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Bit of an odd way of phrasing it, considering I just wrote a post a few days ago where I said "we need to look at structural factors for the downturn in dating and not just individual factors".
So why, in spite of that, do you perhaps perceive that I still put a strong emphasis on individual factors?
One of my biggest pet peeves is whining. I can't stand whining. I'm empathetic to a great many things, I pride myself on my ability to consider things from other people's perspectives in fact, but even then, my sympathy has limits. And one of the fastest ways to make me lose sympathy for your cause is for you to start whining about it. We've all got a sob story, and rare is the stranger who will care about yours.
There's a very fine line between whining, and suffering just the right amount of righteous indignation so that you're actually motivated to go out and do something about what's bothering you. A very fine line indeed. It's a tough line to navigate, it requires judgement. We would never be motivated to change anything at all if we didn't suffer some sort of emotional wound. And "doing something" may, indeed, involve enlisting other people to our cause. But you have to thread the needle where you manage to do all that without being a bitch about it.
I'm not criticizing lonely men from the outside. I'm on the inside with all of you! I have a long history of being spectacularly unsuccessful with women. Like, actually embarrassing shit that I still cringe about when I remember years later. I'm a weirdo autist, I can't hold a normal conversation with a normal human. Women, predictably, find these traits repellent. So I know what it's like to suffer.
But I don't just go bitch and moan in the corner about how the world's unfair and how people should like me more and how we need "communism for pussy" as @HughCaulk so eloquently put it. What I do instead is I look in the mirror and say, "I'm a weirdo autist. That's not going to change. That's what we have to work with. So it's time to figure out how to make the best of that, rather than getting all mopey about it."
You are, apparently, suffering from some financial troubles. I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. But there are lots of poor people who fuck, y'know? There are poor people fucking right now, as we speak. There are even poor people in committed long term relationships. You could be one of them. What's stopping you?
It always comes back to your attitude, y'know? Forget about the structural and the individual and the historical and the metapsychological and whatever the fuck else it is. Think about your attitude first. Are you happy with your attitude, or are you being a bitch? Start there.
I read your linked comment and right at the end:
Yes, this is almost precisely what I said about you.
And then this claim:
Is ironic because the communism has been benefiting the 'pussy' for years now.
Like, every single change to the economic structure of the country for the last 50 years has been in favor of women and against men. Tax money flows to help women get medical care (including abortions), to get into school, to get hired, and to otherwise live independently. This is generally pulled from the pockets of the most productive men. All the material wealth they rely on comes from male-dominated industries.
Its male labor all the way down.
So basically, the only thing that ISN'T being redistributed is pussy.
This is the core asymmetry that makes men feel as though the social contract is not working in their favor at all.
MY suggested solution isn't communism for pussy (I DARE you to find where I suggest it), and is dismantling some of the communism that's already in palce.
Negative. I'm making more now than I was with her, and more than, I believe, 90% of my age cohort.
I'm simply pointing out that I'd be way better off if the woman I thought was worth keeping had stuck around.
And that most women would be financially better off if they settled with a decent guy early on.
That's it. Save me the patronization, I have no need.
Ask the dozen or so women I've tried to date in the past couple years.
Literally none of them, LITERALLY ZERO have gone on to find fulfilling stable relationships. This mystified me until I did the research. Its simply because EVERYONE is encountering difficulties.
Some of them became single moms, some decided to get into deeper debt for a master's degree, some of them got fat. Some just putter along on their course.
If I was the problem, why weren't they scooped up by a better man?
I'm satisfied with literally every aspect of my life aside from the romantic one. I love my job, make good money, I'm in great shape, I instruct at my gym, I've got a healthy routine, a house (a rarity amongst my peers), a dog, a dedicated and supportive friend group, and enough free time to pursue some hobbies.
Life is objectively great. But that just makes the one portion that ain't working out all the more obvious.
Indeed, part of the issue is most women can't even meet my basic expectations for fitness, fiscal responsibility, and mental stability. And the ones that can are taken.
In other words, you have entirely and utterly misjudged my actual material position AND my arguments on this particular topic. And I don't consider my personal material position relevant to the argument anyway. I'm here advocating on behalf of guys who are worse off than me, so you can't just dismiss me as a miserable incel.
I don't just care about the men... I notice that WOMEN are dissatisfied with things as well. they've got everything they claim to want, and they're miserable.
But you don't tell THEM to put on their big-girl-pants and suck it up, do you?
What is annoying is that, as stated, the spiritual boomers don't want to ever, EVER admit that maybe we need to put a tad less pressure on men and tad more pressure on women.
Because as I've said before, what do you think happens when the current generation of young men hit their 30's, have no family, no marital prospects, poor economic prospects, and yet are continually blamed and put down as though its all their fault?
Seriously. What do you expect? I'm genuinely curious.
This was the most frustrating asymmetry that drove me crazy when I was on the market. Putting in serious effort to be fit, financially stable, mentally stable, well-rounded, interesting hobbies, solid friend group, and all the other many attributes that high quality male candidates are supposed to have, only to be confronted with legions of single women doing, at best, a few of those things. It seemed like the women doing most/all of those things got married to someone they met in college or grad school.
This is a long story, but I'm getting to a point, I swear.
A buddy of mine in college converted to Mormonism to date a girl. He was a character, but this story is going to be winding enough without getting into that. One day we went over to his girlfriend's house to meet before we all left to go see Lord of the Rings in theaters. I forget which one, maybe Fellowship. It doesn't matter.
It's around Christmas time, and this huge Mormon family is bursting at the seems with wholesome energy. Every little girl wants to show you want they've been baking with their mother. Every little boy wants to show you their somersault or some trick. The house is decorated, the Christmas tree is up, good times. So me and a buddy of mine are awkwardly sitting in the living room, not really sure what to do or say because this is not a vibe we grew up with. In addition to our usual awkwardness I might add. And two of these kids are throwing a little toy football closer and closer to the Christmas tree. My buddy and I, we don't say anything, but we're looking at each other with a panicked expression that needs no words. We are both thinking, if that ball actually hits that tree, a kid is gonna die in front of us.
Anyways, ball hits the tree, ornaments fall, train doing loops around the base falls over aaaaaaaand.... nothing. Dad chuckles, asks them to take it outside, life carries on like nothing ever happened. The boys clean up the mess they made and go throw the ball around outside. After my buddy and I piled into the car to go see the movie once everyone had arrived, we talked about how Christmas was at our homes growing up. How the house was transformed into a veritable museum of Christmas, and our mothers would fly into a violent rage if they so much as heard an ornament jingle due to a single heavy step within 20 feet of the tree. And it slowly dawned on us, that we were the fucked up ones. That family we just visited, they were the happy well adjusted ones.
It sucks realizing in your 20's that you were raised wrong. And not just "could have done better, but basically OK", but fundamentally the opposite of how you should have been raised. With all your intuitions about family dynamics and how to view and treat loved ones horrifically and possibly permanently miswired. It sucks watching the increasingly small demographic of well adjusted, family oriented peers you may have politely filtering you out and pairing off. It sucks getting older and realizing, you've been left behind with the other rejects, and now you've got to find the least damaged item in the returns bin to try to build a life with, knowing full well that's all you are to someone else as well.
I have no fucking clue how I did it. I have no fucking clue how anyone else is expected to do it today, except that it seems even more impossible, and the odds even more remote. But it sucks seeing all the "good ones" taken, and it hurts even worse realizing that goes for you too.
Yeah. And it's hard because so many damaged items in the return bin are still convinced they're the well-adjusted ones.
I think a lot about gambling apps in this context. There has been a lot of talk about them, how frictionless they make it to part with literally all your money. How if you actually do make money off them, they ban you. How, against the law, they personally call their worst addicts and entice them to gamble more. There is an argument I've seen made that if we are going to allow gambling, we need to add as much friction as possible to the experience to try to save people from themselves.
Similar care needs to be taken with those of us who end up in the returned goods bin. We don't need tiktok gassing us up about our worth, or dating apps dangling imaginary chads or stacies in front of our noses. We need examples of how non-broken people act in healthy, fruitful monogamous relationships treat one another, and maybe even the fear of god to scare us straight. Or something, anything. Just not this. Anything but this.
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It is indeed a pretty brutal and humbling realization. I knew exactly what you were going to talk about with the Christmas tree!
Having parents explode with anger at children is a terrible thing, and I pray I don't end up doing it if I'm blessed with kids. Except in rare circumstances, of course.
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