I took a gap year from university to find friends that had similar interests and were willing to hangout in person regularly. It took a lot of work and I was afraid and anxious half of the time.
I think it's normal for single folks to be a bit annoyed by the opposite sex. We want to make it work with them so badly. Yet they keep acting in ways that don't fit our expectations and foil our plans, for reason's inscrutable or even blameworthy to us.
That leads to what I'd consider the normal grousing about relationships and the opposite sex many folks engage in. It's the equivalent of letting off steam about your job and boss (another relationship fraught with such dynamics) at happy hour. You don't want to let it consume you or to take your complaints too seriously, but acknowledging the frustrations of the human condition is normal and usually healthy.
The inability of many folks today to do this or maintain this perspective is sad and amazing, and calamitous for too many people for all the reasons you say. I'm astounded by how much basically normal behavior - what I'd consider annoying or frustrating and worth grousing about but nothing more - is pathologized online.
It's not that he's not that interested and busy; he let things die and stopping chatting or calling you because he is a narcissist, and his misleading behavior is a form or abuse or assault.
It's not that she was not that into you and so ended the night early but gracefully after dinner with an excuse and peck on the cheek; she is part of a conspiracy to steal resources from decent men like you while always intending to cheat or leave for a tall a-hole - a form of fraud and, really, theft by deception that should be criminalized, and until it is should lead you to never marry or believe in love.
Holy heck everyone. Not everyone's a sociopath or narcissist, and every action that hurts you is not abuse. The behavior you're making a federal case (or at least YouTube video or Tik-Tok) about is not evil, a sign of mental illness, or a worrying trait of a predator or serial offender whom you must stop.
So many of us are learning wrong lessons and building mental models for behavior that is just not there or more readily explained by less sinister, even innocent motives; in adopting those perspectives (and spreading them in Facebook groups dedicated to informing women when they're dating the same guy but too often devolve into displays for ex's dirty laundry - or in the guy's equivalent group chats and message boards),
we're just indulging our worst impulses as unhappy or jilted lovers and blowing our own issues out of proportion, to everyone's detriment.
I think a lot of this is the hyper individualistic ethos and our online echo chambers. It’s not just single people being annoyed by the opposite sex.
People annoy each other in close quarters. And we are getting worse at getting along IRL because we spend so much time online. We are all flawed. Communicate badly. Are egotistical. Leave our underwear everywhere. Propel are also annoyed by their family. And I have noticed that people are much more likely to catastrophize a family member’s flaws and drop them. Brother leaves the toilet seat up? He’s not only careless, he must be a malignant narcissist who don’t understand there are other people in the house.
Much easier to retreat to our forums and social media where interaction is simpler and we can talk to only people who think and act like us and egg each other on to drop the people in our lives because this is such toxic and intolerable behavior. More red flags than a communist parade! These online friends usually only know the person you’re getting about very superficially, and they don’t feel the emotional attachment you do. It costs them nothing to encourage you to drop them. They don’t know all the ways that person might uplift you or comfort you. And presented so negatively, they cannot imagine wanting to be in a relationship with someone like that either.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Thank you for the neutral and honest analysis of the problem. However, your forgetting the elephant in the room. For decades a small group of neurotic, misandrist feminist have been demeaning men using the media, academics (women studies), corporations (me too & DEI) and other aspects of our society. They have taught women to be narcissistic and entitled. These sick, power hungry people have poisoned our society and tried to destroy the nuclear family. What started as the worthy goal of equality has turned into an evil power grab. We have and are allowing them to get away with it. How sad the we have let young people down.
This is particularly striking when you see the venom aimed at women who choose to have children and stay at home to raise them. It is quite shocking to see from other women.
Nobody is aiming venom at women who choose to stay home. The most venom I see towards women like that is from men who cry constantly about gold-diggers and tell women like that to get jobs if they end up divorced.
Men are truly in a dream world. Complete and utter delusion.
Nobody is demeaning men except men themselves. Just because you can't get a date doesn't mean the feminisms in the media are mean to you. You sound like the type of moid who thinks the feminisms are to blame because you can't find a victim of Tinder.
Just stop crying. Males are truly delusional nowadays. And if you're wondering why you can't get a date, I can tell from your comment.
As someone advanced in age, my advice would be this; your career will be the least important part of your well-being as you age. Find something that brings you meaning and pays the bills but nothing can take the place of a lasting commitment to another human and children. It’s the greatest bulwark against the darkest aspects of the world. You will not find that true connection online. It’s antithetical to the goal. I could write an essay about this,but simply put, both young men and young women need to be guided towards a life that brings them meaning and the fairytale that climbing the corporate ladder will do that has been disproven by both sexes now. Time to empower yourselves to step away from The Machine - be bold, be brave, find like minded people, find a goal, get out into the real world and work on something concrete. You will fall in love there.
The rise and proliferation of Feminism and it’s entitled, self-absorbed, Narcissistic, Histrionic Neuoticism speaks to most if it. From the day Princess is born she is coddled and placed on a pedestal, removed from any hardship or expectation that she must work and endure the standard hardships all humans must face in life. Her world is reduced to the trivialities of her own making, the petty, self-contrived attitude that men and the World at large owe her something, after all, there will be consequences for anyone who does not treat Princess as the Queen she is?!
When you start raising them with consequences for their actions, force them to see the world outside of their own trivial self interest, and make them work for things in life rather than hand them everything they demand, then just maybe they will develop character? Women are toxic, and in elevating them to the top of the hierarchy we see that Society self destructs under the weight of the Cluster B personality disorders. Barbie is a disgrace, and it seems to be Feminists thst are driving this pathopsychology we see everywhere now.
Men have their own issues of toxic disfunction, but they operate more from reason rather than psychotic emotion. It is women who are primarily to blame for the toxic, anti-truth world we are in now, and the Culture that raised them to behave this way!
Lol "men operate from reason" I guess starting World War III and doing mass shooting sprees speaks to that, truly. I wonder why males are 76% of Tinder then, when nearly 1/3 of those males are already married? Pure reason. Want to talk about psychopaths, their sex, and who causes the world's problems? Who's causing the problems in Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia? The females?
Btw, you come off as a very good-looking young man who has an easy time finding a date, not a bitter moid who gets rejected constantly.
The feminisms aren't teaching males how to traffic, rape, and abuse women--that's moid heroes like Andrew Tate and other pigs on podcasts like "Whatever."
Narcissistic, histrionic, self entitiled, mean, snotty girl.... it’s your feminine nature, you just can’t help but show that can you “girl boss.” Feminists have been put in charge for a couple of decades and all we got was the collapse of Western civilization and liberal values, and as anyone with a basic understanding of human nature would know, it could not have happened any other way?!
Put at the top of the hierarchy in academia, the female university President has created the proliferation of the Cluster B personality disorder, division among all groups of people, and mass hysteria based on faulty logic and neuroticism, a trait much higher in females than males. Thank you “girlboss,” you excel at being mean, snotty and vicious, and have made it perfectly clear why you were not meant for leadership roles to begin with, you don’t have the temperment that leads to human flourishing, only to division, strife and perpetual narcissistic nastiness.
Feminism is Marxism, it’s only purpose is to tear down and destroy, and some 60 odd years into this perverse psychopathy we can clearly see that it has all been a ruse. Thank you mean girl, you couldn’t have made it any more obvious!
While dating apps and social media undoubtedly distort the dating market, there are some underlying realities that younger people are attending to. Increasing numbers of men are avoiding relationships because they are becoming dangerous. MeToo and related phenomenon have changed behaviours. Men are constantly told not to approach women because it is creepy. This is especially true with fraternizing at work, which we are told is unacceptable.
As for marriage, in most Western nations when men are interviewed about why they are avoiding it they remind us they are actually avoiding divorce because the family courts are heavily skewed in favour of women.
The dating apps also reveal actual female behaviour. Over eighty percent of women chase the top five percent of men and ignore the rest. This distorts the perception of what is out there, especially for women. It is no exaggeration to say for women in their 20s many seem to be sleeping with the same handful of men. This is certainly true for those using the apps.
I have no solutions, except some kind of return to normality, people actually meeting in bars and socializing. But I suspect that is dead for Gen Z. That seems to be what they are predicting anyway.
I think that your comment kind of reinforces exactly what Freya is writing about, neither sex is interested in the issues the other is facing. If you don't think that relationships have been "dangerous" (to use your own word) for women consider research that found that over half of 18 to 24 year old UK women reported having been strangled by their partners during sex with many reporting the experience having been unwanted and frightening. On the point of divorce 65% of divorced mothers in the U.S. receive no child support. All this is not a tit for tat, it's to demonstrate that that dating, marriage, divorce, having kids is risky. Life is risky. It's important to try improve things as much as we can whilst also accepting that there is always going to be a certain amount of risk involved in joining your life with another person. But what is worse (at least in my opinion) is having nobody to spend your life with at all.
I was referring to danger as state-sanctioned ruination of a man's life, not poor choices of partners. We all accept risk. But men are making a cost/benefit analysis and clearly deciding it is not worth it.
Over 60 percent of young men in the US have no interest in pursuing women. And the family courts are clearly a major factor as is the constant pushing of the feminist agenda. They are just walking away. It is primarily women who are complaining about this too, not the men.
Perhaps you are right, although men are complaining of loneliness. On top of having no romantic relationship, more men will never be fathers than women will never be mothers. I think it is a sad solution for men but people are always free to choose to live their lives in whatever way they believe best serves their own interests.
Men have less of a drive to reproduce, and they also cope with solitude better than women. Obviously it is a bad situation for all concerned. But I do think women will seriously suffer. The demographic in the US with the highest use of antidepressants is childless women in their 40s. That number is set to grow if we don't make serious changes.
I am seeing a backlash against the radical feminists from women though. There is too much emphasis on careers and too little emphasis on women's innate drives like motherhood etc. The whole narrative around women can do it all is being challenged too. So who knows?
Lol "they cope better with solitude" Check the suicide rates, dear.
Men are literally disconnected from reality. You care about women's antidepressant use? Really? That's what drives you and other men? And your deep care for mothers?
This is a good point and one I’ve not thought of yet: that the alpha male and girl boss types are just coping. For a while I just wrote them off quickly as dumb or selfish and didn’t give them much thought. In truth generally speaking they’re afraid. This I think tracks so much better with the primary motivators of our generation.
Fear is what drives our generation. We’re really afraid of the truth in general and are very uncomfortable with the emotions and feelings that being confronted with the truth bring up. I think obviously to a degree this is part of the human condition, but it is particularly striking in our generation. We’re afraid of commitment and sincerity. To anything really-- be that a lifestyle, a person, or something greater than ourselves joyful or sorrowful. We use memes or ideology to avoid confronting the truth of our situation. We’re afraid to take anything seriously even things that have the gravitas to demand us taking it seriously. Like I said these can be joy inspiring things or sorrow inspiring.
I think this is because we’re really uncomfortable with gray. Everything must be black and white. Of course the truth is solid and defined, but it’s our distorted perception which makes it gray. This is man’s lot. Our generation can’t take the truth seriously, can’t take weighty things seriously, because to do so would be to recognize something higher than ourselves which from our finite perspective necessitates a degree of mystery which for one reason or the other our generation can’t tolerate. So instead we try to bring the truth and things greater than us down to our level by memeing on it or by dumbing it down to ideological mush.
We, as a generation, can’t abide ambiguity, which is tragic. And as it turns out the most ambiguous thing for a young person is the other sex. So I think this utter detestation for ambiguity in our generation manifests itself most prominently in the so-called gender wars.
Andrew Tate is being tried for sex trafficking, rape, and kidnapping. Males pay him money for him to teach them how to be a pig like him through his "university."
I agree with about 90% of this... to treat others as human, to see our similarities before our differences... BUT... is it really just GenZ? GenZ was born between 1998 and 2016... that's ages 7 through 24... half of GenZ are CHILDREN.
Probably we really mean "a few older GenZ" and mostly otherwise millennials under 40? No? most of the RedPills I debate online are in their 30s, not teenagers.
It is true that technology over the last 20 years has allowed people to live vicarious through electronics, phones, internet, dating apps, video games and this has tended to make them less likely to even WANT to go out (Oh and 2 years of pandemic too!) and to fear REAL REALITY over electronic babysitters.... I think this is why they date less.
Right on! I've been in a relationship for over 20 years now, so the whole modern app-based dating scene is not something I have experience with. My view of it from the outside is depressing as hell. You want to be able to find people to date more easily, sure; that sounds great. But if it's actually *easy*, then one or both parties get that "easy come, easy go" attitude and don't treat romantic relationships with the weight they deserve. You're trying to bond with somebody in such a way that you can fill in each other's gaps (yes, I heard it too; be mature) and look out for each other through the good times and the bad, hopefully into old age. If you can work that out with a super-devoted friend group, more power to you, but I only have the energy to bond with one person that way.
One of the best things about these posts. Freya, is that even though they're written in the first-person, the word "I" appears relatively little. Your pov is more "we" and "us" - the sign of a mature person able to see and understand the world collectively. Thank you for your authentic insights.
The fact that a show like Whatever even exists is the sign of a fragile culture obsessed with attention and exaggerated gender roles. The lack of substance is striking. Whatever is a cheap exploitation of a group of people who already exploit themselves. We can do so much better.
I agree with most of this, but I think it underestimates just how poor quality of life partners both young men and young women are faced with in the modern world. Because people have been taught men and women are the same, both sexes have begun mirroring the traits they want in the opposite sex on the assumption that it is attractive - i.e. women have begun manifesting the traits they like in men, and vica versa.
On top of that, you have the unique challenges of each sex - porn has essentially ruined an entire generation of young men, and the encouragement of young women to sleep around and deliberately flaunt what most men find attractive has done the same to women.
So, while I actually agree with the talk of 'body count' in women - it's a much needed conversation that's been largely absent from the discussion entirely over the last 50 years - I can also have a lot of sympathy for young women. Men (quite rightly) don't want to marry whores or sluts, and no matter how much shaming you do that will never change, and the first step is actually pointing this out and talking about it. I really don't think women understand the degree this preference is ingrained in the male psyche
However, women (quite rightly) don't want to marry porn addicted losers, and I've heard many comments regarding such from young women, bemoaning in similar ways the lack of prospects on their side of the equation.
I think simply calling for an armistice in the 'gender war' as you say, isn't near enough. Fundamentally, in the west both sexes have become essentially unattractive to each other, for varying reasons. All the angst, while being amplified by social media, has a genuine frustration beneath it.
Take that away, and all you're left with is apathy. At least the frustration acknowledges a lack, a desire to reconcile and a hope for the future. Otherwise, the only other option is giving up entirely, which is basically what Gen Z is in the process of doing. The lack of sex and relationships is not being driven by frustration or anger, but the emotion that succeeds that - apathy. They just find very little attractive or worthwhile about the other sex, and so why even bother engaging?
I think this is largely true. The current prediction for Gen Z females is almost 50 percent will never find a husband or have children. Same for younger millenials. So it is not looking good.
Considering we're up 10x world population since 1800, I'm not that worried. You could have 3 generations average a birth rate of 1.0, and still be higher than 1800 levels.
Could be. I think the panic over population decline is economically driven. Profits lost because they are based on consumption. A view at odds with other forces like the climate fanatics.
Also we forget the leading European nations have always seen their populations wax and wane in tune with conditions. In times of plenty people married younger and had more kids. In hard times they delayed, reducing the number of kids.
In an era that promises automation and job losses a slight reduction could make more sense anyway.
That said, outright manipulation of people seems to be the culprit here. That is less good.
> outright manipulation of people seems to be the culprit here. That is less good
I agree, but here's a question. Which bothers you more: living in a world with manipulators, or living in a world where the majority are easily manipulated.
The older I get, the more I see that people get the leaders they deserve. There have always been castes / hierarchies of people: workers, fighters, rulers, priests. Will it ever change, doubtful.
> the leading European nations have always seen their populations wax and wane
It never leaves my mind that the black plague preceded the renaissance.
Today's plague is cultural, but may have a similar effect. In the broadest sense the psychologically weak are producing fewer kids. This natural process is being distorted because of mass immigration though. So the remaining population dynamic will likely be violent.
Powerful manipulators and the easily manipulated are both worrying. I want neither, although accept both are always present. As with Covid, the best approach is personal immunity or at least habits that bolster our immune systems, not someone else's rushed vaccine.
Young people are having less sex than ever, so young women aren't "sleeping around," though porn addiction is skyrocketing among young men. Please stop with your hysteria of slutty women when the truth is men are basically brain damaged and trying to ruin young girls' lives with AI faked nudes now. Look it up.
And btw, Tinder is 76% male. So who is chasing whom here?
What would fix this? Getting off these devices and meeting as humans.
Parents! Your child does not need a smart phone. Period. This is insanity.
Young people, get together, have parties, go shopping, take walks, join sports ...get OFF the screen. Live.
I took a gap year from university to find friends that had similar interests and were willing to hangout in person regularly. It took a lot of work and I was afraid and anxious half of the time.
Amen.
I think it's normal for single folks to be a bit annoyed by the opposite sex. We want to make it work with them so badly. Yet they keep acting in ways that don't fit our expectations and foil our plans, for reason's inscrutable or even blameworthy to us.
That leads to what I'd consider the normal grousing about relationships and the opposite sex many folks engage in. It's the equivalent of letting off steam about your job and boss (another relationship fraught with such dynamics) at happy hour. You don't want to let it consume you or to take your complaints too seriously, but acknowledging the frustrations of the human condition is normal and usually healthy.
The inability of many folks today to do this or maintain this perspective is sad and amazing, and calamitous for too many people for all the reasons you say. I'm astounded by how much basically normal behavior - what I'd consider annoying or frustrating and worth grousing about but nothing more - is pathologized online.
It's not that he's not that interested and busy; he let things die and stopping chatting or calling you because he is a narcissist, and his misleading behavior is a form or abuse or assault.
It's not that she was not that into you and so ended the night early but gracefully after dinner with an excuse and peck on the cheek; she is part of a conspiracy to steal resources from decent men like you while always intending to cheat or leave for a tall a-hole - a form of fraud and, really, theft by deception that should be criminalized, and until it is should lead you to never marry or believe in love.
Holy heck everyone. Not everyone's a sociopath or narcissist, and every action that hurts you is not abuse. The behavior you're making a federal case (or at least YouTube video or Tik-Tok) about is not evil, a sign of mental illness, or a worrying trait of a predator or serial offender whom you must stop.
So many of us are learning wrong lessons and building mental models for behavior that is just not there or more readily explained by less sinister, even innocent motives; in adopting those perspectives (and spreading them in Facebook groups dedicated to informing women when they're dating the same guy but too often devolve into displays for ex's dirty laundry - or in the guy's equivalent group chats and message boards),
we're just indulging our worst impulses as unhappy or jilted lovers and blowing our own issues out of proportion, to everyone's detriment.
reasons
It's sad and amazing how much
I think a lot of this is the hyper individualistic ethos and our online echo chambers. It’s not just single people being annoyed by the opposite sex.
People annoy each other in close quarters. And we are getting worse at getting along IRL because we spend so much time online. We are all flawed. Communicate badly. Are egotistical. Leave our underwear everywhere. Propel are also annoyed by their family. And I have noticed that people are much more likely to catastrophize a family member’s flaws and drop them. Brother leaves the toilet seat up? He’s not only careless, he must be a malignant narcissist who don’t understand there are other people in the house.
Much easier to retreat to our forums and social media where interaction is simpler and we can talk to only people who think and act like us and egg each other on to drop the people in our lives because this is such toxic and intolerable behavior. More red flags than a communist parade! These online friends usually only know the person you’re getting about very superficially, and they don’t feel the emotional attachment you do. It costs them nothing to encourage you to drop them. They don’t know all the ways that person might uplift you or comfort you. And presented so negatively, they cannot imagine wanting to be in a relationship with someone like that either.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
CS Lewis "The Four Loves"
Thank you for the neutral and honest analysis of the problem. However, your forgetting the elephant in the room. For decades a small group of neurotic, misandrist feminist have been demeaning men using the media, academics (women studies), corporations (me too & DEI) and other aspects of our society. They have taught women to be narcissistic and entitled. These sick, power hungry people have poisoned our society and tried to destroy the nuclear family. What started as the worthy goal of equality has turned into an evil power grab. We have and are allowing them to get away with it. How sad the we have let young people down.
This is particularly striking when you see the venom aimed at women who choose to have children and stay at home to raise them. It is quite shocking to see from other women.
Thank you for bringing that up. It’s so true.
Women can be pretty hard on other women.
Men are really nice to each other though. I guess that's why Ukraine is doing so well this time of year.
Nobody is aiming venom at women who choose to stay home. The most venom I see towards women like that is from men who cry constantly about gold-diggers and tell women like that to get jobs if they end up divorced.
Men are truly in a dream world. Complete and utter delusion.
Nobody is demeaning men except men themselves. Just because you can't get a date doesn't mean the feminisms in the media are mean to you. You sound like the type of moid who thinks the feminisms are to blame because you can't find a victim of Tinder.
Just stop crying. Males are truly delusional nowadays. And if you're wondering why you can't get a date, I can tell from your comment.
As someone advanced in age, my advice would be this; your career will be the least important part of your well-being as you age. Find something that brings you meaning and pays the bills but nothing can take the place of a lasting commitment to another human and children. It’s the greatest bulwark against the darkest aspects of the world. You will not find that true connection online. It’s antithetical to the goal. I could write an essay about this,but simply put, both young men and young women need to be guided towards a life that brings them meaning and the fairytale that climbing the corporate ladder will do that has been disproven by both sexes now. Time to empower yourselves to step away from The Machine - be bold, be brave, find like minded people, find a goal, get out into the real world and work on something concrete. You will fall in love there.
The rise and proliferation of Feminism and it’s entitled, self-absorbed, Narcissistic, Histrionic Neuoticism speaks to most if it. From the day Princess is born she is coddled and placed on a pedestal, removed from any hardship or expectation that she must work and endure the standard hardships all humans must face in life. Her world is reduced to the trivialities of her own making, the petty, self-contrived attitude that men and the World at large owe her something, after all, there will be consequences for anyone who does not treat Princess as the Queen she is?!
When you start raising them with consequences for their actions, force them to see the world outside of their own trivial self interest, and make them work for things in life rather than hand them everything they demand, then just maybe they will develop character? Women are toxic, and in elevating them to the top of the hierarchy we see that Society self destructs under the weight of the Cluster B personality disorders. Barbie is a disgrace, and it seems to be Feminists thst are driving this pathopsychology we see everywhere now.
Men have their own issues of toxic disfunction, but they operate more from reason rather than psychotic emotion. It is women who are primarily to blame for the toxic, anti-truth world we are in now, and the Culture that raised them to behave this way!
Lol "men operate from reason" I guess starting World War III and doing mass shooting sprees speaks to that, truly. I wonder why males are 76% of Tinder then, when nearly 1/3 of those males are already married? Pure reason. Want to talk about psychopaths, their sex, and who causes the world's problems? Who's causing the problems in Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia? The females?
Btw, you come off as a very good-looking young man who has an easy time finding a date, not a bitter moid who gets rejected constantly.
The feminisms aren't teaching males how to traffic, rape, and abuse women--that's moid heroes like Andrew Tate and other pigs on podcasts like "Whatever."
You are the problem. Get a job.
Narcissistic, histrionic, self entitiled, mean, snotty girl.... it’s your feminine nature, you just can’t help but show that can you “girl boss.” Feminists have been put in charge for a couple of decades and all we got was the collapse of Western civilization and liberal values, and as anyone with a basic understanding of human nature would know, it could not have happened any other way?!
Put at the top of the hierarchy in academia, the female university President has created the proliferation of the Cluster B personality disorder, division among all groups of people, and mass hysteria based on faulty logic and neuroticism, a trait much higher in females than males. Thank you “girlboss,” you excel at being mean, snotty and vicious, and have made it perfectly clear why you were not meant for leadership roles to begin with, you don’t have the temperment that leads to human flourishing, only to division, strife and perpetual narcissistic nastiness.
Feminism is Marxism, it’s only purpose is to tear down and destroy, and some 60 odd years into this perverse psychopathy we can clearly see that it has all been a ruse. Thank you mean girl, you couldn’t have made it any more obvious!
While dating apps and social media undoubtedly distort the dating market, there are some underlying realities that younger people are attending to. Increasing numbers of men are avoiding relationships because they are becoming dangerous. MeToo and related phenomenon have changed behaviours. Men are constantly told not to approach women because it is creepy. This is especially true with fraternizing at work, which we are told is unacceptable.
As for marriage, in most Western nations when men are interviewed about why they are avoiding it they remind us they are actually avoiding divorce because the family courts are heavily skewed in favour of women.
The dating apps also reveal actual female behaviour. Over eighty percent of women chase the top five percent of men and ignore the rest. This distorts the perception of what is out there, especially for women. It is no exaggeration to say for women in their 20s many seem to be sleeping with the same handful of men. This is certainly true for those using the apps.
I have no solutions, except some kind of return to normality, people actually meeting in bars and socializing. But I suspect that is dead for Gen Z. That seems to be what they are predicting anyway.
I think that your comment kind of reinforces exactly what Freya is writing about, neither sex is interested in the issues the other is facing. If you don't think that relationships have been "dangerous" (to use your own word) for women consider research that found that over half of 18 to 24 year old UK women reported having been strangled by their partners during sex with many reporting the experience having been unwanted and frightening. On the point of divorce 65% of divorced mothers in the U.S. receive no child support. All this is not a tit for tat, it's to demonstrate that that dating, marriage, divorce, having kids is risky. Life is risky. It's important to try improve things as much as we can whilst also accepting that there is always going to be a certain amount of risk involved in joining your life with another person. But what is worse (at least in my opinion) is having nobody to spend your life with at all.
I was referring to danger as state-sanctioned ruination of a man's life, not poor choices of partners. We all accept risk. But men are making a cost/benefit analysis and clearly deciding it is not worth it.
Over 60 percent of young men in the US have no interest in pursuing women. And the family courts are clearly a major factor as is the constant pushing of the feminist agenda. They are just walking away. It is primarily women who are complaining about this too, not the men.
Perhaps you are right, although men are complaining of loneliness. On top of having no romantic relationship, more men will never be fathers than women will never be mothers. I think it is a sad solution for men but people are always free to choose to live their lives in whatever way they believe best serves their own interests.
Men have less of a drive to reproduce, and they also cope with solitude better than women. Obviously it is a bad situation for all concerned. But I do think women will seriously suffer. The demographic in the US with the highest use of antidepressants is childless women in their 40s. That number is set to grow if we don't make serious changes.
I am seeing a backlash against the radical feminists from women though. There is too much emphasis on careers and too little emphasis on women's innate drives like motherhood etc. The whole narrative around women can do it all is being challenged too. So who knows?
Lol "they cope better with solitude" Check the suicide rates, dear.
Men are literally disconnected from reality. You care about women's antidepressant use? Really? That's what drives you and other men? And your deep care for mothers?
Please just stop it. Like anyone believes this.
This is a good point and one I’ve not thought of yet: that the alpha male and girl boss types are just coping. For a while I just wrote them off quickly as dumb or selfish and didn’t give them much thought. In truth generally speaking they’re afraid. This I think tracks so much better with the primary motivators of our generation.
Fear is what drives our generation. We’re really afraid of the truth in general and are very uncomfortable with the emotions and feelings that being confronted with the truth bring up. I think obviously to a degree this is part of the human condition, but it is particularly striking in our generation. We’re afraid of commitment and sincerity. To anything really-- be that a lifestyle, a person, or something greater than ourselves joyful or sorrowful. We use memes or ideology to avoid confronting the truth of our situation. We’re afraid to take anything seriously even things that have the gravitas to demand us taking it seriously. Like I said these can be joy inspiring things or sorrow inspiring.
I think this is because we’re really uncomfortable with gray. Everything must be black and white. Of course the truth is solid and defined, but it’s our distorted perception which makes it gray. This is man’s lot. Our generation can’t take the truth seriously, can’t take weighty things seriously, because to do so would be to recognize something higher than ourselves which from our finite perspective necessitates a degree of mystery which for one reason or the other our generation can’t tolerate. So instead we try to bring the truth and things greater than us down to our level by memeing on it or by dumbing it down to ideological mush.
We, as a generation, can’t abide ambiguity, which is tragic. And as it turns out the most ambiguous thing for a young person is the other sex. So I think this utter detestation for ambiguity in our generation manifests itself most prominently in the so-called gender wars.
Andrew Tate is being tried for sex trafficking, rape, and kidnapping. Males pay him money for him to teach them how to be a pig like him through his "university."
This sounds like cope to you?
I agree with about 90% of this... to treat others as human, to see our similarities before our differences... BUT... is it really just GenZ? GenZ was born between 1998 and 2016... that's ages 7 through 24... half of GenZ are CHILDREN.
Probably we really mean "a few older GenZ" and mostly otherwise millennials under 40? No? most of the RedPills I debate online are in their 30s, not teenagers.
It is true that technology over the last 20 years has allowed people to live vicarious through electronics, phones, internet, dating apps, video games and this has tended to make them less likely to even WANT to go out (Oh and 2 years of pandemic too!) and to fear REAL REALITY over electronic babysitters.... I think this is why they date less.
Definitely a factor. Many talk about social anxiety, and dating is inherently anxiety inducing anyway.
Right on! I've been in a relationship for over 20 years now, so the whole modern app-based dating scene is not something I have experience with. My view of it from the outside is depressing as hell. You want to be able to find people to date more easily, sure; that sounds great. But if it's actually *easy*, then one or both parties get that "easy come, easy go" attitude and don't treat romantic relationships with the weight they deserve. You're trying to bond with somebody in such a way that you can fill in each other's gaps (yes, I heard it too; be mature) and look out for each other through the good times and the bad, hopefully into old age. If you can work that out with a super-devoted friend group, more power to you, but I only have the energy to bond with one person that way.
One of the best things about these posts. Freya, is that even though they're written in the first-person, the word "I" appears relatively little. Your pov is more "we" and "us" - the sign of a mature person able to see and understand the world collectively. Thank you for your authentic insights.
Your Awesome - thankyou for writing that. Im raising my boy without social media and hes doing great.
The fact that a show like Whatever even exists is the sign of a fragile culture obsessed with attention and exaggerated gender roles. The lack of substance is striking. Whatever is a cheap exploitation of a group of people who already exploit themselves. We can do so much better.
And you are one of the good women Freya, another good one as usual.
That's sweet. Thank you John!
No problem, you're very sweet yourself.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, only by being terrible do the latter avoid being comic.
I agree with most of this, but I think it underestimates just how poor quality of life partners both young men and young women are faced with in the modern world. Because people have been taught men and women are the same, both sexes have begun mirroring the traits they want in the opposite sex on the assumption that it is attractive - i.e. women have begun manifesting the traits they like in men, and vica versa.
On top of that, you have the unique challenges of each sex - porn has essentially ruined an entire generation of young men, and the encouragement of young women to sleep around and deliberately flaunt what most men find attractive has done the same to women.
So, while I actually agree with the talk of 'body count' in women - it's a much needed conversation that's been largely absent from the discussion entirely over the last 50 years - I can also have a lot of sympathy for young women. Men (quite rightly) don't want to marry whores or sluts, and no matter how much shaming you do that will never change, and the first step is actually pointing this out and talking about it. I really don't think women understand the degree this preference is ingrained in the male psyche
However, women (quite rightly) don't want to marry porn addicted losers, and I've heard many comments regarding such from young women, bemoaning in similar ways the lack of prospects on their side of the equation.
I think simply calling for an armistice in the 'gender war' as you say, isn't near enough. Fundamentally, in the west both sexes have become essentially unattractive to each other, for varying reasons. All the angst, while being amplified by social media, has a genuine frustration beneath it.
Take that away, and all you're left with is apathy. At least the frustration acknowledges a lack, a desire to reconcile and a hope for the future. Otherwise, the only other option is giving up entirely, which is basically what Gen Z is in the process of doing. The lack of sex and relationships is not being driven by frustration or anger, but the emotion that succeeds that - apathy. They just find very little attractive or worthwhile about the other sex, and so why even bother engaging?
I think this is largely true. The current prediction for Gen Z females is almost 50 percent will never find a husband or have children. Same for younger millenials. So it is not looking good.
Lol guess what--that means males aren't getting married, and they're the ones doing the chasing. So who is getting rejected?
Considering we're up 10x world population since 1800, I'm not that worried. You could have 3 generations average a birth rate of 1.0, and still be higher than 1800 levels.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
Let's be honest, it might be time to separate the chaff from the wheat just a bit. Survival of the fittest is always necessary.
Could be. I think the panic over population decline is economically driven. Profits lost because they are based on consumption. A view at odds with other forces like the climate fanatics.
Also we forget the leading European nations have always seen their populations wax and wane in tune with conditions. In times of plenty people married younger and had more kids. In hard times they delayed, reducing the number of kids.
In an era that promises automation and job losses a slight reduction could make more sense anyway.
That said, outright manipulation of people seems to be the culprit here. That is less good.
> outright manipulation of people seems to be the culprit here. That is less good
I agree, but here's a question. Which bothers you more: living in a world with manipulators, or living in a world where the majority are easily manipulated.
The older I get, the more I see that people get the leaders they deserve. There have always been castes / hierarchies of people: workers, fighters, rulers, priests. Will it ever change, doubtful.
> the leading European nations have always seen their populations wax and wane
It never leaves my mind that the black plague preceded the renaissance.
Today's plague is cultural, but may have a similar effect. In the broadest sense the psychologically weak are producing fewer kids. This natural process is being distorted because of mass immigration though. So the remaining population dynamic will likely be violent.
Powerful manipulators and the easily manipulated are both worrying. I want neither, although accept both are always present. As with Covid, the best approach is personal immunity or at least habits that bolster our immune systems, not someone else's rushed vaccine.
Young people are having less sex than ever, so young women aren't "sleeping around," though porn addiction is skyrocketing among young men. Please stop with your hysteria of slutty women when the truth is men are basically brain damaged and trying to ruin young girls' lives with AI faked nudes now. Look it up.
And btw, Tinder is 76% male. So who is chasing whom here?