Congratulations you won high school

 If you consider high school as an environment, then it makes sense that some people will be more adapted to it.  I guess different school systems would reward and punish various "success" strategies... but you get the idea. 

The key point is, when a person (child/teenager whatever) completely specialises in all the skills that it takes to be a winner at highschool.... then what? 

How are they going to deal with a change in environment?  Do they have the ability to change?  Is there a sunk cost that they have had to pay to climb the social ladder at highschool?  Have they spent all their social capital (or other capital) to finally be the top of the social hierarchy? 

What is it that they have actually won?  Mating rights?  Power?  Authority?  Hmmm... not really.  Since school is an artificially limited social system, some of theses things are not availible to win... so what? 

Practice at "the real world"? Not quite... but close. 

Anyway,  once they leave school, they need a similar environment to operate in or all their skill and investment will count for nothing.  Lets look around for an environment where they might be able to succeed... perhaps the "modern dating" environment?  Perhaps social activism?  Perhaps politics. 

So nothing particularly insightful yet.  Now consider how dating has been "extended" from a brief part of the teenage to marriage transition in previous generations to now an extended "dating" phase that seems to last from late teenage to late fifties for some people.  I have been watching a few videos on the "wall".  The idea that older women who have not successfully paired up are reaching a point where their options seem to be exhausted.  The point being that the behavior that makes them successful in the temporary nature of dating and hook-ups seems to be similar sorts of behavior as the social climbing that happens in some schools. (Allegedly)

So if someone is very good at meeting, engaging with, dating and moving on from partners and can harvest resources, social capital and entertainment from the process while avoiding all the downsides (socially speaking) of pairing up and quitting the social game... and they finally reach "the wall" without having been out of the game... have they won?  Are they so specialized to the "dating/hookup" environment that they have maximised their return and rewards from the environment?  They have certainly (as an individual) survived and from a certain point of view, they have "thrived". 

From a biological perspective, failure to reproduce is generally considered to be failure.  However, the rules of the modern dating game seem to be "those who can churn through the maximum number of "dates" ("bodycount") and maximise the throughput of resources into the service industries that support the "game".  Perhaps also some sort of score based on the social media metrics.  This kind of equates to the "attention"/ "notoriety"/"popular" kind of social status metrics from highschool.  

Anyway, you're fifty, never married, no kids, a bodycount in the hundreds (or higher) and you're well know and have high social media metrics.. Congratulation's, you've won dating!

Enjoy the spoils of your victory.