Mating Market
A lot of people think and suggest that “If I change a few things about myself, I might have better luck next time” (pg. 1).
- lift weights
- dress better
- approach with confidence
- be funny
- relax
- etc.
Might get told you need to boost all these stats, and you have to suck it up. You might not be a 10, but you can play the game.
Mate Value: The attributes you bring to the table
- attractiveness
- youth
- status
- confidence
- intelligence
- wealth
Heterosexual Markets:
- women offer attractiveness
- men offer earnings potential
Different markets have different emphasis:
- short-term relationships → sexiness
- long-term relationships → starting and taking care of a family
Online dating reinforces this market dynamic way of thinking.
- system of haves or have-nots
- Makes people feel like they are shopping for a product or that they are one
Historical backing
- wealthy/high status people married wealthy/high status people
Evolutionary Psychology and EvoScript
INFIDELITY: IT MAY BE IN OUR GENES
- titles and preachings that cause learned helplessness
Side note: In the 90s, Evo Psych was an underdog field that wasn’t as well-respected.
One consequence of the marketplace of relationships is that, and evolutionary psychology argues this, relationships are inherently unstable because people involved want more and more. Searching for valuable traits will always motivate people to break up and move on.
The EvoScript:
- The way human mating works
- preferences derive from our genes’ impulses to propagate themselves, and so we pursue the partners who possess the traits that will best maximize the fitness of our potential offspring (pg. 4)
- Men and women have different evolutionary pressures, so they have different impulses/desires
- Dating has two categories with unique rules
- short-term
- long-term
One idea: women have to play hard to get because “easy” women have no long-term value.
Men have an impulse to spread their genes as widely as possible. They don’t want to be tied down. According to EvoScript, their ancestors achieved an edge by getting action on the side.
Even in TED talks, people talk like Men and Women are separate species. Stupid shit people say (pg. 5)
Women get intimacy from face-to-face talking. We swivel towards each other, we do what we call ‘anchoring faze’ and we talk. This is intimacy with women. I think it comes from millions of years of holding that baby in front of your face, cajoling it, reprimanding it, and educating it with words. Men tend to get intimacy from side-by-side doing. As soon as one guy looks up, the other guy will look away. [Michael Note: I’m willing to bet that’s true with women in general but that wouldn’t be reality-affirming] I think it comes from millions of years of sitting behind the bush, looking straight ahead, trying to hit that buffalo on the head with a rock [Michael Note: But wouldn’t that mean men look straight on at things? Wtf does that have to do with side eyeing my homie?]
Pop culture reinforces this:
- Clueless
- Hitch
- The 40-Year-Old-Virgin Becoming desirable is a project according to this framework.
This is why dating feels fake, if you want a relationship, you need to shape yourself into a particular gendered ideal. “Dating is just sales” (pg. 6) (some other stupid Reddit stuff too)
- Michael Note: This book gives a lot of good validation on not improving myself!
In this framework, there’s always competitors who can walk up and steal your partner by offering more.
Supporters of EvoScript present their conclusions as fact and use a naturalistic fallacy. People who are against it are Leftists or anti evolutionary wack jobs. Mr. Joe Rogan does that too.
EVOSCRIPT JUST SUCKS AND MAKES PEOPLE DEPRESSED
Three central pillars (pg. 7–8)
- people have an inherent mate value (intrinsic value) that determines how they successful they will be in the mating market
- People pursue and eventually settle for the mate with the best attributes who will accept them in return (10s match with 10s, 6s match with 6s, etc.)
- If you internalize rejection or heartbreak of something inherent of your lower value, you have internalized EvoScript
- Men and women have historically achieved reproductive success through different avenues, so they prioritize different things out of their sexual and romantic relationships.
- Men are more into sex than women, and women are more vigilant for commitment. Men care more about looks, women care more about earnings.
- If you are worried about conveying to your partner that you might be laid off from your job because you have to be the provider, you’ve internalized EvoScript.
- Distinction between short-term and long-term mating
- Short-term is sexy and sex related, long-term is family-related. People specialize in one or the other. (She will take you home if you entertain her, but she will marry you if you have ambition. He will hook up with you if he thinks you’re hot, but will only marry you if his parents approve. If you want a wife avoid bars; if you want a husband close your legs.
- Would you assume that having sex with someone reduces the likelihood of a long-term relationship, even if you want to sleep with them? You’ve internalized EvoScript
Evo Psych did not invent these, but it justifies their perpetuation. It just makes people more depressed and feel like losers, which breeds resentment. (Incels for men or Red Pilling)
Evo Script teaches you to not trust the other gender
Red Pill
80/20 rule
- 80% of women desire the highest 20% of men
When people commit violence due to their beliefs, people offer Evo Psych as an explanation, but by a reaffirmation of their beliefs.
- Guy killed the girl because he was reject, and he was rejected because “women will all onlygo for the most high-status men” (pg. 10) from MIA Jordan Peterson
Alternative to Marketplace dating: Compatibility-Driven Bonding
When put in certain environments, EvoScript “mate value” selection simply doesn’t or can’t occur.
You aren’t going to do mate value selection on an island of just 5 other people. You’d partner up based on the individual.
Some traits you might look for
- whose sense of humor clicks with yours?
- Whose smile makes you giddy?
- Who makes you feel at easy, or competent, or smart, or special? These don’t manifest on dating profiles or over coffee dates.
Alternative:
- humans form mating bonds by finding sexual and romantic compatibility in small networks
Reality is you evolved to evaluate partners you can touch, talk to, and see. Connected to social networks.
Counterarguments to EvoScript (pg. 12–13)
- we evolved in “small markets” [Michael Note: good point. Small/large markets in economics always work differently
- using evo psych isn’t inherently bad and is a good idea actually, but we can’t over apply modern day to our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago
- finding a partner wasn’t about dazzling them by being hot or amassing choices and exploring options until you picked the most fertile/strongest mate
- The average African hunter-gatherer size was 50–150 people; many people would already be paired up.
- Compatibility is central, and EvoScript ignores this and focuses on mate value
- two people can have equal value but don’t work well together. Two people can be mismatched in mate value but fit together like a dream. Just think of all the romance stories about people who don’t “traditionally” fit together
- we crave compatibility for two reasons:
- attachment, which refers to a collection of features associated with strong emotional bonds (“pair bonds”).
- two people who are bonded feel less stressed when they are around each other
- helps navigate communal interdependence, which refers to ways people handle each other’s preferences and needs when faced with the complex realities of day-to-day life
- attachment, which refers to a collection of features associated with strong emotional bonds (“pair bonds”).
These can explain a lot of why some relationships work and some don’t
- attachment and interdependence have nothing to do with “mate value.”
- You figure this out through repeated interaction, getting to know them, and seeing if you can find a way to integrate
- compatibility is hard to get through via dating apps
there is no evidence that identifying partners based on mate-value or predicting relationship length from mate value is helpful. Mate value doesn’t predict anything (pg. 14)
- “The fact that we’re both 6s doesn’t have anything to do with whether we’re a compatible match”
Those “romantic sparks” are not just misfires of our better natural selves
In the early 2000s, Evo Psych lacked rigor (pg 15 for examples)
- deep questions of human mating were being answered with just looking a photos and ranking them on attractiveness [Michael Note: Idk if this really matters that much, just depends on what they are trying to conclude. A lot of social psychology is done by just looking at photos of people (innate bias literature).
- It can be costly in academia to slow down and get the story right (publish or perish)
- more examples about issues he brings up here
- e.g. no studies on romantic selection in-person is a big one. They were kind of reinforcing dating app type selections
- other social psychology did this, Evo Psych did not
EvoScript affirms your experiences “You can’t get what you want”. Dating apps suck because you are one of the low value ones or you have to invest time to “improve your self” which feels fake