i know this is all enculturation, but same for the girl, when it comes down to it, it's our choice. i say, as a man, be vulnerable, ask for help. all good.

I mean, you’re probably better off without those ;)

Funny thing about that, it's women (for hetros) that are the determination of what is 'desirable'. As a man, I agree with a lot of those who are discouraged with dating and running through the unwinnable rat race.

If most men had their way in what is truly "desirable", they would have mute sex dolls that cook their favorite meal every night.

If most women had their way, they would probably have something equivalently grotesque to fit their fantasies.

I can see how you could believe that under the current conditions and stereotypes that men are subjected to. I don't believe that would last for very long. Men do have needs of intimacy, companionship, and emotional support. We're socialized and punished for vocalizing, and we're manipulated from showing a need for it.

> have something equivalently grotesque to fit their fantasies.

I would argue, for most, we're already in that world. The amount of expectations that women have on men is excessive, and when we don't meet them... women get hostile. (Where are all the good men, shaming, etc). From what I've seen some of the "desirable traits include": "Is overly nice/giving, but not a pushover", "Is desirable to other women, but only will stay with me", "Well connected to his peers, but doesn't play video games or like sports", "Doesn't say or think 'misogynistic'/wrongthink things.. but isn't saying things to find favor with me"

My 2c as a gay man that has many women as friends. They aren’t looking for “status” they are looking for someone who is emotionally intelligent. And thinking that gaining status is how to gain women is pretty much the opposite of that.

Patriarchy hurts both sexes. By thinking of status and power as avenues to sex you stunt your ability to connect with others. And it sets up a negative dynamic because if gaining power is the goal then having an egalitarian relationship with your lover is not possible.

> Maybe men use porn and play videogames not because they'd rather have that than a real relationship, but because modern relationships don't offer much more than that.

If you think that lowly of women, why would they spend any time with you at all?

Gay men are much less strict about demanding a performance of the male gender role (except for those elements of it relating to physique).

The kicker for me is how these dynamics ruin the ability for men and women to become friends. Like you say, these wouldn’t be issues in a platonic relationship. But this cloud of expectation looms over any straight-platonic friendship between men and women. How the relationship would have to change if it became romantic.

Makes me glad I’m gay.

The ones who are complaining that men lack emotional maturity or inteligence are the same ones that will post on 2xc and say: "Am I a bad person for dumping a guy because I saw him crying and I'm no longer attracted to him?"

[0] https://www.advocate.com/people/2020/2/13/study-gay-people-h...

> Covariates. We control for covariates that are likely associated with both psychological distress and marital strain including respondent age, education, and employment status (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003), spouse health status (Kiecolt-Glaser & Wilson, 2017), relationship duration (Proulx et al., 2007), and children in household (Mirowsky & Schieman, 2008).

So at least they attempted to account for obvious covariates.

They didn’t make this claim.

> "well I bet they didn't control for obvious thing X"

Is a close paraphrase of

> if they did not correctly control for kids, it is useless

The comment seems to be intended as a dismissal while calling itself out as uninformed (“cannot be accessed without payment” suggests it wasn’t accessed).

TBH I am not familiar with the the way data is presented in this last link, and likely biased toward my own expectations, but my uneducated read of table 2 says that children, education, being a woman, and employment status are the largest contributors to the distress.

That’s what they say, and that’s what women’s magazines have told them. Reality is the opposite, and has been demonstrated over and over both a scientifically and informally.

Or to put it another way: the reason even the hottest 1% of women complain about men’s poor EQ is because they’re not optimising for it when choosing a partner. They’re partnering with the matching top 1% of men based on social status and wealth, and every attribute unimportant to women has a random value. That’s why even attractive women with their pick of partners will complain about men’s EQ. They don’t care enough to choose a man with high EQ, but they care just enough to complain about it.

It’s like someone buying a Tesla and then bitching about minor quibbles. If they cared about those issues they would have bought a Toyota.

I'm not sure I follow how that's insulting.

You can frame it how you want. It can also be projected as a strength (emotional control). Or men simply being less interested in exchanging emotions intensely as it's just not that important to them.

I would consider the possibility of BPD. This is kind of a hallmark symptom.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disor...

Point being: I’ve known men who are “stoic” in this way and emotionally stable because they don’t otherwise have mental health issues.

There is simply no evidence to support the idea that women are better at coping with psychological distress, or that men would benefit from adopting stereotypically female coping strategies.

Men are diagnosed significantly lower, not experience.

To bring this down to a real world meme-like example: my girlfriend can fill a solid hour every day discussing her work day and in particular developments in her dealings with colleagues.

I struggle to fill a minute. I'm not suppressing anything, there's simply not much there as it comes to work.

These are just differences, nothing wrong with it.

It's possible to be emotional and out of touch.

It's possible to be stoic and receptive.

She also has no emotional control and is likely to bite you, or bawl on the floor crying when she doesn't get her way.

I've heard a lot about men needing to be more expressive and open about their inner emotional state, but I've never heard people mention stoicism in the same context or that stoicism necessarily leads to the opposite of that.

Or that stoicism is associated with being unintelligent, primitive or underdeveloped.

Have you heard it from your circle in a social setting? I'm curious where you heard such sentiments.

I’m not particularly familiar but I understand this “stoicism” is not really the Stoicism one might read about on wikipedia (maybe related but ultimately not congruent). In a practical sense, when people say “more expressive and open” they are necessarily talking about the opposite of this “stoicism”.

This “more expressive and open” is also often expressed as “more emotionally intelligent” and that’s insulting to the emotional intelligence of such “stoics”. It’s very literally “they don’t express themselves correctly” and I can’t imagine someone not being insulted by such a claim of their personality.

With this statement, I think you are coming from a place of cultural bias. I find that men and women are more alike than "radically different" with emotions, with similar emotional needs and wants (perhaps to different degrees, but there is much variation within gender, I feel). However, in some societies, how they are allowed to recognize, validate, and meet those needs and wants are strongly shaped and regulated. For example, in Roman society, a woman who would want fame and prestige from being seen as virtuous would try to become a Vestal, or show extreme fidelity to a husband publicly. Today, a surer route to fame and prestige will look very different.

I don't think you know what is being meant here by emotionally intelligent. An abusive person who cannot control their anger, or someone who abuses alcohol to cope with their feelings in a detrimental way is an example of someone who is not emotionally intelligent. A person who can, most of the time, empathize with you, and can give and accept help and advice based on your goals putting you first (and explicate and communicate situations wherein they have to prioritize themselves or someone else), and knows their own goals and emotions and what they need, are some of the traits and behaviors of what people refer to as an emotionally intelligent person. Sometimes you see the term emotionally mature, which means the same thing.

I've been seeing someone now for just shy of 2 years and I've really noticed how much differently I approach things now. Obviously not perfect, but things I simply didn't understand or know how to deal with constructively in the past seem at least familiar now. Essentially, I have a clue now.

This isn't an "end state" but rather a process of learning and developing that continues - but has gotten to a point where I feel like a much better partner than I probably was in the past. I didn't have terribly great role models to emulate in this regard and I wasn't born knowing how to participate in a romantic relationship. But I've at least had some experience in what can work, what doesn't work well, and where I need to focus to avoid mistakes I've made or others could've handled better.

I mean, my relationship history is approximately similar, and I’ve got to say:

This qualifies me to give approximately zero relationship advice, and has gained me approximately zero insight in to the human condition.

False. A lowly educated low earner male that is emotionally intelligent will not get selected. Every dating/marriage statistic confirms that women refuse to marry down. So they want both status/wealth and emotional intelligence.

But, of course, you have to meet up first, and the Tinder generation may not pass this first obstacle.

Are you sure? Because multiple studies contradict that claim. I will point out that status can mean different things depending on the (sub)culture and context. Perhaps in some social circles, high EQ is high status.

>and it sets up a negative dynamic because if gaining power is the goal then having an egalitarian relationship with your lover is not possible.

Status is multifaceted. Women are attracted to status, but that doesn't mean women can't be high status as well. High status could be anything from being good at some niche hobby to making lots of money to being athletic.

https://unherd.com/thepost/is-wokeness-killing-the-marriage-...

Two of the most important trends in American life are the increasing tendency for women to identify as liberal, and the increasing intolerance shown by liberals to their ideological opponents. These trends are no doubt related, since women are more ideologically intolerant than men. Put together, they spell trouble for the future of marriage in the US.

[...] the 2020 American Perspectives Survey revealed that 79% of Democratic women and 48% of Republican men would be unwilling to date someone with a different view of Trump.

No discussion of dating trends can be complete without this.

The idea only makes sense if you believe a matriarchy would be better. There has never been any anthropological record of a matriarchy, that is to say that any society that had a matriarchal structure was quickly overrun by those that didn’t. Some fate.

Men and women are different, and what you call a patriachy is just the natural order of things, some variation between individuals not withstanding.

Yet, when we actually measure things and include both professional work and home labor, women perform more labor than men in relationships.

Popular culture has become structurally anti-male. The ease at which we're described as simplistic, violent, sexual addicts doesn't seem to surprise anyone anymore.

This article almost makes a humanitarian problem out of a luxury problem: highly educated women unable to find somebody even richer than them.

that's silly to say isn't it, of course you didn't mean literally all women, but that's why i'm commenting - it's crazy to me how we choose to play other people's games. find other circles. lest you're attracted to who you're attracted... but then umm... so women shouldn't be?

What I find in particularly striking is how dating/marriage in both articles and comments is described in such mechanical terms. As a market. You being the consumer matching specs against supply.

The absolute most important thing, actual love for somebody, seems an outdated concept. It's utility now. What can you do FOR ME, the obvious center of the universe?

Some seem angry with this "product" marriage. It doesn't seem to do exactly what they want, kind of like a bad product to be returned.

Hyper-individualist consumerist society.

I am sorry, but unless you substantiate it in anthropological terms, it is utterly unfalsifiable and the argument should be thrown out in its entirety.

The lived experiences of many queer and polyamorous people, plus the evidence of "deviant" behaviours in many animal species and historical and present societies contradicts your prescriptions.

Is this less preferable to a system where women are a few steps above chattel? I think the increased freedom and self-determination the sexual revolution has afforded women is well worth the ills found in modern dating.

If marriage and child-rearing is something you would like to see more, make the material conditions more suitable for that and it will happen.

Is it a trope?

The article goes on to explain that they found men less willing to exchange leisure time for other activities.

It’s not just a one off line with no explanation.

When exactly have relations ever offered much more than that, realistically? Relationships have always (since love marriages became common at least, which is actually relatively recent, historically) offered some rosy vision of love and affection and family and all that, but in reality, only a minority of marriages actually succeeded in having a happy couple without a lot of dysfunction. Unhappy couples were normal in days gone by.

The divorce rate is only high because it's now acceptable to divorce, so unhappy people aren't staying in bad marriages any more. And lately, the divorce rate is falling because people simply aren't getting married as much, and more people are instead avoiding getting into a bad marriage in the first place, unlike their parents and grandparents.

If two people can find true long-term love and affection in a relationship, that's really great. But let's stop pretending that this was ever the norm. It wasn't.