If I had to summarize what I'm looking for and what polyamory means to me in one paragraph, I'd use Ava's:
"I think that conversation is more important to me than anything else. I think talking is fundamentally erotic, which is why friendships are fundamentally romantic. And the point of a good conversation is to actually get somewhere. I’ve dated people where we just couldn’t get anywhere when we talked. There wasn’t this sense of fluidity, of breaking through. We never ended up anywhere new—we just circled the same streets repeatedly."
Jacob, what baffles me most—no, positively stupefies me—is how polyamorous folks like yourself, (and indeed most dating coaches), seem to breeze through the Herculean task of finding multiple partners. Have your standards been tucked away in some dusty attic? I know, it sounds harsh, but hear me out. The average singleton struggles to find even one compatible partner. Meanwhile, a staggering 2.2 billion people float aimlessly on the sea of loneliness, unable to find a single match. For them, the notion of juggling multiple romances isn’t just implausible—it’s utterly surreal.
So, your take intrigues me. You wrote, “Physical appearance isn’t very important to me. My bar for attractiveness is easily cleared by 90% of my female friends. Beyond that, I mostly care about your soul.” A noble sentiment, no doubt. So, how do polyamorous daters do it? Have they lowered their standards to the depths of the Mariana Trench?
For comparison, if I were to take a stroll down my local high street, I’d estimate perhaps one in 200 women might inspire in me the spark of interest necessary for a sexual relationship—assuming, of course, she also has a kind personality. Now, let’s do the math. Out of 1,000 women, you’d see potential with 900. I’d be left with five. Your odds, then, are a staggering 180 times better than mine.
I have to admit, it’s a humbling realization. Maybe the key isn’t just an open mind but also an open-door policy when it comes to attraction. Still, your perspective raises fascinating questions about what truly makes us connect. Personally, I am not sexually attracted to women who have only a great character. They can be great friends, no question, but that's it,... they will be platonic friends and any idea of sex is not entering my brain. Lucky you.
It's probably less to do with standards per se and more so that dating, like anything else, can be a hobby for some people both in ways that cause them to care more about dissecting its minutiae in the pursuit of doing it well & more and in ways that minimize the boring/mundane/negative aspects of practice & failure because they like doing the thing so much.
Thank you for your unashamed self-promotion—a fine and commendable display of confidence! So, if we apply this to dating, are you saying that success in relationships requires a genuine passion for connecting with others? That this passion, much like the drive for mastery in other pursuits, makes the repetitive, occasionally awkward, and often tedious moments of dating feel worthwhile and meaningful? But does that alone make one successful in dating? Forgive my skepticism.
I’ve delved into the topic of dating with a fervor bordering on obsession—likely deeper than anyone before me. (I’m writing a massive book on the subject, having invested tens of thousands of hours into it). And yet, here I stand, still unable to find a girlfriend. Why? Because, as I’ve discovered through both scientific research studies and personal experience, the dating "funnel" narrows alarmingly when one applies high standards.
The reality is that women who meet my criteria—those rare individuals who are sexually and emotionally attractive to me—are precisely that: rare. And, as with all rare things, they are highly sought after and, invariably, already taken. In the past two decades, every woman I’ve approached, regardless of where in the world it occurred, has been married. Not one exception. (And as a matter of principle, I do not pursue affairs with married women, for I had bad bad bad experiences).
I often wish I didn’t have such standards in women; life would undoubtedly be easier if I could broaden my criteria. But attraction is stubborn and beyond conscious control. Either a woman is attractive to me or not, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. That's why I find polyamorous people so interesting as they seem not to have this problem.
Note that "standards in women" and "moments of dating" are entirely separate magisteria. The first is evaluative, the second — experiential. These are mutually exclusive mindsets.
If you approach every interaction with a woman (including just looking at her) with an evaluative mindset, comparing her to a long checklist of criteria, you will not much enjoy the experience of it. And neither will she.
Since I enjoy the *experience* of interacting with women (even just looking them), I'm not thinking about criteria. This also means that women — including ones who are very attractive by objective standards — have a better experience in my company.
That’s EXACTLY what I was trying to describe earlier in the thread. If I approached every interaction with a woman through an evaluative mindset, ticking off items on a long checklist of criteria, almost no romantic interaction could ever take place. This brings us to the enjoyment of the experience with women. I approach it with ease and delight, which is why women are usually drawn to me. But that’s ultimately irrelevant to the core issue.
The feeling of sexual attraction—completely independent of any checklist, sparked simply by experiencing the woman—is a rare occurrence for me. It often takes months before I encounter a woman who evokes that kind of spark. (Which is ironic, given that I’m constantly horny.) And yet, as I’ve mentioned before, those women always turned out to be in happy, monogamous, long-term relationships. I’ve never encountered an exception to this pattern.
This makes me wonder if there’s a fundamental difference in how polyamorous people perceive others sexually compared to the rest of us—people like me, who might have a very high sexual market value but still struggle to find even one meaningful, loving relationship. Take a friend of mine, for example, who proudly calls himself “the most polyamorous man alive.” When I last spoke to him, he claimed to have 34 ongoing "committed" relationships. He said that when he’s in a new city, it often takes him less than 30 minutes to meet a new girlfriend so that he never has to get a hotel room.
While I fully understand what it takes to be attractive and to seduce a woman (I mastered that skill a long time ago), I’ve never understood how to be attracted to most women. That, for me, remains the true enigma. I fear we can't chose to whom , and how strongly, we are attracted to another person.
I meant more that in this context where for someone, like Jacob, who has a passion for dating qua dating we should hardly be surprised that he's particularly successful.
For dating and relationships, this is an unusual problem because for those of us who are relatively monogamous the victory condition (a single, happy long-term relationship) ends the pursuit. If dating is Your Thing you would either need to find some way to be at peace with it once you hit the win condition or you'd probably need to be some form of polyamorous.
"That this passion, much like the drive for mastery in other pursuits, makes the repetitive, occasionally awkward, and often tedious moments of dating feel worthwhile and meaningful? But does that alone make one successful in dating?" Unambiguously yes. Forming relationships has a near-infinite number of axes: you could exercise more (or less?), change your hair or your style and learn to maintain them, learn a new skill, learn a new language, change your philosophy and point of view, anything that can be a personal attribute or a topic of conversation applies. All of these are going to be boring and tedious on some level, and so if you desire to be unbelievably successful -at dating- you're going to have to want it (not just want to want it) to an insane degree. If you're not especially passionate about it and/or only need to hit the win condition once then you can get away with a lot less, and so many often do, but if your baseline skillset isn't getting you there and you don't have the genuine conspicuous passion, you should expect it's going to be tough work.
Also I'd very much push back on the idea of "personal standards" being immutable (or especially important to long term happy relationships, as there's plenty of empiric evidence for). On the object level that's a personal philosophy/point of view skill issue and in any case there's extremes you could take to correct it if that's truly what's holding you back.
I see where passion, grit, and skills come into play in dating if an “unsuccessful” dater needs a way to be perceived as more attractive to the opposite sex. But if there’s no funnel of attractive single women, none of that matters at all. Personally, in all my life—decades, really—I’ve only once experienced a woman explicitly rejecting me. Women generally seem to like me a lot, and yet, I’m still not finding a partner.
As for “personal standards,” I can’t see how they could be anything but immutable. We must differentiate between preferences—like certain traits, such as blonde hair or big breasts—and pure sexual attraction, which is more instinctual, rooted in deeper biological and psychological mechanisms. Preferences can be adjusted (something many women might consider when they, for example, only date men over six feet tall or earning a specific salary). A man can decide not to focus solely on blondes and date women with other hair colors. But how could we possibly change how attracted we are to someone? I’ve combed through the scientific literature and found nothing to suggest we can alter our attraction to the opposite sex.
As for specific dating advice, that's sort of out of my wheelhouse, I hit the jackpot on eHarmony ~16 years ago and haven't had to worry about it since. Though I will say that my now-wife had very few of my circa-16-years-ago physical and sociocultural preferences, but alas.
´A girl once broke up with me because I argued against a room full of her medical school friends that we should have a market for kidneys.’
Absolute gigachad
If I had to summarize what I'm looking for and what polyamory means to me in one paragraph, I'd use Ava's:
"I think that conversation is more important to me than anything else. I think talking is fundamentally erotic, which is why friendships are fundamentally romantic. And the point of a good conversation is to actually get somewhere. I’ve dated people where we just couldn’t get anywhere when we talked. There wasn’t this sense of fluidity, of breaking through. We never ended up anywhere new—we just circled the same streets repeatedly."
https://open.substack.com/pub/ava/p/compatibilitymatchmaking-round-2?selection=5555a47c-7d02-4ba0-b0c9-c6ffc741b2e3
Jacob, what baffles me most—no, positively stupefies me—is how polyamorous folks like yourself, (and indeed most dating coaches), seem to breeze through the Herculean task of finding multiple partners. Have your standards been tucked away in some dusty attic? I know, it sounds harsh, but hear me out. The average singleton struggles to find even one compatible partner. Meanwhile, a staggering 2.2 billion people float aimlessly on the sea of loneliness, unable to find a single match. For them, the notion of juggling multiple romances isn’t just implausible—it’s utterly surreal.
So, your take intrigues me. You wrote, “Physical appearance isn’t very important to me. My bar for attractiveness is easily cleared by 90% of my female friends. Beyond that, I mostly care about your soul.” A noble sentiment, no doubt. So, how do polyamorous daters do it? Have they lowered their standards to the depths of the Mariana Trench?
For comparison, if I were to take a stroll down my local high street, I’d estimate perhaps one in 200 women might inspire in me the spark of interest necessary for a sexual relationship—assuming, of course, she also has a kind personality. Now, let’s do the math. Out of 1,000 women, you’d see potential with 900. I’d be left with five. Your odds, then, are a staggering 180 times better than mine.
I have to admit, it’s a humbling realization. Maybe the key isn’t just an open mind but also an open-door policy when it comes to attraction. Still, your perspective raises fascinating questions about what truly makes us connect. Personally, I am not sexually attracted to women who have only a great character. They can be great friends, no question, but that's it,... they will be platonic friends and any idea of sex is not entering my brain. Lucky you.
It's probably less to do with standards per se and more so that dating, like anything else, can be a hobby for some people both in ways that cause them to care more about dissecting its minutiae in the pursuit of doing it well & more and in ways that minimize the boring/mundane/negative aspects of practice & failure because they like doing the thing so much.
(shameless topical self-promo: https://scpantera.substack.com/p/the-skill-issue-issue)
Thank you for your unashamed self-promotion—a fine and commendable display of confidence! So, if we apply this to dating, are you saying that success in relationships requires a genuine passion for connecting with others? That this passion, much like the drive for mastery in other pursuits, makes the repetitive, occasionally awkward, and often tedious moments of dating feel worthwhile and meaningful? But does that alone make one successful in dating? Forgive my skepticism.
I’ve delved into the topic of dating with a fervor bordering on obsession—likely deeper than anyone before me. (I’m writing a massive book on the subject, having invested tens of thousands of hours into it). And yet, here I stand, still unable to find a girlfriend. Why? Because, as I’ve discovered through both scientific research studies and personal experience, the dating "funnel" narrows alarmingly when one applies high standards.
The reality is that women who meet my criteria—those rare individuals who are sexually and emotionally attractive to me—are precisely that: rare. And, as with all rare things, they are highly sought after and, invariably, already taken. In the past two decades, every woman I’ve approached, regardless of where in the world it occurred, has been married. Not one exception. (And as a matter of principle, I do not pursue affairs with married women, for I had bad bad bad experiences).
I often wish I didn’t have such standards in women; life would undoubtedly be easier if I could broaden my criteria. But attraction is stubborn and beyond conscious control. Either a woman is attractive to me or not, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. That's why I find polyamorous people so interesting as they seem not to have this problem.
Note that "standards in women" and "moments of dating" are entirely separate magisteria. The first is evaluative, the second — experiential. These are mutually exclusive mindsets.
If you approach every interaction with a woman (including just looking at her) with an evaluative mindset, comparing her to a long checklist of criteria, you will not much enjoy the experience of it. And neither will she.
Since I enjoy the *experience* of interacting with women (even just looking them), I'm not thinking about criteria. This also means that women — including ones who are very attractive by objective standards — have a better experience in my company.
That’s EXACTLY what I was trying to describe earlier in the thread. If I approached every interaction with a woman through an evaluative mindset, ticking off items on a long checklist of criteria, almost no romantic interaction could ever take place. This brings us to the enjoyment of the experience with women. I approach it with ease and delight, which is why women are usually drawn to me. But that’s ultimately irrelevant to the core issue.
The feeling of sexual attraction—completely independent of any checklist, sparked simply by experiencing the woman—is a rare occurrence for me. It often takes months before I encounter a woman who evokes that kind of spark. (Which is ironic, given that I’m constantly horny.) And yet, as I’ve mentioned before, those women always turned out to be in happy, monogamous, long-term relationships. I’ve never encountered an exception to this pattern.
This makes me wonder if there’s a fundamental difference in how polyamorous people perceive others sexually compared to the rest of us—people like me, who might have a very high sexual market value but still struggle to find even one meaningful, loving relationship. Take a friend of mine, for example, who proudly calls himself “the most polyamorous man alive.” When I last spoke to him, he claimed to have 34 ongoing "committed" relationships. He said that when he’s in a new city, it often takes him less than 30 minutes to meet a new girlfriend so that he never has to get a hotel room.
While I fully understand what it takes to be attractive and to seduce a woman (I mastered that skill a long time ago), I’ve never understood how to be attracted to most women. That, for me, remains the true enigma. I fear we can't chose to whom , and how strongly, we are attracted to another person.
I meant more that in this context where for someone, like Jacob, who has a passion for dating qua dating we should hardly be surprised that he's particularly successful.
For dating and relationships, this is an unusual problem because for those of us who are relatively monogamous the victory condition (a single, happy long-term relationship) ends the pursuit. If dating is Your Thing you would either need to find some way to be at peace with it once you hit the win condition or you'd probably need to be some form of polyamorous.
"That this passion, much like the drive for mastery in other pursuits, makes the repetitive, occasionally awkward, and often tedious moments of dating feel worthwhile and meaningful? But does that alone make one successful in dating?" Unambiguously yes. Forming relationships has a near-infinite number of axes: you could exercise more (or less?), change your hair or your style and learn to maintain them, learn a new skill, learn a new language, change your philosophy and point of view, anything that can be a personal attribute or a topic of conversation applies. All of these are going to be boring and tedious on some level, and so if you desire to be unbelievably successful -at dating- you're going to have to want it (not just want to want it) to an insane degree. If you're not especially passionate about it and/or only need to hit the win condition once then you can get away with a lot less, and so many often do, but if your baseline skillset isn't getting you there and you don't have the genuine conspicuous passion, you should expect it's going to be tough work.
Also I'd very much push back on the idea of "personal standards" being immutable (or especially important to long term happy relationships, as there's plenty of empiric evidence for). On the object level that's a personal philosophy/point of view skill issue and in any case there's extremes you could take to correct it if that's truly what's holding you back.
I see where passion, grit, and skills come into play in dating if an “unsuccessful” dater needs a way to be perceived as more attractive to the opposite sex. But if there’s no funnel of attractive single women, none of that matters at all. Personally, in all my life—decades, really—I’ve only once experienced a woman explicitly rejecting me. Women generally seem to like me a lot, and yet, I’m still not finding a partner.
As for “personal standards,” I can’t see how they could be anything but immutable. We must differentiate between preferences—like certain traits, such as blonde hair or big breasts—and pure sexual attraction, which is more instinctual, rooted in deeper biological and psychological mechanisms. Preferences can be adjusted (something many women might consider when they, for example, only date men over six feet tall or earning a specific salary). A man can decide not to focus solely on blondes and date women with other hair colors. But how could we possibly change how attracted we are to someone? I’ve combed through the scientific literature and found nothing to suggest we can alter our attraction to the opposite sex.
I disagree that there's an explicit pattern of male sexual attraction, which is part of my thesis in (another topical self-promo) https://scpantera.substack.com/p/on-being-attracted
As for specific dating advice, that's sort of out of my wheelhouse, I hit the jackpot on eHarmony ~16 years ago and haven't had to worry about it since. Though I will say that my now-wife had very few of my circa-16-years-ago physical and sociocultural preferences, but alas.