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US...Do you think theres an age category that fits more into the epidemic? If you look at the posts alone of males on the forum, to some degree. I'd say it might be true.
I think there really IS a pertinent age-group. I think there are a lot of factors.
For example, men in my age group weren't the first men to experience Feminism but we were hit very hard by a particular variety of feminism dealing with a LOT of man-bashing.
In and of itself I don't know that this would mean a great deal; however, it turned out to be an especially hard blow following on our having been reared in the "sensitive" age when we were raised to think women were MORE than just the opposite sex. I know that I was surrounded and inundated throughout the 70's and 80's with the notion that women were inherently kinder, gentler, nobler than men as a whole.
A foolish notion? Of course, in retrospect and with years more experience in the ways of the world. But at the time when I was a child with no experiential foundation? It was what I was being taught.
Follow that whole notion of being inherently inferior by virtue of being a male with the weight of the man-bashing 90's -- yeah, it was a whole childhood of slap in the face followed by a decade of I spit on your grave, disgusting man.
Of course there are going to be men who argue that, saying they were raised at the same time and THEY didn't turn out that way -- and it's possibly true. However, there appear to be enough men who were to make it noteworthy even if it's not all-encompassing.
Younger men are growing up in a different world than I. Information is more readily available via the Internet, public venues, etc.
If anything, I think young men today are an example of backlash occurring. I think with the sheer volume of p.orno.grap.h y available, out there they're gleaning all the wrong messages (much of it is no longer about sex, it's about degradation). The music is different, the MILF is a social phenomenon. Mrs. Robinson was subtle and clandestine -- and for a reason. Now there are entire websites and genres dedicated to "cheating wives" and older women who SEEM identified by their sexuality. They're no longer ALSO sexual creatures, they're becoming JUST sexual creatures.
Wherever Feminism is still around it's receiving a mixed welcome among the young, some having open arms and great resentment for things they've never actually experienced (people can quote all the "statistics" they want but it's been illegal since the 60's to pay women less than men for all wage-based jobs across the board, and salary-based jobs involve many gender-based factors which are related to time, effort and productivity rather than JUST gender, which is what Feminists want us to ignore) while others are looking at things like the "right" to go to combat and asking "WHY would I want that?!?"
I think Feminism is fighting for survival now and screaming loudly because of it.
And young men don't see the struggle, they don't have the perspective. What they see are screaming women who are eager to pick a fight. It's affecting them negatively.
I see more and more young girls who have been taught they're "sexual creatures" and who are not just taking that to the bank, but identifying themselves that way because they're seeing rewards for those who do so, via attention, money, glamour, etc. I know on one hand teen pregnancy appears to be down while teen sex appears to be up.
I could say good, because they shouldn't be having babies, but how good IS it, when they're devaluing sex more and more every day?
I could go on but it's all "anecdotal" and doesn't count because since I didn't turn it into written and quantified data it never really happened or still happens.
Last edited by Urban Sasquatch; 06-27-2010 at 08:49 AM..
Many men seem unable to approach women due to severe anxieties. That's why all of these dating gurus exist.
Men who are afraid to approach women in public places cannot possibly have a high level of confidence.
What we have here is a conflict of interest; dating gurus, as you refer them, have in interest.............in their paycheck. So as long as they keep the general public believing there is some sort of "approachafemaleinpublic phobia" they get to continue to eat.
Show me unbiased data that this is an epidemic.
Someone on this board--I wish I could remember who--said recently that the female posters who try to be encouraging and insist that everything is OK "out there" are just out of touch with dating today. That gave me pause. I'm married and I know that many other female posters here are married or in steady relationships. I've been married for almost 15 years, married just after my 22nd birthday ... can I relate to what younger men are going through today? The poster I mentioned above said that the dating scene has taken a nasty turn over the past decade or so. I honestly can't say it hasn't--I don't know. I'm not out there. I can relate to women in general and say that we're not the deceitful entitled golddiggers that we're accused of being on a daily basis here, but no, I don't know what it's like to date nowadays.
I feel the exact same way. I've been out of the dating scene for almost 18 years, so I guess I too don't know what it's really like out there. I do have to say that until I came onto this forum, I never thought there was an "epidemic" of low confidence in males.
However, even having read some of the rants here, my hypothesis is that the younger generation have less quality face to face social interaction, rely too much on technology to replace social interaction and tend to be more "solitary" than my generation; email, text, video games, computers and lastly online dating. I understand its benefit, especially since people are single longer, but I think it is equally "harmful". It reduces dating to a "Chinese Menu" style of picking your mate. Throw up a terrific pic, perfect your profile with your specs, sit back and filter through the replies. Then waste your time and money to see if you "feel" there's potential and chemistry. That may cause people, maybe more men than women, to feel lacking if they don't have the most "desirable" criteria in the first place, which may cause them to feel inferior.
Old style dating and interaction was exactly the reverse. You are out and about with friends. You see someone you are interested in and you feel something. Then you date or get together and get to know the person's likes and dislikes. I'm not 100% sure my husband and I would have ever dated if we had to list the "criteria" we were each looking for in an SO. Actually, if I were ever to be single again and had to resort to the online dating thing, I think I would suck at it.
LOL @ "slightly older." I appreciate your diplomacy, Ep.
You have a good point about the Internet too. My husband plays Halo from time to time, and he'd play Xbox Live. Good God, the absolute aggression (including racism and homophobia) coming out of some dudes' mouths, and you could just TELL by the timber of their voices that these guys were in their middle teens. I think some of those guys are going to emerge into the real world someday without a clue how to deal with real people.
Haha, Halo? Halo's for 8-16 year-old kids. Tell your husband to play a real man's game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
But in all seriousness:
Quote:
Originally Posted by think first
Such nonsense. I know few men who get the jitters at the prospect of approaching a woman. The majority have no problem approaching a woman if she looks approachable. Its a two-way street, don't expect to be approached if you're not giving out any signals that say you are interested.
Sitting at a table with of a bunch of girlfriends doesn't work. Neither does looking angry or being too flirtatious.
Eye contact and a smile go a long way in terms of meeting new people. That applies to both men and women.
For today's dating scene, particularly where I live in, many females are very unapproachable, whether it's because they're constantly swarmed in groups or they have a very blatant ****-off countenance. I'm only 23, but I remember in the late 90s (or when my package just started to drop) that it was a lot easier to talk to girls in general, and for me, it usually came with very satisfying results. But what I also remember was that many of the girls I talked to were very approachable and friendly, and even in some cases, came on to me first. It wasn't about being a loud-mouth Faux-Alpha male or putting on a "I'm so hard and gangsta" front, but just purely about confidence and having balls, which I had a lot of before my actual package started to drop.
This is very different from today, where I notice a combination of nasty-attitude self righteous behavior in a lot of females (most men these days have this as well, but in today's dating scene, they seem to be at the top). I do notice that the dating scene has changed between the 1990s and 2000s. Dating in the 90s wasn't about having "game" and wooing girls by treating them like princesses while they have their diva complex in full throtle. As a result of this, I started to develop habits that were defensive and counter-productive in the social realm, so I can't completely blame society. However, despite society's social tendencies becoming worse every day, the difference now is I'm improving things I need to work on personally, and have come to just not let external stuff affect me personally, especially the attitudes many of these broads have.
This is not an excuse for certain "nice guys" and self-described beta males to go start b*tching about how all females are cruel and nasty creatures. One, that's very fabricated in general, and two, have you been across the entire world, let alone the entire country. My strategy is just to concentrate on mainly doing what I have to do in order to get to greener pastures, which leads me to my next point:
Also, consider this. Some of these guys who complain about "unapproachable women" are stuck in parts of the country infamously known to be very backstabby and cutthroat. There's a thread up that's called "Are Southern women different from the rest of the USA?" that alludes to what I'm talking about. I'm in a city that's known to be very snooty, stuck-up, and cliquish, despite it having a constant stream of "young transient people." It's very easy to approach a "howdy y'all country girl" from Texas, a "in tune to nature chick" from Oregon, or even a "girl next door" type from Minnesota. But all of us don't have the fortune to live in laid-back parts of the country. This is one of the main reasons why I really don't even bother dealing with the attitudes of many females in the immediate city or some of it's border "drama-filled" suburbs; it's just not worth it.
Believe it or not, there is a certain segment of males that have low confidence, and it's for a various reasons that wasn't even a problem even a decade ago. Whether it's society emasculating males in the name of neo-feminism and political correctness, mothers who are so pathetic and bitter at men because of the dumba** mistakes they made while they were younger that they have to mentally castrate their own sons, nephews, and grandsons, or women who are so pathetic because they can't look in the mirror without being reminded how much of a b*tch or s*ut they are that they have to tear down the confidence of males on a constant basis to retain some shred of dignity, I now see it as something that's not my problem and not something personal! That's what a lot of males, especially the ones beaten down over the years need to start doing.
Last edited by Do a Barrel Roll; 06-27-2010 at 10:05 AM..
This right here is at the root of it. It all started with "stranger danger" and kids were raised not to talk to strangers. Approach anxiety has always existed, but this culture of fear and anxiety of talking to strangers has only exasperated it to the degree with have today. Piled on top of all that is how women now are free to abuse men and are cruel in public--think of all the imagery of men getting drinks poured over their head, threats of harassment claims, feminism's claims of empowerment and that "women need men like a fish needs a bicycle", etc. All together it's pretty obvious there's a lot of societal pressure for men to avoid talking to women.
Perhaps social anxiety has always existed but I feel that the current, modern societal factors such as the breakdown of the family unit is also responsible and has made it worse.
I also feel that the media plays a large role in the low confidence of men.
The answer to your question could be that today, it is often when a man shows confidence, he is called "cocky" or "womanizing". So rather than subjecting himself to insults, he holds back and becomes less sure of himself.
Look at the old movies where the man is very confident. If he did that today, he would be a jerk. I wonder if there's a fine line...because a guy has to find that to be able to operate confidently today.
A man exhibiting natural male masculinity seems to be ostracized more today than in the 1970s. In the 70s, it was cool for a man to be a manly man.
Perhaps social anxiety has always existed but I feel that the current, modern societal factors such as the breakdown of the family unit is also responsible and has made it worse.
I also feel that the media plays a large role in the low confidence of men.
I think that consumerism and advertising as well. I mean you gotta have all of the bling, right???
Because many of them don't have jobs, and the ones that do are working service oriented jobs that society does not respect (eg; Starbucks).
Also, young men are not active, they spend too much time playing video games and watching dumb a## movies when they need to be fighting with other males, lifting weighs in the back yard and climbing trees.
Don't get me wrong, women are still popping out hyper masculine, square jawed males but unfortunately they go right into the military only to later come home in a box. I wish some of these hyper masculine men would just stay around in their communities because we need them to teach the young men to be masculine because women can't do that.
Also, in the educational system, there seems to be an agenda to take away the elements that young males respond positively to, like competition.
Perhaps the educational system caters to the female mindset more.
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Then waste your time and money to see if you "feel" there's potential and chemistry. That may cause people, maybe more men than women, to feel lacking if they don't have the most "desirable" criteria in the first place, which may cause them to feel inferior.
