Are Highly Ambitious Men Suitable as Life Partners?
(This article is my Zhihu answer to “Are highly ambitious men suitable as life partners?”)
After starting my own business, I met many entrepreneurs, most of whom are highly ambitious men.
I discovered an interesting phenomenon: These entrepreneurs have a significantly higher single rate compared to their peers. Moreover, the stability of their marriages is also lower than that of their peers.
High Single Rate
In the fields of AI, mobile internet, and Web3, successful co-founders of startups are generally worth at least a small fortune; even those whose startups didn’t succeed have very impressive resumes, such as graduating from prestigious schools, holding high positions in big companies, and having various titles and awards. They certainly don’t have trouble finding good partners. So why is the single rate so high and the marriage stability so low?
The core reason is that highly ambitious men spend most of their time and interest on their careers, investing relatively little in life, emotions, and family.
The entrepreneurs I know generally have very low personal life requirements, are quite casual about food and clothing, and can’t spend all the money they earn. They also rarely have time to go out and play.
I consider myself a relatively playful entrepreneur. For example, recently at Token2049 in Dubai, most entrepreneurs were busy rushing from one meeting to another. My co-founder and I only had time to explore many places in Dubai because we took advantage of the gaps between meetings and had two days of meetings canceled due to flooding. Last year in the U.S., I wanted to go out with some co-living entrepreneurs, but most of them were busy even on weekends or were very reclusive. Some had been in LA for months without visiting the beach. At that time, I had just started my business and wasn’t very busy, and I liked to play around, so I had to let an AI Agent accompany me.
If you are a woman, imagine your boyfriend or future husband not having time to go shopping or watch movies with you every day, not willing to create little romantic moments for you, not caring about your feelings, and not willing to comfort you when you’re upset.
You would feel that your boyfriend doesn’t love you, and your boyfriend would think you’re too troublesome.
For example, my ex-girlfriend once wrote a complaint about me in her answer to “What is it like to have a boyfriend who is a computer genius?”. On one hand, it’s low emotional intelligence; on the other hand, it’s prioritizing technology over our life together.
2016.4.26 Finally broke up
My boyfriend is completely illogical when we argue, with extremely low emotional intelligence. He says I’m boring and wasting his time, and that he prefers being alone working on technology.
(2016.1.9) We didn’t argue for the first six months, but started arguing intermittently in the second half. A few times, we even mentioned breaking up. A year later, we were in a long-distance relationship, and we hardly argued anymore. Now our relationship is quite good.
My boyfriend would fix bugs late at night and then insist on drawing ER diagrams for me, sending messages in between without replying. You don’t sleep, but I want to sleep, okay? It’s very frustrating. After finishing, he would proudly say, “Look, I finished drawing it! It’s so complex!” without noticing my complete lack of interest… I wonder how he found a girlfriend…
When I encounter technical problems
Not only can I interrupt him anytime when I have issues learning C language, but my roommates’ problems can also be solved by him. So our dorm concluded: having a computer genius boyfriend benefits the whole dorm.
When I encounter problems during lab sessions, he always asks, “Do you need my help?” Then I push the code to GitHub for him to see, and he sends back the debugged version through Gist. I never bother the teaching assistants…
Learning pointers was particularly painful, overwhelmed by concepts and losing confidence… He acted indifferent, saying it was simple and not understanding what I didn’t get, which led to me complaining about him that night. The next morning, he spent an hour explaining pointers to me.
Our only two conflicts were related to computer issues. The first was mentioned above; the second was when I wanted to set up a Discuz forum. He said he would teach me but ended up doing it himself while mocking me, “It would take you a week to do this, right?” I got very angry, deleted his server account, and scolded him. His first reaction was to try hacking into my virtual machine…
Solving practical problems
Once, I wanted to block a non-friend on Renren, but the design only allowed blocking friends. He used some tech trick to block the person while adding them as a friend. The method involved copying a curl command in F12 and changing the Renren account to the person I wanted to block (as corrected by my boyfriend… I can’t explain it clearly…)
Once, I asked him to pick receipts from my collection that added up to just under 100 yuan. He said it was a knapsack problem. After a while, he told me he had found a perfect match, saying he wrote some code to calculate it. My roommates and I were speechless…
On my birthday, he told me he analyzed our QQ chat logs using server logs. He derived characteristics from the data, like although I sent more messages, my average message length was four characters shorter, and my total word count was thousands less. He also found that we had chatted at all hours, with the most messages between 11 PM and 1 AM. Since then, we periodically analyze our QQ chat logs using awk. Although he taught me how to do it, I only remember a bunch of brackets and separators, and the command line is ugly and long, so I didn’t learn it.
I suggested we write a Relationship Agreement with version control. So we used Git… He found a code hosting site with private repositories and formatted the RA he wrote in Markdown.
When watching videos together, he would extract the download link from the webpage source code. If the network was slow, he would switch to a different network exit. Once, to download foreign resources, he used a foreign server, then somehow transferred it to a local server, and finally downloaded it. This roundabout way was three to four times faster than direct download.
Daily interactions
Yes, how can a programmer have a girlfriend? So there’s no need to worry about him… He basically has no dating experience and doesn’t seem to attract others. Therefore, it feels very secure… Although he often doesn’t notice when I’m upset.
The first time we chatted, he treated me like an ordinary classmate and took me to the discussion area of the teaching building… Then one day, after dinner, I mentioned being curious about the computer room. So he took me to the main control room, and we stayed there for two hours. He introduced various equipment, and I learned how to make a crystal head. At that time, I felt very privileged.
Sometimes, while eating or walking, we would discuss topics from Xiaomi bands to hacker reverse engineering, website debugging processes, comparing vim and emacs for fewer keystrokes, or discussing startup companies and complaining about Renren’s editor and various unreasonable designs.
We discussed whether to use binary to celebrate anniversaries, but found that after four months of knowing each other, we would only have eight days where all the digits of the day are 1. It didn’t seem suitable…
Once, my roommates discussed the number 32, associating it with concerts. Although we didn’t understand the reference, he said, “32 only reminds me of 2 to the power of 5”… My roommates were confused.
He recommended books like “The Wave Crest,” “Hackers and Painters,” and “The Linux Command Line.” At least for now, he can easily solve all my problems. Switching from physics to computer science can’t be said to be unrelated to him…
Someone mentioned calling for meals. Never believe him when he says, “I just have a little bug to fix.” Or “I’m almost done, just a bit more,” or “I definitely won’t work late tonight, I’ll finish it.” Once, he spent three or four days continuously fixing server issues, basically ignoring me.
Whenever I write technical blogs or notes, I show them to him first. He points out errors, and I correct them. For example, this answer had some wording issues pointed out by him… Or I write a shallow blog post, and he writes a more in-depth one on the same topic.
By the way, how do programmers find girlfriends? Through technical blogs and various products. I learned about his personal experiences from his technical blog and saw his name in various places. I still use some of his services, like VPN. You can also attend his technical lectures…
So programmers, don’t be discouraged. Write good blogs and work on technology, and you’ll find a girlfriend.
That’s all for now.
Although my emotional intelligence is not as low as it was, it’s still below the average for my age group. Prioritizing career over life remains the same. Even though I enjoy life more than most entrepreneurs, when career and life conflict, I still prioritize my career. In the nearly seven years I’ve been with my wife, most of our arguments have been due to conflicts between career and life.
Low Marriage Stability
So why do highly ambitious men have low marriage stability? Since their minds are focused on their careers, they shouldn’t have time to find mistresses, right?
There are three main reasons:
- First, highly ambitious people often have different values from most partners;
- Second, highly ambitious people generally like to try new things and have a stronger desire for conquest;
- Third, highly ambitious people need their partners to keep growing.
Firstly, the most suitable partner types for highly ambitious people are either supportive partners or like-minded partners. Highly ambitious people are picky about their partners and don’t match well with most people.
Supportive partners are life assistants who help manage household chores and don’t require much emotional value from their partners. They understand and support their partner’s career and choices and have good emotional control, not demanding too much from their partner in life. Most successful and happy men have supportive partners. My wife is also this type.
Like-minded partners are harder to find, usually sharing the same career plans and interests, working together in both career and life. Many family businesses start this way. Like-minded partners are indeed enviable, but there are three risks:
- First, career plans and interests can change. Once they are no longer like-minded, they will part ways.
- Second, highly ambitious people generally have strong opinions, leading to conflicts.
- Finally, if both are busy with their careers, no one will focus on the family, and raising children and caring for parents will become issues. My wife’s mentor said that balancing both partners’ careers and children’s education is an impossible triangle, and one side must make sacrifices.
Unfortunately, most people look for partners based on social status, personality, and interests. Many highly ambitious people don’t realize their most suitable partner type or even that they prioritize career over life. As a result, they find an incompatible partner and discover years later that they are unhappy. This is the main reason for low marriage stability.
Secondly, chasing girls and starting a business are both challenges for ambitious men. Those who choose to start a business often have a challenger personality, enjoy trying new things, and have a stronger desire for conquest. This is why they choose entrepreneurship over a stable job.
My mentor once told me, starting a business is about realizing dreams, not about making money or enjoying life.
If it’s about making money, it’s better to join a fast-growing startup or a big company. The failure rate of startups is high, and even if successful, the cash-out cycle is usually long. In terms of expected income, joining another company or a big firm might be better.
Starting a business to enjoy life is even more far-fetched. Those who start from scratch and genuinely build a business are usually busier the wealthier they become. During the rapid growth phase of a company, even sleep time cannot be guaranteed. Only after achieving financial freedom and retiring can one possibly enjoy life. However, since those who choose entrepreneurship have a challenger personality, after succeeding once, they often want to tackle the next challenge. Unless faced with significant changes, it’s hard to stop challenging themselves.
Why start a business? It’s like why people climb mountains. Climbing is tiring and risky, but it’s a life experience. The scenery seen during the entrepreneurial process is different from that of regular employees, making entrepreneurship a lifestyle. This lifestyle is something most people rarely get to experience because it requires convincing investors to provide millions of dollars.
I believe, starting a business is about realizing dreams and experiencing life. This kind of life is different from the daily shopping, eating, and drinking that most people enjoy.
Returning to the issue of low marital stability, some men see trying new partners as a conquest process of new experiences. Although I don’t agree with this value, I am describing an objective fact. Moreover, entrepreneurs need to face various dark sides of society, and their moral baseline is generally lower than most people’s. The saying “the kind-hearted cannot lead troops” explains this.
Finally, ambitious people grow quickly, so they need partners who also continuously grow. Otherwise, the gap will widen, and they will gradually become incompatible.
Many people find their partners during their school years when the differences among classmates are not very pronounced. But in society, the gap widens. Ambitious people grow rapidly with each challenge. However, most people are unwilling to learn or grow proactively. If the partner remains stagnant, unwilling to learn or improve themselves, the cognitive gap will widen. Initially compatible values will gradually become incompatible.
The best relationship is one where both accompany each other and grow together. Relying solely on responsibility to maintain a relationship is neither happy nor long-lasting. Only by continuously keeping compatible values and spiritual connection on the path of growth can a relationship remain stable and life be happy.