5 Hidden Costs of the Dating Market

you forgot to factor in the cost of roofies. they are a necessary expense for those who make lists like this.

They should've put a like button in the forums, not the news feed!

You forgot the cost of unplanned pregnancies. Each kid costs $250k, since it keeps happening to you and all.

OP has figured out the super secret costs (AKA being an adult with discretionary income) of dating.

Your posts are consistently tiresome and misogynistic.



Go away.

An area of dating/unmarried life that I find does not receive enough attention are the hidden costs involved in dating. Sometimes, these hidden costs are not intuitively obvious. One has to have been in the moment or have it pointed out to them to consider these. I'm not intending to make this list fully comprehensive, in the hopes that other contributors on this board will add to what I have to say. Additionally, as a single male, some of these points will be male centric, whereas others will have applicability to both sexes.

1. Smartphone: If you are a guy who is look to date in a major metropolitan area, you need to have a smartphone. Because you can't pull out a feature phone to ask for a number of the latest female you have met, lest she will mock you in her mind, already putting you at a disadvantage. This is most crucial when your target market is a 20s female, but this sort of thought process now permeates into the 30+ singles as well. Additionally, a smartphone comes with a smartphone plan, and a phone plan that involves data costs more. Without being on the singles market, a guy can conceivably get away with a basic talk & text phone, because you are not looking for new women. For women, phones don't matter in attracting men. Most men usually do not care what model of phone that a woman has. Many men feel that women without smartphones make for more attentive girlfriends.

2. Dwelling: As a singleton, your dwelling matters. It is good to get a place in a singles friendly part of the city you live in. Major metropolitan areas are known for traffic snarls, and when two singles live closer together to one another, it removes a barrier from seeing one another. It is already difficult enough to get two people together, but when you add distances of more than 10 miles in a major metro with bad traffic, the incentive is reduced. For those singles who routinely use the bar scene, having a pad within walking distance of the major bars in the bar scenes is an amplifier towards getting one night stands. Of course, this is factored into the pricing of such a dwelling, and this is a marketing message that resonates with the single guy.

3. Your appearance: As a single, your appearance matters now more than ever. Gym memberships, exercise, sports leagues, food you buy, cosmetics (ladies and guys possibly stuck in a glam rock era), clothing are all a part of it. Your body has to be looking tight.

4. The art of automobile repair: Cars are now less of a status symbol, particularly in the Millennial/Gen Y age cohort. However, having an at least adequate car helps, and whatever you have, it has to be maintained meticulously for when you invite dates into your car, which will happen at some point.

5. Higher Education: This is a debatable point. Certainly, higher education isn't needed to be attractive to a mate. But it can help. And tuition keeps getting more and more expensive, setting up scenarios when people are dealing with the costs of higher education 10+ years after their final graduation. I would argue that higher education costs are more burdensome to men, relative to the dating market. There's an inherent advantage to a man getting first a Bachelor's, but then pursuing graduate level degrees. Graduate level degrees can bring about an increase in salary in the right fields, thus making a single man more of a catch to a lady. For women, graduate level degrees do not make her more marketable in the dating realm, as many men do not find women with above a Bachelor's degree appealing for a variety of reasons. But anyone who takes on Bachelor's and/or Master's level degrees incurs steep costs. It is a life changing event.

In developed nations, in particular in the USA, more women are earning Bachelor's Degrees than men, which has been impacting the dating marketplace. Single childless women in their 20s in major metropolitan areas have been out earning their male peers of the same age, having wide ranging implications.