Women with Small Dating Pools

One of the things that dawns on you after years of cold approaching is that some women are much easier to date and bed than other women are. Further, it dawns on you that the factors that make a woman easier to date and bed are not always ones obvious to guys who don't approach a lot of women.

You learn counterintuitive truths like that very beautiful women are nicer and friendlier to strangers than mediocre-looking women are. Or that the most physically attractive women usually try to blend in more, while the most eye-catching women tend to be lower down on the looks scale but are far more deliberately flashy. You learn it's usually better to move faster than it is to wait around until some girl is 'ready' to date you (which, if it doesn't happen fast, most likely won't ever happen). You discover women have more respect for men who challenge them and ask them for favors than they do for men who go out of their ways to do favors for them.

You learn to look for signs a woman wants you to approach, as well as for signs you should stay away from her. You learn to tell how a girl shows interest in you and which women want you for sex.

Another thing you figure out, sooner or later, is how important the size of a woman's dating pool is to the odds you date or sleep with her.

 

The Men of Her Dating Pool

A woman's 'dating pool' is the pool of eligible (as judged by her) men she has access to. This pool includes (but is not limited to):

• Men from her social circle
• Men from her academic and/or professional life
• Men she's met in real life from online dating/dating apps
• Men she's met other places (bars, parties, travel)

All the eligible men in these pools of her comprise her dating pool: the men she has available to her to date.

Of course, not every man within this pool is equal. For instance:

• There's the guy she likes but who never talks to her. He's eligible but uninterested. She'll drop hints to him for a while but at last give up, and he'll stop having much consideration in her dating pool.

• There's the guy she isn't into but who pursues her relentlessly. He makes a small contribution to her dating pool, but not much, due to his ineligibility.

• There's the guy she kind of likes who flirts with her. She sort of likes him and thinks he might like her but he never goes beyond flirtation. His role is actually a little larger than that of the guy she liked but gave up on.

• There's the married guy she has chemistry with. How big or little a contribution to her dating pool he makes comes down to her feeling on married guys. If she's very resistant to attached men, he'll have low/no contribution. If a guy's marriage is merely an obstacle to her, or even something that makes her want him more, he might make a pretty fair contribution to her pool.

• There's the teacher or business mentor whom she likes, where there's chemistry, but also the wall of professionalism between them. Depending on how reserved she is about not messing with that role, this man can have a greater or lesser contribution to her dating pool.

• There are the guys in her close friend group. If it's an 'incestuous friend group', where the girls all hook up with each of the guys, each guy can contribute substantially to her dating pool. It's easy for women to hook back up with men they've dated or slept with in the past, and if she's constantly around a bevy of guys, some of whom she's previously slept with, the rest of whom she might like to in the future, her dating pool will feel pretty comfortable to her.

• There are any activities she participates that regularly introduce her to eligible new men. If she engages in any pastimes that let her meet new guys she likes who like her back, those activities will keep her dating pool fairly well expanded.

To get how big this difference is, imagine two different women. Let's call them Jenny and Kelly.

Jenny's lived in town since she graduated from university. In town she maintains a close-knit social circle of five cool guys and five girls she's known a long time. Two of the guys from her group she's dated and another one of them she's slept with. The other two she hasn't dated or slept with but she finds them both attractive and has an ongoing low-level flirtation with both. She works as a nurse and has dated one of the doctors at her hospital, and nearly slept with another one. There are at least three more doctors she likes and thinks might like her too. She regularly goes out to the bars, usually with her friends, and has one bar she particularly likes where she meets a lot of attractive, professionally successful guys. She's hooked up with a few men from this bar.

Kelly's new in town, having just moved here from overseas. She has no close friendships yet, and no ex-boyfriends or former lovers who live anywhere nearby. Her boss at work is definitely eligible for her and does seem to like her, but she isn't comfortable with the boss-underling dynamic and prefers to keep a professional distance. She's gone to some local salsa nights a few times with a couple of her female coworkers, and has met a few men there who asked her out, but none of them was up to her standard. She only met up with one of them, and that one she didn't go on a second date with yet. She put a dating app on her phone and spent a half hour swiping on it, then read the messages she got. She sent a few messages back to some of the guys but none of it felt right and she ultimately turned the app off. She keeps telling herself she'll go back to it and follow through with those guys, but the truth is she never will.

Let's say you're a guy who falls into the eligibility range for both Jenny and Kelly. Both women, if they meet you, will think "Hmm, this guy seems attractive. I might like to get to know him." Which girl do you think is more likely to give you the time of day when you approach her? Which girl do you think is more likely to not flake on a date with you, to follow your lead on that date, and to end up in bed with you after it? Which do you think is most likely to become your girlfriend, if you want her in that role?

Of course, the girl with the smaller dating pool (Kelly) is.

Kelly doesn't have a lot of choice with men. When she finally meets a guy who's attractive and eligible, and who does all the right things to pursue her, she's going to be very open to this guy.

Jenny, on the other hand, is a much harder nut for him to crack. Even if he's attractive, eligible, and makes the right moves, she still has a lot to compare him against. She might be midway through a courtship with one of the other guys in her life and prepare to slow things down with this new guy until she sees how it will shake out with the earlier guy. She might have a great date with the new guy, then go on another date with another great guy and forget all about our hero.

Even if Jenny and Kelly physically look the same and have similar hobbies, interests, and careers, the response rate of one from the other will be very different.

The primary reason is because Jenny has a large dating pool to draw from and compare any suitor with, while Kelly does not.

And beggars, in the dating world, do not get to be choosers.

 

Women with Small Dating Pools

Just because a girl has a big dating pool doesn't meant you write her off completely.

However, if your aim is optimal results, or to minimize the amount of time you have to spend pursuing and dating women to bring them into your life, I strongly, strongly suggest you look adopt a 'small pool friendly' strategy.

That looks like this:

1. Do some light screening early on to get a sense for the size of her dating pool

2. If she has a large dating pool: give her a shot, but don't invest too much in her. If she doesn't respond to your early compliance tests, don't waste too much time on her

3. If she has a small dating pool: you can pursue her harder and invest more time and energy into getting her

Now, the funny thing is this... many guys will do the opposite of this. They find a girl who's popular, or sociable and well-connected; they notice a lot of guys are after her; and then they just go crazy chasing after this girl. They throw buckets of time, money, and energy into getting her. And then after months of this they find out she has a boyfriend and is now in a happy relationship. Then they meet a girl who's equally attractive but without as large a dating pool and they ignore her. It's the weirdest thing.

Some part of it may just be that some men are particularly attracted to highly sociable, outgoing, networked women. If you're like that, then by all means, go nuts. These are the girls you want and you won't be happy with women with smaller dating pools.

If that's not really a romantic priority for you though, understand you're falling prey to 'hot girl' syndrome, just like what we talked about in the "Hottest, Coolest Girls" article. In this case, women who are harder to get and not actually any more attractive have put a spotlight on themselves and created a sort of male feeding frenzy. Meanwhile a bunch of other women, some of them equally attractive (or more so), and who are far more available, get ignored. Similar to the scenario in A Beautiful Mind, where there is a large group of attractive women but all the men at first only notice the blonde:

Women with small dating pools are not just easier to get together with in the first place... they are also, in general, easier to hold onto. They don't have as many men trying to get in their pants or woo them away from you, and they don't have nearly as many temptations to lead them to think "I could break up with John and find someone better."

The more abundant and available eligible men are in her life, the more men she has knocking at her door making her think twice about her relationship every time that relationship hits a bump in the road.

 

A Note on Availability & Eligibility

The availability and eligibility elements are quite key to understanding dating pools.

The reason why:

• If she has many men around her, but those men are not available (i.e., she's the one single woman in a social circle of married couples... and the wives all watch their husbands like hawks around her just to be sure), she doesn't really have much of a dating pool

• If she has many men around her, but those men are not eligible (i.e., she works as a store clerk at a bulk goods store, and all her coworkers are low income lower class males, while her customers are mostly out-of-shape other lower class men), she doesn't have much of a dating pool either

I had a girlfriend who worked for a private doctor's office, in charge of finances. The rest of the staff was middle-aged females, and the doctor who ran the office was an emotional mess going through a messy divorce-rape situation with his Russian foreign bride (who'd realized once she made it to America and secured her green card that hey, I can do much better than this guy!). My girlfriend had only been in the U.S. for about a year, and her only close friend when I met her was a rather effeminate guy from her home country whom she wasn't attracted to and thought might be gay (he wasn't).

In her case, the doctor may well have been eligible, had he not been an emotional mess swept up in his divorce. His problems made him unavailable, however. Her countryman friend was seemingly available (once she knew he wasn't gay, she wondered aloud about whether he'd wanted to date her, and referenced a few incidents where in retrospect it seemed like maybe he was trying to make something happen). Despite his availability though, he wasn't eligible (too soft, too big a pushover for her).

A man must be both eligible and available for a woman to include him in her dating pool.

 

Figuring Out the Size of Her Pool

So how big is a girl's pool?

It takes some time to find out. You'll be subject to your own biases when you first meet her. People tend to project, and assume that others are like them. If your dating pool is large, you'll assume that of the women you meet is surely not that small. Likewise, if your dating pool is small, you'll assume the women you meet couldn't possibly have pools that large.

This is a common problem for inexperienced guys. They have minute dating pools... then they meet a girl. They assume hers is equally minute, and she must be as thrilled to meet them as they are to meet her.

Then she doesn't text them at the rate they expect her to. They become deeply worried. Why wouldn't she do that? They meet up with her but she doesn't seem to take their connection as seriously. Why is she so coy? They don't realize she has 10 other guys in play, all in competition for her. And that they aren't first in line... more like middle of the pack.

Some (indirect) ways you can use to very roughly gauge a woman's pool:

• How often does she go out? Where does she go out to, with whom, and what does she do?

• How many friends does she seem to have? Does she know and talk to lots of people or is she more reserved?

• What are the men like in her school and work life? Are there a lot of guys around her, and are they both eligible and available... or not really?

• How practiced is she socially? The better she is at being the flirty girl without really committing to anything, at making you feel good without giving you much/anything, the more likely it is she's developed and maintained that skillset by having a lot of men around

These aren't exact, but they're a good starting point for figuring out how much competition you've got for her.

Some questions you can answer right away based on how and where you meet a woman. For instance, if you meet her with a big group of people that includes some seemingly eligible/available men, how does she know that group? If it's her regular group and she hangs out with these people all the time, that's an indication her dating pool is probably pretty good-sized and she'll be harder for you to get and keep. If she's never hung out with them before and she's only there because her friend brought her along, that's a good sign of the opposite: she doesn't have much of a pool (otherwise she'd be with her pool and not needing to be invited out with a group of friends where she's the uncomfortable odd one out).

Or, as another example, if you meet her in a classroom setting, and it's pretty clear that you are only one of two eligible, available guys there... and you're in most of this girl's classes and it's the same in all them, just you and that other guy... you at least know her school dating pool is fairly limited. Of course, you don't know what she does outside of school -- some women with limited school/work pools have very active social lives with deep dating pools. Others don't. You'll need to talk to her to figure out which she is.

Again, just because her dating pool is vast doesn't mean not to take your shot with her.

Take your shot. But be mindful you aren't just another drop in her already overflowing dating pool. Ask her for investment, lead, close, set up dates, make moves on those dates... and if she dodges and deflects you too much, move on.

Women with larger dating pools are harder. They just have a lot more options to choose from, and they vet and test those options much harder. Even if you're the best guy she knows, that's no guarantee you hit all the right notes with her. There are a bunch of other guys competing for her, and pretty good odds one of them will luck onto a better combination or get her at just the right moment by pure dumb luck.

Women with smaller dating pools offer a much better payoff for your persistence. You can put more effort into pushing past their tests and rescheduling after their flakes. Even if it doesn't work at first with them, because their pools are so much smaller, there's a much higher likelihood that, so long as you're eligible, they will come around.

 

Conclusion

The size of a woman's dating pool makes a big difference to how responsive she'll tend to be to you, assuming you are both eligible and available for her. The bigger her pool, the smaller a part you are of that pool, and the lower the odds are you'll get her, even if you're great.

Some women go out of their ways to make sure eligible, available men are an abundant resource in their lives. That's good for them, and bad for any single one of their suitors (such as you). Other women concern themselves much less with maintaining expansive dating pools... or they have life circumstances (such as a recent relocation) that have recently reduced their dating pools.

The women most worth the effort for you most of the time will be women with smaller pools.

Keep an eye out for these girls. Don't let yourself get too caught up on and beating yourself up over the big pool girls. Girls with big pools are a lot flakier, a lot busier, and a lot more blind to any individual guy's value -- the bigger the pool, the more of a commodity you are to her. The more of a "How does this guy fit into my life?" situation it becomes.

Women with smaller pools are a lot more time efficient and, in my opinion, a lot more fun. They won't try to squeeze you into a role they want you to follow in their lives nearly as much and aren't as concerned with how you stack up against the competition throughout the course of any relationships you have with them.

There are plenty of women out there with smaller dating pools. It's not because they're defective or weird either. Lots of women with small dating pools are women who simply don't prioritize having tons of eligible, available men around (or there may not be enough men they consider eligible, period). Lots of women with large dating pools sink as much work into maintaining these pools as they do out of a relentless drive to always have the best possible mate, and to be ready and able to replace him as soon as he starts to show signs of wear.

This isn't all of them (there are women with small pools who have problems, and there are women with large pools who are cool, normal chicks), but I don't want you to think "Well, if she has a smaller dating pool, there must be something wrong with her." Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't, just like with the big pool girls (girls with moderate sized dating pools are the ones with the highest levels of normalcy. Girls with small sized pools tend to be either shy nerds, highly educated/ambitious and picky, or weirdoes; girls with big sized pools tend to be either attention whores, hypersexuals, or just super social, super outgoing gals).

And one parting note. Sometimes you will have a girl you think has a small dating pool whom you pursue and put a fair bit of effort into, and it still isn't getting anywhere, and you'll feel confused. She clearly treats you like you're eligible for her, and you've made your availability clear. So what's up? Almost always what it is is that her dating pool is in fact a lot larger than you realize. Whether she's concealed it from you or you just haven't asked the right questions to pick up on it, this turns out to be the case surprisingly often. Usually when you figure that out, it's time to make your exit; you've already invested too much into a woman for whom loads of investment get you little.

If you want to save your time, energy, and do things a lot more efficiently, screen for women with small dating pools.

You'll make your dating life a whole lot easier and spend a lot less time pulling your hair out wondering why you're not getting anywhere when it looks like you should with those large pool girls.

Chase