Like, why is it so widespread, what causes it, what solutions are available, etc. I don’t really know how to ask this question so I hope I’m making sense
Toxic gender norms hurt everyone.
I think this is exacerbated by certain people online who want to capitalize on the issue and scapegoat others (see the manosphere and how they talk about feminism) instead of actually addressing the problem
Edit: a little plug for https://lemmy.ca/c/mensliberation
There’s a few factors working together to cause it. There’s really two main ones: pressure to have sex and romantic connection, and an inability to be able to make those connections.
There’s tons and tons of pressure out there about being in a relationship and having sex. In modern day, a good example is Andrew Tate and the like, directly linking your self worth to having sex. Back when I was a male teenager during the days of rage comics and advice animals, it was memes about the friend zone. The core idea is the same, being alone is something to be ashamed and upset about. Being rejected is something that reflects badly upon you as a person. Young men are constantly being bombarded with messaging about how being a man revolves around sex and romance, and lacking these things makes you less of a man. In addition, so much media portrays sex both as this amazing thing on a pedestal and as something that’s not just commonplace but as something that everyone’s expected to be doing.
So young men are believing that everyone except them are all in relationships and/or fucking all the time, and believing that them not doing those things makes worth less as a human being.
The other problem is actually making romantic or otherwise meaningful connections. So much more socializing is online these days, and there are a lot fewer women on the internet than men. It’s difficult to make organic connections with single women online, as random social media is by far mostly male and more direct closer friend groups tend to be made of single men and people in relationships (this is very arbitrary and circumstancial, it’s just what I’ve noticed). So, your odds of finding a single and compatible friend of a friend of a friend online aren’t great, and dating apps are complete trash for pretty much anything other than gay hookups. So, there’s not really a way for many young men to find romantic partners. Straight up hookups are easier, especially if your standards aren’t too high, but it’s an area a lot of young men aren’t socially comfortable with because it’s not something they’ve done a lot of, which makes everything much harder.
In the end, if there wasn’t so much pressure to be dating and having sex, then the difficulty of doing so in the modern day wouldn’t matter so much.
Personally, I’ve basically only had sex with men, because it’s so much more straightforward and the dating pool isn’t crazy lopsided. Though that’s at an end now too, because I’ve transitioned too much to be appealing to gay men anymore and haven’t transitioned nearly enough to be appealing to straight men or gay women.
I don’t even think it’s an exclusively male thing. It’s just getting harder and harder to meet people and mingle. Men are just feeling it harder and sooner.
It’s harder to meet people now. I think part of it is:
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That people used to be bored. You would make entertainment where you could find it, and two bored people can rapidly get entertained. Now you have a phone that makes you not bored, and de-incentivizes face to face interaction.
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There used to be more places where people interacted. Masons, elk lodge, unions, they would often serve alcohol at events, for dirt cheap. They were known as third places, somewhere other than work and home. One thing I hear from a lot of smokers is that the smoking areas are where people hang out to talk, and they do. It’s where conversations happen at a club. It gives you something to do when you’re not talking, a reason to stand somewhere close to people, and a perfect excuse to jump into a conversation. It’s kinda infuriating that it also shaves two minutes off your life -_-.
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People have less time. Younger generations are working multiple jobs, gigs with unpredictable hours, often times having commutes of an hour which turns a 9 to 5 into an 8 to 6, and spending all their vacation hours on the shit that has to be done on a weekday like the DMV or the like. How are you supposed to make a friend when schedules differ so much that a spreadsheet is required to make it work?
Male culture also tends to avoid building real relationships and hiding their feelings, and depending on how they look people are scared to be around them. Effort needs to be taken for most men to unlearn toxic traits of the past, which it seems like younger kids today are getting better at avoiding, but there’s definitely a handicap for most men here.
What happens to a man when he shares his feelings? Has that ever gone well for any male since the evolution of meiosis?
This is part of man culture that we men need to change one step at a time. Instead we bully each other over it.
No we don’t. That’s a feminist lie. The women whose political power depends on maintaining a perpetual state of victimhood by blaming every single thing on men would have you believe that.
Men will have conversations like this:
“Tiffany left me.”
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“Really?”
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swig of beer
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“Yeah. Said I’m not ‘available enough.’”
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swig of beer
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“Shit dude.”
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“Yeah.”
Enough information is shared for one man to put himself in the other’s shoes, think about what he went through, and arrive at the same place for himself. That need women have to put their feelings into words to yap at each other is just a symptom of their abject inability to empathize with their fellow sentient beings.
You know what doesn’t occur to men to share with other men? “Breaking news, this just in from our correspondants in the field: Nothing continues to happen.” In fact I’m going to go post that to the Dull Men’s Club community and see what comments that attracts.
No, the people who will destroy you for being anything other than fine are the women in your life. Your mother, your sisters, your daughters, whatever name your sexual partner(s) insist on being called. They’re the ones who will kick you the hardest when you’re down. You will never be more alone than when you’re surrounded by women.
As someone who had very different experiences with women and prefers opening up to them over men, I can assure you that there is a healthier way of living out there and I hope you can let go of your bitterness some day.
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