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Here are some thought on the current relationship recession going on.
I've always felt like our society has had a hard time talking to young men about dating, sex, and what it means to be a man. We are basically just throwing them them to the wolves and and having them figure it out for themselves. This results in bad outcomes for both parties: Men being seen as "creepy" for not being able woo a woman smoothly. & women being disappointed in the interactions and not being able to find a prince charming.
On top of culture being abysmal at talking about the problem productively, we now live in a service economy that requires social skills and knowledge to move up the ladder. Gone are the days where one could get a factory job for 40 years and call it a day; those jobs have been automated or offshored to china. But increasingly, young men have fallen behind young women in education: creating a situation where they essentially are locked out of this service economy due to the credential requirements.
Now, being in this young male category myself, ive been pondering solutions for a while now, and i've also notice that this forum doesnt really talk about solutions to the many cultural issues, so im throwing my hat into the ring on what i believe willl be effective, based on the research and data ive collected.
"New Masculinity"
So its apparent in the majority of cases, that societies judge men (primarily) by one large metrics:
The ability to climb up social hierarchy to obtain status.
Most of the other judgements that we place upon men are downstream of this one thing (virgin men being losers/incels, calling men broke, being called a pussy or a weakling ect) Being weak, lacking confidence, hinders once ability to obtain status. Being a incel/virgin indicates that you have skill issues with women. Homeless men are often looked at as "lazy" or "bums". Im not saying i agree with these - but thats how its perceived.
Old Masculinity: being overly independent, not wanting help, being a misogynistic tough guy, or shunning emotion ("boys dont cry") are things that arguably need to be left behind, and didnt serve us in the past and they dont serve us now. But there are obviously elements worth preserving: Being strong, tough, courageous, protective, ect.
If you can make things happen, be socially savvy, be dominant & soft, you will find success. Some of these are within our control, some arent. But i think individuals might be able to tilt the needle enough to find some success individually, minus the obvious changes to society.
1.) Obtaining "Status"
Women desire men with high status. The easiest way to obtain status in society is to get a higher education or to obtain high income (these often correlate). If you can get into Harvard, go for it, but for most cases, a local community college or state university is sufficient. People often meet their spouses there as a matter of fact. Now, if for whatever reason, you find that you can't obtain a degree, there are other options, my father did real-estate (this job can earn a decent living and has the plus of sharpening your social skills!), my uncle had a mechanic shop (Its worth noting here, however that most evidence still points to the degree being the best shot you have). Raising mens income has a positive effect on birth rates - so whatever you job you get, make sure it pays somewhat decent. On top of this, build other skills: learn how to dance (my personal recommendation, ive done this myself and ive gotten some positive attention and even some dates!). This will increase confidence and get you socializing, and if your good, you'll be the coolest guy in the room. Which leads to my next point:
2.) Social Skills.
This new variation of Masculinity needs to focus heavily on social skills. Men as a group are more likely to be poor in this area (higher autism diagonsis, ect). Believe it or not, many men who are single or are having trouble havent even attempted asking out the girl. I know, I know - #MeToo and all, but in my experience if one approaches with kindness (and humors!) it will be received positively. One easy way that worked for me is ride-share driving. Take little step, ask someone about their day, how they feel about certain things, ect. Join a comedy club and try to sharpen your humor! (Incredibly attractive to women in my experience). Charisma and Social skills will positively affect both your dating life, and your career success. Much of the drop in relationships and birth rate are amongst the poor and less educated, partially because of the shifts in the economy towards the service sector jobs that require the ability to talk to others. So sharpening this skill is of utmost importance. You'll probably get the hang of flirting and the like once you conjure up these social skills.
3.) GYM. GYM. GYM. GYM. GYM. GYM. GYM. GYM.
This is so insanely understated by many of people, but as someone who was 240lbs and is now 155 (im 5"6 for reference). Pretty privilege is a real thing. People respect and admire you more when you look good, for men this means wider shoulder relative to hips, and being fairly lean, you dont need to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But if you look like this dude in the thumbnail, your pretty golden. Being tall helps too, but thats not something within your control. Easy way to get thinner: Eat less calories than maintaince (around 2000) and burn said calories via exercise (running on a treadmill, ride a bicycle, lift weights, jump rope). For building muscle, you'll need to eat around ~1lb of protein per body weight, in a slight caloric excess. You''ll have to go through cut and bulk phases where you are basically eating less to burn off fat, and then eating around or in slight excess to build muscle. Get 8 hours of sleep for recovery, drink water, remove suger from your diet if possible. You'll need to be patient as the process is slow, but once completed: your options for mates increases, your status increases, and people will treat you with more dignity and respect. Looks matter.
4.) If you are overly "nice" or sweet, masculinize yourself a bit
This will probably be more controversial, but this needs to be said. Society does have a bias towards men who are more conventionally masculine, shorter men have higher suicide rates, gay men are hated more then lesbians. I've also seen this several times anecdotally and learned this from personal experience: My own mother told me not to cry in front of women, because you'll be seen as weak. My ex told me that being more manly would probably get me further with women. I think a better middle ground here, especially if your a man who is on the less manly side of things, is to masculinize yourself a bit. Best way to do this? Learn martial arts (or do some tough sport - rugby or football) - the mindset thats built from martial arts will help masculinize you to some degree, as well as proving to women that your capable of protecting them (Trust me - they care about this). This part might sound like im trying to change you, perhaps to some extent, i am. But this is in most mens best interest, in my experience - not having some manly-ness to you will hurt your perception, at least a little bit. You can still be soft and sensitive, as a matter of fact, it works in your interests much of the time, just have some "umph" and know when to pull out the sensitive, and tough sides.
One of the main reasons that bad faith actors like Andrew Tait are so popular is because many people in our society dont want to confront various hard truths, that many in red-pill spaces actively expose: Looks, Money, & Masculinity matter. The more we lie and refuse to ack-knowledge this the worse the current social ills become. Its also important that a sort of guide map of masculinity be given (the one ive layed probably would produce positive results individually) so that young boys dont go searching for a road map else-where. Telling people to "be themselves" isnt gonna be sufficient advice in the majority of cases.
Finally, there are societal trends that make some of these harder to achieve today. People do not socialize and gather as they did in the past, meaning many women (though not as much as men) likely are going to have not so good social skills themselves or be more difficult to meet. And as stated before, our economy favors those with educated service sectors skills over those who dont. Sadly, i haven't thought of a good way around these barriers.
Take note that this is something ive written up after thinking about this for a bit, so im open to critiques or flaws in my proposals or reasoning. (As a matter of fact, Its welcome!)
Even though it hasn't been talked about much here, probably because an average TheMotte user skews older, none of this stuff is new to the internet. It's no secret that having status, charisma and being attractive gets you far in dating, and in life in general. I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about how could one solve this issue at scale. To me, and I've talked about this multiple times on here, it all comes down to screen time. Screens are competing for every minute of our free time, and they are winning. What's easier? Going out on a friday night with the boys (expensive, requires planning and effort, payoff uncertain) or playing some games and then scrolling tiktok until you doze off? You just had a tough week at work, you deserve some rest. Screen time it is. Many people, both men and women, are just opting out from living their real life. It's especially hard to make a case for men to 'waste' their time on all this dating bullshit when it feels like you have to pretty much be James Bond (status, charisma, looks) - look at the list you wrote. Just going off anecdotes, none of my older relatives had to be an all around great man^tm to get into a relationship. My dad was a recently divorced junior engineer (never been to the gym, smoking, drinking, -7 vision, greying at 32) with a son when he met my mom. My (much) older half brother met his (very pretty) wife while being a piss broke bartender with a huge gut and round face due to all the alcohol he consumed on the job. I'm sure stuff like this happens nowadays too, but at much smaller scale. Everyone is glued to a screen, opportunities to be around another gender in an environment where it's encouraged to mingle are almost nonexistent, and hypergamy is making it feel like you have to be at the top of life before you even shoot your shot. So, somehow reducing screentime, while also increasing opportunities for men and women to interact in a natural way would solve dating issues for a lot of men. Israel's birthright, a free 10 day trip to Israel for young jewish adults, where they purposefully group up participants with people of similar age and opposite gender doing their mandatory IDF service, comes to mind.
You'd be shocked at how many deny these basic realities.
But outside of that, you have a good point. As i mentioned before lack of socialization is really killing us here, but this post is geared slightly toward what an individual could do to max out his chances in the context of the current state of affairs (though i would like to see boys raised with these 4 things in mind)
Eh, I would agree with you if we had this conversation 8-10 years ago (height of body positivity era). With rise of looksmaxxing, glp-1s into mainstream even the slowest of the bunch are admitting the obvious.
fair enough. You made a decent list. I do think it's important to not tie self improvement to getting into a relationship. Going out to dance, while hating it as an activity on its own, is an easy way to start hating yourself and life if expectation of getting a girlfriend out of it is not met.
Also dancing/bar scene has bifurcated a lot more into 'people who love clubbing' than it would have been a couple decades ago when there were less entertainment options.
I have an objectively hot female friend who would be a total catch for any guy. Very confident, green flags around being able to fit in with guy-groups, heaps of hobbies, etc. She's single at 32 and doesn’t seem to have had meaningful relationships, and isn't hooking up or anything.
Got to talking about her dating life. I asked her why not go to a bar. She said "do I really want a guy who does bars and clubs at 32?"
I do think she's holding out for a top 5% earner who's tall and handsome.
She's done a recent round of dates off apps. Nobody got a second date. She's seriously disappointed with the type of guys she has available to her. And my thinking is that most great guys (ha) are probably locked down by a great girl (ha) at that age.
She did the career thing, and has somewhat waited out the pool of guys that she considers worthy of a relationship. She's probably going to settle for somebody at one point and be somewhat quietly disappointed.
Did she use to visit night/dance clubs when she was younger?
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