As Valuable As Your Options

A piece in today’s Happen Magazine brings up a topic familiar to most online daters – the concept of being geographically desirable.

Writes the author, Bob Strauss: “Did we live a continent away from each other? Not at all–she hailed from the upper west side of Manhattan, while I lived on a less fashionable part of the east side, perhaps a twenty-minute ride by bus or subway. Was she telling me the truth? That’s a more difficult question. On the one hand, perhaps she genuinely thought her life was so busy that she couldn’t afford to date someone who lived more than a few blocks away. On the other hand, maybe she wasn’t really that interested or was a neighborhood snob and was looking for a way to let me down gently.

“Geographic undesirability” is merely a shorthand way of saying that you are only as valuable as your options. The world’s perfect man – tall, dark, handsome, wealthy, kind – might just be residing in a  palace three hours  outside Nome, Alaska – and if he wrote to you on Match.com, you’d still dismiss him as geographically undesirable – PRESUMING that you have some potential local options. This is the hardest thing for geographically undesirable people to fathom. They figure that if THEY’RE willing to fly cross-country to go on a date (because there’s not many Hispanics in rural Pennsylvania), then any woman in Los Angeles would be willing to do the same. But why would she? She’s surrounded by a 50% Hispanic population. She doesn’t NEED rural Pennsylvania.

You are only as valuable as your options. People without tons of options need to be more flexible. People with tons of options can afford to be choosy.

The people at the top of the dating totem pole are women in their late 20’s/early 30’s – as they are coveted by men from 25-60. An attractive woman this age, in a densely populated area, has hundreds if not THOUSANDS of men writing to her, all of whom feel they have a reasonable shot at her. What these men haven’t necessarily considered is that she has so many options that she can choose a man who fits all of her criteria. In other words, she’s got no incentive to date a wealthy older man fifty miles away when she can date a wealthy man her age who can deliver her latest gift from Tiffany’s to her doorstep in ten minutes.

And since most men get really caught up in writing to hot, young woman, I feel it’s my duty to report that the odds are long BECAUSE of the number of choices she has. Find that same sexy 27-year-old in a more remote area, you may have a better shot at getting a reply. Same thing goes for women contacting men. If you’re a woman who lives outside a major city, you can assume that any attractive, articulate, successful man has the option of dating other amazing women who don’t require him to gas up his car. And you can’t be too surprised or upset when he exercises that option.

People without tons of options need to be more flexible. People with tons of options can afford to be choosy. As long as they have the perception of choice, they’re going to choose to trade up for someone a little bit cuter, a little bit richer, a little bit closer. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it just is.

You can’t change anybody else, nor can you change what they desire. All you can do is attract a catch with better essays, better email technique, and a better approach to dating.

And if you want to do that, you know what to do.