Scott Adam’s Dilbert summed it up nicely:
Also this WAATGM post on that comic:
https://www.forums.red/p/whereareallthegoodmen/324969/the_paradox_of_strong_and_independent_women_s_hypergamy_summ
The fundamental flaw of successful, hypergamous women is that they want to appeal above other women due to her being the most successful (and masculine) of women but yet, not MORE masculine than the man she desires.
They often rationalize this by saying that a highly educated/successful man won’t want some Applebee’s waitress (they often refer to that chain for some reason) and value her success by his own standards, but yet he shouldn’t want a woman whose more successful than he is because that’s somehow TOO masculine for him?
For the record, Applebee’s catches a lot of hate but ReviewBrah says their chicken sandwich combos are actually quite good: https://youtu.be/uJ3EmZfe6_0
So the challenge is this: They want a man whose in demand from nearly every other woman (including the waitress!) but yet he will pick her because she’s successful enough to be “compatible” with him, but of course not TOO successful (than him) because that’s “icky”.
But wait, that’s not all!
You also get that in addition to their base hypergamy, they view themselves as Boss Babes entitled to what successful men enjoy: The ability to start ‘settling’ down in their 30’s with hot members of the opposite sex. Aging successful men often have hot looking girls on his arm so why shouldn’t an aging Boss Babe also be entitled to a hot guy?
Well, the problem with that is that the guys who are hot AND successful may have choices of their own including that, due to feminism’s success, there are far more aging single Boss Babes around than Successful men available particularly the hot ones.
Successful, and hot, men simply have a plethora of more categorical choices as well as quantity.
[Addendum due to @GeorgeIII observation below] What makes these women's projections different from men's is how they utterly fail to see the negative consequences of them. For example: "independent women who don't need a man" so "she doesn't have to put up with any nonsense!"... doesn't that mean that successful, handsome men are in the same boat? That he doesn't have to put up with "sassy" or "sarcastic" boss babes and her shit tests?
But these women see things in terms of the outliers as well as historicals. Back in 1990 when my brother got married, he was the last of a baby boom supply of well-to-do educated men with a relative shortage of up-and-coming Gen-X women just starting to graduate from college to marry. This system used to work, for perhaps 2 decades or so.
I write this article because I want to explain historically what happened. Some readers here in their 20’s may not be aware of all this. They may think to themselves “This is so messed up! Who could imagine this insanity would ever work?” but in some ways, in a limited capacity, it did.
I’m reminded of Las Vegas. A nice young Slavic teenager couple working as pool lifeguards wanted to see America and go to Vegas. They perhaps had heard of the bottomless buffets for $20, free drinks on the casino floor, all the comps and coupons, and so on. I have fond memories of Old Vegas back in the 1990’s and when I got married at ElvisChapel in 2024. It really was like that and what a blast! When I went in the 90’s, I found a mom-and-pop hotel just behind the police station that charged $18/night for a clean but spartan room with a tiny lobby with a few slot machines and a little pool.
Now? I’ve watched this channel from time-to-time, Not Leaving Las Vegas as this guy documents the downfall of private equity firm Vichi Properties bought up the strip lock, stock, and barrel and are raising prices through the roof to milk the place until it’s dry and collapses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBWFgQeift0
The nice teenage couple kept saying they wanted to go there and I told them it was too late. It’s gone. These women don’t realize their time has passed or at least the economics of what had worked for a brief time has.
That being said, the analogy to Vegas invites the analogy that, sure, there are people who go to Vegas, pay $15 for glass of beer on the casino floor, and walk over to the roulette table and making a killing and pay off their student loans. I’m sure it does happen. Look at Bezos and what he fell for after having given away 1/2 of his net worth to his ex wife! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_S%C3%A1nchez_Bezos
But that’s like investing in Mega Millions Lottery tickets…
polishknight Endorsed 3h ago
Public service message: If you enjoy the content, please consider posting this link to the Reddit version of WAATGM since I cannot. It drives more traffic to this site, such as myself, and that's how the content creation happens. Please do your part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlC5DEp2EOQ
GeorgeIII 3h ago
Ahh, I’ve heard of a cognitive effect like this.
ChatGPT calls it the False Consensus Effect, or Projection Bias.
In short, it’s the cognitive bias that other people think the same way that you do, or that other people want the same things you do.
In the case that @polishknight is writing about, it’s women believing that since they want “economically attractive” men, men should want economically attractive women, not understanding that men want physically attractive women. Coupled with feminist beliefs and the shaming of men for having physical preference, it’s a common cognitive bias that women have reinforced by society.
Men have a similar bias as well. Posting a dating profile of only shirtless photos, or sending girls dicks pics rarely works. But men try these things because they like when girls share topless pics or sext them. Another example is men thinking cars are cool, and expecting women to like their car, and by extension, the man. In reality, you get more car compliments from other men, and women mostly only care about a man’s car as much as it signals wealth/poverty.
polishknight Endorsed 2h ago
I edited my post above due to your observations.
I chuckle because on one of my first dates 40 years ago, a woman asked me almost immediately "what kind of car do you drive?"
GeorgeIII 2h ago
How did that go? Was she interested in your engine or tires? And if you answered straightforward, did she even know what type of car you were talking about?
polishknight Endorsed 2h ago
I was living in Philly at the time and flying international about 3 months out of the year so I sold my car. I told her I didn’t have a car at all. I didn’t mention I had about $120K in the bank.
GeorgeIII 1h ago
And the juicy part: the reaction?
A few years ago when I was between jobs, some ladies I met at a singles event asked me what I did for a living. I answered “I’m between jobs”. The way their faces changed was… out of a horror movie.
…little did they know I was about to become a software engineer.
Women hang out at the finish line and fuck the winners. CLASSIC
polishknight Endorsed 35m ago
I didn't think I needed to say. :-) This was a pre-call before a date (it was through a local matching service "It's just Lunch!" it was 1993 before internet dating after all) and she hung up and said to the matchmaker she wasn't interested. Looking back, I suppose if I "played my cards right" I would have likely married one of these stuck-up east coast bitches and wound up a LOT less interesting than I am now. After that, I moved to Orange County and LA trying to be a tech millionaire (Didn't work out) and then to Poland and I emerged from that a more interesting individual. I look at friends in my hometown who married nice, normal, perhaps a (little) shallow girls and they're happy and perhaps if I went that route, I'd be happy too but not as knowledgable about all this.