Even being wealthy does not get you dates in America...

[Devon]

Sums up all women, not just western women. Large cross cultural studies have shown that women are looking for financial security from their mates. So women from Chad, Australia and Bolivia are all looking for the same thing: men to support them and their off spring.

[Adama]

Sums up all women, not just western women. Large cross cultural studies have shown that women are looking for financial security from their mates. So women from Chad, Australia and Bolivia are all looking for the same thing: men to support them and their off spring.

There's a difference between having enough money to support your wife and women digging for gold. Money is still necessary, and as much as we might hate it, the man is supposed to support the woman and his children. That doesnt mean women should go digging for gold. Neither does it mean that men must attain great wealth to attract women. It just means that the man needs to make enough money to be able to pay for his family (which is no longer an easy task in the West, if you ask me).

This isnt like a woman saying a man must be 6'4'' inches tall. This is more like women saying you should be of average height when she is of average height. The women who want rich men are like the women who will only go for men with big male members, or the women who will only date men who are over 6 feet. Then it is just plain old superficial.

When you think about it, what is the percentage of men who make more than the median income? What is it about 20% of men make more than the median? Don't attempt to derail me if I get the numbers wrong here. Let's say the average salary for a man is $50,000 USD per year, with the average for women being $28,000. Let us also say that 20% of men make $80,000 or greater.

If 50% of men are getting married, what how much of that 50% are in the top 20% of income earners? Can every woman get one of those men? Surely that 50% isnt comprised entirely of the top 20% of male income earners. Since the majority of men fall close to the median, we could probably say that the majority of men getting married are of average income.

Besides that, from what I remember, at most 1 in 450 men are worth more than one million dollars. That may have changed after the bankster scandals (more for them).

[Adama]

Then I guess the problem is that there aren't many women left who actually like men as opposed to their money. In the West, that's basically impossible. The closest thing a WW can do is "love" a man for his genes or bad boy traits. It's bestial. Abroad is better, but...well, still far from ideal.

I don't disagree.

[mattyman]

There are deeper things that attract women to men (or that should among healthy women), such as personal struggles the guy she's talking to has gone through, how he's got through those, and whether it's a situation she's related to. It's a gross over-simplification to say those that 'work hard' (in the conventional sense) and earn the most get the most girls. For exampe, people who're disabled, adn who've struggled through persecution. There are examples of relationships of women who've admired such people and been drawn to them. I think it's all too easy to put down frustrations in lack of success in finding relationships down to all the 'women want a guy like this' stuff. We've all been there and done that, placed our blame on what we thought was responsible for our unhappiness. Where has that gotten us or our happiness? Either nothing or seeking greener pastures. Americans in particular tend to narrate things in a very childish manner.

Well, there are very valid points about the practicalities of money in a realtionship which, there's not much getting away from. You cant' just go out into the woods and hunt your food these days, some cunt owns it all.

As for those that would only consider dating you if you have house, car and that load of jass, absolute rubbish, crap, white trash, yellow trash, black trash.
This is one of the reasons why divorce rates are at an all time high, people particularly anglo-american women feel more entitled than ever before.

Doesn't matter whether they have a degree or not, these things are irrelevant. I just want to know thast they can be a good person to spend time with and live with. The only point money would come into the equation is if I know they won't be sponging. That's exactly the sort of mentality I would expect of a women I would consider settling-down with. Too many people are too fussed about 'on paper' to the point that THEY CLOSE THEMSELVES OFF.

[Devon]

Mattyman and Adama, I think you both make some good points. And yes, I think the sense of entitlement is growing in the West. However, it's also growing in developing countries as well and possibly at a much faster rate. I guess that's not too surprising given that the third world is getting rapidly less impoverished. See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall ... this-year/

Can we assume that as countries get richer, expectations of "marrying up" grow? I think so. Just being from the West 25 years ago made one appealing in a country like Thailand but now that's far from enough to be seen as desirable. Thailand is a much wealthier country now with plenty of opportunities for educated 20-something women. Here's a really interesting article by Stickman on Westerners' declining economic advantage. As he says " Many Thais don't consider all foreigners to be rich in the same way they used to."

http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Stickman ... income.htm

[traveller]

Extreme wealth doesn't last forever, either. Even some of the richest people in the whole wide world can be in the poorhouse a couple decades later.

For instance, when I was 10 years old, my parents and I were renting a house in Chicago's west suburb of Berwyn. Our landlord was tremendously rich! He was practically a millionaire! He owned a large number of other properties that he rented out at very high prices. The house we were renting from him was overrun with mice, had inadequate wiring for our appliances (once, Commonwealth Edison even told us that we were in danger of an electrical fire!), plus the house itself was leaning slightly to one side and was unstable; every time there was a really big wind, the house would structurally shift slightly, causing doors to stick in their frames, and we had to have them sanded down a bit so they would fit. Our rent started out at around $600 ish a month, and went up to around $850 a month around when we moved out of there.

But about 20 years after we moved out of that house, our former landlord was in the poorhouse. He moved into a small, cramped office from the huge pavillion he had before. He sold a number of his rental properties, including the house we rented from him.