have sex with unlimited women. This dating market is dysfunctional. The majority of men and women on dating apps are miserable. Men, because the success rate of a regular man matching with a woman is vanishingly small. And women, though they can have sex whenever they want, are not able to convert hookups into anything stable or long-term. The kind of men they want to hook up with will gladly have sex with them but will not commit to anything beyond that.
I keep seeing this and can’t figure out why things are so stuck. To me, it looks like an absolutely fantastic market opportunity for plain women who want to get married, to score a great deal on a second-tier man (who historically would be out of their league), while all the “hot” women are out chasing the same five men who will never marry them.
(shrug)
“The data available suggests that an increasing number of Wokerized women (close on 40% and growing) in North America will never pair up stably with ANY man throughout their lifetime.”
I call “shenanigans.” That’s like saying the data available suggests an increasing number of sprites, leprechauns, and pixies won’t pair up stably with unicorns. “Wokerized (I tried googling the term and only found a couple of deeply angry types on some darkweb chatsite) women” can’t possibly be a measurable way to describe anybody. If you’ve met one person who finds some value in what is still sometimes known as being woke (it’s pretty hopeless to self-identify that way now), then, well, you’ve met one person who find that kind of value. People who think that way don’t constitute an organized group. (This is why drooling saphead James Lindsay fails with his term “woke Marxism”–with one gormless git phrase, he efficiently proves he knows nothing about being woke or about Marxism–of course, I wound up wasting a half hour listening to his flatulent bloviations.)
Oh, well. On a happier note, I met the missus doing improv. Shared interests and all that. Hooray for couples.
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That’s because the plain women are also not looking to get married.
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I am a plain woman and beg to differ.
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I think you’ll also agree that you’ve never wanted anything to do with the normie dating scene, so aren’t exactly characteristical.
What I’m getting at is that you’re right that this wouldn’t be a stable balance if it was as people say, that men are taking advantage of changing society norms to take advantage of women. The fact that it is tells us that the women aren’t really looking to commit either 🙂
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I don’t think such women exist in large or even medium-sized numbers. For a woman sincerely to want bed-hopping for life (or aloneness for life) an enormous amount of trauma must have happened to override everything else. Isolated cases of very wounded people, yes, but a mass phenomenon? I don’t see it.
I think it’s the consumerization of our subjectivity that makes people unable to form a serious connection. They want to but they can’t. Wait for the release of my next book titled “Neoliberal Love”…
I’m kidding but that is the reason why I started to write the book about neoliberal love. It’s a thing, it’s getting very dominant producing slews of lonely, miserable people who, even when they fall in love, have no idea how to be together and not destroy each other.
Well, yeah. The normie dating scene sucks. I have no idea why people do that to themselves.
Pretty much all the younger people I know who are having any success at meeting and marrying appropriate partners are doing so within my religious subculture, which helpfully narrows the pool down to people who mostly share your values, inside a cultural context that still discourages things like cohabiting, and supports/encourages getting married.
If you genuinely change your view of who you want and/or it doesn’t line up with consensus, that’s fine.
Otherwise :NOOOOOOO!
Never let your partner get a whiff that you think they’re “second tier” and you got a “deal”. They’ll think they’re the “placeholder” or you got/gave a “shut up ring/engagement”. Don’t even let people say that about your partner in front of you. Their libido for you would likely die.
It doesn’t matter if the marriage is for social position or money.
Many women would rather be childless cat ladies than be with a man whose ego they’re not genuinely excited to fluff. Because that’s exhausting.
In the only conversation we ever had, my mother-in-law told me I was way too good for her son and I should run away immediately and find somebody who’d deserve me. It was delivered in a very rude manner, right in front of her son. He was devastated. I was shocked because I was used to Jewish and Ukrainian moms who think nobody on the planet is good enough for their kid. Mine still frets that I didn’t manage to land Zelensky because I’m fit to be a president’s wife and anybody else is a downgrade.
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Suit yourself.
I was never gonna marry a prince. I did get the most important things on my list, married a man I find very attractive, and who, weirdly enough, finds me attractive. Neither of us is most people’s idea of a dreamboat. I see no problem with realism here. If you prefer to romanticise… well, you’re not my type. It’s ok 😉 We’re spectrumites and we don’t give a flip about social status or what other people think.
There are “average” hierarchies of attractiveness, and then there are personal hierarchies of attractiveness. In the average hierarchy, the most attractive men are rich, high-status, powerful… you know the whole surgeon/tycoon/vampire trope. But in my personal hierarchy, intelligence and honesty are at the top. It’s not demeaning to recognize that my partner doesn’t rank on the surgeon/tycoon/vampire scale, but ranks very highly on my personal scale. And that is what makes him a good deal: everything that was valuable *to me* but not valuable *in the dating market* generally.
And that should be more broadly applicable: knowing what your own priorities are, and finding the ways in which they differ from “average” priorities in the dating market, should in theory be a great way to optimize value on the things that you value more highly than the average.
I know, I know “but what about feelings?”
Sorry, I haven’t got any. Normies would probably be better off if they held their feelings in lower regard.
I am with you on this. I am plain and nerdy and taller than most men and just all around not most people’s cup of tea, and I’ve always been that. I was never drawn to super good-looking men because I knew they’d never be interested in me anyway given I have a mirror and I’m way too lazy to be high maintenance, and honestly they always seemed like they’d more trouble then they’re worth anyway. I was looking for people I personally found attractive, and it was always a holistic endeavor. Why do you like a painting or song? Who knows? You just do. Same with people. It’s a combination of their looks and their smell (very important!) and their voice and their mannerisms and their interests and their personality.
I really don’t understand these women like the original poster who have all these idiotic superficial requirements regarding abs and height and earnings that pretty much guarantee the guy will be self-absorbed, spending all time at work or at the gym, and cheating on her. Who needs that nonsense?
Right?
Magazine-cover-hot guys were never into me. Why would I want one? And there seems to be some implication that even if my partner and I know perfectly well that neither of us is a cover model, we should continually delude ourselves about it for the sake of romance?
(shrugs)
Maybe it’s a normie thing.
On the other hand, he smells like (censored), and that is way better than chiseled abs any day 😉 Smell’s hooked up more directly to whatever part of the brain governs attraction, anyway. I find it kind of shocking that people focus so hard on looks instead of just… finding excuses to spend a minute in close proximity. A shame that community dancing isn’t a thing anymore. That was a primo setup for getting out, touching hands with all the young people your age, and finding out who you were attracted to, without any commitment or being weird.
olfactory impressions…
Perfumes seem very dubious to me. Why do people think it makes them more attractive? No! It masks your natural smell (no we are not talking about offensive body odors here– basic hygeine still counts), and makes it harder for really compatible people to get a whiff of the real you 😉
Do normal people just not gauge attractiveness by smell? Or they do, but it’s not polite to mention it?
Inquiring minds want to know!
“Do normal people just not gauge attractiveness by smell?”
I think women definitely do (they have a better sense of smell than men); hitting perimenopause just made my sense of smell even more keen, so now family teases me that I’m a bloodhound. 😂
Whether or not a partner smells good to you is apparently a huge indicator of genetic compatibility and the viability of future offspring. When we really like how someone naturally smells, that apparently means our immune systems are complementary and likely to benefit our offspring, so nature makes it so we really want to jump such a person.
Hormonal birth control, especially pills, has been known to suppress this strong and important olfactory response in women, and it’s a bad idea. I’ve heard of more than one couple where the woman in a long-term relationship went off the pill and suddenly the guy didn’t smell right and they ended up breaking up. Apparently, the unappealing smell is nature’s way of saying you’re really not supposed to procreate with that person.
Btw, there’s a guy I dated for a long time before my husband. I was really in love with that dude at a cerebral level, he was smart and charming and cool, but the sex was always only OK, and he never smelled or tasted quite right to me. I am glad I didn’t end up with him for many reasons, but one is that, in hindsight, we might not have been a good genetic match and might not have been able to have kids together.
OTOH my husband has always smelled and tasted absolutely delectable 😋 and no issues with him knocking me up.
The women in my family all have an extraordinarily keen sense of smell– nothing to do with stage of life, but it is 2x worse during pregnancy. If you’re ever trying to track down a minute gas leak, we’re the people for the job.
Back when I was house-sitting, for a house that was on the market, I could tell as soon as I walked in the door, whether or not the realtor had brought someone by to see the house. They could have cleared out hours before, leaving no visible trace, and I could still smell *unfamiliar people have been here*. It was unsettling.
So… it’s never been clear to me if the smell=attraction thing was common, or just a quirk of being one of those hyper-smeller freaks. I’ve seen the studies on histocompatibility and dirty T-shirts (that must’ve been a fun one to engineer), so apparently on some level, women at least *do* use this cue… but it’s not clear to me that they are aware that they are doing it.
Word up to men looking for a hot date, though… don’t wear cologne and do use unscented detergent/soap. It’ll make it easier for women who find you histocompatibly irresistable, to find you.
And yeah, the HBC thing. Sigh. That’s just sad. Our culture made it practically mandatory for women aged 16-30. How badly has that effed up the marriage situation?
I’ve seen many a short man get angry because they take women at their word. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a woman say she’d never date a guy shorter than her, then be doing just that a month or so later.
The worst thing about online dating is people are more likely to enforce these arbitrary standards they’ve developed in their heads.
Self-awareness is rare. People repeat these lists of ideal man/woman characteristics because that’s what is considered specially prestigious. But what actually attracts them has nothing to do with these lists.
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Word. What we’re actually attracted to is a very particular interplay of features that slowly evolves in one’s life, and that should be discovered, rather than written down in a list. As a Romanian-speaking dude would put it when being questioned about being head over heels with some chick that absolutely does not fit The Criteria, ‘yeah but the dick didn’t go to school’.
My husband is a bit shorter than me (about an inch). I’ve dated taller dudes, too.
I have to say, when I was young, it was the short guys who were always taking jabs at me (I’m a giant, I’m not feminine enough, what did I eat to grow so much, how can a woman be this tall it’s abnormal, shit like that), as if my very existence as a tall woman was somehow an affront to them.
Insecurity is a hell of a drug. If my experience is anything to go by, short dudes bring the rejection upon themselves more often than not. To paraphrase a line of dialogue from the movie Social Network: “You think people don’t like you because you’re short (originally: a nerd), but actually they don’t like you because you’re an asshole.”
Yes, I’ve heard many stories from women who dated shorter guys that the guy’s insecurity ended up being too big of a deal.
Without a doubt being short makes heterosexual dating more difficult. But I know many short men with great dating success who never even seem to think about it. I don’t date women so I’m largely an outside observer, but I’ve had multiple women go after me, sometimes in a quite forward way (anyone who was more subtle I didn’t pick up on lol.)
Also, many prior in comments are saying that “everyone” meets through online dating now, but that hasn’t been my experience. Everyone middle class and above does online dating, has no luck irrespective of height, and meets their eventual partner some other way. Working class and below don’t even try anything other than in person. I’m generalizing very broadly, but it’s just not the only way.
I met my husband online, but not looking for a date.
And that seems to be new-normal for the young folks I know, who are all religious. They’re not using dating apps, they’re not “online-dating”. But since the religious community is small and scattered, what they are doing is “online-meeting” in the religious-specific discord chatgroup. There seems to be a lot of weekend travel to attend another church and meet people you’ve been talking to online… and I expect that’s true of more subgroups than mine. Dating within a marriage-encouraging, and also marriage-exclusive (we discourage marrying outside the church) culture… I imagine it’s a bit like dating when you live on a chain of small islands. You’ve got to pick up and go somewhere to meet all the prospects.
I know couples who’ve met on twitter. Personally I’d prefer to date someone who’s less “plugged in” than me though. Would also prefer someone local. Obviously in a situation like yours it makes a lot of sense to turn to the internet.
This is one reason statistics about online dating can be deceiving. Just because people met online doesn’t mean they met through online dating.
Yeah, when you say “online dating” what people think is “Tinder”.
I had a friend from highschool who met and married his wife through eharmony, back when that was a thing: it was a good bet, because it was marketed specifically to Christian singles looking to get married. My husband and I were mutual commenters on each others’ blogs, back in the day– which seems very quaint now but I’m sure some people still manage it.
I don’t think the internet is actually hostile to meeting a longterm partner, but most dating apps are.
Aw, c’mon, some of us actually know what we want.
Even before I met my husband, I knew that if I was going to pair off at all, I needed someone:
-Honest
-Equal or greater intelligence
-Sincerely religious
And bonus points if:
-Tall and skinny (what can I say? It’s my type)
-Large vocabulary
-Curly hair
My husband is all of those things. 15 years and still working out well 🙂 Not everybody is deluded about what they like.
–now that I look at it, that list breaks down neatly into: First three things: prerequisites; *not* being any of those things was a dealbreaker. Before I met my husband, I ghosted a guy after three dates because he said he was Catholic, but only went to church for weddings and funerals. I had previously turned down at least a few guys who asked me out, because they were too dumb. Not disabled-dumb or anything. Just… incurious, and therefore uninteresting. Couldn’t imagine spending a life with such a person. It’d be unspeakably boring… and experience says they wouldn’t like me after a short time, anyway. Men don’t want a woman who is smarter than they are. And: I tend to cut off all contact with people who lie to me in any way shape or form. So obviously not an OK thing in a partner.
The last three items are what I find actively attractive. Which is funny because I met my husband online and talked to him for like a year before I had any idea what he looked like. Just happened to tick all those boxes. Vocabulary, sure. The rest? Total mystery.
“then she’ll fall in love with”
The purpose of wish lists like this and/or people who have ‘types’ is that people who are alone like to imagine what would make them happier.
In the world up until a few years ago, most people end up falling for someone else who might be pretty far from the ideal or their type before they ever come close to finding Mr or Miss Right.
But now… I think the whole aspect of meeting people in the real world (esp through friend groups, small gettogethers, special interest clubs and the like) doesn’t seem to be happening and so a lot of people aren’t ever going to get to know that perfectly acceptable mate who doesn’t tick all their ideal boxes. Hysteria about workplace interactions also closes that traditional road to connections.
It’s the same reason I hated closed shelving in libraries… I might go looking for one book but then find three others that are actually what I want (two of which I never would have chosen according to their online or card catalogue listings).
Eh. I met my husband online. But not on a dating app 😉
From what I hear, religious kids these days (and by kids I mean anybody more than ten years my junior) are meeting and matching up via Discord chatgroups, because church communities are too small to offer a good chance of meeting someone who shares your religious convictions IRL.
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Ideals and who you actually end up with aren’t the same thing.
She’s confusing “ideal” with “must have” in that tweet. She’s a software engineer and an IG model/fitness coach. The income level is not unexpected, but she lives in LA, so that’s a rough dating market for women. She’s 28.
Her politics have nothing to do with it if you scroll down her timeline.
Who knows how self aware she is? She might be like this woman (so pre 2008 though) who made a ranked tier wish list, created personas of types of men she liked, and catfished women on a dating site to reverse engineer her perfect dating profile.
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Both? Her top tier non negotiable traits were easily and quickly answered Y/N but I also think she exaggerated how bad her profile was initially for the dramatic story of the book. (Nobody socially adept just copypastes their resume into a profile in western dating — you might as well send spicy DMs on LinkedIn.) She neatly ignores the effect of lying which spurred her to do all of that in the first place.
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I always enjoy discussions about what drew people to their partners! From an early age, I was clear that I wanted a short, smart, funny, kind guy, basically the sidekick, not the hero. And that was what I married, though it took awhile to find the right one (some short guys are defensive and aggressive). I don’t know why so many women care (or think they care) so much about height. I grew up with older brothers who were much bigger than I. They were not unkind, and certainly not abusive, but they were so big! That experience gave me a very strong feeling that I wanted a partner closer to my size.
I knew in great detail what I wanted the relationship to look like, how I wanted to spend time together. For some people, for example, it’s very important to go on fun, interesting dates together, or go hiking, or entertain at home, or practice a sport. But I’m a huge homebody. I wanted somebody who’d want to stay at home, watch TV, debate literature. Somebody who wouldn’t pry or want to know where I am at every moment. Somebody who wouldn’t try to cook and who would accept that I’m ineradicably messy. Also, I always avoided talkative, sociable guys because they tire me.
“I wanted somebody who’d want to stay at home, watch TV, debate literature. Somebody who wouldn’t pry or want to know where I am at every moment.”
Well, that to me was so obvious it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to articulate those points! It would be like saying “And he must be breathing.”
My husband is more sociable than I am but he isn’t what I’d describe as talkative. It only took a short time with a talkative boyfriend to make clear that I couldn’t put up with that, despite all his other sterling characteristics. I like to hear myself think!
Indeed! I never thought of it that way, but I definitely needed a man who was a homebody like me. I don’t dig thrill-seekers, attention-seekers, or really gregarious men. They’re fun enough to talk to for a few minutes, but… couldn’t tolerate one in close quarters.
Bookish. I like bookish. And I married one.
It’s funny that every other blog reader here wanted a quiet couch potato. I definitely need lots of alone and quiet time myself, but I also like going to bars and house parties. I don’t need someone who will drag me into sluglike behavior.
I would also be the “overly talkative guy” y’all are talking about lol. I can talk for hours! Though working in customer takes a lot out of me; I also don’t go out as much as I would if I worked in an office job.
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Everybody’s got a type! Not dissing the go-out-dancing and talkative sorts, many of them are quite charming and I can appreciate them in a casual context, in short bursts. But would probably murder one if I had to live with him longterm.
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I’m fine with us talking over each other lol
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I dated a life-of-the-party guy for seven years. God, he was fucking exhausting.
I’m so happy with my homebody husband who gives me plenty of space and is a great supporter of my career and my many endeavors. We read, watch TV together, or else go to rock concerts and comedy shows. I cook, he cleans. We discuss our jobs and popular culture and current events, and he laughs at all my puns and stupid jokes. He’s a wonderful dad and completely devoted to our family.
Btw, we talked about eloping after knowing each other less than a week. Our chemistry has always been 🔥🔥🔥 and it still is, 25 yrs in. While I love and have dated men of various phenotypes, hubs is exactly my type (broad shoulders and nice arms, bigger body/solid build, dark blond/light brown hair). And he’s good at math, which was my nonnegotiable because I’m a huge math and science nerd, it’s a big part of my life, and didn’t want to be with someone whose eyes would glaze over whenever I tried to share my passion.
I find tall attractive, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker. Guy I went on a few dates with previously was only a wee bit taller than me, and I’m quite short. I found him physically attractive: good shoulders, nice beard. Bummer that he was a nominal Catholic though– that was a dealbreaker. But from my childhood years, because of the complete arbitrary chance of the people my parents hung out with, I associated a tall skinny physique with intelligence… and it’s primarily intelligence that I find attractive in men.
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Well, I am so old that I can remember Western society before second wave feminism; that was a gentler and kinder era, and although not perfect, it was much better for children. The changes they intended, and largely wrought, were basically the unilateral breaches of the unspoken covenant between the sexes that allowed the development of our species.
We may not yet fully know the final end result of hormonal birth control, but we can clearly see the result of no fault divorce; too many youth with no practical experience of the sexes bonded to keep a marriage successful, no concept of the necessary give and take to last a lifetime, let alone the sacrifices and teamwork necessary to hold those bonds.
Those that read history might want to study J. D. Unwin, this is the third generation since the eruption of the second wave ;-D
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Dating apps are miserable because they are optimized to generate repeat subscriptions not for people to find each other and stop subscribing. They also filter on simple demographic characteristics (height/body/location/age/income/profession/etc).
People focus on shallow shit like the photos b/c most people cannot write to describe themselves in a positive, sincere and interesting manner to save their lives, so their photos are the most memorable thing about them.
And a lot of people date for the version of the person they wish they already were or aspire to be instead of who they actually are. Hence 90% of the women and men chasing the top 10%.
“I kayak” =”I wish I kayaked more often”. “I don’t smoke” =”I smoke but I want to attract the kind of person who doesn’t smoke and I want to quit”
Marriage is not as good of a deal as it was in the past for men, but it is still better than it is for women. It’ll be interesting to see if women get even more choosy with all of the recent law changes. After all, why settle short term or long term when boinking just got more risky (as compared to five years ago?)
And if you’re a traditional woman, the man is the provider. Full stop. Most men cannot swing that. If you want to be the patriarch, the little lady should never have to worry about a bill in her life. Weak men insist on the privileges of patriarchs without the responsibilities. The minute a side gig or a hustle or whatever becomes necessary for pin money or a reasonable standard of living a lot of those behaviors end up going out the window. Many men can’t even shoulder the burden of a household during a very short maternity leave, which makes them a bad bet.
How much lower would the marriage rate drop if the rent to income ratio were lower?
I feel sorry — these young men are more religious than women of the same age.
Very good observations, Nonna. When N sent me his photo before meeting me for the first time, he chose one that he thought was what women want to see, a smug, condescending dude. I almost didn’t go to the meeting because of that picture. I’m now ecstatic that I did.
I, on the other hand, sent him the most unappealing photo of myself that I possessed. I didn’t want him to get any ideas because I was moving back to Canada in 3 weeks and wasn’t looking for anything. A week later we were living together, so that clearly went exactly as planned. 😁😁
I agree that it’s impossible to describe yourself realistically in a dating profile. One can read an entire personality in 30 seconds of real-life communication but none of that can be transmitted in simple sentences.
Also completely true that many of the men who want a trad wife aren’t remotely ready to put up their end of the bargain and be real trad husband. But it’s the same thing with men who want a high-earning, successful wife. Or women who want a man who’d parent 50-50 or do housework 50-50. Everybody says they want that but in reality it’s, “I want him to parent or clean or cook exactly like I would do it.” Everybody says they want an assertive dude only to whine and throw fits when the assertive dude starts asserting himself.
LOL, reality interferes with any idea of traditionalism. We lived together before getting married because I foolishly felt that a man should have certification before marrying. But when we did get married, my wife insisted upon the ceremony existing before the 1920’s (yes, the flappers changed things too), telling the minister to add obey back, because she intended to say it anyway, so I re-added, all my earthly goods I thee endow. Most men know that if a marriage goes south, not only will the wife consider it his fault, but so will the majority of everybody they know, including both sides of the family, and of society in general. Sorry girls, but additional responsibility requires some additional authority ;-D
For our more than 43 years we were a team, during most of that we ran a small business. When I was in the bush, she managed everything, including payroll. And I could not have possibly tolerated the endless government paperwork without her.
My parents got married in the 80s and the pastor said “obey” and refused to take it out upon request 🤷♂️
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As others have pointed out, these checklists go out the window when they meet someone in real life and feel a genuine connection. The function of these lists posted on social media is primarily to satisfy their narcissism. “If people see that I have such high standards for a partner, they’ll think I’m a high-status person, too.”
The thing is, even handsome Ivy-leaguers will get old, gain weight, and get sick. They will no longer check the boxes that initially attracted these people to them. What happens then? Would you like someone like this by your side if you had, for example, a serious illness?
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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