Posted on 08/25/2026 3:02:55 PM PDT by Angelino97
Have you found a girlfriend yet, young man? I ask because people are pairing off at the lowest rates in modern history.
While many argue over the causes, everyone—both left and right—agrees on the culprit: men. The internet is awash in articles positing some variation of the title “Where have all the good men gone?”
On the left, one of the most prominent works on this question is the New York Times’ essay “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back” by Rachel Drucker. Leftists never consider the mess that is the modern dating world—or their role in creating it—and how it might incentivize the “good men” to go their own way.
Consider the #MeToo movement. After watching baseless accusations destroy the lives of countless powerful men, modest guys stopped pursuing women. When the media, divorce courts, and prospective employers decided to #BelieveAllWomen, young males afflicted by nothing worse than shyness backed off, because they didn’t want to become the object of social ridicule or make women uncomfortable. Courtship died.
Certainly, there are bad men out there, but rather than consider them an outlier, the left has encouraged young women to take a negative view of men in general.
While many establishment conservatives frame the issue differently, they agree that the courtship crisis is men’s fault. Fox News darling Tomi Lahren, for example, insists that “the pickings are slim” for young women seeking quality masculine men who have their affairs in order.
Attributing blame to a failure of personal responsibility on the part of men is, however, only a half-truth. Men are leaving dating behind because they no longer believe it’s possible to achieve what their fathers and grandfathers did.
Social conservatives love to blame pornography, but they get cause and effect backward. Porn does not cause men to retreat from dating; modern dating causes men to retreat into porn.
After realizing they were playing a losing game, a good many men stopped dating. They made the calculation that porn was the best they were going to get. You can think that ignoble—I certainly do—but they’ve come by that conclusion honestly. Of course, the same can be said of all the other petty vices our young men use to while away their days—video games, online trolling, doomscrolling, anonymous posting on 4chan, et cetera.
The underemployed online drifter will not square up if he doesn’t think his life is going to materially improve as a result. He thinks that, regardless of his effort, he will likely never meet someone who loves him back. Even if he could, he will likely never have the means to provide for her, or own a house, or raise a family. While not commendable, it is understandable that he throws up his hands and decides he might as well take what pleasure he can.
So, young man, I don’t blame you for checking out. I really don’t. But why is this happening now?
Modernity has taken from men the roadmap to demonstrate excellence. Sexual egalitarianism has set men and women on the same social level. Indeed, as universities and corporations increasingly favor women in admissions and hiring, women may soon be looking down at men on the social hierarchy.
But women are not attracted to men below them or on equal footing; they prefer men above them, as Jordan Peterson has noted. As a result, when the average woman assesses the average man, she finds him to have neither greater earning potential nor higher status, and therefore she finds him lacking.
And yet, modernity happened; women have been liberated, and turning back the clock is neither feasible nor desirable. Women are not giving up the vote or leaving the workplace anytime soon.
So, what then? On a societal level, that’s a good question that better minds than mine have tried and failed to grapple with. Individually, however, there is something I can recommend to every young, unmarried man: Get up!
Sure, the “me too” movement threatens you; both conservatives and progressives blame you for everything; the economy isn’t what it was in the 1950s; all sorts of new obstacles stand in your way. But you can—and should—view these as obstacles to overcome. Sure, your modest income does not elevate you within the social hierarchy and provide the default path to marriage and family that your grandfather had, but you can—and should—make your own path.
You can demonstrate excellence in an art—call it a hobby, if you like. Women have always been drawn to great artists—painters, composers, musicians, sculptors, architects, and craftsmen. Of course, women gravitate to some arts more than others (I find swing dancing to have strong female appeal). Excellence within an art reveals an ability to order things well, which is a necessary quality of leadership—and women seek men who can lead.
A great many men will not “make it.” They will wither away into nothing and might as well have never existed. Will you be one of them? Young man, you know that won’t do.
As Shakespeare says through Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, “The world must be peopled.” You have a duty to civilization to get up. No, actually, don’t do it for civilization. That puts the cart before the horse. Civilization is the byproduct of men who get up and achieve. Do you aspire to be such a man? Then screw what people think, screw your feelings, your ego, your pride.
Make your own path, pursue excellence, and—for goodness’ sake—go talk to her!
And that's where the whole sham falls apart. Men were never just a "provider" and expecting them to start serving only in that role, for nothing in return, will NOT happen.
A woman that makes her own money and has her own house doesn’t need a provider.
No. She doesn't. She doesn't need men to keep everything she uses working, everything for that house she lives in and the job she works at. Not a single drop of water or amp of electricity. Not a single cellular frequency. Not an yard of roadway or an inch of the glass windows.
Feminism didn't free women from the oppression they were told they were under, it freed men from the oppression they didn't know they were under.
I wonder if the situation is different in rural and small town areas. I have a lot of family living in those areas and the ones of dating age all find a solid mate when they are young, get married, stay married, raise children, work and bulid homes, etc. Without overly-idealizing those places, because I know they have their share of social and personal pathologies, it has always struck me that a lot of these people have a healthier way of life than a lot of city dwellers. In regard to dating, they have maintained more normal and traditional ways of meeting someone that are more substantial and potentially more promising than scanning strangers in a bar or hooking up with someone in a dorm. I am sure that rural and small-town people scan and hook up too, but the more traditional and normal dating channels are at least there if they want to make use of them.
??????????
Hoeflation is real.
Hoeflation: Today's men must work 5 times harder than their grandfathers for women who are 20 times worse than their grandmothers.
Also, 6 pack and 6 inches.
Combine all those minimal requirements of women, and they are all looking for a top 1% guy, passing over the 99% who don’t have all four sixes.
Women’s fault.
I know plenty of young people who have made healthy marriages and are having children. Many are doing it at a somewhat later age than they used to because it’s so hard to afford it these days; but they are doing it. You must have a very narrow social circle, or believe everything you read.
No. That's been for betas for almost two decades now.
Chad, Pookie, or Ray Ray just swipe on the dating app and she shows up at their place. And she brings them something to eat if they ask.
Devolution and the giverment is paying for the low IQ precipitation.
Men today are f’d up, but so are women.
I have kids, one would like a gf but does not think he can afford one. (I think he is confused)
the other I am not sure, females throw themselves at him daily, but he doesn’t want a Ho, so I don’t really know.
And people wonder why Islam is making inroads in the West?
It's not helping that many "Christian" Pastors are telling all the men to "man up" and get married when that should be the last thing that they should be doing lol.
A woman cares a great deal about what other women think of her man. She wants a man that will improve her status in society, a man on whose arm she feels proud, a man that will turn other women green with envy.
Essentially, a lot of women want a trophy husband.
Hallmark Channel has ruined marriages.
It's the reverse. Your anecdotal stories of people you know are far, far from the norm.
The New York Times didn't print this article for giggles. We're witnessing an arguably healthy decline in births in Western countries. Of course the left didn't care when it was fewer men having children but now that women are catching up, it's a "crisis".
Prescriptions for anti-depressents and mood stabilizers are at all time highs. STD rates are shockingly high. Abortion rates are such that among certain demographics, they've had more abortions than live births in certain high-density areas. etc etc etc
My story is consistent. No man can marry, if his desire is to marry a Godly women. She does not exist anymore, even if she starts out that way.
The statements are reconciled. Do you need me to rewrite for you into one statement?
It basically means marriage is dead.
This writer leaves out a major factor. Perhaps a man would like to marry a woman who has modesty and self-control, a woman who does not dress or act like a tramp.
Chads dont have to lay out anything to get a women to want to commit.
Free Republic seems to consist of more bitter, negative men than I’ve seen anywhere else on the Internet.
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