There’s a sort of emerging conventional wisdom that men have it pretty bad in the 21st century. The success of novels like Fight Club are a sign of the times. There’s always been a market for stories of men who have fist-fights and commit random violence, but only in the 21st century do we have stories of men who have fist-fights and commit random violence as an expression of their hatred for what society offers them.

People have especially begun to talk about men having it pretty bad in the dating world. This is something that’s particularly come out in this Kay Hymowitz piece and various responses to it. And the consensus here seems to be some version of “changes in social conventions about dating have made things really hard for men.” At this point, I say the consensus is wrong, and I have the truth.

First, obvious question: why men? Why isn’t the confusion of cultural change just as hard on women? Cultural change, in and of itself, is indifferent to gender, and should affect all equally. Why is it hurting men more?

Second, I would especially question the American Scene writer linked above what a new, solve-all-our problems set of social norms is supposed to look like. The goal is a way for the nice guys of the world to have a way of approaching women they want to date without risking awkwardness, but there’s no thought about how such a set of social norms could possibly work in the real world. In the real world, as Dan Savage once said, “All unwelcome advances are made by assholes, while all welcome advances are made by non-assholes.” The cited xkcd strip subtly reinforces this point: guy doesn’t hit on girl because he thinks she’d think he’s creepy, actually she thinks he’s cute, but what would the middle ground be? In the real world, unfortunately, it tends to be one or the other. Any attempt to change this will run up against the fatal challenge that, if there ever were a guaranteed protocol for men to express interest in women without awkwardness, all men would start using it–including men many women would consider “creepy,” making advances made under that protocol awkward suddenly and then some.

Want to know what the truth is? First, understand that men are whores. I regard this as a scientific fact. There have been studies organized by scientists like David Buss where men and women are sent into bars to proposition people of the opposite sex for either a date or immediate sex, and the inevitable result is that it’s 50-50 on whether the date proposition is accepted, regardless of gender, but men accept 75% of the offers for sex, women 0%. And men are invariably politer about turning down sex: “Oh, I’m sorry, my fiancé is in town. Can I take a rain check?” Other great anecdotes in this area include the report of the famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who reported that the Trobriand islanders believed in virgin birth, reasoning that there were some women who were clearly too ugly to have sex with, but who kept getting pregnant anyway.

While results like these still have the power to surprise in the intellectual world, they are semi-commonplace in the entertainment world, where the goal is not “intellectual assent” but “oh yeah, I know what he’s talking about.” Consider this exchange from When Harry Met Sally:

Harry: No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail ‘em too.

or this Chris Rock bit:

See, it’s easy for women to turn down sex. lt ain’t shit for y’all to turn down sex. lt ain’t no thing for y’all to turn down sex. Y’all like, ”Why can’t you turn it down? l do it all the time. ”Why can’t you say no? l say no.” See, it’s easy for y’all. You know why? ‘Cause every woman in here, every guy you met has been trying to fuck you. That’s right. Women are offered dick every day. Every woman in here gets offered dick at least three times a week. Three times a day, shit! That’s right, every time a man’s being nice to you, all he’s doing is offering dick. That’s all it is. ”Can l get that for you? How about some dick?” ”Could l help you with that? Could l help you to some dick?” ”Do you need some dick?”

That’s the basic story of what men are. And women? The basic story is that they aren’t. No matter how many times misogynists call women sluts and whores, they will never be able to document female behavior like the male behavior described above, and smart misogynists know they will never be able to.

Now for the promised male angst theorem: as long as men are naturally indiscriminate, women are naturally discriminating, people’s mate preferences are somewhat (though not, of course, absolutely) consistent, and everyone is left to follow their natural inclinations, there will be lots of sexually and romantically frustrated men out there. And see how much light it sheds on some of the dating dilemmas discussed in the above links.

Consider the man who says: “The modern dating world is so unfair! There are no clear expectations as to who will pick up the check, but with some women still make the guy pick it up if he wants a second date!” The male angst theorem explains why men say things like this, and not “Some women don’t get that the world has changed. They still expect men to pay for everything. But if they want to date me, they’re going to have to realize it’s the 21st century.” As long as women are choosier, they will be doing the choosing. Sure, some women may have a sense of entitlement, a feeling that they should be calling the shots in the modern dating world, but they only get to act on it because of the failure of men to be picky. If men were choosier, women who insisted on having dates paid for would have nothing to do but complain in the alternate-universe version of the Kay Hymowitz piece.

The wonderful thing about this theorem is that it applies no matter how women go about making their discriminations. It works if women mindlessly chase the tallest men available, it works if they mindless chase the most pumped body builders, it works if they mindlessly chase the best-groomed metrosexuals. It works if all they cared about was IQ, salary, or capacity for stand-up comedy. It works if it’s true that women go after alpha males (whatever that means). And it would even work if women mainly picked their mates based on ability to navigate confusing social norms.

Admittedly, if the male angst theorem were the only cause of male dating angst, things might be a little better. One contributing factor to male angst is that women have been known to make decisions based on that intangible quality of “having a good personality,” which can look pretty mysterious to most guys. Another is that, because cognitive shortcuts are as much a part of dating as any other area of life, and because success can be read as a sign of underlying quality, men who are seen as having a successful dating life tend to spiral upward, while those who aren’t seen as having a successful dating life tend to spiral downward. Still, I think the most basic features of the modern dating world can be deduced simply from knowing that women are choosy, and men are not.