I thought I’d dealt with the ridiculous notion that there are lots of attractive girls who just can’t find a man to marry, but the goalposts have moved: now it appears that many of them are actually too ugly. Of course, there are some truly deformed, ugly people out there, but that’s always been the case and they aren’t that common, so does it really have anything to do with the modern phenomenon of “where are all the good men now that I’m ready”? This all actually leads into a post concept I’d been planning to work on, so let’s deal with this new myth, shall we?
First, if you know a 35-year-old, shrewish, short-haired careerist who’s battling an extra 10-15 pounds and complains a lot about how much men suck, it’s completely believable that no one wants to marry her now. But she wasn’t always 35, shrewish, careerist, etc. Once upon a time she was a fresh-faced 18. Was she really so ugly then that no guys were interested for the next several years, or did she shrug them off because she was too busy “living”? Let’s consider.
I did a quick search and found a small, Midwestern high school that puts its senior pictures online. (I’m not going to say what town, because I figure it’d be kinda mean to have one of them do a search someday and find these pictures and my mean statements about them. Suffice it to say it’s a middle-American town like thousands of others, with small enough numbers to keep my experiment manageable.) I grabbed the girls’ pictures from 2012 (the last year available), arranged them into a montage, and numbered them. The result:
So, how many of these girls are “too ugly” for any decent man to be interested in? Well, #6 is clearly whatever we’re calling “retarded” these days, so she may not be marriageable for other reasons. I don’t think any of the rest qualify as “ugly.” I could nitpick some of them: #4 has a heck of a man-jaw, #12 needs help with her makeup, and so on. But those aren’t big things, and they wouldn’t turn off every guy. The main problem I see is that three of them are significantly fat — enough to keep away a lot of guys — and a few others have at least a hint that they might be putting on weight. That doesn’t have to be permanent, though; and if those girls lost the weight, their features look good enough that they’d fit in with the rest.
So my contention is that 27 of these 28 girls could be married to decent guys with jobs by the age of 20 if that’s what they wanted. None of them are doomed to a life of cats due to their looks. Very, very few women are — nowhere near the numbers to account for all the career girls hitting the Wall these days.
However, pick out any one of these girls, and imagine her after 15 years of college, work, and club-hopping. Add 20 pounds, cut off the hair to give her a “sassy” do, and give her an N of 12-20 and the personality disorders to prove it. Now, when she cries that no man ever wanted to marry her, are you going to buy that? Before you do, think back to the cutie she once was.
Out of curiosity, I also grabbed their pictures from 1962, 50 years earlier. The results:
Now, I actually find this group homelier than the 2012 girls, which surprised me, but that’s mostly because the hairstyles do absolutely nothing for me. (I’m very heartened by the amount of long hair in the 2012 pictures, actually.) I’m sure many of these girls would be much cuter with long hair. But the most striking thing is that not one of these girls appears to be overweight (maybe just a hint on #3, but barely).
Does anyone doubt that these girls were able to find husbands? Of course not. But that’s not because they’rte more attractive than the 2012 girls; they’re less attractive in my opinion. It’s because girls wanted husbands back then and they didn’t want to put them off until their 30s.
Cail Corishev 
“A girl who wants to get married can still get married; she just can’t assume it’ll “just happen” the way it did in the past (although I don’t think it ever did “just happen”; women just forgot how to play the “invitation” role thanks to feminism). She will have to help guys find her through the maze of nonsense that makes up today’s sexual marketplace.”
I just don’t know how much more clearly it can possibly be said.
For at least 30 years now, women have been encouraged to put off marriage for as long as possible. So that’s what men see now, and what they deal with. Many girls told me point blank “I’m not looking for marriage now” and “I’m just looking to have a bit of fun” and “You’re the kind of guy to marry; not the kind to date” ( of course I didn’t have the benefit of the hamsterlator at the time; so I did not know to hamsterlate that latter one as: “ You just don’t tingle me.”)
If a woman wants a man for marriage, she needs to state that clearly, point blank, deadly seriously – and look for men who want that. And not turn them down because they don’t tingle her right away. And not turn them away just because he has one characteristic she doesn’t like. And GET REALISTIC.
Cail, deti, and Elspeth,
And there never will be (and with good reason.) Men still want to marry. Men NEED women. I need my wife. If she left me it would kill me.
What we will see instead (what we are seeing now), is an ever increasing percentage of men who will NOT need women, and ever increasing percentage of men who will “opt out.” MGTOW will ever so gradually increase, but in such small increments that society will not notice it fully. It will just change our society (and how men and women relate to one another) over a period of time. We are already 4 full decades into MGTOW (since no-fault-divorce laws became the law) and much has changed. Its just taken a very long time.
But consider where we are now. In the inner city, marriage has been destroyed. There is NO marriage in the inner city, none. Zero. That was not the case 40 years ago. And this anti-marriage-rot is slowly and steadily ever creeping into the suburbs and exurbs. It is only a matter of time before marriage disappates so much from middle America, that it truly becomes a luxury only for the rich.
Why not indeed? And no, they are not worried about hellfire. It is pretty hard to convince a 19 year old not to fornicate when all he or she is thinking about (regarding the hellfire punishment ) is that is 80 years away. More to the point, once they fornicate and they think they are going to Hell for it, what difference does it make now? Might as well just have fun for the next 80 years until your soul burns.
-IBB
That never having had a boyfriend or been on a date probably sends a very anti social signal. Not saying it should, but that it’s likely it does. Folks want to have fun, laugh etc on the 1st series of dates, not interview for a job they might not want.
I’m sure it does send a very anti-social signal. I went throughout my entire high school career without going on a date. My first date was my senior prom (dad decided which invitation of the two I received I could accept. Then he had my older brother ask the girl next door if he could be her date so that it would be a double date with big brother acting as my chaperone.
It is down right weird now for a girl not to date and the truth is when you’re used to not dating it takes an exceptional guy to trip your radar. You’re just not looking.
Daughter and I have talked about this and she is contemplating not being so tunnel visioned that she doesn’t see possibilities. Unlike her mother, I don’t think she expects to tingle right away, sir Deti.
And then there is the inherent problem of treating romantic connections as something “fun”. That’s dangerous stuff. I agree that you don’t want to effectively be interviewing a guy (or a woman if you’re male) for a job you don’t even want.
That makes sense, but in the context of looking toward marriage rather than just someone to *kick it* with, this stuff has to come up sooner rather than later.
And let’s face it, even most Christians have bought into the dating for fun model, the idea that you just date whomever until the one shows up. Women in particular who eschew that model are at a distinct disadvantage.
IBB, don’t be so dramatic. Human nature doesn’t change; most men will always “need” women as much as ever. Bad laws and mores have made the legal contract of marriage both less attractive and less necessary. But those things can change — are almost guaranteed to change, because what we have now isn’t sustainable — and that means marriage will be popular again. It’s not like marriage is something that was invented recently by one particular religion or culture and might fade away. Marriage (monogamous or polygamous) has been the standard for all human cultures for as long as we have recorded history. Marriage 2.0 is the historical anomaly, and there’s no reason to think it will outlast our debt-driven, consumerist, pampered culture.
Women are the gatekeepers of sex. Men will do what it takes to get regular sex from an exclusive woman. Put those two things together: women have most of the say over how relationships work. If a guy can get a woman to sleep with him on the second date and then move in with him a couple months later and live with him a few years without ever pushing for marriage, that’s what he’ll do. If the only way he can get laid regularly is to get a good job and propose to a nice girl, that’s what he’ll do.
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“Daughter and I have talked about this and she is contemplating not being so tunnel visioned that she doesn’t see possibilities. Unlike her mother, I don’t think she expects to tingle right away, sir Deti.”
I haven’t been knighted, at least not yet.
I think you’ve hit on the primary issue here. Most young women looking for marriage are still, I think, looking for absolute perfection. Her expectations are stratospheric. He has to be perfect in every way, else she won’t even consider him for marriage. And I can see why – after all, she’s going to be hitched to this guy for life (theoretically).
Another huge, huge problem is the hedonic marriage model too many women fall for. Marriage is not bliss and happiness and mind-blowing sex with a perfect body all the time; in fact that’s not what it is MOST of the time. Most of the time it’s mundane, mind-numbing routine. It can be fun; but it can also be a run through a lake of fire. I’ve done both – many, many times.
I just believe most women, from top to bottom, of all ages and stations, have a completely unrealistic, Disney Princess expectation of the relationship of marriage that is completely counterfactual and not grounded in any kind of reality at all.
But you can make a marriage work, and a girl can fall head over heels for and be in love with, “pretty good” or “great” but not “ideal” or “perfect”.
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Elspeth,
Is your daughter putting herself into positions where similar minded men would be? I would not count the college as that since the culture there is very different. How would she come across such a man in the areas she spends her time?
The idea of a matchmaker of some sort seems reasonable and may be much better than the random “I hope I bump into him” approach. I doubt God’s plan is for her to stay single her whole life, but she could end up that way if she doesn’t actively take part in changing that.
My experience is more than 25 years out of date, but I was largely interested in women who were active in the church activities I was into at that time in my life. Is she anywhere such a man could find her? Trolling the street or even the campus does not seem like something most men would try, except for the PUAs.
I would see this as like complaining that you didn’t have a good job when you never did anything to find or “bump into” that good job.