Again listening to a few different podcasts on the drive home with discussions between men and women about relationships. A common sentiment underlies all of these discussions, and I don’t know if it’s just the particular podcasts I’m happening on, or if is an undercurrent of relational life today, but it’s this idea- you gotta be a 10 to get a 10.
In one sense, there is some truth in this, but as these men and women are discussing their standards, I’m noticing a commodification of traits- I want x amount of salary earner, I want x amount of height, I want x amount of beauty.
This isn’t brand new to humanity, it’s not something that Millennials and GenZ invented, it’s been going on for a long time. But I was thinking about my own approach to relationships. I don’t worry about any of that. I am just looking for connection.
On one level, I get that if a girl is ‘out of his league’, then she may not even be open to getting to know him, so maybe ’leveling up’, the term that gets used in many of these podcasts, is a way to at least be able to have those conversations with a wider range of girls.
However, it also seems like the desire to level up, and the level of focus put into improving yourself in those areas, also has a tendency to refocus your desires away from connection and onto the external traits. Sooner or later, the focus on the external warps what you see as desirable.
What I’m hearing from the men and women in these discussions is almost exclusive focus on the external things: I make 200k a year, so I can get a “top-tier” woman. Or I’m a beautiful woman so I can get a top-tier man, but ‘top-tier’ for these men means the woman meets a list of qualifications.
In the end it feels like they’re in search of a set of qualifications, not a person.
And I can’t help but feel that so much of the thinking that says: I’m a 8, 9, or 10, (or whatever they think they are), leads to feeling entitled to the same level of hierarchy in the opposite sex, when it feels like what ought to be happening is just looking for connection with someone. If you’re a 10, then that would mean the entire field is open to you. Instead it means you need to have a 10 according to those superficial traits.
But this set me thinking if there are other areas where this same effect is taking place. The issue for me seems to be:
Looking at things in a hierarchy. (She’s out of my league.)
Then to fix the gap in hierarchical strata, there probably needs to be some sort of quantification of parameters. Once areas can be quantified, then they can be improved with some sort of metric. Or at least some can. (I can’t ever make myself 6’ 3", or look like … well, whoever’s considered the handsome man these days. But I can aim at making more money, learning to be a more confident conversationalist, improving my dress and grooming style etc.)
The attempt to level up inevitably leads to focus on quantifiable areas.
The focus on the quantifiable reorients your ideals.
The obvious area would be business, where nearly everything is quantified and subjected to metrics. The larger the business is, the more likely this is to be true. I would imagine that such focus could indeed restructure priorities.
Schools jumps out at me too as a prime candidate. Test metrics can be used to focus all energy on bringing up test scores. In fact, whatever metrics are used for determining success… mostly financial, are going to reorient focus towards, and drive resources towards, leveling up the metrics. In schools I can see this happening even if it means kids themselves are getting a poorer education.
In sports, at least in soccer, there is a real push with lower division player academies to stress playing a certain way, or to see player development increase, even at the expense of results. This would be a good thing. Of course it all goes out the window at the higher levels, where results are the only thing that matters, but at least in the development side, clubs have seen the necessity of sidelining winning individual games in favor of developing players as individuals.
Returning to relationships, it’s never been about lists. I never had a set of requirements that I would have to have had in a girl. It was a matter of getting to know them, and as I got to know them, all objective metrics went out the window. The personality of that person became THE thing I wanted. The look became THE look I was interested in. I started to want to become the kind of person that other wanted. I just feel like that’s what love does. It changes the metrics. And if metrics change, then what’s the point of them in the first place?
One thing I got from another conversation about this was the language of leveling up being unhelpful. In whatever type of self-improvement you seek out, which, let’s face it, we can all work on, the improvement should be thought of as broadening horizons, not leveling up. Broadening your horizons allows you to see more. In relationship terms that might translate to you moving from a 5 to a 7, and consequently giving you a wider circle of people that might be willing to interact with you. Whereas leveling up, a gaming term, is going to incline you towards getting all you can.
A further detrimental aspect of thinking like that is- what happens if you keep leveling up? Or your girl stops working on it and levels down? The tendency will be to think that you deserve better, because now you feel like you can command interest from that higher level.
The language itself has that ability to reorient your thinking about relationships, transforming your mindset into a constant desire for more, rather than constantly seeing more in the other person.