Great article, Carlyn, and it reminds me of the dating culture when I lived in East Asia. For cultural-difference reasons, I'd noticed that the culture in East Asia placed less of an emphasis on emotional awareness than we have in the West... or at least than we have in the West for women. At the same time, for other cultural reasons, a focus on wealth over love/happiness/fulfillment is considered virtuous in East Asia — because it shows that you're looking out for the needs of your family, rather than prioritizing the happiness of #1.

You can imagine the recipe this represented: Western men with (proportionally) more money, relieved at the chance that simply having money was "enough" to land them a woman. Specifically, a woman whose bar was low enough to accept an emotionally unintelligent guy — because money.

In other words, men who would likely have struggled TREMEMDOUSLY with establishing a healthy relationship with a Western woman (since healthy relationships require MUTUAL emotional-intelligence skills, which women are disproportionately inclined to cultivate) were able to land *a* relationship (healthy not required!) simply because they'd found women who would be satisfied with a gift/cash flow, in a culture where emotional fulfillment is not given so much priority.

I knew some East/West couples who were genuinely happy together, but I always felt bad for many of the others: realizing that neither party was likely getting genuine "love" or finding their deepest emotional/connection needs fulfilled. Just contenting themselves with an ongoing transaction. :(

Tl;dr: men who lack the skills (or self-esteem) to make emotionally intelligent women happy believe that the only alternative is to "buy" companionship. And in some places, yes, this is possible. If only they realized they could just work on themselves, and that emotional intelligence is a totally achievable standard...