What men DON'T UNDERSTAND about FEMALE SELECTION: what being high-value does and does not get you

I'm Dr. Orion Terriban, and this is Psych Hacks, better living through psychology. And the topic of today's short talk is what men don't understand about female selection. So thanks to the internet, there has been an explosion of awareness on this topic in recent years. And this has afforded the current generation, a uniquely privileged position to understand female mating and dating behavior more clearly and precisely than ever before. The quantity and quality of information available on the subject just weren't available to men even 10 years ago. And while some of this information can be a bitter pill to swallow, I hold that it is ultimately of benefit to both men and women, that it is now more widely known. One of the most important concepts in this cache of information is hypergamy, the tendency to mate and date up. To choose men who, for example, are taller, stronger, richer, and higher status. Hypergamy influences almost every aspect of female sexual selection, and it has a number of significant downstream consequences. So it's really, really important to understand this concept. Unfortunately, there are two common ways in which the concept is misunderstood by men. And I want to address these in today's talk. So let's get to it. The two misunderstandings roughly correspond to the two general reactions men seem to have in response to learning about the reality of hypergamy. The first is the most prevalent as it unfortunately corresponds to the more common reaction of men. Basically, when a lot of men, especially young men learn about women's sexual selection criteria, they get really discouraged. They hear that women are only interested in the top percent of the top 10% of men. They consider, well, they weren't in the top 10% of men in high school or in college or in young adulthood. And they inappropriately conclude A, that they could never enter into those upper echelons or B, that even if they could, the payoff wouldn't be worth the time and effort required, i.e. the juice isn't worth the squeeze. They look at themselves, think, well, I don't have anything a woman is really going to want and conclude, why bother? And on some level, it's like, fair enough. Dating is not symmetrical. Men initiate the vast majority of interactions. So men disproportionately experience more rejection than women do on the front end and women terminate the vast majority of relationships. So men disproportionately experience more rejection than women do on the back end. And this rejection can be painful on a number of different dimensions. These men may be rationally concluding that a high risk, low reward endeavor doesn't make sense for them. If we were talking about investing their money, we would call this decision prudent and no one would have a problem with it. On the other hand, lots of people seem to have a problem with the same decision being made about women. These men need to grow up, man up, stop sniveling and frankly fall in line. This is hardly fair and would likely make a good topic for a future video. However, my point here is that these men misunderstand the payoff of hypergamy after all the time and effort expended to align with the criteria of hypergamy. The payoff is not that a woman has ultimately provided security and material resources, or even that a man is offered sex and a relationship. The payoff is the growth and prosperity that were downed to the man as a result. What does this mean? Well, a top 10% man can only indirectly benefit a woman and then only if she can acquire and maintain access to the man. However, a top 10% man directly benefits himself. He directly benefits from being stronger and wealthier and higher status. These things are primarily good for him. And at best only secondarily good for others. Even if much of his wealth and status are stripped from him by a divorce or a breakup, which can certainly happen in today's society, he remains the source of that value. And he became the source of that value in the transformational process of becoming a top 10% man. So this is the first misunderstanding about hypergamy that it primarily benefits women. It doesn't, it primarily benefits men and can only indirectly benefit women. Namely, if a man chooses to bestow the benefit upon her. Now, before I'm going any further, if you're liking what you're hearing, please consider sending this episode to someone who might benefit from its message, because it's word of mouth referrals like this that really helped to make the channel grow. You may also consider hitting the super thanks button, those three little dots in the lower right-hand corner and tip me in proportion to the value you feel you've received from this episode. It's your donations that make all this happen. And I really appreciate your support. Now, not all men get discouraged upon learning about the realities of hypergamy on the contrary, a smaller subset of men get fired up. These guys are energized by what they see as a viable path forward. They think fantastic with this information, I can kind of hack the game. I can analyze what really works with respect to mating and dating. And I believe that I can bring myself in alignment with female selection preferences. I can get rich. I can get fit. I can get smooth. Let's go out there and get this bread. And in many respects, this is an adaptive response because as stated previously, all of these things benefit directly the man in question. However, in my opinion, this is where men are often, shall we say, deceived because the fact of the matter is, is that women don't actually give sex in relationships to men simply as a consequence of men meeting their selection criteria. The idea that doing behavior X will solve problem Y is a masculine problem-solving strategy projected into women. Men hear that women want a guy with a six pack and a six figure income. And they think, great, if I get these things, if I'm finally what women want, then that means that women will reward me with sex and relationships. It's the same mentality that believes, okay, if I buy her a drink and listen to her problems and show my value, then she will reward me with sex at the end of the date writ large. And the disappointing reality is that this is not the case. Sure. All other things being equal, a woman is more likely to choose a guy with a six pack and a six figure income over a guy that doesn't have those things. But it's not true that the vast majority of women will choose a guy just because he has a six pack and a six figure income. These things might make it easier for a guy to get his foot in the door, but it's better to consider meeting women's hypergamous criteria as a necessary, but insufficient condition of sexual opportunity. Unless you are like world famous women, aren't going to be lining up to date you. Even if you have all of the things that hypergamy says that women are looking for a good looking brain surgeon can drink at the bar by himself all night. And this is because despite the fact that the man may have worked 10 to 20 years to meet women's hypergamous criteria, he has to start from scratch with every new woman he meets. Like he could be a successful, handsome, eligible bachelor who has worked hard for years to earn his social proof and status. And he will still have to start at square one, which for a lot of women means convincing them that he's not a serial killer. Like, can you imagine a job interview 20 years into your career in which the interaction begins with the default assumption that you're a fraudulent embezzler until proven otherwise. And this is what happens with women. They have to feel safe. They have to feel heard. They have to feel like you're attracted to more than their bodies, et cetera. And if you say one thing that they don't like too early in the interaction, poof, the opportunity vanishes in an instant. And while it's true that the more a woman is attracted to you, the easier this process becomes, you don't get to bypass this process just because you've got biceps in a bank account. Indeed, you have to begin with women right where you would have if you hadn't spent 10 or 20 years building your status and lifestyle, namely at zero. And if you spent all that time on your abs and income, and you never learned how to seduce a woman, you're probably not going to get as far as the guy who spent a year learning how to seduce a woman and has neither the abs nor the income. Meeting women's hypergamous criteria, unfortunately is not the silver bullet that many men hope it will be. Most of these criteria are what I call attraction proxies. The idea here is that you can have all the markers of a high status man, and it's still not going to be easy with women. You will still have to approach and make an effort and seduce effectively. This doesn't change. If you're in the top 10%, it may change if you're in the top 0.001%. I'm not sure. I'm not there yet, but it definitely doesn't change in the top 10%. Being a high value man does not lead to effortless sexual opportunity. And that's a bitter pill to swallow. You could be a neurosurgeon underwear model who makes seven figures a year in shelters, abandoned puppies. And the woman is still going to ask herself questions like, does he remember the day we met? Did he open the door for me? How do I feel when I'm with him? Does he make me laugh? Does he look at other girls? Well, our kids hands look funny, et cetera. Behind the hypergamous criteria of the female sex is an almost endless list of personal criteria of an individual woman failure to meet any one of which is subject to removing the sexual opportunity, no matter how many other criteria are met. So this is the second misconception about hypergamy meeting. Hypergamy is criteria does not guarantee sexual opportunity. Interestingly, both of these misconceptions tend to have the same outcome. Namely, they generally motivate men to walk away from women. And that's certainly what we're seeing more and more of today. What do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. 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