80/20 Dating Rule (80% of Women Are Attracted To 20% of Men)
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About
80/20 Dating Rule, also known as 80/20 Incel Theory, 80-20 Tinder Rule or 80% of Women Are Attracted To 20% of Men, refers to a theory popularized in online manosphere and incel culture communities that claims 80 percent of women are attracted to only 20 percent of men. This idea is inspired by the Pareto principle, a theory that states roughly 80 percent of consequences come from 20 percent of causes, and a March 2015 study conducted on Tinder to quantify the dating app's socio-economic prospects for males based on the percentage of females that will “like” them. The theory was popularized online in the late 2010s and 2020s, becoming a focal point in discussions in March 2025 after being mentioned in the Netflix drama series Adolescence as one of the reasons for the murder of a teenage girl.
Origin
On March 24th, 2015, Medium[1] user @worstonlinedater uploaded a study titled "Tinder Experiments II: Guys, unless you are really hot you are probably better off not wasting your time on Tinder — a quantitative socio-economic study." In the research, the author analyzed female Tinder usage data "to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy." The study determined that the "bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men."
The author explains the theory in a graph (seen below), showing an area in blue that represents the situations in which women are more likely to “like” the men. "The area in pink represents the situations where men are more likely to 'like' women," the study shows.
On November 11th, 2018, YouTuber LFA uploaded a video titled "The 80/20 Rule Is Delusional" to his channel discussing the theory, receiving over 58,000 views, 2,100 likes and 930 comments in six years (shown below).
Spread
In the decade after the study was published online, several manosphere content creators and websites started to use the 80/20 rule in various posts to justify why they were rejected by women.
For example, on January 3rd, 2019, Redditor[2] u/AlexanderLitvinenko started a discussion in the /r/AskMen subreddit about the accuracy of the "80/20 rule" in dating, which amassed more than 330 upvotes and 460 comments in six years.
On March 24th, 2019, X[3] user @wofa_slayzie tweeted the statistic "80% of women prefer only 20% of men," writing, "That's why women bluetick many men but can't get the men they want." The post (seen below) amassed roughly 170 likes and 250 reposts in six years.
On April 24th, 2020, YouTuber YMDRP uploaded a video on the 80/20 Rule and why he thought it would eventually become the 90/10 Rule, receiving over 255,000 views, 14,000 likes and 3,200 comments in five years.
On October 4th, 2023, Redditor Batmanrobin8 made a post to the /r/TrueUnpopularOpinion[6] subreddit claiming the theory is becoming "more and more prevalent every year," garnering over 910 upvotes and 1,400 comments in a year and a half. In their post, the Redditor notably said:
This just makes sense really. For years women were limited to their social circles and the dating pool in their town / city and pressured to marry. Now women get thousands of men handed to them on dating apps ,at bars, on instagram etc. so things return to how they are in nature where only men who are somewhat exceptional can really stand a chance. It’s not really personality like some people say, women are picky on things like height , money and looks/hair. Why give a man under 6ft a chance when you have hundreds of other men at your fingertips who are over 6ft, same with bald/balding men, same with ugly men, same with poor men. Only the best men stand a chance now a days with how many options women have. And really personality doesn’t factor in to this, only after you have passed the height/looks/status bar is when it may matter. Even then women will look above a bad personality if you have money etc.
Resurgence From Adolescence
The 80/20 Dating Theory gained mainstream visibility in late March 2025 after being mentioned in the Netflix series Adolescence, particularly in a scene in which a student is explaining to a detective why the suspect in the murder investigation was being called "incel" on social media.
He uses the statistic "80 percent of women are attracted to 20 percent of men" to explain the teen's behavior. A still image of the scene was posted on X[4] by @IncelsCo on March 20th, 2025, amassing over 8 million views and 3,700 likes in five days.
On March 22nd, 2025, X[5] user @girlsbian_replied to @IncelsCo's tweet, writing, "have any men considered that women might want to date them if they stopped being the worst people on earth." The post (seen below) garnered over 6 million views and 265,000 likes in three days.
Various Examples
