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!
Do you believe everything the NYT publishes???
I sure don’t.
Either you really, really have no idea or you're so deep in denial. WOMEN talk about other women far, far, exponentially far worse than men ever do.
College is trash a d tearing down the country. Men like my son are well educated and run businesses that make the country go.
I don’t see what that has to do with YOU and YOUR ridiculous blanket statements about women. You present as someone a healthy woman would want nothing to do with.
And since I am one, Good Night! and thanks for the conversation.
????
The New York Times published an agenda piece to blame men for what they call a "dating crisis" (instead of a misandry crisis). I've written comment after comment here refuting what they wrote.
But I do know it's part of a larger desperate agenda to cope with a sharply declining birth rate in the West, and in the United States in particular.
You, on the other hand, insist that such opinions on the matter are "subjective" and "little" - showing you don't know or don't care about the scope of the original birthrate situation and the scope of the problem of the author and the New York Times blaming men for it. Your insistence on such aligns you with them. "Men are the problem and those who complain are few."
There are millions of men who have been walking away starting almost two decades ago. But you keep pretending in your world where women are sugar and spice and men are bitter and complain. How nice to have the luxury of thinking that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JtPpNIX_90
Don’t small and rural towns have their share of tattooed single mothers?
Ridiculous? That's an opinion.
Yes, I would include them under “social and personal pathologies.”
There it is; you think you're healthy.
“they just can’t seem to let go of it.”
Now that you say that, I believe that is the problem. ... can’t let it go.
I could easily wallow in the pain of a bad marriage where the Air Force threatened to remove my ex from the home for abuse. But I WANT to be happy. I CHOSE to let it go.
Happiness is a choice.
I feel for him. He has to accept reality instead of getting caught up in the false hope that the world will change for what he wants and what "might have been".
Surrogacy was unthinkable not long ago but the current situation was unthinkable as well.
You are absolutely correct: Happiness is a Choice.
Too many people seem to think that their happiness or lack of it depends on circumstances or on other people.
* Hypergamy
* Sabatoging relationship
* Hypergamy
⚠️⚠️⚠️Danger Will Robinson, Danger! ⚠️⚠️⚠️
True. And he is a responsible man who wants children.
Tragic.
Sex outside marriage is what happened. Basically, the more top choice males use females to sexually relieve themselves and the women think they can get those men.
Until I started becoming educated in the manosphere, I had trouble understanding a woman’s statement, “I could have married, ‘man’s name’ when she argued with her husband.
It is because she had sex with that man and thought she was on his level because she had sex with him, but had to settle for her husband and she resented him because she didnt get the guy she wanted.
She’s totally changed her look into a Fox woman
I assume it's because Freepers are overwhelmingly older men. Not nearly as many women here who can complain.
Maybe I'm wrong on that. I am curious to know FR's demographics, its percentage breakdown in age and sex.
Or maybe men here on FR have given them little to complain about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.