Posts by Nancy Bishop4

frozenseal55 said:Oh, really? And how exactly am I supposed to support an argument if not with specific examples?
And how did you back up yours? Based on your own personal life experiences? ☕

Is there some grand statistical study tracking how many gorgeous women end up with unattractive men?
If such data exists, cough up the sources, the references, the links, the hard numbers, the percentages... anything.

Otherwise, you're just talking out of your ass.🙂

No, I'm just not blind, unlike you, who invents nonsense because reality is too hard to stomach.

Mark Martin10 said:I'm trying to picture the scenario where a guy approaches a woman, they meet, and he goes: "I possess a depth of spirit as profound as my desires, along with a benevolence capable of rigorous firmness, which I switch between with ease. My views on women are purely traditional; I view them as a possession to be kept, a property to be locked away, destined for submission, through which perfection is achieved. Marry me."

(According to the internet, this is what Frederick would say)

I bet any woman would fall head over heels for a "sage" like that.

If he's attractive enough and has money, you'd be surprised how many would fall for it. Just look at how many people flock to those wealthy Middle Eastern billionaires when they tour through Europe.
It gets pretty awkward to watch.

frozenseal55 said:Yeah, right...

That's exactly why Adriana ended up with Mark... his looks completely knocked her off her feet. ☕

She doesn't need his money because she probably has more than he does... 🙂

Honestly, you’re reaching again. Your argument might actually hold water if she had ended up with some guy running a local bagel shop who looked like Steve Buscemi, but let’s be real—even then, a couple of isolated examples don't prove much. As it stands, Manu Ginóbili is nowhere near that description.

Linda Diaz3 said:This isn't really how life works 😵
It's a well-known fact that women generally gravitate toward a good story...
Realistically, if we look at the entire male population on the planet, how many of them are actually Apollos? Maybe two percent at most... 🤔
So how is it possible that a much higher percentage of men are actually in relationships? 😉☕

Myth.

It’s pretty clear you aren't reading for comprehension here. The point was that people who are physically attractive can basically get away with anything and have it framed as interesting—not that women exclusively want to be with them.

Joseph Bailey41 said:Are you referring specifically to physical looks—like facial features or body type—along with clothing and makeup, or are you talking about "flirtatious" body language?

A person is interesting if they actually *are* interesting; no amount of "presentation" is going to turn a lemon into lemonade. If someone is emotionally needy, intellectually dull, and spiritually shallow, they aren't going to have much luck with women. It really couldn't be simpler than that. Even if they manage to play a part for a little while, they shouldn't be surprised when women run the other way once they see who they're actually dealing with.

To put it simply: if all you want is a fling, you just need to be an object of desire, which isn't exactly a monumental task. But if you're looking for a real relationship, you need to be a well-rounded person, which is a much harder goal to achieve. Judging by your posts, you've got quite a bit of work ahead of you.

What a joke. Personally, I’ve run into dozens of guys like this who have had massive success with women, and they were chosen over those "intellectually stimulating" or "spiritually deep" types every single time, for very obvious reasons.

silentridge3 said:That number is just a flat estimate, so the actual price could swing around.

What I’m trying to get at is that if a potential buyer actually goes out of their way to schedule a viewing, I guess the agent should probably be compensated for that service at some kind of reasonable rate.

Right now, agents are basically dragging hundreds of potential buyers through apartments for absolutely nothing. They’re wasting their time, burning gas, wearing down the soles of their shoes—they're working, you know? And they're doing it all for free.

And then, after spending three months showing properties to a hundred different people without getting a dime, they end up taking a massive, unrealistic $3,000 or $4,000 cut from the one single buyer who actually closes the deal—for a service that the buyer usually didn't even ask for in the first place, which was the exact same walkthrough. If you think $83 is too much for a simple viewing, then it’s definitely $5000 too much for that very same viewing.

I honestly don't know if any other profession uses such a nonsensical billing model, a model where there isn't even a basic principle of "value for money" involved.

What kind of fool would pay $83 just to look at an apartment.🤦
That $3,000 isn't for the walkthrough; it's for actually finding the buyer or the property in the first place.

silentridge3 said:Where on earth am I "telling someone what to write in their ad"?

I’m talking about much more fundamental issues here, specifically regarding the totally broken business model—the way they handle billing—of agencies like RE/MAX. It’s almost like if a bar owner decided to give away every single beer—Bud Light, Coors, Miller... whatever—for free, but then charged an insane premium for just one specific brand, say, a Heineken. And then, just to make up for all the money lost on those free beers, they’d charge $300 for that Heineken. Just because you might find some person who, for whatever reason, decides to buy that Heineken for $300 doesn't actually make that price "realistic," nor does it make it reasonable that they had to subsidize all those other beers at $0.00.

As for this whole concept of a "realistic price"...

1. I’ve heard and read quite a bit that apartments actually sell for significantly lower amounts than what is listed in the ads. So, by definition, the asking prices in the listings are unrealistic.

2. I’ve also heard and read that real estate in certain parts of America is way overpriced when you look at the analyses and comparisons with other countries in Europe.

3. In countries where the real estate market is actually well-regulated, people know exactly what things are worth over the long term, which lets a person plan their life using property as a sort of "currency." The "flow"—you know, the volume of transactions—is much higher there precisely because everything is transparent and built on long-term trust. Here in America, most people don't have any kind of transaction flow at all during their entire lives; it feels like one single transaction is considered the absolute peak of a person's real estate journey.

If things functioned differently—if the listed prices were actually grounded in reality—people would be buying and selling a lot more frequently. Sales would increase because more buyers would actually agree to the prices, and sellers wouldn't be stuck waiting forever for some buyer willing to pay an astronomical, unrealistic amount. People would have more freedom to organize their lives. You’d buy a studio in your college years, sell it one autumn, and within fifteen days, buy a two-bedroom. When kids come along, you sell the two-bedroom and within a month, you have a house. When the kids move out, you downsize back to a two-bedroom, and so on. All of this works perfectly fine for the average person if the market is stable and realistic.

But here, only a tiny minority are actually buying and selling. Life can't really flow normally if you lose five full years of your life between selling one place and buying the next because of unrealistic pricing and a stagnant market. And honestly, part of that mess is definitely due to the flawed way these real estate agencies operate.

You've got it wrong; prices aren't significantly lower, just slightly lower. Anyone who is serious about buying will find a way to buy.

What people think doesn't really matter as long as they manage to pull in close enough to the asking price.

I disagree. There are always fluctuations in value because there are just too many moving parts involved.

And you could technically do that today, too. The difference is that you'd be looking for a place for peanuts.

silentridge3 said:Well, I suppose I care for a few different reasons, if you can call them that.

- First off, it makes it impossible for me to actually find an apartment at a realistic, lower price point, because everyone on Craigslist just ends up copying those totally delusional asking prices from one listing to the next, creating this weird loop.
- Then there's the family side of things; my relatives spent fifteen years trying to move one single property—which was supposed to be split up among us—just because they were holding out for some buyer willing to pay a ridiculous premium, all because every other listing on the market was inflated to those same unrealistic levels.
- And honestly, it’s just exhausting because when I'm actually trying to buy something, I have to wade through hundreds of completely useless listings just to find one thing that isn't pure fantasy.

Just because you aren't a fan of those prices doesn't mean they aren't actually happening. Claiming that every single price out there is unrealistic is honestly just absurd.
And here we go again. I’m back to asking the same old question: where exactly do you get the authority to tell someone else what they can or can't write in their own Craigslist ad?

silentridge3 said:Maybe so.

But I don't know, there still seems to be this massive issue with how many properties are mispriced, which, on one hand, just totally floods the listing sites, and on the other, kind of scares away sellers who won't drop their prices to reality, while also turning off buyers who see those insane asking prices and just move on.

I guess a lot of sellers just fall for what they see in other listings, and because of all those inflated ads, they honestly believe their place is worth way more than it actually is. And then you have both sellers and buyers who just aren't interested in haggling, so a bunch of potential deals just die before they even get off the ground.

In this current setup, it’s entirely possible for someone to list an apartment worth $100,000 for $150,000 for five years straight, and it doesn't cost them anything. Then, if you multiply that by ten different agencies all listing that same place for $150,000, and throw in a hundred potential buyers who would have happily paid $100,000 but never even bother calling because the ad says $150,000... well, nothing happens.

If we actually changed the way these agencies make their money, it would probably completely overhaul how prices are set and how things are advertised. You'd end up with people actually trying to sell, buyers who actually want to buy without all the back-and-forth, and agencies would be charging for the actual work they do based on fair service fees. It wouldn't make sense for an agency to keep a hundred unrealistic listings active just to create a "wide variety of inventory," or to use ninety-nine overpriced homes as "proof" that one specific house at a realistic price is a total steal.

So, what's the big deal?
If these sellers aren't in a rush for the cash, they can sit on their property for twenty years for all I care. It's their asset; why should anyone else care what they do with it?

As for the agencies, the real question is why they even exist in the first place. You have the listings right there; you pick one, go see it, and keep going until you find what you need. Brokers are essentially obsolete.

Amanda Reed6 said:I honestly think things are going to shift pretty soon once all those life changes start hitting. When your lifestyle flips, your habits, interests, and what you actually care about tend to follow suit. It’s just how it works.

Once you actually land a job, money starts carrying way more weight than when it was just handed to you on a silver platter. You get a routine, too—you finally have a decent sleep schedule and set meal times. It's a hell of a lot better than being unemployed, where one day you're up at 7 AM and the next you're staring at a screen or gaming until 3 in the morning and sleeping until noon. Simple as that. When you have less free time, you're forced to reprioritize how you spend it. And look, once you move out of your parents' place, a huge chunk of that "free" time gets swallowed up by stuff they used to handle—cleaning the house, cooking, grocery shopping, keeping up with the bills, all that. It’s pretty unrealistic to expect your life to stay exactly the same when you've changed every single variable. As for whether you still love the same music, movies, or games? That's minor. It doesn't really matter if those tastes stay the same or change at the end of the day.

Not even close, unless you're completely disorganized or just incapable of functioning.
I honestly don't see the point in dwelling on these kinds of vague hypotheticals.

Amanda Reed6 said:Look, I’m not judging anyone or trying to preach to the choir, but if I’m curious about how things ended up this way, then I’m going to ask. ☕

I’m not talking about the people who have actual goals—the ones chasing non-traditional paths and actually putting in the work. I totally get that (honestly, who’s to say I’m not one of them?), but what I'm getting at is this weird fear of commitment in the crowd that isn't even doing anything productive. You know, the "drifters" who just run away from any kind of responsibility.

And honestly? Trying to convince me that just coasting through life while worshiping your own comfort is some kind of noble value worth respecting... yeah, that's going to be a hard sell. 😵

The idea of what counts as "productive" is incredibly subjective.
You could easily make the same argument about your own lifestyle—that, at its core, it's just another version of coasting, just wrapped in different packaging.
If you really look at it, most people are basically just coasting through life when all is said and done.

Besides, whose ego are we supposed to be catering to if not our own?

Amanda Reed6 said:Oh, really? Is it actually impossible without loans? I wouldn't go that far. And I’m not even talking about the specific stuff I listed—I mean more of a general gut instinct when any topic involving commitment comes up. It’s like that whole "Oh, I love dogs, but a pet is such a huge responsibility since you have to walk them" vibe. People use that exact same logic to dodge every major life obligation and responsibility out there.

Look, let's be real: we live better now than ever before. No one can convince me otherwise. We are where we are because our ancestors survived millions of years of famine and disease just to reproduce, yet today we claim things are "too hard" and we can't afford to be independent.

I look at my grandparents. They barely finished middle school, but my grandpa worked his tail off to support my mom and her sister through law school. Both of them stayed home until they were 35 because they didn't want the "burden" of responsibilities. To me, it doesn't seem like they couldn't do it; it seems like they just wouldn't. And honestly, it makes me wonder why.

Has our standard of living climbed so high that we're too embarrassed to admit it? It’s like, "I can't afford marriage and kids," but they aren't actually worried about kids going hungry or living in poverty—they're worried they won't have enough left over for skiing trips, summer vacations, or getting a brand-new iPhone every six months. That's the reality.

First of all, why do you assume everyone places the same importance and value on these things that you do?
For many people, the things you hold dear are completely worthless.
Secondly, why does it matter what others choose to do with their lives, and who are you to lecture them?
Thirdly, what makes you so certain that your perception of the world is more accurate than theirs?

Jack Jones7 said:Look, they don't necessarily have to buy property.
In my experience, it really boils down to lifestyle choices.

People want to actually enjoy their paycheck rather than just using it to settle bills.
I get that, I really do, but if that’s your mindset, you aren't going to get ahead in life.

And does renting somehow count as progress?
🤦

Amanda Reed6 said:I’m not even sure if this belongs on this sub—or if someone hasn't already beaten me to it—but I figured this is where the most interesting takes would be.

Lately, I can't shake the feeling that more and more young people are becoming irrationally terrified of actually... you know, having responsibilities. Being in your twenties has basically become synonymous with "finding yourself," which, let's be honest, is usually just code for dragging out college forever, living off your parents' dime, and disappearing every weekend. It used to be seen as a red flag, a total deviation from the norm, but now? It’s practically the standard. Meanwhile, taking on any real life commitment is treated like a massive mistake. Everyone seems to be waiting for some "perfect" window in their mid-thirties, which feels less like a psychological milestone and more like a biological deadline for finally starting an adult life.

"Take your time with school; you'll have plenty of misery waiting for you once you start working a real job."
"Don't jump into a serious relationship or marriage yet; go live it up while you can before life gets heavy."
"Kids are nothing but stress and baggage—don't ruin your youth by committing to that."
"Don't get a dog or even a goldfish; it's too much responsibility." 😁

Why do we think it’s like this?
Where did this massive shift come from, where "slacking off" is fine but growing up is a tragedy?
Why has stepping up and actually entering adulthood become such a stigmatized, negative thing?

It's because everything you mentioned often ends up looking like petty, small-minded avoidance. Plus, for most people, achieving those milestones is only possible by drowning in credit card debt or student loans—something they're terrified of because they've seen exactly how that downward spiral ends.

I’d suggest looking into a different major altogether. Honestly, struggling through Roman Law and the freshman year burnout isn't some true litmus test for what's coming; the workload and the pressure just scale exponentially once you hit junior and senior year.
You’re probably better off skipping this degree, if I’m being honest. It’s a blessing in disguise, really, because at the end of the day, very few people actually see a decent return on the investment anyway.