It's not a thing. It's a theory that fits the facts in the minds of men who want there to be some kind of reason or rationale why they can't get what they think they should be entitled to.
Hypergamy very much is a thing and it’s a theory that has a lot of evidence behind it. There’s academic research, surveys and now plenty of big data e.g. from dating apps. I’ll provide a little in this post but I’m more than happy to provide plenty more evidence if you want it.
Hypergamy is an important factor in dating but it includes many components (although that does somewhat depend on how you define it) and it’s far from the only factor. However you are correct that it’s significance is overstated by many, especially those in the “red pill community”.
The fact is that people are individuals, and whilst some traits are more widely found attractive, these things aren't universal and different things matter to different people at different times. Why did Jessica Rabbit marry Roger?
This is definitely true and understated by those who focus solely on hypergamy. However stating exceptions to the rule doesn’t mean the rule doesn’t exist. It may be a loose rule but many of those traits which are widely found attractive are close to being universally attractive.
If you want to talk percentages in relation to dating then the simple fact is this...if you don't talk or engage with women then your success rate will be zero. The more times you engage with people the greater chance you have of finding someone you hit it off with.
How engagements with others has changed in this post covid and app-savvy world is a different questions but the fact remains....sitting on your arse and bemoaning things gets you nowhere.
This is also definitely true but the success rates between two different guys (who talk to/engage women the same amount) is often very big. If you come across as weird or particularly creepy, then your success is going to be virtually nil. The same is true if you’re ugly or in a wheelchair etc. You can say “ugly” is subjective which is true but in most cases there is far more agreement than disagreement when it comes ratings of attractiveness. Interestingly, if you are polarizing then that can be an advantage because it’s the girls who are really into you that tend to matter the most (but if you’re just polarizing in the sense that some think you look awful and some OK then that’s not good enough to be an advantage).
It’s also true that women class way more guys as ugly than men do women (unsurprisingly). When women rate men only 1 guy in 6 is considered “above average” in an absolute sense (source: data from tens of thousands of people on OKCupid plus samples of random social media users to check that guys on OKC aren’t just more likely to be bad looking for whatever reason - see the book Dataclysm by the co-founder of OKC).
Anyway, I don’t know why you’ve mentioned people who just sit on their arse and don’t bother trying to engage with women since that doesn’t seem to apply to people in this thread. Indeed this thread is mostly full of people who have tried quite a lot but with minimal success.
e.g. this guy
Signed up to so many over the years and the "80% of women competing over 20% of men" syndrome mentioned above dominates every time.
An even better example of a guy doing a lot of engaging with women (plus far more than just that) is this guy from a different thread (note that I’ve edited his quotes for brevity):
Guys you are giving advice but you know nothing about my situation.
I have been looking for 10 years and tried everything from dating site, exchange group, speed dating, tinder, study psychology to meet girls, PUA course and practice, street / shop games to ask numbers... really I tried really really hard.
And let's be honest, at some point, when you see no results, you have to stop. No point to keep trying after trying over 10 years. Movies and cinema and popular belief is that everyone can have someone somewhere. The reality is not that bright. Some people are attractive and get lots of girls, majority are average, and a minority don't get anything. I belong to the later one.
So for my situation it's much better to pay for a punt instead of trying over 100 girls to get 1 date and at the end hear she just want to be friend!
To be honest, I started punting 3 years ago. I was over 30 and never managed to have a gf for more than few weeks.
Barry I had few coach and did pua game for few years. I approached many thousand of girls and there was period were we went with players out for 10h a day, 7 day a week.
I did get numbers. I did get date. But it never went much further. The truth is that girls value physical attractiveness as much as guy. Most semi successful players are at least average or they have some edge such as being tall.
If you are short and non attractive, it's very very hard to get anything.
Clearly his success rate is much lower than the vast majority of guys who’ve done similar. Of course the above is “cold approaching” which obviously has a much lower success rate than if you know them at least somewhat or you share a social circle etc but he’s tried that too (plus he’s tried Tinder as well, albeit with a seemingly defeatist attitude):
I'm decently confident and I have lots of female friends, or at least acquaintance. I have a good social life and go out with friends few times a week.
I've been hearing over and over about advice that I just have to keep trying and it will work.
You know what, last year, just to prove to my friend his advice was wrong, I did everything he recommended to be more popular on tinder. I adjusted name, age, description, posed for pictures, created some cool hobbies, paid for the premium account.
And still nothing. I only match with adverts and girls who liked by mistake. I ended up having an argument with him because he said I was ungrateful from his help. But what help? It didn't produce any results!!!
Life is short. If I see a single attractive girl of course I'll try. Of course I ask for numbers. Of course I always message back on tinder when there is a match. And of course when I get a number or Facebook I ask the girl out..... and of course I'll escalate (get closer,try kiss, etc.) If I get a date.
For you to understand the level of difficulty I have:
Tinder:
I must need to do about 500 like to get 1 match. That's the type or ratio I have. And out of these matches, 70% of the time I get unmatched immediately after.
So when I used tinder with the improved profile and picture about 3h/day doing likes, in a week I only had 2 girls who were chatting with me. We never manage to meet as they refused or unmatched me after.
Street game:
I use to dress up (even tried with costume like Barnet for a while) and with some players we spent days (10-12h/day) on the street, shops, clubs, pubs talking to girls. We walked from shop to shop, commercial centre to centre, pubs to other pubs on evenings to meet as many girls as poasible.
Out of 100 girls meet, I would get maybe 1-2 phone numbers. Out of 30 phone number, 15 would be fake numbers and 10 would only answer sporadically. Out of the 5 who would meet, 4 of them would only want to be friend. I would probably end up dating 1 out of 30 numbers I get.
That's how tough it was for me. I had many coaches who all told me It's in my mind. Change this. Change that. Just talk to them. Just try. Etc. Etc.
These guys always had better results doing the same thing of course. That's what I've seen.
Have I mentioned I've been doing the game for almost 10 years? And results didn't improve much?
You can read the full thread here (and also see posts from other punters in similar situations plus my advice for him which gives an insight into how much importance I place on hypergamy):
https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=204769Every time you see someone and think "why is she with him and not me" the answer is not because he has more money, or a bigger cock or a nicer car...but because he talked to her before you saw her.
To say “every time” is obviously total rubbish, gold diggers and the “relationships” that have come out of SA (as evidenced in this thread and elsewhere on this forum) are proof that sometimes it is because another guy has more money (and is willing to spend it on her).
However you’re right in the sense that money isn’t a big factor for most women (but of course it’s still true that the vast majority of women marry across and up the socioeconomic hierarchy and men across and down). Also it’s hard for women to even know how much money you actually have, so while signs of wealth such as a nice car can sometimes be more important than actual wealth, it’s still not a big deal. If money was so important, I’d have hotties throwing themselves at me left and right and I know others who would too but don’t. That’s not to say money is unimportant though, I noticed my Tinder matches go up when I included exotic holiday photos and my car. There’s also plenty of non-anecdotal evidence for the importance of wealth:
External Link/Members OnlyFor evidence from Tinder showing the very strong correlation between income and “likes”, see the first graph here:
External Link/Members OnlyAlso see the first table for strong evidence of hypergamy from Hinge. You’ll see that the top 10% of guys get 58% of the likes, while the bottom 50% of guys have to make do with only 4.3% of the likes. That’s hypergamy right there.
Of course men are hypergamous too (something “red-pill” guys almost never seem to talk about) but much less so than women and they care about less criteria too. You’ll see from that table that the bottom 50% of women get 7.9% of the likes. Not only is that almost twice as good as the equivalent men but because men vastly outnumber women on dating apps, spend more time on them and they swipe/send a lot more likes, those women still get a lot more likes in total than the vast majority of guys.
Despite that being on blog about fairness, I don’t think it’s necessarily unfair, it’s just evidence of vast inequality but just because that exists doesn’t mean things are unfair. Indeed one should accept things for the way they are and guys shouldn’t use this data as an excuse to do nothing/give up, instead it should be used to tailor one’s self-improvement and approach.
I agree that the importance of having a big cock is pretty much laughable.
To say the reason a guy got the girl instead of you is because he talked to her first is also rubbish. There are loads of guys who’ve tried and failed only to see other guys try after and succeed. You can see this frequently in bars and clubs but also frankly anywhere. What you’re saying implies that being first is more important than what the girl thinks of you which is obviously laughable.
I know most people who bang on about hypergamy overly focus on money but I notice you’ve also focused on some of the least important aspects of hypergamy. Things like status (whether that be social status or fame etc) and looks are usually far more important than money.
Outside of that, things like personality and “game” (or ability with women or whatever you want to call it) are also important. However such things are usually less important than looks, there’s ample evidence for that on dating apps but also according research too, which reveals a likely “minimum threshold” of looks before personality even becomes a factor. This would also blow a hole in your engage with more women theory:
External Link/Members OnlyI’m happy to discuss the limitations of that study and provide many more if you want to discuss further.
As you suggest, in dating for men playing the numbers game is very important however as I’ve pointed out, it’s far more than just a numbers game and things like hypergamy are definitely real and not insignificant.