# The Value of Others ## Metadata * Author: [Orion Taraban](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B0D1Q5LHNV * ISBN: B0D7VTH43T * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1Q5LHNV * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV) ## Highlights People typically don’t join together because they want the same things. If you want what I want, how could I possibly give it to you? If I had it to give, I wouldn’t want it from you. Keep in mind that to want has a double meaning: it can mean both to desire and to lack. This is why people who want the same things are generally useless to each other: each lacks what the other desires. — location: [150](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=150) ^ref-9825 --- this explains – all by itself – why certain people are rich in relationship opportunities and others are not. It is neither the good nor the loving nor the virtuous who are desired for relationships, but the people whom others want things from. — location: [157](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=157) ^ref-18854 --- The person who has more of what other people want most will have more and better relationship opportunities than the person who has less. This is just the way it is. A relationship is the medium in which value is transacted. Where value is transacted, a relationship exists. Conversely, where no value is transacted, no relationship exists. This is because people don’t move toward others whom they want nothing to do with. Rather, they approach those from whom they hope to derive some benefit. — location: [158](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=158) ^ref-43939 --- general, people feel relatively disinterested until they perceive that someone has something they want: either to acquire or to avoid. — location: [165](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=165) ^ref-41312 --- Anything that can be bought or earned can be transacted, and these transacted goods are what motivate people to form relationships. On the other hand, anything that can neither be bought nor earned – gifts that are given solely at the pleasure of the giver (and for which no reciprocity is expected) – cannot be transacted, and therefore do not form the basis of relationships. This is because relationships require exchange, and unilateral transactions don’t meet the criteria. For instance, we wouldn’t say that a fan is in a relationship with her idol any more than we would say a victim is in a relationship with his mugger. Relationships must go both ways. — location: [166](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=166) ^ref-57304 --- refine our definition of relationships even further to be the media in which unequal goods of comparable value are exchanged. — location: [180](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=180) ^ref-37007 --- Since these values are both unequal and subjective, relationships must be negotiated – not just at their inception but through their entire duration, as well. — location: [181](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=181) ^ref-36512 --- if their values are too disparate, then the relationship becomes likely in inverse proportion to the size of the perceived mismatch in value: the greater the mismatch, the less likely the relationship. If the law is violated and a relationship is formed under a significantly mismatched valuation, this is generally due to the fact that the perception of value has shifted since the point of transaction. In any case, awareness of this violation can lead to a great deal of pain and distress for the under-compensated party (so it can’t always be broken without intrapersonal consequence). Relationship laws are fairly constant and universal. — location: [199](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=199) ^ref-49469 --- For instance, the most fundamental law of the game of mating and dating – the law that explains the lion’s share of the variance behind who gets (and stays) with whom – is that people enter into (and remain in) sexual relationships with their perceived best options. — location: [240](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=240) ^ref-23731 --- And if people enter into (and remain in) sexual relationships with their perceived best options, then the perception of value must be the mechanism that lies at the heart of sexual relationships. — location: [243](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=243) ^ref-64813 --- there would be little point in securing a lesser goal if it meant compromising a greater one (perfectionists: take note). — location: [283](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=283) ^ref-63618 --- The upshot is that nesting games will always take precedence over nested games whenever we become aware of new information that affects the acquisition (or maintenance) of the superordinate game. — location: [285](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=285) ^ref-693 --- the more we perceive a specific good to be instrumental to achieving a personally relevant goal, and the higher we understand that goal to be in our nested hierarchy of games, the more we invest that specific good with value. — location: [288](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=288) ^ref-57450 --- the calculated value coefficient is transformed into an emotion. — location: [348](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=348) ^ref-25658 --- This is why no one thinks, “I’ve determined that a particular good would be greatly instrumental in helping me achieve an important self-relevant goal: not only because I anticipate that the benefits associated with acquiring it will significantly exceed the costs, but because I can also conceive of no better way of achieving the same goal to the same extent with a different good that could be acquired with comparable resources at an equivalent cost-benefit ratio.” Instead, they feel: “I need this,” or “This is the one,” or “Wow! I love that!” The feelings behind these statements accomplish the same goal more elegantly than awareness of the valuation process ever could: they communicate to the individual (and potentially to others) that a particular good is subjectively valuable. — location: [350](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=350) ^ref-22995 --- people do make decisions for emotional reasons. That is, the covert calculus of the valuation process provides the rationale for the emotion that motivates decisive action. — location: [358](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=358) ^ref-32404 --- common sense. It’s also important to appreciate that in most cases the traits, skills, and attributes we value more highly in those with whom we enter into relationships to solve a particular problem of living are much more influenced by the nature of the goal in question than by personal preference. This is because the value of a good is directly related to its — location: [381](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=381) ^ref-3602 --- Whether we’re aware of it or not, we also seem to possess exemplars — location: [385](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=385) ^ref-51544 --- idealized constructs – associated with specific types of relationship partners. And since thoroughly examining each individual — location: [385](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=385) ^ref-35064 --- The greater the perceived fit, the more likely we will select a given option, all other things being equal. — location: [388](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=388) ^ref-39164 --- That is, because I know your exemplar, I can predict that you’ll choose to enter into a relationship with a specific person (and not another) to achieve a specific goal. And because you’ve chosen to enter into a relationship with a certain individual to achieve a specific goal, I can deduce the features of your exemplar (with sufficient data). — location: [395](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=395) ^ref-52938 --- first place, it’s important to understand that – for the vast majority of people – this game is very high in the nested hierarchy of games. — location: [399](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=399) ^ref-8860 --- “All’s fair in love and war.” To the extent that this is true, it is true because both — location: [400](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=400) ^ref-64428 --- of those games are fundamentally concerned about survival. — location: [400](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=400) ^ref-22557 --- above their own individual survival. In many respects, it is the game of games: the game that makes all other games possible. — location: [409](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=409) ^ref-4994 --- willingness to prioritize this goal over all others when sufficiently attractive opportunities present themselves. — location: [412](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=412) ^ref-54438 --- This is why the sexual marketplace is functionally everywhere, and why people are subject to doing all kinds of hurtful, shameful, and desperate things in the service of this goal. — location: [412](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=412) ^ref-5502 --- process becomes exponentially more difficult if you want many different things from that specific person. We can call this goal conflation, which occurs when a single means (i.e., a specific relationship) is used to pursue multiple goals (e.g., sex, security, friendship) simultaneously. Goal — location: [423](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=423) ^ref-31295 --- will not be able to get everything they want from a single person. — location: [426](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=426) ^ref-57908 --- And this means – when it comes to relationships – there aren’t any solutions, only trade-offs. And — location: [427](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=427) ^ref-30142 --- husband who was willing to forgo an attractive sexual opportunity for the sake of a woman’s maternal instincts will likely — location: [433](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=433) ^ref-45279 --- be less willing to do so once his children are grown up. This — location: [433](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=433) ^ref-23300 --- is because – if nothing else changes – the same woman will have become less valuable to him. This — location: [434](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=434) ^ref-10790 --- she will have become less valuable to him for having given him what he wanted. — location: [436](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=436) ^ref-33364 --- the individual is generally only made aware of the outcome of this process when the value coefficient is transmuted into an emotion. And with respect to sexual relationships, the emotion into which this value coefficient is transmuted is desire. — location: [441](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=441) ^ref-40608 --- This is the true (though, perhaps, unsatisfying) definition of a high-value man (or woman): it is a person we perceive as being able to give us more of what is most important to us, given the current prioritization of our goals. What’s more, this person’s ability to give us more of what is most important to us should not be compromised by any significant liabilities that would negate the benefits we hope to accrue in a relationship with him (or her). That is, a high-value person also gives us less of what we don’t want. — location: [445](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=445) ^ref-55186 --- The bigger the net positive, the higher the person’s perceived value and the more desire we experience. — location: [450](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=450) ^ref-45734 --- can’t help but feel desire as a consequence of that perception. — location: [452](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=452) ^ref-25536 --- value and desire are the same thing experienced in different ways. — location: [455](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=455) ^ref-50793 --- his evolving, hyperconflated goal set for the relationship, which thereby renders his marriage increasingly expensive (especially in the context of an optionality that may include more “affordable” alternatives) over time. — location: [457](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=457) ^ref-11767 --- goals. He may feel confused or frustrated or embarrassed in — location: [462](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=462) ^ref-9190 --- response to this diminishment, but – to the extent that desire represents the transmuted perception of value in sexual relationships – he won’t be able to prevent — location: [462](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=462) ^ref-19356 --- our emotional response to the perception of a low-value individual (i.e., someone we perceive to be a net negative in the context of our hyperconflated goal set) is disgust. — location: [466](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=466) ^ref-28465 --- emotional response to the perception of a mid-value individual (i.e., someone we perceive to be net neutral in the context of our hyperconflated goal set) — location: [468](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=468) ^ref-39798 --- person might be capable of giving us a few things we kinda want (and a few things we kinda don’t), we typically feel indifferent. — location: [470](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=470) ^ref-43486 --- person might be able to give us a lot of what we really want (and a lot of what we really don’t), then we typically feel conflicted. And this is because both our desire and our disgust are active at the same time.⁠8 — location: [472](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=472) ^ref-47075 --- we feel powerfully drawn to and repulsed by the same individual simultaneously. This is called an approach-avoidance conflict, and it can trap people in agonizing indecision for years. — location: [474](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=474) ^ref-53622 --- also helps explain why people ignore red flags – at least, in otherwise attractive individuals. Red flags are traits or behaviors that signify that a liability that is not (or only marginally) present now might be present (or much more present) in the future. The issue is that – just as the same benefit is always more valuable in the present than in the future – the same liability is always less detrimental in the future than in the present. — location: [476](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=476) ^ref-1217 --- This causes people to (rationally) undervalue potential future liabilities, which then contributes to tipping their perception of any given individual in the direction of a net positive. — location: [481](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=481) ^ref-33300 --- Ultimately, it is this reciprocal relationship between the perception of value and desire that explains why attractive people tend to receive all kinds of allowances that less attractive people don’t – including the tendency to discount or minimize the implications of their bad behavior. — location: [491](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=491) ^ref-44910 --- people will be unaware of precisely what they value and the extent to which they value those things. — location: [498](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=498) ^ref-47395 --- unacceptable. This means that even if we were aware of our valuation process, we would likely try to hide aspects of that process from others (and even ourselves). As a result, it is generally useless to directly ask people what they want in a sexual partner. — location: [504](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=504) ^ref-19694 --- what people value – and how much they value those things – is not entirely biologically determined. It is both mediated by perception (which is not always reliable) and informed by culture (which creates significant variability across time and place). — location: [515](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=515) ^ref-40367 --- is related to the quantity of our training data. If each of our valuation algorithms for sexual relationships is principally trained on data collected from just one relationship, then our algorithms will be unduly biased by the idiosyncratic features of that relationship. — location: [529](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=529) ^ref-50994 --- small numbers, their capacities to perceive the multiplicity of ways they can effectively structure their relationships – and the multiplicity of people with whom they can have those relationships – are compromised, even if they were raised under “ideal” conditions. Unfortunately, — location: [542](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=542) ^ref-35190 --- home environment creates difficulties is related to the quality of our training data. — location: [547](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=547) ^ref-28441 --- one relationship, and this one relationship (inevitably) achieves the goals of its constituents in a suboptimal (or even dysfunctional) manner, then all of our sexual relationship algorithms contain weights and values that have no business being there. — location: [549](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=549) ^ref-50216 --- contain valuations that are either irrelevant or antagonistic to their goals. That is, they value things that don’t matter too highly (because these things are not actually instrumental to getting what they want), and they (often) value things that do matter incorrectly (because they have been trained to approach what instrumentally they should avoid, and vice versa). — location: [551](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=551) ^ref-33246 --- antagonistic valuations are even more problematic because they effectively sabotage goal-directed efforts. These valuations make it less likely that people will get what they want (and more likely that people will get what they don’t want). The kicker is that they do this irrespective of the given individual’s awareness. — location: [558](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=558) ^ref-28765 --- When people become aware of the extent to which their valuation algorithms have been trained on bad data, they become increasingly cognizant of a serious double-bind. Basically, within their subjective experience, they feel as though they are forced to choose between entering into a dysfunctional relationship with someone they authentically desire and entering into a functional relationship with someone they feel nothing for. Obviously, both options are problematic, but this double-bind will remain in effect until their valuation algorithms are appropriately corrected. And the most effective way to correct them is to flood these algorithms with better data. It’s not possible to erase the experiences on which these — location: [571](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=571) ^ref-30502 --- Psychoanalyst Karen Horney was the first to formulate this framework. Source: Horney, K. (1950). Neurosis and human growth: The struggle toward self-realization. W. W. Norton & Company. — location: [600](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=600) ^ref-26107 --- like all visible hues can be created through various combinations of the three primary colors, all our feelings can be created through various combinations of the six primary emotions. — location: [627](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=627) ^ref-40925 --- Just keep in mind that most shops are willing to transact after hours for the right price. — location: [653](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=653) ^ref-30535 --- look for people who demonstrate through their actions that they have what you want. And second, implement their advice exactly as directed and observe whether it moves you in the direction of your goal. This allows you to responsibly enter into a kind of apprenticeship with the master, irrespective of whether you have an actual relationship (though this is preferable). This is precisely how most captains start their careers: as apprentices on other captains’ ships. Ignorance is not a choice but remaining ignorant is. — location: [721](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=721) ^ref-19880 --- creating an emotionally compelling lifestyle and obtaining an accurate understanding of how the marketplace functions. — location: [726](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=726) ^ref-14112 --- developing self-mastery. It is the process of cultivating a suite of skills that will be useful out on the open seas of life – especially when the waters are rough. This suite includes abilities like logical problem-solving, emotional stability, and effective communication, and it includes virtues like wisdom, prudence, and courage. — location: [735](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=735) ^ref-41807 --- difficult to attract and retain passengers without first mastering two particular skills: seduction and frame management. Let’s briefly discuss each in turn. — location: [739](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=739) ^ref-19733 --- It is very difficult to achieve success – let alone the optionality from which success usually emerges – in the sexual marketplace without competence in seduction. — location: [753](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=753) ^ref-10361 --- frame of a relationship is the structure of its negotiated arrangement. — location: [758](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=758) ^ref-3270 --- The model for ideal integration is provided by the wood from which the ship is constructed: firm with a little give. — location: [769](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=769) ^ref-29350 --- In the context of personal development, plotting a course is analogous to identifying your mission in life. Where are you trying to go? By which star are you sailing? Cultivating an overarching purpose is vitally important for two fundamental reasons. In the first place, life is very difficult, and it is bounded on all sides by pain. And pain that is purposeless cannot be long supported. By extrapolating a personally compelling reason for living, you will be able to withstand the pain of existence with greater resilience. And in the second place, identifying an ultimate destination will allow you to resume your progress more easily after you are inevitably blown off course. No journey is a straight line, so it is wise to expect unexpected diversions (just ask Odysseus). Much like learning to sail, plotting a course assumes a special significance in the sexual marketplace for a number of reasons. First, it’s important to understand that taking on passengers is not a precondition of being a captain. That is, people who build a boat, learn to sail, and plot a course are captains – whether or not they decide to take on passengers. With their assets and skills, captains can sail around the ocean blue to their hearts’ content all on their own – and this will be an ideal situation for a subset of captains. So if captains technically don’t need passengers in order to be captains, then if they do choose to take on passengers, it is important that they have a compelling reason for doing so. Why would it be necessary to have a passenger on board? This is the manifesto that justifies the manifest. Some destinations are difficult to reach on one’s own; others are unobtainable with the excess weight. Ensuring that your destination is of the former type will not only provide a compelling enticement with which to attract passengers but will also supply the basis of frame management further out to sea. I can’t overstate the practical significance of this first point. Without a mutually agreed-upon destination, captains and passengers can’t do business with each other. Think about it: would you get on an airplane if you didn’t know where it was going? Most likely not. So why would a captain neglect the challenge of plotting a course? — location: [777](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=777) ^ref-11495 --- Passengers do the same thing before coming aboard, except the vehicle they are stressing is the captain’s character. They are creating an artificial storm on land in order to predict how a captain would weather an actual squall out at sea. Passengers can stress a captain’s character in a near-infinite number of ways, including: being flaky, disrespectful, impulsive, uninterested, dishonest, or incompetent (just to name a few). This is because – no matter the person in question – all passengers eventually will be flaky, disrespectful, impulsive, uninterested, dishonest, or incompetent at some point on a long enough time line. This is analogous to the fact that – no matter the person in question — location: [902](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=902) ^ref-63548 --- testing can be both expensive and infuriating. If they’re not careful, otherwise good captains – who may have already invested considerable resources into building their boats – will find themselves with few actual passengers amid a lot of apparent optionality. — location: [910](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=910) ^ref-9069 --- Consequently, it’s useful for captains to remember that testing indicates a high degree of interest. — location: [912](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=912) ^ref-53033 --- party securing a more favorable arrangement. For the time being, however, it’s enough to understand that stated intentions (i.e., what people say they are going to do) and revealed intentions (i.e., what people actually do) are not always the same. — location: [941](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=941) ^ref-25924 --- This is why it is essential that captains formulate an overarching purpose for their lives: it is extremely difficult to remain in alignment with a mission that has not been clearly articulated. — location: [949](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=949) ^ref-11399 --- captains: confidence, competence, courage, and capital. — location: [1030](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1030) ^ref-63259 --- This conceptualization of sexual marketplace value is essentially a quantification of the degree to which a specific individual matches a given culture’s archetype of an attractive man or an attractive woman. And this archetype is determined by both culturally specific and biologically constrained factors. In order to differentiate it from other forms of SMV that I discuss later in this chapter, I will refer to this conceptualization as normalized sexual marketplace value, or nSMV. — location: [1109](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1109) ^ref-29107 --- men want Barbie, and women want all the things the Ken doll comes with. As the recent film (correctly) depicted, Barbie isn’t all that interested in Ken himself. — location: [1140](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1140) ^ref-40873 --- they are uncomfortable with the objectification that exists at the heart of male attraction. — location: [1147](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1147) ^ref-64165 --- Taken to its extreme, male attraction cares nothing for a woman’s career, intelligence, interests, or personality. It is entirely concerned with the woman’s body and what that body can do for him (i.e., sexual pleasure and reproduction). To — location: [1148](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1148) ^ref-25579 --- Women don’t like players because the latter are fundamentally hustlers: they succeed in transacting something for nothing. — location: [1156](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1156) ^ref-43764 --- This causes women to feel “cheated” by the exchange, even though they were – in most cases – enthusiastic and consenting participants. — location: [1157](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1157) ^ref-7179 --- What seems to be most important to women – broadly defined – is lifestyle: all the things the Ken doll comes with. To a large extent, the male doll is a cipher: interchangeable and unremarkable. It assumes its value by virtue of its context: its accessories, possessions, and surroundings. — location: [1160](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1160) ^ref-42521 --- This is why Ken comes in an infinite variety of “flavors,” each associated with a specific fantasy: there’s Malibu beach Ken (with dream house and surfboard), and veterinarian Ken (with stethoscope and puppy), and cowboy Ken (with Stetson and quarter horse), — location: [1162](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1162) ^ref-55789 --- men secure relationships with beautiful women: they provide access to a lifestyle that the women could never hope to create for themselves. — location: [1168](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1168) ^ref-15166 --- Men don’t like gold diggers because the latter are fundamentally hustlers: they succeed in transacting something for nothing. — location: [1175](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1175) ^ref-8122 --- This causes men to feel “cheated” by the exchange, even though they were – in most cases – enthusiastic and consenting participants. — location: [1176](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1176) ^ref-18724 --- At the end of the day, it’s attraction that runs the show (and the perception of value that calls the shots behind the scenes). — location: [1264](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1264) ^ref-35159 --- has an “objectively” high nSMV (e.g., high net worth, interesting lifestyle, powerful position) but who is consistently passed over for sexual relationships because he doesn’t present himself in a way that makes his value observable to women. — location: [1282](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1282) ^ref-32196 --- Neither sex is above lying: each just does so in its own way. And both do so because they believe that certain forms of lying will increase the chances of getting what they want by catering to what they think the other sex wants to see or hear. Through lying, men and women are often able to secure more desirable sexual opportunities more cheaply by allocating resources toward increasing pSMV (rather than toward increasing nSMV). This is possible because – morality aside – lying works, at least for a while and at least for some of the time. — location: [1301](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1301) ^ref-6563 --- Value is only created at the point of transaction. Until a transaction is executed, value remains entirely hypothetical: it becomes actual when the goods change hands. And once it does so, value becomes anchored at that price point. — location: [1331](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1331) ^ref-33607 --- unexpected difficulties in securing marriage and long-term commitment after years of dating casually. They (incorrectly) believe the ease with which they have historically secured attractive sexual partners predicts an effortlessness in finding an attractive husband. — location: [1366](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1366) ^ref-58932 --- the outcome that can be accomplished through no action will always be valued less than the outcome that can only be achieved through the application of effort and skill. — location: [1379](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1379) ^ref-34675 --- produce an unavoidable consequence, namely: that there are gendered differences in the application of effort and skill in the sexual marketplace. For instance, surrendering to every man who would have her doesn’t require nearly as much effort and skill from a woman as, say, appropriately vetting her options and discerning the men who might be the best investments for her (necessarily limited) time and opportunity. Discernment is a skill that requires some degree of knowledge, — location: [1395](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1395) ^ref-1456 --- for men, action is generally required to make something happen, and for women, inaction is generally needed to prevent the squandering of her resources. — location: [1400](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1400) ^ref-17227 --- it, while those with money have to find a way to resist squandering it on every two-bit “investment opportunity” that comes their way. — location: [1405](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1405) ^ref-55883 --- The upshot is that, in any game, the player at a disadvantage is incentivized in the direction of acquisition, while the player at an advantage is incentivized in the direction of maintenance. And given the relative distribution of normalized value in the sexual marketplace – especially among younger cohorts – women are decidedly the more advantaged players. As a consequence, men are incentivized into an offensive role and play to win (and are rewarded for doing so, since skill and effort are required for this outcome), whereas women are incentivized into a defensive role and play not to lose (and are rewarded for doing so, since skill and effort are required for this outcome). — location: [1409](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1409) ^ref-43711 --- double standard will privilege men as long as women are perceived to be more valuable in the sexual marketplace. Until the day arrives when it is as easy for the average man to find a willing sexual partner as it is for the average woman to do the same, the sexual double standard will exist. A key that can open any lock will remain a good key, and a lock that any key can open will remain a bad lock. — location: [1416](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B0D1Q5LHNV&location=1416) ^ref-64632 ---