“A customer complained to me about her brother, who’s working in sales in Beijing. Makes decent income, decent looks, saves up about 300K a year, but no house, and his parents are divorced. He’s saved up a little over 3 million on his own, but he’s had some sort of health crisis in the past, so he’s holding onto 1.5 million of it to take care of himself, in case he needs surgery in the event of a resurgence. So that’s why he can’t afford a house yet.
Her brother’s 36-years-old, and wants to find a Beijing local, a good-looking girl who’s around 25 or 26. And by good-looking, I mean model looks. Pretty face and beautiful figure. And he has really strict standards for figure. Like, he’s totally dreaming.
He’s recently found an out of state girl who fits his criteria and they get along well, and the girl’s the kind of naive idiot who knows everything about him and still wants to marry him anyways. But my customer’s mom saw the girl’s photo and got displeased that she wasn’t as pretty as his last girlfriend. Like, this mom has no concept of reality. Think about how old your son is. Being picky about anyone’s looks at this point is just delusional. A 25-year-old Beijing local who has model-looks can date anyone she wants. At a minimum, she’s gonna date a guy with a house. Why would she date you?
Not to mention, sales is not particularly stable as far as income goes. He has no house, he’s from out of state, and he’s got problems with his health. And you want your girlfriend to look like a video game CGI character? You know how much work goes into maintaining a body like that? She’s not maintaining that figure and that face just to date someone like you.
The customer says that this girl is decent enough, knowing about his health issues and not minding, but he’s still not happy. If he misses this chance, another one’ll never come along again.”
Comments say, “This out of state girl is so kind. She doesn’t even care that he’s so much older than her and sick to boot.”
“Why is the mom getting picky about her looks? She’s not the one getting married.”
“How ridiculous, being picky when you’ve got a disease. More importantly, he’s getting up there in age too. Everyone wants the best, but you gotta take a look at yourself first.”
“This guy booked a seat at the library, and found a girl in his seat instead. He asked the girl to leave and she wouldn’t, so he had to get the librarian to make her give him his seat back. And then he found out that she posted about this on the school forums.”
Screenshots of the forum post: “Just met a chintzy guy with no chill at all.
Just a little bit of context, I’ve got a habit where I like to sit in the same seat when I study at the library. Since the seats in the study centre are pretty popular, plus it’s postgrad degree exam season, I’ll come over every morning at 7:20AM.
This was another normal day. At 6:20PM, I was studying in the study centre, when a man came walking buy, wearing a white set of headphones and holding a dripping umbrella. It was raining outside, but that had nothing to do with how his words sounded like a strike of thunder to me: “Hey, I booked this seat. This is my seat.”
To make it clear, obviously, I follow all library rules. But when the study centre was first established, there wasn’t a booking system. And because of the atmosphere of quiet study, everyone just assumed it was first come first get. They instituted the booking system later, but based on my observation, hardly anybody ever uses it. Since I come over every day first thing in the morning anyways, I’ve stopped bothering to book it myself.
And then this guy ignored all of my books and laptop and iPad and chargers and water bottle, and insisted I had to leave my seat right now and give it up for him. I was doing my English listening practice at that time, and I felt his words were even harder to understand than English.
It’s not that I was unwilling to give up my seat, but there were tons of empty seats left in the study centre still. It’s not like he had to have this seat. But since I didn’t want any trouble, and it was still 10 minutes until his appointment time of 6:30, I figured I’d finish off my unit of English listening and give the seat to him. Worst case, I just book it for myself tomorrow right?
That’s when the most climactic part happened.
He. Summoned. A. Librarian…
I gotta say, this guy is a born rules police. The librarian came over and started trying to negotiate between us, asking if he could give up the seat to me since I was a girl, and postgrad exams aren’t easy, and there were plenty of other seats.
Our rules police was like, “But we’re all about gender equality in society.”
I got really annoyed and didn’t want to bother with him anymore, and I was feeling pretty speechless, so I was like, “Then I’ll just move one seat over. Is that okay?” I’ll just watch him study in my beloved seat. And as I spoke, I started shifting my things over. And the guy gave up and shuffled off.
I just want to say that I respect the library’s rules and I was willing to give up my seat. It was my fault for not noticing the rules. But I still want to say here that I hope this guy finds a girlfriend in college, because no girl in society is going to want to date a guy like you.”
Comments say, “Rules police is a pretty interesting term.”
“Emotional, illogical, no context, argumentative, two-faced. This fits what I understand about women.”
“When the facts are in her favour, she emphases the facts. When the rules are in her favour, she emphasises the rules. When neither are in her favour, she’ll just sling a bunch of shit at everyone and muddy the waters.”
“My daughter’s classmate’s mom doesn’t know how to drive, doesn’t know how to operate a scooter, and can’t even ride a bike. In a modern city, this type of person is really rare. I asked her in curiosity once, “Why don’t you learn?” And she replied with a smile, “I never learned because I figured I didn’t need to. My husband knows how to drive. I get motion sick when I try to drive a scooter, and I don’t know how to ride a bike, so I never bothered learning.” I was shocked by her answer, since these skills are almost a necessity in modern society.
I pressed, “Don’t you think it’s inconvenient?” Still smiling, she answered, “Not at all. My husband can drive, so I’ll ride his car, and make him drive me to wherever I’m going. I can get a taxi, I can walk, or I can ride the bus. If I don’t know how to ride a bicycle, I can just walk. I think there’s lots of different ways in life you can get to the destination you want. You don’t have to have these skills.”
I was totally shocked by her words. Maybe in her eyes, these skills aren’t necessities at all, and is just a nice bonus. She can still enjoy life even if she can’t handle any vehicle at all.”
Comments say, “I haven’t learned either, because I’m really scared of driving into someone. I’m even scared riding my bike around, so I definitely won’t learn how to drive a car. I don’t care what anyone says, I know myself.”
“How do you get motion sick on a scooter? I’m just curious.”
“Yeah, this is pretty much me. It’s a nice bonus if you know how, but it’s not that big a deal if you don’t.”
“If you surf the internet a lot, you’ve probably noticed that “gold digger” is a more and more common term. Or, you could say that gender conflict is getting worse by the day. In the eyes of men, women are doing everything they can to get money out of you, bleeding you dry. In the eyes of women, men just want to have everything for free. They even want to split the bill on boba tea. Although these impressions are rather stereotypical, it does reflect some truths about society. To put it simply, both sides think they’ve been taken advantage of in dating. No one thinks they got the better end of the deal.
So what’s the core of the problem? It’s because both men and women can’t afford to lose anymore, in the current dating market.
First, let’s approach this from the men’s point of view. I can objectively say, that it’s not that they don’t want to spend money. If I was a wealthy man, I’m willing to spend money on my future wife too. Or at least I’m willing to spend reasonable amounts of money on my girlfriend. But if I spend a ton of money, and this girl doesn’t even become my girlfriend, and doesn’t let me sleep with her or even hold her hand, then haven’t I lost?
Maybe you think I’m being too blunt, but you can go ask your male friends whether this is true. For men, when they spend money, they don’t care if it’s a lot, but they have to get something out of it. What is that something? At the very least, it’s having intimate interactions with a woman they’re attracted too, or it’s sex, or it’s marriage, or it’s having future children. Even better if you take care of him in life too. So long as a woman can deliver on these services, that’s a guarantee that men won’t lose out, at least not by much (for example, you only have to go out on a couple of dates before you can get these services). In that case, men are absolutely okay with spending normal amounts of money.
This is why a lot of people are nostalgic for old timey dating markets (like around the turn of the millennia). Men still picked up the tab when dating. There was no concept of splitting the check at all. But you go on 3-4 dates with someone, at most 7-8 dates, and you’ve got yourself a relationship. Whether you get married in the end is another story, but it’s still a common enough societal rule. So men have a known expectation of how much money they have to invest, so they’re happy to act generous.
Why did it only take a couple of dates to nail down a relationship back then? Mostly, it’s because people didn’t know too many other people and never really went far in life. There weren’t that many choices. You can ask people over their 40s now, how many people they dated, and it’s at most 10 [by dated, this means “went on a first date with”, not “was in a relationship with”]. People back then didn’t move to different cities, didn’t change jobs, and the internet hadn’t become wide spread yet. If you hadn’t found anyone you wanted in that 10 people, then you’re shit outta luck.
There’s another phenomenon tied with the lack of the internet too. That is, everyone’s expectations of their marriage, from their partner’s finances, looks, figure, personality, etc, their expectations weren’t too high. People’s ideals for their marriage was based on what they saw around them. If that’s the case, it means their criteria are necessarily something plenty of people in their community are fulfilling. So it only took a few dates for you to find a girlfriend. There are people who get together on the first date too. You’re all friends from the same circle anyways, nobody’s much better off than each other, and you don’t expect marriage to change your life or anything.
That is to say, even if men are turned down while dating or pursuing someone, they won’t be turned down a whole lot of times, unless they’re just being ridiculous.
Putting all pretences aside, what’s the most important quality for a normal girl on the dating market? It’s obviously age and looks. And age and looks tend to be highly correlated to each other. I know you’re gonna bring up a ton of examples of people who are in their 50s and still hot, but do those people need to date? They have a ton of pursuers waiting at the ready. If you’re on the market, looking for dates, you gotta have some concept of what you look like, right? If a normal, 26-year-old girl goes to date, they just have to list their age to win against a 35-year-old beauty. Ask any matchmaker, and they’ll tell you this is a common phenomenon.
So from the point of view of normal women, what do they fear the most in dating or relationships? It’s having too much of their time wasted by someone. If you drag a woman out from 22 to 32, and then break up with her, she has no competitiveness anymore. Thankfully, back around the turn of the millennia, there weren’t too many choices around. The path from “dating -> marriage” was pretty stable. It’s not that it was unheard of for men and women to live together and not get married, but it’s definitely rare. If a man and woman dated for years before breaking up, they would be judged by everybody. Not to mention divorce. Back then, if you’re married for 7 years, then all premarital assets become marital assets. Just that is enough to make divorce almost fatal. Although public discourse can’t really do any real damage to a man, humans are still social creatures. We care about what society thinks of us. And that societal judgement has stopped a lot of people from even considering that option.
So around the turn of the millennium, the logic behind most men’s generosity is:
People have few choices -> people have low standards -> it’s easy to get in a relationship -> you don’t have to go on too many dates -> men don’t have to spend a ton of money in the uncertain stage of the relationship -> you can get intimidate interactions/sex/promise of marriage once you’re in a relationship -> men might as well be generous to leave a good impression.
I know it seems like everyone on weibo makes 8 figures a year, and there are plenty of women who are financially independent and only care about looks when looking for a partner. But for most Chinese women, even middle-class women, the first criteria they’re looking for in a husband is financial capability. This includes how much money he makes now, how much money he made in the past (assets), how much debt his parents have (family background), how much money he might make in the future (potential, capability, diploma)…
So the logic behind why women are willing to date men is:
For most people, age is their core competitiveness -> people have few choices -> people have low standards -> all your choices are more or less the same -> you might as well get the most you can while you’re young -> if you miss out, you’ll lose even more competitiveness…
It’s not hard to see where men and women would intersect along their path. It’s the context that “people have few choices”. And now, that context has disappeared. Going on over 10 first dates back in the day made you a weirdo. But now there are plenty of people who’ve went on 30 or 50. If men are still generous then, going to a fancy restaurant every time, then most people wouldn’t be able to afford it. So men are less and less willing to invest.
And at the same time, the other context that’s disappeared is that it’s not guaranteed at all that you can smoothly transition from being in a relationship to being married. Forget dating for years and then breaking up, even married couples who have kids still get divorced. And at the same time, most women’s competitive edge is still age. This has forced women to stay on alert. They have to filter out the best man for them to make long-term investments in, in the shortest possible time. When there are too many choices, women have to meet up with a lot of people. They can’t even relax once they have a boyfriend they’re happy with, because what if this relationship doesn’t work out? They still have to go back to the market eventually.
With this anxiety, women can only go on many, many dates, while filtering for men who are willing to invest in them. And the problem is, the more women date, the more men think investing isn’t worth it.
That’s the situation now. It’s a downward spiral.
Summary: When people have plenty of choices and the path from “in a relationship” to “marriage” is highly unstable, and men and women’s competitive edge is still financial capability and age, then this conflict will never disappear. This has nothing to do with anyone’s morals or values. Even if you’re a saint, you need to leave yourself a backup plan.
First now, there are only a couple of potential solutions:
Men demand to split the check. They won’t pay a cent more than the woman. This is what a lot of incel male influencers recommend. The downside is that unless you have charisma coming out of your ass, no woman will bother with you. Most of these influencers don’t have girlfriends, much less wives or kids. Taking this path is basically committing to being single.
Lower your standards, marry quickly, take what you can get. This is what most people choose in life. Of course, just because you’re married doesn’t mean you can’t get divorced. There might still be problems in the future.
Men and women need to change their standards for each other. Women need to stop caring about money, and men need to stop caring about age and looks. This is the ideal situation for most people.
But in reality, I’ve met women who don’t care about money, who’ll date a guy who just has charisma. There are plenty of hot but desperately poor guys living off of their girlfriends. But if a man has enough money to date freely in the market, unless the woman is some mind-blowing billionaire or something, have you seen a single man who didn’t care about age?
The only example I can think of is Xiao Jingteng [37-year-old Chinese singer with 50-year-old wife], and I can’t recall any others. Even if a financially-okay, 40-year-old, white-collar man married a 45-year-old normal woman, everyone would gossip about whether there was any ulterior motives or some kind of grand story of true love here.
That is to say, so long as men continue to care mostly about age, then in our current circumstances, women will be forced to date a lot, which then causes men to spend too much money.
In the end, everyone has things they can’t afford to lose. This current situation was built by both of the genders. Just put up with it, everyone, it’s all our own fault.”
Comments say, “Men want to attract girls with their money, but don’t want to spend money on girls. This is just a dead end.”
“Because they don’t want to spend money, they call any girl who wants them to spend money “gold digers”. Girls demanding houses, girls demanding cars, girls demanding fruit yogurt—they’re all gold diggers.”
“A truth: If you invest a ton and still can’t a girlfriend, then investing less or splitting the check won’t get you a girlfriend either. The key of the problem is still finding the key of the problem.”
A compilation of embarrassing things kids say:
“My 5-year-old daughter told me, “Mom, daddy actually wants to marry a pretty lady and have another baby and give our house to his new wife and baby. He doesn’t want us anymore.” Now, when daddy’s driving past a billboard, he can’t even glance at it, or my daughter will say, “Daddy, are you looking at pretty ladies again?””
“My daughter was 4, and suddenly asked me in a dead silent subway car, “Mom, is your butt still bleeding?” I thought I was struck by lightning for a moment.”
“My daughter had a 40 degree fever and I took her to the ER, she started crying and demanding that the man next to us, who came in to get stitches after a fight, turn off his bald head, because it was shined like a lightbulb and was too bright.”
“I went to a friend’s wedding, and this 2-3 year old little boy ran up and started calling me mom and demanding I hold him. The whole table of my friend was laughing at me. His parents found him soon enough, and it turns out it was my ex for 10 years. After they left, my best friend was like, “His son has the same tastes as him…””
“When my daughter was around 4 or 5, she started burning up in the middle of the night, and I was trying to cool her off with alcohol, and she suddenly went, “I’m sorry for worrying you, mom.” Sent a shiver down my spine, and I look at her temperature—39.5C. She was burning so hot that she suddenly gained a sense of gratitude.”
“The most awkward thing that’s ever happened to me was when my son was 5, and we were in the elevator with another guy. And my son suddenly decided he must’ve grown taller or something, and came and measured himself up against me, and exclaimed in delight, “Hey, mom! I grew taller! Now I’m as tall as your boobie!””
“I once took my son on the bus, and he told the guy next to us, “This is my mommy. Can you say mo~mmy~~?”
“One time, we were out eating barbecue, and the guy grilling it had his shirt off. My 5.5-year-old daughter yelled loudly, “Mom! Look! Your favourite muscular hot guy!” I wanted to crawl into the ground.”
“Also at the hospital, my son wanted to play with a little girl, so he went, “Mom, I wanna play with that little sister over there. Can you go play with her daddy for a while?””
“My son went into the elevator and said to some guy, “Do you love me?” He answered yes. So my son went, “Do you love my mommy?” A complete fucking stranger. I clamped my hand over his mouth and dragged him off the elevator. I was sweating all over my body.”
“My son was burning up a while back and suddenly went, “Mommy. You are the prettiest mommy in the whole world.” I knew something was wrong and checked his temperature again, and it was 40C! No wonder he was spouting bullshit.”
“My son’s not quite two, and often doesn’t walk properly, and I’ll yell at him. A couple of days ago, we went for a walk in the park, and there was a grandpa in front of us with a walking stick, shuffling along. And my son yelled at him, “Walk properly!”
I wonder if "gold digger" is a direct translation; it's a useful bit of metaphor either way, but more striking if the term has made it over exactly (either from Chinese -> English or vice versa).
Choice paralysis in dating is definitely an issue, but sort of tricky to work around without giving up the benefits of how we got to it in the first place. Possibly (AI?) matchmaking services that do the curation for you, to cut it down to fewer but hopefully better-for-you-specifically choices.