Statistics painted men as victims.
This year rode the single men narrative hard. An article termed it lonely.
In the same piece:
- The male writer did not acknowledge women as single or lonely.
- He blamed womankind for men’s singleness.
- Women had raised their standards.
- That’s the issue.
- Nothing about post-pandemic low social skills.
- Or men’s obsession with porn content.
And it opened the door to more talk.
- Women choose singleness for life
- Men forced into loneliness by hard-to-please women
- Concerns about declining global birth rates
It doesn’t matter if men are single now, if people will be divorcees later.
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#1. Auction your escape route
I know a twenty-something who dislikes work. The young woman married a man. She has two children and stays home to take care of them.
When one kid is about to head off to school, she had another to ensure more stay-at-home years. The children become the woman’s life.
Wife and mother are the titles she uses to identify herself. When the kids leave, her days lose purpose, while her bank account loses its independence. She breaks once-a-month errands into weekly trips to the mall and supermarket.
The practice also also trends as stay-at-home girlfriends.
Photo by Raphael Wild on Unsplash
Most men are against women’s independence.
Men think it will cause women to cheat or was the reason their ex-partner cheated. Relationships often cause women to need men. To escape this partner trap, women need to stand firm about earning money for themselves.
Many women defy the trap, like Michelle Obama, Shay Mitchell, and Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is in a relationship but never got married. Here’s why?
“I realized I didn’t actually want a marriage. I wanted to be asked. I wanted to know he felt I was worthy of being his missus, but I didn’t want the sacrifices, the compromises, the day-in-day-out commitment required to make a marriage work. My life with the show was my priority, and we both knew it.” — Winfrey wrote.
Men buy gifts for women for a known reason and a subconscious one.
Known — he loves you. Unknown — later, he will argue “I gave it to you”.
If there is an unfixable problem, one partner will always leave. A man walks away from a dependent woman while a woman walks if she is independent.
It is pointless to complain about singleness if men and women won’t become open minded about relationships — no one will stay together long-term.
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#2. The power trip began early
I finally understand some of the psychology behind love.
Women can leverage beauty when young. Men become more desirable with age because they earn more. Plus, testosterone is forever in healthy men — the lack of menopause is kinder to the skin.
But times have changed.
Women who figure out the internet, networking, or the corporate ladder earn more. They have youth, beauty, money, and men willing to date them. Meanwhile, most men try to figure things out without companionship.
Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash
Funny enough.
In the past, singleness was (mainly) a problem for older women.
No one batted an eye.
This situation played out to the man’s benefit. He didn’t care how the ex-partner survived the breakup. The divorced man would move on to his younger sweetheart, with the ex fighting for their old home and child support. Or the woman had her partner die before her and had trouble finding a new lover at that age.
The power trip dynamic that once kept seniors apart is playing out earlier.
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The Outlook
Men and women have had relationship challenges for centuries.
No one noticed it because it was your parents’, aunts’, and uncles’ problem. No one cares when those “old people” are alone. You don’t want hear or see them acting like horny teenagers.
We only care about singleness because it affects us.
But your mom, aunt, dad, uncle, or older neighbor got through it.
We will too.
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Thank you for reading this post.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com