Like in everything else, humans make bad decisions due to biases in matters of mating and pairing too. However, these particular biases are male- and female-specific, and pointing out the latter is easily perceived by women as an affront to their sex, which makes realistic discussion very hard.
But since you’re asking, here are some instances of such biases. None of them are universal, but each is held strongly by non-negligible numbers of women and leads them to decisions they later regret. One example is when women overestimate the attractiveness of men they can realistically hope to attract for serious permanent commitment, given the higher attractiveness of men they can attract for temporary relationships and short-term flings without any real commitment on the man’s part. Another is when women underestimate the speed with which their looks and reproductive abilities deteriorate with age. Yet another is the refusal to acknowledge that women can be greatly attracted to some very nasty personality types of men, not despite them but because of them (google “dark triad”), which leads some women to entering disastrous relationships with such men. Then there are also many wrong beliefs about what personality characteristics of women are truly attractive and pleasant to men and apt to attract their loyalty and commitment in the long run.
There are other examples too, many of which would probably sound more controversial. Even these I listed can provoke much worse reactions when put in less abstract and detached terms, which is typically necessary when forming concrete advice.
Can you give a couple examples?
Alicorn:
Like in everything else, humans make bad decisions due to biases in matters of mating and pairing too. However, these particular biases are male- and female-specific, and pointing out the latter is easily perceived by women as an affront to their sex, which makes realistic discussion very hard.
But since you’re asking, here are some instances of such biases. None of them are universal, but each is held strongly by non-negligible numbers of women and leads them to decisions they later regret. One example is when women overestimate the attractiveness of men they can realistically hope to attract for serious permanent commitment, given the higher attractiveness of men they can attract for temporary relationships and short-term flings without any real commitment on the man’s part. Another is when women underestimate the speed with which their looks and reproductive abilities deteriorate with age. Yet another is the refusal to acknowledge that women can be greatly attracted to some very nasty personality types of men, not despite them but because of them (google “dark triad”), which leads some women to entering disastrous relationships with such men. Then there are also many wrong beliefs about what personality characteristics of women are truly attractive and pleasant to men and apt to attract their loyalty and commitment in the long run.
There are other examples too, many of which would probably sound more controversial. Even these I listed can provoke much worse reactions when put in less abstract and detached terms, which is typically necessary when forming concrete advice.