If you're advertising flashy, high-spending lifestyle, that's who you'll attract. But the women who are looking for long-term stability will stay away. And vice versa.
Of course, if you want the not-high-spending women, you need to have something other than money and flashy lifestyle to offer. I think some guys get hung up there.
Together seven years, married for three. Maybe when I was dating I was passed over by materialistic women because I drove an old car and don't wear fancy clothes, but I see that as an absolute win!
She teased me a little at first about how she "thought I was poor" because she didn't know how much an SWE makes and I was raised to find conspicuous consumption gauche. I just feel comfort knowing she chose me for me, not for my money.
But I'm extremely lucky, and blessed. Maybe I'm an absolute outlier. There are no rules in the game of love
She also teased me because when we first met she thought maybe I was poor (don't own a car and am happy to stay in cheap hotels when travelling for work), she also had no idea what high end SWE salaries could be. Same for her friends who were a bit suspicious at first that maybe I was borrowing money or something to buy her/us nice things. The wider world still hasn't really understood how well programmers can do, it seems. I guess because yeah there's no culture of flashing it around like in some other job sectors. They all expect bankers to be rich.
And yeah, damn it took a while here too! Many years of searching to find her and in the end I got lucky.
To be fair, it would also be hard to sell "someday I will have a ton of cash to waste on flashy spending."
But you can have hobbies and work/life balance now, and that can be attractive, albeit in a quieter way.
You want a signal that women will pick up on? Buy nice good quality shoes.
Put another way, women aren’t attracted by men who earn a lot, but by men who spend a lot
There's definitely a sense among many women that men should be demonstrably spendy - even flamboyant. Presumably because it confers competitive status.
I used to have a friend who used to do factory work. She said that whenever any of the women had a new boyfriend one of the first questions was always "What kind of car does he drive?"
Likewise many dating profiles say "I want a man who will spoil me."
Of course it's not all women, but it's certainly a significant number.
"Looking for a man who is $trait, $trait, and generous."
If you look at FIRE-oriented online groups, men significantly outnumber women. I think that's what the parent is referring to. And there are fewer women (relative to men) who are willing to take a significant drop in consumption in order to e.g. max a mega Roth backdoor.
So a man who saves 20% of his take home income is husband material. A man who saves 80% of his take home income is a weirdo man child who needs to grow up and act like a "normal" person.
Every female partner I've had (except my current one) has pushed me to scale up our consumption and save less.
Whereas if I wasn't willing to do that and put my money into the bank and just live in Brooklyn and don't travel super often, my high income holds no appeal.
Note that I do not think either high income or high spending are requisites to date successfully as a straight guy in NYC though. Just noting my observations on how those two factors do play in.
I know a lot of highly educated, successful women who wouldn't date Kevin Durant, for example. The idea of a rich man child trolling on burner accounts regardless of their high profile doesn't exactly drive them crazy. Replace Kevin Durant with Elon Musk if you're not a sports fan.
Cause that sounds more like some kind of old Hollywood romcom cliche than something a lot of women really want to have thrown at them to 'win them' in the past decade. But hey, I haven't tried it!
As days went on we'd reduce the cash, and still many would agree. We eventually tried just offering cash and still some would agree, but eventually our account got flagged and banned.
The only saving grace of that tinder experiment is that obviously the match meets a looks threshold since she swiped right on him.
Id still basically call it prostitution and the acceptance rate was like 30% flat out, and another 30% cautious but could have been talked into it.
Almost every woman I know under 35 has tried online dating. So yes I think it's surprising that almost half of women will agree to fly away with a stranger and have sex with them as long as they don't have to pay.
That isn't what your anecdote showed. It showed they would be willing to meet you to decide if they wanted to take a free trip with you. Some of those with a higher risk tolerance would probably be willing to take the flight and money and ditch you even if you seemed sketchy. Believing they would automatically have sex with you is naïve.
But your right, basically all wanted to meet ahead of the trip.
Edit: Or, most great products still need to advertise.