80/20 is an exaggeration of the real state of affairs. Its correlation with the Pareto Principle makes it memetic, so people repeat it because it captures the world as they perceive it. Extremely undesirable men want to believe that women only go for the top X% of guys, usually 5% 10% or 20%. These men believe they are just a few points shy of whatever that X% is. Thus, the problem is not that they are not good enough but that instead the requirements are impossible.
All of that is, of course, bullshit. It is a comfort narrative losers tell themselves to avoid the painful reality of their own mediocrity. There is some general truth to it, but it gets stretched to absurdity.
However, you are conflating two things, relationships and sex. Many men are not looking for a girlfriend-- they want to have sex with as many hot women as possible. That is much easier to do if you are an attractive man. You go on one to three dates, get the bang, and then keep them in your harem. Most women will not tolerate being in a harem of a man unless they believe he is higher value.
Relationships are easier to secure than the FB situation. This is because, despite all of the claims from the whiners, women are wired for monogamy. For several thousand years all women who cheated were murdered. Nearly every civilization made non-monogamy punishable by death. That has had strong and lasting effects. What most women want is to be in a monogamous relationship with a high value man. If they cannot get that, they get to choose between being railed by high value men, or to choose a monogamous relationship with whatever men offer that to them, usually lower value.
Most women go with the monogamy thing. Particularly because being unmarried past a certain age dramatically lowers a woman's social value. Married women do not like having unmarried women around their husbands. So, the men you see holding hands with women are the men that the woman decided was "good enough".
Keep in mind that the dating market is not transparent. I.E. You do not get a clear picture of all women who would accept you as an FB or for a committed relationship. Women also do not have a clear picture of who would commit to them vs. who would just nail them. The thing is that men have a huge advantage here in that we at least know our own motives. Further, women are not able to "establish the relationship". While their consent is required, they cannot "pop the question". There is no society where women propose that I am aware of-- thus men hold all the cards here.
More to the point-- women can only choose among men who do pursue them, since that's just how human courting works. This means that if a woman would accept the top 50% of men for a committed relationship if a man at the 51st percentile makes the offer, she may settle for it, even if she was attractive enough that the top 10% of men would court her as well. The question is whether or not they do and whether or not she can trust a high value man to not just want the bang.
This is something the man at the 51st percentile could take advantage of-- i.e. the girl who sees him as a commitment option usually will give up the bang before getting the commitment that she believes compensates for the lower value of the man. That guy can then just bounce and not give the commitment she is expecting (and that she factored into his value). Etc. So the field is very skewed.
The main issue that men have is that women used to be forced to accept extremely low value men. This is because women were not allowed to work or provide for themselves. If they did not want to starve, be outcast, or forced into prostitution, they had to choose a man, for the most part, or rely on family to care for them. Essentially, female existence in society meant living under the coercive threat of death/misfortune if you did not tie yourself to a man, however low value.
Now that women in most of the world can actually support themselves, their existences do not depend on accepting low value men. They still have the pressure to accept lower than they would like, but if a man is intolerable or of such low quality, they do not have to accept it. This means that some percent of men are excluded from the dating pool. That skews the ratios of available attractive men to available attractive women.
What it looks like in our time is that the bottom 30% or so of men are out. Women would rather be alone than date them. Thus, the remaining 70% of men have a lot more options and it gets exponentially higher as you go up the value totem. The only thing that somewhat equalizes the playing field for women is rising obesity and that some women don't understand the game. These women that do not understand the game end up getting dicked by a lot of dudes and then end up single without ever securing a husband. Many will not have reproductive success, since they believed they were entitled to monogamous commitment from men above their value. Or these women get sidetracked by the psychosis of "Feminism" and write themselves out of the dating pool entirely.
This is the mess that both genders now have to go through if they want to find some kind of pairing.
All of that is, of course, bullshit. It is a comfort narrative losers tell themselves to avoid the painful reality of their own mediocrity. There is some general truth to it, but it gets stretched to absurdity.
However, you are conflating two things, relationships and sex. Many men are not looking for a girlfriend-- they want to have sex with as many hot women as possible. That is much easier to do if you are an attractive man. You go on one to three dates, get the bang, and then keep them in your harem. Most women will not tolerate being in a harem of a man unless they believe he is higher value.
Relationships are easier to secure than the FB situation. This is because, despite all of the claims from the whiners, women are wired for monogamy. For several thousand years all women who cheated were murdered. Nearly every civilization made non-monogamy punishable by death. That has had strong and lasting effects. What most women want is to be in a monogamous relationship with a high value man. If they cannot get that, they get to choose between being railed by high value men, or to choose a monogamous relationship with whatever men offer that to them, usually lower value.
Most women go with the monogamy thing. Particularly because being unmarried past a certain age dramatically lowers a woman's social value. Married women do not like having unmarried women around their husbands. So, the men you see holding hands with women are the men that the woman decided was "good enough".
Keep in mind that the dating market is not transparent. I.E. You do not get a clear picture of all women who would accept you as an FB or for a committed relationship. Women also do not have a clear picture of who would commit to them vs. who would just nail them. The thing is that men have a huge advantage here in that we at least know our own motives. Further, women are not able to "establish the relationship". While their consent is required, they cannot "pop the question". There is no society where women propose that I am aware of-- thus men hold all the cards here.
More to the point-- women can only choose among men who do pursue them, since that's just how human courting works. This means that if a woman would accept the top 50% of men for a committed relationship if a man at the 51st percentile makes the offer, she may settle for it, even if she was attractive enough that the top 10% of men would court her as well. The question is whether or not they do and whether or not she can trust a high value man to not just want the bang.
This is something the man at the 51st percentile could take advantage of-- i.e. the girl who sees him as a commitment option usually will give up the bang before getting the commitment that she believes compensates for the lower value of the man. That guy can then just bounce and not give the commitment she is expecting (and that she factored into his value). Etc. So the field is very skewed.
The main issue that men have is that women used to be forced to accept extremely low value men. This is because women were not allowed to work or provide for themselves. If they did not want to starve, be outcast, or forced into prostitution, they had to choose a man, for the most part, or rely on family to care for them. Essentially, female existence in society meant living under the coercive threat of death/misfortune if you did not tie yourself to a man, however low value.
Now that women in most of the world can actually support themselves, their existences do not depend on accepting low value men. They still have the pressure to accept lower than they would like, but if a man is intolerable or of such low quality, they do not have to accept it. This means that some percent of men are excluded from the dating pool. That skews the ratios of available attractive men to available attractive women.
What it looks like in our time is that the bottom 30% or so of men are out. Women would rather be alone than date them. Thus, the remaining 70% of men have a lot more options and it gets exponentially higher as you go up the value totem. The only thing that somewhat equalizes the playing field for women is rising obesity and that some women don't understand the game. These women that do not understand the game end up getting dicked by a lot of dudes and then end up single without ever securing a husband. Many will not have reproductive success, since they believed they were entitled to monogamous commitment from men above their value. Or these women get sidetracked by the psychosis of "Feminism" and write themselves out of the dating pool entirely.
This is the mess that both genders now have to go through if they want to find some kind of pairing.