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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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A question: why do people believe that people - especially men - who are unsuccessful with romantic relationships are unsuccessful because of a lack of moral virtue? A man who's 30 years old and has never gone on a date or kissed anyone is assumed by default to be some kind of fat, basement-dwelling loser. When he is in fact a short but fit engineer, or a corporate lawyer, or a programmer for Google, he's then roundly criticized for being misogynistic or lacking in moral virtue. Occasionally, darker - much darker - suspicions are raised: let's say that there are reasons why these men frequently avoid being around unrelated children. It seems difficult for people to comprehend that an apparently healthy, gainfully-employed individual could fail to meet with romantic success despite a decade of trying...unless there is something seriously morally wrong with them.

Someone who fails at being a salesman, or a business owner, or even at playing basketball worth a damn...doesn't get that. "I'm a nice, decent, hardworking guy...but I can't sell shoes at Nordstrom, I've been working hard to do this and have dreamt of being a salesman since I was 12" is a kind of absurd complaint. He might be a fine human being and maybe he'd make a great heavy equipment operator, but he just doesn't have the talent for sales. We don't think there's something morally wrong with our hero because he can't sell shoes, or because he's a short, clumsy guy that sucks at basketball.

Because men are assumed to be the ones who have agency in this regard. Men act, women are. And therefore if something goes wrong it’s men’s fault.

Adding to that that many people, especially women, have experience with men whose approach to dating is morally undesirable, but no experience with men who are unsuccessful at dating for some orthogonal reason. Yes, men with morally undesirable approaches to dating are generally doing OK for themselves romantically, but that’s often what women have to go off of.

As for OP, there are many women in the Philippines and Ukraine who would be happy to have you.

As for OP, there are many women in the Philippines and Ukraine who would be happy to have you.

BTW, OP shouldn't see these women as "lesser" than western women given that they're more likely to say yes to him. I don't know about Ukranians/Pinays specifically but I would venture to say that they are probably going to be more loyal, invest themselves more into seeing you succeed and make a better mother than their equivalent western counterparts (ofc bad apples exist everywhere so choose with care). When you're 50 what will matter is the bond between you and your wife and how secure your relation with your family (children if you want, in-laws), not how hot or desirable she was at 25.

This is another benefit of getting your parents/other elders to at the least shortlist a bunch of people they think would make good partners for you and then you choose from this set rather than choose completely by yourself. In the latter case you'll be more focused on the short term benefits of your potential partner than the lifelong ones they provide and are more likely to end up choosing a suboptimal person when averaged out over your whole life.

I think part of the problem of discontent is that people are not thinking of marriage and family life in their 20s (and maybe even 30s) because that's redolent of their parents and they don't want to think of themselves as being in that slot of the stage of life yet. They want the fun that our sexualised society tells them is out there - if you're in college, or college-aged, you're going to parties and banging hot chicks/studly guys! You're having all kinds of exotic sex! You're not tied down yet, because society as a whole agrees it's your right to be young and have fun. So if you're not getting that, why not? It's your right. It's owed to you. Someone or something must be to blame.

And that can be the patriarchy or feminism or Women Are Wonderful or Rape Culture or Toxic Masculinity or the Cock Carousel or something. But it must be something to blame, because the old conservative rules were too confining and stuffy and we've agreed to dump them in the name of self-expression and liberty and happier, better lives. So why aren't we getting the happier, better lives? If only women were traditional and submissive to men! If only men were in touch with their emotions and feminist!