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Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

I once thought this was my problem. Turns out it had nothing to do with anything, and I was just an unlikable weirdo.

Sorry if that doesn't help. But blaming women for not liking you doesn't help either.

Being an "unlikable weirdo" wouldn't explain getting no responses on the standard dating sites/apps everyone on campus uses, when the demographics of the college are around 65% female. Part of the problem is that way back in the day, when the tribes were small, it was in the woman's best interest to mate with only the perceived fittest mates around, and her mental baseline of "average" would be set by the local tribe members. Now that we have the media and such showing super-fit males as the standard, that becomes the baseline of acceptable, so it seems like you're written off right away if you're below that. Some time ago before we were so inundated with such standards in the media, the mental baseline would be more realistic, and more males in the local town/area would have a chance. The male's evolutionary sexual strategy has always been to impregnate as many mates as possible, so the change in the media hasn't really had an effect on that end. This ties into my observation, which I've seen echoed on a lot of other forums online, that even the far less conventionally attractive women are increasingly refusing to settle for any less than a male they'd rate at "8/10". There's also a study by OKCupid saying something similar.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the perceptions warped by "media" are those of people who judge female psychology from lack of digital interaction with their app profiles and pop evolutionary psychology in forums populated by sexually frustrated men, not those of women having the amount of sex they want despite none of the men they meet having the wealth, looks and/or charisma of their favourite film and sport stars.

Even if all that is true, you might as well get on with your life.

I don't know about all of that stuff.

But I do know that I stressed out about shit like this in high school, then figured out that if you treat women like people and ask them out, some percentage of them will say yes.

Guess what? You can come off as an unlikeable weirdo on dating sites/apps.

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