The Chinese dating world is already a highly competitive market, especially because the People’s Republic’s One-Child Policy has resulted in a gender imbalance so large that they now pose serious negative social and economic impacts. When you add the traditional restrictions those who seek life mates place on their search criteria, finding a partner becomes even tougher. To be more specific, with men outnumbering women by the millions in China, there is already a shortage of women to meet the current and future marriage demands. And with men being picky, to conform to social norms and to tradition, despite this reality, they only further narrow their choices in an already strained singles market.

Self-made, single, female billionaires in China also make it tougher on themselves to engage in Chinese dating online and in real life and to find a mate even if the men in China that are of marriageable age outnumber them. Mostly because they will not be the first, or even the second, choice as a marriage partner of any Chinese male bachelor who have an equal or higher status in society as these women do. Finding a life partner with only love as the deciding factor is already hard; with Chinese singles involving so many other ifs, buts, and other catches to the equation, well the situation becomes more of a very difficult mathematical problem of (unlikely) probabilities.

But wait; the problem does not end there. With the recent boom in the Chinese online matchmaking industry, and especially with foreign men entering the Chinese dating market, single women of China are given more choices, causing an even greater disproportion in the number of marriageable men versus the number of marriageable women. In terms of level of difficulty, a Chinese bachelor’s task of finding a mate in China can be compared to completing the twelve labors of Hercules.

For the growing number of successful Chinese women, though, having the opportunity to cast their net wider in international waters (so to speak) is a very good thing. Why should they limit themselves to men from their own culture who do not even consider them suitable partners because of their achievements? These women no longer have to lie about their educational attainments nor hide and give up their other successes and ambitions to find a mate. The future will keep looking better and better for these women; what the future holds for the men, well, their stars should tell them to give their women the appreciation they deserve.

This is not saying that foreign men should leave the women of China alone. After all, all is fair in love, or should be. Sooner or later (for their sake, it should be sooner), Chinese society needs to realize that it cannot continue to exist in the vacuum of its traditional norms; there comes a point where they will have to start making some changes to their time-tested beliefs to keep up with the times. The women have finally started to. Isn’t it keeping with Chinese tradition that the men should lead?