I'd say it's precisely entitlement to expect that fulfilling criteria will lead to a goal. Entitlements like that come from pervasive societal messages, and getting over them is hard. You can't see it until it's pointed out, and that is always going to come as a blow.

It's even harder to fix the overall messaging than it is to realize it in yourself. But each person who realizes that they have been sold an entitlement, and gets past it, is one more person who can say, "No, all of the assumptions you've been sold are wrong."

You're saying that "if someone tells you some entitled garbage, and you believe it, it's not entitled garbage?". So essentially it's not entitlement because someone else told you?

friend, i'm afraid you've been lied to. it's not your fault. we've all absorbed loads of lies. when i was a teenager, i thought no guy would ever want to date me because i wasn't skinny or "pretty". a number of humiliating experiences drove that home. but over time, it turned out to not be the case at all. i had to revise my understanding. and i had to not give up or get grumpy about it.

the good news is now that you know that you've been sold some bad goods, you can start to figure out what the real story is. and only good things can come from that :} there is some great advice in this thread, especially this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21977225

When you are told something that is wrong, holding onto it after you learn that it is wrong is entitlement.

Who on earth (in USA I should say) actually listens to their parents in this matter?

These tech guys who's only relationship is with their mother? I'm pretty sickened by reading all the comments on this post. So many incels it's not even funny.

Ah yes chauvinistic men who feel entitlement to "pussy". You are what's wrong with the world. Women are people, not objects.