The Life Cycle of Products in the Sexual Market Place
The excerpt applies product-life-cycle stages to a man’s dating experience: initial experimentation, growing confidence, maturity, and possible disillusionment. It is a proposed analogy, rather than an established sequence that every man follows.
THE IDEA
The Life Cycle of Products in the Sexual Market Place
The product life cycle describes four stages: market introduction, growth, maturity, and saturation and decline. It helps businesses consider how demand, costs, and competition may change over time. Products do not all follow the same timetable.
This excerpt maps those stages onto a man learning to date. It uses pickup-community language: game for dating tactics, SMV for a proposed ranking of sexual market value, approach/close ratio for the rate of successful approaches, and plates for concurrent dating relationships. These terms express the market analogy; they do not establish a universal progression or an objective ranking of partners.
Market Introduction Stage
A newly introduced product may be costly to develop and difficult to sell because customers do not yet know it. In the dating analogy, a beginner tries different approaches, encounters rejection, and learns what works in a particular social setting.
The excerpt compares this experimentation with a prospector strategy: looking for opportunities and trying unfamiliar approaches. It also notes a limit to the comparison. A person entering the dating scene is new to that setting, but other people are already forming relationships there. Changing environments may bring another period of adjustment.
The Growth Stage
In the product model, demand and sales rise, production may become more efficient, and competitors respond. The excerpt compares this with someone gaining confidence and having more successful approaches.
The proposed improvement depends partly on context. Experience in one venue does not guarantee the same results in another, particularly if the person changes whom they approach or what kind of relationship they want. The source’s claim that competition declines at this stage is part of its analogy, not a consequence of the product model.
Maturity Stage
A mature product has an established market and may face strong competition and pressure to differentiate. In the dating account, the man has developed a consistent style and feels more comfortable meeting people.
The excerpt imagines him exploring new venues and maintaining several relationships. That is a particular goal within the account, rather than a necessary measure of maturity. Greater experience need not produce the same preferences or outcomes for everyone.
Saturation and Decline Stage
In a product market, this stage refers to weakening demand, lower sales, and possible replacement. The dating analogy uses decline differently: the man may still be successful at meeting people but lose interest in repeating the same pattern.
He may find maintaining several relationships less appealing than it once was. Having experienced what he originally sought, he asks "Is this it?" He might pursue a longer-term relationship, spend less time going out, or share his experience with others.
Here the useful distinction is between a change in goals and a loss of ability. The account describes a possible shift in motivation; it does not show that boredom or settling down is an inevitable final stage.
When to use it
Reflecting on the trial and error involved in dating in an unfamiliar social setting.
Considering whether greater dating confidence has changed the kind of relationship a person wants.
Distinguishing boredom with a dating pattern from a loss of confidence or ability before deciding what to change.
Using the stages as discussion prompts in dating coaching while checking them against the individual’s actual experience.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
A College Freshman Entering the Scene
A young man begins learning pickup techniques (market introduction). He faces frequent rejections, low success rates, and stiff competition from older, more experienced men. He experiments with different approaches and slowly improves his confidence and skills.
A Seasoned Player in His 30s
In this illustration, a man has become confident at meeting people but feels bored with maintaining several dating relationships. He considers a longer-term relationship or mentoring others. The change concerns his goals, not a demonstrated age-based decline.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Does any stage in this analogy resemble your dating experience? Where does the comparison fail to describe what you want?
Which social skills or expectations would you like to improve? How would you recognize progress without assuming that everyone follows the same stages?
If you are in the saturation/decline stage, what new challenges or goals might reignite your motivation?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Rolf Dobelli - The Art of Thinking Clearly-Harper Paperbacks (2014)