As cuffing season continues strong (the season when people pair off) it’s obvious that there is something worth considering with somewhat urgency – is there a lack of eligible men out there?
The anecdotal evidence suggests so but the fact of the matter that we know that in terms of population quantities we should have an equal amount of attractive and appealing women as we do men.
However, there is a perception that as you hit your 30s this starts to feel unreal, like eligible men are in short supply! But this is a perception commonly referred to as the Eligible Bachelor Paradox.
The Paradox comes out of the idea of choosing partners and the ideas of bidders and it’s a theory that comes out of game theory. The eligible bachelor paradox essentially pivots on the idea of that women choose who they marry through a proposal – they choose who to be with and then again they choose whether to be with them in a longterm way.
This has become known as the ‘choosiness’ of females in terms of biology, but even with out going into biology, it’s obvious that choosiness over potential mates is a female characteristic. Now, in terms of game theory, one tends to think of the subject studied as falling into two categories: ‘strong bidders’ and ‘weak bidders’. Strong bidders in this case are the ones who might be rated higher or have more chances of success, so in this scenario, women who either are attractive or have social clout that makes them an appealing mate. According to this, then ‘strong bidders’ will be more likely to get the better mate.
But according to game theory it’s not the ‘strong bidders’ that get what they want, but it’s the ‘decisive’ bidder, the one that sticks with something and is convinced of its value. This, according the eligible bachelor theory would explain that all the good men are taken by decisive women as one approaches one’s 30s., making even the ‘strong bidders’ have to date or frequent less appealing mates!
