Last month, I wrote about Why Men Settle. As part of that discussion, a number of women wondered why a man would ever settle in love when it seems like they have far more choices than women do. I understand how that might seem confusing, but I’m also unsure this popular sentiment is even true. For one, I’m on the fence about if dating is really easier for men. Taking it a step further, is finding a wife/love/soul mate any easier for men than it is for women? I don’t think so. Let’s break down the various assumptions about dating for men.
There are not enough good black men: True and false.
The popular headline is that there are less viable black men for viable black women. There are generally a few errors when this much re-hashed story breaks. First, it assumes a ‘viable black male’ can be quantified using objective measurements, usually schooling and income. For example, they report that more black men are in jail than in college. This is a blatant lie, which you can read more about from this unlikely source here, so I won’t bother dissecting it. They go on to report that we have a high number of high school drop outs, which is true, but they don’t account for the fact that high school drop outs and jail rates are both interrelated and often reflective of the same population. As an extension of this point, the same can be said for college graduation rates – as black women do outnumber black men in enrollment and graduations, but only 30% of Americans have a college degree and miraculously, people still get married every day of the week. Income is by far the fairest measurement; however, simple arithmetic dictates that the higher your income requirement for a prospective mate – and you are free to have one – the less people will meet it.
Potential mate populations aside, I’m willing to admit that the way people traditionally date – with the expectation that men approach women – might make it easier for a man to initially meet a woman. The real question is how much impact does one to one ratios matter if women don’t proactively choose from available men anyway?
The dating odds are in men’s favor: False.
For this to be true, we have to assume that men 1) like approaching women and 2) are good at it when they do. I’m fairly certain the claims about huge numbers of men that like approaching strange women and risk getting turned down every time they do is greatly exaggerated. However, for the sake of today’s argument, we can assume men like approaching strange women and vying for their attention.
Regardless if this is true or false, the difference for men and women is that if there is a certain type of men women want to approach them, women can at least go to an establishment where those types of men are more likely to reside and place herself in the “line of fire.” On the other hand, if a man isn’t good at approaching women, there is no way to overcome it (unless he’s a baller?). A man who doesn’t have “game” will be equally unsuccessful in a room full of attractive women as he will be in a room full of unattractive women. Independent of the environment he is in, it is the embodiment of the woman that he will always struggle to approach. Even if the availability of women is in his favor, it doesn’t improve his success rates in the slightest.
To be fair, let’s assume the man we’re discussing is decent at approaching women, has money, is educated, and hasn’t been to jail. Are we still assigning blame to the wrong part of the dating problem?
A good man can find a wife whenever he wants: False.
Before I wrap this up, can we have an honest moment here, ladies? Help me help you! Is no man really willing to marry you or is the exact type of man you want not willing? Can we agree that those are two very distinct issues? One thing men learn early on is that every preference we have not only reduces the pool we have to choose from – which is fine – but it also increases our potential mate’s desirability among others. I would only note that this rule applies to women as well, if not more so, considering women’s desired traits in a man seem far more intangible (job, education, money, status, power, respect, etc).
Moving on…
Women often criticize the types of men (or lack thereof) that approach them; yet, they don’t consider the number of men they turn down as a result of this criticism. Women seem to assume that every man they turn down doesn’t care, moves on instantly, and does so by going off to meet another replacement women. This is just not true. Women are not the only ones that don’t enjoy getting turned down and I can assure you there are more than a few men who are still recovering from getting turned down this weekend/month/year reading this very sentence.
While men might have better odds of meeting women simply because they approach more women, women have the added benefit of choosing a man with the best (initial) winning qualities upfront. In other words, although women may have to turn down more men to find the illusive “good man” they want, the man you choose is more likely to be the type of man you want – assuming you know what you want in a man, another post entirely.
In theory, there’s no limit to the number of women a man can choose from. In reality, a man has to approach a woman he can see himself with, hope she reciprocates his desire, and HE HAS TO HOPE HE GUESSED RIGHT. Men can only choose their wife from the pool of women willing to entertain his advances. Clearly not all women will want him and even those women that do may not be the same women he wants to be with forever. As a coping mechanism, many men shoot for the stars (approach/date a lot of women) and hope they hit the moon along the way (one of these women is wife-able). If men only approached the women they wanted to marry, they’d be in for a world of hurt and disappointment.
Frankly, dating for men and women is a lot like drawing a blind hand of poker. You don’t know if you have the best hand unless you fold and get more cards, but at some point you have to assume the hand you have is better than any other hand you could possibly be dealt. Since no one is all-knowing, this is a dating reality that men and women face together and neither one of us is better or worse off. We simply have diverging advantages and disadvantages. In the end, if men entertain whatever they can get and women only entertain what they want, it actually seems like women have the easier time finding a soul mate and men have the easier time finding a date.
As life happens, kids are born, jobs change, and age increases, we panic and assume that something is better than nothing and what do we do? We (sometimes) settle and opine in vain for a “dating hand” we long since gave away or never possessed. Therefore, I don’t think the average man is winning any more than the average woman is losing. The real reason we complain, men and women, is because both sexes are guilty of entertaining people we know in our hearts don’t belong in our lives. Some will continue blindly going back hoping the next draw from the dating pool will somehow be better than what they already have. A few will be right, but many will be wrong. So, is it easier for men to find their soul mate? No, because if we play the hand we’re dealt wrong, we have the same odds of losing. We’ve all seen the cautionary tale of someone a few decades our senior still playing the game, so I’ll ask you a simple question: are they really winning?
What makes dating easier for men? What makes dating easier for women? Is it easier for a man to find a soul mate/wife than a woman?
WisdomIsMisery aka WIM uses his background as an internal auditor to provide objective, yet opinionated, qualitative and quantitative analysis on life, love, and everything in between. As a Scorpio, many women wish death on WIM and some have attempted to hasten its arrival. WIM is not a model, a model citizen, or a role model. See more of WIM on his weekly write-ups for SBM and on Twitter @WisdomIsMisery.
