# Young men and relationships
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 11, 2025, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156 "2025-02-11T05:39:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 24
### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/461 "2025-02-28T02:09:39Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> As one’s income increases, they can outsource 1 and 2 and presumably find other people to do 3 with, all without entering into a lifetime contract.
I find it interesting in this thread how many people describe romantic relationships only looking at one thing from one side. Yes, if you get rich enough you could hire someone to clean your house, or take care of your yard. That’s not the same thing as a marriage. You get someone to split the shared labor of your lives, and to back you up, and you agree to take on half of their burdens and be their backup, too. I always thought the idea was that both parties get more out of the relationship than they put in. Any desription of just one thing that someone gives up to be with their partner just seems way too simplistic.
But, what do I know.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/462 "2025-02-28T02:16:49Z")
I’m with you. If I had the money, I would pay people to do all kinds of chores for me. I have voiced my objections to paying for sex before. Here they are in a nutshell- I see a woman and think she has attractive qualities. She sees me and thinks I have attractive qualities. After deciding on the details, we both consent to sex. A person you pay for sex does not see something special in you. They just see you as a paycheck. And what about emotional intimacy? Most people need that in different ways and in different degrees. You cannot really buy emotional intimacy.
I keep thinking of that eighties song What About Love?
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### Author:  [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/463 "2025-02-28T04:53:16Z")
In regardeds to this being a white issue.
My understanding, this is a major problem in China.
Wiill a disproportionate number of young men; due to one child policy, and selective abortions
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### Author:  [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/464 "2025-02-28T04:59:17Z")
My wife teaches at a very high performing high school, in an incredibly affluent area.
The older man, with the second family. Is very much the norm.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/465 "2025-02-28T05:25:47Z")
Another item for discussion: I included wealth and income in one breath but are they considered the same by each gender when considering life partners?
My WAG is that either counts when women are evaluating men. A man can have high income or a man can have lower income but have inherited wealth, or even to be inherited wealth. Both count.
But that while higher income in a woman intimidates many a potential male suitor, coming from money and likely to inherit a large amount is not intimidated, is even a plus.
No data to offer.
@Sooner international comparisons are interesting! Yes I am being provincial and thinking with an American lens. Different countries likely have their own factors in play.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/466 "2025-02-28T12:06:16Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Yes I am being provincial and thinking with an American lens. Different countries likely have their own factors in play.
They do.
In Taiwan, there are a lot of Vietnamese brides because Vietnam has a much lower economic level ( comparing GDP per capita of $4,300 vs. $32,000) and often marry men with less attractive professions such as farmers.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/467 "2025-02-28T17:41:39Z")
> [@scudsucker](#):
>
> Anecdote, as I am not a child behaviourist, and my sample size is only 2 individuals. But we (his parents) did not nickname my son “Danger James” without good reason
>
> His sister is very risk averse.
Counter-anecdote: a family I used to live with had a son who was physically quite risk-averse as a small child, and a daughter who was much more physically adventurous at the same age.
I just don’t know if there’s any reliable way to separate out natural tendencies from socialized upbringing on such issues.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/468 "2025-02-28T21:42:33Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> > [@msmith537](#):
> >
> > As one’s income increases, they can outsource 1 and 2 and presumably find other people to do 3 with, all without entering into a lifetime contract.
>
> I find it interesting in this thread how many people describe romantic relationships only looking at one thing from one side. Yes, if you get rich enough you could hire someone to clean your house, or take care of your yard. That’s not the same thing as a marriage. You get someone to split the shared labor of your lives, and to back you up, and you agree to take on half of their burdens and be their backup, too. I always thought the idea was that both parties get more out of the relationship than they put in. Any desription of just one thing that someone gives up to be with their partner just seems way too simplistic.
>
> But, what do I know.
I think the jury is still out on whether marriage represents “shared burdens” or exponentially more burdens.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/469 "2025-02-28T22:23:08Z")
> [@Sooner](#):
>
> The older man, with the second family. Is very much the norm.
In my circle, I can think of three women who refused to follow their husbands because the men’s career arc took them from a small fish at headquarters to a big fish at the Podunk branch, and two other women who wouldn’t go until they had lined up a job in the new city at least as good as the one they were leaving. The second wife isn’t always a trophy wife - sometimes she’s a replacement.
Today a husband is less likely to even accept the promotion if the wife has misgivings, but not even a generation ago, a typical career arc at a big corporation almost always included relocations (often to lesser places) if you wanted to move up the ladder.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/470 "2025-03-01T00:11:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> Counter-anecdote: a family I used to live with had a son who was physically quite risk-averse as a small child, and a daughter who was much more physically adventurous at the same age.
My daughter is quite active and risk-taking, while her male, I guess step-cousin, is quite timid and inactive. But I brought her up that way - I literally hear other parents saying “don’t climb on that, it’s dangerous” while I’m saying “see if you can climb that” - so I worry I’m encouraging _too much_ risk taking.
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> I just don’t know if there’s any reliable way to separate out natural tendencies from socialized upbringing on such issues.
I have two sisters and I’m very different from them (and they are not even that similar to each other), so it has never seemed remotely plausible to me that socialised upbringing could explain everything.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/471 "2025-03-01T01:44:25Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#):
>
> They do
So I went looking for information about Africa, knowing that it a very diverse place in terms of education for all and across genders. The first attempt just brought up information about child marriages but then I found this interesting bit.
> **[Intramarital Status Differences across Africa’s Educational Expansion](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8153517/)**
>
> This paper documents how intra-marital differences in educational status vary across Africa’s heterogeneous educational expansion, which has encompassed an enormous breadth of educational opportunities over the past 50 years. Educational expansion...
The interesting aspect is that educational access varies greatly across the continent and a pattern emerges. It is an unsurprising pattern but still seeing it confirmed is of note.
In the following hypergamy is women marrying those more highly educated than they are, homogamy approximately same, and hypogamy women marrying men less highly educated than they are.
> [@](#):
>
> … Among higher-education women (the far-right panel of [Figure 4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8153517/#F4)), homogamy propensities are particularly high, with odds of marriage to higher-education men 10 to 1000 times greater than other women’s odds of marriage to this same group of men. In other words, higher-educated women exhibit far higher rates of marriage within their own educational status—and far lower rates of marriage to men with lower education levels—than would be expected under conditions of independent sorting. However, this tendency declines with educational expansion, as demonstrated by the downward-sloping homogamy …
>
> … As higher education becomes more prevalent for women, the relative status of women with medium levels of education appears to decline. Primary and secondary schooling become less salient markers of elite status, as evidenced by declining propensities toward marrying highly-educated and similarly-educated men and weakening aversions to marrying down ([Figure 4](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8153517/#F4)). At the same time, though, these changes are occurring alongside a broader diminishment in the strength of marital conventions, even among women in the higher-education category. As education expands, well-educated individuals are beginning to exhibit sorting behaviors that come closer to—but still deviate greatly from—independence.
>
> Unlike in the United States ([Schwartz and Mare 2005](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8153517/#R46)), as education has become more widespread in Africa, the social and/or spatial separation between the highly-educated and the less-educated has begun to dissipate. These weakening conventions may indicate that education level is no longer such a meaningful source of stratification: whereas in low-education contexts, education is a strong indicator of status, the boundaries between educational categories may become less indicative as more people obtain educational credentials. On the other hand, the upswing in homogamy among no-education women in the highest-education contexts indicates that lack of education becomes a _more_ salient marker of negative status, connoting exceptional disadvantage and likely rendering these women less desirable on the marriage market.
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/472 "2025-03-01T04:37:24Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> - I literally hear other parents saying “don’t climb on that, it’s dangerous” while I’m saying “see if you can climb that”
I totally support the “see if you can” theory. If they can’t, well, shit, I will be supportive: “at least you tried”. I mean, of course there are limits. My brother did the “look Mum, no hands” thing, aged around 7 and plummeted from a tree. Luckily no major damage.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/473 "2025-03-01T15:52:18Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Another item for discussion: I included wealth and income in one breath but are they considered the same by each gender when considering life partners?
>
> My WAG is that either counts when women are evaluating men. A man can have high income or a man can have lower income but have inherited wealth, or even to be inherited wealth. Both count.
>
> But that while higher income in a woman intimidates many a potential male suitor, coming from money and likely to inherit a large amount is not intimidated, is even a plus.
>
> No data to offer.
>
> @Sooner international comparisons are interesting! Yes I am being provincial and thinking with an American lens. Different countries likely have their own factors in play.
Well it’s not like men go around flashing their tax returns. And in fact a lot of actually wealthy people try to downplay their wealth. At least when outside their bubble of similarly affluent people.
By and large, women tend to look for cues that a man is “high value”. Things like where they live, how they dress, hobbies and activities, their friends and family, so on and so forth. Let’s also not discount being conventionally good looking, tall, and reasonably in shape.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/474 "2025-03-01T16:25:19Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> I have two sisters and I’m very different from them (and they are not even that similar to each other), so it has never seemed remotely plausible to me that socialised upbringing could explain everything.
I don’t think anybody nowadays is seriously suggesting that socialized upbringing can explain everything about human behavior. But, as I said, that doesn’t mean that there exists a reliable way to separate out the effects of natural tendencies and socialized upbringing in any particular behavior.
Everybody’s got their own “stands-to-reason” anecdotal inferences about what seems to them “innate” versus “learned” in the behavior of specific individuals, but that’s not science. Twin studies can produce more scientifically analyzable results, to a limited extent, [but they too are not necessarily free from biases toward assumptions of genetic heritability](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.27.270801v1.full).
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/475 "2025-03-01T20:49:01Z")
People learn about each other’s families and who their people are fairly early. Not like in the swipe or first date phase, but before long term commitment phase.
I can imagine a man intimidated by a woman who is much more highly educated or who clearly makes more than him, comfortable considering a long term relationship with a woman equal or slightly less than him on those measures. I don’t see him being put off by then finding out that her family is of big money. Maybe after the invitation to their “modest” beach house. Think a gender switched _Crazy Rich Asians_ scenario. Not a problem like her being a highly successful investment banker or neurosurgeon might be for his fragile male ego.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2025, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/476 "2025-03-02T12:18:41Z")
I think it depends on the individuals involved and their particular circumstances, how successful the man is in his chosen profession, how comfortable they are with “non-traditional” dynamics and so on.
I think it’s a different dynamic for say a 1) successful male fireman in a relationship with a female neurosurgeon, 2) bartender with no college with a female attorney, 3) a mid-level corporate executive with a woman who becomes a wildly successful writer
I know the SDMB tends to view these things through a progressive lens of “wealth and class shouldn’t matter”, but the reality is that class and wealth differences can create disparities of power and other tensions. At the very least, there can often be practical issues of logistics and budgets when it comes to stuff like taking care of the kids or deciding where we move for whose career.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2025, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/477 "2025-03-02T15:02:41Z")
I suspect everyone in this discussion appreciates that “it depends on the individuals involved and their particular circumstances” … The discussion is centered around the general patterns especially in the context of changing and current culture(s) and demographics.
Not understanding at all where this comes from in this discussion:
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I know the SDMB tends to view these things through a progressive lens of “wealth and class shouldn’t matter”, but the reality is that class and wealth differences can create disparities of power and other tensions.
This thread has been a mostly dispassionate view of what _is_ and not much discussion of what _should be._
My supposition remains: given that both income and wealth (which can be very different especially in the context of intergenerational family wealth) can result in power disparities and tensions, I am WAGing that a man having significantly lesser income than potential female partner is more often a tension to him than having much less wealth than she has.
I don’t _think_ that inherited wealth is felt as personal “power”/strength in the male ego being threatened way as much as income is. The bigger tension there may come from class background differences depending on the precise circumstances.
But I suspect in the converse being aware of inherited wealth is as much or more a positive proxy of power able to offset other deficits such as education and job status disparity, even if the being of a very wealthy family is not currently producing higher income.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2025, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/478 "2025-03-03T14:37:34Z")
I’ve been away for two+ weeks and over the last few days have read from post #10 where I left off to now post #457. I’ve taken it in hunks of maybe 30 posts at a time; it’s too dense to read like a book. Lots of interesting ideas have gone by in that time and I commend everyone for remaining calmly clinical about the whole thing. This has turned out to be a better thread than I first feared it would turn into.
The only relevant comment I have from the last day-ish of posts is that in my career field there is a lot of emphasis on personal performance and the assessment of same.
As a general rule, males in my world are more confident than capable and females are more capable than confident. Both are highly capable and highly confident; that goes with our rather highly filtered and hence rarified territory. The best ones of either gender are well-balanced between their own capability and their own confidence. A large mismatch can be crippling. Most folks have some mismatch, and IME/IMO there’s a strong gender bias in which way that (usually small) mismatch runs.
Innate or societal or some of each? Surely some of each, and sorting out the relative preponderance of causes is far beyond me.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/479 "2025-03-03T18:49:13Z")
It’s literally impossible to be a man, Bro. You dudes kick ass and it kills me that you don’t think that you are awesome enough.
Like we can’t be nerd, but somehow we can never be wrong. You have to be jacked, but not too jacked. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to “get ripped”. Also you have to BE ripped.
You have to make money. But you can’t look like you are trying to show people you make money otherwise you look like a douche. And if you work too much trying to make money she’ll complain “you don’t spend enough time with me/the kids”.
You’re supposed to be an awesome dad, whatever that means.
You need to have a career. Ideally a high-level, high-paying job with influence. But if you’re not “The Boss” everyone thinks you’re a pussy.
You have to answer for every other man’s bad behavior, but if you point it out, you get accused of being a pussy.
You’re supposed to be handsome, but not too pretty or (again) you get accused of being a pussy.
You have to be “assertive” and “confident” and sweep a woman off her feet (but in a way that’s not “rapey”).
You are either “too young” or “too old” (unless you’re George Clooney). You have to be funny but not silly. Passionate yet stoic and unemotional. You can never fail. Never cry (unless you’re watching the Super Bowl or Saving Private Ryan). Eat meat. Drink beer (not the fruity imported crap).
And at the end of the day, even if you do all that shit right, she still “only wants to be friends”!
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### Author:  [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/480 "2025-03-03T20:04:22Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> It’s literally impossible to be a man, Bro.
Nah it’s pretty easy.
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