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!
Marriage is a contract that includes an unwelcome third party - the government. Marriage ceased being a religious rite or a social institution decades ago. And the government incentives one other party to break that contract.
Marriage is now for the very wealthy or the very poor.
Bitter? Negative?
Free Republic consists of more truth than you'll find elsewhere on the internet.
No mention in this article of religion, and not much mention of it in the comments either. Getting deeply involved in your faith is a way to increase your chance of finding a spouse with shared, traditional values. It’s not going to work out well sitting at your computer. The legs feed the wolf. Get out from behind the computer and go physically look in the right places.
And here’s another twist that lowers the number of suitable candidates: most of the women took the clot shot and are tatted up. Hard no for many of us.
Tall, dark and handsome. That was SOP for eons in the movies. The six-figure salary is something different. Women WILL still chase the money.
Then, when the money is gone, so is she.
“While many argue over the causes, everyone—both left and right—agrees on the culprit: men.”
OH of course. All men’s fault not stepping up to be ATMs for women and the government. Women are just waiting around everywhere ready to be loving feminine loyal women and would raise wonderful families if it wasn’t for those rotten men. Suck it up men. Never mind the modern risks of dating and marriage. Just do it because both “right and left agree” it’s all your fault.
I met my wife in church.
In ten more days we will celebrate our 50th anniversary.
God blessed me with an angel.
I don’t know what you get when you marry someone you met in a bar.
YES! In your first post you say marrying a Godly woman IS a guarantee of a healthy marriage and in your second post you say it's NOT a guarantee. So, yes! Reconcile those two positions.
Any young man is competing with the constant unearned validation from men any woman can get from anywhere in the world. There is always another chump on tiktok or Instagram who will tell the ugliest woman she is gorgeous and offer resources to date he. Boring old reliable Poindexter can’t giver her the tingles day in and day out. But Instagram Chad can.
You might want to ask why they are bitter. Many of these men are paying over half their wages to ex-wives who are no longer married to them, but are still required to be financially committed to them for the rest of their lives.
Maybe yiu should look into how many men committed suicide because of impossible conditions placed on them by the courts.
Only the stupid men still marry, because marriage carries no risk and all the rewards for women and no reward, but all the penalty for men.
Men are waking up and choosing to be alone than date.
When it comes to these issues, there are plenty of bitter, negative men who think their disappointing experiences with women represent what would happen with any woman.
I’ve seen some women here who have attested to miserable experience with men. But I don’t see them smearing and swearing off men and possibility in the way so many men here condemn all women nd insist that there are no good ones left.
Quit crying in your beer.
Congratulations. They say the first 50 years are the toughest. I think you crazy kids are going to make it.
Age 35 is being very generous but also unhelpful to women (and men) who need to hear the truth.
Christmas Cake - (term from Japan) - A woman who is 25 and unmarried.
Leftover Women (Chinese "Sheng nü") - women who remain unmarried in their late twenties and beyond.
Such shaming tactics don't work here.
And as for crying, it's not men but women, thousands upon thousands of them, crying on TikThot and other apps because they can't lock a man down. Don't take my word for it - you can see it for yourself.
“I met my wife in church.”
I met Hubby in church also. 31 years married.
No, of course not. Women are entitled. And deserving. Women deserve to have some "top tier" man wife them up and provide for their four children from different fathers. They're not ever going to give up their delusional mission.
"The Deservening" by HoeMath via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG3W-df-V-8
Why are the women on FR not complaining about men, in the numbers that the men here complain about women?
I guess the distaff side of FR has done something right that many of the men can’t seem to pull off.
Many men have wound up miserable because they let the little head do their thinking, especially when they’re young - and they simply Choose Poorly.
To restore your own life to what it should be, and to restore America to what it once was!
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