Why Has Dating Collapsed? The Real Reason No One Talks About

[Ulax]

1 hour ago, Miguel1 said:

You guys are being too uptight and seemingly reactive.

She brought great points and new perspectives I have not heard of before. That was the whole point. There was zero complaining or bitching from me.

Like I said, in our culture, the general pull is that dating issues are blamed on men more so than on women, and I agree that men have responsibilities to step up too. But here I am bringing perspectives on the other side of the coin.

Nothing more, nothing less. What’s up with the aggressive tone?

If you know game, you are still gonna have it easy with the ladies. More easy than ever actually.

You have brought up a taboo topic bro. And, for better or worse, taboo topics attract more intense reactions.

[something_else]

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

It explains a little, but not that much. 

If you are a dude in the 18-29 range you likely dont want to wait for a gf until you are out of that range and when some of the women in that age group increase their percentage with an older partner, men can do the same with an older or younger partner. And men can date below that age range as well, like a 18 year old dude can date a 17 year old girl. 

It would only make sense when you say that men just need more time and emotional maturity until they can enter the dating market. I think I wanted a gf since I was like 14 though. 

Good that it is US specific. 

I mean there are likely more factors, but that’s a large part. Other factors include girls feeling culturally pressured to say they’re in a relationship while guys are not as much, the age range I factor mentioned before, and the fact that self-report studies surrounding dating are notoriously inaccurate and often fraught with bias 

[Jannes]

23 minutes ago, Ulax said:

I get where you're coming from re lacking the lived experience. But i think its a mistake to think you have little authority to argue on it because of that alone. If a dude researches the subject then they can be an authority. Its just psychology/ sociology at the end of the day.

Yeah but in a modest way. Most of what she talked about in that video was complete new territory for me.

[aurum]

20 hours ago, Miguel1 said:

I honestly don't see the value in comments like this. What are you trying to accomplish?

For example, you could point out the obvious way she is biased? Would that be more constructive to the conversation? Hmm?

The point is to discern bias from non-bias. 

Her bias is pro-male, anti-feminist.

Which is not to say all her points are incorrect or invalid. You can be biased and still make valid points.

[Butters]

23 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

The only problem is high standards from both sides

What are high standards but ego? Unwilling to give up the self in unification of the two. 

Surely stage blue has more collective ego, but this pickiness? Also ego. 

[CARDOZZO]

1 hour ago, Butters said:

What are high standards but ego? Unwilling to give up the self in unification of the two. 

Surely stage blue has more collective ego, but this pickiness? Also ego. 

People get what they are not what they want.

 

[Miguel1]

2 hours ago, Butters said:

What are high standards but ego? Unwilling to give up the self in unification of the two. 

Having high standards is not ego. You guys have a complete false understanding of what ego is.

High standards means self-love and self-respect. Having unrealistic standards is a different matter.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

High standards are usually about work, values and outcomes.

Ego is normally about identity protection. 

Sort of how I loosely approach it with interpersonal relationships.

People confuse the two all the time as you can ovarlap them and justify egoic attachments. 

[AION]

People who don't want watch the video, this is the summary of the OP:

Quote

Summary: "Dating Collapsed But Nobody's Talking About The Real Reason" — Kait Willett

The Core Thesis

Kait Willett argues that modern dating's collapse — 63% of young men single vs. 34% of women, declining sex rates, a loneliness epidemic — cannot be understood by only scrutinizing male behavior, which is the cultural default. The missing variable: female intrasexual competition, meaning how women regulate other women's behavior through social mechanisms. This competition is largely invisible because it operates through moral language, reputation management, and social inclusion/exclusion rather than direct confrontation.

The central claim is that women don't compete through dominance or force — evolutionary pressures made that too costly. Instead, competition evolved to target relative mate value: making rivals appear comparatively less appealing, rather than elevating oneself in absolute terms. And crucially, this competition now hides behind the language of empowerment and virtue, making it almost impossible to critique.

The Five Domains of Female Competition

1. Physical Appearance — The Aesthetic Arms Race

Women pressure other women toward artificial enhancement (Botox, filler, cosmetic procedures, Instagram-face uniformity) — even though research consistently shows men prefer more natural aesthetics, especially when evaluating for long-term commitment. The pressure doesn't come from men; it comes from female peer groups, influencer culture, and female-dominated beauty industries.

This is positional competition: nobody needs to "win," everyone just needs to avoid losing ground. Once enough women adopt artificial enhancements, natural beauty becomes visually muted by comparison — restraint starts looking like neglect. Women who opt out get labeled insecure, lazy, or "pick-me." The result is aesthetic inflation where every woman feels the pressure but no single woman created it, and the baseline drifts away from what men actually value for commitment.

2. Sexual Selectivity — Leverage Under Attack

Selectivity is leverage in mating markets. A woman who maintains high selectivity signals self-control, standards, long-term orientation, and scarcity — all of which increase her commitment value. This creates a problem for other women, because one woman's high selectivity raises the contrast.

So selectivity gets attacked sideways — reframed as pathology: "you're a prude," "you're repressing yourself," "that's internalized misogyny." The key move is that the behavior isn't debated on outcomes or data — it's moralized. Once selectivity is framed as insecurity, its leverage evaporates. Encouraging widespread sexual availability flattens the mating hierarchy, lowering any individual woman's bargaining power, which benefits those who already have attention or access.

Modesty isn't threatening because it's moral — it's threatening because it creates contrast. So it gets reframed as judgment, insecurity, or being a "pick-me." Women have been conditioned to experience this pressure as supportive ("don't be so uptight!") when it functions competitively.

3. Reputation & Character Framing — The Most Powerful Weapon

Since men evaluating for long-term commitment rely heavily on perceived emotional stability, trustworthiness, loyalty, and moral consistency — and since these are hard to measure directly — they depend on social information: how others talk about a woman. This makes reputation a high-leverage target.

Direct attacks are risky (they expose intent and damage the attacker). So competition operates through subtle character framing: "something feels off about her," "she seems insecure," "she's so calculated." No direct accusation, no evidence required — just enough doubt to make a man hesitate. That hesitation lowers her perceived mate value for commitment.

The weaponization of psychological/clinical language — toxic, narcissistic, manipulative, unsafe — is particularly effective because these labels sound authoritative, carry enormous weight, and are nearly impossible to disprove. Defending yourself against them is treated as further evidence of the accusation.

This framing intensifies at specific moments: when a woman starts receiving quality male attention, when she enters a stable relationship, when she outgrows her friend group. Her success gets reframed as desperation, luck, or moral compromise.

4. Social Proof & Group Alignment — The Silent Filter

Men don't evaluate women in isolation — they assess them in social context. Social proof answers a critical question: is she stable, respected, and likely to integrate into my life without chaos? A woman doesn't need universal approval, but she needs the absence of quiet resistance.

Group alignment is enforced not through confrontation but through strategic silence: invitations that don't come, delayed responses, reduced enthusiasm, lack of public endorsement. Nothing bad "happens," but everything changes. On social media, this becomes publicly legible — who gets tagged, celebrated, amplified, and whose milestones are quietly ignored.

This creates enormous pressure toward ideological conformity: mirroring the group's beliefs, publicly affirming shared narratives even when you privately disagree, avoiding deviation. The system regulates itself — no threats needed, because exclusion completes the job.

5. Long-Term Compatibility Signals — Devaluing What Men Actually Want

When a woman signals genuine long-term compatibility — commitment orientation, emotional regulation, cooperativeness, humility, consistency between values and behavior — she raises expectations and forces contrast. This is destabilizing in a market where most participants benefit from ambiguity.

So these signals get reframed: wanting marriage = desperate/naive. Wanting family = lacking ambition. Prioritizing peace = boring/settling. The goal isn't to deny these qualities exist but to devalue them. Women who opt for long-term orientation are pressured sideways: "don't rush," "you're too young," "you're giving up your freedom."

This is why men experience mixed signals: women verbally say they want commitment, stability, and partnership, but the social environment actively punishes the behaviors that would produce those outcomes and rewards non-commitment and ambiguity.

The Protective Layer: Moral Language

The mechanism that makes all of the above untouchable is moral encoding. Once competition is framed as virtue — empowering, progressive, healing, "the right side of history" — questioning it becomes not just wrong but immoral. Moral language performs three functions simultaneously:

Signals group membership (in-group vs. out-group)

Protects the speaker from scrutiny

Converts disagreement into character judgment

Disagreements aren't met with counter-arguments but with labels: internalized misogyny, toxic, unsafe, patriarchal, harmful. No evidence, outcomes, or trade-offs needed — the power comes from social consequences, not truth claims. This creates a binary: agree and you're enlightened; disagree and you're the problem. Nuance, trade-offs, and honest analysis become structurally impossible.

The Systemic Outcome

Kait's concluding argument: when one side of a relational system is endlessly analyzed and corrected (men) while the other is treated as morally exempt (women's influence on other women), the system destabilizes. The result is men who feel powerless and blamed, women who feel empowered but confused and dissatisfied, and relationships that collapse under contradictions nobody is allowed to name. Female competition isn't a moral failing — like male competition, it's a reality. But systems that can't be questioned can't be corrected, and these dynamics will keep shaping outcomes in the dark until they're openly examined.

 

Edited 9 hours ago by AION

[AION]

So basically this is the bottom line:

Women keep other women single, not through malice, but through social competition disguised as empowerment. The moral language around feminism and "girl's girl" solidarity functions as a compliance system that punishes women who deviate (being selective, pursuing commitment, looking natural, raising standards), and this hidden competition is the unexamined variable destroying modern dating. Until female-to-female social regulation is acknowledged instead of protected, the gender dynamics will keep deteriorating.

 

This is what I said in my topic about the matriachy which exactly describes the point of the video in the OP but she takes like almost an hour what I explained very concisely: 

 

There was no need to make a new topic for it IMO. 

The thing with the MATRIACHY or MATRIX is that the whole thing of the matrix is that people don't see it. The moment people see it, it just crumbles. The current system is not sustainable. It is wisdom to just ride it out and fuck around without emotional investment because these ho's ain't loyal. It is battle royale but in dating. 

You basically have two options.

1. Get her when she is 18-21 before she get's ruined and psycho by all the dick

2. Just ride it out until 30-40 and then join the passport bros to get a clean girl from a second-third world country, without marriage and enough safe guards obviously

[Raze]

I finally finished the video, and frankly her points are silly.

She projects how women view things onto men, and ignores the biggest issues with modern dating.

Women wearing more makeup is not making it harder for women to attract men with a makeup arms race, men barely can tell the difference.

Edited 6 hours ago by Raze