The raw male perspective on modern dating is rarely featured in mainstream media. The only place to get men's perspective on modern dating is basically 'red pill' type of content, which is unfortunate. Most journalists are women, and quite frankly in most of their dating columns they don't seem too interested in understanding male perspectives on the frustrations of modern dating (unless it's to bash extremist incel/red pill types). I can't recall reading many mainstream media dating articles sympathetic to men's frustrations with modern dating, you can find plenty sympathetic to women's frustrations though.
Ironically, this video focusing on "incels" has a pretty good understanding of the male online dating experience (starting around 17:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0
I agree that the various "red pill" subcultures have done a terrific job of sucking the air out of the room RE conversations about men's dating experience. It's a hard conversation to have with any amount of nuance in 2022.
If you think it’s redpillers who ruined the conversation around men’s sexual experiences - that shows just how well the mainstream media is at influencing you.
Redpill was a niche subculture no one knew about (and mostly still doesn’t) - just like incels. It was the mainstream media who made RP, incels, and general lack of sexual experiences for men to be the next 9/11.
It’s hard to have a conversation about it because women don’t fucking care. You know why? It’s not their problem and it never affects them directly. It also means often that the solution involves women changing and that’s sexist, sweaty.
There's no clean solution here. It requires a shift in cultural norms for everyone. From what I've seen, there are two main issues: 1) amount of options is too much for most women (big cities, online dating, using shallow social networks, etc.) and 2) we are focusing more on looks in our culture (instagram, tiktok, etc.)
In order to solve this - you'd have to change the way people meet and the way our culture values people. We need to value deeper ways to meet people like through hobbies, social groups, etc. where someone can have a more lasting impression than half a second on Tinder. (If you think this mentality doesn't affect people IRL - you are mistaken)
Does this mean that all the work is on women? Nope. It does however mean that there is work women have to do. Thus why it will never happen. We haven't asked women to change much in the last 50 years. The main focus has been on changing men, not women.
What men are sold are "Best date ideas for a special woman", "Top 10 things you can say to make her knees melt", "The perfect gemstone for your perfect woman".
None of the men I talk to in real life have the experiences I see men complaining about online. The women I meet in real life, on the other hand, have stories that match the ones I read about online.
The male complainers just naturally have more to gripe about than the "meh, it's fine" crowd who usually can't be bothered (or aren't believed in the crowd of complaints).
Well I guess that settles it. All the tens of millions of men having issues with dating don't exist in real life since you haven't personally met them.
The takeaway here is that there is a middle ground between the 'blackpill' mindset we often hear about online and the reality. The reality is grim, but not grimdark.
None of the men I talk to in real life have the experiences I see men complaining about online
This is dismissing all the complaints of men. Not all the complaints men have are baseless. This dismissive mindset of declaring every complaint men have as black pill/extremist/incel is probably why young men are gravitating to more extreme 'red pill' characters like Andrew Tate by the tens of millions. This is what happens when you dismiss any chance for nuanced and balanced conversations where both sides grievances are heard.
You just want me to take your "tens of millions" number on faith?
Claiming that it's at the same quantitative level as, say, monthly listeners of Beyonce on Spotify, or many other things that it's easy to find real-life claims of without support is a lot to ask of folks. Tens of millions having a hard time dating or tens of millions convinced women are the enemy and are treating them unfairly?
Cause from the outside, it just looks like there are a bunch of people - who over-estimate the universalness of their experience - who have decided somehow that other struggling men are the expert on women's behavior re: dating and jumped to entirely wrong conclusions. This probably isn't just their fault; the last fifteen years of social media tech have really accelerated the ability of people to take advantage of self-reinforcing bubbles to push toxic views.
Dating is hard, it's always been hard for most people, but there wasn't always such an easy way to find others telling you it's actually everyone else being out to get you. Like this zero-sum-game gem from elsewhere in the thread: "It’s hard to have a conversation about it because women don’t fucking care. You know why? It’s not their problem and it never affects them directly. It also means often that the solution involves women changing and that’s sexist, sweaty." - They're the ones doing it wrong - very deep, very insightful, how much deep introspection and reflection did it take them to jump to that conclusion? But hey, I'm not a woman, so you're gonna have to come up with a new reason I'm skeptical.
I guess I'm just lucky that when I was a late-20s virgin the "foreveralone" convo was more ironic and less violent, so I just focused on my own social skills.
And then there are quick downvotes and lazy dismissals so no wonder the non-angry men don't bother to engage that often.
> None of the men I talk to in real life have the experiences I see men complaining about online.
Same. Just from talking to the women in my life it's clear that women experience way more unwanted harassment via online dating apps than I did personally (I met my wife this way), or any men I know did.
Yes, it's harder to men to get attention on dating apps than it is for women. Yes, men on dating apps are targeted by OnlyFans sex workers. If those issues seem insurmountable to you, then my recommendation is to touch grass and go meet people in RealLife™.
> Ask yourself how many women approach and how many women expect to be approached. Now do the same for men.
93% of women prefer to be asked out on a date, while 16% of men prefer to be asked out. So if you're a man who won't ask women out, you're going to miss out on potential dates with a lot of women. No judgment — that may not be a bad strategy if you're the type of man who needs their partner to "wear the pants", so to speak.
> Here's a bonus: ask men how many women turned 'crazy' after the first night of sex, and do the same for women.
1 in 7 women have been injured by an intimate partner, compared to 1 in 25 men.¹ 1 in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner, with no comparable data available for men because it's so rare.¹ Dating is far risker for women.
> I love how when it's women it's rarely reported, when it's men the "reported" drops off and it just becomes rare.
Yes, now you're getting it: Dating and physical intimacy is an order of magnitude less dangerous for men, in contrast to the parent commenter's implication (and incel talking point) that I was specifically addressing.
Is it any less of an individual tragedy for the men who are affected? Of course not.
> 93% of women prefer to be asked out on a date, while 16% of men prefer to be asked out. So if you're a man who won't ask women out, you're going to miss out on potential dates with a lot of women. No judgment — that may not be a bad strategy if you're the type of man who needs their partner to "wear the pants", so to speak.
Do you have a source for that because I find it shocking only 16% of men prefer to be asked out.
> women experience way more unwanted harassment via online dating apps
That's because many men have figured out that volume works, and spam everybody. If one answers their spam with annoyance, they're totally amused by sending a really aggressive, rude reply, because you are 0.1% of the "'sup?" messages they sent out that day and don't matter to them. They're irritated that you bothered to reply at all.
Ever trick a phone scammer into talking to you for a long time? When he realizes that you've wasted his time, his reaction is exactly like the 'sup? guys.
I'm not making a point about volume working. Volume works, there's no reason to expand on it. If you spam people, you'll get results. If you spam people with a badly spelled inarticulate message that generates no expectations, the replies you get will largely be exactly what you're looking for, although half of them will be indignant people who you can quickly call ugly or tell to fuck off.
I learned that volume works watching my drummer in my old band. He simply aggressively and tactlessly hit on every pretty girl who got anywhere near him. One out of 20 were down. If you're good-looking it might be more like one out of 10, if you're ugly it might be more like one out of 40. But volume works.
I agree that the extreme rhetoric and immature behavior of online “incels” (that which is portrayed by the media) is basically non-existent IRL.
However the broader and very real issue of Men lacking the societal support/proper outlets to deal with traumatic experiences is probably one of many reasons why 80% of suicides are males. (Men not expressing their feelings doesn’t mean they don’t have any)
