Why Are Women in New York City Different?

Have been putting this off but it’s pouring rain today so I’ll write this one up.

Women in NYC are different.

I have lived in ten different cities across three different countries, and gamed in a couple dozen more. If I could plot the sexual marketplaces of these cities on a 3D graph across a number of different axes, New York City would be an outlier all its own. People have drawn comparisons to Sydney, Melbourne, and London, but those cities really don’t even come close.

I imagine it must be tiring to read this in my blog, my field reports, and from other NYC gamers, but it really cannot be overstated.

It is truly impossible to understand without living and gaming here for an extended period of time, but this is my attempt to convey what I have learned.

Why do women in New York City behave differently than in other cities?

Human behavior has two causes: biology and culture.

The biology proponents will cry: but how can you say NYC women are different! Women are biologically equal!

This misses the point.

New York City does not change female biology on the individual level, rather there are two factors at play:

• How culture causes a select group of women with certain biological and cultural traits to move here (selection bias)
• The continued effect of New York City culture on this group of women after they move here

I have been keenly studying the culture of women in New York City for a year and a half, as basically a full-time job. These are my observations:

New York City Traits

High-density

The city, specifically Manhattan, has a large population and is the densest place in the developed world. There are people everywhere at very hour of the day and night. That means that women have nearly-unlimited options for guys. And even if they don’t, they think they do, because they see attractive guys everywhere they go. Manhattan guys may not be even the most attractive in the country… but women still see more way attractive guys than they do walking around in Houston or Miami!

Expensive

Housing in Manhattan is the most expensive in the United States. The only women who can afford to live here tend to be of two archetypes:

• Professional SMDs. Career-driven ball-busters with no time for sweetness.
• Spoiled rich YNDs whose parents pay for their apartments. Generally were not blessed with available parents who taught them humility or good manners.

This leaves only a smaller minority of women in Manhattan who are suitable for anything other than a one-night-stand. It’s no surprise that the nicest girls come from the Outer Boroughs and beyond (e.g. Westchester, Jersey, and Long Island!)

Media stronghold

Over the last 20 years, the intense popularity of female-consumed media about New York City, specifically shows like Sex and the City, have turned the city into a parody of itself.

Year after year, batches of women move here after college looking to recreate the depraved “work hard, party hard” lifestyle they saw on television. They are attracted to New York City for what it represents, not what it is. These are the professional SMDs referenced above, and they represent an ever-growing majority of women in the city… especially because their 100K+ a year jobs make them the only ones able to actually move there!

Media brainwashing

Because NYC is a media stronghold, women consume media at a higher rate than other cities. They constantly follow the latest trends on Instagram, TikTok, and Netflix, and design their lives around them For guys that happen to fall into the archetypes touted by these media at the current moment… it’s auto-sex on steroids. Everyone else will be fighting an uphill battle.

Anonymous, ephemeral, low-trust

The large population and high density creates an ephemeral feeling and low social trust. There’s no motivation to treat the opposite sex right because there’s a feeling you may never see them again. And even if you do, there’s a general “mind yo’ business” culture in NYC that places value on looking the other way.

Status-driven

Women in New York are very status-driven. They feel that all eyes are on them, and they will be judged by their female friends and their tribe for every move they make, especially on social media.

Due to the ephemeral nature of relationships, they view men more as status symbols for their tribe than genuine romantic partners.

Diverse

New York City is extremely multiracial. Queens, for example, is the most diverse place in the United States if you look at percentages of all four major ethnic groups (white, black, asian, latino).

This, combined with the extreme status-driven nature of the city creates a racial dynamic to the sexual marketplace that just doesn’t exist in other places. Many outer borough minorities view white men as a status symbol to ascend out of their position. We call them “white-pass” and they’ll base their entire life about consuming white content, media, and presenting themselves as part of the clean white tribe to be able to lock down their clean white guy.

Many of the same pairings are seen over and over:

Asians go for clean whites.
Latinas go for hard whites and k-pop Asians.
Blacks go for everybody.

Getting a nice guy with his own apartment in Manhattan is the goal, somewhere she can escape and have “Matrix sex” with her dude for the weekend before she has to go back to her shitbox in Zion… I mean… uh… one of the boroughs.

Even without an apartment, though, a guy here can be valuable just for his race, as it’s the only visible factor of status at a glance in this fast-paced city. It doesn’t matter if the guy is basically homeless crashing on his friend’s couch… his archetype and race are all that matter, because she can take photos of him and put them on her Instagram and her followers will be none the wiser.

The majority of women, though, draw on the tribal dynamics of human nature and date only within their own tribe. For example, a higher-status white woman from the West Village has so many former frat boys and finance bros to choose from, she never needs to get with anyone outside her tribe. If she did, she’d be judged by her girlfriends who closely track her every move. This isn’t so much the case in other cities where dating across class and archetypal guidelines is more accepted.

The tribal dynamic leads men who have a clear attractive archetype and a social circle to have an incredibly easy time finding partners, but leaves a very difficult time for the tribe and archetype-less.

Cultural Ramifications

Women treat men as either disposable or as a status symbol

Disposable men are either used to fulfill depraved sexual fantasies (the status of black men among white women has never been higher) or simply used for a one-night-stand and then discarded.

More suitable men are used as status symbols, or “keychains” for the girl to tote around so that the world can see that she managed to lock down this guy. Certain keychains are seen over and over on the streets: the clueless oofy doof white with the career-driven Asian woman, or the beta Asian man with the outer boroughs anime-loving Latina.

Retention is only possible if you’re a girl’s exact archetype

The judgment of a girl’s friends is so strong, and there are so many other options available, that the girl will only decide to commit to a guy if there is wide approval by her social circle. This means being of her exact archetype and tribe and, if needed, being high-status within that tribe.

Gone are the days of “women are the choosers before sex, and men are the choosers after”. Here, women are the choosers the whole way.

Women are masculine

Women in New York City are used to being the choosers, like they do in their oh-so-powerful day jobs where everything caters to them. They will try to control the frame, plan the date, and ask the questions.

If you’re a good-looking man, this works out great. This is the reason that feminine men do so well in NYC. They can just sit back and let the woman take the lead and make a keychain out of them.

But if you’re a masculine man, it’s going to be a fight. The only way to win against these types of women is by frame battling them until their essential biological femininity is revealed. Winning the frame often takes hours.

Women aren’t looking for material markers of status

In Miami, girls want a guy with a yacht, the best table at the club, and a mansion.

In NYC, everyone’s rich already, so material status markers don’t matter that much. A girl generally has to make $120K minimum just to breathe in Manhattan, so girls aren’t going to bat an eye at a guy making twice or even three times what she does. An expensive apartment is hard to show off as it looks the same from street-level, too. So unless you’re making several million a year, you’re probably not moving the needle in a way that’s going to affect your dating life.

It’s no surprise that the preferred markers of status here end up being unique, unchangeable and instantly-observable facts, like the color of one’s skin.