For the past 15 years, I’ve been asked some variation of this question:

“Rollo, why should a man bother with women at all today? All women today, yes, all women, are vain, self-important, narcissistic, hubristic, and entitled. What average man would ever want anything to do with the average woman? By the time a girl reaches her late teens, she’s already conditioned to expect a High-Value Man is what she’s due in life. By the time she’s in her early 30s, she still hasn’t had the delusions of her entitlement dispelled for her, no matter what the realities of her situation might hold up in her face. What’s the average guy supposed to do about the average woman?”

Although I’ve been writing about intersexual dynamics for 20+ years now, there’s been a sea change in those dynamics since the rise of social media. While the last two generations of women have been the test experiments, it’s not just a case of “Bro, women’s egos and assessments of their own SMV are blown out of all proportion because of Instagram.” Men’s expectations (really anticipation) of average women’s overblown egos is also part of the experiment. We’ve come to a point where men don’t expect anything else from women than an aggrandized sense of female self. The average guy has little recourse but to accept this ego-appeasement and adapt to a sexual marketplace defined by women’s hubris; or by choice, or necessity (usually necessity), they opt out of that marketplace – or they convince themselves they do. In fact, much of what passes for dating now is a form of personal brand management that has to contend with the rigors of a global sexual marketplace.

No one really “dates” in this market. Without realizing it, they look for strategic co-branding opportunities that align with the changing perception of sociosexual value in global society.

• How will the images of me dating this guy increase my brand engagement?

• How will the pics and video of him appearing in my feed impact my future opportunities to get with a hotter guy?

• How many Simps (commodified Beta orbiters) funding my lifestyle will abandon my brand if I show even one image of both of us in my gallery?

While these (and more) may not be conscious concerns for women “dating” today, the sociosexual context of this brand management is pervasive. It is the acknowledged environment in which men and women play the game.