At the risk of being downvoted, the dating scene in america is terrible. Masculinity in western societies is heavily pathologized to the point that men who aren't 6ft and very good looking have the deck heavily stacked against them.
I can't blame men for turning to AI girlfriends. I myself left the united states and couldn't be happier. There are plenty of countries where its easy to meet women and end up in a relationship. I'm back stateside atm visiting family atm and its only gotten worse as far as I can tell.
> Masculinity in western societies is heavily pathologized to the point that men who aren't 6ft and very good looking have the deck heavily stacked against them
I always find this fascinating because almost all of the women I’ve known complain about the challenges of finding men who respect them, do their share of the housework, etc. With one exception, everyone I’ve heard saying 6 feet and a six pack are mandatory were gay men.
yes, a lot of my american female friends say the same thing. But then I see them regularly turn down descent guys for super good looking guys who never commit because they have options. (not having 6 pack abs is rarely a dealbreaker but being less than 6 feet tall definitly is)
In short, what they say and what they do don't always line up.
EDIT: and thats not to say there aren't plenty of women who have realistic ideas of what to expect from men and do value men who are respectful, help with chores etc while not being george cloony. But they are all happily in relationships so they aren't complaining about men in general either.
> I always find this fascinating because almost all of the women I’ve known complain about the challenges of finding men who respect them, do their share of the housework, etc.
That’s after having already accounted for the other requirements. It’s easy to find kind and respectful men if you lower your standards on the less important things.
I think talking about "masculinity is pathologized" is entirely missing the more specific cause that swipe-style dating apps have completely hijacked the western dating scene, and have incentives aligned with keeping engagement high indefinitely instead of actually finding dates for people.
I think it both along with a bunch of other factors including a shit economy. Just from my personal experience, I've approached women in cafes in colombia, morocco, malaysia, indonesia, greece, poland and peru. With just a modicum of friendliness, I can usually get a conversation going and while not everyone is interested in meeting later, a lot are and everyone is at least open to talking to see where things go.
My experience in America in stark contrast is that I'm ding something outside the social norm. If anything, the onus is on me to prove my motives aren't sinister and frankly it gets exhausting when the few yes's end up with a last min cancellation.
we can certainly argue that social media apps like Tinder set up negative expectations. my experience with Tinder is universally bad no matter what country I go to. But potential downsides of trying to strike up a conversation in these other countries aren't nearly as bad as what I find in America. Milage may be different if you're white (I'm south asian) however.
Aella [1] studies that. She's an escort who is into statistical analysis. She did very well on OnlyFans, after analyzing what men wanted with questionnaires and Python programs.
Now she spends more time on figuring out what men and woman really do what, which is not what most people think.
Yeah, admittedly I started working out in High School more because I thought it would impress girls. That didn’t work. It became a life long habit though and can be mediative. I like that it forces time away from a screen just getting my thoughts in order.
Those terms are insufficient to express the reality of what men want to see on a women's Instagram vs what women look for on a man's Instagram. (To be all heteronormative about it, that is.)
