Guys, It's Not Our Fault We Won't Date You

Young men need to stop blaming young women for their romantic woes

October 2023

GUYS, PLEASE LISTEN. The women around you are working out, dressing up, and doing their hair and make-up. At least one of them wants to be your girlfriend. They are not the problem. You are the problem.

Modern young men face many issues: school, work, their place in society. (I’ve written sympathetically and often about those issues in this newsletter.) But modern young women also face problems, and high upon that list is: modern young men.

Take “Jamall,” for example. He features prominently in an article recently published by the Free Press entitled, “The Dating Pool Drop-Outs.” “Jamall” is a 35-year-old security guard in Florida. Despite spending more than $30 per month to subscribe to dating apps, Jamall despairs that he rarely matches with anyone. After at last scoring a date - his first in three years! – and driving an hour to meet her, he rapidly decided she was not for him after she asked, “Are you religious?”

The article continues:

And now, driving home from his date, it hit him like a ton of bricks: Why do I even do this at all? 

He walked into his apartment near Cape Canaveral, greeted the cats, and slumped down on his couch. 

“I’m so far out of the loop,” he told me he realized at the time. “Compared to my peers, who have gone out with women, and know how to interact with them, I’m too far gone. I can’t learn that stuff.”

He trails off, then adds: “I’m just not going to try anymore. It’s not worth it.”

Jamall … is one of a growing number of young men who are withdrawing from the dating pool. More than six in ten men aged 18 to 29 are now single, up from about five in ten in 2019, according to data from Pew Research Center. Respondents give a range of reasons for their singlehood, including having “more important priorities,” the fact they “just like being single,” or that they’ve gotten “too old” to keep trying.

Apparently there is an underworld of dating apps seething with lonely male souls who are doomed to lifelong chastity, or so they insist. Hundreds of complaining SubReddit threads by young men express anger that the best looking, tallest, and most successful men online get all the sexy dates.

As evidence? They point to the profiles of extremely attractive women: blonde, busty, posing in bikinis and revealing halter tops. The cheerleaders of the dating apps in other words. One woman writes: “Together we could find out if you’re lying about your height.” Another — a “bombshell named Ashley” — says, “If you [are] one of those ‘split the check’ or not wealthy. . . NEXT.”

“A lot of men are checking out,” Jamall notes wearily. “We’re just tired. We’re just tired of being told that we don’t measure up either physically or financially.”

True, Jamall, if Ashley is your standard. But what about the person you drove an hour to meet? The stated reason Jamall gives for rejecting this woman on his first date in three years is because she asked him about religion. He gives no context as to how she asked about it. We don’t learn if she’s hoping he is religious, or if he isn’t. We don’t know why Jamall took such offense to the question, or why it was such a dealbreaker. But Jamall is not interested in going on another date — or even speaking with the woman further — to explore if there is anything more to her. Nope, Jamall is out of there right away, throwing his arms up and then complaining about all the super hot girls online who won’t date him.

Well, duh.

These men’s protests echo those of every skinny guy who's ever gotten sand kicked in his face by a muscled lifeguard — except for them, Charles Atlas has shrugged. They will never pick themselves up, hit the gym, and do what it takes to get the girl. It’s as if these men in their 20s and 30s are permanent ninth graders in their own lives, condemned to sitting sullenly in the bleachers while they watch the senior quarterback attract all the hot girls. And yet, like the resentful geeks in high school, they only want goddesses: they’re probably not looking twice at the smart girl in math class who offers to share her homework with them.

This is perhaps why online dating is such a horrible modern invention for everyone. Those quarterbacks may be racking up more dates, but because they are the virtual Alpha Males, there is no pressure on them to settle down or make a commitment. They can scroll through Hinge like a personal fast-food menu, order what they want, and pick it up at the drive-thru. The Ashleys can command these men’s attention — but they can’t command a ring. When the Alphas are done, Ashley is tossed in the trash.

And yet, for all mens’ complaints that online dating works against them, they’re not doing much about it IRL. According to this study, 45% of men aged 18-25 had never approached a woman for a date in person. A further 17% had not approached a woman within the past year.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of decent, loving women looking for meaningful relationships with decent, loving men. While it’s true that young women may be getting their homework done and graduating at a greater rate from college than their male peers (and why should anyone resent that success?!), they too are suffering from unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression. And it’s not like dating doesn’t suck for women. They’re not getting texts back from the male versions of Ashley, either. Ghosting is par for the course. Just when a woman thinks she might want to get intimate, she’s suddenly choked or pushed into a sexual position the man has watched on porn.

In fact I would argue that dating these days is worse for women, as they are the ones with the biological clocks ticking and ticking. They can’t risk playing Minecraft into their 40s because the men they meet also have crazy, unrealistic demands. Or worse —no demands at all.

A recent article in the Washington Post described one woman’s decision to freeze her eggs at age 36; heartbreakingly, she is not an anomaly. Demand rose 31% for the procedure between 2020 and 2021, showing the pandemic clearly contributed to womens’ despair at meeting a life partner before their fertility declines. The article cited Yale anthropology professor Marcia Inhorn, who conducted a decade-long study to understand why otherwise healthy women would freeze their eggs.

[Inhorn] expected to hear that it was about fitting their fertility around ambitions and careers. But the results, she says, were “astounding.”

“It was overwhelmingly about relationship issues,” Inhorn explains. “Amazing woman after amazing woman, all without a partner. She identified three main categories of those who froze their eggs: women freezing after a breakup or divorce, women still single despite years of dating, and women with partners who weren’t ready for children.”

Unfortunately, dating apps have turned the hunt for a life partner into something like a job applicant search. Everyone now operates as their own HR department. Both sexes are guilty of basing their choices on a 30-second perusal of the romantic equivalent of a resumé. Wrong haircut? Swipe left. Wrong kind of joke? Swipe left. Wrong favorite band? Swipe left.

LATELY, I’VE BECOME addicted to a reality show called Love is Blind. The premise is a bunch of single men and women are brought together, and after four weeks they must get engaged. Crazy, right? Well, maybe not.

For one month the contestants “date” without seeing each other. Instead, they sit in stylishly decorated booths speaking through an opaque window. They all come from different walks of life, and each brings his or her own basket of dirty laundry to the table — insecurities, vulnerabilities, previous marriages, rough upbringings, etc. The first week is a whirlwind of meeting all the different individuals, then everyone winnows their choices down to their favorites, eventually narrowing them to whom they perceive as “the one.”

Because it’s reality TV, all the candidates are insanely good looking. But what fascinates me is despite the fact they are so attractive — and most professionally accomplished — they’ve had to resort to a reality show to find someone. Actually it’s worse than that: they’ve agreed to be imprisoned on a studio set until they agree to marry one of the other contestants.

Strangely it works. Sparks fly when genuine connections are made — whether it’s through a shared perspective on the world, or a deep empathy for each other’s backgrounds. As they become closer, a pair might sit in their little booths sipping wine, chatting deep into the night, and playing music to each other. By the time the couples meet in person, there’s actually very little surprise — except for external appearances. (Thanks to the casting, there’s rarely disappointment there.) “You are as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside,” declares one happy future groom upon seeing the woman he has spoken to for weeks. Another female contestant declares, just before meeting her chosen partner, “I don’t care if he’s short or poor. I just know he is for me.”

Yeah, I know, it’s television. But the lesson to draw from the show is that when both men and women are determined to find a committed relationship, they will work hard at getting to know another person — and they will find a committed relationship. I wish there was an app for this.

I have no idea how this crisis might be resolved. But to any reader who is looking for a serious relationship, I can pass along the advice my husband David gives to the occasional lonely heart who seeks it.

“Stop thinking about the kind of person you are looking for,” he says, “and instead think about the person you should be.”

In other words, we spend so much time thinking about what we want and expect from others, we rarely ask, what are we offering them?

At minimum that might entail a second date.

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But if that’s all you know about Chua, you may not appreciate the extraordinary, impressive, loyal, and -- yes -- warm-hearted woman she is. Chua is a beloved mentor to her students (a closeness which has occasionally gotten her in trouble -- for example, when she was accused of serving them wine at home seminars during the pandemic. Chua denied the accusation and the college later found no evidence for the claim, which I found disappointing. I would have loved to join one of those lectures, Chardonnay in hand).

Chua is also the author of four additional non-fiction books, all focused on serious political issues: Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations; World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability; Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall; and The Triple Package: Why Groups Rise and Fall in America, co-written with her husband Jed Rubenfeld.

Now Chua has just published a historical mystery novel, The Golden Gate, which she wrote during the pandemic. (Yeah, while you and I got fat and drunk, she wrote a book.) It’s our pick for this month’s book club (below).

But maybe the most wonderful thing about Chua is her zest for life. I didn’t know Amy before she suffered a colon disease that nearly killed her a few years ago -- and resulted in an addiction to oxycodone, which she overcame. But I am lucky to know the Tiger friend who emerged, fierce with joy, and complete devotion to everyone around her. ~DC

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WE RECEIVED SO many wonderful comments from readers of our September newsletter, in which mother and daughter discussed the cultural earthquake that was the summer hit Barbie movie. Clearly 22-year-old Bea and I weren’t the only ones having at-odds generational reactions to its jolts. Here is a selection of some of the messages you posted. And always feel free to comment directly on the newsletter itself! ~DC

From Femsplaining Champion, The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan:

This is a category-buster in the department of Best Danielle Column ever! Bea/Danielle conversation is always the most enlightening kind of conversation - and getting more than a shout out for my love affair marriage put it over the top.

I'm so interested that Bea was struck by that particular speech — so many young women I've talked to about the movie have had the same response. I'm interested because a version of it has been making the rounds for 20+ years, and I would have thought something would have changed by now. Sadly, not.

Just remember that while it may be a man's, man's, man's world, it wouldn't mean nothin' without a woman or a girl!

Chriss commented:

'It’s rare these days to find a man who wants to support you but who is also comfortable with letting you sparkle.'

This is the kind of comment that makes me wonder what is going on in young women's heads. (I'm neither young nor a woman.) Supporting a woman and allowing her to sparkle sounds exactly right to me. Isn't that just what most men want? Where do young women get these ideas about men that seem (to me) to be obviously false?

Sadly, it’s not obviously false. That was why I felt it important to understand why the Barbie movie struck such a chord with young women. Dating is a new frontier, nothing like it was a generation ago. ~DC

Tom Kari wrote:

Excellent piece. I was vaguely composing comments while reading it, when I came across...

"Young men should take a lesson from young women in terms of working hard and working on yourself and working hard for others. It’s a constant female thing to apologize for your success. "

...and I had my comment! You are exactly right on both statements. More men have to step up to the frigging plate, and internalize that life is HARD. Don't expect to be handed anything. And women should get a little more boastful, a little swagger, and don't be afraid to point out that you've got it figured out. Maybe you could give some tips to some of the men!

Our reader Steve illustrates Bea’s point why young women feel under seige:

I stopped reading after the Roe ruling was mentioned. Plenty of women agree with me that abortion is murder, and there isn’t a proper defense, even a convoluted one (unlike for gun control or banning the use of DDT).

Have a good day.

Most Americans, male and female, support abortion, according to the most recent polling by Pew:

While public support for legal abortion has fluctuated some in two decades of polling, it has remained relatively stable over the past several years. Currently, 61% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Fourteen states now ban abortion. And even when there are “exceptions,” such as when a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, or is the victim of rape or incest, it’s increasingly harder for women to get the medical care they need or prove that a crime has been committed. Even in cases of miscarriage, doctors might now wait to provide medically necessary D&Cs. Some groups are seeking to arrest women if they attempt to travel to another state where abortion remains legal.

There are many women like me who are pro-abortion within limits. I agree that there is a point when a fetus should be regarded as a human with rights to be balanced against the mother’s. In France, abortions are limited to 14 weeks of pregnancy, and those seeking abortions must undergo two medical consultations first. Other European countries allow abortions up to 18 and even 24 weeks. The majority of Americans who are pro-abortion are also open to limits, such as within the first trimester, with reasonable exceptions. Very few people support victims of crime, children, or medically endangered mothers being forced to carry a baby to term. It’s sickening to me that miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies are now being affected by abortion policies, let alone that there are lawmakers who wish to hunt down pregnant women attempting to leave a state.

I totally sympathize with young women who feel their rights are being eroded before their eyes. I’m sorry your strong views caused you to stop reading. We live (still) in a democracy in which many interests must yield to compromise. Civilized debate is good. Blocking views that are distasteful to you is part of the problem, not part of a solution. ~DC

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That’s it for October, people. Enjoy these golden days of autumn and I will see you again in November.