DENVER B: Why Finding A Mate Is Harder For Women Today

While doing my podcast this week, I mentioned something that seemed easy enough to say but carried more weight afterwards. With the current dating market, it's easier to get sex than it is to get a relationship. 

This was said as I was addressing the main topic of discussion, which you can listen to here.

To summarize, a lady had written to the newspaper asking for advice regarding retaining a boyfriend. She mentioned having been in multiple relationships with great guys but hadn't had anything serious/long-term with any. 

While the statement was used as an explainer for the case-at-hand, the reality as it relates to dating, in general, today and the current mating crisis that exists. 

Is Dating Becoming Harder?

There's a growing body of research that shows that more people are refraining from the idea of dating for multiple reasons. For women, many state the lack of a good mate while many men state a gap between what women want and what men can provide. 

This has pushed the idea of dating further away from people who would've otherwise been with a partner and (possibly) with children would they have dated during our parents' time. 

So in light of us being the most connected society today, having dating apps and singles events, why does it feel harder to get a mate than ever before?

Quality of Men Today 

To quote Samuel L. Jackson's character Shaft from the movie of the same name "Men used to be men..." The idea of what man is/was supposed to be has been an evolving thing for years and what made the man in terms of character in the 60s has evolved.

Today the idea, having been moulded by mainstream media and other agents, has created a caricature that either appeals to the fantasy & desires of women or a sexualized, muscular, high-earning 'Chad' that is the 'complete' image for a lot of men. 

This created a conflicted idea for a lot of boys and young men on what the man is supposed to be, where their experiences and environment have eventually shaped what they become based on primary requirements and personal benefit. While such doesn't look like much, the results have highlighted a quality of men that isn't what their fathers and grandfathers envisioned a good young man would be in the future. 

Whether you agree with my previous statement or not, a lot of women have suffered as a result. From men they have deemed weak, uninteresting, too nice or too rude, the list of good, kind, well-mannered, monogamous and confident men has been an ever-decreasing cohort of men that match this description.

This has led many women to settle for less than ideally desired partners or bow out of the dating market almost completely with the occasional dip in once they see something they like for a quick second. Some would say that the remedy to this issue is that standards need to be adjusted but we'd need to know what standards we'd need to adjust before making any overhauls that can set us back centuries.

The Desires of Women 

"If you were to ask a woman today what they'd want their dream guy to be today, you'd end up with about 3-4 different men." 

That was a quote I read about 1-2 years back which made me question the reality of the claim. So I asked some women what they'd want in their version of a dream man, and I found it hard to refute the claims.

The idea of the dream man to a lot of women's desires is almost a contradicting image of an 'every man'. This man is a King in the streets, a beast in the sheets, a caregiver in the living room and the object of desire to other women. He must be wanted by others but not want any other besides his woman. 

Succinctly, this man is unattainable by realistic standards. Thus, as is human nature, women will go for the closest representation of those desires based on their priorities. 

Those priorities, which have become superficial as social media has taken a stronghold, have made them more unattainable to average men and have caused resentment toward the idea of going for women who voice such expectations as realistic for most. 

Intersexual & Intrasexual Competition 

The rise of woke feminism and the red pill community has created a new social situation where men and women are not only competing against their fellow sex but also against each other.

This has pushed women to encourage other women to scale up higher, have more sexual partners and embrace their beauty with a sense of perfection without a case for self-improvement, which reduces their mate choices dramatically. The #MeToo movement didn't make things any better either, making workplace romances a scary idea that should be avoided by many. 

The red pill movement with reinforcement from uneducated, traumatized content creators using bro-science has told men that women only want them for their money and power.

They've told them that they are not worthy of a woman's love unless they're high-performing muscular men. And even then, the women want to take advantage of them, thus they must be careful. So, what's the point of dating?

The Fix: Adjust the Product or Adjust the Market?

As a rule, let's not forget, "Women hold the keys to sex, men hold the keys to the relationship" and as such the men are the ones we need to pay attention to now.

The generation of men during the Boomer stage and Gen X came up at a time when you almost certainly needed to get into a relationship to get sex. Thus they had to be marketable enough that they'd be considered potential mates.

The dating market then made the relationship easier to acquire than the sex, which isn't the case now. So maybe for once, we need to ask if the women should be the ones making themselves marketable enough as potential mates, even if the men may be caricatures of different desires.

Eventually, at some point, we'll have to cut out the noise and allow ourselves to think. Think not for your pleasure and short-term goal/comfort but for your future.

We are social creatures and we can act like we don't want each other for long but at some point, something will have to give. We will either have to change how we look at dating or how we select our partners. 

Either way, there's a mating crisis at hand, and we're ill-equipped to handle it right now.

Denver B is a TV personality on the show Men’s Conference and a podcaster on the Break Time on Westside podcast which speaks on love, sex & relationships spanning over 360 episodes. You can reach him through his email [email protected]

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