
Game Theory Explains the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox - kradic
http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/
======
fortes
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the fact that men readily date women
who are significantly younger -- while the same is not particularly common in
women. Men have a much larger pool of candidates as they get older (while
women had a larger one when they were younger)

~~~
__
Good point. Perhaps that's simply an instance of a more general rule: women,
on average, have stricter requirements than men, so they have a smaller pool
to choose from.

There may be other preference-related explanations. Perhaps men are more
likely than women to opt out of heterosexual relationships (e.g. by being gay
or happily single).

Then there are demographic explanations. Our species is not perfectly gender-
balanced; there are (slightly) more women than men.

~~~
mixmax
I think the answer is to be found in Darwinian natural selection:

Women are looking for a mate that will be able to give her offspring a good
chance of making it into the next generation, thus what she is looking for is
someone with abundant resources who will secure her home and future. This is
also why old but rich men are attractive to women. Men, on the other hand, are
basically looking for someone young that will be able to bear a child, and
this ability degrades with age. Which is why men of all ages like young women.

~~~
Tichy
I recently had an additional thought about the attractivity of older men:
doesn't it prove quality genes, to some extent? If you are already 50, you
obviously haven't died from some disease in your 30ies, like inheritable
cancer.

The reason it doesn't work the other way round could be that for men, the
quality of the genes of their mates don't matter so much: just get as many
children out there as possible, some are bound to be OK (it is not as high an
investment as it is for women).

Still puzzling why women can't bear children up to a higher age - forgot why
that was. Apparently it is quite unique to humans.

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dnaquin
Anyone who's actually looked at the math behind this knows that this
simplification only works out when an entire gender are strong bidders.
Otherwise, the solution set lies somewhere in between the extremes. So the
author's simplification makes his claim. Without the simplification, his claim
weakens significantly.

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dangoldin
All the eligible bachelors are coding of course! I didn't need to read the
article to know that.

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mynameishere
_Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there
are attractive, eligible women?_

I read this sentence several times trying to undo the brain-fuck that it did
to me. The internet is awash in balderdash, but when you come across a
superbly brazen falsehood like this, your defenses tend to fall away.

Now--what and where are these allegedly existent, even numerous, women? The
vast majority of women, at least 99 percent, have some combination of eating
disorder [1], television-induced personality necrosis, age beyond or near-
beyond the breeding years, "baggage" (children, alcoholism, etc), or
straightforward ugliness.

[1] Not anorexia nervosa--the opposite.

~~~
aswanson
Stay your bids, fair maidens, as you were. I give you our next chap, a
gentlemen of highest rank:

 _The vast majority of women, at least 99 percent, have some combination of
eating disorder [1], television-induced personality necrosis, age beyond or
near-beyond the breeding years, "baggage" (children, alcoholism, etc), or
straightforward ugliness._

Oh dear.

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ardit33
It comes down to some women, are so fricking picky. I mean, way to pickier
than guys, and unrealsticly so.

One thing the article failed to mention; is that women in their late 20's and
early 30s are already past their prime years of reproduction, and usually
getting less attractive (example, most miss universe are under 25). So they
are becoming less desirable then their mid 20s counterparts, hence it is
natural, in a perfect market, that they will have to settle of something less
they could get when they were 24-27 (what can be considered prime years for
women).

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budu3
I wonder if it asserts or refutes this claim, couples with similar attributes
will get hitched. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/view/1831130?seq=3>

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patrocles
Gimein's troll-baiting....

The 2000 census shows that the US has more unmarried females than males.
However, the Census also divides unmarried people into three groups: never-
married, divorced, and widowed.
[<http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t27/tab04.pdf>]

Looking at the data, we find that widowed females dwarf males (presumably due
to females living 8 years longer on average while the average marriage age
delta has been stable at 2-3 years), and that males remarry easier than
females (or females don't want to remarry ;).

In the never-married category, males dwarf females. Running the numbers by
state, we find the ratio of males to females as:

State/Non-state Never-Married Males to Never-Married Females

District of Columbia 0.96

Maryland 1.04

Delaware 1.06

New York 1.07

Rhode Island 1.07

Massachusetts 1.07

Louisiana 1.08

Mississippi 1.1

Pennsylvania 1.11

Connecticut 1.11

South Carolina 1.13

Alabama 1.13

New Jersey 1.13

Illinois 1.14

Ohio 1.14

New Mexico 1.16

Michigan 1.16

Missouri 1.16

Virginia 1.16

Vermont 1.17

Maine 1.17

New Hampshire 1.18

Georgia 1.18

Indiana 1.19

Tennessee 1.19

Wisconsin 1.19

North Carolina 1.2

Utah 1.2

Minnesota 1.2

Iowa 1.22

Arkansas 1.22

Texas 1.22

Kentucky 1.22

West Virginia 1.23

California 1.24

Nebraska 1.24

Florida 1.24

Kansas 1.26

Oregon 1.26

Washington 1.27

Oklahoma 1.27

South Dakota 1.28

Arizona 1.28

Colorado 1.3

Idaho 1.31

Hawaii 1.33

Wyoming 1.33

Montana 1.33

North Dakota 1.36

Nevada 1.42

Alaska 1.45

The Census does not account for geographic clustering of sexual preferences,
so assuming Gimein's observation held up with additional data gathering, he
may live in a sexual-preference skewed location and/or Alaska.

------
eat_my_shorts
_leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps
they are short,_

Short != imperfect. It's not some flaw. I'm perfect the way God made me, and
the author can eat my shorts.

~~~
jdroid
You're imperfect the way you and your bloodline naturally evolved! God...
PSHHH

~~~
falsestprophet
Or as the result of poor nutrition as a child (see China).

