Do you have any rigorous evidence for this, or is it only based on your personal experiences or perceptions?
I don’t have evidence that’s tested this hypothesis specifically (that the average man isn’t good enough for the average woman, particularly in the area of social skills), but there are several lines of scientific evidence that suggest it.
Women’s physical attractiveness —but not their personality scores —predicted their own, their partner’s, and observers’ evaluations of interaction quality, with more attractive women experiencing better quality interactions than less attractive women. Conversely, men’s personality scores —extraversion, in particular —predicted their own and observers’ ratings of the quality of their interactions, with more extraverted men experiencing better quality interactions than less extraverted men. Men’s physical attractiveness was unrelated to any measure of interaction quality.
The finding that female interest in men is loaded on extraversion is consistent with women finding male social skills important. Of course, this doesn’t tell us how average male social skills measure up to the requirement of the average female.
In general, women seem to be more selective than men about all traits other than looks.
If it’s the case that women are more selective than men in general (even taking into account men’s greater selectivity for looks), or require higher levels of certain personality traits than are present in the male population, that could indeed create weird issues of supply and demand. This isn’t the fault of an individual women; the difficultly is the weight of aggregate female preferences.
My answer is the same in both cases: in practice, people adjust their expectations according to what is available. Most people don’t see celibacy as a real option, so they’re more likely to try for the best available partner than just give up on mating.
Don’t forgot the option of multiple people dating the same person. Humans are considered a mildly polygynous species.
The kind of scenario I’m imagining is if two women of average attractiveness both want a man of slightly above average attractiveness (attractiveness, in this case, means more than just looks). Either they both go out with him, or one of them goes out with him and the other goes out with nobody and lusts for him. Since one man is monopolizing the sexual attention of two women, the supply of women of average attractiveness is choked, leaving less possible partners for men of average attractiveness.
Of course, two men often go after the same woman. Yet if it’s true that women are more selective in general, then it’s just a lot more likely to see the situation where two women want the same guy and neither of them will settle for an inferior guy. So it’s more common for the supply of women at any level of attractiveness to be choked.
OkCupid also found that women rate 80% of men as below average in attractiveness while men have a much more symmetric distribution of attractiveness ratings with pretty much 50% of women rated below average and 50% above. Men on the other hand are much more likely to message the most attractive women while women are actually most likely to message men rated as slightly below average in attractiveness. As OkCupid puts it:
As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.
I don’t have evidence that’s tested this hypothesis specifically (that the average man isn’t good enough for the average woman, particularly in the area of social skills), but there are several lines of scientific evidence that suggest it.
See this study by Berry and Miller for instance:
The finding that female interest in men is loaded on extraversion is consistent with women finding male social skills important. Of course, this doesn’t tell us how average male social skills measure up to the requirement of the average female.
In general, women seem to be more selective than men about all traits other than looks.
See Botwin and Buss 1997:
Also, see OkCupid research, which found that women are pickier about race than men.
If it’s the case that women are more selective than men in general (even taking into account men’s greater selectivity for looks), or require higher levels of certain personality traits than are present in the male population, that could indeed create weird issues of supply and demand. This isn’t the fault of an individual women; the difficultly is the weight of aggregate female preferences.
Don’t forgot the option of multiple people dating the same person. Humans are considered a mildly polygynous species.
The kind of scenario I’m imagining is if two women of average attractiveness both want a man of slightly above average attractiveness (attractiveness, in this case, means more than just looks). Either they both go out with him, or one of them goes out with him and the other goes out with nobody and lusts for him. Since one man is monopolizing the sexual attention of two women, the supply of women of average attractiveness is choked, leaving less possible partners for men of average attractiveness.
Of course, two men often go after the same woman. Yet if it’s true that women are more selective in general, then it’s just a lot more likely to see the situation where two women want the same guy and neither of them will settle for an inferior guy. So it’s more common for the supply of women at any level of attractiveness to be choked.
OkCupid also found that women rate 80% of men as below average in attractiveness while men have a much more symmetric distribution of attractiveness ratings with pretty much 50% of women rated below average and 50% above. Men on the other hand are much more likely to message the most attractive women while women are actually most likely to message men rated as slightly below average in attractiveness. As OkCupid puts it: