I'm convinced...
...that men and women are simply incompatible. The "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" thing makes more sense to me now than ever - and it's not like I ever considered that a foreign concept, either.
Readers of this space know I've long been a cynic when it comes to romantic relationships. I've seen plenty of reason to be in what others experience, and I've had plenty of experiences on my own as well. But driving this home to me has been seeing the changes for the worse in this area in recent times. None of it really surprises me, but it further confirms this belief.
Reading Unhooked Generation (Jillian Straus) and Unhooked (Laura Sessions Stepp) was scary. The former is an excellent synopsis of how we got to the sorry state of romantic relationships, especially in my generation and the one after it. A great example of it was how Straus showed the impact of shows live Friends and Sex in the City on the aforementioned age groups and their views on marriage vs. being single - I knew both are/were immensely popular and, via reading or from people who watch(ed) them since I never watched them, that the characters on the show are pretty much all single, but never quite put two and two together with it the way she did.
The latter book shares stories of some young women who followed the same mindset illustrated in many of the stories Straus shares, although Straus' stories had them from males as well. Namely, the ladies were generally not fans of committed relationships, but had all kinds of no-strings-attached sex with guys along the way. But that wasn't all - there were stories where they would short-circuit anything that remotely resembled a relationship, including breaking off what seemed like a perfectly good relationship and even cheating on their mate.
Make no mistake about it, males have plenty of responsibility in the sorry state of affairs. The behavior of many of my fellow males doesn't help me because I get lumped in with them, and I know I wouldn't want any son of mine to behave as a number of males do these days when it comes to relationships.
But as far as I'm concerned, women are every bit as responsible for this and have proven themselves to be every bit as trifling. Besides the stories shared, I look at my own dealings with ladies: I've dated a woman who hoped to take away my virginity and nothing more, another one who expressed a desire to consummate the relationship soon before our second date, another who cheated one me, and I was even the "other man" once (unknowingly at the time, but I found out a couple of weeks later). I've been told more times than I care to admit that a woman who showed more than a few signs of interest wanted nothing more than friendship with me.
And I know I'm not the only guy who's experienced any/all of these things, and some have undoubtedly experienced worse.
But if you look at most discourse on the subject matter, you would never know this. Most of it blames men: men just want sex and not romance, so the saying goes, while women want relationships. They say women mature faster than men, although I'm not convinced of that at all. That's not all - anything can be spun so as to place it all on men. Folks don't go around holding women responsible for sleeping with men before they've proven that they want anything more than a roll in the hay - they just take issue with the man wanting sex. Folks don't go around saying that women choose to date and sleep with these men - they go on taking issue with the men.
There is no accountability for women, either in the decisions they make or in their overall actions. It all comes on men. Rather than saying that women choose who they sleep with, folks focus on how men choose the women they pursue when they have difficulty finding a mate. Even better: one person mentioned, as I'm already aware, that if I go for women who are focused on career/school, I'm finding women who don't care for a committed relationship - but if I don't go after such women, the spin is that I'm "intimidated by an intelligent or strong woman" or that I "don't like women with ambition". A man can't win for losing, basically.
What further drove this home for me was this discussion. Note that the thread is about women's behavior, but before long we have a woman going on about the behavior of men! But there's also the double standard about accountability - a woman can talk about how guys want sex and no romance, but let a man talk about women who fit those descriptions as well, and he gets told he "has a chip on his shoulder".
Women can take issue with men, even flat-out bash them, and in doing so they get lots of "Amens", hugs and support from other women. But let a man take issue with the actions of women in the "dating game" and want accountability on their end as well, and he never hears the end of it. He's "bitter", "doesn't like women", "has a chip on his shoulder", or any of a thousand other put-downs you can come up with.
And so the sorry state of romantic relationships continues on. It's very clear to me that the lower marriage rate and higher divorce rates are no accident, and I'm actually surprised the numbers aren't worse than they are.
Readers of this space know I've long been a cynic when it comes to romantic relationships. I've seen plenty of reason to be in what others experience, and I've had plenty of experiences on my own as well. But driving this home to me has been seeing the changes for the worse in this area in recent times. None of it really surprises me, but it further confirms this belief.
Reading Unhooked Generation (Jillian Straus) and Unhooked (Laura Sessions Stepp) was scary. The former is an excellent synopsis of how we got to the sorry state of romantic relationships, especially in my generation and the one after it. A great example of it was how Straus showed the impact of shows live Friends and Sex in the City on the aforementioned age groups and their views on marriage vs. being single - I knew both are/were immensely popular and, via reading or from people who watch(ed) them since I never watched them, that the characters on the show are pretty much all single, but never quite put two and two together with it the way she did.
The latter book shares stories of some young women who followed the same mindset illustrated in many of the stories Straus shares, although Straus' stories had them from males as well. Namely, the ladies were generally not fans of committed relationships, but had all kinds of no-strings-attached sex with guys along the way. But that wasn't all - there were stories where they would short-circuit anything that remotely resembled a relationship, including breaking off what seemed like a perfectly good relationship and even cheating on their mate.
Make no mistake about it, males have plenty of responsibility in the sorry state of affairs. The behavior of many of my fellow males doesn't help me because I get lumped in with them, and I know I wouldn't want any son of mine to behave as a number of males do these days when it comes to relationships.
But as far as I'm concerned, women are every bit as responsible for this and have proven themselves to be every bit as trifling. Besides the stories shared, I look at my own dealings with ladies: I've dated a woman who hoped to take away my virginity and nothing more, another one who expressed a desire to consummate the relationship soon before our second date, another who cheated one me, and I was even the "other man" once (unknowingly at the time, but I found out a couple of weeks later). I've been told more times than I care to admit that a woman who showed more than a few signs of interest wanted nothing more than friendship with me.
And I know I'm not the only guy who's experienced any/all of these things, and some have undoubtedly experienced worse.
But if you look at most discourse on the subject matter, you would never know this. Most of it blames men: men just want sex and not romance, so the saying goes, while women want relationships. They say women mature faster than men, although I'm not convinced of that at all. That's not all - anything can be spun so as to place it all on men. Folks don't go around holding women responsible for sleeping with men before they've proven that they want anything more than a roll in the hay - they just take issue with the man wanting sex. Folks don't go around saying that women choose to date and sleep with these men - they go on taking issue with the men.
There is no accountability for women, either in the decisions they make or in their overall actions. It all comes on men. Rather than saying that women choose who they sleep with, folks focus on how men choose the women they pursue when they have difficulty finding a mate. Even better: one person mentioned, as I'm already aware, that if I go for women who are focused on career/school, I'm finding women who don't care for a committed relationship - but if I don't go after such women, the spin is that I'm "intimidated by an intelligent or strong woman" or that I "don't like women with ambition". A man can't win for losing, basically.
What further drove this home for me was this discussion. Note that the thread is about women's behavior, but before long we have a woman going on about the behavior of men! But there's also the double standard about accountability - a woman can talk about how guys want sex and no romance, but let a man talk about women who fit those descriptions as well, and he gets told he "has a chip on his shoulder".
Women can take issue with men, even flat-out bash them, and in doing so they get lots of "Amens", hugs and support from other women. But let a man take issue with the actions of women in the "dating game" and want accountability on their end as well, and he never hears the end of it. He's "bitter", "doesn't like women", "has a chip on his shoulder", or any of a thousand other put-downs you can come up with.
And so the sorry state of romantic relationships continues on. It's very clear to me that the lower marriage rate and higher divorce rates are no accident, and I'm actually surprised the numbers aren't worse than they are.