“Settling”

     Consider the following observation:

Sexual double standards make it so that the woman in a marriage is more often settling for a man less attractive than those she dated and wondering if she could have done better.

This actually hurts men, but they never stop to think of the harm they cause themselves.

— Jessica Pin (@jess_ann_pin) June 8, 2026

     “Settling.” A word with ragged edges, no? Don’t we “settle” about something, every day of our lives? When lunchtime rolls around, I “settle” for whatever’s in the house, rather than demanding Lobster Newburgh. When I buy this, that, or the other thing, I “settle” for what my means will support, rather than insisting on the best-of-breed. And when I chose a wife, I, a relatively ordinary man, “settled” for a relatively ordinary woman – don’t look at me like that; the C.S.O. would agree – rather than holding out for Reese Witherspoon or Christina Hendricks.

     Settling is simply what we do when our opportunities are limited and don’t include our fantasy aspirations. That applies to the great majority of our decisions, regardless of the subject matter. It certainly applies to our mating decisions.

     Settling is not, in and of itself, any kind of issue. No, my lunch will not be Lobster Newburgh. No, my next car will not be a Mercedes Maybach or a Bentley Continental GT. No, the C.S.O. is not Reese Witherspoon or Christina Hendricks. But I chose freely from among the possibilities that were open specifically to me. No one forced any of my choices upon me. Therefore I will settle, accept the consequences, and learn to be happy with them.

     The issue is realism.

     Economists – real economists, not Marxists or meliorists – are relentless about the concept of scarcity. There’s a small supply of Lobster Newburgh. There’s a small supply of Mercedes Maybachs and Bentley Continental GTs. There’s definitely a small supply of supremely beautiful women – and it’s even smaller if you insist on a woman with a sweet and affectionate character. That will never change; therefore, the prices of those things will never descend to the level of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the used Ford Pinto, or the woman an ordinary man is likely to marry.

     The tragedy is not in the settling. The tragedy is in the recrimination and the failure to adjust.

     Consider Jessica Pin’s tweet above. Do you imagine that there are many women who never fantasize about the Adonis who had no time for her? Do you imagine that there are many men who never dream of the prom queen they yearned for but who wouldn’t spare them a glance? Most of us “revisit” our past choices and the domain in which we made them, at least on occasion. Where some of us fail is in the acceptance of our circumstances.

     Time was, it was deemed a matter of course that you would learn to love your spouse. Of course, in that era, many marriages were arranged by the parents of the spouses-to-be. Families and the reputations of families were a much greater part of matchmaking. Parents were conscious of their responsibility for guiding their children into a mature understanding of reality, its constraints, and our individual limitations.

     Perhaps mature realism has become rare, now that such arrangements are no longer the rule.

     At any rate, if we must fantasize about “how it could have been,” keeping those fantasies in the box labeled as such is paramount. Alternatively, we could purchase and read absurd romance novels that will temporarily transport us to an alternate universe where each of us can have his dream lover despite being a relatively ordinary person. But that’s a subject for another time. For now, have a little music: