My impression from listening to women and incels alike is that guys aren’t making an effort.

This often leads to complaints from one side of “why do men have to do the work?” and the other “why do women have to be the sexual gatekeepers?”

It is problematic — females are the sexual gatekeepers for most species, including humans. If women said yes every time they’re offered sex, they’d never do anything else. But in our global capitalist system, it’s completely predictable that women would try to aim high. Of course they would, and probably should.

Guys have gotten away with being terrible — terrible — to women for millennia. If a guy is going to cheat, be neglectful, be physically abusive, or any other way men have gotten away with being, there’s no reason to think he has a shot with a woman who doesn’t want those things.

But if she can be happy with a roommate to split the rent, a childcare arrangement, and informal relationships for sex and companionship, there’s less and less reason for her not to go that route.

It’s not that women are picky, it’s that the lack of quality men (now and in the past) is showing. We never were good enough for them, which was going to be a problem as soon as they had options.