Yes, you're correct about social circles regulating female behavior. It can be argued they regulate male behavior as well, but male behavior is less problematic, especially in the early stages.
If a man dates a girl and that girl is a good friend of another girl in that circle (or sister or cousin of a male in that circle, etc.), a man must be on his best behavior. The average social circle does regulate male behavior even high value males. Nobody wants their best friend to be used and abused by a player. In most cases, social circles does this to ensure the well being of the circle. Heck, even before the man and girl dates, the social circle may encourage or discourage the match due to SMV, personality compatibility, etc..
A man will experience the worst female behaviors if he attempts to date her via tech assisted or cold approach means. In these types of interactions, women's social circles are not informed of their bad behaviors so women lack an incentive to behave in a respectful manner. Ghosting, flaking, etc. is what comes from interactions where there are no consequences for bad behavior. Ghosting and flaking are more common from tech assisted interactions than cold approach interactions. However, women still behave in less respectful ways to strange men who approach them in-person.
With in-person approaches, there is a higher chance a man or woman will see each other again. It's not in peoples best interest to be a **** to another person if they might see that person again. For example, if a man (or woman) approaches each other at the train stop after work, just by being at the same train stop; there are already commonalities. These people may have the same coworkers, or even friends that they don't know about. After all, they probably even live in the same neighborhood. The chances are they will see each other again, so don't be a ****. Same with grocery store... coffee shops, etc... Heck, what happens if one person needs help (like getting mugged), and the other person was there. If that person wasn't a ****, the other person could probably help by either calling the police or physically helping. There's too much of a downside to being a **** when approaching people in-person. Obviously, this applies less to places where the odds of meeting another person again is lower or nonexistent.
Meeting with tech; a couple could match even though they could be in separate counties or even separate neighborhoods with differing social economic class. This promotes ghosting and bad behavior because there are no consequences. In all likelihood, no one will see each other again. None of their friends will know about their bad behaviors, etc... The more a person is a complete stranger.. the more bad behaviors there is going to be. That is the biggest downfall of OLD. There is no accountability for bad behavior. If there was, the dating apps would produce more long-term relationships (not just relationships that last a few weeks to just a few months)... but then, these dating apps would lose money because there would be less swiping
If you are in your 50s right now, that means you were born between 1963 and 1972. That means you were likely in your heyday of dating in the 1980s-1990s. Look at the chart above to see how people primarily formed relationships in those years and the especially the lasting ones. They were mostly formed through friends during that time. College-formed relationships increased between 1975-2000 and college-formed relationships could be social circle or they could have been a result of forced interaction within the confines of an extracurricular club. You need some social skill to approach a female in your English 102 class, so that's somewhat of a cold approach. Some relationships formed at off campus parties too, and that's debatable if that's more like social circle or a bar style cold approach. I doubt too many college formed relationships formed from a random cold approach while walking on campus (day game).
In the 1980s-1990s, there were people meeting and forming relationships on random nights out at bars, but it was less common than meeting through friends.
First thing, the chart is about relationship. How long were these relationships? 1 week? 2 months? 3 years? I agree online dating is forming the most relationships NOW -- but these are short-term. To me anything less than 1 year is short term. I'm 46 years old. When I was in my 20's, if a person dating another person lasted 1 year or less, they were regarded as being a player or a slut - especially if they had a string of these types of relationships and the breakups were the results of stupid reasons (he lost his job, she lost her looks, or one of them just got bored with each other, etc). Therefore, that is going to be my definition of short-term. These short-term relationships never really amounted to a real relationship that resulted in marriage. This can be seen in the demographics now where marriage is on the decline and there are less relationships that are long term.
Yes, you can see that social circles have been forming fewer relationships since ~1990. I agree that they are best for finding medium to longer term relationships. Even though I believe the shelf life of goodness of most romantic relationships is ~5 years, you're still better positioned to have longer and more positive relationships if using social circle as the primary means of arranging dates.
Due to numerous childhood and adulthood relocations, I was never able to form a social circle capable of producing dates. Even though I've been in my current city nearly 11 years, moving here in my late 20s didn't help me. The men I've seen utilize social circle best for lasting relationships were men who had the fortune of not being relocated by their parents in childhood and remaining in that same area as an adult. They were deeply rooted in their communities. This type of man is not represented on SoSuave since he typically forms LTRs and doesn't date around a whole lot. A lot of beta males fit this description.
I agree the type of man represented on SoSuave would be either a player or a want-to-be player. I'm not sure if I agree that there's a lot of beta males that would also fit into the above mold. Do beta males want to be players? I'm not sure. I know alot of them wonder "where have all the women gone"... but do they really want to be a player? I'm not sure. I lean towards they just want to be nice people, but they just can't find nice women and they are wondering if they are doing something wrong. IDK.
Yes, there is an advantage to putting down roots somewhere and having a solid social circle. However, building a social social isn't hard. I think it probably takes a year. When a person goes to college as a freshman, he is slowly building his social circle. Its easy because he is forced to demonstrate his worth to new people - his roommate, his classmate, his prospective friends on the soccer team (or whatever extracurricular activity he is interested in); he opens up, and people decide if they want to form a social circle with him or if they want him to join their social circle.
Being an adult outside of school, it's basically the same process. Find a social group by talking to people, demonstrating your worth. I met a lot of friends while playing city softball. We trust each other because we did social things together and we did things to demonstrate that we cared about each other - heck, I known a lot of those people for 15 years now hahahah. A few of them even became couples.
In my apartment complex, I know a lot of the staff, and they know me. It took work because I had to treat them not like strangers, but like real people. Obviously, I don't think I could get a date from that social circle, but I know if something bad is about, they would tell me (like a new adjacent building is going to get built, etc.) It's nice. It's actually a community.
Yes. I have always sought extended relationship so both the website era and swipe app eras of online dating have been sorely disappointing for me when I have tried those means.
At the end of the day, it's about social circle which is a fancy way of saying be social, be nice. Talk to people and get to know them as a real person. I've recently been divorced for the past 3 years. While looking at the dating field, the things that have changed is average women don't notice how much they are being played by chads when they are OLD; However, finding dates that could lead to something long-term; that hasn't really changed that much.