What Are Women Today (Actually) Looking For In a Man?

My friend Anna is a 41-year-old successful actress. She’s beautiful, funny, and owns her own home. She’s also single. Recently she told me: “When dating men, there’s three main criteria: Does he have a job? Does he have a bed frame? And can he keep one thing alive other than himself—a dog, child, houseplant? If you find a man with two of those qualities—marry him.”

Dark times.

As you’ve probably heard, we’re in a “dating crisis.” The crisis being that women can’t seem to find any men worth dating. A stat that recently made the rounds: 45% of women ages 25-44 are projected to be single by 2030.

To be clear, “heteropessimism” isn’t just vibes. Women today earn the majority of college degrees, and the gap keeps widening. Single women in the US are also far more likely than single men to own a home, currently outpacing them in new home purchases by more than double. Women are also statistically far more likely to be liberal, go to therapy, and to have deep intimate friendships, whereas men haven’t been socialized to value these things in the same way (they’re “gay,” etc). And don’t even get me started on the orgasm gap.

Until recently I was single for four years. Put simply, dating was fucking nuts. I could not, for the life of me, understand how so many adult men lack the basic life skills of asking a woman a question about herself on a date, making a dinner reservation, or understanding that they should clean their cum-hardened hand towels before inviting a woman to their apartment. Turns out, Los Angeles is a wasteland of men literally surfing into middle age with nothing to show for it beyond crippling credit card debt, roughly 700 roommates, and an array of regrettable tattoos. (Though, somehow, their entitlement is still intact.)

Disclaimer: not all men! There are obviously great men out there. But women’s expectations are clearly shifting. Some say women are just being too picky—ya know, “looking for a guy in finance, 6’5, blue eyes…” Yes, women are sometimes deranged too :) But what exactly are women looking for that they can’t seem to find?

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I’ve categorized the most common answers—and the things that most shocked me. But I figured I’d let the ladies speak for themselves, so I’ve included (anonymous) screenshots of many of my favorite responses.