I don't think we can understand the "EPIDEMIC OF LONELINESS" until we look at how "us being CONNECTED" has really made us MORE DISCONNECTED than ever before.
Humanity was never meant to keep in contact with THOUSANDS of people. We were designed to only CONNECT with those 50, 100 people that we are within our TRIBE, our CITY, and so forth.
In this way, TECHNOLOGY has greatly damaged our society by destroying our ability to make and keep meaningful, lasting, relationships.
When she was sixteen my niece boasted about her 500 or so Facebook Friends. I asked her to tell me something about the first ten that came to mind. She couldn’t do it.
Interesting but not surprised. I only follow those I care about…so my Instagram following is low (93) and private. I know it’s unfashionable to have such a low number 🤣 But admittedly, it’s much easier to hone in on those that matter the most.
I had around 763 Facebook followers. Then I supported Trump and lost about half. Then the pandemic happened, I talked about hydroxycholroquine and natural immunity. Lost another half of that number. Looks like I'm doing quite well so far. :)
When I had a Facebook account, I never allowed more than 100 friends. Every month, I "unfriended" anyone who had not engaged in any of my posts the previous month. It kept my account real and manageable. After the 2020 election, I deleted it completely. Bye bye and not missed.
Frankly, far more important is stopping Republicans from stealing and rigging elections and throwing insurrection tantrums when they don't get their way.
Can you stop openly corrupt, senile Dems and their openly corrupt offspring at the same time? (Calling out mic drops in parantheses is the opposite of a mic drop, btw.)
I agree with every major Democrat, including Joe Biden, who has expressed outrage and concern about Republicans placing partisans in elections offices because they say that Republicans will be able to steal elections if they have people inside elections offices.
Do you honestly believe that nonsense? Trump is almost certainly a pig. But the "rape" tale is howler. Only a NY jury would buy that. The Bush tape was a discussion of groupie behavior. Ask any athlete's or rock star's wife what they think of their morals. As far as hiring whores, we have 535 of them on our payroll in DC. With far lower morals than Stormy.
Just last night I was listening to the radio and "Street of Dreams" by Rainbow came on. I found myself imagining listening to that when it was originally released, on a car radio at night, and how much more intimate the experience of simply listening to the radio when you don't have access to the whole fucking world at your fingertips. Technology has robbed of us intimacy in many, many ways.
Yes. Needing to watch a TV show when it was on, or miss it (ok, record it on the VCR maybe!). Enjoying the song when it came on the radio (ok, jumping up and hitting 'record' on your cassette deck maybe!). Seeing people you knew at a bar or event just because you were both there. The ease of everything has made appreciating things harder.
People generally also used to stay in their communities but now have to go where the jobs are, often thousands of miles from family and friends. And friends you DO make in a new location tend to come and go as they also move to follow job opportunities.
Sorry, but I'm glad the internet provided me the option to connect with people in England and the world, I pretty much didn't have anything in common with the bar flies of Northern New Jersey who wanted to go get sloshed and sing living on a prayer by bon Jovi every Friday and Saturday night at their local watering hole.
"43 percent of young women say they have no interest in dating whatsoever". Go figure......the corporate media, social media, university/political leaders and social justice warriors have spent the past 10 -15 years telling men that they are the part of the oppressive patriarchy and responsible for most of society's problems. They've discouraged masculine men and the byproduct is physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally weak males. Just go to any concert, mall or large gathering and look around. Is it surprising to anyone that women having sex is also in decline.....I mean how could it not be? Masculine men are a dying breed IMO.
My man! Couldn't agree with this more! I'm working on an article having to do with the "attack on manhood" because you see it everywhere you look.
One theory that's out there is that (disclaimer, the theory is Unorthodox, because that's what I write on:) Humanity itself is under attack. And the protective species within humanity is the male. The male protects and the female creates.
If you take out the male, that masculine energy, driven by naturally building testosterone, who's there to protect the female species, the species that produces life and nurtures the species in the future?
Unorthodox, I know, but when you look around at the policies and how the world is moving, you almost have to say, "hmm.. it doesn't sound so off after all"
I suspect we'll soon have bots which will patrol your house to seek out spiders, insects, rodents, etc., capture them, and then take them outside and release them into the wild. No toxic or non-toxic masculinity required.
Well, I never signed up to be a zookeeper, and the critters never agreed to pay me rent, so after I evict them I'll disclaim any responsibility for their future care.
It just so happens that Christina Hoff Sommers wrote such a book, The War on Boys. Great book, things happen when some mothers have a boy child. The Tiger Mom arrives. It centers around a vocational school in NY. The bottom line was educators didn't like the disproportionate amount of boys in the school. So with all of their coastal brilliance, they ended up with a school with many unhappy girls and boys who lost an advantage. Way to go NY.
Let's face it schools are run by women and the people who succeed in them are girls. Schools are made for girls. Lively, boisterous boys are a problem for many teachers, so we drug them. Nothing like telling a boy he's not good enough right from the get go.
Agree. I didn’t really understand boys until I had three sons. They are just wired differently than girls. When they were school age I learned to appreciate when they had female teachers who were understanding of their boy students. But some just wanted them to fit the girl mold of a calmer and more focused child. Fast forward to now and my oldest and his wife were able to choose a Christian school with an emphasis on outdoor learning and play. That’s a real blessing and a direct result of his experiences as a child. Regarding the author’s overall point, I would emphasize that parents need to model healthy relationships for their kids. Divorce, single parenting, cohabitating by Mom and Dad? Parents not paying attention to their kids, not parenting, not monitoring social media use, not looking into what they are learning in school? Kids grow into young adults who are disconnected from people, and don’t understand the value of faithfulness, respect, monogamy and family. They don’t see or feel these things in their own lives. It’s like a foreign culture. My observation is that kids raised in two parent, religious homes are able to grow up and become much closer to the author’s grandparent’s model than those who aren’t. At least that’s the view I see here in middle America.
Schools have always--always--been female-centric places. Now they are absolute re-education camps for boys. Amazing that there are any real men left anywhere in modern 'Murica.
Very true, but now with recesses being shortened and some eliminated, PE not everyday, it is becoming harder for them to "get the wiggles out." High schools have also eliminated shop and woodworking classes that were havens for boys who struggled in academic settings. Those classes gave them chance to excel with other skills. It's the same for girls who weren't interested in college but just want to marry and settle down, they lost Home Ec classes.
I remember a woman I went to high school with who majored in math education. As a side gig she used to tutor kids who were "gifted" in math. She said that most of her pupils were boys, not because boys were better at math than girls, but because they were more likely to get frustrated by their regular math classes, act out, and thus attract the attention of teachers and parents who were motivated to find a solution.
The famous book "Tiger Mom" was written by Amy Chua (I have read it). She has two daughters and no sons. Amy Chua also wrote "World on Fire" (which I have also read). Note that Amy is that daughter of Len Chua (a famous name in transistor theory).
Note, that you have many details wrong, but are broadly correct. American society has waged war on boys and the results are dismal.
On the other hand, masculine men may not be a dying breed after all. A recent poll show many more high school boys are now identifying as conservative. Fewer soy boys means a better stronger America.
Curiously, "woke"'s definition reversed itself. It originally was used for people who were "awake" eg noticing the cultural changes. During the Trump years; the definition was either misunderstood or co-opted to mean the exact opposite.
It's not the only word to have gone through that in English. "Terrific" used to mean "inspiring terror". "Awful" used to mean "inspiring awe". "Literally" used to mean "truthfully".
Recall Megan Kelly pulling her son out of the toniest boy’s school in NYC (Collegiate) because she said every other day they were questioning him as to whether he thought he was a boy. He was only 8 and it was confusing to him. Kelly pulled him out and moved to suburban Connecticut. Boys are being besieged by woke crap. It’s no wonder they aren’t enrolling in the military anymore
You are spot on and a prime example is AOC. When the guy was calling out her booty and the man spam she has kept walking. A man would have gone over and punched the guy in the face. I am not violent by nature, but the old saying is, I will do great and violent things to those who harm my family applies.
Or like Ted Cruz kissing Trump’s ass the past 8 years after he very publicly insulted Cruz’s wife (and his father for the cherry on the top). You mean that kind of masculinity? Not sure my marriage would have survived that one. Or, any of the so called men in the GOP who continue to kiss Trump’s ass after being personally insulted along the past several years, or knowing that Trump if he hasn’t already attacked them would do so if they so much as questioned anything he says or does? Those men? The only member of the GOP that had any balls was Liz Chaney. Yet, these same strong men have no problem constantly tossing their venom in the direction of those that can’t defend themselves. Those guys? Always amazes me in these comments that anything, pick a topic, finds examples on the left side of the aisle and crickets on the right…..
Jill, Cheney may have been interested in “serving” initially, but after she became “infected with TDS” she stopped serving! Ask her constituents why she was not re-elected?
I don't disagree, but she did not have to be so vocal in her hatred of Trump.
She sided with the enemy. She let perfect be the enemy of good. She was a traitor to her constituents who elected her, and they kicker her to the curb.
Lesson....you can serve, but you're still a politician.
Under "President Ignoramus" we were at peace, had prosperity and were re-establishing our borders. Nobody lost any rights, laws were being enforced and real wages rising. Under his "successor" - the senile, corrupt imbecile, we have raging inflation, open borders, rampant crime, erosion of the rule of law, incitement of racial animus, degradation of our electric grid and soaring prices for energy, corruption in government and the politicization of our Justice Department. To a "progressive" - progress. To any normal person - lunacy. Thanks a lot.
You are cherrypicking here. The article and comments do not say that every liberal or Dem is unhappy or wimpy, etc. And in fact the article seems to indicate that Dems are happier with extremists of their own party than are Republicans, perhaps indicating that they would be happy killing spiders they disagree with. However when it comes to percentages cited in the article above, it does seem true that Republicans are more married, more happy, and in more traditional and not extreme modes than Dems. Just guessing by your comment that you are a Dem. Try switching and maybe you will be happier. Alternatively, write back something obnoxious and prove my point.
Here goes… simply was responding to Terry’s comment that led with AOC and her “spam man.” First instinct, an AOC comment. Second, the man she was with was “spam.” I thought Dave made a good point about discretion h that follows) with a good example. Didn’t mention anything right or left, didn’t bring in Hunter Biden, trans people, senile Joe Biden, etc. Lots of comments in this space always seem to wind up there no matter what the article is about. Blame the liberal socialist elitist pedophile loving Democrats and their owned MSM for whatever wrong is being addressed in the article. So, I wanted to balance the scales with a GOP example for Terry that always irked me. That’s all. I’m not a Dem, not a Republican, and a pretty happy person. Not trying to be obnoxious, if I am, I guess I proved your point.
Fine. My point is that proving that there is a Republican who is in any way wrong about anything does not excuse any other person from being wrong, nor does it excuse an entire category people from statistically being poorly emotionally adjusted in society. AOC is a terrible advocate for her electoral constituency and is a divisive, selfish, anti-Semitic anti-white bigot. The correct response is “yes she is” or “no she isn’t”. The incorrect response is, “oh yeah, well Ted Cruz supported Trump.” Either one is completely independent of the other. We might cure Ted Cruz with years of therapy but AOC might still be the same person she is today. That was my point. And very happy you were so polite about it. Have a great day.
And, Steve, I would think you are also amazed at how “TDS” keeps showing up in the comments, regardless the topic! It also keeps the WOKE Left ignoring any & every thing this Biden Crime Family Regime has done / does from being addressed. At some point (we can only hope) the “But, but, but Trump whataboutism” will play out.
Can we agree there is way too much “ass kissing” going on from BOTH Left & Right?!
Very much so Terry and I’m a female, wife, mother and grandmother, if you touch my husband, children or my grandchildren I will do violent things to! I’m old fashioned wife and old fashioned mother and grandmother.
But isn't it the case that sometimes "Discretion is the better part of valor", something Will Smith might have considered before he went up on stage and slapped Chris Rock at last year's Academy Awards? Of course maybe Chris Rock should have thought twice before making fun of Smith's wife's alopecia.
Earth to Dave - Chris Rock is a comedian, a profession that has wide birth. Maybe Jada should have had more of a sense of humor first off and secondly, perhaps she shouldn’t have cuckcolded her husband with her son’s friend which made her husband insecure about his own masculinity.
There IS an attack on humanity that has been going on for millenia. His name is Satan. He is seeking to destroy everything God made. If God said it is "good", it must be destroyed, gender roles and ultimately marriage and family included. And we "intelligent" humans, all full of ourselves, are playing right along.
Hahaha! Nah lol I'm still learning how to use it to make the overall writing (e.g., Grammarly for corrections and tone) better. But the idea, the general flow, creative concept is always from me/the user/etc.
Trust me, many of those women will regret not seeking a mate AND getting married. At 66, I observe that friends who have never married are more anxious and it gets worse over time - no obvious place to go for the holidays, not certain what to do on weekends. My married friends are far more content with ‘built in companionship’ no matter the work that might take sometimes. I have encouraged my daughters to become educated & well-employed but equally I have stressed the importance of family, children & relationships. So far, they are nailing it…but still working on getting the younger one married 🤣
I was as happy unmarried as I am being married. I didn't marry for "happiness," I married because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the person I loved and the only way to do that was by being married to her. Happiness is a byproduct of love.
The issue being that a large number of young women are not even looking for love. Hence the possible link to how more women are saying they are unhappy now than in my entire life.
Sadly it doesn't just impact them. If they aren't looking or won't accept most candidates, that leaves an equal number of men also alone, even if they don't want to be. You end up with a growing pool of unhappy lonely people who are cynical about their future prospects.
I think it’s much easier for a single guy to find someone than it is for a single girl…it’s just my perception. Too many girls are too picky whereas men seem more grateful that anyone cares. That said, my 31 -year old daughter says too many guys don’t seem to want to grow up and are just happy to go drinking with their guy friends. She’s over the party scene and is not interested is going out drinking anymore so it’s difficult to find someone who’s more of a homebody and/or just interested in ‘moderation’ (less drinking).
Hehe...my experience is opposite. I have always felt that women control dating (which in general lines up with woman having the burden of pregnancy and thus needing to be pickier).
I have wondered if part of the current issue is that we have spent decades telling men they are bad and to leave women alone and not harass them. So many men have taken that to heart and don't put themselves in a position that might lead to them being blamed for bad behavior or worse. Who wants to get canceled because of a bad date. Add to that if a man does get married and then it ends, they are statistically the bigger loser, as they may have to pay alimony, child support, etc.
Aside from the fact that men are lonely, there isn't a huge incentive for them to get into relationships. As this article jokingly states, once we have decent sex-bots, a HUGE chunk of men are going to be off the table as far as dating goes.
Sadly, there is a good chance that there are plenty of men that don't go out drinking...but if they are homebodies, how would your daughter meet them? They are also less likely to approach your daughter and ask them out in the first place.
The current way that dating works (or doesn't) is a result of people complaining about how it used to be being bad/wrong. But they didn't replace it with anything better. So we have what we have.
To those who are commenting about single people living in dire straits, and marriage being always preferable, you are possibly overlooking the learning that comes with single hood.
For me, as sad as I was to have my marriage end, I gained an inner wisdom and self reliance that brought me to a level understanding about myself and God I would never have achieved.
Knowing oneself is required in order to have a truly committed relationship with your marriage partner. I’m still looking for a husband, but I’ll never be desperate.
I have mixed ideas about this. On the one hand I agree with the idea that knowing yourself will help you be a better partner. But I can't help but wonder if we simply picked someone who was 'good enough' and then dedicated ourselves to making the arrangement work, if we wouldn't be happier.
For most of human history marriage was a simpler choice. Would they provide for a family or be ok at raising one? That was the basis of most human relationships. And I suspect this is at least part of the reason arranged marriages have a much higher success rate than our current western way of doing it.
That said, I don't think most of our ancestors had all of the mental health issues and the complex world we currently have. In the past most of the people in your area had similar backgrounds and values that you had. You married someone from your village or neighborhood and had a pretty good idea that they had a similar religion and political bent. There weren't thousands of various interests and hobbies. So I totally understand wanting to make sure you have your own crap in order before then trying to find someone who fits into that.
But I also wonder...maybe finding who you are, with someone else helping and growing together might be better? Or perhaps all that time alone 'finding yourself' only makes you less able to compromise and thus you end up needing to find someone much closer to 'perfect' because you are less able to grow and evolve as you have spent so much time solidifying into yourself.
I say all of that as someone who has been single for nearly 20 years now. I know myself better than ever. And that includes all of my faults. Which makes it harder for me to even want to engage with someone new for fear of subjecting them to who or what I am. Whereas when I was younger it was easier for me to connect with someone, as I was still forming myself.
I would LOVE to meet someone already and get married/have the family I’ve always wanted. But I’ve been told I’m not photogenic, guys might find me attractive when I wear contacts but when they see my glasses, they run for the hills. I can’t do anything about that but be grateful they’ve filtered themselves out. If they can’t handle thick glasses on a woman, they would never be able to live with the other challenges I have to deal with daily. Guys have zero interest in getting to know me as a person. They just see me as someone they think they can use for their own pleasure or green card.
And these guys aren’t that physically attractive either yet seem to think they’re entitled to a beauty queen. How about both genders be more realistic and lower expectations?!?
Women outnumber men in college 3:2. Women are hard wired to marry up. Mathematically, that means that 1 in 3 women will have to stay single, marry down, or settle with another woman. Thanks feminism!
It's a huge fallacy to think that college automatically results in some kind of betterment. Go to a 2nd or 3rd rate school? Likely no value. Get a degree in some nebulous major (this or that studies), no value. Conversley, a good electrician can easily earn multiples of those degree holders. Plus, his/her mind isn't poisoned. Instead, I think degree holders by and large have an incorrect elevated view of their "value" in society.
This is true. The guy that put in our new HVAC system is married to a physician's assistant. He's a good looking, articulate guy, but he doesn't have a bachelor's degree. His wife was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and he said she stopped working to take care of the kids because he's bringing home way more than she was. We didn't discuss politics, but just from his outlook on life, I would be highly surprised if he or his wife vote Democrat.
True, but the way things are now, where do young people who are not in college meet? I am serious, I have no idea how they would meet without a college meat-market or the internet. The traditional communities are few and far between. There are no matchmakers or social dances for the young, and most of them don't go to church/synagogue.
If I would have married my college boyfriend, we would have been divorced by now. What I thought mattered then is not remotely what I thought mattered 10 years later in my early 30s. Happily married for almost 18 years now.
Completely fair, Jan. I wasn't trying to say that my way is the only way. Two of our closest friends met in 10th grade and they're going on 30+ years of marriage!
Agreed, although every guy I was involved with in college would have made a disaster of a marriage. I met my husband at work when we were in our late 20's. We both wanted marriage and a family so we were drawn to each other even though this was the early 80's when the sexual revolution was creating havoc for women. These days, it would have been almost impossible to meet the way we did because of all the strictures of Human Resources rules.
That is a problem. When I was young and single I met most of the guys I dated at church. I met my husband at work. He was looking for a wife and I was looking for a husband. I'm not sure young men and women are seriously looking for a mate today.
Depends on the value of the degree. If the degree leads someone to the life that they want, it has value. Not everyone has the aptitude to succeed in the trades. You wouldn't want me to fix anything in your house, however if you need a drummer who can play most styles, give me a call.
I think it is worse than that. Your math assumes that of the remaining men in higher education, they “all” do better than the women and are thus in available “higher ups” pool for marriage.
In reality, only about 20% of the men concurrently in higher education with the women are “available” for dating. The other 80% are either not as successful post graduation, ugly or extremely socially unacceptable for any variety of reasons, homosexuals, or dead.
I saw a group of seemingly good looking boys prowling around last Nov in Target in Silicon Valley, obviously off of school for the week. They all wore pink and purple plastic necklaces, brightly dyed hair color and one wore a purple dress. Some wearing masks, and I saw several of them fussing with their hair. Girls hung around, but they were just as weirdly dressed. Hardly any interaction even though they were all there together.
Fast forward to this summer at the local water park, after we moved to a Red state with a strong Religious foundation. Kids, both boys and girls, all races and ages, healthy, active, flirting with each other, and not a pink necklace or bikini/female bathing suit on a boy in sight. Playing water football together, or watching (and giggling if they were girls). Roaming the park in packs, trying to have fun before school starts and succeeding. I know which kids I'd rather my own kids hang out with when they get older.
Marginalization *is* social currency in many places. In your "red state" example, social currency would be good looks, articulation, succeeding in sports, talents, having fun stories to tell, etc. In a lot of places, though, social currency is defined by identity. Coming up with neopronouns, taking medications/hormones, identifying as autistic, etc. that's not just socially tolerated, but socially ENCOURAGED, via everything from advertising/media, through teachers/parents, down through peer groups.
Kids *dressing* weird... heck, that's been a thing for 100 years. You had the hippies with their long hair and promotion of drugs, 70s disco, 80s hair metal bands, 90s pop punk, etc. When I was going through my phase in high school, I had my hair over my face and wore spikes and MCR shirts and talked about how much I hated my life. I got over it after a couple years, moved onto being a stoner, then somehow managed to move onto being boring.
There are a several big differences now. First, is that the encouragement via social media likes is incredibly powerful -- the dopamine rush of getting a like on a comment is a type of social encouragement we never thought possible. Second, the encouragement to be different comes not just from peers and social media, but also from parents and teachers - the school assembly doesn't celebrate the basketball team, it celebrates kids based on identity. And third is that a lot of the "cool" stuff teens do now has a far more permanent effect. If you were emo and cut yourself for attention, the worse you'll have is maybe a scar you can laugh about when you're 25. If you take hormones, that's permanent(*).
(* virtual signal: i know there are actual transgender people, but there are also a lot -- hundreds of thousands -- who detransition later in life. it's tragic to see teenagers who might not actually be transgender being led down that path because it's viewed as cool).
Decades ago my Swedish professor told me that Swedish feminists had gotten most everything they wanted, except in the end they didn’t find the new sensitive modern post-feminism Swedish guys even remotely appealing. Here in the US we’re catching up fast.
Some of the hesitance toward military intervention in Ukraine exists because the way we prosecute wars is dictated by effete feminine pajamaboy intellectuals now. So the wars always turn into scams/disasters.
If people thought Ukraine was going to work out like Desert Storm they’d be more supportive. But they know that won’t happen. Most of the soldiers are pretty badass still but they’ve got David French telling them who they can kill and when, so it ends up more like community organizing with casualties.
Jake Sullivan and Ben Rhodes? National Security Advisors to Democrat Presidents. Why would combat experience matter when they're both political operatives.
Almost any sitcom about families shows the dad, the traditional head of a household, as a dolt or as a clueless boob. Maybe this goes all the way back to the Question Authority philosophy that is helpful in university philosophy and poli sci classes, but when it leads to disrespect, institutions fall and society follows.
It isn't just TV dads. I challenge you to find a male character in a Disney movie in the last 2-3 years that is not either a moron, sexist jerk, or evil (yet often incompetently so).
Heck, the Barbie movie shows the Kens are useless and dull, and the Barbies are not that interested in them...until they stand up for themselves and take over. Then the barbies love them and actually seem happy. Yet the movie reverts them back to useless by the end. I'm not sure that movie knows what message it is trying to give.
I was actually trying to think of any Disney movie from the last 30 years with a high-quality male lead -- are there any after the Lion King? Genuine question.
I would say quite a few of the male leads in Marvel used to be good. Tony Stark had a great arc. He may have started out as selfish and conceited, but he was also highly competent. Pixar used to do ok there too. If we are talking only Disney, Nick the fox from Zootopia? Ralph in the first WiR had a good arc (2nd totally ruins his character).
Yes there are plenty that are also there for comic relief or evil. But at least they were GOOD at being evil.
That’s really good to know about the Marvel movies! For kids movies, I also think the How to Train Your Dragon series has a great male lead. But in regards to Disney, I’m thinking particularly of movies like Tangled, Frozen, Moana etc that all feature female leads on a quest (nothing wrong with that of course) with a reluctant male sidekick they have to drag along for the ride. In Frozen, Hans, who shows leadership and initiative and takes charge, turns out to be a villain (out of the blue, also) while Anna has to force Kristoff to come along and help her.
Liked your article. It's funny you and I see the same thing. I have a son, 21 years old. Left college to work/travel, now back in college. Doesn't seem to have any issue with finding women to hang out with. Now has a serious girlfriend (also in college). His friends mostly have or had serious girlfriends. Some are exploring the world, some on the straight path; college/work. Now some of the young women he knew growing up, matriculated to elite colleges and seem to be heading to that high level career path. Some have boyfriends, many do not. I think the issue is that when "experts" talk about a generation they really mean only a small slice of it; the ones that developed a very thin version of life that includes most of their energy doing academic work. Their version of life seems more about academic success/career success. And that is what the data seems to point out. The main reason our fertility rate has gone from 2.1 to 1.75 in the last generation is about the increase of women who don't, for whatever reason, have children. These women have put academic/career success at the center of their lives to the exclusion of anything else. And despite their obvious academic abilities and willingness to work hard, they aren't particular worldly, actually I would call them niave. Nice people, but many are ignoring the elephant in the room.
We have only a daughter, now 35, married for five years and pregnant with our second grandchild, due in a couple of months. She and her husband dated off and on for 7 years. (My wife and I dated for 16 months before we were married - back in 1982!) But now, her and her friends are all in that parent stage - and its rewarding to see. It feels very normal and wholesome.
I think "naive" works. Either that or no sense of calling. I did another piece earlier this year on Motherhood that I think you might relate to, curious for your reaction.
Wouldn't it be nice for all the guys out there who are interested in dating if theat 43% of women not interested would just wear a ribbon on their sleeve so guys wouldn't waste time deciding whether to ask them out?
Good post, Evans. I was thinking you could have added another sentence after ‘masculine men are a dying breed IMO’ - as in ‘but there are quite a few of us manly experienced males on this FP comment thread that could surely lend a hand..’
I’ve been out of the dating pool for 40 years but have multiple single friends of both sexes in their early 30’s. When I am around them, I feel like Margaret Mead observing a new species.
A few comments.
1) If you seek something too ardently you will make compromises and be disappointed in the result. Live an interesting life and your life will put a better choice in front of you. Your partner will find you.
2) Many singles now are just plain uninteresting. They check off societal boxes ( career, education, political beliefs, etc) but there is no person behind the facade. It’s like everyone in the dating pool is an avatar with no real person behind it. There is no actual conversation when they meet- just a series of checkbox questions. And the answers are almost always predictable.
3) They travel too frequently in groups. Gaggles of women and groups of men. When alone, especially women, they are fearful of any interaction. Basically without the support of a group around them, they are social cowards. Women believe every man is a potential rapist and men believe every woman will wrongly accuse them of rape.
4) Social media and dating apps are less than useless. They are harmful. They magnify they checkbox mentality and create pretend lives. Why is anyone surprised that they also create pretend relationships ?
5) Public space, especially in cities, is not safe enough for social interaction now. I met my wife by casually speaking to her on a street corner waiting for the light to change. We were both on lunch break in Center City Philly. I walk by that same corner now. The homeless have made casual interactions like that less likely. Social space, not the person involved in the meeting, is too threatening.
6) Work from home jobs, which for some reason every young person seems to want, eliminate a significant social network. It’s not just the young potential mates that you would meet. It’s the Aunts and Uncles of potential mates who you work with as well. An Aunt has a more serious interest in the relationship success than an app that just wants to keep you engaged with a continuous flow of partners.
So, who would have thought that working in your apartment alone, surrounding yourself with a same sex peer group that is basically competition for you and developing no social skills outside your narrow world would all have hurt your potential for happiness? What a surprise.
These are really insightful observations. I agree on the checklist mentality of the apps. It’s like flipping through a catalog of humans, reading reviews, trying to find the best, best, best product. So different from how my friends and I found our spouses. We dated whoever was around, found someone we liked, and made a commitment to build a life with that person.
A long story short. At the end of the set, as I was walking off the stand, I glanced to my right, saw a group of 5 young ladies sitting a corner table. One of them caught my eye. That was Jan. 12, 1968. We spent a year together, then her education visa expired, she returned to her country. I returned to mine. Fast forward to 2012. Her daughter, 2 yrs. after her father's death, finds me on facebook, her mother and I reconnect, in 2013 we marry, and here we are.
I have a single friend - handsome, successful, charming, smart - who’s a regular dating app user. My impression is it’s a great way to get casual sex or a few weeks of hanging out, but nothing more; in fact it seems to trap people at that level. He jokingly sends us screenshots every now and then (the number of women who put political stuff front and center in their profile is remarkable) and tells us "war stories" about how his dates will do a deep dive into some political / ideological crap on the very first date. It all sounds like a nightmare to me.
I would add to your list that you can no longer flirt and meet people at work even if you have an on-site job. I find it amusing to think about the bawdry, flirtatious environment at work in my younger days (very much including stuff initiated by women, including female managers, and a few times up to the level of outright proposition by said manager). We would all have been fired and sued a hundred times over nowadays. Not that actual sexual harassment isn’t a real problem - though, typically, my guess is we’ve removed all the fun stuff of interaction between the sexes at work without actually solving the harassment problem. I have fun memories from work, female friends whom I never dated but with whom there was a spark, which would be simply impossible today.
I think the argument being made is that the dating apps hurt the women and not the men. The apps turn everything into a transaction. It is easier for the guy to "game" the transaction to get what he wants, which is inevitably just sex. I am not surprised that your friend has success on the apps, and can probably have even more success if he wanted to lie about politics, etc. just to get laid. Millions do, I am sure.
It seems like everything that's occurred over the last generation or two has hurt women in the long-term mating department. And now, they can't even compete in sports without running into some failed male athlete who is tired of coming in 12th in a 11 person field.
It would be easy to shrug and say that women helped create this nonsense but that perspective doesn't produce anything positive for the general good.
I agree with you, but it also cuts both ways - my friend actually wants to have a long term relationship and a family, and I think the transactional environment of the dating apps, the change in culture post-feminism (without women as the gatekeepers of sex and the humanizers of men / limiters on base male instincts) as well as the general change in "typical young liberal women" vs years ago when I was dating all kind of work together to make the real relationship/family prospects much more unlikely.
Women didn't just help create this nonsense, they firsthand created it. Now everyone's stuck, and there's no obvious way out.
So, I look at my son's male friends and most of them have or had girlfriends. They aren't all in college, some work, some travel and work, and some are graduating college. These are Vermont/New Hampshire HS graduates and most stay in the northeast (my son went to the intermountain west). I see no difference from what the dating scene was like in the 1970s/80s when I was in it. Maybe, the problem is in the 28-40 age group????? But, at least in his age group, there doesn't seem to be the general angst I see reported.
I have a friend, 69 years old. Getting divorced. Uses e-harmony. Gets lots of dates. He is not rich, is reasonably good looking (how good looking can a 69 year old be), For him it is useful to meet women, but might not necessarily produce the one. Point is, maybe the expectations one goes in with, colors the results. A bunch of women, looking for an extremely good looking young, successful, wealthy man of a certain above average height, and a particular politics might be very disappointed when they click on a bunch of men looking for 1 fun night.
Did you ever work in a restaurant? I did, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the things the guys said to us girls would cause jaws to hit the floor among today's Gen Z's and Millennials. Everyone would get fired now. It might as well have been 100 years ago, not 35. I don't know how they are now, but restaurants back then were bastions of bawdy behavior and dirty repartee.
I used to LOVE flirting. One of the most exciting things about work was the potential for flirting from male co-workers! When I met my husband we were both young teachers at a Catholic high school; the tense dance of subtle flirting, keeping our relationship a secret from students, walking the highwire of the Catholic morality we were bound to keep in order to keep our jobs while experiencing the flush of passion was just so exhilarating and *sexy.*
Yes, its full of risk and uncomfortable feelings in your stomach and a few tearful nights, but isn't it worth it?
I feel so sad for young people who won't ever experience this.
Great insights. I agree with you about social dating apps (and I used them a few times, so I understand the checkbox mentality). I think dating apps CAN be successful, but only if used the right way. I met my husband on one of those (free!) apps, and the ONLY reason we're together now is that we emailed just one or two times (he initiated), and then he wanted to call me. After that first (long) phone call (an actual phone call!), he asked me out for dinner. And after 6 weeks of dating, then I became serious about it. Some of those other dating app guys I'd be emailing for weeks or even months, and they'd never pull the trigger. Only by meeting someone and spending time with them can you know if the relationship is worth pursuing. But people don't know how to have conversations anymore, and they think everything can be decided by texting and email (although email is old school). We need to go back to old fashioned conversation. If he had EVER moved to just texting, I would've lost interest immediately. I was 35, he was 46--I think if he'd (we'd) been 10 years younger it would've been text only, and that's where we've gone wrong from a courtship perspective.
I think you make a good point about texting vs. conversation. I would take it one step farther. I think something in our society broke about 20 years ago. That damage affects more than just dating. The nexus of smart phones and social media and apps is a dangerous area and has done significant damage, some of which is only becoming visible now. Lot's of damaged people and relationships out there now. Much more than before, I think.
My youngest step-daughter never removes her phone from her hand. She eats with the phone in her hand, she sleeps with it next to her pillow, and when she's with others, she's constantly glancing at her phone. I don't know how she manages to hold a job, but. apparently she's good at what she does. Maybe geniuses can do more.
As someone who used to do dating sites (not apps), I actually have a theory about those "email only" guys, of which I had plenty. The theory is they are keeping you on the back-burner because they are dating someone else and want to see if it will work out, or in some cases, even married and are putting feelers out because their marriage isn't going well. This explains how some of them would suddenly go ghost or their profiles would be removed entirely overnight.
As a late-twenties guy, this very much hits home. I was in a LTR from college until my mid-twenties and leaving that was like landing on an alien planet. The difference in dating and single life even between my college years and now is a completely different world.
Honestly, just live well and actively on your own and you will become both visible and attractive to your new partner, imho. Frankly, it's not like your competition is all that strong.
Take salsa lessons. It will take you about a year to become a good leader. Then head out there to dance clubs. Latin American salsa clubs is a different world. Very obvious who is the leader and who is the follower.
I would have never made it when I arrived to the US in my mid 20s all by myself on the entire continent, if not for the warmth of the Latin American dance community.
Latin American immigrant culture will eventually take over the US and bring the good. But it will take another generation. Don’t wait. Join know!
Hey Philly Guy, thanks for the insight. These are some great observations. With all sincerity: What would your advice for someone in their early-mid thirties age group who has lived an interesting life (lived and worked abroad and in a National Park, run marathon, hiked 14ers, etc.) but hasn’t found their partner (or anyone generally interested in them for that matter)? I feel like you get to the point where you’ve feel like you’ve tried everything (getting in shape, joining meetup groups and workout classes, talking to random people in public (dog park, farmers market, neighbors, etc.), working on yourself financially, career wise, emotionally, buying a place of your own) and end up at the same place - generally rejection or dates that you feel go well and end with the same confusion about why they don’t want to pursue it further. Personally, I get to the point where I just don’t know what steps to take anymore.
1)Take college courses chosen for your interests, not necessarily for degree or credit. Try to stay away from night classes if possible. Too many retirees.
2) Find a nice, friendly neighborhood taproom with good bar staff and visit for one drink regularly at close to the same time. Become known to them as a regular.
3) Church?
Somewhere there is a 28 year old sick of dating someone who lives in their parent's basement.
In all situations dress neatly and well, always be polite, don't talk about yourself but DO talk about your interests when conversation occurs. Do well in class. Tip well at the bar but not too well. Smile a lot. It your target demographic is a 25-28 year old, don't dress/act like a 25-28 year old. Stop trying to meet people. Take a zen approach. If you live it, she will come.
Church is always a great place to meet people. Actually if the your people aren't there, their parents, relatives, and friends are. Introductions are made and then you're on your own. Be as kind to the people you meet as you want them to be to you. They may not be perfect at first glance but give them a chance, you will often find hidden gold.
Be kind is good advice. here's a true story (I think) that I read a few years ago.
Two attractive women friends. They are meeting at the end of the day at the store that one works at before going for dinner. The worker at the store is complaining that she can't meet any nice, successful men. Just then there is a knock at the door- someone wants to come in to do some late minute shopping. The worker friend looks annoyed and just yells out that they are closed. The other friend, nearer to the window, sees an attractive age-appropriate man dejectedly walking to a 100k Mercedes ready to drive away. Just the type her friend wanted to meet. A little kindness might have gone a long way.
Sounds like an urban legend to me, but makes a good point.
Fwiw, I met my husband on a blind date/lunch. Guy in my law firm and his wife in H’s law firm fixed us up and the 4 of us went to lunch one day. H called me a few days later for an actual date. 3 weeks later engaged, 8 months later married, 41 years and 3 adult children later still together.
My daughter met her H on a blind date. Her work mate went to college with her H and thought they’d make a good pair. They did. Her best friend met her H through a dating app after many bad matches, ie, perseverance. Woman scientist I know met her H through a dating app. She told me the trick was to use the apps where you pay a fee because those are the people who want a relationship, the free apps people usually just want sex.
Blind dates have worked since, well, forever. I think they've always been the most likely source of matrimonial talent because there is a common source. I think they face headwinds now because fewer people actually see each other now with WFH being more common. In general, I think blind dates need face to face knowledge of one of the people and I think there are just fewer face to face relationships now.
I am told that dating apps don't work well because most are designed like casino slot machines. They need to keep you engaged and paying and to do so they always want you to spin the wheel with a new partner regularly. If you think about it, they don't have a financial incentive to solve someone's dating problem because then that person leaves the site as a paying customer. Sounds like your friend approached it logically, as a scientist would.
So true. My aunt knew a woman in the 40's who wanted to marry a wealthy guy she was dating. For Christmas he gave her a pair of gloves with $100 in each finger. When she saw the gloves she was disappointed and didn't even bother to try them on. My aunt asked what he's given her for Christmas and she dismissively said, "A pair of gloves, I gave them away." The guy asked if she had tried on the gloves when she thanked him and she said no. He realized she wasn't the girl for him shortly thereafter and left.
Holy hell, that advice is good! Did Will Smith play you in a movie? I'm 50 but only got married at 40, so I was out there in the smartphone / app era a bit. If I may add:
1. Advice above from Philly guy is good. The becoming a regular at a pub or tavern (not some nightclub or disco or whatever) that has decent people coming there is Gold. When people get to know you, they will make connections to other people they know that might be good for you.
2. Without being a weirdo, it's ok to make it known fairly early that the type of relationship you are interested in is a serious one leading, hopefully, to marriage. No need to try and play Mr Cool Guy because you think that is what "the market" wants.
3. I'm just repeating Philly guy again but yes, dress like a MAN. Shirts with collars, long pants unless you are on a boat or the beach or similar, wear dress jackets in the evening. Look like the serious person you are.
4. Be a gentleman always. You know what to do. It's ok to be old school. Never talk negatively about a lady, don't kiss and tell.
Hey, Balancer’s Eye, I’m not Philly Guy (who has great advice, imo) but I brought up this article in my workplace with a guy who is almost 30 and asks some of the same questions. Everyone chimed in, girls too, and it was a good discussion. We talked about it on and off all day today and I thought I would write down some of the answers we came up with. Its long but maybe it will help, maybe not.
I used your post to Philly Guy as a springboard, hope you dont take offense or mind.
“I feel like you get to the point where you’ve feel like you’ve tried everything”
-Try “not trying” (The most entertaining, funny, and informative movie I have ever seen on this very subject is “Tao of Steve” …***Note: Even though it is a romantic comedy, this is NOT a “date movie” …way too much “truth” 😂
-is this for yourself or what you think others are attracted to? Highly recommend either way, healthy body healthy mind is attractive (unless it becomes your “identity”, then it’s just vanity and narcissistic which is unattractive and transient.
“joining meetup groups” are these groups who meet for the sole purpose of “meeting”?
-Sounds forced and inauthentic like something you’d see in an old Seinfeld episode. Life is too short, stop this.
You will meet plenty of people, authentically, by just stepping out your front door and doing “regular life stuff”
“workout classes”
-again, if you are really into exercise, and like group activities…sure. If you are male, and just doing it in hopes of meeting someone to “hook up with” then it is creepy, inauthentic, and a waste of time, imo.
“talking to random people in public (dog park, farmers market, neighbors, etc.)”
-is this something you would normally do as part of your natural extrovert personality? If so, great! Its the best way to meet people and mates…ever. 😃
OTOH, if it is inauthentic and forced, and you really aren’t an extrovert with the gift of gab who finds joy in striking up conversations with strangers…then it’s obvious and usually off putting.
Surest way to know the difference is if you are only doing it with the opposite sex.
“working on yourself financially career wise, emotionally, buying a place of your own”
-this is always a good idea, as long as it’s for your own satisfaction…***Note: when dating, YOU NEVER BRING IT UP YOURSELF OR BRAG ABOUT IT trying to impress. In fact, try never talking about yourself or what you do or what you own. At least when first dating, say little to nothing about yourself unless asked. Ask your date a million questions about themselves and listen to their answers. It matters and should come naturally and easy.
Your own successes and failures will be revealed…It simply is part of who you authentically are. It will show and be made known naturally just by spending time with you.
Career goals, financial thinking, emotional state, buying a house…Shows you are thinking about the future and stability.
***Hint, this is extremely attractive…as long as you aren’t the one who mentions it, it will be obvious. Notice how truly smart people never say they are smart?, truly generous people never mention their generosity?, truly kind people never mention their kindness?…etc.?
If you do talk about yourself on a date, that may be interpreted as “sales”, and most people don’t want to be sold to. Especially women know a sales pitch when they hear one because that is what they deal with from dudes every day of their lives since time began. 😂
They associate salesmen with deceit. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against salespeople, they are my favorite people and good ones are hard to find (hint: never play poker with a good salesman ;) )
The trick to good salesmanship is to make the person truly feel like it is their idea. Either you can sell them a yes or they can sell you a no.
Reading list: Read “Don Juan” by Byron (not kidding) and watch the movies, “Tao of Steve”, “Glenn Gary Glenn Ross” and “Inception” 🤪
Hey Eric thanks for posting such a great response! Really appreciate the multiple perspectives and insights brought to this conversation, and definitely no offensive taken (this is not a subject I talk too much about with friends/family so this is appreciated)! So the meetup groups are generally things that I am interested in (for example beach volleyball) and definitely not something that is forced or inauthentic (I like the Seinfeld reference). The same is true for the workout classes. I generally sit in a chair all day (unless I'm out in the field which is rare), so I do yoga which helps with my lower back tightness. With respect to talking to random people, I am generally curious person so I tend to ask questions for things I'm interested in (I have a vegetable garden so I try to get the tricks from the farmers market folks and have a dog so ask dog related gear, food, etc.). In short, I don't do these activities solely for the purpose of finding someone to date, but hope that by putting myself out there that something will come (even if it's just a friend of a friend). Definitely agree with the dating advice (I'm more old fashioned with this). I always dress appropriately and make sure I'm well presented (haircut, beard trim, etc.), try to take the initiative and plan something besides just drinks (indoor mini-golf, coffee and a walk around the National Mall [more crowded public outdoor place], lazer tag and cocktails, ice skating and hot chocolate, etc.), and always asks tons of genuine questions and make sure my attention is solely focused on the person I'm out with (phone doesn't leave my pocket and I tend not to talk too much about myself unless asked [and if so it's not in a bragging type of way or tone]). For me (at least in my late twenties/thirties) it's seems to be a cycle of flaky, non-commitment and second dates (the third dates are generally planned and then later cancelled by the person). The frustration aspect comes from feeling that some of these dates went really well and there is a genuine connection (by your mid-thirties I fell like you can definitely sense this), and not understanding what is going wrong or where the disconnect is (and knowing how insanely easy it is for a lot of guys). Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places (some mentions of church or regularly going to a local watering hole which I like) or it will come when I'm not looking and just carrying forth trying to live my best life (tough to be patient in your mid-thirties when you want something real). Anyway, thanks for the suggestions and I'll have to check the book and "Tao of Steve" (seen the two others)!
Thanks for the reply! Glad it wasn’t taken the wrong way.
National Mall? You’re in Dodge City?? I grew up there! (VA side) Small world! 😃
“knowing how insanely easy it is for a lot of guys”
Maybe, maybe not. Too many songs to mention about this phenomenon. (Rod Stewart “Some guys have all the luck” playing in my head 😂 )
Best not to assume…Maybe those guys are just naturally charismatic? Maybe you are just seeing their successes and didn’t see all their failures, or maybe they are just very good looking and their appearance does all the work 🤷♂️
All I know, as a happy married man with kids, is that comparing yourself to others, especially the superficial stuff, is the root of unhappiness.
I think the reason so many men and women are unhappy these days is because of social media. It feeds the green-eyed monster (envy) like nothing before in human history.
From The 2nd link clip I posted from “Tao of Steve”:
“We only pursue that which retreats. “
“Dogs chase rabbits, not rocks or parked cars.”
“Women are bored with the easy catch…”
“In relationships, Boredom = Death”
“For great looking guys, they got no problem, they can just slide by on their appearance.
But; for guys like us, successful hooking up with the ladies requires a little work, and a lot of intelligence”
Don't know you, but I learned early on that if you become a good conversationist, which means a good listener, and pay attention to social clues, it will go a long way in getting interest from people. Becoming a good conversationalist takes practice and a willingness to open yourself up. I was a military brat, moving from place to place as a child, so it came easy for me. Just had to get over some shyness that appeared in my late teens. In my early adulthood I worked with some hard core salesmen, who always had women. They all had the "gift of gab" to be good sales people. Add in a genuine curiosity about people to a willingness to talk to people and you could find yourself more in demand.
"2) Many singles now are just plain uninteresting. They check off societal boxes ( career, education, political beliefs, etc) but there is no person behind the facade. It’s like everyone in the dating pool is an avatar with no real person behind it. There is no actual conversation when they meet- just a series of checkbox questions. And the answers are almost always predictable."
I think - and this is from my experience as a therapist at a university though most of the 2010s - that this comes from young people's fear of anything ambiguous.
There is something about mid to younger millennials and zoomers that seeks extremely black and white answers to everything. Their world is made up of good and bad, safe and unsafe, perfect relationships and abusers, success or failure.
They need a step by step programs with guarenteed results, or they melt. They can't figure stuff out on their own. They can't really have fun because the fun might get problematic or something (and that would be BAD.). They need everything to organized and programmed for them. They cannot deal with mystery, ambiguity, uncertainty, or even the contours of real personality.
Where does this come from? I think there are so many causes. Lack of free play in childhood, helicopter parenting, an aggressive focus on academic success and resume building over the development of personality, lack of intergenerational socialization, political polarization, cancel culture, simplistic YA novels and superhero movies. I could go on.
But whatever the cause, there is just a psychological fragility that makes so many young people incapable of having or dealing with actual, vibrant, complicated *personality.*
My husband and I have recently been binge watching Seinfeld and The
Office. Can you imagine "characters" like this being written today? When we were growing up (we are late Gen Xers) we had no "digital" spaces to escape to; we had to live real lives in the real and physically limited communities where chance had stuck us. And those communities were filled with "characters": weird neighbors, loud aunts and uncles, quirky teachers, daring friends with big personalities that clashed out in the woods or the concrete playground far from adult rules. You had to deal with real people in the real world, you had to work sh*t out with them, you had to learn how to be hurt by them and how to hurt back and how to forgive and be forgiven. You had to laugh at yourself and others and show mercy to both.
And our stories and media reflected that world.
And then everything became organized travel soccer and video games and having to get into the "right college" and getting fired or canceled for a tweet, that world vanished, and personality flattened.
I think one of the reasons our media and literature has gotten so incredibly bland is that young writers simply do not have enough real experience with vibrant, unique, weird, flamboyant *characters* in their social world. Everyone they know is a fellow black and white, profile building, millennial or zoomer careerist, with the "right" things on their carefully curated resume, not a single failure or displeased authority figure in sight (one must never risk failure through experiment or challenge those who write the recommendation letters) and impeccably puritanical progressive morality.
There is no room here for personality.
There is also little room for love, or relationship, or genuine marriage and parenting that is more than just another resume building excercise.
I think one of the reason affluent, successful Girl Boss types often end up so miserable in motherhood that they need to write essays about it for The Atlantic or NYT Magazine is that they see having a child as just another resume item. A child isn't a unique person to women like this, but another aspect of herself that needs to be maximized. This is accomplished via the right schools, toys, feeding methods, and social approval etc, rather than a relationship with a real, messy, ambiguous, flawed, vibrant, and unique human personality.
When the child refuses to play along with Mommy's carefully curated agenda, Mom goes into despair. In her life of resume building and profile maintenance and kissing up to authority no one ever gave her the emotional tools to deal with what is genuinely human, and the genuinely human is the task and logic of marriage and family life.
1) you are right about unsupervised activities. We would go to the playground without parents and play whatever sport was in season at the time. We would choose sides. Two best players would be captains and they would choose in turn from highest skill level to lowest. The pecking order was clear and meritocratic. The better you were the higher you were chosen. Very simple.
2) from a nation of citizens we have become the nation of consumers that we were warned about. I date that to well before social media. It started with “branding” and mass media in general decades ago. You are what you own now. Not what you do or how you act or think.
I hate having to continually reference lessons from the movie Idiocracy, but I think that one of them is applicable here. Educated liberal women may not be having children, but liberal women on welfare absolutely still are.
My husband and I watched that movie for the first time last month. A few years ago, I would have said it was utterly ridiculous. As we watched it though I spent the whole movie going “oh shit, this is our current trajectory”.
I haven't watched it in years, but more and more I want to re-watch to see what I think. The family tree part is classic, and pretty accurate for my social group. So many of my high school and college friends have 0-1 kid.
AMEN. Imagine being a kid today, hearing from kindergarten about how we are destroying the planet, there is no future; how can they be expected and to want marriage and children? Live for today! The world and the polar bears will be gone tomorrow! No wonder suicide is at an all time high!
This seems to be at the core of the internal tension in Israel right now: the deeply conservative and religious Israelis (who used to be a tiny minority) are demographically outpacing the secular liberals. The liberals are having far fewer children and they see that their days in power are numbered
This is the one thing that gives me hope for the future. Also, because our society has gotten so dumb and lazy, my kids have less competition for jobs that require intelligent, hard workers.
Sad commentary on modern life after the "Sexual Revolution." Women are less satisfied with cohabitation arrangements (POSSLQs, People of Opposite Sexes Sharing Living Quarters, as we used to call them) than men? Well, of course! After all, what legal guarantees does a woman have that her man will be there when she needs him, like to help raise children. I think we can agree that marriage is more about protecting women and children than sex and companionship, and the declining birthrates around the western world may be the result of women losing faith in men and men able to find short term "hook-ups". So glad my wife of 51 years and I grew up in a different, "old fashioned" era. As the wife of a couple who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, responded to a reporter's question about whether she had she had ever contemplated divorce, "Divorce? Never. Murder, frequently," the marriage contract once was the glue that maintained families and society at large.
James, I am still laughing at what you wrote, specifically the last part. “As the wife of a couple who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, responded to a reporter's question about whether she had she had ever contemplated divorce, "Divorce? Never. Murder, frequently," the marriage contract once was the glue that maintained families and society at large.” That kind of humor is missing in our society today. Thank you for giving me a good, deep belly laugh.
I loved this post because people have really have abandoned humor.
My husband of 37 years, when asked how long he has been married will respond “billions and billions of years!”
I find it hysterical because I feel the same way, and have responded to the question in quite the same fashion. Yes, it seems like billions and billions of years. Absolutely. I am so happy to be able to laugh about it with my husband and the difficulties surrounding it. Our love isn’t the same as when we were dating and young. It just happens to be infinitely more deep and more rewarding in ways that people will never understand, especially from today’s youth.
Sometimes I’ll answer the “how long have you been married question” by saying 27 (or whatever is current) years, happily married for three. Sometimes my wife laughs along and sometimes not. It’s those “not” times that scares me!!!
Two ancient Greek words for love capture those missing ingredients: storge and agape. "Storge" represents the love that we now call "devotion", a love that constantly works for the good of another, e.g. spousal love. "Agape" is the self-sacrificing love found in the Bible as God's love for humanity, but also the kind of love a mother has for her children or a soldier's love for his fellow soldiers. Our modern focus is on a third Greek word for love, "Eros", meaning sexual love, which permeates so much of our entertainment. Marriage and family are based on storge and agape, and marriage and family are the basic building blocks of civilization..
Jesus asked his disciple, do you Love (agape) me. and the disciple answered, yes lord I love, storge you. I think it was Peter. Of course in the end, Peter agaped Jesus.
I was thinking that the other day. We see Disney actively taking love stories out of their products, saying that true love is old-fashioned -- the remake of The Little Mermaid has her leaving the water for selfish reasons instead of for love, and the Snow White doesn't have Prince Charming waking up Snow White. Barbie, in her movie, rejects Ken and starts having sex with everyone as soon as she hits the real world. Then you have Mia Khalifa (pornographic actress) talking about her three failed marriages with pride.
The idea of true love is almost all but absent from modern pop culture. You're not supposed to fall in love and live happily ever after. Now I know that's not a realistic thing for... well, anybody. Love takes work. But even in the 2000s, where there was hook-up culture, the idea was there was a light of true love at the end of the tunnel. You'd keep dating until you found the "one" and then hopefully work on that relationship. Now, true love or the idea that there's someone out there for everyone is just seen as backwards.
Another feature of those long lasting marriages of years ago were the safety valves that many husbands used, among them brothels, long days at work, interminable nights with the 'boys'- and the wife would know but look away. The marriage needed to remain intact.
Smoking, drinking and gambling used to be vices for which your grandfather was accountable, now they are "illnesses" to be treated medically. The medicalization of behavior does away with the sense of personhood leaving people without soul: that is boredom, loneliness.
My husband and I grew up super Mormon, where dating and marriage are still alive and kicking. We dated for two months before we got engaged, then married two months later, at the ages of 21 and 23. We now have four kids and will celebrate our 20th anniversary in March.
I know dozens of LDS couples with similar relationship timelines. Are our relationships perfect? God, no. We have our problems. Are there people who may have been a better match for each of us? Absolutely. But who cares? Life is about building and learning and loving, not about the hunt for the perfect partner. Do some marriages that begin like ours end in divorce? Of course they do. But not any more than any other marriages where people date for years, live together for years, and THEN spend a solid year planning an elaborate wedding.
We just chose each other and jumped in. The quote that has governed our marriage is one that a former leader of our church shared years ago that he had hanging on his own wall: Choose your love, and love your choice.
We left the Mormon church a couple years after we got married, which is complicated, but I’m so grateful that the values we were raised with around marriage and family run deep.
What self-respecting man wants to subject himself to a university that resembles a totalitarian knitting circle where regurgitating nonsense is rewarded and independent thought viewed with horror and disdain?
And yet, I just saw middle-aged, divorced (childless) female friends last month for a weekend, and they thought this was EXACTLY what would make them happy (both work for corporations). And they easily make $50k more than I do (married, with a child, working for a non-profit). It's a pervasive thought with feminist liberal women.
Money doesn't make men happy. Well, I can only speak for myself. I don't have much power, but I do have some money - and could be making a lot more if I worked more instead of being on TFP making comments - and I'm fairly miserable.
Money as a measure of success is largely a new thing in civilization -- even 100 years ago, when most people were still farming or doing factory work, your success would be measured by your family, and wealth was a means to grow your family's value and pass that wealth to the next generation. Sometime around the 1950s, that idea started to shift towards wealth as a means to achieve luxury - which used to be only available to the few. Fancy cars, vacations, etc.
I hear things from my 20 yr old daughter that makes my head want to explode sometimes. She shares the “requirements” list young women spout off about on social media. 6’2 -6 figure income (at 26-30??) 😂 They are crazy. I believe every pot has a lid. But the young are stuck on stupid. Personally I pray she meets a carpenter or plumber with a good head on his shoulders.
Having impossibly high standards keeps you safe from the messiness of relationship and rejection. It means you’re not ready. Most of us grow out of this phase.
A friend told me she once had a rather extensive list of requirements for a partner. Amazingly, she finally met someone who checked every single box. Only one problem: he was a total jerk. So she tore up her list and grew up a bit and eventually married someone completely different.
Yep - it's semi-officially referred to as the "rule of 6" or the "6-6-6 rule" of dating a guy -- 6' tall, 6 pack abs, 6-figure income.
I have a close family member who easily meets two of the three requirements, but is only 5'6" tall. Most girls won't give him the time of day as a result, which is sad - he's a wonderful guy.
It wasn’t until a close friend recently got divorced and started dating that I realized how important height is to most women. Must be a biological thing, where we associate height with good health or strength. Thankfully I’m over 6’ so I never got turned down because of my height (just my arrogance and mediocre looks, lol)
Telling comment. Our 22 yo daughter says the same things about her friends sharing these high expectations of a mate. To me the operative words are “social media”. Women are just as or more competitive than men, just in a different way. When one friend says she wants the 6’2”, 6 figure college degreed man, she is transmitting her “I will get a better man then my friends” vibe. I don’t pretend to say that the good old days were perfect but before social media, societal pressure and government intervention, in some ways a more pure human behavior shaped relationships.
I did hear something about that on the news the other day. I didn’t get the full story though. That’s an amazing opportunity if true. If one is a good driver, responsible, relatively healthy and drug free.
I’ve heard it takes several years of working in the warehouse for workman’s wages before you can become a driver at ups. Sort of like the minor leagues or pilots working at a small regional airline for a few years before getting the big bucks in/at the majors.
That makes sense. I tell my daughter all the time that starting out in just about any endeavor you need to pay your dues. Unless you’re a nepo baby. But even if one is handed a top paying high level position without earning it or really knowing what they’re doing to me it seems like a recipe for disaster for both the individual and organization.
Honestly I'm 6 foot, make 6 figures somehow (guess I chose the right major,) pretty sure I'm not ugly or too socially awkward. I'm in decent shape. I (arguably) have interesting hobbies like playing the banjo. And you know, despite meeting the "criteria" or whatever, I get maybe a date or two a month!
I'm definitely grateful for those opportunities because a lot of my friends don't get squat. But good god! At this point I'm wondering if anything I do could keep women from ghosting. Not to generalize but it seems like they just aren't interested in men unless they're literal models or millionaires
I have a hunch women your age may find you slightly intimidating. You sound like a lot. I mean that in a good way! Perhaps it’s a matter of waiting for them to catch up to you and meet your maturity level.
Whatever the reason, ghosting is definitely about them not you and definitely an immature thing to do.
I was in the first ever ad for Tinder...10 years ago. I've been on every app for a decade and so tired of the game. Especially in the gay world, it's rare to even find someone who even wants to go out on an actual date (dinner?) at all and not just "spontaneously" end up meeting out at a club one night after following each other's whereabouts on Instagram. I was set up with someone who wouldn't even go on a first date without the mutual friend also being there as a "buffer". God forbid taking a chance and just meeting someone new for an hour. We had to reschedule 5 times between our three schedules and it never even ended up happening. Dating in the 21st century is an absolute mess
I remember graduating for college back in 2012 and with my degree, with my job, I was ready to hit the dating scene. So being a book worm all my life, I decided to "educate" myself on how to "talk/date" women.
I read books like "The Game" by Neil Strauss, got a gym membership, and put myself in uncomfortable situations because, according to the book, the more comfortable you are being uncomfortable, the more you can navigate life. From the gym to random meet ups, I began feeling more comfortable and dating great women from time to time.
Then, it had to be around 2014 and Men's Health ran an article about this app called "Tinder." They also mentioned the phenomenon known as "Netflix and Chill." I remember reading that article because the reader warned that these apps would destroy dating as we knew it.
And I remember agreeing with him. Because prior to those apps, I had to work to overcome my fear. I had to work, to step up to the plate. Dating is a psychological process first and if you can do those things overtime, you gain skills and abilities that you can literally apply anywhere in any facet of life.
Unfortunately, technology, in its attempts to make things better, has made things worse in this aspect. I think we have to come to the conclusion that there as some aspects where technology just shouldn't touch and in helping us build relationships, that's a human component that technology can never fulfill. It can help, but nothing beats the real world connection.
Ugh. I’m so sorry you’re living this. You sound like a genuine person seeking a genuine relationship in a genuine and honest way. You deserve that, and I hope you get it. <3
If it makes you feel any better Justin, gay women I know are having the same experience. Many straight women I know always blamed it on men, but we all know, removing the gender difference does not make having a meaningful connection/relationship/marriage any easier to attain! Best of luck! Don't give up!!
My gay son is 33 and has never had a boyfriend. He has lots of gay friends but they’re all in a relationship, some are in their second or third relationship, a few are married. When he does meet someone who’s “available”, they have usually just come out of a bad relationship and aren’t interested in a new one, they’re still hurting. He’s painfully shy, so my personal theory is that he hangs out with committed couples where the individuals are not available because he’s actually scared of someone being truly available. Kind of like women who choose the wrong guy over and over. Afraid to commit so unconsciously pick a dead end. I went through that phase in both college and law school. The irony was that when I finally stopped looking, that’s when I met my husband. Maybe the key is to just give up and live your life and be yourself. Kind of like what Philly Guy said earlier. Good luck to you!!!
I actually wrote a big tirade a couple months ago on this exact topic.
My theory is that dating-app-syndrome has hit gay men even harder, who don’t have trad social structure to fall back on, a male mentality seeking novelty, and unless you live in a city with over five million, very few locations and clubs meant to facilitate actual conversation.
The amount of flaking that under 30s accept in this day and age is also truly ridiculous.
There's a lot more to this than just liberal vs. conservative politics. It's the new reality of life in general.
Many young people today don't even bother saying "hi" to their co-workers or neighbors -- it's simply considered to be socially unacceptable. They just walk past each other with their faces plastered in their cell phones without even looking up or smiling.
If I look back to the dating relationships I was in prior to getting married almost 40 years ago, every single one started out by me saying "hi" to someone that seemed interesting. Most took place at work or in social settings (like bars or events). For a short time I dated a girl that I first met in a grocery store. And I never would have met the woman who eventually became my wife if I hadn't gathered up my courage to say "hi" to the pretty girl sitting on her front porch across the street from where I was living.
This phenomenon is world-wide. My wife and were in a restaurant in our small town in Thailand. A group of 3 males and 3 females came in, sat down, took out there mobile phones & began texting. The waitress came to their table, they ordered without putting down their phones, ate their lunch, never said a word to each other, kept texting while eating, finished eating, got up and left.
As a married, lifelong feminist with two adult children and a grandchild, I can tell you that feminism is still very much needed - for both men and women. Just not the feminism promoted today. Third wave feminism has been co-opted by big porn and predatory capitalism which indoctrinated women into turning their bodies and sexuality into commodities for the benefit of men. Essentially destroying what the feminist movement was about. Fighting against the sexual objectification if women. Patriarchy rears its ugly head and both men and women are exploited for the benefit of the oligarchs who are - you guessed it - mostly men.
Think about it -feminism simply would not exist today if everything was peachy keen for women 100 years ago when working women, and their children, had no vote, no reproductive freedom, no financial independence, no basic human rights or even bodily autonomy. They lost their children if they left their husbands due to abuse. I could go on, but suffice to say it was a hellscape for women and girls. Men were not always the providers and protectors the way we're told they were back when the suffragettes began the women's liberation movement. They were treated as chattel no matter how destitute or abusive their husband.
Fast forward to today, there are women and girls still suffering in extremely patriarchal cultures with sharia laws, female genital mutilation, menstrual huts, no education, inadequate maternal care. This is what women endured globally with the exception of wealthy women. We forget just how bad things were then when we encourage women to become trad-wives and men to become 'protectors and providers'. It's so tiresome having to remind people of just how bad it was and could be again.
Here's a thought: Why not teach BOTH men and women that they have options and let men and women sort it out for themselves. Men will likely be drawn to do the protecting and providing and women the bearing and nurturing of children. Feminism when I was young was my way of escaping the trap of abuse and destitution that my mom and her generation were forced to endure because virtually ALL the men of her generation were drinkers, wife-beaters, rapists, child molesters. All my mother wanted was to be a homemaker and raise children. She had FIVE children by the time she was 25 years old. She dreamed of living the perfect life with my father, but after 12 years of his drinking, violence, rape, child molestation and lack of financial stability she finally kicked him out. I was 9 at the time. She fought to keep us and to keep him out of our lives - unsuccessfully. He never paid a dime in child support.
So, she made her way, without child support and with the church she loved abandoning her and telling her she should continue to endure this despicable man who did not 'protect and provide'. Oh, but he was masculine, tough, charming. This was NOT the exception in my extended family. It was COMMON.
So, bash feminism and feminists all you want, but today I'm a successful, confident, happy, healthy 64 year old grandmother who once had a married life with 2 children. Due to her strong example, I made my way in the world and provided for my children in a way I never could have because, I, too, ended up with an abusive, irresponsible husband from whom I separated after 19 years together.
I don't see men or women/feminism as the problem here, I see the entire economic system as exploitative. The problem is not that men aren't masculine enough, or women feminine enough. The problem is that the traditional stereotypical roles defined for human beings just isn't working. It's designed to serve the powerful. It's designed to restrict and control human beings and their sexuality into rigid behaviour that keeps the predatory capitalists happy working away making them billions in profits, while the average man and woman struggles to create and maintain a family. They're siphoning off our life energy to make obscene profits while degrading our land, food, air, water making us sick and dependent on a medical system that extracts the last bit of profit from our bodies until we finally expire from exhaustion.
This current predatory capitalism economic system was/is designed to serve the oligarchs - the alpha males in our culture. (BTW: Communism did the same thing). This economic system is what gave rise to the need for women's liberation, then feminism, which was women's way of saying - "We can't care for ourselves and our children like this!" - and it pitted men and women against each other instead of seeing who our real enemy was/is - the billionaires who set up this system of economic dependence which robbed us of our humanity, dignity and connection to each other as men and women.
I have a vision of a world where men and women are raised as children to love and respect each other AS INDIVIDUALS and allow them to pursue their goals unimpeded by rigid gender stereotypes WITHOUT the feminist propaganda that's promoted today. Today's 'feminism' is so far from what the original goals were that you cannot even call it feminism. I call it 'porn feminism' because it's based on the sexual objectification and exploitation of young women's bodies, minds and hearts.
We cannot create a healthy culture when women are valued only for their bodies and sexuality, and men only for their wallets and muscles. Could we not simply encourage and support both men and women to be kind, responsible, healthy and wise? Could we not recognize that the SYSTEM is the problem and it serves only the oligarchs. This should be a class war, not a war between men and women. We should be fighting together to take down an economic system which treats men and women as commodities, not human beings. That's the future that I'm working towards for my children and granddaughter. Bashing feminism and by extension, women who strive to be whole, independent human beings only serves to imprison us all back into gender stereotypes which serve the oligarchs and create division where there should be connection.
Just my take on it. For the girls whose genitals are being mutilated as I write, I must continue to work to free them and all women from male supremacy.
So you're OK with FGM, menstrual huts, burqas, female impoverishment, etc.?
Maybe I sound like a human being who sees the injustice of it all and tries to make the world a little less unjust for my children. I, a single concerned mom who's survived horrific abuse, do not have the power to destroy an entire culture. You must be mistaking me for the men who have their finger on the nuclear missile button AS WE SPEAK.
In any case, I do not wish to force anything upon anyone. Do as you please. I am just sick of the violence I've personally endured and that women still endure today at the hands of the men who supposedly love them.
Have you seen porn lately? It's appalling what they do to women in the name of sexual gratification. If it was done to an average person the street they'd be charged with torture.
So, no. I have the audacity to believe that women and girls deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. If that sounds like a terrifying prospect, then I don't want to live in your world.
When will your brand of feminism teach young women that they need to find a marriage partner that maybe DOESN'T make more than them? Some today MAY say that they don't have a "list", but relatively FEW actually do NOT!
This might be a generational thing -- I'm Gen X, my husband a few years older and we've been married for 30 years -- but I've always made as much or more money than my husband. There came a point in our marriage where I was making enough where he could quit the job he was miserable at. He then took over many of the kid duties (we have 5, youngest now 19) -- driving to school/practice, e.g. -- and all the cleaning (I still cook because he can't/won't). He had some issues early on because he felt he needed to make more/have a career like his brothers, but ultimately, I was doing what I love and making good money, and he wasn't working himself into an early grave in a job that gave him high blood pressure and a lot of stress -- and we could pay the mortgage and raise the kids. I'm definitely conservative AND a feminist -- though I wouldn't be considered a feminist by today's standards.
First, my 'brand' of feminism' doesn't exist. There are 4 billion women and girls on the planet. Feminism in its original goals was intended to fight for basic human rights and freedoms. As I described at length in my post, the faux feminists we're seeing today are the result of porn culture. They've sadly been indoctrinated into a toxic version of feminism which is intentionally designed to destroy women's basic human rights.
That's all that most women are asking for - whether they call themselves feminists or not - Basic. Human. Rights. Not scary at all if you're man enough not to be frightened by a woman who fights to be treated with dignity and respect. But if you ARE frightened by any woman who isn't submissive and weak, then you are the problem.
> For the girls whose genitals are being mutilated as I write, I must continue to work to free them and all women from male supremacy.
You should be doing that work in Africa. "[Recogniz[ing] that the SYSTEM is the problem" will help only if you recognize the system in Somalia, Guinia, Djibouti, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Mali, or Sudan. Unless you believe that the US/Europe isn't doing enough to stop FGM in Africa (which is probably true).
Don't conflate truly awful cultural practices carried out in Africa with the West. These are wholly different issues, not even in the same ball park. European culture never practiced genital mutilation. If you're concerned about specific women's rights issues in the West (of which there are some), those are worth bringing up separately without needing to invoke practices that were never part of our society and that nearly everyone outside Africa condemns. Please don't draw a false equivalency.
FYI: I actually do contribute to solving these problems which are simply extreme examples of women's oppression. You incorrectly assumed I don't.
In any case, choosing an example you're not familiar with is not false equivalency. It basically reveals your lack of awareness of the vast scope of the problem and the reason why feminism exists in the first place.
So you're looking for feminist issues in the west? (Even though I already provided several including my own personal life.) How about something becoming more common every day in western countries - the erasure in law of the category of women. How about the men pretending to be women claiming their sports titles, their awards, their jobs etc. etc? How about the laws being changed to allow men free access to women's washrooms, locker rooms simply by declaring they are a woman? If the woman complains because there are young girls present, SHE'S kicked out of the facilities and loses her membership. How about men who are convicted of extreme violence and rape pretending to be women and demanding to be housed in women's prisons? Then subsequently raping and impregnating them there. Including autistic women. These men now number in the HUNDREDS. How about the daily routine violence committed against sex workers? How about the fact that there is zero paid leave for mothers in the US? How about the #MeToo movement? How about rape crisis centres?
I could go on ad infinitum about the injustices women face because if their sex. Feminism is not just for western women, it's meant to free ALL women no matter where they are because until ALL women are free from male violence and exploitation, no woman is safe. Nor are men free of the damage it does to their psyche to be inculcated to believe women deserve to be treated as less then human. It's all intended to imprison humanity and allow the oligarchs to control us. Women/feminism had as its original goal the freedom of ALL human beings but it appears men don't want to let go of their desire to feel superior to women, to control their sexuality, their reproductive rights, their bodily autonomy. Unless/until this changes, humanity will continue to suffer.
Final question: WHY are men who are supposedly concerned about the truth and justice not holding these violent and abusive MEN accountable instead of demonizing the women who are desperately trying to survive the abuse and get justice for themselves and their daughters ? How can you DEFEND a system that allows women to be treated this way? Why are you arguing with me for stating facts? No matter where it's happening in the world, these are FACTS not my opinions. When will all good men speak up against the horrors being committed in their name? Women have merely been trying to protect themselves and their children since the beginning. But the violence is escalating. The small percentage of good men who DO speak up are not enough.
Finally, I really have to wonder why men have always focused on women speaking out and demonize women who are simply holding predators and pedophiles accountable. Why would that be? If men truly do care about women, would they not want to shut down the few men who supposedly are causing the fear that women feel towards men? Is it because subconsciously it benefits men for women to be in a constant state of fear of men? easier to dominate and control women. Ultimately, whom does that fear really serve? It serves the oligarchs because it divides men and women. It keeps all of us in a state of constant battle.
The class war that has been going on for millenia is kept going by teaching men and boys from an early age that bullying, dominating and controlling women is appropriate behaviour which keeps all human beings traumatized and willing to follow orders. It's time we evolved. Men are not by nature violent. They may be more aggressive by nature, but only against predators, not their kin. This bullying behaviour is taught to young boys which destroys their humanity. Thus, we're headed over a cliff while the billionaires are rolling in unearned wealth extracted from the labour of wage slaves.
It would take generations to change the trajectory. Maybe, if enough people agree with you, it can be done to some extent. In the meantime, it's an individual endeavor.
There will always be oligarchs. Someone has to be in charge. Anarchy doesn't work, and it's the natural order of things in the animal and human world to have a strong leader. Of course too many chiefs and not enough Indians leads to more wars.
Why is there always an assumption that there are only two alternatives - oligarchy/anarchy. This is why we can't get off this hamster wheel. We're an incredibly creative and intelligent species. You've been so indoctrinated into a duality mindset that you cannot even imagine any other alternatives. This is why the oligarchs win. People believe the lies of the 1%.
Yes! ‘Division of labor’ works when both people in the relationship chip in. It’s not so good when one or the other is lazy, doesn’t want to learn or is incapable of learning. Marriage is ‘good work’.
Paglia is brilliant & insightful. She observed and learned lots via her Italian-American family. She also bemoans the loss of single sex spaces and has talked about their importance.
The cooking and cleaning meme kinda belies the fact that women's roles have been so intensely replaced by technology. A woman's role traditionally wasn't just "cooking a cleaning" those are simply the last vestiges -- women made pottery, sewed/knit/weaved, fetched water, made candles, canned and preserved food, and a lot more. A woman had a full day of work. With modern technology, if all a woman needs to do is to cook and clean each day, she'd be done in an hour, then spend the other 15 hours of her day watching TV or using social media. Even child-rearing has become streamlined and simplified -- most mothers simply send their kids to daycare/school, give their kids a phone with TikTok, and check out.
Second-wave feminism was driven by technological change, not social change. Machines and globalization created a world where women's roles were no longer needed, so women sought out new roles. We can regret it, sure. And some families do try to turn back the clock by homesteading and going off-grid (or at least reducing reliance on technology). But that's not the lifestyle most people are prepared for because it's *hard*.
Tru, dat. Zeroth rule: don't try and change your partner from what they are; when you've done it the odds of the rlationship tanking rocket. Why? you've changed your partner; they are no longer the person you met, and now they resent you as well. This sort of thing should probably be taught in school. Far more useful than showing how to put a condom on a bannana and calling it a day.
That's why women need women friends; they need to talk to someone who understands what they are talking about. When my wife complains about something, I suggest that she talk to her friends, they'll understand. That takes the pressure off of both of us. Most people, especially women, don't want you to "fix" the problem, the just want you to listen and most men get bored just listening. I'm a fix it kind of guy, so I just shut up and listen, or think about something else while she's going on and on.
“according to Pew, the majority of young liberal women are mentally ill (!). And as one of my heroes, Nancy Pearcey, explains in her latest book, the highest rate of happiness among any group of American women is found in those married to regularly churchgoing men (more Pearcey: “Compared to secular men, devout Christian family men who attend church regularly are more loving husbands and more engaged fathers. They have the lowest rate of divorce. And astonishingly, they have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America”).”
More, from Brad Wilcox:
“The problem facing liberals, then, is that too many of them have embraced the false narrative that the path to happiness runs counter to marriage and family life, not towards it. They think independence, freedom and work will make them happy, which is why significant portions of the popular media are filled these days with stories celebrating divorce and singleness. […] The secret to happiness, for most men and women, involves marriage and a life based around the family.”
Why are women less happy today? One way to think about it: Miss Havisham has gone from over the top villain… to cultural hero. Don’t be like her! More here:
And astonishingly, they have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America”).”
Why is this astonishing? Only because in the standard media the character of an abusive Christian husband--the more religious the more abusive--is standard fare. My guess is that an alcoholic and/or drug-addicted man is most likely to be abusive!
By the way in my academic career I have found that feminist academics were the ones most likely to have a husband who was unwilling to sacrifice career for family. The Christian faculty, on the other hand were more likely to be heavily involved with their children. Of course this is a generalization--it was not always true. Hence less religious men were more likely to get ahead and women faculty were more likely to complain. Anyway, the more a faculty member made , the more likely he was to complain about being underpaid.
The "standard media character" divergence from reality has always been there but is now just comical. White men as dad's are doofuses that are not serious fathers and husbands, criminals are white males, heroes and family men are all black or mixed race and in mixed marriages. All of those exist, of course - but are not at all what most of mainly observe in our real world.
Thanks! But pearcey’s work (if you follow the link) is all about how what you are saying, that evangelical stat, is totally wrong. When the research is done not based on self reported “evangelical” association but on people who *actually go to church,* you see the truth! Look into it and don’t take my word for it : )
I don't think we can understand the "EPIDEMIC OF LONELINESS" until we look at how "us being CONNECTED" has really made us MORE DISCONNECTED than ever before.
Humanity was never meant to keep in contact with THOUSANDS of people. We were designed to only CONNECT with those 50, 100 people that we are within our TRIBE, our CITY, and so forth.
In this way, TECHNOLOGY has greatly damaged our society by destroying our ability to make and keep meaningful, lasting, relationships.
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/our-ocularcentric-society
When she was sixteen my niece boasted about her 500 or so Facebook Friends. I asked her to tell me something about the first ten that came to mind. She couldn’t do it.
Interesting but not surprised. I only follow those I care about…so my Instagram following is low (93) and private. I know it’s unfashionable to have such a low number 🤣 But admittedly, it’s much easier to hone in on those that matter the most.
I had around 763 Facebook followers. Then I supported Trump and lost about half. Then the pandemic happened, I talked about hydroxycholroquine and natural immunity. Lost another half of that number. Looks like I'm doing quite well so far. :)
When I had a Facebook account, I never allowed more than 100 friends. Every month, I "unfriended" anyone who had not engaged in any of my posts the previous month. It kept my account real and manageable. After the 2020 election, I deleted it completely. Bye bye and not missed.
I’m just looking for a nice girl with a ponytail and glasses who knows how to stop Democrats from stealing elections.
Frankly, far more important is stopping Republicans from stealing and rigging elections and throwing insurrection tantrums when they don't get their way.
(Mic drop)
Hahahaha, "Mic drop." As if anyone cares enough to do anything but laugh at you after you write that.
You sound like a lab combo of Stacy Abrams and the Witch of Chappaqua.
Stacy Abrams sent a bunch of nightclub promoters to recruit 800,000 new ‘voters’ and she still lost.
Lol!!!
Can you stop openly corrupt, senile Dems and their openly corrupt offspring at the same time? (Calling out mic drops in parantheses is the opposite of a mic drop, btw.)
Somebody's mind is truly in the gutter, lol.
You still think the 2020 election was stolen? Oh, you poor thing.
I agree with every major Democrat, including Joe Biden, who has expressed outrage and concern about Republicans placing partisans in elections offices because they say that Republicans will be able to steal elections if they have people inside elections offices.
I think will go over poor Aaron's head.
Ha, Kevin!
Make sure she’s over the age of 16, Kev. Just a warning. You don’t want the tribe coming after you..
They're now called the Cleveland Guardians.
And it's the Rays that have problems with the age of consent.
This is one of the best comments ever! Hope you find her. :) But don't overlook the mavericks unafraid of short pixie cuts.
When Donald Trump can't find a female's kitty to grab, he rapes a woman in a department store or hires a whore.
Do you honestly believe that nonsense? Trump is almost certainly a pig. But the "rape" tale is howler. Only a NY jury would buy that. The Bush tape was a discussion of groupie behavior. Ask any athlete's or rock star's wife what they think of their morals. As far as hiring whores, we have 535 of them on our payroll in DC. With far lower morals than Stormy.
Joe Biden is a pedophile and you talk about Trump. The subject of my post is the ever senile Biden. Try staying on topic.
I despise Trump. Does that make you happy?
It's amazing how you actually believe that.
Believe what? Can you send me a quote, otherwise I don't know what your referring to
That Trump raped women. That is a very serious accusation that is unfounded.
Zing!
Just last night I was listening to the radio and "Street of Dreams" by Rainbow came on. I found myself imagining listening to that when it was originally released, on a car radio at night, and how much more intimate the experience of simply listening to the radio when you don't have access to the whole fucking world at your fingertips. Technology has robbed of us intimacy in many, many ways.
Yes. Needing to watch a TV show when it was on, or miss it (ok, record it on the VCR maybe!). Enjoying the song when it came on the radio (ok, jumping up and hitting 'record' on your cassette deck maybe!). Seeing people you knew at a bar or event just because you were both there. The ease of everything has made appreciating things harder.
Technology hasn't robbed you, you handed it over willingly.
That is true
People generally also used to stay in their communities but now have to go where the jobs are, often thousands of miles from family and friends. And friends you DO make in a new location tend to come and go as they also move to follow job opportunities.
This is known as the ‘IQ shredder’.
Sorry, but I'm glad the internet provided me the option to connect with people in England and the world, I pretty much didn't have anything in common with the bar flies of Northern New Jersey who wanted to go get sloshed and sing living on a prayer by bon Jovi every Friday and Saturday night at their local watering hole.
Sounds like you were looking in all the wrong places.
Sure, before you mock your own hang out with the soccer hooligans. Brilliant.
After I left the US, the only way that I could stay in touch with friends was through the internet.
Or, alternatively, you didn't have to leave the US.
I left because I could no longer afford to live there.
I guess it's good you left when you did. It's only become more expensive over the past 2.5 years.
Yes, I've seen that. If I still lived there I'd be on the street. Where I live, SS covers all my needs. I don't have any wants.
"43 percent of young women say they have no interest in dating whatsoever". Go figure......the corporate media, social media, university/political leaders and social justice warriors have spent the past 10 -15 years telling men that they are the part of the oppressive patriarchy and responsible for most of society's problems. They've discouraged masculine men and the byproduct is physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally weak males. Just go to any concert, mall or large gathering and look around. Is it surprising to anyone that women having sex is also in decline.....I mean how could it not be? Masculine men are a dying breed IMO.
My man! Couldn't agree with this more! I'm working on an article having to do with the "attack on manhood" because you see it everywhere you look.
One theory that's out there is that (disclaimer, the theory is Unorthodox, because that's what I write on:) Humanity itself is under attack. And the protective species within humanity is the male. The male protects and the female creates.
If you take out the male, that masculine energy, driven by naturally building testosterone, who's there to protect the female species, the species that produces life and nurtures the species in the future?
Unorthodox, I know, but when you look around at the policies and how the world is moving, you almost have to say, "hmm.. it doesn't sound so off after all"
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/love-the-ultimate-weapon
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/elmo-and-a-rock
When there’s a big ugly spider that needs killing, feminists want a guy with toxic masculinity. Not Woody Allen.
Especially if, as in Woody's film "Annie Hall", the spider in Annie's tub was "the size of a Buick".
😂
Only now, they don't want him to kill it, but rather to capture "humanely" and release it into the "wild."
I suspect we'll soon have bots which will patrol your house to seek out spiders, insects, rodents, etc., capture them, and then take them outside and release them into the wild. No toxic or non-toxic masculinity required.
But who will feed them in the wild? From time in one's house, they have lost their instincts, as in a zoo.
Well, I never signed up to be a zookeeper, and the critters never agreed to pay me rent, so after I evict them I'll disclaim any responsibility for their future care.
Even if it's a lowly cockroach, my wife calls me to be the executioner.
LOL Maureen! When I spot a scorpion I'm yelling for my husband!
I have a dog who patrols for, and kills scorpions. She is a Yorkie and her nickname is Killer.
You just woke up to the fact that there's been a war on boys going on for decades?
Congratulations.
It just so happens that Christina Hoff Sommers wrote such a book, The War on Boys. Great book, things happen when some mothers have a boy child. The Tiger Mom arrives. It centers around a vocational school in NY. The bottom line was educators didn't like the disproportionate amount of boys in the school. So with all of their coastal brilliance, they ended up with a school with many unhappy girls and boys who lost an advantage. Way to go NY.
Let's face it schools are run by women and the people who succeed in them are girls. Schools are made for girls. Lively, boisterous boys are a problem for many teachers, so we drug them. Nothing like telling a boy he's not good enough right from the get go.
Agree. I didn’t really understand boys until I had three sons. They are just wired differently than girls. When they were school age I learned to appreciate when they had female teachers who were understanding of their boy students. But some just wanted them to fit the girl mold of a calmer and more focused child. Fast forward to now and my oldest and his wife were able to choose a Christian school with an emphasis on outdoor learning and play. That’s a real blessing and a direct result of his experiences as a child. Regarding the author’s overall point, I would emphasize that parents need to model healthy relationships for their kids. Divorce, single parenting, cohabitating by Mom and Dad? Parents not paying attention to their kids, not parenting, not monitoring social media use, not looking into what they are learning in school? Kids grow into young adults who are disconnected from people, and don’t understand the value of faithfulness, respect, monogamy and family. They don’t see or feel these things in their own lives. It’s like a foreign culture. My observation is that kids raised in two parent, religious homes are able to grow up and become much closer to the author’s grandparent’s model than those who aren’t. At least that’s the view I see here in middle America.
Statistics, although not an end all, do back up what you're saying! As does every anecdotal story I can think of!
My mother was a grade school teacher, she would agree. Cutting recess is devastating for boys.
PE isn't a daily activity anymore either.
Everyone needs a break from hours of sitting at a desk.
Schools have always--always--been female-centric places. Now they are absolute re-education camps for boys. Amazing that there are any real men left anywhere in modern 'Murica.
Very true, but now with recesses being shortened and some eliminated, PE not everyday, it is becoming harder for them to "get the wiggles out." High schools have also eliminated shop and woodworking classes that were havens for boys who struggled in academic settings. Those classes gave them chance to excel with other skills. It's the same for girls who weren't interested in college but just want to marry and settle down, they lost Home Ec classes.
I remember a woman I went to high school with who majored in math education. As a side gig she used to tutor kids who were "gifted" in math. She said that most of her pupils were boys, not because boys were better at math than girls, but because they were more likely to get frustrated by their regular math classes, act out, and thus attract the attention of teachers and parents who were motivated to find a solution.
The famous book "Tiger Mom" was written by Amy Chua (I have read it). She has two daughters and no sons. Amy Chua also wrote "World on Fire" (which I have also read). Note that Amy is that daughter of Len Chua (a famous name in transistor theory).
Note, that you have many details wrong, but are broadly correct. American society has waged war on boys and the results are dismal.
Nah.....just stating the obvious for those who are still captured in hopes they might wake up.
But wait....aren't they "woke?"
On the other hand, masculine men may not be a dying breed after all. A recent poll show many more high school boys are now identifying as conservative. Fewer soy boys means a better stronger America.
Curiously, "woke"'s definition reversed itself. It originally was used for people who were "awake" eg noticing the cultural changes. During the Trump years; the definition was either misunderstood or co-opted to mean the exact opposite.
It's not the only word to have gone through that in English. "Terrific" used to mean "inspiring terror". "Awful" used to mean "inspiring awe". "Literally" used to mean "truthfully".
Also see The Boy Crisis for facts about how males have it tough in today's world.
Recall Megan Kelly pulling her son out of the toniest boy’s school in NYC (Collegiate) because she said every other day they were questioning him as to whether he thought he was a boy. He was only 8 and it was confusing to him. Kelly pulled him out and moved to suburban Connecticut. Boys are being besieged by woke crap. It’s no wonder they aren’t enrolling in the military anymore
You are spot on and a prime example is AOC. When the guy was calling out her booty and the man spam she has kept walking. A man would have gone over and punched the guy in the face. I am not violent by nature, but the old saying is, I will do great and violent things to those who harm my family applies.
Or like Ted Cruz kissing Trump’s ass the past 8 years after he very publicly insulted Cruz’s wife (and his father for the cherry on the top). You mean that kind of masculinity? Not sure my marriage would have survived that one. Or, any of the so called men in the GOP who continue to kiss Trump’s ass after being personally insulted along the past several years, or knowing that Trump if he hasn’t already attacked them would do so if they so much as questioned anything he says or does? Those men? The only member of the GOP that had any balls was Liz Chaney. Yet, these same strong men have no problem constantly tossing their venom in the direction of those that can’t defend themselves. Those guys? Always amazes me in these comments that anything, pick a topic, finds examples on the left side of the aisle and crickets on the right…..
How do you know Cruz didn't take the high road and confront Trump privately?
Maybe he didn't want to wage a public war with an ignoramus......
Liz Chaney has balls? She may have guts, but she's a lousy politician.
(Are these the crickets from the right you're talking about?)
Cheney wasn't interested in being a politician. She was interested in serving. That's a feature, not a bug.
Jill, Cheney may have been interested in “serving” initially, but after she became “infected with TDS” she stopped serving! Ask her constituents why she was not re-elected?
I don't disagree, but she did not have to be so vocal in her hatred of Trump.
She sided with the enemy. She let perfect be the enemy of good. She was a traitor to her constituents who elected her, and they kicker her to the curb.
Lesson....you can serve, but you're still a politician.
She just follows Daddy's war-mongering, and Trump wouldn't go along, so out with him!
Maybe he didn't want to wage a public war with an ignoramus......
Thanks! I needed that! Until someone has the courage to do so from within the ranks, it will be “President Ignoramus” again.
Under "President Ignoramus" we were at peace, had prosperity and were re-establishing our borders. Nobody lost any rights, laws were being enforced and real wages rising. Under his "successor" - the senile, corrupt imbecile, we have raging inflation, open borders, rampant crime, erosion of the rule of law, incitement of racial animus, degradation of our electric grid and soaring prices for energy, corruption in government and the politicization of our Justice Department. To a "progressive" - progress. To any normal person - lunacy. Thanks a lot.
You are cherrypicking here. The article and comments do not say that every liberal or Dem is unhappy or wimpy, etc. And in fact the article seems to indicate that Dems are happier with extremists of their own party than are Republicans, perhaps indicating that they would be happy killing spiders they disagree with. However when it comes to percentages cited in the article above, it does seem true that Republicans are more married, more happy, and in more traditional and not extreme modes than Dems. Just guessing by your comment that you are a Dem. Try switching and maybe you will be happier. Alternatively, write back something obnoxious and prove my point.
Here goes… simply was responding to Terry’s comment that led with AOC and her “spam man.” First instinct, an AOC comment. Second, the man she was with was “spam.” I thought Dave made a good point about discretion h that follows) with a good example. Didn’t mention anything right or left, didn’t bring in Hunter Biden, trans people, senile Joe Biden, etc. Lots of comments in this space always seem to wind up there no matter what the article is about. Blame the liberal socialist elitist pedophile loving Democrats and their owned MSM for whatever wrong is being addressed in the article. So, I wanted to balance the scales with a GOP example for Terry that always irked me. That’s all. I’m not a Dem, not a Republican, and a pretty happy person. Not trying to be obnoxious, if I am, I guess I proved your point.
Fine. My point is that proving that there is a Republican who is in any way wrong about anything does not excuse any other person from being wrong, nor does it excuse an entire category people from statistically being poorly emotionally adjusted in society. AOC is a terrible advocate for her electoral constituency and is a divisive, selfish, anti-Semitic anti-white bigot. The correct response is “yes she is” or “no she isn’t”. The incorrect response is, “oh yeah, well Ted Cruz supported Trump.” Either one is completely independent of the other. We might cure Ted Cruz with years of therapy but AOC might still be the same person she is today. That was my point. And very happy you were so polite about it. Have a great day.
Maybe you are not a Dem or a Republican but you are one of those who complains about what others do by doing it.
And, Steve, I would think you are also amazed at how “TDS” keeps showing up in the comments, regardless the topic! It also keeps the WOKE Left ignoring any & every thing this Biden Crime Family Regime has done / does from being addressed. At some point (we can only hope) the “But, but, but Trump whataboutism” will play out.
Can we agree there is way too much “ass kissing” going on from BOTH Left & Right?!
"Kissing his ass..."?
That is not the private part they are applying their lips to...
That was Kamala. Or Monica.
Very much so Terry and I’m a female, wife, mother and grandmother, if you touch my husband, children or my grandchildren I will do violent things to! I’m old fashioned wife and old fashioned mother and grandmother.
But isn't it the case that sometimes "Discretion is the better part of valor", something Will Smith might have considered before he went up on stage and slapped Chris Rock at last year's Academy Awards? Of course maybe Chris Rock should have thought twice before making fun of Smith's wife's alopecia.
Earth to Dave - Chris Rock is a comedian, a profession that has wide birth. Maybe Jada should have had more of a sense of humor first off and secondly, perhaps she shouldn’t have cuckcolded her husband with her son’s friend which made her husband insecure about his own masculinity.
Good point.
staged for effect
I've wondered if that was the case, maybe an attempt to perk up the ratings?
Rock and no one outside the family and friends knew that she had alopecia. Other than that, it was a dumb thing for Rock to do.
There IS an attack on humanity that has been going on for millenia. His name is Satan. He is seeking to destroy everything God made. If God said it is "good", it must be destroyed, gender roles and ultimately marriage and family included. And we "intelligent" humans, all full of ourselves, are playing right along.
Satan is a female. Please don't misgender her.
😂😂😂
Wait a sec, yours are as orthodox as it gets. 🤓
hahaha thanks for this ! :)
Maybe unorthodox, makes sense to me.
Thanks :)
It is not unorthodox it at all. In fact it is millions of years of biologic evolution. But hey, let's toss that baby out with the bath water.
More posts written by AI?
Hahaha! Nah lol I'm still learning how to use it to make the overall writing (e.g., Grammarly for corrections and tone) better. But the idea, the general flow, creative concept is always from me/the user/etc.
Males are expendable. Always have been.
Trust me, many of those women will regret not seeking a mate AND getting married. At 66, I observe that friends who have never married are more anxious and it gets worse over time - no obvious place to go for the holidays, not certain what to do on weekends. My married friends are far more content with ‘built in companionship’ no matter the work that might take sometimes. I have encouraged my daughters to become educated & well-employed but equally I have stressed the importance of family, children & relationships. So far, they are nailing it…but still working on getting the younger one married 🤣
I was as happy unmarried as I am being married. I didn't marry for "happiness," I married because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the person I loved and the only way to do that was by being married to her. Happiness is a byproduct of love.
The issue being that a large number of young women are not even looking for love. Hence the possible link to how more women are saying they are unhappy now than in my entire life.
Sadly it doesn't just impact them. If they aren't looking or won't accept most candidates, that leaves an equal number of men also alone, even if they don't want to be. You end up with a growing pool of unhappy lonely people who are cynical about their future prospects.
I think it’s much easier for a single guy to find someone than it is for a single girl…it’s just my perception. Too many girls are too picky whereas men seem more grateful that anyone cares. That said, my 31 -year old daughter says too many guys don’t seem to want to grow up and are just happy to go drinking with their guy friends. She’s over the party scene and is not interested is going out drinking anymore so it’s difficult to find someone who’s more of a homebody and/or just interested in ‘moderation’ (less drinking).
Hehe...my experience is opposite. I have always felt that women control dating (which in general lines up with woman having the burden of pregnancy and thus needing to be pickier).
I have wondered if part of the current issue is that we have spent decades telling men they are bad and to leave women alone and not harass them. So many men have taken that to heart and don't put themselves in a position that might lead to them being blamed for bad behavior or worse. Who wants to get canceled because of a bad date. Add to that if a man does get married and then it ends, they are statistically the bigger loser, as they may have to pay alimony, child support, etc.
Aside from the fact that men are lonely, there isn't a huge incentive for them to get into relationships. As this article jokingly states, once we have decent sex-bots, a HUGE chunk of men are going to be off the table as far as dating goes.
Sadly, there is a good chance that there are plenty of men that don't go out drinking...but if they are homebodies, how would your daughter meet them? They are also less likely to approach your daughter and ask them out in the first place.
The current way that dating works (or doesn't) is a result of people complaining about how it used to be being bad/wrong. But they didn't replace it with anything better. So we have what we have.
I do think men mature slower. My theory is that they do so about 35 years of age. So tell your daughter not to give up yet.
To those who are commenting about single people living in dire straits, and marriage being always preferable, you are possibly overlooking the learning that comes with single hood.
For me, as sad as I was to have my marriage end, I gained an inner wisdom and self reliance that brought me to a level understanding about myself and God I would never have achieved.
Knowing oneself is required in order to have a truly committed relationship with your marriage partner. I’m still looking for a husband, but I’ll never be desperate.
I have mixed ideas about this. On the one hand I agree with the idea that knowing yourself will help you be a better partner. But I can't help but wonder if we simply picked someone who was 'good enough' and then dedicated ourselves to making the arrangement work, if we wouldn't be happier.
For most of human history marriage was a simpler choice. Would they provide for a family or be ok at raising one? That was the basis of most human relationships. And I suspect this is at least part of the reason arranged marriages have a much higher success rate than our current western way of doing it.
That said, I don't think most of our ancestors had all of the mental health issues and the complex world we currently have. In the past most of the people in your area had similar backgrounds and values that you had. You married someone from your village or neighborhood and had a pretty good idea that they had a similar religion and political bent. There weren't thousands of various interests and hobbies. So I totally understand wanting to make sure you have your own crap in order before then trying to find someone who fits into that.
But I also wonder...maybe finding who you are, with someone else helping and growing together might be better? Or perhaps all that time alone 'finding yourself' only makes you less able to compromise and thus you end up needing to find someone much closer to 'perfect' because you are less able to grow and evolve as you have spent so much time solidifying into yourself.
I say all of that as someone who has been single for nearly 20 years now. I know myself better than ever. And that includes all of my faults. Which makes it harder for me to even want to engage with someone new for fear of subjecting them to who or what I am. Whereas when I was younger it was easier for me to connect with someone, as I was still forming myself.
I would LOVE to meet someone already and get married/have the family I’ve always wanted. But I’ve been told I’m not photogenic, guys might find me attractive when I wear contacts but when they see my glasses, they run for the hills. I can’t do anything about that but be grateful they’ve filtered themselves out. If they can’t handle thick glasses on a woman, they would never be able to live with the other challenges I have to deal with daily. Guys have zero interest in getting to know me as a person. They just see me as someone they think they can use for their own pleasure or green card.
And these guys aren’t that physically attractive either yet seem to think they’re entitled to a beauty queen. How about both genders be more realistic and lower expectations?!?
Women outnumber men in college 3:2. Women are hard wired to marry up. Mathematically, that means that 1 in 3 women will have to stay single, marry down, or settle with another woman. Thanks feminism!
It's a huge fallacy to think that college automatically results in some kind of betterment. Go to a 2nd or 3rd rate school? Likely no value. Get a degree in some nebulous major (this or that studies), no value. Conversley, a good electrician can easily earn multiples of those degree holders. Plus, his/her mind isn't poisoned. Instead, I think degree holders by and large have an incorrect elevated view of their "value" in society.
This is true. The guy that put in our new HVAC system is married to a physician's assistant. He's a good looking, articulate guy, but he doesn't have a bachelor's degree. His wife was pregnant with their 3rd child at the time and he said she stopped working to take care of the kids because he's bringing home way more than she was. We didn't discuss politics, but just from his outlook on life, I would be highly surprised if he or his wife vote Democrat.
Married women tend to ‘moderate’ as they get older and lean conservative according to stats.
True, but the way things are now, where do young people who are not in college meet? I am serious, I have no idea how they would meet without a college meat-market or the internet. The traditional communities are few and far between. There are no matchmakers or social dances for the young, and most of them don't go to church/synagogue.
If I would have married my college boyfriend, we would have been divorced by now. What I thought mattered then is not remotely what I thought mattered 10 years later in my early 30s. Happily married for almost 18 years now.
I think it’s different for everyone. I married my university sweetheart and am still happily married to him 47 years later.
Completely fair, Jan. I wasn't trying to say that my way is the only way. Two of our closest friends met in 10th grade and they're going on 30+ years of marriage!
Agreed, although every guy I was involved with in college would have made a disaster of a marriage. I met my husband at work when we were in our late 20's. We both wanted marriage and a family so we were drawn to each other even though this was the early 80's when the sexual revolution was creating havoc for women. These days, it would have been almost impossible to meet the way we did because of all the strictures of Human Resources rules.
That is a problem. When I was young and single I met most of the guys I dated at church. I met my husband at work. He was looking for a wife and I was looking for a husband. I'm not sure young men and women are seriously looking for a mate today.
Depends on the value of the degree. If the degree leads someone to the life that they want, it has value. Not everyone has the aptitude to succeed in the trades. You wouldn't want me to fix anything in your house, however if you need a drummer who can play most styles, give me a call.
I think it is worse than that. Your math assumes that of the remaining men in higher education, they “all” do better than the women and are thus in available “higher ups” pool for marriage.
In reality, only about 20% of the men concurrently in higher education with the women are “available” for dating. The other 80% are either not as successful post graduation, ugly or extremely socially unacceptable for any variety of reasons, homosexuals, or dead.
I saw a group of seemingly good looking boys prowling around last Nov in Target in Silicon Valley, obviously off of school for the week. They all wore pink and purple plastic necklaces, brightly dyed hair color and one wore a purple dress. Some wearing masks, and I saw several of them fussing with their hair. Girls hung around, but they were just as weirdly dressed. Hardly any interaction even though they were all there together.
Fast forward to this summer at the local water park, after we moved to a Red state with a strong Religious foundation. Kids, both boys and girls, all races and ages, healthy, active, flirting with each other, and not a pink necklace or bikini/female bathing suit on a boy in sight. Playing water football together, or watching (and giggling if they were girls). Roaming the park in packs, trying to have fun before school starts and succeeding. I know which kids I'd rather my own kids hang out with when they get older.
Marginalization *is* social currency in many places. In your "red state" example, social currency would be good looks, articulation, succeeding in sports, talents, having fun stories to tell, etc. In a lot of places, though, social currency is defined by identity. Coming up with neopronouns, taking medications/hormones, identifying as autistic, etc. that's not just socially tolerated, but socially ENCOURAGED, via everything from advertising/media, through teachers/parents, down through peer groups.
Kids *dressing* weird... heck, that's been a thing for 100 years. You had the hippies with their long hair and promotion of drugs, 70s disco, 80s hair metal bands, 90s pop punk, etc. When I was going through my phase in high school, I had my hair over my face and wore spikes and MCR shirts and talked about how much I hated my life. I got over it after a couple years, moved onto being a stoner, then somehow managed to move onto being boring.
There are a several big differences now. First, is that the encouragement via social media likes is incredibly powerful -- the dopamine rush of getting a like on a comment is a type of social encouragement we never thought possible. Second, the encouragement to be different comes not just from peers and social media, but also from parents and teachers - the school assembly doesn't celebrate the basketball team, it celebrates kids based on identity. And third is that a lot of the "cool" stuff teens do now has a far more permanent effect. If you were emo and cut yourself for attention, the worse you'll have is maybe a scar you can laugh about when you're 25. If you take hormones, that's permanent(*).
(* virtual signal: i know there are actual transgender people, but there are also a lot -- hundreds of thousands -- who detransition later in life. it's tragic to see teenagers who might not actually be transgender being led down that path because it's viewed as cool).
Decades ago my Swedish professor told me that Swedish feminists had gotten most everything they wanted, except in the end they didn’t find the new sensitive modern post-feminism Swedish guys even remotely appealing. Here in the US we’re catching up fast.
Some of the hesitance toward military intervention in Ukraine exists because the way we prosecute wars is dictated by effete feminine pajamaboy intellectuals now. So the wars always turn into scams/disasters.
If people thought Ukraine was going to work out like Desert Storm they’d be more supportive. But they know that won’t happen. Most of the soldiers are pretty badass still but they’ve got David French telling them who they can kill and when, so it ends up more like community organizing with casualties.
Jake Sullivan and Ben Rhodes? National Security Advisors to Democrat Presidents. Why would combat experience matter when they're both political operatives.
Almost any sitcom about families shows the dad, the traditional head of a household, as a dolt or as a clueless boob. Maybe this goes all the way back to the Question Authority philosophy that is helpful in university philosophy and poli sci classes, but when it leads to disrespect, institutions fall and society follows.
Ward Cleaver for President
It isn't just TV dads. I challenge you to find a male character in a Disney movie in the last 2-3 years that is not either a moron, sexist jerk, or evil (yet often incompetently so).
Heck, the Barbie movie shows the Kens are useless and dull, and the Barbies are not that interested in them...until they stand up for themselves and take over. Then the barbies love them and actually seem happy. Yet the movie reverts them back to useless by the end. I'm not sure that movie knows what message it is trying to give.
I was actually trying to think of any Disney movie from the last 30 years with a high-quality male lead -- are there any after the Lion King? Genuine question.
I would say quite a few of the male leads in Marvel used to be good. Tony Stark had a great arc. He may have started out as selfish and conceited, but he was also highly competent. Pixar used to do ok there too. If we are talking only Disney, Nick the fox from Zootopia? Ralph in the first WiR had a good arc (2nd totally ruins his character).
Yes there are plenty that are also there for comic relief or evil. But at least they were GOOD at being evil.
That’s really good to know about the Marvel movies! For kids movies, I also think the How to Train Your Dragon series has a great male lead. But in regards to Disney, I’m thinking particularly of movies like Tangled, Frozen, Moana etc that all feature female leads on a quest (nothing wrong with that of course) with a reluctant male sidekick they have to drag along for the ride. In Frozen, Hans, who shows leadership and initiative and takes charge, turns out to be a villain (out of the blue, also) while Anna has to force Kristoff to come along and help her.
It goes back much further than that. For me it goes back to the way husbands were portrayed on radio programs in the 1940s. Dolts and clowns.
nah. he was too hard on the Beaver
They’ll be missed! But the problem might be self correcting.
https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/patriarchy-schmatriarchy?r=1p5p1m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Liked your article. It's funny you and I see the same thing. I have a son, 21 years old. Left college to work/travel, now back in college. Doesn't seem to have any issue with finding women to hang out with. Now has a serious girlfriend (also in college). His friends mostly have or had serious girlfriends. Some are exploring the world, some on the straight path; college/work. Now some of the young women he knew growing up, matriculated to elite colleges and seem to be heading to that high level career path. Some have boyfriends, many do not. I think the issue is that when "experts" talk about a generation they really mean only a small slice of it; the ones that developed a very thin version of life that includes most of their energy doing academic work. Their version of life seems more about academic success/career success. And that is what the data seems to point out. The main reason our fertility rate has gone from 2.1 to 1.75 in the last generation is about the increase of women who don't, for whatever reason, have children. These women have put academic/career success at the center of their lives to the exclusion of anything else. And despite their obvious academic abilities and willingness to work hard, they aren't particular worldly, actually I would call them niave. Nice people, but many are ignoring the elephant in the room.
I couldn't agree more!
We have only a daughter, now 35, married for five years and pregnant with our second grandchild, due in a couple of months. She and her husband dated off and on for 7 years. (My wife and I dated for 16 months before we were married - back in 1982!) But now, her and her friends are all in that parent stage - and its rewarding to see. It feels very normal and wholesome.
I think "naive" works. Either that or no sense of calling. I did another piece earlier this year on Motherhood that I think you might relate to, curious for your reaction.
https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/motherhood?r=1p5p1m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Wouldn't it be nice for all the guys out there who are interested in dating if theat 43% of women not interested would just wear a ribbon on their sleeve so guys wouldn't waste time deciding whether to ask them out?
Good post, Evans. I was thinking you could have added another sentence after ‘masculine men are a dying breed IMO’ - as in ‘but there are quite a few of us manly experienced males on this FP comment thread that could surely lend a hand..’
I’ve been out of the dating pool for 40 years but have multiple single friends of both sexes in their early 30’s. When I am around them, I feel like Margaret Mead observing a new species.
A few comments.
1) If you seek something too ardently you will make compromises and be disappointed in the result. Live an interesting life and your life will put a better choice in front of you. Your partner will find you.
2) Many singles now are just plain uninteresting. They check off societal boxes ( career, education, political beliefs, etc) but there is no person behind the facade. It’s like everyone in the dating pool is an avatar with no real person behind it. There is no actual conversation when they meet- just a series of checkbox questions. And the answers are almost always predictable.
3) They travel too frequently in groups. Gaggles of women and groups of men. When alone, especially women, they are fearful of any interaction. Basically without the support of a group around them, they are social cowards. Women believe every man is a potential rapist and men believe every woman will wrongly accuse them of rape.
4) Social media and dating apps are less than useless. They are harmful. They magnify they checkbox mentality and create pretend lives. Why is anyone surprised that they also create pretend relationships ?
5) Public space, especially in cities, is not safe enough for social interaction now. I met my wife by casually speaking to her on a street corner waiting for the light to change. We were both on lunch break in Center City Philly. I walk by that same corner now. The homeless have made casual interactions like that less likely. Social space, not the person involved in the meeting, is too threatening.
6) Work from home jobs, which for some reason every young person seems to want, eliminate a significant social network. It’s not just the young potential mates that you would meet. It’s the Aunts and Uncles of potential mates who you work with as well. An Aunt has a more serious interest in the relationship success than an app that just wants to keep you engaged with a continuous flow of partners.
So, who would have thought that working in your apartment alone, surrounding yourself with a same sex peer group that is basically competition for you and developing no social skills outside your narrow world would all have hurt your potential for happiness? What a surprise.
These are really insightful observations. I agree on the checklist mentality of the apps. It’s like flipping through a catalog of humans, reading reviews, trying to find the best, best, best product. So different from how my friends and I found our spouses. We dated whoever was around, found someone we liked, and made a commitment to build a life with that person.
A long story short. At the end of the set, as I was walking off the stand, I glanced to my right, saw a group of 5 young ladies sitting a corner table. One of them caught my eye. That was Jan. 12, 1968. We spent a year together, then her education visa expired, she returned to her country. I returned to mine. Fast forward to 2012. Her daughter, 2 yrs. after her father's death, finds me on facebook, her mother and I reconnect, in 2013 we marry, and here we are.
What a beautiful story. I love it.
Thank you.
You made me smile..
Sounds like buying something on Amazon based on ratings.
Not really, that's just his observation.
What is your observation?
I have a single friend - handsome, successful, charming, smart - who’s a regular dating app user. My impression is it’s a great way to get casual sex or a few weeks of hanging out, but nothing more; in fact it seems to trap people at that level. He jokingly sends us screenshots every now and then (the number of women who put political stuff front and center in their profile is remarkable) and tells us "war stories" about how his dates will do a deep dive into some political / ideological crap on the very first date. It all sounds like a nightmare to me.
I would add to your list that you can no longer flirt and meet people at work even if you have an on-site job. I find it amusing to think about the bawdry, flirtatious environment at work in my younger days (very much including stuff initiated by women, including female managers, and a few times up to the level of outright proposition by said manager). We would all have been fired and sued a hundred times over nowadays. Not that actual sexual harassment isn’t a real problem - though, typically, my guess is we’ve removed all the fun stuff of interaction between the sexes at work without actually solving the harassment problem. I have fun memories from work, female friends whom I never dated but with whom there was a spark, which would be simply impossible today.
I think the argument being made is that the dating apps hurt the women and not the men. The apps turn everything into a transaction. It is easier for the guy to "game" the transaction to get what he wants, which is inevitably just sex. I am not surprised that your friend has success on the apps, and can probably have even more success if he wanted to lie about politics, etc. just to get laid. Millions do, I am sure.
It seems like everything that's occurred over the last generation or two has hurt women in the long-term mating department. And now, they can't even compete in sports without running into some failed male athlete who is tired of coming in 12th in a 11 person field.
It would be easy to shrug and say that women helped create this nonsense but that perspective doesn't produce anything positive for the general good.
I agree with you, but it also cuts both ways - my friend actually wants to have a long term relationship and a family, and I think the transactional environment of the dating apps, the change in culture post-feminism (without women as the gatekeepers of sex and the humanizers of men / limiters on base male instincts) as well as the general change in "typical young liberal women" vs years ago when I was dating all kind of work together to make the real relationship/family prospects much more unlikely.
Women didn't just help create this nonsense, they firsthand created it. Now everyone's stuck, and there's no obvious way out.
So, I look at my son's male friends and most of them have or had girlfriends. They aren't all in college, some work, some travel and work, and some are graduating college. These are Vermont/New Hampshire HS graduates and most stay in the northeast (my son went to the intermountain west). I see no difference from what the dating scene was like in the 1970s/80s when I was in it. Maybe, the problem is in the 28-40 age group????? But, at least in his age group, there doesn't seem to be the general angst I see reported.
I have a friend, 69 years old. Getting divorced. Uses e-harmony. Gets lots of dates. He is not rich, is reasonably good looking (how good looking can a 69 year old be), For him it is useful to meet women, but might not necessarily produce the one. Point is, maybe the expectations one goes in with, colors the results. A bunch of women, looking for an extremely good looking young, successful, wealthy man of a certain above average height, and a particular politics might be very disappointed when they click on a bunch of men looking for 1 fun night.
Did you ever work in a restaurant? I did, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the things the guys said to us girls would cause jaws to hit the floor among today's Gen Z's and Millennials. Everyone would get fired now. It might as well have been 100 years ago, not 35. I don't know how they are now, but restaurants back then were bastions of bawdy behavior and dirty repartee.
God, it was fun.
LOL same with being a young teacher in "the old days."
My first job was teaching at a Catholic high school that had a ton of young teachers, both male and female, and boy were those years a wild bacchanal.
It's amazing to me that a secular workplace today is more puritanical than a Catholic high school faculty room just 20 years ago.
We would all get fired today, indeed.
Indeed I did back in the 80s, and indeed it was (bawdy and fun)!
Heck, in the 80s in NYC in a high powered law firm ---we worked hard but they should have made us pay them for all the fun we had.
The lack of flirting is so depressing.
I used to LOVE flirting. One of the most exciting things about work was the potential for flirting from male co-workers! When I met my husband we were both young teachers at a Catholic high school; the tense dance of subtle flirting, keeping our relationship a secret from students, walking the highwire of the Catholic morality we were bound to keep in order to keep our jobs while experiencing the flush of passion was just so exhilarating and *sexy.*
Yes, its full of risk and uncomfortable feelings in your stomach and a few tearful nights, but isn't it worth it?
I feel so sad for young people who won't ever experience this.
Great insights. I agree with you about social dating apps (and I used them a few times, so I understand the checkbox mentality). I think dating apps CAN be successful, but only if used the right way. I met my husband on one of those (free!) apps, and the ONLY reason we're together now is that we emailed just one or two times (he initiated), and then he wanted to call me. After that first (long) phone call (an actual phone call!), he asked me out for dinner. And after 6 weeks of dating, then I became serious about it. Some of those other dating app guys I'd be emailing for weeks or even months, and they'd never pull the trigger. Only by meeting someone and spending time with them can you know if the relationship is worth pursuing. But people don't know how to have conversations anymore, and they think everything can be decided by texting and email (although email is old school). We need to go back to old fashioned conversation. If he had EVER moved to just texting, I would've lost interest immediately. I was 35, he was 46--I think if he'd (we'd) been 10 years younger it would've been text only, and that's where we've gone wrong from a courtship perspective.
I think you make a good point about texting vs. conversation. I would take it one step farther. I think something in our society broke about 20 years ago. That damage affects more than just dating. The nexus of smart phones and social media and apps is a dangerous area and has done significant damage, some of which is only becoming visible now. Lot's of damaged people and relationships out there now. Much more than before, I think.
My youngest step-daughter never removes her phone from her hand. She eats with the phone in her hand, she sleeps with it next to her pillow, and when she's with others, she's constantly glancing at her phone. I don't know how she manages to hold a job, but. apparently she's good at what she does. Maybe geniuses can do more.
As someone who used to do dating sites (not apps), I actually have a theory about those "email only" guys, of which I had plenty. The theory is they are keeping you on the back-burner because they are dating someone else and want to see if it will work out, or in some cases, even married and are putting feelers out because their marriage isn't going well. This explains how some of them would suddenly go ghost or their profiles would be removed entirely overnight.
As a late-twenties guy, this very much hits home. I was in a LTR from college until my mid-twenties and leaving that was like landing on an alien planet. The difference in dating and single life even between my college years and now is a completely different world.
Honestly, just live well and actively on your own and you will become both visible and attractive to your new partner, imho. Frankly, it's not like your competition is all that strong.
Best advice I’ve read. Couldn’t say it better myself.
Just live your life. Do things that YOU enjoy. Be authentic. That is attractive.
Take salsa lessons. It will take you about a year to become a good leader. Then head out there to dance clubs. Latin American salsa clubs is a different world. Very obvious who is the leader and who is the follower.
I would have never made it when I arrived to the US in my mid 20s all by myself on the entire continent, if not for the warmth of the Latin American dance community.
Latin American immigrant culture will eventually take over the US and bring the good. But it will take another generation. Don’t wait. Join know!
I met my husband in 2010 and feel like I dodged a massive bullet with the onset of apps!
Hey Philly Guy, thanks for the insight. These are some great observations. With all sincerity: What would your advice for someone in their early-mid thirties age group who has lived an interesting life (lived and worked abroad and in a National Park, run marathon, hiked 14ers, etc.) but hasn’t found their partner (or anyone generally interested in them for that matter)? I feel like you get to the point where you’ve feel like you’ve tried everything (getting in shape, joining meetup groups and workout classes, talking to random people in public (dog park, farmers market, neighbors, etc.), working on yourself financially, career wise, emotionally, buying a place of your own) and end up at the same place - generally rejection or dates that you feel go well and end with the same confusion about why they don’t want to pursue it further. Personally, I get to the point where I just don’t know what steps to take anymore.
Three suggestions:
1)Take college courses chosen for your interests, not necessarily for degree or credit. Try to stay away from night classes if possible. Too many retirees.
2) Find a nice, friendly neighborhood taproom with good bar staff and visit for one drink regularly at close to the same time. Become known to them as a regular.
3) Church?
Somewhere there is a 28 year old sick of dating someone who lives in their parent's basement.
In all situations dress neatly and well, always be polite, don't talk about yourself but DO talk about your interests when conversation occurs. Do well in class. Tip well at the bar but not too well. Smile a lot. It your target demographic is a 25-28 year old, don't dress/act like a 25-28 year old. Stop trying to meet people. Take a zen approach. If you live it, she will come.
Church is always a great place to meet people. Actually if the your people aren't there, their parents, relatives, and friends are. Introductions are made and then you're on your own. Be as kind to the people you meet as you want them to be to you. They may not be perfect at first glance but give them a chance, you will often find hidden gold.
Be kind is good advice. here's a true story (I think) that I read a few years ago.
Two attractive women friends. They are meeting at the end of the day at the store that one works at before going for dinner. The worker at the store is complaining that she can't meet any nice, successful men. Just then there is a knock at the door- someone wants to come in to do some late minute shopping. The worker friend looks annoyed and just yells out that they are closed. The other friend, nearer to the window, sees an attractive age-appropriate man dejectedly walking to a 100k Mercedes ready to drive away. Just the type her friend wanted to meet. A little kindness might have gone a long way.
Sounds like an urban legend to me, but makes a good point.
Fwiw, I met my husband on a blind date/lunch. Guy in my law firm and his wife in H’s law firm fixed us up and the 4 of us went to lunch one day. H called me a few days later for an actual date. 3 weeks later engaged, 8 months later married, 41 years and 3 adult children later still together.
My daughter met her H on a blind date. Her work mate went to college with her H and thought they’d make a good pair. They did. Her best friend met her H through a dating app after many bad matches, ie, perseverance. Woman scientist I know met her H through a dating app. She told me the trick was to use the apps where you pay a fee because those are the people who want a relationship, the free apps people usually just want sex.
Blind dates have worked since, well, forever. I think they've always been the most likely source of matrimonial talent because there is a common source. I think they face headwinds now because fewer people actually see each other now with WFH being more common. In general, I think blind dates need face to face knowledge of one of the people and I think there are just fewer face to face relationships now.
I am told that dating apps don't work well because most are designed like casino slot machines. They need to keep you engaged and paying and to do so they always want you to spin the wheel with a new partner regularly. If you think about it, they don't have a financial incentive to solve someone's dating problem because then that person leaves the site as a paying customer. Sounds like your friend approached it logically, as a scientist would.
So true. My aunt knew a woman in the 40's who wanted to marry a wealthy guy she was dating. For Christmas he gave her a pair of gloves with $100 in each finger. When she saw the gloves she was disappointed and didn't even bother to try them on. My aunt asked what he's given her for Christmas and she dismissively said, "A pair of gloves, I gave them away." The guy asked if she had tried on the gloves when she thanked him and she said no. He realized she wasn't the girl for him shortly thereafter and left.
He was lucky to lose that one!
Holy hell, that advice is good! Did Will Smith play you in a movie? I'm 50 but only got married at 40, so I was out there in the smartphone / app era a bit. If I may add:
1. Advice above from Philly guy is good. The becoming a regular at a pub or tavern (not some nightclub or disco or whatever) that has decent people coming there is Gold. When people get to know you, they will make connections to other people they know that might be good for you.
2. Without being a weirdo, it's ok to make it known fairly early that the type of relationship you are interested in is a serious one leading, hopefully, to marriage. No need to try and play Mr Cool Guy because you think that is what "the market" wants.
3. I'm just repeating Philly guy again but yes, dress like a MAN. Shirts with collars, long pants unless you are on a boat or the beach or similar, wear dress jackets in the evening. Look like the serious person you are.
4. Be a gentleman always. You know what to do. It's ok to be old school. Never talk negatively about a lady, don't kiss and tell.
Thanks for sharing! Definitely some great advice from you, Philly Guy, and Cynthia! Great Hitch reference btw.
Sometimes it’s as simple as a smile. Stay happy. And, definitely get a Golden Retriever...and take walks...always engage. Who doesn’t love a Golden?
Haha, so true! I have a super high energy German Shorthaired Pointer mix, but would definitely love a nice calm Golden!
Hey, Balancer’s Eye, I’m not Philly Guy (who has great advice, imo) but I brought up this article in my workplace with a guy who is almost 30 and asks some of the same questions. Everyone chimed in, girls too, and it was a good discussion. We talked about it on and off all day today and I thought I would write down some of the answers we came up with. Its long but maybe it will help, maybe not.
I used your post to Philly Guy as a springboard, hope you dont take offense or mind.
“I feel like you get to the point where you’ve feel like you’ve tried everything”
-Try “not trying” (The most entertaining, funny, and informative movie I have ever seen on this very subject is “Tao of Steve” …***Note: Even though it is a romantic comedy, this is NOT a “date movie” …way too much “truth” 😂
https://youtu.be/6RsTTA7KaAQ
https://youtu.be/ix52LldhtfQ
“getting in shape”
-is this for yourself or what you think others are attracted to? Highly recommend either way, healthy body healthy mind is attractive (unless it becomes your “identity”, then it’s just vanity and narcissistic which is unattractive and transient.
“joining meetup groups” are these groups who meet for the sole purpose of “meeting”?
-Sounds forced and inauthentic like something you’d see in an old Seinfeld episode. Life is too short, stop this.
You will meet plenty of people, authentically, by just stepping out your front door and doing “regular life stuff”
“workout classes”
-again, if you are really into exercise, and like group activities…sure. If you are male, and just doing it in hopes of meeting someone to “hook up with” then it is creepy, inauthentic, and a waste of time, imo.
“talking to random people in public (dog park, farmers market, neighbors, etc.)”
-is this something you would normally do as part of your natural extrovert personality? If so, great! Its the best way to meet people and mates…ever. 😃
OTOH, if it is inauthentic and forced, and you really aren’t an extrovert with the gift of gab who finds joy in striking up conversations with strangers…then it’s obvious and usually off putting.
Surest way to know the difference is if you are only doing it with the opposite sex.
“working on yourself financially career wise, emotionally, buying a place of your own”
-this is always a good idea, as long as it’s for your own satisfaction…***Note: when dating, YOU NEVER BRING IT UP YOURSELF OR BRAG ABOUT IT trying to impress. In fact, try never talking about yourself or what you do or what you own. At least when first dating, say little to nothing about yourself unless asked. Ask your date a million questions about themselves and listen to their answers. It matters and should come naturally and easy.
Your own successes and failures will be revealed…It simply is part of who you authentically are. It will show and be made known naturally just by spending time with you.
Career goals, financial thinking, emotional state, buying a house…Shows you are thinking about the future and stability.
***Hint, this is extremely attractive…as long as you aren’t the one who mentions it, it will be obvious. Notice how truly smart people never say they are smart?, truly generous people never mention their generosity?, truly kind people never mention their kindness?…etc.?
If you do talk about yourself on a date, that may be interpreted as “sales”, and most people don’t want to be sold to. Especially women know a sales pitch when they hear one because that is what they deal with from dudes every day of their lives since time began. 😂
They associate salesmen with deceit. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against salespeople, they are my favorite people and good ones are hard to find (hint: never play poker with a good salesman ;) )
The trick to good salesmanship is to make the person truly feel like it is their idea. Either you can sell them a yes or they can sell you a no.
Reading list: Read “Don Juan” by Byron (not kidding) and watch the movies, “Tao of Steve”, “Glenn Gary Glenn Ross” and “Inception” 🤪
Hey Eric thanks for posting such a great response! Really appreciate the multiple perspectives and insights brought to this conversation, and definitely no offensive taken (this is not a subject I talk too much about with friends/family so this is appreciated)! So the meetup groups are generally things that I am interested in (for example beach volleyball) and definitely not something that is forced or inauthentic (I like the Seinfeld reference). The same is true for the workout classes. I generally sit in a chair all day (unless I'm out in the field which is rare), so I do yoga which helps with my lower back tightness. With respect to talking to random people, I am generally curious person so I tend to ask questions for things I'm interested in (I have a vegetable garden so I try to get the tricks from the farmers market folks and have a dog so ask dog related gear, food, etc.). In short, I don't do these activities solely for the purpose of finding someone to date, but hope that by putting myself out there that something will come (even if it's just a friend of a friend). Definitely agree with the dating advice (I'm more old fashioned with this). I always dress appropriately and make sure I'm well presented (haircut, beard trim, etc.), try to take the initiative and plan something besides just drinks (indoor mini-golf, coffee and a walk around the National Mall [more crowded public outdoor place], lazer tag and cocktails, ice skating and hot chocolate, etc.), and always asks tons of genuine questions and make sure my attention is solely focused on the person I'm out with (phone doesn't leave my pocket and I tend not to talk too much about myself unless asked [and if so it's not in a bragging type of way or tone]). For me (at least in my late twenties/thirties) it's seems to be a cycle of flaky, non-commitment and second dates (the third dates are generally planned and then later cancelled by the person). The frustration aspect comes from feeling that some of these dates went really well and there is a genuine connection (by your mid-thirties I fell like you can definitely sense this), and not understanding what is going wrong or where the disconnect is (and knowing how insanely easy it is for a lot of guys). Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places (some mentions of church or regularly going to a local watering hole which I like) or it will come when I'm not looking and just carrying forth trying to live my best life (tough to be patient in your mid-thirties when you want something real). Anyway, thanks for the suggestions and I'll have to check the book and "Tao of Steve" (seen the two others)!
Thanks for the reply! Glad it wasn’t taken the wrong way.
National Mall? You’re in Dodge City?? I grew up there! (VA side) Small world! 😃
“knowing how insanely easy it is for a lot of guys”
Maybe, maybe not. Too many songs to mention about this phenomenon. (Rod Stewart “Some guys have all the luck” playing in my head 😂 )
Best not to assume…Maybe those guys are just naturally charismatic? Maybe you are just seeing their successes and didn’t see all their failures, or maybe they are just very good looking and their appearance does all the work 🤷♂️
All I know, as a happy married man with kids, is that comparing yourself to others, especially the superficial stuff, is the root of unhappiness.
I think the reason so many men and women are unhappy these days is because of social media. It feeds the green-eyed monster (envy) like nothing before in human history.
From The 2nd link clip I posted from “Tao of Steve”:
“We only pursue that which retreats. “
“Dogs chase rabbits, not rocks or parked cars.”
“Women are bored with the easy catch…”
“In relationships, Boredom = Death”
“For great looking guys, they got no problem, they can just slide by on their appearance.
But; for guys like us, successful hooking up with the ladies requires a little work, and a lot of intelligence”
Don't know you, but I learned early on that if you become a good conversationist, which means a good listener, and pay attention to social clues, it will go a long way in getting interest from people. Becoming a good conversationalist takes practice and a willingness to open yourself up. I was a military brat, moving from place to place as a child, so it came easy for me. Just had to get over some shyness that appeared in my late teens. In my early adulthood I worked with some hard core salesmen, who always had women. They all had the "gift of gab" to be good sales people. Add in a genuine curiosity about people to a willingness to talk to people and you could find yourself more in demand.
"2) Many singles now are just plain uninteresting. They check off societal boxes ( career, education, political beliefs, etc) but there is no person behind the facade. It’s like everyone in the dating pool is an avatar with no real person behind it. There is no actual conversation when they meet- just a series of checkbox questions. And the answers are almost always predictable."
I think - and this is from my experience as a therapist at a university though most of the 2010s - that this comes from young people's fear of anything ambiguous.
There is something about mid to younger millennials and zoomers that seeks extremely black and white answers to everything. Their world is made up of good and bad, safe and unsafe, perfect relationships and abusers, success or failure.
They need a step by step programs with guarenteed results, or they melt. They can't figure stuff out on their own. They can't really have fun because the fun might get problematic or something (and that would be BAD.). They need everything to organized and programmed for them. They cannot deal with mystery, ambiguity, uncertainty, or even the contours of real personality.
Where does this come from? I think there are so many causes. Lack of free play in childhood, helicopter parenting, an aggressive focus on academic success and resume building over the development of personality, lack of intergenerational socialization, political polarization, cancel culture, simplistic YA novels and superhero movies. I could go on.
But whatever the cause, there is just a psychological fragility that makes so many young people incapable of having or dealing with actual, vibrant, complicated *personality.*
My husband and I have recently been binge watching Seinfeld and The
Office. Can you imagine "characters" like this being written today? When we were growing up (we are late Gen Xers) we had no "digital" spaces to escape to; we had to live real lives in the real and physically limited communities where chance had stuck us. And those communities were filled with "characters": weird neighbors, loud aunts and uncles, quirky teachers, daring friends with big personalities that clashed out in the woods or the concrete playground far from adult rules. You had to deal with real people in the real world, you had to work sh*t out with them, you had to learn how to be hurt by them and how to hurt back and how to forgive and be forgiven. You had to laugh at yourself and others and show mercy to both.
And our stories and media reflected that world.
And then everything became organized travel soccer and video games and having to get into the "right college" and getting fired or canceled for a tweet, that world vanished, and personality flattened.
I think one of the reasons our media and literature has gotten so incredibly bland is that young writers simply do not have enough real experience with vibrant, unique, weird, flamboyant *characters* in their social world. Everyone they know is a fellow black and white, profile building, millennial or zoomer careerist, with the "right" things on their carefully curated resume, not a single failure or displeased authority figure in sight (one must never risk failure through experiment or challenge those who write the recommendation letters) and impeccably puritanical progressive morality.
There is no room here for personality.
There is also little room for love, or relationship, or genuine marriage and parenting that is more than just another resume building excercise.
I think one of the reason affluent, successful Girl Boss types often end up so miserable in motherhood that they need to write essays about it for The Atlantic or NYT Magazine is that they see having a child as just another resume item. A child isn't a unique person to women like this, but another aspect of herself that needs to be maximized. This is accomplished via the right schools, toys, feeding methods, and social approval etc, rather than a relationship with a real, messy, ambiguous, flawed, vibrant, and unique human personality.
When the child refuses to play along with Mommy's carefully curated agenda, Mom goes into despair. In her life of resume building and profile maintenance and kissing up to authority no one ever gave her the emotional tools to deal with what is genuinely human, and the genuinely human is the task and logic of marriage and family life.
A few points to add;
1) you are right about unsupervised activities. We would go to the playground without parents and play whatever sport was in season at the time. We would choose sides. Two best players would be captains and they would choose in turn from highest skill level to lowest. The pecking order was clear and meritocratic. The better you were the higher you were chosen. Very simple.
2) from a nation of citizens we have become the nation of consumers that we were warned about. I date that to well before social media. It started with “branding” and mass media in general decades ago. You are what you own now. Not what you do or how you act or think.
What part of Philly are you in? I’m in East Falls, it would be cool to connect with another TFPer in real life
Did he respond?
Nope, all good though ;)
The good news of this story is that liberal women will not produce off spring.
I hate having to continually reference lessons from the movie Idiocracy, but I think that one of them is applicable here. Educated liberal women may not be having children, but liberal women on welfare absolutely still are.
My husband and I watched that movie for the first time last month. A few years ago, I would have said it was utterly ridiculous. As we watched it though I spent the whole movie going “oh shit, this is our current trajectory”.
“Brawndo is what plants crave. It has electrolytes.”
-Tony Fauci
The President was so young, fit and such a great communicator! I wish we had a real President Camacho compared to the turnip we have now.
NotSure/Upgrayedd 2024
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
I haven't watched it in years, but more and more I want to re-watch to see what I think. The family tree part is classic, and pretty accurate for my social group. So many of my high school and college friends have 0-1 kid.
“Oh shit, it’s Upgrayedd.”
Many belong to the climate change death cult and feel the world is ending so what’s the use.
AMEN. Imagine being a kid today, hearing from kindergarten about how we are destroying the planet, there is no future; how can they be expected and to want marriage and children? Live for today! The world and the polar bears will be gone tomorrow! No wonder suicide is at an all time high!
Well not only that, they don't know what sex/gender they really are.
For them, it's of no use. For us, more room and opportunities.
It is easy to be glib, but we are headed for a civilizational collapse if this does not reverse. I wish it weren't so.
Hopefully true, but that's part of why they are so eager to influence other people's children, first in school and then in the workplace.
Was is Mao, or maybe Biden, who referred to children as not belonging to their parents but rather the community?
Both, as well as Hilary
As she said and wrote it takes a village,
No one "belongs" to anyone. At least not where the 14th amendment is practiced.
This seems to be at the core of the internal tension in Israel right now: the deeply conservative and religious Israelis (who used to be a tiny minority) are demographically outpacing the secular liberals. The liberals are having far fewer children and they see that their days in power are numbered
From your mouth to the lords ear
This is the one thing that gives me hope for the future. Also, because our society has gotten so dumb and lazy, my kids have less competition for jobs that require intelligent, hard workers.
Good one 😆
This is beyond nasty.
Amen
Sad commentary on modern life after the "Sexual Revolution." Women are less satisfied with cohabitation arrangements (POSSLQs, People of Opposite Sexes Sharing Living Quarters, as we used to call them) than men? Well, of course! After all, what legal guarantees does a woman have that her man will be there when she needs him, like to help raise children. I think we can agree that marriage is more about protecting women and children than sex and companionship, and the declining birthrates around the western world may be the result of women losing faith in men and men able to find short term "hook-ups". So glad my wife of 51 years and I grew up in a different, "old fashioned" era. As the wife of a couple who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, responded to a reporter's question about whether she had she had ever contemplated divorce, "Divorce? Never. Murder, frequently," the marriage contract once was the glue that maintained families and society at large.
James, I am still laughing at what you wrote, specifically the last part. “As the wife of a couple who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, responded to a reporter's question about whether she had she had ever contemplated divorce, "Divorce? Never. Murder, frequently," the marriage contract once was the glue that maintained families and society at large.” That kind of humor is missing in our society today. Thank you for giving me a good, deep belly laugh.
I loved this post because people have really have abandoned humor.
My husband of 37 years, when asked how long he has been married will respond “billions and billions of years!”
I find it hysterical because I feel the same way, and have responded to the question in quite the same fashion. Yes, it seems like billions and billions of years. Absolutely. I am so happy to be able to laugh about it with my husband and the difficulties surrounding it. Our love isn’t the same as when we were dating and young. It just happens to be infinitely more deep and more rewarding in ways that people will never understand, especially from today’s youth.
Same here, Collette. We're married 43 years. The I'm asked how long I often reply "A long, long time!" and both husband and I laugh!
Sometimes I’ll answer the “how long have you been married question” by saying 27 (or whatever is current) years, happily married for three. Sometimes my wife laughs along and sometimes not. It’s those “not” times that scares me!!!
Commitment and love, that’s what has been lost.
Two ancient Greek words for love capture those missing ingredients: storge and agape. "Storge" represents the love that we now call "devotion", a love that constantly works for the good of another, e.g. spousal love. "Agape" is the self-sacrificing love found in the Bible as God's love for humanity, but also the kind of love a mother has for her children or a soldier's love for his fellow soldiers. Our modern focus is on a third Greek word for love, "Eros", meaning sexual love, which permeates so much of our entertainment. Marriage and family are based on storge and agape, and marriage and family are the basic building blocks of civilization..
That is a lovely point James.
Jesus asked his disciple, do you Love (agape) me. and the disciple answered, yes lord I love, storge you. I think it was Peter. Of course in the end, Peter agaped Jesus.
I was thinking that the other day. We see Disney actively taking love stories out of their products, saying that true love is old-fashioned -- the remake of The Little Mermaid has her leaving the water for selfish reasons instead of for love, and the Snow White doesn't have Prince Charming waking up Snow White. Barbie, in her movie, rejects Ken and starts having sex with everyone as soon as she hits the real world. Then you have Mia Khalifa (pornographic actress) talking about her three failed marriages with pride.
The idea of true love is almost all but absent from modern pop culture. You're not supposed to fall in love and live happily ever after. Now I know that's not a realistic thing for... well, anybody. Love takes work. But even in the 2000s, where there was hook-up culture, the idea was there was a light of true love at the end of the tunnel. You'd keep dating until you found the "one" and then hopefully work on that relationship. Now, true love or the idea that there's someone out there for everyone is just seen as backwards.
Read that last part to my husband of 43 years- LOL!
Murder is it's own kind of divorce.
Great quote..
Another feature of those long lasting marriages of years ago were the safety valves that many husbands used, among them brothels, long days at work, interminable nights with the 'boys'- and the wife would know but look away. The marriage needed to remain intact.
I'm allowed to smoke an occasional cigar (outside) and enjoy an evening dram of Scotch.
My wife likes Scotch as much as I do, so we both have a dram. Cigars, not so much.
And your allowance for her?
:)
I ignore her shopping expenses.😉
Do you enjoy your Scotch looking over the credit card statement?
Seriously, I applaud the arrangement you have with your wife. Whatever works..
Smoking, drinking and gambling used to be vices for which your grandfather was accountable, now they are "illnesses" to be treated medically. The medicalization of behavior does away with the sense of personhood leaving people without soul: that is boredom, loneliness.
Great point. Now the woman might ask him to promise to go to treatment, maybe, like, sometime, you know?
Now they are revenue streams for the state.
My husband and I grew up super Mormon, where dating and marriage are still alive and kicking. We dated for two months before we got engaged, then married two months later, at the ages of 21 and 23. We now have four kids and will celebrate our 20th anniversary in March.
I know dozens of LDS couples with similar relationship timelines. Are our relationships perfect? God, no. We have our problems. Are there people who may have been a better match for each of us? Absolutely. But who cares? Life is about building and learning and loving, not about the hunt for the perfect partner. Do some marriages that begin like ours end in divorce? Of course they do. But not any more than any other marriages where people date for years, live together for years, and THEN spend a solid year planning an elaborate wedding.
We just chose each other and jumped in. The quote that has governed our marriage is one that a former leader of our church shared years ago that he had hanging on his own wall: Choose your love, and love your choice.
We left the Mormon church a couple years after we got married, which is complicated, but I’m so grateful that the values we were raised with around marriage and family run deep.
Best choice of my life was thinking my husband was the one and going for it. I just hope it's even possible when our kids are older.
“Women’s self-reported happiness has plummeted. While today both men and women are less happy, men report higher well-being than women.
How can this be, when women now make up 59.5 percent of college students and earn the majority of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees?“
————————————————————
How can this be? Ummmm…..because conservatives were right and feminism is terrible.
What self-respecting man wants to subject himself to a university that resembles a totalitarian knitting circle where regurgitating nonsense is rewarded and independent thought viewed with horror and disdain?
You mean money and power don't make women happy?
Who would have thought??
And yet, I just saw middle-aged, divorced (childless) female friends last month for a weekend, and they thought this was EXACTLY what would make them happy (both work for corporations). And they easily make $50k more than I do (married, with a child, working for a non-profit). It's a pervasive thought with feminist liberal women.
Money doesn't make men happy. Well, I can only speak for myself. I don't have much power, but I do have some money - and could be making a lot more if I worked more instead of being on TFP making comments - and I'm fairly miserable.
Money as a measure of success is largely a new thing in civilization -- even 100 years ago, when most people were still farming or doing factory work, your success would be measured by your family, and wealth was a means to grow your family's value and pass that wealth to the next generation. Sometime around the 1950s, that idea started to shift towards wealth as a means to achieve luxury - which used to be only available to the few. Fancy cars, vacations, etc.
I hear things from my 20 yr old daughter that makes my head want to explode sometimes. She shares the “requirements” list young women spout off about on social media. 6’2 -6 figure income (at 26-30??) 😂 They are crazy. I believe every pot has a lid. But the young are stuck on stupid. Personally I pray she meets a carpenter or plumber with a good head on his shoulders.
Having impossibly high standards keeps you safe from the messiness of relationship and rejection. It means you’re not ready. Most of us grow out of this phase.
A friend told me she once had a rather extensive list of requirements for a partner. Amazingly, she finally met someone who checked every single box. Only one problem: he was a total jerk. So she tore up her list and grew up a bit and eventually married someone completely different.
I thought you were going to say that the one problem was that she didn't meet any of his requirements!
Yep - it's semi-officially referred to as the "rule of 6" or the "6-6-6 rule" of dating a guy -- 6' tall, 6 pack abs, 6-figure income.
I have a close family member who easily meets two of the three requirements, but is only 5'6" tall. Most girls won't give him the time of day as a result, which is sad - he's a wonderful guy.
He doesn’t need most -only one and she will be a quality catch too because she sees in him what you do.
He'll get married "later" (around 40) to a good woman who's like 30 and realized how dumb all the 6-6-6 stuff was.
It wasn’t until a close friend recently got divorced and started dating that I realized how important height is to most women. Must be a biological thing, where we associate height with good health or strength. Thankfully I’m over 6’ so I never got turned down because of my height (just my arrogance and mediocre looks, lol)
Telling comment. Our 22 yo daughter says the same things about her friends sharing these high expectations of a mate. To me the operative words are “social media”. Women are just as or more competitive than men, just in a different way. When one friend says she wants the 6’2”, 6 figure college degreed man, she is transmitting her “I will get a better man then my friends” vibe. I don’t pretend to say that the good old days were perfect but before social media, societal pressure and government intervention, in some ways a more pure human behavior shaped relationships.
They like everything organic except their relationships!
666, good title for the position.
Oof never would have noticed that. Your comment piqued my curiosity so I googled how tall was Jesus. Estimates say between 5’0-5’5.
Or a UPS driver. Don't they start at $170k now?
I did hear something about that on the news the other day. I didn’t get the full story though. That’s an amazing opportunity if true. If one is a good driver, responsible, relatively healthy and drug free.
I’ve heard it takes several years of working in the warehouse for workman’s wages before you can become a driver at ups. Sort of like the minor leagues or pilots working at a small regional airline for a few years before getting the big bucks in/at the majors.
That makes sense. I tell my daughter all the time that starting out in just about any endeavor you need to pay your dues. Unless you’re a nepo baby. But even if one is handed a top paying high level position without earning it or really knowing what they’re doing to me it seems like a recipe for disaster for both the individual and organization.
Honestly I'm 6 foot, make 6 figures somehow (guess I chose the right major,) pretty sure I'm not ugly or too socially awkward. I'm in decent shape. I (arguably) have interesting hobbies like playing the banjo. And you know, despite meeting the "criteria" or whatever, I get maybe a date or two a month!
I'm definitely grateful for those opportunities because a lot of my friends don't get squat. But good god! At this point I'm wondering if anything I do could keep women from ghosting. Not to generalize but it seems like they just aren't interested in men unless they're literal models or millionaires
I have a hunch women your age may find you slightly intimidating. You sound like a lot. I mean that in a good way! Perhaps it’s a matter of waiting for them to catch up to you and meet your maturity level.
Whatever the reason, ghosting is definitely about them not you and definitely an immature thing to do.
Delete the apps? Yes.
But it needs to go further. I’m putting my money on:
Planting roots
(bought my first house)
Taking responsibility for 100% of my health
(physical, mental and spiritual)
Creating the life that I want for myself (
rich with connection, friendships, mentors and community)
Staying nimble
(letting go of the patterns, behaviors and beliefs that no longer serve me and instead exploring and embracing what does)
So hey, are you single?
Until Nellie sets me up with Suzy 🤞😆🤞
Joking, of course 😉. But, yes, for the time being. Until then, just focusing on getting ready.
Random aside, I knew a Dasha growing up, not a common name... you’re not her, are you? That would be a wild coincidence
A very common name, among Ukrainians and Russians. Thankfully I’m the former. And no, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure!
Well, it’s very nice to meet you. Perhaps we’ll run into each other at a Live TFP event sometime ;)
I was in the first ever ad for Tinder...10 years ago. I've been on every app for a decade and so tired of the game. Especially in the gay world, it's rare to even find someone who even wants to go out on an actual date (dinner?) at all and not just "spontaneously" end up meeting out at a club one night after following each other's whereabouts on Instagram. I was set up with someone who wouldn't even go on a first date without the mutual friend also being there as a "buffer". God forbid taking a chance and just meeting someone new for an hour. We had to reschedule 5 times between our three schedules and it never even ended up happening. Dating in the 21st century is an absolute mess
I remember graduating for college back in 2012 and with my degree, with my job, I was ready to hit the dating scene. So being a book worm all my life, I decided to "educate" myself on how to "talk/date" women.
I read books like "The Game" by Neil Strauss, got a gym membership, and put myself in uncomfortable situations because, according to the book, the more comfortable you are being uncomfortable, the more you can navigate life. From the gym to random meet ups, I began feeling more comfortable and dating great women from time to time.
Then, it had to be around 2014 and Men's Health ran an article about this app called "Tinder." They also mentioned the phenomenon known as "Netflix and Chill." I remember reading that article because the reader warned that these apps would destroy dating as we knew it.
And I remember agreeing with him. Because prior to those apps, I had to work to overcome my fear. I had to work, to step up to the plate. Dating is a psychological process first and if you can do those things overtime, you gain skills and abilities that you can literally apply anywhere in any facet of life.
Unfortunately, technology, in its attempts to make things better, has made things worse in this aspect. I think we have to come to the conclusion that there as some aspects where technology just shouldn't touch and in helping us build relationships, that's a human component that technology can never fulfill. It can help, but nothing beats the real world connection.
Ugh. I’m so sorry you’re living this. You sound like a genuine person seeking a genuine relationship in a genuine and honest way. You deserve that, and I hope you get it. <3
If it makes you feel any better Justin, gay women I know are having the same experience. Many straight women I know always blamed it on men, but we all know, removing the gender difference does not make having a meaningful connection/relationship/marriage any easier to attain! Best of luck! Don't give up!!
My gay son is 33 and has never had a boyfriend. He has lots of gay friends but they’re all in a relationship, some are in their second or third relationship, a few are married. When he does meet someone who’s “available”, they have usually just come out of a bad relationship and aren’t interested in a new one, they’re still hurting. He’s painfully shy, so my personal theory is that he hangs out with committed couples where the individuals are not available because he’s actually scared of someone being truly available. Kind of like women who choose the wrong guy over and over. Afraid to commit so unconsciously pick a dead end. I went through that phase in both college and law school. The irony was that when I finally stopped looking, that’s when I met my husband. Maybe the key is to just give up and live your life and be yourself. Kind of like what Philly Guy said earlier. Good luck to you!!!
I actually wrote a big tirade a couple months ago on this exact topic.
My theory is that dating-app-syndrome has hit gay men even harder, who don’t have trad social structure to fall back on, a male mentality seeking novelty, and unless you live in a city with over five million, very few locations and clubs meant to facilitate actual conversation.
The amount of flaking that under 30s accept in this day and age is also truly ridiculous.
There's a lot more to this than just liberal vs. conservative politics. It's the new reality of life in general.
Many young people today don't even bother saying "hi" to their co-workers or neighbors -- it's simply considered to be socially unacceptable. They just walk past each other with their faces plastered in their cell phones without even looking up or smiling.
If I look back to the dating relationships I was in prior to getting married almost 40 years ago, every single one started out by me saying "hi" to someone that seemed interesting. Most took place at work or in social settings (like bars or events). For a short time I dated a girl that I first met in a grocery store. And I never would have met the woman who eventually became my wife if I hadn't gathered up my courage to say "hi" to the pretty girl sitting on her front porch across the street from where I was living.
I like the simplicity of just saying hi to someone that catches your eye.
I, too, JD Cleveland am married over 40 years.
I was introduced to my husband thru someone at work.
Which makes me wonder how are all the single lonely people seeking commitment and working remotely will meet?
I am glad working remotely is available and should remain as an option.
Life is not lived on your phone screen. Find your community, show up in person and if you want marriage and commitment don’t settle for anything less.
This phenomenon is world-wide. My wife and were in a restaurant in our small town in Thailand. A group of 3 males and 3 females came in, sat down, took out there mobile phones & began texting. The waitress came to their table, they ordered without putting down their phones, ate their lunch, never said a word to each other, kept texting while eating, finished eating, got up and left.
As a married, lifelong feminist with two adult children and a grandchild, I can tell you that feminism is still very much needed - for both men and women. Just not the feminism promoted today. Third wave feminism has been co-opted by big porn and predatory capitalism which indoctrinated women into turning their bodies and sexuality into commodities for the benefit of men. Essentially destroying what the feminist movement was about. Fighting against the sexual objectification if women. Patriarchy rears its ugly head and both men and women are exploited for the benefit of the oligarchs who are - you guessed it - mostly men.
Think about it -feminism simply would not exist today if everything was peachy keen for women 100 years ago when working women, and their children, had no vote, no reproductive freedom, no financial independence, no basic human rights or even bodily autonomy. They lost their children if they left their husbands due to abuse. I could go on, but suffice to say it was a hellscape for women and girls. Men were not always the providers and protectors the way we're told they were back when the suffragettes began the women's liberation movement. They were treated as chattel no matter how destitute or abusive their husband.
Fast forward to today, there are women and girls still suffering in extremely patriarchal cultures with sharia laws, female genital mutilation, menstrual huts, no education, inadequate maternal care. This is what women endured globally with the exception of wealthy women. We forget just how bad things were then when we encourage women to become trad-wives and men to become 'protectors and providers'. It's so tiresome having to remind people of just how bad it was and could be again.
Here's a thought: Why not teach BOTH men and women that they have options and let men and women sort it out for themselves. Men will likely be drawn to do the protecting and providing and women the bearing and nurturing of children. Feminism when I was young was my way of escaping the trap of abuse and destitution that my mom and her generation were forced to endure because virtually ALL the men of her generation were drinkers, wife-beaters, rapists, child molesters. All my mother wanted was to be a homemaker and raise children. She had FIVE children by the time she was 25 years old. She dreamed of living the perfect life with my father, but after 12 years of his drinking, violence, rape, child molestation and lack of financial stability she finally kicked him out. I was 9 at the time. She fought to keep us and to keep him out of our lives - unsuccessfully. He never paid a dime in child support.
So, she made her way, without child support and with the church she loved abandoning her and telling her she should continue to endure this despicable man who did not 'protect and provide'. Oh, but he was masculine, tough, charming. This was NOT the exception in my extended family. It was COMMON.
So, bash feminism and feminists all you want, but today I'm a successful, confident, happy, healthy 64 year old grandmother who once had a married life with 2 children. Due to her strong example, I made my way in the world and provided for my children in a way I never could have because, I, too, ended up with an abusive, irresponsible husband from whom I separated after 19 years together.
I don't see men or women/feminism as the problem here, I see the entire economic system as exploitative. The problem is not that men aren't masculine enough, or women feminine enough. The problem is that the traditional stereotypical roles defined for human beings just isn't working. It's designed to serve the powerful. It's designed to restrict and control human beings and their sexuality into rigid behaviour that keeps the predatory capitalists happy working away making them billions in profits, while the average man and woman struggles to create and maintain a family. They're siphoning off our life energy to make obscene profits while degrading our land, food, air, water making us sick and dependent on a medical system that extracts the last bit of profit from our bodies until we finally expire from exhaustion.
This current predatory capitalism economic system was/is designed to serve the oligarchs - the alpha males in our culture. (BTW: Communism did the same thing). This economic system is what gave rise to the need for women's liberation, then feminism, which was women's way of saying - "We can't care for ourselves and our children like this!" - and it pitted men and women against each other instead of seeing who our real enemy was/is - the billionaires who set up this system of economic dependence which robbed us of our humanity, dignity and connection to each other as men and women.
I have a vision of a world where men and women are raised as children to love and respect each other AS INDIVIDUALS and allow them to pursue their goals unimpeded by rigid gender stereotypes WITHOUT the feminist propaganda that's promoted today. Today's 'feminism' is so far from what the original goals were that you cannot even call it feminism. I call it 'porn feminism' because it's based on the sexual objectification and exploitation of young women's bodies, minds and hearts.
We cannot create a healthy culture when women are valued only for their bodies and sexuality, and men only for their wallets and muscles. Could we not simply encourage and support both men and women to be kind, responsible, healthy and wise? Could we not recognize that the SYSTEM is the problem and it serves only the oligarchs. This should be a class war, not a war between men and women. We should be fighting together to take down an economic system which treats men and women as commodities, not human beings. That's the future that I'm working towards for my children and granddaughter. Bashing feminism and by extension, women who strive to be whole, independent human beings only serves to imprison us all back into gender stereotypes which serve the oligarchs and create division where there should be connection.
Just my take on it. For the girls whose genitals are being mutilated as I write, I must continue to work to free them and all women from male supremacy.
You sound like a 15th century Catholic missionary completely assured of your righteousness and prepared to destroy cultures that violate your beliefs.
So you're OK with FGM, menstrual huts, burqas, female impoverishment, etc.?
Maybe I sound like a human being who sees the injustice of it all and tries to make the world a little less unjust for my children. I, a single concerned mom who's survived horrific abuse, do not have the power to destroy an entire culture. You must be mistaking me for the men who have their finger on the nuclear missile button AS WE SPEAK.
In any case, I do not wish to force anything upon anyone. Do as you please. I am just sick of the violence I've personally endured and that women still endure today at the hands of the men who supposedly love them.
Have you seen porn lately? It's appalling what they do to women in the name of sexual gratification. If it was done to an average person the street they'd be charged with torture.
So, no. I have the audacity to believe that women and girls deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. If that sounds like a terrifying prospect, then I don't want to live in your world.
When will your brand of feminism teach young women that they need to find a marriage partner that maybe DOESN'T make more than them? Some today MAY say that they don't have a "list", but relatively FEW actually do NOT!
This might be a generational thing -- I'm Gen X, my husband a few years older and we've been married for 30 years -- but I've always made as much or more money than my husband. There came a point in our marriage where I was making enough where he could quit the job he was miserable at. He then took over many of the kid duties (we have 5, youngest now 19) -- driving to school/practice, e.g. -- and all the cleaning (I still cook because he can't/won't). He had some issues early on because he felt he needed to make more/have a career like his brothers, but ultimately, I was doing what I love and making good money, and he wasn't working himself into an early grave in a job that gave him high blood pressure and a lot of stress -- and we could pay the mortgage and raise the kids. I'm definitely conservative AND a feminist -- though I wouldn't be considered a feminist by today's standards.
First, my 'brand' of feminism' doesn't exist. There are 4 billion women and girls on the planet. Feminism in its original goals was intended to fight for basic human rights and freedoms. As I described at length in my post, the faux feminists we're seeing today are the result of porn culture. They've sadly been indoctrinated into a toxic version of feminism which is intentionally designed to destroy women's basic human rights.
That's all that most women are asking for - whether they call themselves feminists or not - Basic. Human. Rights. Not scary at all if you're man enough not to be frightened by a woman who fights to be treated with dignity and respect. But if you ARE frightened by any woman who isn't submissive and weak, then you are the problem.
> For the girls whose genitals are being mutilated as I write, I must continue to work to free them and all women from male supremacy.
You should be doing that work in Africa. "[Recogniz[ing] that the SYSTEM is the problem" will help only if you recognize the system in Somalia, Guinia, Djibouti, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Mali, or Sudan. Unless you believe that the US/Europe isn't doing enough to stop FGM in Africa (which is probably true).
Don't conflate truly awful cultural practices carried out in Africa with the West. These are wholly different issues, not even in the same ball park. European culture never practiced genital mutilation. If you're concerned about specific women's rights issues in the West (of which there are some), those are worth bringing up separately without needing to invoke practices that were never part of our society and that nearly everyone outside Africa condemns. Please don't draw a false equivalency.
FYI: I actually do contribute to solving these problems which are simply extreme examples of women's oppression. You incorrectly assumed I don't.
In any case, choosing an example you're not familiar with is not false equivalency. It basically reveals your lack of awareness of the vast scope of the problem and the reason why feminism exists in the first place.
So you're looking for feminist issues in the west? (Even though I already provided several including my own personal life.) How about something becoming more common every day in western countries - the erasure in law of the category of women. How about the men pretending to be women claiming their sports titles, their awards, their jobs etc. etc? How about the laws being changed to allow men free access to women's washrooms, locker rooms simply by declaring they are a woman? If the woman complains because there are young girls present, SHE'S kicked out of the facilities and loses her membership. How about men who are convicted of extreme violence and rape pretending to be women and demanding to be housed in women's prisons? Then subsequently raping and impregnating them there. Including autistic women. These men now number in the HUNDREDS. How about the daily routine violence committed against sex workers? How about the fact that there is zero paid leave for mothers in the US? How about the #MeToo movement? How about rape crisis centres?
I could go on ad infinitum about the injustices women face because if their sex. Feminism is not just for western women, it's meant to free ALL women no matter where they are because until ALL women are free from male violence and exploitation, no woman is safe. Nor are men free of the damage it does to their psyche to be inculcated to believe women deserve to be treated as less then human. It's all intended to imprison humanity and allow the oligarchs to control us. Women/feminism had as its original goal the freedom of ALL human beings but it appears men don't want to let go of their desire to feel superior to women, to control their sexuality, their reproductive rights, their bodily autonomy. Unless/until this changes, humanity will continue to suffer.
Final question: WHY are men who are supposedly concerned about the truth and justice not holding these violent and abusive MEN accountable instead of demonizing the women who are desperately trying to survive the abuse and get justice for themselves and their daughters ? How can you DEFEND a system that allows women to be treated this way? Why are you arguing with me for stating facts? No matter where it's happening in the world, these are FACTS not my opinions. When will all good men speak up against the horrors being committed in their name? Women have merely been trying to protect themselves and their children since the beginning. But the violence is escalating. The small percentage of good men who DO speak up are not enough.
Finally, I really have to wonder why men have always focused on women speaking out and demonize women who are simply holding predators and pedophiles accountable. Why would that be? If men truly do care about women, would they not want to shut down the few men who supposedly are causing the fear that women feel towards men? Is it because subconsciously it benefits men for women to be in a constant state of fear of men? easier to dominate and control women. Ultimately, whom does that fear really serve? It serves the oligarchs because it divides men and women. It keeps all of us in a state of constant battle.
The class war that has been going on for millenia is kept going by teaching men and boys from an early age that bullying, dominating and controlling women is appropriate behaviour which keeps all human beings traumatized and willing to follow orders. It's time we evolved. Men are not by nature violent. They may be more aggressive by nature, but only against predators, not their kin. This bullying behaviour is taught to young boys which destroys their humanity. Thus, we're headed over a cliff while the billionaires are rolling in unearned wealth extracted from the labour of wage slaves.
A lovely Utopian dream. If only..........
It would take generations to change the trajectory. Maybe, if enough people agree with you, it can be done to some extent. In the meantime, it's an individual endeavor.
There will always be oligarchs. Someone has to be in charge. Anarchy doesn't work, and it's the natural order of things in the animal and human world to have a strong leader. Of course too many chiefs and not enough Indians leads to more wars.
Why is there always an assumption that there are only two alternatives - oligarchy/anarchy. This is why we can't get off this hamster wheel. We're an incredibly creative and intelligent species. You've been so indoctrinated into a duality mindset that you cannot even imagine any other alternatives. This is why the oligarchs win. People believe the lies of the 1%.
Hint: We can choose something different.
Isn’t it fun living though civilizational collapse? At least it’s almost football season. Too bad modern bread sucks, though.
Use the time between now and the season opener productively: learn how to bake your own bread.
Football can't get here soon enough.....
"Bread and circuses..." gotta love it!
Great line!
SEC...SEC...SEC
“She replied that she had three requirements for him: stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop gambling.”
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His requirements: start cooking, start cleaning, stop talking.
Followed by start earning, start fixing, start mowing. There is something to be said for old fashioned division of labor.
Yes! ‘Division of labor’ works when both people in the relationship chip in. It’s not so good when one or the other is lazy, doesn’t want to learn or is incapable of learning. Marriage is ‘good work’.
I found it interesting that the hyper-feminist Camille Paglia was all about division of labor. Men had their world, women had theirs. It worked.
Paglia is brilliant & insightful. She observed and learned lots via her Italian-American family. She also bemoans the loss of single sex spaces and has talked about their importance.
The cooking and cleaning meme kinda belies the fact that women's roles have been so intensely replaced by technology. A woman's role traditionally wasn't just "cooking a cleaning" those are simply the last vestiges -- women made pottery, sewed/knit/weaved, fetched water, made candles, canned and preserved food, and a lot more. A woman had a full day of work. With modern technology, if all a woman needs to do is to cook and clean each day, she'd be done in an hour, then spend the other 15 hours of her day watching TV or using social media. Even child-rearing has become streamlined and simplified -- most mothers simply send their kids to daycare/school, give their kids a phone with TikTok, and check out.
Second-wave feminism was driven by technological change, not social change. Machines and globalization created a world where women's roles were no longer needed, so women sought out new roles. We can regret it, sure. And some families do try to turn back the clock by homesteading and going off-grid (or at least reducing reliance on technology). But that's not the lifestyle most people are prepared for because it's *hard*.
I think this is a really underrated point.
WICKEDLY HUMOROUS, AS USUAL! But you forgot the one OTHER requirement that comes after "stop talking"! 😂
Yes, but then the reply would be, “it better be good”.
😬
😂
🤦♂️
😇
Tru, dat. Zeroth rule: don't try and change your partner from what they are; when you've done it the odds of the rlationship tanking rocket. Why? you've changed your partner; they are no longer the person you met, and now they resent you as well. This sort of thing should probably be taught in school. Far more useful than showing how to put a condom on a bannana and calling it a day.
That's why women need women friends; they need to talk to someone who understands what they are talking about. When my wife complains about something, I suggest that she talk to her friends, they'll understand. That takes the pressure off of both of us. Most people, especially women, don't want you to "fix" the problem, the just want you to listen and most men get bored just listening. I'm a fix it kind of guy, so I just shut up and listen, or think about something else while she's going on and on.
“according to Pew, the majority of young liberal women are mentally ill (!). And as one of my heroes, Nancy Pearcey, explains in her latest book, the highest rate of happiness among any group of American women is found in those married to regularly churchgoing men (more Pearcey: “Compared to secular men, devout Christian family men who attend church regularly are more loving husbands and more engaged fathers. They have the lowest rate of divorce. And astonishingly, they have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America”).”
More, from Brad Wilcox:
“The problem facing liberals, then, is that too many of them have embraced the false narrative that the path to happiness runs counter to marriage and family life, not towards it. They think independence, freedom and work will make them happy, which is why significant portions of the popular media are filled these days with stories celebrating divorce and singleness. […] The secret to happiness, for most men and women, involves marriage and a life based around the family.”
Why are women less happy today? One way to think about it: Miss Havisham has gone from over the top villain… to cultural hero. Don’t be like her! More here:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/miss-havisham-modern-hero
Great essay topic, thank you!
And astonishingly, they have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America”).”
Why is this astonishing? Only because in the standard media the character of an abusive Christian husband--the more religious the more abusive--is standard fare. My guess is that an alcoholic and/or drug-addicted man is most likely to be abusive!
By the way in my academic career I have found that feminist academics were the ones most likely to have a husband who was unwilling to sacrifice career for family. The Christian faculty, on the other hand were more likely to be heavily involved with their children. Of course this is a generalization--it was not always true. Hence less religious men were more likely to get ahead and women faculty were more likely to complain. Anyway, the more a faculty member made , the more likely he was to complain about being underpaid.
The "standard media character" divergence from reality has always been there but is now just comical. White men as dad's are doofuses that are not serious fathers and husbands, criminals are white males, heroes and family men are all black or mixed race and in mixed marriages. All of those exist, of course - but are not at all what most of mainly observe in our real world.
While I agree with your sentiments, whoever put those stats about divorce out is wrong.
Highest rate of divorce are evangelicals. Next is mainstream Protestants. At the bottom are atheist and Catholics................
Thanks! But pearcey’s work (if you follow the link) is all about how what you are saying, that evangelical stat, is totally wrong. When the research is done not based on self reported “evangelical” association but on people who *actually go to church,* you see the truth! Look into it and don’t take my word for it : )
I will look at it. Thanks.