Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back

We need deep diving investigations to figure out the exact mechanics of it.

A lot of men are just tired of it and have better things to do than sit there and be an object of ridicule and accusation. This entire article there is zero self-reflection on women's contribution to the withdrawal of men from the dating scene. This kind of attitude and her own admission where her life has been spent toward the manipulation of men. Men recognize this and at some level they were willing to go along with it if they felt there was some sort of reciprocity but in my own personal experience over the last decade of trying to date there isn't anymore.

Women that I've tried to date, and you can go look at the dating profiles, seem too largely be concerned with how men can act as a court jester and entertain them. So many are filled with don't be boring, I'm sorry if you find me boring but that seems to reflect more upon you and having no actual hobbies or interests or things that you know how to engage with than it does with me. My personal experience is that women seem to be obsessed with the pageantry of a relationship and of dating. Of going out and being seen on a date rather than actually engaging in any meaningful way with a partner. When they're obsessed with taking selfies to put on social media to proclaim that they're dating or worse yet to shame that they're on a date and it's boring that shows that they don't really have any desire to engage with the other person they just want other people to know what's going on in their life.

So the men aren't jerking off at home they're just asking what happened to the women. Because most men have hobbies and interests and other things to do that don't involve bragging on social media to make themselves feel important. They genuinely enjoy their hobbies because they genuinely enjoy them. Sometimes they find groups and other people that they can share them with sometimes they're happy to do them alone. Because they're not bored with themselves because they themselves are not boring people. They know how to engage and take an interest in someone.

So the men are here but they're asking the same question where have the women gone that are genuinely interested in a relationship. The women that aren't interested in having arm candy for their pictures or how much money a man can spend. The men want to know where is the good woman that is going to be interested in what he has to say and she is going to have something to say as well that doesn't involve attention on social media from thousands of other men.

So this is a two-way street here. The women have changed and so the men have changed. If you look at the studies you'll find women's happiness has gone down over time but men's has remained the same or gone up. So I think instead of complaining where the men have gone a bit of self-reflection, you know that thing you've asked men to do to get in touch with themselves, women need to do that as well.

She did it. She really did it.

She did the Who Killed Hannibal Meme.

"The infrastructures of intimacy — slowness, curiosity, accountability — have been eroded by haste, convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat."

I loved her writing but I really wished she had gone on to ask "Why?" Why have men retreated as she says not with hostility but with indifference?

I'm in a decades long loving marriage and have a bunch of loving kids who all want to get married and raise their own families. I am proud as a father to have been a good role model in that manner. I married a woman who was sure she never wanted to marry or have kids. We were married just prior to what I feel was the popularization of the term "toxic masculinity" first coined in the 80s to name (and counter?) the rise of the men's metal health movement. A movement that I freely admit has hyper-toxic off-shoots today.

Here is the thing though. For a generation boys and men have been told that masculinity is toxic not that some extreme elements and fringe behaviors are toxic just as some fringe beliefs of many sub-cultures are toxic but all masculinity. We were told that women didn't need men and in fact preferred if we did not interact with them at all under almost any circumstance. Girls were better off in gender segregated classrooms, boys needed to be medicated at school just to be teachable. Women just wanted to go out in public and do their own thing without being "creeped on". Are there creeps out there? Is sexual assault a problem, sure, absolutely but again, the message from society was not that fringe inappropriate behavior was toxic, but that everything male was toxic.

So, what did men, particularly the "good" ones, do? They retreated, not with hostility but indifference. The last thing "good men" wanted was to offend or be label as a toxic problem. Since any interaction with a stranger was bad and sometimes you needed a written contract to kiss after a date, good men got the message and heeded it. I'm not saying an unwanted kiss is a good thing, but what was the larger message being sent to the "good guys" who might actually care how women feel? The message to those "good guys" was "we don't need you, we don't want you around, you're disruptive in the classroom and at work and we would all be better off if you did not exist.".

One of the more positive vestigial remnants of the men's mental health movement teaches/talks about Stoicism. The retreat of men from social places and society is not due to a desire for haste or convenience. It is a stoic reaction to being told for a generation that being a man was bad for society. The sad truth today is that men don't need women or in fact other men to find purpose or diversion. A hard lesson well taught to us by society.