Like, it's probably more noticeable that you don't have any romantic or sexual relationships than it would be if you don't have any true, close, platonic connections. Romantic and sexual relationships have things that are very obvious and for the most part, exclusive to them, such as kissing, making out, sex, etc. Platonic relationships that are true and close are not as visible, they're more feelings on the inside (not to say that there's none of those feelings involved with romantic and sexual relationships). If you look exclusively at the activities done with a platonic friendship, it's not very different from an acquaintanceship, or an activity partner.
I've met people who claim they have friends, but they're just coworkers they talk to a bit, guys they play games with, or guys they see at the sports bar a lot. Not people who actually support each other or any true connection. Now granted, there's nothing wrong with having those acquaintanceships or activity partners, and it can be argued that they're necessary for a fulfilling life, but they're not the same as a true connection or friendship. If you've never had that or hadn't had it in a while, it can be hard to tell what that feels like.
The only way to make these connections is through social skills, which a lot of people lack. They lack social skills, so they don't make connections, platonic or romantic. Since romantic and sexual connections have more exclusive activities, it's more easy to notice them than the lack of true friends. So I'm wondering if all this talk about the lack of romance and sex is really just poor social skills.
I think you're putting the cart before the horse a little bit. You're blaming "lack of social skills" as if that's just an individual problem that people need to/can work on. It's in a way the same as the "hustle and grind" and "learn some skills" truisms trotted out by libs and capitalists.
The actual problem is alienation at a societal level as all the community bonds we had to each other are destroyed, and this is affecting men more because it's men who enjoyed the benefits of the patriarchal society the most - sports, bars after work, unions, churches - all used almost exclusively by men to socialise. Now they're all gone and what has replaced them - online fucking vidya games and fucking twitter and fucking facebook - all these bs that serve, in the vast majority of cases, to only entrench their loneliness and hatred of everyone else.
I’ve met people who claim they have friends, but they’re just coworkers they talk to a bit, guys they play games with, or guys they see at the sports bar a lot.
Where is the time to meet people otherwise and form deep connections? It's all gone.
The extreme focus on "dating" is so short-sighted. That is mostly just a symptom of this wider societal disease, and its not even the most dangerous ones. School shootings, Trump, fucking QAnon are so, so much worse.
What is the solution? Ending capitalism. Nothing can be done otherwise. None of this, btw, is a defense of those organisations - they were all sexist, racists institutions that often served to exclude women, bipoc and lgbtq people. The solution, unlike what fascists say, is not a "return to traditional values" but a replacement of them with progressive, socialist ones. And "dating" will be solved as a byproduct.
Where is the time to meet people otherwise and form deep connections? It’s all gone.
Idk about that. Particularly during the peak of COVID, time was the one thing people had in abundance. Even afterwards, there's still a not-insignificant chunk of unemployed and underemployed people - particularly young people - who can and do have a surplus of free time that could be spent socializing.
Video games and social media are two sinks for this surplus, but they're hardly the only ones. People have used books, Radio/TV/Movies, arts & crafts, cooking, and a host of other private recreations to "voluntarily" alientate themselves from the general public. Hell, the very core idea of the "dorks" and "nerds" - alienated typically young people with very peculiar hobbies - predates electronic entertainment by decades.
I'd argue that the primary barriers to human interaction are a combination of physical distance and an increased degree of social distrust created by a more migrant population.
The suburbs and the modern private home have very physically divided large bodies of people from one another. We must travel larger distances to see friends and family. It takes me 45 minutes of drive to get from my home to my mom's house, for instance. It takes me 15 minutes to meet up with friends who live in the same city. I get to see my nieces maybe once or twice a year, because they're a 3 hour plane ride away. Visiting my sister is another 3 hour trip in the opposite direction. I am not lacking for free time in a pre-modern sense. I am lacking the ability to cover several thousand miles in the time I have available.
I come from a family that had two really big moves to chase the job market (and a few minor moves that hindered my ability to make friends in the short term). They really do fuck you up in a material way. Imagine the trauma of being moved, but normalized into a salesman's or traveling engineer's or nurse's lifestyle. Nevermind dating. Its impossible to make any kind of long term friendships this way.
Then there's the issue of stress and anxiety around strangers. We've entered a period of human civilization in which many of the people we interact with, daily, are functionally strangers. Our commutes are full of strangers. Our offices are full of strangers. We only know the people who live on our street, because our houses are so fucking spread out. We definitely don't know our trash guy or our mail guy or the guys that cook our food at lunch. We certainly don't know our local pigs or our city councilor or our fucking mayor. That's the baseline for human interaction. Then pile on the fear that comes at us from all angles - fear of fraud, fear of theft, fear of being injured by accident (drunk driver) or on purpose (road rage). Everyone is constantly feeling one another out, because we're all raised to believe that Strangers Are Dangers.
What is the solution? Ending capitalism.
Sure, yes, obviously. But I don't think that solves the problems above. I think it solves the conditions that incentive the economics. But once they've become entrenched, I don't really think a Worker's Soviet chaired by the same folks that run my HOA would provide me a meaningful lifestyle improvement. Certainly not if they're a bunch of weirdos I've never met before.
I would argue that much of the "failure" of post-revolutionary soviet states has stemmed from this unimpeded march towards alienated lives and livelihoods.
I strongly, strongly agree with all this. I feel like I lucked out in this game, despite being an incredibly awkward and homeschooled kid, by ending up part of a strong community of young people of various ages, with a unique internal culture, in my teens and early twenties. There's a kind of connection and trust you can have in that sort of situation that forms deep and lasting bonds. Many of those people are still my closest friends to this day, and we plan regular camping trips and such together. I can reconnect with many of the others from that time period, who I didn't regularly keep in touch with, out of the blue and the love and trust is right back to where it was. There are more introverts than extroverts in this group.
I have no idea what kind of person I would be without that. I'm a little scared of the prospect tbh, but that's the reality that who knows how many people - maybe even the majority? - are living with today.
I feel like I lucked out in this game, despite being an incredibly awkward and homeschooled kid, by ending up part of a strong community of young people of various ages, with a unique internal culture, in my teens and early twenties.
Oh absolutely. I'll openly admit it wasn't great for my GPA, but the best choice I ever made in college was getting a few old high school friends, putting out a folding table, and starting a college club for our nerdy hobbies.
Just, totally transformative from a psychological perspective. The friends I made back then are with me over twenty years later. And the friends they made have become my friends in turn. In fact, friends-of-friends introduced me to my wife.
I’m a little scared of the prospect tbh, but that’s the reality that who knows how many people - maybe even the majority? - are living with today.
Part of me just assumes that I'd have a different circle of people today. But who and what kind of people? Idk. My early twenties were rough, and I have no idea how I'd be living today without the folks I bounded with so long ago.
At the same time, I had friend groups in my prior moves, too. I have to wonder if we'd all just be people we'd known since elementary school... who would we be today?
there’s still a not-insignificant chunk of unemployed and underemployed people - particularly young people - who can and do have a surplus of free time that could be spent socializing.
I wish I could meet other young people who are in this situation, but I don't know how. I live in a rather small city and don't have a car (which is nearly required to do anything interesting) and everyone else my age seems to spend all their time indoors anyways, or is already full up on friends or is married or busy with a career, etc.
I'm just stuck :sadness-abysmal:
how are homebodies supposed to find eachother? Certainly not on capitalist dating services.
how are homebodies supposed to find eachother? Certainly not on capitalist dating services.
yeah, definitely true. just wish I knew what to do about it.
I wish I could meet other young people who are in this situation, but I don’t know how.
I mean, I can find people like this with relative ease. When my city throws a free concert at the big downtown park, they gather in droves. When there's a festival or parade, they fill the streets. When its a weekend, they're all across the popular drinking and clubbing spots, particularly the cheap ones. They're all over college campuses, too. Yeah, I can find people.
But then what? Approaching people is so much harder. Making a sincere connection is hard. The people I find who are the most engaging are inevitably the flakiest, too. The folks who are more reliable tend to be withdrawn and skeptical, plus they also do tend to have their own shit going.
This is why "entryism" is so appealing. You don't need to break a bunch of new ground. You just find a pre-existing group of people who have already flagged themselves as interested in doing shit, and you engage with them directly. Its why organizations like churches and political parties have so much staying power. They're magnets for people with more time than sense or personal direction. At some level, the DSA - for all its flaws - is a powerful organization simply because it exists and people recognize it as such and they come to you rather than you running around town looking for like-minded people. And its a known quantity, so when you go out and say "There's a DSA meeting would you like to come?" you don't have to explain what the hell you're inviting people to in quite as much detail.
But a lot of these organizations can feel like dead-ends, too. Easy to get in, but there's nowhere to actually apply your time productively. Its just an engine for self-promotion. So you leave and go looking for something better.
I’m just stuck
Hey, I feel ya.
But I don’t think that solves the problems above.
On the contrary sir, Bhagavan Shree Matt Christman (PBUH) has the answers.
The suburbs and the modern private home have very physically divided large bodies of people from one another.
This was a semi-intentional "feature" stemming from the deeply ingrained colonial delusion of the "American Dream" that could theoretically be corrected with a more socially oriented paradigm towards urban planning. One of the hypothesized reasons why the left in CANZUK countries is in such an abysmal state is the suburb, because of the effects you highlighted.
Then there’s the issue of stress and anxiety around strangers.
This will be less of a problem without the market. The resulting superstructural logic of capitalism leads to increased levels of hierarchy, domination, and transactionality within social relationships. When life is a competition "stranger danger" is amplified.
I don’t really think a Worker’s Soviet chaired by the same folks that run my HOA would provide me a meaningful lifestyle improvement. Certainly not if they’re a bunch of weirdos I’ve never met before.
They won't be. By the time capitalism goes and something comes to replace it, the vast majority of us who were born of the machine will be dead. Those who come after will be fundamentally different to us as we are different to European Peasants living during the time of the 30 years war. We won't know whether things will be different better or different worse, however the only thing that can be guaranteed is difference.
This will be less of a problem without the market.
Sure, in theory. But, in practice, markets are very useful tools that are difficult to surrender. Lenin couldn't manage it, and he had near dictatorial control over the shambling remnants of the central Russian Empire. Fidel couldn't get rid of markets after fully galvenizing the majority of the Cuban population. The Kims have, if anything, relapsed into market mechanics despite three generations of near-uncontested rule in North Korea.
I think you're putting the cart well ahead of the horse if your plan is to simply abolish markets.
The resulting superstructural logic of capitalism leads to increased levels of hierarchy, domination, and transactionality within social relationships.
It also provides durable lines of succession, rapid decision making, and an abundance of surplus wealth. Capitalism hasn't dominated the economic ecosystem by accident, even if it has come at a hellish cost.
By the time capitalism goes and something comes to replace it, the vast majority of us who were born of the machine will be dead.
I mean, there are definitely places in which traditional merchantilist capitalism is dead and buried. But the vestigial remains persist in dictating social norms. You're seeing the Chinese struggle with vestigial capitalism, while the Russians have gone into a full relapse. There is no bright line between the end of capitalism and the beginning of what comes next. Its all interwoven.
What's coming to an end is the :free-real-estate:. It is no longer trivial to do an Adventurism in a foreign country with a dozen heavily armed dudes and topple a sclerotic empire. The stresses and the contradictions that propel people out of the imperial core still exist, but there's no longer a California or a Texas for them to flee. What's more, the modern concept of "home ownership society" combined with suburbanification has created a new foundational element of infrastructure that isn't going to be quickly or easily replaced. Our grandparents carved grooves into the earth, and then our parents and now we spill like water through the cracks, because it is the path of least resistance.
Again, look to Russia and China. I don't think its fair to say that "capitalism goes" in a straightforward manner. I think the structures carved in the name of capitalism will endure as subsequent societies exploit and exhaust them.
But even beyond that, we're carving our own groves. We're dictating where our kids and our grandkids will flow, because of the trails we blaze. That's what so much of this conversation is ultimately about. We're not going to live to see the far-flung consequences of our decision, but we are going to make those decisions and propel subsequent generations down those paths.
But, in practice, markets are very useful tools that are difficult to surrender.
What do you call the black market in a non-socialist country?
The market.
I mean, its the anarchist's dilemma. What happens when you have a revolution and tell the current crop of landlords to cut-it-out, but then people just start doing capitalism again?
But, in practice, markets are very useful tools that are difficult to surrender.
As they exist now they're only useful for the elite and cause vast human misery for everyone else, the misery increasing exponentially with distance away from the Centre of Power. Kim and Fidel had no choice but to fundamentally surrender to markets as this is the dominant socioeconomic system on planet earth. China and Russia are both capitalist economies for the same reason.
Capitalism is a powerful robust system of social domination and organisation, as you have pointed out, but, like any such system that came before, it is not infinite on large timescales. It will not be surrendered, it will eventually crumble and be blown apart by the winds of history.
I think you’re putting the cart well ahead of the horse if your plan is to simply abolish markets.
Yes the plan isn't simply to abolish the market, it is to destroy the infernal ancient Demiurgical power structure that it is a part of and therefore create the horizon of possibility required to replace the status quo something better as opposed to having the Demiurge decide. I don't know what that something is but it will come out of an upheval of the status quo. According to Bhagavan Shree Matt Christman (SWT), leftism sprang from a religious utopian horizon of an emancipated humanity, a social existence where God exists through a communion and unity of all. An existence where meaning is derived from the common good.
As such, the plan isn't necessarily to annihilate the status quo, but to move in the direction that will hopefully bring forth this utopian vision, to slowly create a world in which it can be considered a reality in striving for the endpoint (and possibly beyond).
There is no bright line between the end of capitalism and the beginning of what comes next. Its all interwoven. [...] I think the structures carved in the name of capitalism will endure as subsequent societies exploit and exhaust them.
Yes that is correct, as capitalism itself has mutated and appropriated the religious superstructures set up to support earlier systems like feudalism (and ancient rome in terms of property laws). When status quo is truly overturned and the world as we know it ends, there will be some parts that remain. However, at that point in time, no matter how slow or subtle the process, the world will have ended, and the totality of capitalism as it exists right now in its complete form will have been vanquished. The questions that emerge for us are; what will remain, what new world will be birthed from the ashes, who will direct the remnants, and to what end?
That’s what so much of this conversation is ultimately about. We’re not going to live to see the far-flung consequences of our decision, but we are going to make those decisions and propel subsequent generations down those paths.
The hope at the end of the day is that somewhere along those paths, our descendants will find that the cycle of exploitation will lessen and disappear. Whether it be because the Demiurge is replaced by a benevolent system that is alienating but is fundamentally oriented towards the care of humanity, or we cease to rely on alienating structures of domination all together.
Then there’s the issue of stress and anxiety around strangers. We’ve entered a period of human civilization in which many of the people we interact with, daily, are functionally strangers. Our commutes are full of strangers. Our offices are full of strangers. We only know the people who live on our street, because our houses are so fucking spread out. We definitely don’t know our trash guy or our mail guy or the guys that cook our food at lunch. We certainly don’t know our local pigs or our city councilor or our fucking mayor. That’s the baseline for human interaction. Then pile on the fear that comes at us from all angles - fear of fraud, fear of theft, fear of being injured by accident (drunk driver) or on purpose (road rage). Everyone is constantly feeling one another out, because we’re all raised to believe that Strangers Are Dangers.
pretty prose
I believe there are studies that concluded that women had a larger and richer social/support network, and men would have, at best, their wife lol
The classic old guy whose friends are his wife's friend's husbands
What is the solution? Ending capitalism. Nothing can be done otherwise. None of this, btw, is a defense of those organisations - they were all sexist, racists institutions that often served to exclude women, bipoc and lgbtq people. The solution, unlike what fascists say, is not a “return to traditional values” but a replacement of them with progressive, socialist ones. And “dating” will be solved as a byproduct.
Maybe you're right, but I don't think many people will be too thrilled that an entire system needs to be replaced which will take decades, maybe centuries, before they can be happy again.
I have no idea how capitalism could possibly be destroyed without first bringing back community.
Metaphor is looking for clean water in a desert vs in a swamp. If all you tinder messages are never replied to or are replied to with "send nudes" or similar, you get the same amount of desirable responses
Plus the idea that sex/romance is equivalent to water is kinda iffy.
It's not a physical need where they'd die of anything other than suicide, but it's part of most accepted hierarchies of needs,
I think it's better to just accept dating sucks for both men and women, but for different reasons. In my view the largest difference is that women unlike men face actual real physical danger.
this. If a date goes badly for a man, he’s depressed. If a date goes badly for me, I wind up being assaulted or worse.
Even then it’s not worth playing “who has it worse”, because honestly patriarchy fucking sucks for everyone, even if it is structured to benefit wealthy men.
If you meet up with someone on Tinder for a date that is by definition not a random person. I think you're also mixing up things. This thread has nothing to do with gang violence, or just general violence. Its about dating.
Yeah, that's why it's a metaphor and not an actual description. I'm talking about how incel types are like "I wish I'd get catcalled" when women talk about it. Both situations for online dating mean you are unlikely to find a fulfilling relationship, just as the person in the desert and the swamp both lack drinkable water. And comparing sex/romance to water is not something I invented. See: the word "thirsty"
Plus the idea that sex/romance is equivalent to water is kinda iffy.
humans are social animals and most of us need companionship and wither away without it. what's really the difference between dying of thirst over a few days and dying of misery over several years?
it's weird you focused on trying to disect the metaphor instead of actually talking about her point but ok
there's a lot of weird going on in this comment and i don't have the energy or desire to pull it apart or argue about it lol
I'll just say that dating for women is distinctly not easier. our rates of being murdered / assaulted / etc by a dude are painfully high.
most dating apps are a bunch of noise with little signal because a lot of guys will swipe on everyone to see who bites. the amount of unsolicited dick pics is nauseating.
source: briefly tried dating men online, went back to only dating women.
To a certain extent but the average woman can much more easily date casually than the average man.
In practice thats... It's complicated. I've known a lot of beautiful, employed, interesting women who should have every advantage in finding someone cool they vibe with, but what actually tends to happen is they get deluged with so much unwanted attention that actually finding someone genuine becomes very difficult.
Men often don't get any responses on dating apps. Women, on the other hand, often get huge, overwhelming numbers. And many of them are gross, upsetting, and unwanted.
It is actually fairly difficult for a woman to date casually. There is a non-zero chance any man they interact with will try to violently ruin their life. Or just like be misogynistic and bad in bed. Plus they gotta do their makeup, and every together thing.
They have so much more stress to deal with than me in finding partners
Most men have had a story where they accidentally scared some woman walking home at night and wonder if it’s even possible to ask someone out without potentially scaring someone.
#elevatorgate , the scandal that destroyed the Atheism+ movement
These last two paragraphs - this is The Market for Lemons. Apps were such a fucking mistake
How could it be easier for women than men? If there’s a number of single men, then shouldn’t there be a roughly equal number of single women?
I have some thoughts on the subject, but in all but the broadest sense "social skills" aren't that important, to my mind at least. Some people get along easily, some people will never get along. I'd say the changes to our built environment and economy are the biggest factors in loneliness. There's always a catalyst required for a relationship to form. For a long time now, in the West at least, it seems like the biggest factors have been proximity and time. School, work, and (formerly) church were pretty effective means of keeping people in close proximity for long enough for relationships to form. Familiarity. It's much easier to make friends with a mutual friend than a complete stranger, so having at least one friend is significantly better than none. Even if two people only know each other, that relationship effectively doubles both of their odds of meeting someone else, and so on. Once a critical mass of people don't know anyone, or the only people they know only know them, it's pretty hard for a community to come out of that.
Socialization has always been a struggle since market economics came to dominate. But in the past people still got to know each other because there were incentives. There was genuinely some sort of trickle-down from imperialism, and less of everything had been vacuumed up by national and international corporations. Petite bourgeoisie constituted a larger share of the population than it does now. Even if things were largely transactional, there was still a bit of humanity to it. At least the sense that cooperating was still potentially going to leave you in a better position in some way, or at least not worse off unless something unexpected happened. Nowadays it's not uncommon for people to think that the other party doesn't have anything to contribute, and it could be expensive for them, so why bother? The perception, largely real, that people just don't want to be bothered in most contexts is debilitating. It's a feedback loop.
One of the few good posts in this thread. Some of the more lib posters here seem to think anyone will/can be friends with anyone else as if people are interchangeable and we just need to get them to hit some arbitrary charisma level to make it happen. They need to look at the environment more.
Thanks. It's always a tricky subject to break down because there are clearly examples of people who are "good at socializing". But historically not everyone, not even close, was like that. People were socialized out of necessity, at the most basic level it increased odds of survival as long as food was secure. Homo sapiens are specialized through evolution for cooperating and socializing, which is why some groups of our species dominated the planet and achieved the things they have (without making value judgements about those things or how sustainable any of them are).
Group, and self-, interest are the friction in the socialization process. Everything about capitalism promotes self-interest so the reasons why socialization would decrease are numerous and obvious. A side effect is the loss of the interpersonal relationships that almost everyone would prefer not become transactional, friendships and romance, which were usually fruits of the other activity which socialized people.
I'm over 40 and my ability to "socialize" for somebody who wasn't all that social was like night and day.
Pre "adulthood" I had small but very close group of friends in middle/elementary school and then a different close group of friends in high school when I moved.
Post "adulthood" I'm always needing to be somewhere else so can't chat or am at work in places where I'm at the beck and call of customers or bosses that it would take years of 10~30 minutes of honest to goodness talking to actually make a decent social connection with a coworker enough to even begin entertaining the idea that, "Yeah, this person could be considered a friend." But never fully developing into a full friendship as ... I'm always at work or going to work so being available to be a part of somebody else's life (handing out, lending a hand, etc) is pretty much nil.
So yeah, I think you're comment is pretty spot on.
I think I've avoided dating as an adult for the same reasons I avoided sports as a kid. If there is pressure to do well at something I'll do my best to stay away
A lot of leftists who really, really, really should know better make jokes about small penises. I find it illustrative of how far we still have to go for the rhetoric of body positivity and sexual liberation and just not being jerks to people just because they're different we have to do.
wanting/needing a romantic partner is typical and cool and it's concerning when frayed social relations prevent such couplings, actually
well, if you're saying that the phenomena of young people having fewer romantic connections is due to a cultural obsession with getting laid, i'd disagree with that as well.
okay, if that were true then, and this cultural issue was the main driver of alienation, then, with the decreased sexual/romantic coupling in the west, you'd expect to see an increase in this shaming behavior.
do you see that? has there been more shaming over the last 10 years than prior? do western guys bust each other up more than nonwestern? i don't buy this theory at all.
As someone with poor social skills: yeah, it's probably part of it. I actually have some semi-close friends, but I haven't established any new relationships deeper than an acquaintance, whether platonic or romantic, since high school. I generally don't like interacting with most people, so I choose to do things either alone or involving just that core group of friends, which then atrophies my social skills further, and the cycle repeats.
Women date older guys and younger guys tend to fuck around. Its pretty standard for guys that aren't super into romance to fuck around for their entirety of their early 20s and only get serious later on.
I think the average age gap is around three years, with the man being older. And younger women are more than willing to have a relationship with a guy a few years older that has his life more put together than men around her age.
yeah, i remember reading through the study when it first came out and the whole thing was structured poorly.
I don't remember enough about it at this point to say more, but I distinctly flagged it as not being meaningful research.
They double up on the few available desirable men.
That's one thing that makes incels so bitter and angry: knowing for a fact that women would rather volunteer to be part of a harem than have anything to do with them. That has to hurt, right in the soul.
If you’re in that 60 percent, just know it’s not just you. There’s something bigger going on.
doesn't make me feel better. I'm nearly suicidal about this shit.
:meow-hug:
I'm sorry. Being alone is an awful feeling. I hope you can hang in there but believe me, I have sympathy for that feeling.
It sounds sappy and cliche but you really do need to learn to love yourself before you can properly love someone else. Be kind to yourself. Believe in yourself enough to know that in time, you can find someone to love, and who loves you for you.
you really do need to learn to love yourself before you can properly love someone else.
I don't believe that -- or the similar one that says that nobody will love you if you don't love yourself
Loving yourself is an important part of being healthy. It's not that you can't love others or that others won't love you, it's that self-hatred is something that drains you and harms you and leaves you less capable of, well, everything. If you're devoting time and energy to berating yourself or focusing on painful memories, it's more difficult to pay attention to the needs of others. At least in my experience.
You are correct, plenty of emotional wrecks have partners. Ik this doesn't ease the sting but remember it's just a shitty numbers game. Like sending out a hundred applications for your first internship until you finally get one, and then it's easier to get jobs since you have "experience".
nah that's bullshit and you should stop saying it. I care more about others than i do about myself.
that's a massive reduction in the scope of your platitudes and false hope.
Thanks. But I will not forget about it. I'm almost 33 years old and never had a relationship or a FWB or even any hint of romance or interest from a woman, and I see no end to this shit in sight.
I guess the question is if you truly believe that it will never change, do you want to live the rest of your life feeling this way?
No, obviously not. I want this to change. I'm just in too deep of a hole to see how I could realistically stand a chance of changing it.
I know exactly how you feel and this is the shit I'm talking about. If you don't even believe in the possibility of improvement then you won't try.
You have to take the first step of believing that it can be better, and try. Or don't fucking believe, and just try anyway. What's it going to hurt? You'll be alone but trying something different now. Exercise even if you don't think it will make you feel better. Eat better even if you feel like trash either way. I don't know, follow a hobby. Get a new job. Just do something different. Even if despair is completely fucking swallowing you, moving forward is the only thing you can do. And maybe someday, it will get better. Just hold on to that, believe in that little tiny thing -- that it can get better -- and you might find something to build on.
Sitting there emotionally abusing yourself by saying it's hopeless doesn't help.
no, which is why i wonder when i'm going to feel bad enough to cw: suicide.
you will forget all about it.
people need to fucking stop with the empty platitudes. holy shit dude we're alone all the time, there's no forgetting.
well if 60 pct of men are like me and my girlfriend just threw them out, that would explain it.
if I remember right, that study had some flawed structure in how it asked about relationship status. men were more likely to avoid putting a label on things or something idk
I still don't know how that could result in almost double the difference on top of the fact that it still would mean like 1/3 men in their 20s don't consider themselves in relationships but are having some amount of sex, while women are also having sex with these men but think they are in a relationship?
yeah idk, I read through it a while ago and i forget why exactly it got fucky, but the methodology was off. It's since been picked up by MRAs as one of their talking points so I'm always :fry: when I see it mentioned lol
yeah, feeds into the whole “aktually men have it worse in this system” incel shit
if it's the same one yeah it was men saying they weren't in committed relationships while women were, and the age gap thing because late 20s women were surveyed but a lot lot of them would be with men in their early or mid 30s not being surveyed
In my experience, it's typically poor social skills along with unexamined internalized misogyny.
There's a lot of false expectations around being owed a woman and also that random women should be responsible for helping men work through their personal issues.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't help people if you're a woman or anything, just that men often expect women to do that by default.
unexamined internalized misogyny
I've seen this trip up lots of peers. Even if they weren't openly misogynistic, they considered feeemales to be like aliens with strange mysterious ways that had to be coerced/pressured/tricked into the le sexy sex minigame in the dating sim mentality :brainworms: that those peers harbored.
I got a few out of that by aggressively reminding them that women are people and have needs and desires in common, differences, and individual quirks like all people do. They started dating better.
It's amazing how well not dehumanizing us works and also how few men fucking bother doing that lol
thank you for doing the work to actually talk other dudes through that.
I'm a dyke, so my response when I bother to give advice has always been "google period shits. are you done mystifying us yet? yes? good. now act normal you neurotic fuck."
anyways
:rosa-salute:
This is a problem I've noticed in developed countries, strangely enough. It isn't as big of an issue in my developing country. We're less alienated and spend a lot more time together. You walk into developed countries and people are either plugged into something all the time or too anxious to make eye contact.
A lot of it probably has to do with alienation in developed countries and toxic masculinity being strangely worse than the infamous "machismo" that we have over here. The United States is also very sexually repressed and it's probably why they view Latinas as sex pots. They're more open with their sexuality and how they present themselves. To people as repressed as Americans, Latinas probably look like succubi compared to them.
It isn’t as big of an issue in my developing country.
which country is it?
Guatemala. We're a largely rural country with pockets of urbanization. Combine lack of reliable electricity with a largely rural environment and emphasis on in-person socialization becomes much more prominent.
Technically yes, but the question of why so many dudes don't know how to interact meaningfully with other people is worth examining I think.
There tends to be a vicious cycles. Guys who are loanly get sad, sad people are never fun to be around, so you don't wanna hang out with a sad guy. I had had times in my life where I have had to work hard to get out of that cycle. Given hoe isolated we are as Americans it is pretty easy to imagine lots of people getting into unfortunate patterns. Guys get it worse. But then women get it worse because men hunt them. It's all very unfortunate to he alienated
First ever date with a guy: I texted him I had a good time and wanted to hang out again, he texted me back that it seemed like I didn't like him because I was monotonous and didn't talk a lot
I explained that I just get nervous/take time to open up to people, especially cute guys. That might've done the charm because we went on several more dates, and the more time I spent with him, the happier I seemed, the better I was at talking, etc. He literally told me how he kept seeing me get more and more confident. He actually ended up being pretty clingy to me, which is part of the reason I ended things. I never would've thought someone could like me that much before that though. Exposure therapy is the way
It's a horrible place to be in when you have serious depression. I have bipolar II and I've lost so many friends and acquaintances because their lives go on while I'm stuck in stasis for months with depression, unable to really socialize or participate in their lives. A lot of people just move on.
A certain part of it is poor social skills in general I think. I struggle with one-on-one conversations myself and I am just starting to work on improving that skill.
However, one must ask why so many people have poor social skills. The alienated nature of late capitalism is a major contributor, along with the lack of social skills training for neurodiverse people. @popsickle's comment illuminates this in more detail.
I think the "dating economy" is an interesting topic that could use more genuine discussion. There's a lot of noise drowning out the real problems and real solutions, most of that noise is ideological incels making it difficult for non-ideological incels to get systemic support for a problem I'm not really sure I know how to articulate.
And honestly, there's not really a lot I can personally do about this. Date an ugly person? Date an asshole? Date somebody potentially dangerous?
Poor social skills can sometimes be interpreted as "introvert" and honestly I'd prefer to date someone who is at least a little bit introverted.
Other poor social skills can mean they never ask me out, or that when they try, I either disregard it as offensive (rightly or not), or I don't detect it, or I reject it and they don't detect rejection. Or he detects my rejection and decides it's infinite-immediately-retry time. Which brings up another question, do I have good social skills? I'd like to think I do. Is it safe for me to always express good social skills in return? No, it absolutely is not safe, and it will likely surprise you how common random men act in a threatening manor over a rejection.
Dating apps were really suppose to be the solution to this. Just tell the algorithm you're willing to move forward with whatever 100 random profiles, then hope >10 feel mutually interested, go on some dates, marry one. Not particularly attractive? that's fine, maybe you need to spend 2 years on this process instead of the 1 year others may spend on it.
But the bad incentive structures for apps has already started. Now that you can pay for additional features/swipes/etc., the gate keepers are incentivized to keep you chronically single.
Somehow the economics on this are also off balance. Apparently most of these things are a sausage fest. For me, the apps are like a buffet of mostly shitty, but mostly available, men. For them, it's mostly select all, message all, fire and forget, hope to get at least one reply this month.
I have literally no idea what can be done about this. My primary concern is that single men of questionable attractiveness are being pandered to hard by the far right and used as pawns in an anti-feminist political agenda which will definitely be bad for me later.
The only solutions I know of are "do nothing about them falling out of the dating economy" and "regress human rights for women".
And honestly, there’s not really a lot I can personally do about this. Date an ugly person? Date an asshole? Date somebody potentially dangerous?
Yeah I feel. Dating apps seem to match me with women that I'm not terribly attracted to, or have kids or strange beliefs or some other big thing. This is fine for short-term stuff I guess, but I have very little expectation that apps will land me with the type of cool + hot person I've seriously dated before. If short-term relationships were unsatisfying or dangerous for me (like they seem to be for most women) there would be very little point to swiping. I expect this is why a lot of women seem to have made their peace with being single.
Somehow the economics on this are also off balance. Apparently most of these things are a sausage fest. For me, the apps are like a buffet of mostly shitty, but mostly available, men. For them, it’s mostly select all, message all, fire and forget, hope to get at least one reply this month.
I think <50% of matches ignore me, and I go on at least one date with almost any match who responds. I just don't get many matches to begin with unless I max out the swipes every day, which is fucking exhausting. The sausage fest thing is definitely real though. It's such a silly problem conceptually: there's about the same number of men and women, most of them are straight and monogamous, just match up??? Dunno where all the women went but it's self-reinforcing.
Social skills might be broadly accurate idk. Recently I've thought that men are "poorly socialized" or something. We seem to be less likely to build strong social networks than women are (resulting in e.g. widower vs widow death rates) and more likely to send batshit insane tinder messages or do crimes. I think I'm less successful at speed dating events than I am on apps. So maybe it's not an apps problem, I'm just about as bad at being alive as most others of my gender and the apps make it more obvious.
I think I’m less successful at speed dating events than I am on apps.
how many speed dating events have you gone on? what are they like?
Maybe three? You go around, talk with everyone for five minutes, write their name down if you're into them and if it's a match the organizer sends you their number. It's fun but I don't write down that many names, few of my names match me, and the one date I went on we just weren't that into each other.
There are solutions. One of them is social skills classes, and another one is a communist dating app, whatever shape that might take. When we change the goal from making money to human flourishing, good things start to happen.
It takes a whole childhood to socialize a person. Classes strike me as impractical for anything but the most remedial applications.
One of them is social skills classes
I think therapy, "re-education camps", and psychological medications are possible things that may produce results. I don't think the kind of people who genuinely need to take one would do so willingly.
Under capitalism sure. Under an actual communist organization with proper training and moderation the odds are a little bit better. In any case, it doesn't need to be a dating app, just a way to help people socialize and find love. China is doing some stuff with dating right now that I think is interesting.
a communist dating app would be sex pest central. Maybe even more so then regular dating apps.
why?
B. Men are poorly/negatively socialized, and this could mean all sorts of things depending on the individual, but generally: platonic relationships, especially with other men, are less intimate and more competitive, aggression is a common tool for conflict resolution, empathy is less common and exercised less, emotional expression is tightly regulated and healthy emotional expression and vulnerability are suppressed and harshly punished, and men don’t have much skill socializing with others or navigating complex social relations because that’s neither desired nor rewarded in them.
I've found based on discussions in various forums that lot of men are aware of this and deeply concerned with it. It's not something individuals can address in most cases. Being aware of the problem doesn't really provide a defense from it. "What do people not know about men" threads on Reddit are often full of responses about how men aren't allowed to express emotion and that they're even shunned by their otherwise progressive intimate partners in many cases. A common refrain is that after so many attempts to be emotionally vulnerable and communicate their feelings to others just to be rejected, sometimes with serious consequences, a lot of men close up and fortify their emotions to protect themselves from the social violence of not conforming to the expected masculine norms.
I've also heard some extremely enlightening discussion from trans men about how the change from being perceived as a woman to being perceived as a man changed how people treated them. I've heard men talk about the pain of losing intimate relationships when people began to view them as men, and the confusion and sense of loss that came with that. I think it highlights the degree to which the alienation of men from their emotions has a very strong structural component that often overwhelms any attempts by the individual to overcome it.
just existing as a man requires one to do a gargantuan and heartrending amount of emotional labor 24/7
LOL MRA discourse
especially since it’s men’s responsibility to approach in the first place.
oh, great. what a wonderfully stupid and unnecessary rule for people to be holding on to.
Some of my social skills are exceptional, others are very very poor.
which ones are exceptional and which ones are poor? I've never seen social skills divided up into different parts
and asking women out ranged from fruitless to frightening.
what happened that was frightening?
I’m not very attractive, nor am I masculine. I am very fit, and I do get along well with people, but I’m a little shy. Some of my social skills are exceptional, others are very very poor. Originally, I didn’t have much success in dating. Almost everyone online my age is just looking for hookups
I'm in a similar position. Don't know how attractive women would consider me, I'm averagely masculine (at least physically). Pretty fit, can get along well with people but extremely shy. Never had any success dating, but would love hookups if I could get them. Is there really a lot of women online looking for hookups? The women on apps are so not my people / it's obvious they would never pick me because of my lack of money / no car, no place of my own, etc. Wonder if attitudes are any different in Canada than in USA.
Never had any success dating, but would love hookups if I could get them. Is there really a lot of women online looking for hookups? The women on apps are so not my people / it’s obvious they would never pick me because of my lack of money / no car, no place of my own, etc.
In the US there are and I'm sure you could link up. Mostly on Tinder, there's a few apps like Feeld that are more specialized. Hookups are kind of shitty though because you may be having sex with someone who doesn't trust you, a male stranger, and will do things like fake an orgasm rather than risk you getting mad if they say "this isn't working for me let's try something else". Because you're dangerous. Feels terrible. I don't think I've ever had sex on the first date be a positive experience.
IMO sweet spot is a FWB. Sure there are women who also despair of finding an actual partner on an app but think consistent / safe / maybe fulfilling sex is an achievable goal.
I think some (most?) of these women don't select "short term fun" because they don't want to be inundated by harassment messages. And also because slut shaming is still a thing I guess. They'll have some risqué photos and be looking for "friends", or they're only here for the weekend, etc. Slept with some people who seemed much cooler than me. If you want to get laid it is EXTREMELY important to have good photos.
traits that most straight women are explicitly NOT looking for in a partner
Oh, come on. They say over and over again they want sensitive caring men who consider their feelings.
Speaking from my own personal experience, lack of social skills is definitely a problem for a lot of people. I have severe ADHD, grew up without ever really learning how to make friends or even carry on a conversation properly until recently. I had learned a lot of conversation structure from therapy and just trying to get shit done on the phone with call centers, and eventually paid money out of pocket to get social skills coaching in a group setting, over Zoom. It helped a lot, got me oriented in the right direction, figure out just exactly what I needed to work on the most. That was about a year ago, and now I'm pretty damn good at talking to people. I even see all the things other people are doing wrong, and I am wise enough to know that trying to correct them won't fix it, but it will embarrass them, so now I understand it from the other side. I'm also making progress on speaking to women and just, well, treating them like people and listening to them and saying nice, sincere things does a lot to endear you to people. So yeah, being poor at socialization is a major barrier to ever getting anyone to like you, let alone a woman you're attracted to.
But there's a lot of baggage I'm still sorting through as well. Negative self-image and lots of poor experiences with women when I was younger still has me doubting myself even as I get phone numbers and casual first dates, my female co-workers compliment my beard and my voice and how funny I am, etc. More to the point I'm realizing now that I've been out of the dating game for so long, and was so bad at it when I was younger, combined with my depression and inattention, makes it so that I kind of... can't even recognize when someone is attracted to me or wants me around. I'm blind to it and have been for years, and still basically deduce that someone is my friend from context, since there's a part of me that believes that nothing about me can ever be appealing. I'm trying to heal that part of me. I suspect I'm not the only man who has this wound inside of him. But it's a painful one, and it can lead you to cause pain to others by projecting malice and contempt where it isn't, reading ill intent where none exists, and avoiding people entirely for fear of the confusion and pain that so many interactions with them can bring.
So yeah, poor socialization and long-term isolation and all of the psychological trauma attached to those are probably something a lot of American men are dealing with. We're kind of thrown to the wolves at a young age, and not much is ever really done about bullying. Certainly no teacher or other adult intervened when they saw how much trouble I was having socializing with the other kids. There weren't a lot of resources for me to look into. Nobody liked me so nobody was willing to be patient enough to sit with me and figure out just what the hell I was doing wrong. Poorly socialized people lose out on so much of life, so much of just being a human being. And it's a self-reinforcing problem. If you don't know how to ask for help, you won't get any. If you don't get any, you start to feel like it's because you don't deserve any. If you can't escape the downward spiral it's just a slow, sad, terrible death by emotional neglect. Especially self-neglect. Because if you don't socialize, nobody teaches you how to treat people decently. And you probably don't know how to treat yourself decently.
I am somewhat disturbed by people putting "social skills" in quotes here, as if they're not skills that require practice. Eye contact is a really big part of socialization, and knowing how much and when to apply it, let alone getting over a total aversion to it, are necessary to make an emotional connection with lots of people. Finding the rhythm of a conversation, reading people's faces to guess at their emotions, and how genuine the shown emotions are, being able to gracefully change topics, or even just using affirmative barks ("uh-huh, wow, that's crazy bro") are things that you have to pick up with practice. It's just that most people pick that shit up when they're children, because they're in tune enough with others already to build up the skills. When you're in your 20s or 30s and you still don't have that shit? It's hard. You overthink it sometimes. You underthink it sometimes. You focus on the wrong things. It's frustrating. It's embarrassing.
Apply all of this to men who are in a digital environment that pushes the worst and most exploitative impulses onto everyone, all the time? A sea of shitheaded influencers who promise to tell you how to more effectively objectify and manipulate women into sex? A social environment that demands men push down their emotions and suppress ones that are not acceptable to other men? Of course lots of them fucking suck at dating. They can barely communicate with themselves. Let alone someone that makes them nervous just by being attractive to them.
But it’s a painful one, and it can lead you to cause pain to others by projecting malice and contempt where it isn’t, reading ill intent where none exists, and avoiding people entirely for fear of the confusion and pain that so many interactions with them can bring.
Hurt people hurt people. It doesn't help that there are women out there who greatly enjoy teeing up on men and smashing them into a thousand shards when they receive an unwelcome advance.
Social skills are misnamed. It should be social talent.
Either you have it or you don’t.
No amount of interaction is going to fix the fact that I can’t read facial expressions.
I don't think not having the ability to read facial expressions is 100% by nature, we just spend less time talking face-to-face and developing the ability to read faces than any generation before.
I remember reading an anecdote from a psychologist who realised their younger clients don't differentiate between real and online conversations mentally, and speak about conversations they had on social media just as if it was an irl conversation. Gen Z (especially post-covid) are spending most of their time talking in groupchats and text messages, completely losing the facial cues attached to conversation. Of course there will always be people who struggle with social cues but it's noticeably worse with the crowd that grew up online.
I think the fact that those two categories are lumped in together is kinda the point. Some things are indeed able to be trained, even if that training isn’t going to result in parity with an average person’s ability. But the dominant thought process is a bunch of people who come by these things naturally calling them all skills and implying that people who can’t do them haven’t worked hard enough.
Personally, I struggle to find the balance of “it’s okay that I can’t do this” and “it’s unfair that I have to put in this extra but I’m still gonna try my best”. With most social deficits, really.
