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I think this is leaving out another viable life path that satisfies all the criteria you're ascribing to women:
Have a kid with a man who has proven wealth/means, then demonstrate his paternity or marry him. Then have a court of law require him to pay for the child's upbringing until age 18. If married then you can get some alimony too out of the divorce. And a bonus there is you can then find another man who might be willing to pitch in some support too and 'double dip'. For some reason the term 'divorce' doesn't appear anywhere in your original post.
And from the man's perspective, either of those is probably a worst case scenario.
Either the man is a cad who doesn't WANT to support kids and is now tied to them for years on end.
Or it was a man who really wanted to have a family for the long term, would have supported them anyway, and yet gets them ripped away on the say of the woman he trusted, with no real recourse.
Woman gets her support and control, man gets...
And we're seeing the emergence of a strange additional option as well:
Pop out a billionaire's kid on the downlow and he pays a very generous amount to keep you and the child in comfort even if he's not particularly involved, as long as he thinks it is actually his kid. I won't pretend this path is all that common, though.
This really goes AGAINST your point here, though:
The 'reproduction thing' seems to come easiest to men who are the least trustworthy, most ruthless, most wealthy, and generally most 'aggressive' about what they want. Yes, some of them can ACT like they're trustworthy, but only as a means to get what they want. And this works about as well as being 'actually' trustworthy.
Being 'trustworthy' just makes you an easier mark. You'll accept a woman you believe is committed to you, do EVERYTHING you can to prove your commitment, and she can still leave on a comparative whim and hang support obligations around your neck on the way out.
The game theory here is not favorable to being the guy who truly commits, when the risk is the woman has no reciprocal investment and can defect at will, and 'retaliating' against her is legally forbidden.
In short, I think you're arguing as though women shoulder most of the risks in the current romantic equation.
When there's a serious argument that it works the opposite way. Society is built around protecting women from any and all threats.
This includes the threat of homelessness and poverty. Men, generally, foot the bill for all this protection, and yet are also forced to pay out to the particular woman who defects from them on top of that.
And so the man is risking HUGE sums of his personal wealth (bought by his own time, efforts, sweat, etc.) to TRY to keep the woman around.
And men have to offer some extreme value ON TOP of that protection (because the protection is provided as a baseline by society) to acquire a woman's commitment, and even then he has no recourse if she decides she doesn't want to stay anymore. And if he married her, she gets to siphon off resources from him to support herself and her kids ANYWAY.
Leaving out this side of the equation makes your overall argument here more dubious, in my opinion.
(and I will surely admit that women DO risk being severely injured or killed by their partner, but this is strongly mediated by factors that she can also control).
You’re right about divorce as a path for extremely cynical women. If I were writing about the man’s perspective, this comes front and center. He’s devoting so much of his life to her! What if she just takes it from him, with the blessing of the courts? It’s genuinely unsettling. But, in that other hypothetical post, I wouldn’t be talking about cads. I don’t think (or hope) my audience is cads, or people interested in cads, and the same goes for the female equivalent.
Divorce is honestly another point of risk for an honest woman, just like it is for an honest man. Risk hitting your mid-thirties with no loyal man, and either no children or worse - children? It’s kind of awful to think about. But the post was already meandering a little for my tastes.
Yes, of course I agree a man needs standards. I have standards, and I insisted my wife meet them (kindly and firmly in the dating stage - and no, not about petty things like how I wanted my breakfast cooked).
But that doesn’t undercut the fact that what underwrites those standards is a man’s reliability and character. I’ve been performing a little personal ethnography on this forum, and in my own life, and the men who are happily married tend to be extraordinarily solid and secure in their opinions, thoughtful and caring about women’s perspectives (NOT a dogwhistle for mainstream feminism), and with a great focus on their own ability to be trusted. And this is something that good women, women who clearly enjoy the high opinions of their husbands and of me (should I meet them), deeply desire.
Anyway. I don’t think women have greater risks in dating, or that men do, for that matter. I tend to agree that the risks are mostly around discerning good from bad, and that’s hairy both ways. But learn good from bad one must do, or at least learn the methods of getting wiser friends to help, if one wishes to make anything of oneself. But I’m sympathetic to your worries, and hope you find a woman who allows you to lay them aside.
I'M not the one you have to worry about.
The Zoomers are not okay.
And the women are not happy.
Your platitudes appear to be missing something LARGE, and it really isn't explained by men being inadequately reliable.
It’s entirely possible that the women are unhappy because gen Z guys(I won’t get into the discussion of what qualifies as a man) are inadequate and that their standards are either very reasonable or only slightly high. Porn and gambling addictions, for example, are much more widespread in this generation than in the previous ones, and male employment is often less stable.
Its MORE likely that Gen Z guys are "inadequate" because
A) They've grown up in a society that both teaches them they're worthless AND that women are inherently better than them. (also gives them almost no real 'purpose' to contribute to)
B) The women they interact with have ALSO ingested that same message, and will reinforce it to those men.
C) There's literally no reward for resisting this message, and fewer women are worth BECOMING adequate for.
I dunno, I think that's the basic causal situation. There's literally no other way you can spin it.
And this just swept up young guys on its own? A bunch of guys just UNILATERALLY, for no reason whatsoever, decided not to become worthy? Just like that?
Why?
The end result being that women are unhappy seems incidental to the devaluation of masculinity.
"What's the reward for passing the years grinding hard and working on yourself?"
"If you're lucky, maybe one day you'll meet a girl who'll settle down with you after she's had her fun."
"What's the reward for passing the years gooning and goombling?"
"If you're lucky, maybe one day you'll meet a girl who'll settle down with you after she's had her fun."
"Well then..."
Well that's the first time I've read the term "goombling.'
But yeah, and the second course does at least offer a small (vanishingly small, but present) chance that you actually hit it rich and can, if you're halfway smart, parlay that into some semblance of 'happiness.'
The former course has a lot of fringe benefits, yet the task of convincing another human being to come into and stay in your life for the long term does NOT become much easier the more effort you put into it. The social pressures you're fighting are simply beyond what any one person could oppose. Hence even billionaires don't bother.
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Ha yeah. A good instance of "Should you reverse any advice you hear?"
The struggling young man who finds it plausible that he needs to be more trustworthy to attract women instead needs to dial his perceived trustworthiness down and "toxic masculinity" way up—and to see as examples, "am I fighting for a spot no one wants??!!" or "somewhat cute, non-threatening appearance" from the "guy who likes you but you're not quite attracted to him starterpack."
The modal trustworthy husband and father of two gets deadbedroom'd and is invisible to other women when he's not wearing his wedding ring; a husband and father of two who murders his wife and daughters gets love letters in prison:
Must be bro's elite trustworthiness.
Yup.
I happen to think being trustworthy will in fact help you find a good woman.
But it won't hope you attract women in general.
Which is a necessary step in most cases.
I've realized that the 'cheat code' is buying a motorcycle and getting ostentatious tattoos and at least one (1) subversive piercing. Nips, large gauges in the ears, Prince Albert, I think even nose piercings 'work' for guys these days. Its an old, OLD trick but it still works if you're willing to at least LARP the part.
This signals enough riskiness to get the initial interest going.
Meanwhile, if you're good looking AND you work as hard as you can to be perceived as 'safe' and 'reliable' you're effectively squandering that natural advantage, and you're more likely going to be defected against when she realizes there are no consequences for doing so, you won't even raise your voice to yell at her.
I watched it happen to a buddy of mine. He was the literal pinnacle of 'ideal' hubby. Successful (heir to a large regional chain of interior decor stores, pulling down six figs), charming and witty, even though he's not an Adonis, popular among his friends, takes the wife on trips, indulges her whims, but also makes sure he has time for his own (nerdy) hobbies. Not a pushover, but would never dream of striking or upsetting her. Marries a very mid but definitely cute wife. They have an expensive fairy-tale wedding, honeymoon, etc. etc.
And three years into the marriage, for no reason that I can even decipher, she just up and leaves him, he tries counseling, gives it every single try for reconciliation, and no dice. THANKFULLY it ended up being an 'uncontested' divorce with no kids (despite him being VERY CLEAR up front that he wanted kids, remember that family business he's got).
In an 'ideal' world this should never happen, he played everything 'by the rules.' And still lost.
A good woman, of course, won't do this, but if you're a safe, 'boring' type of guy then you won't have your choice of woman to even try and zero in on the 'good' ones.
If you choose a couple stats to max out, trustworthy probably shouldn't be one of them.
In recent years, I've wondered if this will soon come full circle and being tattoo-less and piercing-less (especially the former) will become the rebellious and subversive thing to do, given their overall saturation and their increasing association with numale-adjacent caricatures. In the MMA realm, for example, I've seen Costa*, Dricus, the Russian Muslim fighters, etc. get confused praise (in the unironically "wtf I love [x]?"-type sentiment) for being tattooless in a sport where tattoos are commonplace, like a "fuck you" to mainstream Western trends and a greater signal of confidence to not hide behind ink. Although if you're a famous MMA fighter, your stats (tattoos or not) are already high.
* Costa actually has at least one tattoo, but it's hard to see so people think of him as tattooless. He's tattooless-passing, I suppose.
The mainstream rejoinder would be that your buddy must had been No True Trustworthy Husband or his wife would never have left him—that he must had become lazy or neglectful after marriage-trapping her, was financially or emotionally abusive behind the scenes, or thought of her as a broodmare for the family business. He's not entitled to her as his wife and she's free to change her mind about children and the marriage after the wedding; YTA for having such a potentially abusive man-child with his nerdy hobbies and faMiLy bUsInEsS as your "buddy."
Yep. But I spent a lot of time hanging out with him in a variety of circumstances and I have not gotten an INKLING that he was anything other than what he presents himself as. Never heard a whisper of an accusation of abuse.
If there was ever a paradigm of the "non-toxic" masculinity that feminists proclaim they want (I know, I know), he was it.
The biggest critique you could level against him is that he is a bit of a manchild when it came to hobbies. But he had his life completely in order otherwise, he was REALLY GOOD at his hobbies (Magic: The Gathering is one of them) and perhaps most importantly: his wife was into nerdy hobbies too!
While they were married his wife went and got her Master's Degree, so I could have ascribed their split to her getting 'overeducated' compared to him. But shortly thereafter Bro went and got his MBA so he was matching her beat for beat.
Learning what happened to them soured my last bit of optimism for forming relationships in the current era. She was a 6 at best, raised in a traditional family, had a relatively low body count (i.e. they met while she was in college, around age 21, so she hadn't had that much time to sleep around), she was a sorority girl (and not the blonde bimbo stereotype), he had tons of money, was willing to spend it on her, no red flags, and while they were together they pretty much presented as having everything they wanted. And it wasn't enough to make it even 4 years into a marriage (they dated for about 2.5 before they got engaged).
My one theory is that she watched a few of her friends go through breakups and complain about their men and got incepted with the idea that either she could do better if she left him (i.e. she married too early) or that he was going to become an abusive monster at some point and she better get out before then.
Sounds like it's a college/no-kids problem to me. Why didn't she want kids with this super financially stable, nice guy? She mustn't have really loved him. Expensive wedding is also a bad sign. Obviously you know more about this matter.
Sometimes you just roll a bad woman, I think she wasn't the right class for him. There's a certain kind of highly educated woman who just wouldn't divorce a nice guy like that due to how unseemly it would be, who acts rationally (aside from more politics/feels stuff), who's well-off but doesn't need an expensive wedding. There are gradations in the upper middleclass where you find such women. On the other hand, these are the kind who'd never settle with anyone with an MBA, the kind who looks down on investment bankers for being too stupid and greedy since everyone in the social circle is assumed to be rich. Rare, perhaps vanished breed.
Problem is she presented mostly green flags.
A lot of anxiety lurking under the surface, but she carried herself well, was active in her Sorority, held down a job, had a decent education background, and close family too.
I spent a lot of time with both of them over Covid times since it was very hard to socialize otherwise and we lived close to each other. I would have judged her as a woman with a "good head on her shoulders" and generally "responsible." Slightly antisocial but was not unpleasant to be around.
She's pushing 30 now, and I have it on very good authority that she spends most of her evenings playing MMOs and other video games, no social life to speak of. Its very much a damn shame. Just never gained maturity?
Its not clear what she was 'fleeing' from in the marriage, other than perhaps the ultimate expectation that they would have kids and raise 'em together.
(Absurd simplification) Oh, so she's [platonically] transgender, got [by that definition] gay married, and it just didn't work out.
She might have been running from (or in this case, devoured by) that thing.
It's very hard to describe what that thing is. People call it "anxiety", but that's just a symptom (or how it manifests) and not the actual problem. I am, related to, and know a higher-than-average number of people like this.
I legitimately think it's related to sociopathy in the sense that predicting and manipulating human outcomes is important, and a skill that we have, but whereas sociopathy typically manifests itself as "I don't care lol, just be as destructive as possible" this is "I actually care a great deal about positive outcomes (and will create them whenever possible) and have an absurdly internal locus of control (and start malfunctioning when this is disrupted for no good reason- these people tend to be political contrarians for that reason too), but the prediction software that returns answers for how other people will react to me is failing to come up with the correct answer".
In technical fields, people call this "burnout". The symptoms are the same and what causes it is... also the same- software people will recognize this as that thing that happens that makes you far more tired than usual if you make no progress on a particular problem for a long time (configuration problems and poor documentation tend to trigger this).
That thing is what happens when that burnout generalizes to human beings when you have that defect that makes you see human beings as indistinguishable from other systems more generally. Everyone else has instincts to deal with this, or doesn't deal with it as hard because the volume is turned down, but we don't.
I don't have a solution for that thing other than "find other people who are also afflicted with [or understand/have a lot of trust in people who exhibit] that thing, then stick close to them". That is likely no longer an option in this case.
I think I know what you're talking about, and I, too, have seen it more often than I'd like.
People get some deep sense of unease or a feeling of 'impending doom' that doesn't seem to be caused by any one factor in their life. They feel tired and 'stuck' and feel like IF ONLY they could figure out what the cause was they could finally break through and be happy.
And so they start to assume its because of their job, or their location, or their significant other. SOMETHING that is omnipresent in their life, just as the feelings are.
Couple it with some existential "What am I doing with my life/where am I going?" angst.
I saw something similar with me Ex. She would pick up a new hobby or distraction or obsession and, like clockwork, abandon it without hesitation at about the six month mark.
Any given thing she took up, unless external factors forced the issue, she'd eventually just stop doing it when it became too stressful or difficult and she would then zero in on a new thing to try.
And of course eventually ditched me, too.
Tend to agree that it manifests in people who have an internal locus of control, but very bad model of other people. They THINK they can enact the changes that need to happen, and they aren't really considering the impact on others when they do it.
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This is simply the best way of putting it. The conversation on these issues is always completely upside down. When it comes to reproduction, women hold virtually all of the power. Holding men more accountable for it will have little effect, save only though indirect splash damage at best.
I would add the caveat that women hold most of the power over the majority of men WHILE a particular class of man is still able to ultimately get what he wants and ignore the consequences at will. So women can still CLAIM that men are privileged and running things b/c at the very top levels, this is still true.
And this is the lesson I 'fear' young men are learning. If you're an average man, your life is going to be subjugated to female whims from birth until almost death. If you piss off, harm, or otherwise insult a woman you will be pilloried and probably locked out of the reproductive success game entirely.
UNLESS you're in the top 20% of males by status. Wait now its 10%. Now its 1%. Now its .1%. Those guys can flout social rules, laws, and ignore female complaints to just take the thing they want at will. Its good to be the king.
Guys who grow up being viscerally aware of the game and their place in it are either going to compete AGGRESSIVELY to take one of those top slots, and thereby keep raising the level of competition to even higher levels, or will drop out entirely rather than support the 'rigged contest.
The nasty part here is that a lot of the hazards you mention have ceiling effects that allow defectbots to ignore them at the margin. A career criminal can't have his income garnished because all his income is off the books, he can't have his career damaged more than it already is because he already fails background checks and criminals don't care, and he can't have his dating prospects damaged because they already consist solely of "women who don't realise, or don't care, that he's a career criminal" (with admittedly an exception for time he actually spends in jail if he's caught raping/beating his girlfriend).
This is a special case of the more general issue that if you grade on a strict pass/fail with stringent conditions for passing, then the middle road and low road lead to the same place, which is a big problem if you want people to pick the middle road over the low road (and for all values of "you" that are thinking consequentially from the standpoint of society, you do; you are not God making a judgement after the end of the universe, which means that simply exterminating everyone who didn't pull off the high road tends to end badly and even if somehow implemented is likely to kick you below replacement).
Yep.
There's a 'clumping' effect on the bottom end when there aren't strong incentives to stay in the middle road (due to that not getting you what you want, and STILL carrying the risk of losing it all) and its too hard to climb to the top rungs (without a ton of help).
You either have so much wealth that you can afford to lose tons of it, or you have like NO wealth, and don't give a single care due to having nothing TO lose.
And as you indicated (and as young men are noticing...) if you can't catapult yourself to the former position of fuck you, then it starts making MORE sense to drop down the to latter, lower position, because at least you can do what you WANT to do, rather than play by rules you can't change and punish you heavily.
If the middle position is the only one where punishments matter, very few will want to stay there, even if its overall best for the collective.
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