[jimmaswell]

I'm betting on dating sites and the internet in general. Our evolutionary biology is for the women to only get pregnant by the fittest available male in the "tribe" because it's such an investment in time and resources (also why men are inclined to go around with whoever they can, it's all benefit and no cost to "dine and dash"), and now the "tribe" we percieve is artifically extended with the fittest possible specimens constantly on display. Where a woman of the species might have been content settling for someone in their small town 100 years ago, the part of their brain that evolved to discern mates screams at them that they can do better because of the men on dating sites with perfect bodies these days, and the rest of the men are just left to simmer in discontent, probably a reason for a lot of social unrest.

I don't know what we could do to fix this but completely ban dating apps, which is impractical. Optimally in the far future we'd be able to rewrite the human genome to update our standards of attraction from the stone age - beefy muscles, tall height, other such signals are generally irrelevant to life today yet they're still such strong factors for men to be able to break into dating.

[staticman2]

You have some odd ideas there.

You might want to read The Moral Animal by Robert Wright for a more nuanced view of human nature by an evolutionary psychologist. (A field which is controversial at the best of times- but if you're going to believe something controversial but possibly true you can do a lot better than what you posted here)

If I wasn't on my phone i'd type more, but in brief you have a weird idea of what fitness means for a woman looking for a mate. It doesn't necessarily mean "big muscles" but could mean something like a guy who loves her and will raise the kids with her. Because that's optimal for passing on genes.

Furthermore fitness for a male in search of a woman might mean a guy who is monogomous and caring (because faking those traits to manipulate a woman might be too difficult) because he can convince a woman to mate with him because he will help her with the kids.

[mxschumacher]

The original statement isn't about women in general but the dynamics on dating apps for people under 30. I think we can agree that Tinder and others are more focused on physical attributes than the ability to finance and support the raising of children

[jfengel]

Believe it or not, I don't agree.

There's a lot more to a Tinder photo than physical attributes. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. A photo can convey a lot about your personality. What you're doing in the photo is a big clue. So is your emotional state. Just choosing a photo that's well composed and makes you look your best means a lot.

Tinder photos aren't mug shots for identification. You're not just comparing a person's physical features. Even the simple expedient of smiling will do you a lot of good. You'd be stunned at how many people (of both sexes) will choose a random grainy photo and slap it up there.

There's more to success on Tinder than a photo, but it's not the simple box-ticking of attractiveness that people make it out to be. A good photo gets you to the point where you can talk with somebody. Then your personality matters.

[ericmcer]

How do you convey that via 6 pictures and ~100 words. Also “convince a woman to mate with him because he will help her with the kids”...

[staticman2]

You don't need to find people online, do you? You can meet people other ways.

But the book does suggest, If I recall, that the best way to convince a woman you will stick around and raise kids with her is for your genes to make you very much in love with her and make you want to raise kids with her.

Some men supposedly have genes that make them fake being in love, but the book suggests women have genes that will try to sort out these fakers through natural lie detection, with varying result.

Of course, you could choose to take what I just stated with a grain of salt.

[osacial]

Are you asking(for a friend) how to date?

[ericmcer]

No it was a mocking rhetorical question for the op.

[diebeforei485]

I haven't read the book (it was written before I was born lol) but Tinder isn't about finding a partner to have kids with.

[temp-dude-87844]

It's not necessary to suppose that humans date like a prehistoric caricature; it's far more likely that people are making decisions based on the kind of information easily available to them, and their intuition about how likely that signal is to be accurate.

It's a discovery problem: people on today's mainstream dating sites select first on looks, then on profile substance, then on digital communication style and/or availability, and then on in-person compatibility. People filtered out from someone's potential matches at earlier stages in the process do not make it to later stages.

People in real life choose dates using the same criteria, but the order of filtering stages is more flexible to the circumstances. In real life, it's also more likely to benefit from a trusted third party who introduces you to a match.