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This stuck out to me, despite being tangential to the meat of the actual post, because this sentiment is so commonly expressed online and yet it has always felt alien to my personal experience. I have always felt that people care about me. Not most people of course, but I have always had friends and family that care about me and that I can rely on during a tough time. As far as I can tell, most men that I know personally also have friends and family that care about them. When you say "the universe and the people in it are a yawning void of indifference" do you mean that most men don't have such people they can rely on, who 'care' about them? Or do you mean that people at large, that is strangers, don't care about you? That's true, but I don't think the vast majority of women are 'cared about' by random strangers either. What would it even mean for strangers to care about me? If I got shot on the street some passerby would hopefully call the cops for me (then again there was the CashApp guy last week), but I don't think there's a huge sex difference there. I wouldn't really consider that 'caring' about me. If I started crying on a park bench I suspect no one would stop to ask me what was wrong, and maybe they would for a woman (not a sure thing though, I wouldn't stop for a stranger crying in public, regardless of sex). But that's a marginal kind of scenario and I don't think that's what most people are getting at when they say no one cares about you if you're a man.
@onepostmotte is right. As a man, the level of care you receive is generally dependent on the level of social status you built up for yourself through your own efforts. That doesn't apply to women, who have innate social value. 'Women are human beings, men are human doings'. If you ever lose your job, if your girlfriend ever leaves you, your family ever disowns you, you'll see that the amount of care you'll get collapses.
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Nothing I can write will change your mind, because our perspectives are so different.
All I can do is point out that all the connections you have are there because you worked for them. Make no mistake - the same is true for me. But the different between us is that in my life as a man I had a period where I had low 'value' and no existing connections (estranged from family, specific personal circumstances with no friends in a foreign country). And that's when it hits you - by default, your value is 0.
From that point, it took many years to build connections to the point where people care about me.
Edit: If you have been high value all your life and had strong connections, this perspective will be hard if not impossible to understand. But the value we're talking about is the 'default' value - in the hypothetical where you are somehow shorn of all existing social connections and most skills (i.e. let's say, for example, your social skills taking a -80% hit).
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I think it is much easier for a woman to be cared about by an acquaintance and to find strangers who are receptive. For instance, finding another person who will listen to you vent, or help you move. Or inviting people to your birthday party and hoping people will show up. Or interrupting someone at a coffeeshop or party and asking for advice. Or finding the smartest colleague or classmate to help you with work. Or being the slowest and most incompetent person on a camping trip and not getting ragged on by everyone else and left out next time. Or asking a group of coworkers you have only recently met, "hey who wants to go do X with me?" Also, if there is a group, and the woman has some complaints about the group, her complaints will by default be taken way more seriously. All these disparities are particularly large when comparing an attractive women, and unattractive men.
Of course men do have friends and do have people going to their parties. But if you examine it, I think you will see the men had to put in work to bring value to people who become their friends or wives. Young, attractive women just have to show up and be nice.
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It’s not even that much of a joke.
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On the other hands those have had their mettle tested - they will die and kill with you - whatever the situation requires.
Male friendship is one of those things I think women can only dream of. A person who you know that a 3 am call of I need you will be answered with "on my way". Even if you haven't heard from each other for years.
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Yeah, it's wildly overstated.' Both in my personal experience and my observations of other people, both men and women have friends and family who care about and materially support them. Men do have to be competent or useful or interesting or <...> to a greater extent than women do ... but since most people are about average on all those, and most men have friends, jobs, and everything the rest of life has, the abstract 'absolute indifference' sure has a lot of friendship, dependence, and care within it. Why is childrearing and attractive, in such a comparison, 'innate' to women, but the natural capability an average man has is 'external' to him?
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I agree that part should probably be left out. But it is a sentiment I feel and agree with.
I do have a wife and two kids that love and care about me. I have family and friends that care about me, and have been there for me when I've been hit with health or social issues.
There is a definite sense that the only unconditional love I've ever received has been from my mother. And I feel that unconditional love back towards her. I love and respect my father, but it absolutely does not feel unconditional. I feel like if he had seriously fucked up in some way I'd hate him. My mother did fuck up in one or two major ways, but its not even a blip on my feelings towards her.
But that unconditional motherly love feels almost like a birthright to being human. Even though I know some unlucky people never had it.
So in familial relationships men only ever get the one opportunity for mutual unconditional love, and at some point even that goes away when our mothers die.
A when we have our own families, men can feel like a replaceable cog in the machine. I think most people are better off with a father figure in their lives. But that's the thing its a father figure, not necessarily the father. As a man you can have the job as long as you qualify for it. Which can sometimes be a very low bar of qualification (just show up). But at other times can be an impossible hurdle (the mother of the children hates you, but you need to convince her to let you stay around the kids).
In general society, you've definitely picked out the ways in which men are at the bottom of the list when it comes to caring about strangers.
I think it is mostly a sense that being a man affords you no special privileges that are not earned through blood, sweat, and quickly dried eyes. Yes, men tend to earn more on average. They also tend to take dangerous and unfulfilling jobs that only have on redeeming characteristic: higher pay. Yes, men tend to be in higher positions at companies. Do women think that men are nice to each other on the way up the corporate ladder? God no, the ones at the top are there through some form of merit, even if that merit is just the ability to backstab earliest.
By coincidence, I already posted a Chris Rock link in this thread.
However, there's also another relevant Rock bit on conditional/unconditional love. "Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something."
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I am not sure I would call it complete indifference, but isn't it well known enough that there is a marked difference between the empathy we give men vs women? IIRC it's common for FTM transgender people to comment on how much more hostile the world is. To writ:
(And isn't the quote below revealing?)
(There were other anecdotes I recall, e.g. a trans man quipping about how he learned that people were much more lenient to women talking shit than men, and that he quickly got called aside to talk about how he was acting inappropriately once he started passing - even though nothing had actually changed in behaviour; but the WaPo article was the first one I found and it seems good enough to illustrate my point.)
Not to mention the actual litany of things that we do privilege women over men for, from prison sentencing to divorce and custody to education, the complete etc etc. Even most of the examples used in the trans rights fight is one group trying to gatekeep womanhood vs another group of self-described women wanting privileges available for women.
My personal experience is that when I try to destress with people (e.g. venting about an 80 hour workweek, or a crappy boss) off work is that - yes, there will be friends and family to empathise, but you get a much higher incidence of "dude not our problem" and "stop whining", as well as a general presumption that I'll be fine and it's not serious, compared to women - who people feel more obliged to reassure and to take action on behalf of.
On the more absurd side, there are things like that youtube video "experiment" (yes, n=1, but you get the point) on public violence where the male-on-female violence got bystanders to stop the altercation/call the police immediately, but reversing the roles lead to people cheering for the woman beating the man and sometimes joining in!
It's an effect strong enough that we call it the "women-are-wonderful effect" (or part of it) and discuss how it's benevolent sexism; but we don't call the perception of competence or increased expectations (e.g. with regards to life success) put on men "benevolent sexism", do we? And isn't that itself a bit suggestive of how we're more receptive towards Women's Issues? (I don't claim to be immune from this either!)
Is that really a "marginal scenario" (with the implication that it's not part of a larger trend of scenarios that would impact men)?
(wow didn't realise I didn't actually post the link)
I don't disagree that if all we know about a person is their sex we might be inclined to start a woman off with more "empathy points" than a man, but the idea that it's a massive yawning gulf to the point that could it could be compared to a "Lovecraftian horror story" strikes me as absurd hyperbole.
This is what I wonder about. I suppose I wouldn't know for sure, because I've never been a woman. But...when I'm out and about in public, everyone else always seems pretty friendly. People smile at me, if I make a reasonable request of a total stranger ("can you hand me that," "can I take this chair," "can you break a fifty," etc.) it's usually granted, if I'm carrying stuff and drop some things usually someone will stop to help me pick it up. I guess I'm just not sure what else could really be expected of people you don't know in a public place. What are they doing for women that they aren't doing for me?
If you were a low enough value man, you would probably have different experiences.
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I think it shows up more when making more substantial requests, like finding another person who will listen to you vent, or help you move. Or inviting people to your birthday party and hoping people will show up. Interrupting someone at a coffeeshop or party and asking for advice. Also, if there is a group, and the woman has some complaints about the group, her complaints will by default be taken more seriously. All these disparities are particularly large when comparing an attractive women, and unattractive men.
These disparities are partly hidden because most men heave learned over the course of life they need to put in the work and so already compensate for this. Men do find friends, and people to help them move, and go to their birthday parties, but they had to put in the work to bring value to establish these relationships. It's only when you step back and imagine the counter-factual, "Would I be putting up with this behavior if they were an unattractive guy? etc." that you see the difference.
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I agree that it's hyperbolic, but I do suspect that it is significant enough that most (esp. non-elderly) women find it very difficult to wrap their head around. Like, consider the median woman's understanding of what the male experience is on dating apps, and just generalise it across pretty much all social interaction.
What was it again, "privilege is invisible to those who have it"?
Ha, yeah. For example, a relatively well-known video of a young woman trying to get Tinder dates using her male friend's photos.
It's always funny to hear female supposition as to the male dating experience. Dating and courtship are just Acts of God that happen to them, so the view from the male side is completely alien.
A multi-year acquaintance-with-benefits, a total smokeshow (if she were chaste, like a virgin, I'd probably try to marry her), a few months ago asked me what proportion of girls that I message on Insta I end up "going out with" (likely girl-speak for a trip to Pound Town).
I told her to guess, so that I could stall to come up with a dodge that doesn't diminish her attraction for me (few things turn off women like perceived lack of success with other women).
She guessed 2/3. That is, she guessed two of every three girls on Instagram I message I end up pulling.
Jesus. If I could pull 2 of every 3 chicks I message on Instagram I might not be able to do things like hold down a job.
2/30 would be amazing.
I'd be pleased with 2/300.
Snippet from Norah Vincent's book ("Self-Made Man"):
"Dating women as a man was a lesson in female power, and it made me, of all things, into [a] momentary misogynist...I disliked [women's] superiority, their accusatory smiles, their entitlement to choose or dash me with a fingertip, an execution so lazy, so effortless, it made the defeats and even successes unbearably humiliating...women have a lot of power, not only to arouse, but to give worth, self-worth, meaning, initiation, sustenance, everything.”
I honestly have no clue how I got so lucky. Both women I've dated initiated first. Listening to other men I know it sounds miserable.
I have great sympathy for other Anglosphere men (and, tbh, older women) finding difficulties with romance. I do suspect there is a cultural component in play, though, and it probably doesn't generalise globally.
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There's a massive difference between 'casual sex is more appealing to men than women, and thus easier for women to get' and 'women have a 20% advantage in generic social situations' ... and "lovecraftian horror story". Women find it hard to wrap their head around the male dating experience, but not the male experience with life in general, both genders still pay taxes, get jobs, help their friends out when their friends are in trouble, etc.
I assume that the "lovecraftian horror story" is trying to gesture at the idea/stereotype that women find a lot of meaning in their relationships, and that they would be horrified if they had to go down to the male-norm level of social acceptance and connectedness. That said, I agree that "lovecraftian horror story" is absolutely preposterous and absurd.
But surely the problem with women empathising about "the male experience with life in general" is that yes, both men and women pay taxes, get jobs, help their friends out...but - even if it is not as stark as the extent it is in dating, there is still a significant qualitative difference in treatment precisely in the "get jobs, help their friends out". Maybe even the "pay taxes" bit!
Like, the experience of a woman complaining about working overtime is often qualitatively different from the experience of a man complaining about the same. Or the experience of a woman getting scammed vs a man getting scammed. Or a woman asking for help with moving vs a man asking for help. Or a woman getting raped vs a man getting raped. Or reactions to women having their locker room talk (my god, some women talk about men like meat from a deli) versus men for the same. Or even simple courtesies by strangers like holding the door open for you. Or people complimenting women vs complimenting men. Or disparities in divorce, or how if a man and a woman - in a relationship or not - have an argument who looks more sympathetic at first glance (all else being equal), ...
(I also find that male friend groups tend to be kind of shit at social support, as well. I have no clue how to fix this.)
Anecdotally, I've actually had pretty good dating experiences in general (compared to most/all other men I know), and I've seen see the stark contrast in empathy more outside of dating than in it (e.g. in a job environment, in education, with acquaintences, ...).
It's that sort of general empathy deficit/invisibility and poorer social support, spread throughout the entirety of social life and interaction for men, that normie women don't tend to grok. That "20% advantage in generic social situations" is precisely what women find difficult to wrap their head around not having.
Imagine walking down the street, and knowing that not in a single house there is a door open to you, except for the one you pay for. That not a single person you see will recognise you or say a thing to you. Imagine not having the social skills to engage, and any attempts you make being below the social skill threshold where the other person engages back.
It's not simply a +20%. It's a +1, and then +20%. The 1 is the lowest value level where people tolerate your presence. As a man, if your value is low enough, people will simply not tolerate your presence. Not many people experience this, including men, because their value is normally higher than 1. However, if your value is lower than '1,' people will be like 'get this guy out of here.' Simply dressing well and looking good is not enough - there is also a social skills component and other components to this.
Be default, as a man your value is 0.
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Obviously not the OP, but I'd point to the myriad of women empowerment messaging you see almost everywhere whereas the same messaging doesn't exist for men or boys. From "The Future Is Female" to "Women Get It Done" to positive affirmations on yogurt (this annoyed my spouse enough for them to rant about it to me).
I'm not sure I'd include the complaint about indifference of the universe towards being a man in the email, as I think it distracts from what should be focused on and could rankle sensibilities of the person reading it who may believe the world is set up for male benefits.
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