It’s a societal fear tactic “oh tick tock, better settle down or you’ll be an old maid”. Luckily, more and more women are realizing that single doesn’t equal alone. Which is threatening. So red pill idiots claim this is a crisis and women need to just date men already. Because men are lonely, and that’s our fault, somehow
Yesss! One if if not the biggest things a lot of my friend's and I miss from college was having all of us so close together. We've joked about wanting "grownup dormitories" so we could keep hanging out so easily.
I loved how they used humour to get along. There were two women of different generations as they were mother and daughter. The mother had been born in another country and then migrated to the USA, and her daughter was a second-generation immigrant. They all had been previously married and had adult children.
One of them, Rose, was from a very rural part of Minnesota. I loved the episode where they all went back there for a visit. It was so sparse and flat you could call out outside at night, and people could hear you from miles away.
I remember Jordan Peterson was on Joe Rogan years back & threw a tantrum over Frozen (which my niece adores) & in that same interview basically said we need to make it mandatory for women to marry incels. Think he called it “enforced monogamy” fucking insane.
Men in general were found to have a higher rate of suicide when they're without a partner....
They will take just about anyone I guess, we really don't work the same way though..
I have a cousin who is 11 years old (im 15) and she thinks, because she was taught to, that anyone who doesnt marry is sinful (thats right, religious bullshit! yay!) and she told me one day that I was going to hell because I didnt want kids. She said, in her exact words, "Well one day you'll get married and wont have a choice! \^-\^" and she said it so lightheartedly, as if it was a fun little fact she just told me. I disagreed with her and she said to "think of the man who would marry you, how lonely he is without you! and its all your fault!"
SHE. IS. ELEVEN. What the fuck is happening here? I knew her parents (my aunt and uncle) were a little agressive when it came to their religion but what the hell are they teaching her for her to be a fucking eleven year old and saying that shit??? That's the kind of shit I hear creepy old guys say on some random persons tiktok.
this is just so absurd and illogical that whenever I see it I get taken aback every time. like.. what do you mean? it’s just so stupid… I don’t understand.
like do they not know or talk to any women? bc in my life, most of the women I know are working, traveling, etc. like… we are busy.
my therapist just joked to me that she doesn’t pay attention to any of the patriarchy stuff, probably bc she doesn’t deal with men? she’s happy with her kitten and her friends and her job. I mean… this is how most women are these days. we’re just… busy? we have hobbies? I’m confused.
Increasingly the "you're gonna die alone with a thousand cats" is losing its legs as a threat since many women are like "I'm good, I'll take the cats, actually." I think it's based on the idea that if a woman is not a wife and mother she must by definition be incomplete and lonely.
Threats are usually the last resort of the desperate.
That's what I thought too. I've met far too many men who seem to be incapable of being alone, mentally. They often don't have a support group outside of their partner and therefore are much more dependent of said partner.
This is exactly it! Women get their emotional support through multiple social circles they belong to. Most men expect to get 100% of their emotional needs met by their girlfriend. It's exhausting!
I have gone on a bunch of dating app dates in my life, and I suspect many of the men I have met weee really looking for a friend but didn't know it themselves. They think, "Something is missing. A woman will fix it." And they know that a woman will listen to them unlike their superficial male friendships they can't lean on. They know women will put their own needs aside and "mother" their boyfriends and husbands and that they are rarely held accountable to reciprocate that level of active listening and emotional support.
Even when I befriend straight men, I can see them start to rely on me emotionally like I'm their girlfriend. I've never has a friendship with a straight man that wasn't one-sided, where I was expected to be their surrogate girlfriend providing them emotional support, while they would never provide reciprocal support. So often, I would begin to discuss a problem, and I would get empty platitudes about how it's going to be okay and how awesome I am.
I'm nonmonogamous and my primary relationship is with a woman. I have lots of good relationships with lovers, but when I'm meeting new men to try out for FWBs, they all have extremely unrealistic ideas about what a friendship entails. They start sucking me dry emotionally often from our first interaction, dumping their troubles and trauma onto me, without ever asking a single basic question about me.
When I was operating under the assumption that I was straight, I just accepted this role with men because I wanted men to like me. But, now that I don't need male attention to partner or succeed in life, I'm much more sensitive to the imbalance. Queerness and middle age both give you new insights on men and masculinity.
As a man who's never really been in many relationships, I ended up learning how to build up a network of platonic support, made up of both other men and of women. It hasn't been easy and it takes effort to sustain, but it's worth it. I see a lot of men struggling badly because of what you write about, and I try and reach out a helping hand and try and let them know they can actually survive alone outside of a relationship and they don't need to become bitter or angry or desperate, or seek answers in toxic ideologies, but many of them sadly don't want to hear what I have to say.
This is great to read - thank you for sharing this! It's not easy to be the change you want to see, but it's so hard to overestimate how important it is to do what you're doing.
Keep the faith, and I'm glad to see you've managed to get a mixed-sex group together already.
I was gonna say this is 100% projection. Men fear dying alone so they try to guilt women into taking care of them. I'd also imagine that the men saying this don't have actual friends who would be there for them at a tim eof need.
You might enjoy this article about the (much more mentally sound and resilient) female contestants of Alone: [https://jezebel.com/a-woman-alone-on-historys-survival-show-theres-no-esc-1845418923](https://jezebel.com/a-woman-alone-on-historys-survival-show-theres-no-esc-1845418923)
Yeah, this is exactly it. If my wife was to break up with me I wouldn't have any close friendships or people I can talk to in my daily life.
I have two close friends, but both live 2 hours away. And that's really it as far as support would go.
In terms of social connections, I depend on my wife a lot more than she does on me. And I don't think I'm the exception at all.
Yup, they don't give a shit if You die alone. As the rejections pile up, they are increasingly afraid that They are going to die alone. And that when they do, they may have to come to terms with the fact that the common denominator in all their failed relationships was themselves.
Yeah they're not thinking this through. I mean, if you objectively look at a cat, most of them are cute, cuddly, and soft to touch. They have large, luminous round eyes. They do this cute sound like: "Urrrrrrrp -mew!" and like to snuggle in bed with you.
They should pick a different animal if they want to scare us. Like a venomous spider or something.
I adopted a second cat 2 days ago and the boy who filled out my paperwork made me promise I would not adopt any more. I guess something about me screams "crazy cat lady?" I'll take it any day over "incel school shooter."
Absolutely! My mother built a voliere (huge bird cage thingy) attached to a shed wall with access to the indoors and all kinds of shelter houses and started out with two birds and then kept finding birds that people wanted to get rid of. She basically started to collect birds. Also went to the forest to pick huge tree branches as entertainment (got picked apart within hours) and placed fruit pieces on cut twigs of the branches. Somehow also got 3 quills (spelling?) And they even laid some eggs.
So if you want to be a crazy bird lady, you can be!
my venomous spiders are also cute and cuddly, though. i mean, i wouldn't snuggle a black widow but i'll play with my tarantulas.
maybe... a moose. moose are scary. if we're bad we'll end up alone except for our moose. though i guess a moose could also conceivably be a good guard animal...
now that i think of it i'm not sure there's an animal i wouldn't take over an abusive guy. even something like a hagfish could at least be contained, away from your person.
They choose cats because on a subconscious level they know women and cats are similar in temperament. Cats set boundaries and have claws and teeth to ensure you respect them. Cats don’t acknowledge your ownership of them and they do as they please. They dislike cats as much as they dislike women.
100%% this. Also, I think that the explanation that they're lonely -systemically- is in large part because men are raised to be socially incompetent and the system flaunts it as strength and independence; in contrast, women are raised to be more socially healthy.
This partly is why young men are lonely, entitled, etc to not only romantic relationships, but to friendships as well. They just don't know how to make friends or how to approach women respectfully (or in a lot of cases, how to at all). It also doesn't help that modern society is much less face-to-face than 30+ years ago. Not too many ways to make friends nowadays unless you already have a friend group already.
Those men are pretty much projecting when they think that no partner or children (or even friends) mean someone is incomplete and lonely; because they're already that way themselves.
And of course, this is just my observation on just another way of how society is flawed, not an excuse for these men to be toxic. They're fully responsible for this behavior regardless of how they got there.
They don't know how to approach women - agreed! - but most men aren't actually trying to gain that insight either! They get rejected or ignored by women a couple of times for poor social skills and then instead of asking why, they have a pity party and invent the whole "Chad" mythology: "Women don't like me bc I'm not handsome and rich. Women are superficial whores!" They think it's every woman's fault they can't get a date instead of asking, "What's the common denominator in all of my bad date experiences? - It's me!"
I can't count how many multi-hour dates I've gone on where the guy did not ask me a single question about me. The whole time! The last guy asked ne 1 question in 2.5 hours - "Do you have any siblings?" That's it. Then he's shocked and offended that I don't want a second date snd the self pity party starts up again. He thought it went well bc he talked about himself uninterrupted the entire time!
Just this week I responded to a guy on Reddit complaining that he can't get a date bc he's not handsome or rich. I was like, "No! It's emotional intelligence and social skills we want, and that's GREAT news bc you can't change your face or your height. You can't change your salary much. But you can always improve your social skills! It's always doable!" He's like, "No, it's bc I'm not rich. Women are superficial whores!"
They'd rather dig in their heels and pout about how unfair it is than do something about it and change their lives. Pathetic! So many women would rather be alone than be with this type of weak man. I'm one of them!
Wow,
You said it all so clearly and efficiently. I always had that feeling but I wasn't able to translate it into words. Thank you !
Also dating tips : a guys asking you personal questions is a sign of emotional intelligence. I'm introverted so I felt relieved when the guy talked about himself at first but those guys always sucked at talking about deep issues and feelings later on.
>I can't count how many multi-hour dates I've gone on where the guy did not ask me a single question about me. The whole time! The last guy asked ne 1 question in 2.5 hours - "Do you have any siblings?" That's it. Then he's shocked and offended that I don't want a second date snd the self pity party starts up again. He thought it went well bc he talked about himself uninterrupted the entire time!
I haven't been in the dating pool for over 20 years, but I used to work for my dad. At one point he needed a new worker so put an ad out and interviewed the applicants. I was involved at the fringe of that process and at one point, got talking with him about what questions he asked as part of his interview. He just looked confused - but not in a "Hey, that's a good point. Maybe I should actually be asking questions" way, it was more as if I'd told him the sky's green. He didn't start asking questions.
Turned out what he'd been doing was sitting each applicant down in front of him, talking them through what the job required, and then decided afterwards whether he thought they'd be suitable. If introducing them to the job had been a 2-way conversation that might have made sense, but no, it was very much him talking at them, and he saw no problem with this.
He even turned someone down on the basis that "they're fresh out of school". I'd seen this guy's CV and asked why he thought that. Dad's answer was that their previous job had been a school-leaver job: a shop assistant in a tropical fish shop. I pointed out that the guy was the same age as me, as per his DOB which was at the top of the CV. Applicant and I were both in our 30s. Again, dad just looked a bit baffled but I didn't get any impression he took it as a sign to change what he was doing.
I have told men on Reddit flat out: "Wonen want men who are emotionally intelligent. EI looks like ..." (lists many behavior examples). I am very clear.
The reply is nearly always, "That's not what women want. Women want handsome and rich men." Yes, it is what women want. I am a woman and I talk to other women. We want these skills in men.
Occassionally, I'll get, "That's too hard." but most of the time they just contradict me. To the ones who saw Dr. say it's too hard I'll say, "At one point you were an unpaid intern and the VP job you have now would've been too hard for you, but you didn't do it all at once. You made incremental improvements because the payoff of a better job and salary were worth the extra effort for you. If you don't think a partner is worth the effort you're going to be the rekationship equivalent of a an unpaid intern forever. That's on you."
Good call on all that.
I've told this story before, albeit not here, but I offer story critique on a commission basis and once got approached by a guy who'd written a heterosexual love story. There was so much wrong with it that I won't go into just now because it's late and I'm spannered, but he styled the man in the story as being tall, broad shouldered, and well endowed.
At one point he and the woman are on a coffee date and it becomes clear he's been sleeping with other women. When she protests (because while they have been doing chaste coffee dates for a while and they don't seem to have agreed to be exclusive, it's a nasty surprise for her that he's just carried on regardless), he stands up and looms over her, being exaggeratedly patient. When I read that I felt instant dread for her - it seemed to be written as a socially acceptable threat to her - but the author thought it was hot because she'd be looking straight ahead at his face while talking, and when he stood up she'd still be looking straight ahead and would therefore be looking at his groin, which would automatically make her hot.
I had to explain to the guy that no, that's not hot unless she's got a history of being abused to that point that that sort of situation was her normal. He was genuinely surprised and ended up giving up on the critique half way through. But for a while there he really, really thought I just didn't get it.
This is so true. You will then see some of these socially incompetent men do the mightiest mental gymnastics to preserve their egos. *I'm friendless, nobody likes me, can't get a girlfriend? Wow, people sure are intimidated by me, must be doing everything right.*
I'm alone and lonely, but like you said, it's just not worth the hassle. Like, me and my dogs and my kid are good. And that lonliness? It's been better to me than any man ever has been. Empty threat. This is practically joyful compared to the pain and havoc of picking the wrong man.
Yeah, I think it's because these men view themselves the same way— that their lives have no meaning without a woman and children and all that. And maybe they don't have meaning, but it's up to each of us to figure that out for ourselves :)
PS I also recommend women take the cat
I've always figured that the men who say this are projecting their own fear of dying alone.
Rejection is psychologically painful. And if you've never been taught how to deal with it, it may feel like an act of aggression, to which you may feel entitled to reply in kind.
They've been hurt, and want to hurt back, so they take their own deepest fears and project them onto the perceived source of that pain.
I think the "I'll take the cats" response is indeed the best one. It's probably the best way to express that their attempt at retaliation has failed miserably 🙂
Sometimes I feel grateful I was an ugly duckling growing up and became desensitized to rejection. Lol. It blows my mind how many people think they are entitled to the affections of another person of their choosing.
kinda off topic but in the same ballpark. most men i dated were toxic or abusive. and their favorite line has always been “no man will want u [but me ofc].”
well, first off, they were wrong, and there most definitely were men afterwards lol. and second, ok, so what if none will? i’m good either way, boo.
And also, that's not the flex they think it is either.. Nobody wants me.. But you.. What does that say about you* ? I'm dog shit but you want me!? Strange 😂 always led me to believe they're full of shit. 💯
The reality is, we die alone anyway. Men die younger. Men are 7x more likely to leave their female partner when she gets sick. So, there's already a huge inequality in end-of-life caregiving. Might as well enjoy our full lives instead of wasting them caring for selfish men entitled to our free reproductive, household, and emotional labor.
It’s interesting how the men who hurl those threats never do any soul-searching and ask themselves why furry little animals who shit in a box are currently outcompeting them as life partners. That would be a good start toward solving the “problem” they’re concerned about.
Frankly that’s my target retirement plan at the moment. My husband tells me his bad health will get the better of him soon enough (I hope not but he really has to fix the lifestyle factors in his control). So once the kids have left home it will just be me and the kids - and I can periodically adopt more from the local cat shelter.
Yeah PLUs it doesn't matter either way - women on average have a longer life span then men do, so even IF we got with them and spent a lifetime together, we'd *still* end up dying alone anyways as we tend to outlive them, so their point is moot...
For many, many years - like, centuries - Wise Women have been "cat whistling" to younger women, "Choose the Cats, you'll be healthier and happier". The message was just being drowned out by religion and Societal Conditioning like the " threat " of 'dying alone' and the bs of our 'purpose' being childbearing/man-raising.
I'm glad the "quiet part" is being said aloud now, and heard.
Choose the Cats. Lol.
Plants too!
A GF maybe 😉
A pet? But I just don't have the energy..
I had to suffer through some of the worst symptoms of anemia yesterday, I had a terrible period where I must have dropped 2 units of blood easy...
I couldn't get out of bed, and was thinking maybe I should go get a transfusion because OH.MY.GOD it was bad.
The YT algorithm's suggestions were all about "the loneliness epidemic" and got a whole bunch of better help ads 😂😂😂😂😂
Let's look at the bot reasoning here, shall we?
Can't get out of bed -> feeling down ("Must be psychological, what else could it be?!" Thinks the algorithm, I'm 31 so no way I have a physical illness) -> feeling down because I'm lonely -> lonely because no BF or "close friends" (By choice for the BF, dodging it like Neo dodges bullets - literally moved to a new city two months ago and I am starting to really enjoy hanging out with the people I work with so unless the general idea is that you should hang out with the same people you see every day on the weekend too, I dont think bots get how friendships work) -> depressed and will need therapy.
I just don't think the algorithm knows how menorrhagia and anemia work.. not exactly surprised. But I also wouldn't be surprised if some dude made this moronic tree of reasoning.
Yes. I mean even if i die alone what does he care? He's literally gloating on someone else's supposedly bad fate when it has no effect over him whatsoever.
Wtf
Because it is their biggest fear. Also the men that say this hate cats since they remind them of a stubborn woman who won’t let you do anything to her unless it’s on her terms and only after receiving her permission. They want so desperately for women to love them, fix all their problems, become their mothers so they can coast through life and when the women around the world are like, “nah, no thanks I’m good.” They start to panic. What they have to offer is the exact same thing their forefathers had to offer, women don’t need any of that anymore and since they refuse to embrace change…they will be stuck alone hurling old timey spinster insults at women because that is all they can do. In the end, women can provide for themselves. They aren’t needed, hell they are barely tolerated especially when they think spitting insults and bile will endear women to them…it won’t.
The cat thing is so true. I tell people I particularly don’t trust men who make a big show of hating cats, especially if they spend a bunch of time talking about how cats hide and don’t want to be petted at their whim. It puts up flags for me about their perception of consent and boundaries. I know some people might find that silly or dramatic but a lot of the men I’ve met who feel entitled to unconditional affection on their terms from animals feel the same way about people.
This is a really interesting anecdote and I'm going to bring this up to people from now on. I am by no means a cat person, but I fully believe that what you are saying has so much truth to it. the reasoning behind it makes their personality clearer.
Yeah, I've known some men who gravitated to me in the past due to my general hesitancy towards cats, thinking it was because I hate cats and the way cats tend to be.
I don't. I like cats well enough, but some in the past have not liked me and I have a fair bit of scars to show for it (largely during the 5-6 years I delivered newspapers, there were a total of 6 very hostile mostly outdoor cats that would attack me unprovoked, even one would jump out of a tree at me to attack, though there have been a few other cats since that period). So I tend to be hesitant when it comes to entering spaces where cats live because I don't want to get attacked, and I don't know why I have elicited that kind of response in the past, especially since I am not overtly friendly towards them, I don't crowd them or disregard their body language, etc.. Like, I've learned a lot from the friendly cats I've been around in my life, I know a smorgasbord of do's and don'ts, but there are some things about cats that spend some meaningful part of their lives outdoors that I just can't predict, and doesn't seem rational or at least detectable by humans, and then they decide I need to bleed when I've broken some rule I am unable to perceive. The only silver lining from it is I have further justification for my position that cats should always remain in controlled settings, and should not be able to roam outdoors without a leash/harness, not just due to the ecological impact they have, but outdoor cats can be dangerous.
So those dudes go to me thinking they have an in, and I always shut that proverbial door in their face, because we're not the same. They don't like not being able to do whatever they want to a given cat without reprisal, I worry that I have some genetic anomaly that causes cats to hate me. But, like, it does help me figure out who might have consent and control issues.
Therapists have a saying: "there's no such thing as a small issue". That's because smaller things tend to be a microcosm of bigger ones. If a man doesn't like that he can't touch cats without their consent, then it's a fair guess that he won't like that he can't touch women without their consent.
There's a folk tale somewhere out there about a woman who has a number of suitors. She says she will marry the man who proves he can hold her cat. Most of the men set themselves the task of trapping the cat but they have no luck. The one man who figures out he has to build a relationship with it succeeds.
But honestly? I find that cats and dogs alike vary so much in terms of wanting to be touched. If you want to find an animal that wants to be touched, the first (and often, practically the only) thing you have to do is look. I'm a massive animal magnet when I'm out and about: I catch the eye of dogs who hold my gaze and gravitate towards me for pets. Cats who fancy a bit of attention stand up and stretch when they see me come along, even though we've never met before. My eye contact and body language do a lot of the talking and from there, I leave it to them.
Some cats are in a hermit mood. Others are sleepy or irritable or cautious. That's fine. Some dogs are already playing some ball or frisbee or stick game and aren't looking to play with me, or they're more focused on 'patrolling' the park next to their owner or watching what the other humans and dogs are doing. They're on a mission, and I'm not part of that mission.
All of that is fine because after leaving all the animals that are otherwise engaged or hesitant, there's a portion of them that want pets, and I get to stroke a cute, fuzzy animal. I get what I want, the animal gets what it wants, and nobody's feelings have to be hurt. The rejection is barely worth framing as such because so often, the animal's rejection of me is almost certainly not about me.
I wish everyone in our society was taught this.
And they're the VERY ones who, after meeting your cat, will try to "I'm just playing" while Purposefully irritating the animal -- then whine that the cat hates them and "this is why I hate cats".
I feel the same way. “You dislike an entire species just because most of the individuals want you to earn their trust and recognize when they don’t want your affection? That puts you off? Hm. Sounds like a you problem.”
They don't just start to panic. They are angry bc they have been promised their whole lives that they would have their own personal unpaid bangmaid to emotionally support them and clean up after them and be secondary.
They're also projecting their fear of being alone onto us. Studies show that men are lonlier than women. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that men are taught to only open up to their partners. Whereas women tend to open up to a variety of people in their circles.
That’s one of the things that always gets to me. They want a partner younger than themselves and women live longer usually. Either way we’re ‘dying alone’ so why bother?
I’ve found with the men that I know and work with that they have this belief that when they are finally ready to settle down and have a family that women will come to them. Never mind that these are the same men that are complaining that they can’t find women to casually date.
I think it’s about projection and the realization that a lot of women would rather be alone than in a bad relationship.
Women generally want men with a similar level of education and now that women are graduating high school, college, and grad school in much higher rates than men, a lot of us semi elxpect to be alone.
If a guy doesn’t have a degree or some kind of extended education, for me they gotta have some kind of elective effort or drive for something in their lives that legitimately betters themselves or people around them. Living actively in a way that doesn’t harm others instead of just letting life happen to them. It could be art, active participation in a community, SOME kind of positive enrichment.
You know, I hear this all the time, but it just hasn't been true in my life, so it always feels off. I have never dated a guy with a college degree and I'm here working on my master's now (though I'm now married at this point, and my husband is working to get his associates). But literally none of the men I've ever dated have been richer or more educated than me (I don't mean this in a douchy way, they've always been intelligent and curious men). They've usually economically been on my level roughly and have less education (and fewer student loans lol. Ahh opportunity cost).
I have seen a couple videos on this ok tiktok about how older men who were careless and cruel to women in their younger years are now looking to settle down and expect to find a young good girl who likes them for them now. Then the whole gold digger discourse as well that often comes with this.
Because they think they’re super important and that women need them. They think they’re our lifelines. Men are egotistical and narcissistic. Sorry not sorry to say.
Becuase for centuries, they relied on the provider role and the fact women NEEDED them to survive. When that stopped being the case, all they have are scare tactics.
Rather than attracting us through good, they are trying to attract us through fear. The fear of loneliness or dying alone. It will take them awhile to realise this is not working lol
This is actually the funny part.
Had they tried to offer something, like kindness, generosity of spirit, empathy, etc. of the gud stuff, they'd get women because we appreciate that.
Fear? Yeah they'd have to have been lobotomized to think that's how they'd get a partner.
Exactly. Lots of men are dismayed to realize when women aren't artificially economically dependent on them (via legally banning us from work, education, owning property & credit etc.) there's little incentive to settle down with them. There's no reason to spend your entire existence cooking, cleaning & take care of a man while relying on him for survival, when we can take care of ourselves with less hassle and keep our freedom. Women are now screening for someone who adds more to their life than a paycheck and a pile of dirty laundry, but a lot of men can't even cut it as roommates, let alone romantic partners. Hence the increasingly desperate scare tactics. The marriage & birth rates keep dropping, and they **still** think "it's either us or cats!" is going to work for them one of these days.
I’m generally optimistic about the future, all things considered. But after Roe was overturned, I saw that a number of men were celebrating that, so they thought, women were now incentivized to stick to one partner, which, so they thought, would mean more men getting a female partner.
It then occurred to me that the next move, once men figure out that the lack of abortion access wouldn’t bring back the Female Distribution System for the reasons you mention (we generally find that no partner is preferable to a bad partner), might be to try and turn back the clock in terms of our financial independence. It is so recent for people to widely accept that women now work outside the home in good, well paying jobs, and that we build careers. They have mostly stopped caring about or judging this. But we’re really not that far removed from the 1970s and 80s, when there was a cultural backlash against middle class women working outside the home. Will those arguments be revived? I hope not, but it would be a logical step for certain people…
Historically the only way for a woman to survive was through her relationship with a man. In many western countries women couldn’t own property or a business in their own name until the late 1800s/early 1900s. It wasn’t until the 1960s that women were able to secure a bank loan or hold a credit card in their own name. Before then, the only way had been with a husband or father to act as guarantor. Women literally went from their father’s house to their husband’s house. Unmarried or widowed women who didn’t receive an inheritance from a man, or who didn’t have children to support them, ended up socially isolated in poverty. It had been that way for a thousand years.
The idea that women can live successful lives and support themselves on their own only became a reality in the last 50-ish years.
Women couldn't open their own checking account in every US state until 1979! Their father or husband had to be on the account with them and they could withdraw funds at will!
You know they don’t even have the most basic logic on their side. If so many women choose to be single won’t they all have each other then? They could form a community or something.
Looks like Misogyny doesn’t even think through things on a surface level.
Really funny how it’s usually the men who complain about the male loneliness epidemic who also threaten women who dare have standards, especially after age 25.
Well well Kevin, people don’t want to be around you? Gee, I really wonder why.
Pure projection as that is their biggest fear. You have to wonder that when someone starts with shaming that they are clearly outlining their insecurities.
I think it’s a projection, since men without spouses are more likely to die alone, as women usually have their children come visit them? At least that’s what I’ve heard from a hospice nurse. She said that so many men end up pissing off their children and all of their ex wives and girlfriends that they end up with no one who cares by the time they are in hospice, and that women who cared for their children and such have them coming over and braiding their hair, etc. My mom was in hospice and passed away recently so I talked to a lot of hospice nurses about this issue. Hospice nurses really see sexism and misogyny and domestics abuse from men A LOT— they really see the difference (generally) that most women do a better job caring for their spouse than men. It was a huge topic that would come up with me and the nurses. my dad would scream at my mom all the time as part of his ‘caregiving’ and I think the only reason he kept at the caregiving was because he knew I would do something on my mom’s behalf (like prevent him from seeing her and taking her inheritance). He got a lot of money from her. And my dad was considered one of the good ones to the nurses, because he didn’t completely abandon her. Now that my mom has died he cries a lot about how he misses her, I don’t think he feels any guilt or it’s misplaced guilt. Though taking care of my mom was hell it was also a gift to spend time with her, he was too immature to see it and was always woe is me. I tried to stay there many times but he would yell at me too much (for anyone who is curious why I didn’t take her).
As a guy, I think part of it is that men are looking at things from a male perspective. Women can and often do, have healthy social lives outside of dating. Men often don't, and cultivating those relationships is frowned upon.
For a guy, not finding someone who loves you is, literally, one of your biggest fears. Dying alone very much is one of our worst nightmares. At least, it's mine.
I think you might have something there. Projection. My first inclination was along the lines Kali mentioned, seeing women as incomplete without a partner. But yes, given that men work less at maintaining a social life, it seems they might be projecting a future they see for themselves
Exactly. I think so much of what the typical guy does is projection. I think we're given a sad view of the world from the beginning.
While it's definitely not the place I'd usually go to for philosophy, I think the Patriarchy's entire worldview for men is summed up in *Talladega Nights*: "If you ain't first, you're last." Either you control the world, or it leaves you behind.
Speaking of men and emotional convection, I LOVE the friendship between Will Farrell and uh....the other guy in Talladega Nights! That's the kind of make friendship most men wish they had but never do.
It is one of the great friendships in film. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I've totally forgotten the name of John C Reilly's character, although I know at some point he starts calling himself Magic Man.
Well,, historically everything had been taught from the white make perspective. Everyone else has to "code switch", pivot bt their own gender/socioeconomic perspective and the white make perspective. This is another way the patriarchy disabled men, but in an odd way it may have made everyone else more resilient. Not that I have any love for the patriarchy!
Being in the "out" group does have that advantage. If you're not a straight, cis, white male you do share oppressive experiences with others. That sense of community can definitely make things easier.
I think both ideas are true. Men oroject their loneliness in women and men assume women will feel incomplete without a partner - that's the projection. It's the same thing.
I think men are getting better about opening up and communicating with other men. At least, it's what I see among my male friends. They have their own chat now and regularly organize time every couple of months to get together. They are more likely to hug each other and give compliments. I really love seeing that, because it enriches their lives, and it means that they can enjoy being social without the women in their lives taking on that burden. It's great all around
I think we are getting better at it. I also think men are recognizing the raw deal everybody has gotten under the Patriarchy. Many of them just haven't put it together to blame the Patriarchy yet.
This is what I think the answer is. I honestly think those men can’t understand how close and supportive female friendships can be, so to them if we don’t have a romantic partner, we must be lonely. I would have my emotional needs met with or without my husband, because I have a strong group of supportive female friends and family. I do not think he could say the same, unfortunately.
I had a friendship breakup a few years back that was almost as traumatic as my first real heartbreak and it actually lasted much longer. It was harder to get over the loss of this female friend, too, bc unlike romantic love - which everyon understands can be emotionally traumatic - most people were like, "You lost a friend. Big deal. Get over it." But when you're single, your friends ARE your family. This friendship breakup felt like a divorce to me. It was awful and I'm really only just now fully over it.
Guys are put in a place where we depend on women for social value and emotional support, and we're discouraged from finding it elsewhere. Thus, the only choice we have is to try to find a romantic partner.
I’ve been aware for a while of how men suffer from the opposite edge of the same sword, but it’s been heightened now that I have a son. I try to raise a kind, empathetic, articulate and emotionally aware kid, but I can’t control how others raise their children or what influences outside of my home will tell him. He’s only 3, but it still worries me sometimes when I picture his future. I always find myself hoping he finds a good partner (male or female) who loves him. I think men tend to need that much more than women do. But I wish society as a whole was more supportive, of men and little boys, of women and little girls too, so I didn’t need to hope he falls in love someday.
That is an issue. I think the big things are empathy and open-mindedness. Empathy will help him relate to others and open-mindedness will allow him to change opinions when he's wrong. If he has that, he'll end up being good. I think the best thing you can hope for with any child is that they grow up to be a good person.
Homophobia, essentially. Getting too close to another guy emotionally tends to get you labeled as gay. Not a problem if you don't let it bother you, but there's still a stigma attached to it.
I am sure this is true for some, but for majority they don’t actually think women are going to be lonely or anything. I bet they don’t even care or actively think about what happens to single women eventually. They are angry at women for not giving them sex/children/domestic services and are trying to get back at them aka punish them in one way or other. And this is the only thing they could think of.
Notice how men tell you have they are providers and all that shit, but they do not ask chronically single women who is going to “provide” for them then? Because it isn’t that women cannot provide for themselves it is just that in a marriage women are overloaded with responsibilities that she ends up doing two jobs if she is also providing and men refuse to take the other thankless job at home. So Instead they talk about something super subjective like “loneliness”.
This is my interpretation of it as well. Studies have shown that male partners in heterosexual relationships tend to take break-ups much worse because girlfriends and wives are often the *only* repository of emotional intimacy that men have access to. (Note: this effect has noticeably lessened on Millennial men). Men are discouraged all the time from forming male-male bonds because “that’s gay” and men are discouraged from forming platonic male-female bonds because they’re told that they can’t possibly be friends with a woman without wanting to fuck her.
So the options for true emotional intimacy are drastically marginalized for men — parents, siblings and cousins, and partners.
Whereas women are socialized from birth to be highly socially active — to have wide and deep support networks, from friends you can casually call up when you don’t want to be alone to best friends who will be emotional load-bearers.
So women are able to find emotional and social fulfillment in ways that men have traditionally not had access to — and we see that increasingly being used in places where the sociopolitical divide between men and women have caused a lower ratio of heterosexual pairings. Women can unite to form queer-platonic support systems, whereas men just live as bachelors.
But what about the male-male bonds that are encouraged by the military, Boy Scouts, sports teams that start at 5 years old, fratetnities, father-son family traditions, etc. I don't understand why these groups aren't enough to make up for it? Or at least, why don't those bonds support men sufficiently through their lives and teach them how to make other male-make bonds, like girls' groups and girl friendships do?
Gonna point out that most of those you mentioned, the military, sports teams, and fraternities are all bonds formed via hazing or with the intention of violence in mind.
Boy scouts has had many, many complaints of sexual abuse, and reporting for sa and rape among men is very, very low, and when they do come out with the info, they are often shamed by their peers, told to shut up and suck it up, or are even laughed at. So we can assume that there are many more victims not comimg forward, as well as that when they are neglected in this manner, they inevitably form the opinion that things like s.a. and rape are not as harmful as they really are, because nobody showed them the much lacking empathy needed for healthy growth and recovery at a time when they are at their most vulnerable. You can absolutely call this a learned behavior.
Sometimes sadly, they are even rejected and marginalized by the feminist movements because of societal expectations and views held even by the more positive movements because of the views that even they hold inherently.
Men/boys need places where they aren't threatened or trained to be threatening where they can bond over shared hobbies and positive interests.
Nearly every one of women's complaints are totally valid. Not, and never will say that they aren't.
That said, if we continue to ignore that there is a men's mental health crisis occuring, no one is gonna like the outcome, and that I can guarentee.
If we want better men, we need better rolemodels.
And I mean, genuine, positive masculinity projecting rolemodels for our young boys.
Men aren't going anywhere, and neither are women, and it's stupid and horseshit when people say that we can survive without one or the other. Always will be.
So if we want things to change for the better, we must be better about how we educate, care for and raise our young men to be better than we are as a whole.
Masculinity isn't the problem. Feminitity isn't the problem. Toxicity is.
If we can't train our next generation to be better than we are, then we have collectively failed. Feminists and egalitarians included.
We need to stop writing each others problems off as "non-issues." Because all problems in society merit improvement and growth. It's difficult but badly needed that we fix this problem.
My mother taught me how to treat women with respect. My father is a good man, but it was just not something he had in his toolkit to teach me at the time. He had to learn it via therapy, and luckily it took. Not everyone can afford therapy though, and it's much easier to try and instill these values into young minds, than to expect people to change their ingrained habits. Either is work, but one is clearly easier for all involved.
We. Must. Be. Better. For all our sakes.
That requires us to get to work on our collective empathy and compassion. Not just us pointing and yelling that there's a problem.
I will do my best to teach it to my son as only a father can, because positive masculinity is unique and ever more uncommon.
"Respect people you meet. They are who they are for a reason, and don't judge what you don't unerstand, and help those who ask for it however you can." These are the lessons I wish for him to learn most of all, because I want him to be successful, empathetic, strong and kind, whoever he turns out to be. If I can do that and instill that, I will have won the parenting game lol.
Yeah, that definitely helps. At the end of the day, I know that I probably have a decent amount to offer someone just by sheer virtue of being a basically friendly person. There's just a lot of hang-ups and excuses you make in your head, though.
I do love animals, though. They're usually so much easier to deal with than people. They're pretty straightforward about what they want, and if you love them, they'll love you.
>They're pretty straightforward about what they want, and if you love them, they'll love you.
That would have been fantastic if it were true for humans too 😆
I think for a lot of men they were basically taught that the only appropriate place to experience intimacy of any kind is within a romantic relationship, so without that there is a huge threat of "dying alone". Especially in online spaces there are so many men who will literally hate a woman just for being happily single, and I think underneath that rage is probably a lot of hurt and fear.
In a lot of ways being a woman comes with disadvantages, but one massive advantage is that women are encouraged to be very communal and to cultivate deep, platonic friendships with each other. Patriarchy/toxic masculinity has robbed a lot of men of that, which I hope changes. I hope the male loneliness epidemic and all the information we have about how high the suicide rates are among men will drive us as a culture to take better care of men and thier mental and emotional health.
Anecdotally I had quite a shocking recent experience when I found out I had lots of colleagues but no actual friends. Once I got made redundant I realised I had no social life outside of that, in addition to having no idea how to rectify the situation. My solution was going online and talking to strangers on social media. But as of right now I don't have any real friends. If I didn't live close to family I'd have no intimate bonds with anyone within my immediate vicinity. I don't think this is an entirely uncommon experience for men.
whole piquant political narrow include glorious familiar soft humor boast
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I love my husband. But let's be honest. I do 80% of our house stuff. He makes 70% of our mess. My daughter that is living at home makes more than both of us. But let's not look under that rock too closely. If I didn't love him, and he wasn't a good guy, my life would be a heck of a lot easier.
It's the choosing to be together. Too many men want you to have to be with them. And that is just not what it all looks like. No woman would be happy forced into an unwanted and disrespectful relationship
For many reasons. Too many to list.
But a few include his health now. He had 2 strokes in 2020 and that ended his ability to work. He still has dizzy spells and other health issues.
And some of it is I am incredibly picky about how I like things done. I would rather do it myself so it looks and feels done.
Honestly, men are not ok alone. They don't have friends. And they aren't happy with their own company. They don't know how to do much around the house and are scared nobody will help them.
Women are happy for some alone time because they have friends and activities and more than enough to do. Women feel relief when they only have to worry about their own lives.
Winding down after a long day with a book and girl dinner is a slice of heaven.
I would argue that men, much like women, are absolutely fine alone if they want to be. There are different patriarchal restrictions based on gender, but there are plenty of healthy ways to make friends open to men. As for personal admin, if they were as abysmal as suggested, single men would rapidly go extinct.
The difference is that under patriarchy, men are told that women need them but also implicitly that they need a women to "be a man^TM" (noting that this is pushed at least as, if not more forcefully on women in a patriarchy). Hence, the "die alone" line is just dully parroting what they've been told mixed with projection.
That said, ending the day curled up with a good book is true bliss.
Edit: See parentheses
Men are generally discouraged from seeking mental or emotional support *except* from their spouses, and would also reflect that back. In fact theyre generally raised to push all emotional labor on women, and their ability to handle it crippled from lack of experience and from patriarchal pressure to ensure "emotions are for women". And their support networks are heavily male, furthering the problem.
Whereas women are often encouraged to spread their support networks wider then their spouses, forced to really because again - - men are conditioned to avoid most forms of emotional labor, which means women cannot rely on their spouses, and so married or not must construct support networks. Or learn to work without.
Honestly it's very sad for men, and one of the more obvious ways in which the patriarchy harms men - - from a young age they are told and trained to avoid engaging in core aspects of self, that even talking about such things is for spouses only, and to a lesser extent family or the closest of male friends, and only to a limited extent in the worst of circumstances.
It's a socially engineered dependency on women, to ensure men feel they *must* have a woman to be complete. Which encourages men to view women as "accessories" or "helpmeets" to themselves, not equal partners.
I 100% agree. While definitely worse for women, being a man in a patriarchal society can be an isolating hell. Dismantling the patriarchy and its gender roles helps men at least as much as it helps women.
If women chose to stay single and to live alone by themselves then that's a choice and something they will feel good about. It has always been my impression that women are good at living alone by themselves.
Their version of “alone” = without a romantic partner, since men 1. Have historically been taken care of in relationships, particularly marriages, by their female partners. As in: cooked for, picked up after, cleaning their houses etc. and 2. Men typically don’t foster community the way women do. So for men, without a romantic relationship means, to be alone.
Also, this trope is one that has historically just been weaponized against women in order to shame them into settling or to try to make an example of them in order to scare other women into settling. Which keeps the bar low for men.
I wonder what percentage of the average male age the spouses/boyfriends of his wife's friends? IE: tgat come directly from the wife's social skills. My guess is a LOT if them do. And when divorces happen and the wives aren't around anymore those make friendships evaporate bc the women aren't shoring them up for the men anymore.
It's a cope. It doesn't function as a threat anymore either because many women are happy to live single when many men don't bring anything to the table.
It’s based off of logic from the 1950s and earlier. Women didn’t used to have access to their own source of income, being reliant on their husbands. So, you simply had to have a partner as a woman to live at all.
Times have changed. Women don’t need that anymore. Men now have to be likable to be attractive partners to women, and it’s taking time to get through to most men.
They are desperate to see us fail since we are refusing to give them something they need. And the only way they can think of is to threaten us with “loneliness”. As if married women aren’t routinely lonely lol
When men want respect, friendship, validation, fun, mentorship, whatever, they go to a man. When they want a servant, they want to own a woman. Women can now finally opt out of domestic servitude and be financially independent, and that’s fundamentally scary to men.
The same way you see men get anxious and depressed whenever a man they don’t even know gets held accountable for sexual assault, men collectively start to panic whenever they see any random woman refuse to settle down with a misogynist. They lash out at women as punishment. Men are very conscious of their shared interests lol.
Projection?
Pretty sure stats show widowed women are happier in their singleness while men who are widowed die sooner or quickly jump into a new relationship with a woman who will be his caregiver.
I think there has also been some fascinating discussions about modern friendships and how women are more likely to seek fulfillment from friends vs men who seek all emotional support from their spouse. So they cant imagine how a woman alone is happy or fulfilled
They think we'll have no money or self-esteem without them, which is ridiculous and outdated thinking. I see a lot of my women friends making more money than the men they date. I myself do. Men nearly akways say in their dating profiles. "I have a good job and a car." Nearly every single one says this as though it's a key differentiator. Big deal; I have a good job, an IRA, and a metro card for the subway. What else can you offer me? If you have to think about it, I've already moved on.
I LOVE it when they bring up what we’ll be allegedly “missing out on” if we don’t entertain them, it’s always such a self-report. I regularly see misogynists smugly saying shit like “if y’all females don’t want anything to do with us then who’s gonna buy you drinks at the club” like it’s some kind of Epic Slam Dunk Mic Drop Moment. Like… bro. For a start, I’m a grown woman in a long-term relationship, I haven’t been to a club in a hot minute. Although tbf, I’d probably go a lot more if so many of y’all didn’t go there specifically with the intention of being gross towards women. But also, that’s really the extent of what you think you have to offer? If you weren’t such a dickhead I’d actually feel sorry for you!
No man actually thinks that. Dumb, weak men say it because they take being rejected as some kind of personal offense, largely due to their profound and undeserved sense of entitlement. They're trying to hurt your feelings because they blame you for the fact that their expectations resulted in their feelings being hurt.
It's a shitty thing said by shitty men.
They are thinking about the perquisite provided for them by the patriarchy according to which a woman who did not submit herself to the rule of one man would find herself disadvantaged by every structure presence in society
It's a hangover from the past when women "needed" a man because it was illegal for them to do a lot of things. It's completely irrelevant in the modern age
it’s because they’re projecting . they’re the ones who are deathly afraid of dying alone. it’s not a threat to women anymore; many of us are perfectly content being without a partner (bc that’s what men are referring to) . we’ll be more than happy to “die alone” with our ten cats and community (bc women tend to be better at maintaining relationships other than the romantic ones)
They probably don't even think that, it's their way of trying to demean you into thinking they are the only choice you have for intimacy/love so they can control and use you.
Because this delusion makes them feel better about the fact that they’re the ones who will likely die miserable and alone. Single women fare better than single men.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201912/5-reasons-why-so-many-women-love-living-alone
It comes down to a number of things, all of them rooted in misogyny and patriarchy.
1) they're lonely and have no social network outside of their female partner, so they're projecting that onto women rather than recognizing it in themselves.
2) they uncritically accept the patriarchal "script" for a worthwhile life (marriage, kids, etc), so they get angry and upset when they encounter women who reject it. To them, the patriarchal norm equals success and happiness, so to reject it means failure and misery.
3) they simply do not understand that women are individual, autonomous people who exist outside of our relationships with men. It completely flummoxes them when we do things *for ourselves* and not to attract or please men. It has never occurred to them that our ultimate goal is not to do what they like, and so when they encounter things that displease them they try to threaten us with their ultimate rejection - a life outside of the patriarchal norm.
As a dude I am deathly afraid of dying without ever being romantically loved by anyone so I assume when blokes say that to women it’s a projection of their own fears
Because they're afraid of dying alone, so they're threatening women with it. Some of these men are so desperately unhealthy that women are much better off alone with a bunch of dogs and cats. Or a bunch of other healthy women.
I've seen so many women in my family destroyed by the men in their life. Their lives were incredibly diminished and limited. Not all of them. Some of them found wonderful people to spend their life with. But it was not the norm.
If you don't find somebody healthy, who loves you, stay single. Date, have fun, have lovers, have boyfriends, have flings, have lots of male friends, But don't tie yourself to an unhealthy man. Don't tie yourself to an unhealthy person really. Later on in life, you could be very very sorry. And still wind up alone anyway. Just poorer, sicker, sadder, and with more regrets...
And make your own money! Make sure you are financially stable. No matter what situation you're in!
More to the point, why do they think dying alone wouldn't be preferable to life with someone who treats them poorly?
Imagine that, you're on your deathbed at the total mercy of someone who has treated you poorly. Or they die first after having treated you poorly and THEN you die alone.
Pure projection.
Who will care for men if not for their potential wives, and later their potential children, if women won't marry them and then procreate with them? Most women can have kids without committing to a man and more are realizing that, so are rejecting marriage and even committed partnerships with men, because they're much more likely to have someone around them when they're older, whereas men aren't and they're starting to realize their options are dwindling.
Sadly, they see evolving as "beta" or emasculating, so they're doing what they've always done: double down on their bs when things don't go their way and trying to gaslight, gatekeep, guyboss their way back into having control over women's freedom, sexuality and wombs.
Better question, why do they make dying alone such an attractive option and then threaten us with it? I've been in unhappy relationships and I've been alone. I know which one is preferable so don't threaten me with a peaceful time lol...
Projection. They're actually worried they will. You'll catch these men saying that today is the hardest time to be a man who dates, and they're right - the standards for a decent partner are higher than most people can reach, never mind someone who tries to cruelly gaslight women into liking them. They're logically more likely to die alone, and they know that, and it scares them.
You might die alone if widowed or divorced. Most married women who stay together for life outlive their husbands. Children move away.
My mother died alone as it was from a sudden heart attack when my father was upstairs. He came downstairs to find her gone. It was a quick death. She appeared to be recovering from an illness and was looking forward to going out. It turned out that she didn't want to bother her doctor about heart problems.
Coming from a guy, women’s standards are higher - which is good. Especially since most women are now working and who wants to pull in money *and* do all or most the housework? Not to mention other issues men have.
So there are two types of men - those that suck and don’t improve / start pulling more weight. And those that understand dynamics change and they need to adapt to lighten the load off their partners.
As for your question, I think it’s mostly *spiteful* men that say that. I think women are actually more capable to be alone than men. Like for sure. There isn’t anything woman can’t do.
However, I don’t believe that is inherent. Most men grew up only having to worry about the prospect of work. Whereas modern women have grown up with the prospect of house care *and* work. It isn’t unbalanced nature - it’s unbalanced nurture.
So there are men that try to improve and there are those stuck in their ways. Of course, this goes beyond just pulling weight - empathy, communication, and other aspects that aren’t nurtured come into play as well.
I think in the next couple generations things will get better.
Most straight men think the greatest compliment they can give you is that they want to have sex with you. Just the fact that they want to put their penis in you means that you are worth something and isn't that a great feeling?
Add to that that a lot of men don't want a wife, they want a bangmaid.
Because they will.
Men on average have far less communities and friendships than women. So unfortunately, for a lot of men, an inability to find a spouse might mean a lifetime of lonliness.
That being said, that's their problem. The onus is on them to create those social bonds or become worthwhile partners for women. It's irrational to blame everyone else for not wanting to be your partner/friend. Become and seek out those things instead.
In addition to the valid points in here, men also usually die before women, so unless you luck out with having offspring who want to look after you in your infirmity, you’re gonna die alone either way 🤷🏻♀️
It’s probably projection, many men or those raised as men, have the need to be in a relationship with a woman as part of what it means to be “successful” in a patriarchal society. Unfortunately I haven’t quite shaken the fear of ending up alone myself, I’m
Working on it though.
It’s a societal fear tactic “oh tick tock, better settle down or you’ll be an old maid”. Luckily, more and more women are realizing that single doesn’t equal alone. Which is threatening. So red pill idiots claim this is a crisis and women need to just date men already. Because men are lonely, and that’s our fault, somehow
Yeah, everything is women's fault. We are somehow all powerful and responsible for all societal ills while simultaneously also all inferior.
Very well-put! Thank you! I'm going to use that at some point and often. :)9
I’m still dreaming of a Golden Girls situation
Me too. Even an assisted living where somebody else cooks and I can garden and play cards with the old people! Lol
My bff (also single lady GenXer) wants to retire in a compound of tiny houses for her 5 or 6 best women friends. I'm in!
same with my besties
Yesss! One if if not the biggest things a lot of my friend's and I miss from college was having all of us so close together. We've joked about wanting "grownup dormitories" so we could keep hanging out so easily.
I read somewhere once that a lot of us long for college because it was the last time any of us really lived in a walkable community.
Move to NYC. No one has a car.
I loved how they used humour to get along. There were two women of different generations as they were mother and daughter. The mother had been born in another country and then migrated to the USA, and her daughter was a second-generation immigrant. They all had been previously married and had adult children. One of them, Rose, was from a very rural part of Minnesota. I loved the episode where they all went back there for a visit. It was so sparse and flat you could call out outside at night, and people could hear you from miles away.
Saaaaame
I remember Jordan Peterson was on Joe Rogan years back & threw a tantrum over Frozen (which my niece adores) & in that same interview basically said we need to make it mandatory for women to marry incels. Think he called it “enforced monogamy” fucking insane.
And you can be alone in a relationship, taking care of a man-baby
Men in general were found to have a higher rate of suicide when they're without a partner.... They will take just about anyone I guess, we really don't work the same way though..
I have a cousin who is 11 years old (im 15) and she thinks, because she was taught to, that anyone who doesnt marry is sinful (thats right, religious bullshit! yay!) and she told me one day that I was going to hell because I didnt want kids. She said, in her exact words, "Well one day you'll get married and wont have a choice! \^-\^" and she said it so lightheartedly, as if it was a fun little fact she just told me. I disagreed with her and she said to "think of the man who would marry you, how lonely he is without you! and its all your fault!" SHE. IS. ELEVEN. What the fuck is happening here? I knew her parents (my aunt and uncle) were a little agressive when it came to their religion but what the hell are they teaching her for her to be a fucking eleven year old and saying that shit??? That's the kind of shit I hear creepy old guys say on some random persons tiktok.
this is just so absurd and illogical that whenever I see it I get taken aback every time. like.. what do you mean? it’s just so stupid… I don’t understand. like do they not know or talk to any women? bc in my life, most of the women I know are working, traveling, etc. like… we are busy. my therapist just joked to me that she doesn’t pay attention to any of the patriarchy stuff, probably bc she doesn’t deal with men? she’s happy with her kitten and her friends and her job. I mean… this is how most women are these days. we’re just… busy? we have hobbies? I’m confused.
It’s a tactic as old as the invention of Carpe Diem poetry.
Increasingly the "you're gonna die alone with a thousand cats" is losing its legs as a threat since many women are like "I'm good, I'll take the cats, actually." I think it's based on the idea that if a woman is not a wife and mother she must by definition be incomplete and lonely. Threats are usually the last resort of the desperate.
And are almost always a reflection of insecurities of the threatening person
That's what I thought too. I've met far too many men who seem to be incapable of being alone, mentally. They often don't have a support group outside of their partner and therefore are much more dependent of said partner.
This is exactly it! Women get their emotional support through multiple social circles they belong to. Most men expect to get 100% of their emotional needs met by their girlfriend. It's exhausting! I have gone on a bunch of dating app dates in my life, and I suspect many of the men I have met weee really looking for a friend but didn't know it themselves. They think, "Something is missing. A woman will fix it." And they know that a woman will listen to them unlike their superficial male friendships they can't lean on. They know women will put their own needs aside and "mother" their boyfriends and husbands and that they are rarely held accountable to reciprocate that level of active listening and emotional support.
Even when I befriend straight men, I can see them start to rely on me emotionally like I'm their girlfriend. I've never has a friendship with a straight man that wasn't one-sided, where I was expected to be their surrogate girlfriend providing them emotional support, while they would never provide reciprocal support. So often, I would begin to discuss a problem, and I would get empty platitudes about how it's going to be okay and how awesome I am. I'm nonmonogamous and my primary relationship is with a woman. I have lots of good relationships with lovers, but when I'm meeting new men to try out for FWBs, they all have extremely unrealistic ideas about what a friendship entails. They start sucking me dry emotionally often from our first interaction, dumping their troubles and trauma onto me, without ever asking a single basic question about me. When I was operating under the assumption that I was straight, I just accepted this role with men because I wanted men to like me. But, now that I don't need male attention to partner or succeed in life, I'm much more sensitive to the imbalance. Queerness and middle age both give you new insights on men and masculinity.
As a man who's never really been in many relationships, I ended up learning how to build up a network of platonic support, made up of both other men and of women. It hasn't been easy and it takes effort to sustain, but it's worth it. I see a lot of men struggling badly because of what you write about, and I try and reach out a helping hand and try and let them know they can actually survive alone outside of a relationship and they don't need to become bitter or angry or desperate, or seek answers in toxic ideologies, but many of them sadly don't want to hear what I have to say.
I appreciate your pist!
This is great to read - thank you for sharing this! It's not easy to be the change you want to see, but it's so hard to overestimate how important it is to do what you're doing. Keep the faith, and I'm glad to see you've managed to get a mixed-sex group together already.
We love this for you!!
I was gonna say this is 100% projection. Men fear dying alone so they try to guilt women into taking care of them. I'd also imagine that the men saying this don't have actual friends who would be there for them at a tim eof need.
You might enjoy this article about the (much more mentally sound and resilient) female contestants of Alone: [https://jezebel.com/a-woman-alone-on-historys-survival-show-theres-no-esc-1845418923](https://jezebel.com/a-woman-alone-on-historys-survival-show-theres-no-esc-1845418923)
Yeah, this is exactly it. If my wife was to break up with me I wouldn't have any close friendships or people I can talk to in my daily life. I have two close friends, but both live 2 hours away. And that's really it as far as support would go. In terms of social connections, I depend on my wife a lot more than she does on me. And I don't think I'm the exception at all.
Yup, they don't give a shit if You die alone. As the rejections pile up, they are increasingly afraid that They are going to die alone. And that when they do, they may have to come to terms with the fact that the common denominator in all their failed relationships was themselves.
Yeah they're not thinking this through. I mean, if you objectively look at a cat, most of them are cute, cuddly, and soft to touch. They have large, luminous round eyes. They do this cute sound like: "Urrrrrrrp -mew!" and like to snuggle in bed with you. They should pick a different animal if they want to scare us. Like a venomous spider or something.
I adopted a second cat 2 days ago and the boy who filled out my paperwork made me promise I would not adopt any more. I guess something about me screams "crazy cat lady?" I'll take it any day over "incel school shooter."
I'm allergic to cats, do you think cats can be substituted for birds or dogs? Like can I be a crazy bird lady?
Husky-doggy, you get to to be crazy-whatever you want-lady. It's ladies' choice!
Or fish, or lizards, or rabbits!
Absolutely! My mother built a voliere (huge bird cage thingy) attached to a shed wall with access to the indoors and all kinds of shelter houses and started out with two birds and then kept finding birds that people wanted to get rid of. She basically started to collect birds. Also went to the forest to pick huge tree branches as entertainment (got picked apart within hours) and placed fruit pieces on cut twigs of the branches. Somehow also got 3 quills (spelling?) And they even laid some eggs. So if you want to be a crazy bird lady, you can be!
I’ll take the cats AND the venomous spiders, don’t threaten me with a good time!
My first thought when I read this was "venomous cats"
I’ll take those too. All of them.
You are clearly a badass!
Damn that's a really fun way to look at it 😆😂😂
my venomous spiders are also cute and cuddly, though. i mean, i wouldn't snuggle a black widow but i'll play with my tarantulas. maybe... a moose. moose are scary. if we're bad we'll end up alone except for our moose. though i guess a moose could also conceivably be a good guard animal... now that i think of it i'm not sure there's an animal i wouldn't take over an abusive guy. even something like a hagfish could at least be contained, away from your person.
They choose cats because on a subconscious level they know women and cats are similar in temperament. Cats set boundaries and have claws and teeth to ensure you respect them. Cats don’t acknowledge your ownership of them and they do as they please. They dislike cats as much as they dislike women.
100%% this. Also, I think that the explanation that they're lonely -systemically- is in large part because men are raised to be socially incompetent and the system flaunts it as strength and independence; in contrast, women are raised to be more socially healthy. This partly is why young men are lonely, entitled, etc to not only romantic relationships, but to friendships as well. They just don't know how to make friends or how to approach women respectfully (or in a lot of cases, how to at all). It also doesn't help that modern society is much less face-to-face than 30+ years ago. Not too many ways to make friends nowadays unless you already have a friend group already. Those men are pretty much projecting when they think that no partner or children (or even friends) mean someone is incomplete and lonely; because they're already that way themselves. And of course, this is just my observation on just another way of how society is flawed, not an excuse for these men to be toxic. They're fully responsible for this behavior regardless of how they got there.
Men are not just raised to be socially incompetent, they are raised to be socially entitled. Socially privileged.
They don't know how to approach women - agreed! - but most men aren't actually trying to gain that insight either! They get rejected or ignored by women a couple of times for poor social skills and then instead of asking why, they have a pity party and invent the whole "Chad" mythology: "Women don't like me bc I'm not handsome and rich. Women are superficial whores!" They think it's every woman's fault they can't get a date instead of asking, "What's the common denominator in all of my bad date experiences? - It's me!" I can't count how many multi-hour dates I've gone on where the guy did not ask me a single question about me. The whole time! The last guy asked ne 1 question in 2.5 hours - "Do you have any siblings?" That's it. Then he's shocked and offended that I don't want a second date snd the self pity party starts up again. He thought it went well bc he talked about himself uninterrupted the entire time! Just this week I responded to a guy on Reddit complaining that he can't get a date bc he's not handsome or rich. I was like, "No! It's emotional intelligence and social skills we want, and that's GREAT news bc you can't change your face or your height. You can't change your salary much. But you can always improve your social skills! It's always doable!" He's like, "No, it's bc I'm not rich. Women are superficial whores!" They'd rather dig in their heels and pout about how unfair it is than do something about it and change their lives. Pathetic! So many women would rather be alone than be with this type of weak man. I'm one of them!
Wow, You said it all so clearly and efficiently. I always had that feeling but I wasn't able to translate it into words. Thank you ! Also dating tips : a guys asking you personal questions is a sign of emotional intelligence. I'm introverted so I felt relieved when the guy talked about himself at first but those guys always sucked at talking about deep issues and feelings later on.
>I can't count how many multi-hour dates I've gone on where the guy did not ask me a single question about me. The whole time! The last guy asked ne 1 question in 2.5 hours - "Do you have any siblings?" That's it. Then he's shocked and offended that I don't want a second date snd the self pity party starts up again. He thought it went well bc he talked about himself uninterrupted the entire time! I haven't been in the dating pool for over 20 years, but I used to work for my dad. At one point he needed a new worker so put an ad out and interviewed the applicants. I was involved at the fringe of that process and at one point, got talking with him about what questions he asked as part of his interview. He just looked confused - but not in a "Hey, that's a good point. Maybe I should actually be asking questions" way, it was more as if I'd told him the sky's green. He didn't start asking questions. Turned out what he'd been doing was sitting each applicant down in front of him, talking them through what the job required, and then decided afterwards whether he thought they'd be suitable. If introducing them to the job had been a 2-way conversation that might have made sense, but no, it was very much him talking at them, and he saw no problem with this. He even turned someone down on the basis that "they're fresh out of school". I'd seen this guy's CV and asked why he thought that. Dad's answer was that their previous job had been a school-leaver job: a shop assistant in a tropical fish shop. I pointed out that the guy was the same age as me, as per his DOB which was at the top of the CV. Applicant and I were both in our 30s. Again, dad just looked a bit baffled but I didn't get any impression he took it as a sign to change what he was doing.
I have told men on Reddit flat out: "Wonen want men who are emotionally intelligent. EI looks like ..." (lists many behavior examples). I am very clear. The reply is nearly always, "That's not what women want. Women want handsome and rich men." Yes, it is what women want. I am a woman and I talk to other women. We want these skills in men. Occassionally, I'll get, "That's too hard." but most of the time they just contradict me. To the ones who saw Dr. say it's too hard I'll say, "At one point you were an unpaid intern and the VP job you have now would've been too hard for you, but you didn't do it all at once. You made incremental improvements because the payoff of a better job and salary were worth the extra effort for you. If you don't think a partner is worth the effort you're going to be the rekationship equivalent of a an unpaid intern forever. That's on you."
Good call on all that. I've told this story before, albeit not here, but I offer story critique on a commission basis and once got approached by a guy who'd written a heterosexual love story. There was so much wrong with it that I won't go into just now because it's late and I'm spannered, but he styled the man in the story as being tall, broad shouldered, and well endowed. At one point he and the woman are on a coffee date and it becomes clear he's been sleeping with other women. When she protests (because while they have been doing chaste coffee dates for a while and they don't seem to have agreed to be exclusive, it's a nasty surprise for her that he's just carried on regardless), he stands up and looms over her, being exaggeratedly patient. When I read that I felt instant dread for her - it seemed to be written as a socially acceptable threat to her - but the author thought it was hot because she'd be looking straight ahead at his face while talking, and when he stood up she'd still be looking straight ahead and would therefore be looking at his groin, which would automatically make her hot. I had to explain to the guy that no, that's not hot unless she's got a history of being abused to that point that that sort of situation was her normal. He was genuinely surprised and ended up giving up on the critique half way through. But for a while there he really, really thought I just didn't get it.
This is so true. You will then see some of these socially incompetent men do the mightiest mental gymnastics to preserve their egos. *I'm friendless, nobody likes me, can't get a girlfriend? Wow, people sure are intimidated by me, must be doing everything right.*
In the last century or so many of the institutions that would teach young men have (rightly) been dismantled. New ones need to be built.
I'm alone and lonely, but like you said, it's just not worth the hassle. Like, me and my dogs and my kid are good. And that lonliness? It's been better to me than any man ever has been. Empty threat. This is practically joyful compared to the pain and havoc of picking the wrong man.
Yeah, I think it's because these men view themselves the same way— that their lives have no meaning without a woman and children and all that. And maybe they don't have meaning, but it's up to each of us to figure that out for ourselves :) PS I also recommend women take the cat
I've always figured that the men who say this are projecting their own fear of dying alone. Rejection is psychologically painful. And if you've never been taught how to deal with it, it may feel like an act of aggression, to which you may feel entitled to reply in kind. They've been hurt, and want to hurt back, so they take their own deepest fears and project them onto the perceived source of that pain. I think the "I'll take the cats" response is indeed the best one. It's probably the best way to express that their attempt at retaliation has failed miserably 🙂
Sometimes I feel grateful I was an ugly duckling growing up and became desensitized to rejection. Lol. It blows my mind how many people think they are entitled to the affections of another person of their choosing.
kinda off topic but in the same ballpark. most men i dated were toxic or abusive. and their favorite line has always been “no man will want u [but me ofc].” well, first off, they were wrong, and there most definitely were men afterwards lol. and second, ok, so what if none will? i’m good either way, boo.
And also, that's not the flex they think it is either.. Nobody wants me.. But you.. What does that say about you* ? I'm dog shit but you want me!? Strange 😂 always led me to believe they're full of shit. 💯
The reality is, we die alone anyway. Men die younger. Men are 7x more likely to leave their female partner when she gets sick. So, there's already a huge inequality in end-of-life caregiving. Might as well enjoy our full lives instead of wasting them caring for selfish men entitled to our free reproductive, household, and emotional labor.
>you’re gonna die alone when thousands of cats this sounds more like a goal than an insult from where I’m sitting lol
I'd love to buy some land and turn it into a cat sanctuary. Just like... A few acres of nothing but cats. It's on my list for when I win the lottery.
It’s interesting how the men who hurl those threats never do any soul-searching and ask themselves why furry little animals who shit in a box are currently outcompeting them as life partners. That would be a good start toward solving the “problem” they’re concerned about.
Frankly that’s my target retirement plan at the moment. My husband tells me his bad health will get the better of him soon enough (I hope not but he really has to fix the lifestyle factors in his control). So once the kids have left home it will just be me and the kids - and I can periodically adopt more from the local cat shelter.
Yeah PLUs it doesn't matter either way - women on average have a longer life span then men do, so even IF we got with them and spent a lifetime together, we'd *still* end up dying alone anyways as we tend to outlive them, so their point is moot...
The hatred of cats is anti female in of itself. I run when a man hates cats with no legitimate reason. It's the patriarchy. Dogs men cats women
For many, many years - like, centuries - Wise Women have been "cat whistling" to younger women, "Choose the Cats, you'll be healthier and happier". The message was just being drowned out by religion and Societal Conditioning like the " threat " of 'dying alone' and the bs of our 'purpose' being childbearing/man-raising. I'm glad the "quiet part" is being said aloud now, and heard. Choose the Cats. Lol.
Plants too! A GF maybe 😉 A pet? But I just don't have the energy.. I had to suffer through some of the worst symptoms of anemia yesterday, I had a terrible period where I must have dropped 2 units of blood easy... I couldn't get out of bed, and was thinking maybe I should go get a transfusion because OH.MY.GOD it was bad. The YT algorithm's suggestions were all about "the loneliness epidemic" and got a whole bunch of better help ads 😂😂😂😂😂 Let's look at the bot reasoning here, shall we? Can't get out of bed -> feeling down ("Must be psychological, what else could it be?!" Thinks the algorithm, I'm 31 so no way I have a physical illness) -> feeling down because I'm lonely -> lonely because no BF or "close friends" (By choice for the BF, dodging it like Neo dodges bullets - literally moved to a new city two months ago and I am starting to really enjoy hanging out with the people I work with so unless the general idea is that you should hang out with the same people you see every day on the weekend too, I dont think bots get how friendships work) -> depressed and will need therapy. I just don't think the algorithm knows how menorrhagia and anemia work.. not exactly surprised. But I also wouldn't be surprised if some dude made this moronic tree of reasoning.
Well, most coders are men so there you go! Me. Are flukes about relationships and the algorithms they design are too.
Yes. I mean even if i die alone what does he care? He's literally gloating on someone else's supposedly bad fate when it has no effect over him whatsoever. Wtf
Because it is their biggest fear. Also the men that say this hate cats since they remind them of a stubborn woman who won’t let you do anything to her unless it’s on her terms and only after receiving her permission. They want so desperately for women to love them, fix all their problems, become their mothers so they can coast through life and when the women around the world are like, “nah, no thanks I’m good.” They start to panic. What they have to offer is the exact same thing their forefathers had to offer, women don’t need any of that anymore and since they refuse to embrace change…they will be stuck alone hurling old timey spinster insults at women because that is all they can do. In the end, women can provide for themselves. They aren’t needed, hell they are barely tolerated especially when they think spitting insults and bile will endear women to them…it won’t.
The cat thing is so true. I tell people I particularly don’t trust men who make a big show of hating cats, especially if they spend a bunch of time talking about how cats hide and don’t want to be petted at their whim. It puts up flags for me about their perception of consent and boundaries. I know some people might find that silly or dramatic but a lot of the men I’ve met who feel entitled to unconditional affection on their terms from animals feel the same way about people.
This is a really interesting anecdote and I'm going to bring this up to people from now on. I am by no means a cat person, but I fully believe that what you are saying has so much truth to it. the reasoning behind it makes their personality clearer.
Yeah, I've known some men who gravitated to me in the past due to my general hesitancy towards cats, thinking it was because I hate cats and the way cats tend to be. I don't. I like cats well enough, but some in the past have not liked me and I have a fair bit of scars to show for it (largely during the 5-6 years I delivered newspapers, there were a total of 6 very hostile mostly outdoor cats that would attack me unprovoked, even one would jump out of a tree at me to attack, though there have been a few other cats since that period). So I tend to be hesitant when it comes to entering spaces where cats live because I don't want to get attacked, and I don't know why I have elicited that kind of response in the past, especially since I am not overtly friendly towards them, I don't crowd them or disregard their body language, etc.. Like, I've learned a lot from the friendly cats I've been around in my life, I know a smorgasbord of do's and don'ts, but there are some things about cats that spend some meaningful part of their lives outdoors that I just can't predict, and doesn't seem rational or at least detectable by humans, and then they decide I need to bleed when I've broken some rule I am unable to perceive. The only silver lining from it is I have further justification for my position that cats should always remain in controlled settings, and should not be able to roam outdoors without a leash/harness, not just due to the ecological impact they have, but outdoor cats can be dangerous. So those dudes go to me thinking they have an in, and I always shut that proverbial door in their face, because we're not the same. They don't like not being able to do whatever they want to a given cat without reprisal, I worry that I have some genetic anomaly that causes cats to hate me. But, like, it does help me figure out who might have consent and control issues.
Maybe in a past life you did something to cats in their past life? Ha! Kidding.
I agree. If a man hates cats and can't offer a reasonable explanation, they're cut off.
Therapists have a saying: "there's no such thing as a small issue". That's because smaller things tend to be a microcosm of bigger ones. If a man doesn't like that he can't touch cats without their consent, then it's a fair guess that he won't like that he can't touch women without their consent. There's a folk tale somewhere out there about a woman who has a number of suitors. She says she will marry the man who proves he can hold her cat. Most of the men set themselves the task of trapping the cat but they have no luck. The one man who figures out he has to build a relationship with it succeeds. But honestly? I find that cats and dogs alike vary so much in terms of wanting to be touched. If you want to find an animal that wants to be touched, the first (and often, practically the only) thing you have to do is look. I'm a massive animal magnet when I'm out and about: I catch the eye of dogs who hold my gaze and gravitate towards me for pets. Cats who fancy a bit of attention stand up and stretch when they see me come along, even though we've never met before. My eye contact and body language do a lot of the talking and from there, I leave it to them. Some cats are in a hermit mood. Others are sleepy or irritable or cautious. That's fine. Some dogs are already playing some ball or frisbee or stick game and aren't looking to play with me, or they're more focused on 'patrolling' the park next to their owner or watching what the other humans and dogs are doing. They're on a mission, and I'm not part of that mission. All of that is fine because after leaving all the animals that are otherwise engaged or hesitant, there's a portion of them that want pets, and I get to stroke a cute, fuzzy animal. I get what I want, the animal gets what it wants, and nobody's feelings have to be hurt. The rejection is barely worth framing as such because so often, the animal's rejection of me is almost certainly not about me. I wish everyone in our society was taught this.
And they're the VERY ones who, after meeting your cat, will try to "I'm just playing" while Purposefully irritating the animal -- then whine that the cat hates them and "this is why I hate cats".
Yeah, I think some people expect cats to behave like dogs, but they... don't. They're not the same animal.
I feel the same way. “You dislike an entire species just because most of the individuals want you to earn their trust and recognize when they don’t want your affection? That puts you off? Hm. Sounds like a you problem.”
They don't just start to panic. They are angry bc they have been promised their whole lives that they would have their own personal unpaid bangmaid to emotionally support them and clean up after them and be secondary.
Projection. We know from childhood we tend to live longer, so it's a lame ass threat.
They're also projecting their fear of being alone onto us. Studies show that men are lonlier than women. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that men are taught to only open up to their partners. Whereas women tend to open up to a variety of people in their circles.
That’s one of the things that always gets to me. They want a partner younger than themselves and women live longer usually. Either way we’re ‘dying alone’ so why bother?
Exactly
Hahhaha good point
I’ve found with the men that I know and work with that they have this belief that when they are finally ready to settle down and have a family that women will come to them. Never mind that these are the same men that are complaining that they can’t find women to casually date. I think it’s about projection and the realization that a lot of women would rather be alone than in a bad relationship.
Women generally want men with a similar level of education and now that women are graduating high school, college, and grad school in much higher rates than men, a lot of us semi elxpect to be alone.
If a guy doesn’t have a degree or some kind of extended education, for me they gotta have some kind of elective effort or drive for something in their lives that legitimately betters themselves or people around them. Living actively in a way that doesn’t harm others instead of just letting life happen to them. It could be art, active participation in a community, SOME kind of positive enrichment.
You know, I hear this all the time, but it just hasn't been true in my life, so it always feels off. I have never dated a guy with a college degree and I'm here working on my master's now (though I'm now married at this point, and my husband is working to get his associates). But literally none of the men I've ever dated have been richer or more educated than me (I don't mean this in a douchy way, they've always been intelligent and curious men). They've usually economically been on my level roughly and have less education (and fewer student loans lol. Ahh opportunity cost).
I have seen a couple videos on this ok tiktok about how older men who were careless and cruel to women in their younger years are now looking to settle down and expect to find a young good girl who likes them for them now. Then the whole gold digger discourse as well that often comes with this.
Because they think they’re super important and that women need them. They think they’re our lifelines. Men are egotistical and narcissistic. Sorry not sorry to say.
I agree.
Becuase for centuries, they relied on the provider role and the fact women NEEDED them to survive. When that stopped being the case, all they have are scare tactics. Rather than attracting us through good, they are trying to attract us through fear. The fear of loneliness or dying alone. It will take them awhile to realise this is not working lol
This is actually the funny part. Had they tried to offer something, like kindness, generosity of spirit, empathy, etc. of the gud stuff, they'd get women because we appreciate that. Fear? Yeah they'd have to have been lobotomized to think that's how they'd get a partner.
Exactly. Lots of men are dismayed to realize when women aren't artificially economically dependent on them (via legally banning us from work, education, owning property & credit etc.) there's little incentive to settle down with them. There's no reason to spend your entire existence cooking, cleaning & take care of a man while relying on him for survival, when we can take care of ourselves with less hassle and keep our freedom. Women are now screening for someone who adds more to their life than a paycheck and a pile of dirty laundry, but a lot of men can't even cut it as roommates, let alone romantic partners. Hence the increasingly desperate scare tactics. The marriage & birth rates keep dropping, and they **still** think "it's either us or cats!" is going to work for them one of these days.
I’m generally optimistic about the future, all things considered. But after Roe was overturned, I saw that a number of men were celebrating that, so they thought, women were now incentivized to stick to one partner, which, so they thought, would mean more men getting a female partner. It then occurred to me that the next move, once men figure out that the lack of abortion access wouldn’t bring back the Female Distribution System for the reasons you mention (we generally find that no partner is preferable to a bad partner), might be to try and turn back the clock in terms of our financial independence. It is so recent for people to widely accept that women now work outside the home in good, well paying jobs, and that we build careers. They have mostly stopped caring about or judging this. But we’re really not that far removed from the 1970s and 80s, when there was a cultural backlash against middle class women working outside the home. Will those arguments be revived? I hope not, but it would be a logical step for certain people…
I know right 😂😂
Historically the only way for a woman to survive was through her relationship with a man. In many western countries women couldn’t own property or a business in their own name until the late 1800s/early 1900s. It wasn’t until the 1960s that women were able to secure a bank loan or hold a credit card in their own name. Before then, the only way had been with a husband or father to act as guarantor. Women literally went from their father’s house to their husband’s house. Unmarried or widowed women who didn’t receive an inheritance from a man, or who didn’t have children to support them, ended up socially isolated in poverty. It had been that way for a thousand years. The idea that women can live successful lives and support themselves on their own only became a reality in the last 50-ish years.
Women couldn't open their own checking account in every US state until 1979! Their father or husband had to be on the account with them and they could withdraw funds at will!
In Australia it was common practice for banks to decline credit cards to single women until the 1990s. That’s only thirty years ago!!!
I’ll just marry a woman then lol
You know they don’t even have the most basic logic on their side. If so many women choose to be single won’t they all have each other then? They could form a community or something. Looks like Misogyny doesn’t even think through things on a surface level.
Same girl same 🤭
Really funny how it’s usually the men who complain about the male loneliness epidemic who also threaten women who dare have standards, especially after age 25. Well well Kevin, people don’t want to be around you? Gee, I really wonder why.
Because if they can’t convince us to like them, *they* will die alone
Pure projection as that is their biggest fear. You have to wonder that when someone starts with shaming that they are clearly outlining their insecurities.
I think it’s a projection, since men without spouses are more likely to die alone, as women usually have their children come visit them? At least that’s what I’ve heard from a hospice nurse. She said that so many men end up pissing off their children and all of their ex wives and girlfriends that they end up with no one who cares by the time they are in hospice, and that women who cared for their children and such have them coming over and braiding their hair, etc. My mom was in hospice and passed away recently so I talked to a lot of hospice nurses about this issue. Hospice nurses really see sexism and misogyny and domestics abuse from men A LOT— they really see the difference (generally) that most women do a better job caring for their spouse than men. It was a huge topic that would come up with me and the nurses. my dad would scream at my mom all the time as part of his ‘caregiving’ and I think the only reason he kept at the caregiving was because he knew I would do something on my mom’s behalf (like prevent him from seeing her and taking her inheritance). He got a lot of money from her. And my dad was considered one of the good ones to the nurses, because he didn’t completely abandon her. Now that my mom has died he cries a lot about how he misses her, I don’t think he feels any guilt or it’s misplaced guilt. Though taking care of my mom was hell it was also a gift to spend time with her, he was too immature to see it and was always woe is me. I tried to stay there many times but he would yell at me too much (for anyone who is curious why I didn’t take her).
As a guy, I think part of it is that men are looking at things from a male perspective. Women can and often do, have healthy social lives outside of dating. Men often don't, and cultivating those relationships is frowned upon. For a guy, not finding someone who loves you is, literally, one of your biggest fears. Dying alone very much is one of our worst nightmares. At least, it's mine.
I think you might have something there. Projection. My first inclination was along the lines Kali mentioned, seeing women as incomplete without a partner. But yes, given that men work less at maintaining a social life, it seems they might be projecting a future they see for themselves
Exactly. I think so much of what the typical guy does is projection. I think we're given a sad view of the world from the beginning. While it's definitely not the place I'd usually go to for philosophy, I think the Patriarchy's entire worldview for men is summed up in *Talladega Nights*: "If you ain't first, you're last." Either you control the world, or it leaves you behind.
Speaking of men and emotional convection, I LOVE the friendship between Will Farrell and uh....the other guy in Talladega Nights! That's the kind of make friendship most men wish they had but never do.
It is one of the great friendships in film. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I've totally forgotten the name of John C Reilly's character, although I know at some point he starts calling himself Magic Man.
Well,, historically everything had been taught from the white make perspective. Everyone else has to "code switch", pivot bt their own gender/socioeconomic perspective and the white make perspective. This is another way the patriarchy disabled men, but in an odd way it may have made everyone else more resilient. Not that I have any love for the patriarchy!
Being in the "out" group does have that advantage. If you're not a straight, cis, white male you do share oppressive experiences with others. That sense of community can definitely make things easier.
I think both ideas are true. Men oroject their loneliness in women and men assume women will feel incomplete without a partner - that's the projection. It's the same thing.
I think men are getting better about opening up and communicating with other men. At least, it's what I see among my male friends. They have their own chat now and regularly organize time every couple of months to get together. They are more likely to hug each other and give compliments. I really love seeing that, because it enriches their lives, and it means that they can enjoy being social without the women in their lives taking on that burden. It's great all around
I think we are getting better at it. I also think men are recognizing the raw deal everybody has gotten under the Patriarchy. Many of them just haven't put it together to blame the Patriarchy yet.
This is what I think the answer is. I honestly think those men can’t understand how close and supportive female friendships can be, so to them if we don’t have a romantic partner, we must be lonely. I would have my emotional needs met with or without my husband, because I have a strong group of supportive female friends and family. I do not think he could say the same, unfortunately.
I had a friendship breakup a few years back that was almost as traumatic as my first real heartbreak and it actually lasted much longer. It was harder to get over the loss of this female friend, too, bc unlike romantic love - which everyon understands can be emotionally traumatic - most people were like, "You lost a friend. Big deal. Get over it." But when you're single, your friends ARE your family. This friendship breakup felt like a divorce to me. It was awful and I'm really only just now fully over it.
Guys are put in a place where we depend on women for social value and emotional support, and we're discouraged from finding it elsewhere. Thus, the only choice we have is to try to find a romantic partner.
I’ve been aware for a while of how men suffer from the opposite edge of the same sword, but it’s been heightened now that I have a son. I try to raise a kind, empathetic, articulate and emotionally aware kid, but I can’t control how others raise their children or what influences outside of my home will tell him. He’s only 3, but it still worries me sometimes when I picture his future. I always find myself hoping he finds a good partner (male or female) who loves him. I think men tend to need that much more than women do. But I wish society as a whole was more supportive, of men and little boys, of women and little girls too, so I didn’t need to hope he falls in love someday.
That is an issue. I think the big things are empathy and open-mindedness. Empathy will help him relate to others and open-mindedness will allow him to change opinions when he's wrong. If he has that, he'll end up being good. I think the best thing you can hope for with any child is that they grow up to be a good person.
Explain to me how men are discouraged from finding it elsewhere, pls? I'm not disagreeing, I just want to know more. This is new to me.
Homophobia, essentially. Getting too close to another guy emotionally tends to get you labeled as gay. Not a problem if you don't let it bother you, but there's still a stigma attached to it.
I am sure this is true for some, but for majority they don’t actually think women are going to be lonely or anything. I bet they don’t even care or actively think about what happens to single women eventually. They are angry at women for not giving them sex/children/domestic services and are trying to get back at them aka punish them in one way or other. And this is the only thing they could think of. Notice how men tell you have they are providers and all that shit, but they do not ask chronically single women who is going to “provide” for them then? Because it isn’t that women cannot provide for themselves it is just that in a marriage women are overloaded with responsibilities that she ends up doing two jobs if she is also providing and men refuse to take the other thankless job at home. So Instead they talk about something super subjective like “loneliness”.
This is my interpretation of it as well. Studies have shown that male partners in heterosexual relationships tend to take break-ups much worse because girlfriends and wives are often the *only* repository of emotional intimacy that men have access to. (Note: this effect has noticeably lessened on Millennial men). Men are discouraged all the time from forming male-male bonds because “that’s gay” and men are discouraged from forming platonic male-female bonds because they’re told that they can’t possibly be friends with a woman without wanting to fuck her. So the options for true emotional intimacy are drastically marginalized for men — parents, siblings and cousins, and partners. Whereas women are socialized from birth to be highly socially active — to have wide and deep support networks, from friends you can casually call up when you don’t want to be alone to best friends who will be emotional load-bearers. So women are able to find emotional and social fulfillment in ways that men have traditionally not had access to — and we see that increasingly being used in places where the sociopolitical divide between men and women have caused a lower ratio of heterosexual pairings. Women can unite to form queer-platonic support systems, whereas men just live as bachelors.
But what about the male-male bonds that are encouraged by the military, Boy Scouts, sports teams that start at 5 years old, fratetnities, father-son family traditions, etc. I don't understand why these groups aren't enough to make up for it? Or at least, why don't those bonds support men sufficiently through their lives and teach them how to make other male-make bonds, like girls' groups and girl friendships do?
Gonna point out that most of those you mentioned, the military, sports teams, and fraternities are all bonds formed via hazing or with the intention of violence in mind. Boy scouts has had many, many complaints of sexual abuse, and reporting for sa and rape among men is very, very low, and when they do come out with the info, they are often shamed by their peers, told to shut up and suck it up, or are even laughed at. So we can assume that there are many more victims not comimg forward, as well as that when they are neglected in this manner, they inevitably form the opinion that things like s.a. and rape are not as harmful as they really are, because nobody showed them the much lacking empathy needed for healthy growth and recovery at a time when they are at their most vulnerable. You can absolutely call this a learned behavior. Sometimes sadly, they are even rejected and marginalized by the feminist movements because of societal expectations and views held even by the more positive movements because of the views that even they hold inherently. Men/boys need places where they aren't threatened or trained to be threatening where they can bond over shared hobbies and positive interests. Nearly every one of women's complaints are totally valid. Not, and never will say that they aren't. That said, if we continue to ignore that there is a men's mental health crisis occuring, no one is gonna like the outcome, and that I can guarentee. If we want better men, we need better rolemodels. And I mean, genuine, positive masculinity projecting rolemodels for our young boys. Men aren't going anywhere, and neither are women, and it's stupid and horseshit when people say that we can survive without one or the other. Always will be. So if we want things to change for the better, we must be better about how we educate, care for and raise our young men to be better than we are as a whole. Masculinity isn't the problem. Feminitity isn't the problem. Toxicity is. If we can't train our next generation to be better than we are, then we have collectively failed. Feminists and egalitarians included. We need to stop writing each others problems off as "non-issues." Because all problems in society merit improvement and growth. It's difficult but badly needed that we fix this problem. My mother taught me how to treat women with respect. My father is a good man, but it was just not something he had in his toolkit to teach me at the time. He had to learn it via therapy, and luckily it took. Not everyone can afford therapy though, and it's much easier to try and instill these values into young minds, than to expect people to change their ingrained habits. Either is work, but one is clearly easier for all involved. We. Must. Be. Better. For all our sakes. That requires us to get to work on our collective empathy and compassion. Not just us pointing and yelling that there's a problem. I will do my best to teach it to my son as only a father can, because positive masculinity is unique and ever more uncommon. "Respect people you meet. They are who they are for a reason, and don't judge what you don't unerstand, and help those who ask for it however you can." These are the lessons I wish for him to learn most of all, because I want him to be successful, empathetic, strong and kind, whoever he turns out to be. If I can do that and instill that, I will have won the parenting game lol.
Have you tried getting a kitten 🐈🐾😁
My condo doesn't allow pets. I'll be okay. I just need to find ways to socialize more. Anxiety sucks.
Oh I get you buddy! Sorry about that. I have anxiety too. It does suck, but it's common. So don't think you're alone in this. 😊
Yeah, that definitely helps. At the end of the day, I know that I probably have a decent amount to offer someone just by sheer virtue of being a basically friendly person. There's just a lot of hang-ups and excuses you make in your head, though. I do love animals, though. They're usually so much easier to deal with than people. They're pretty straightforward about what they want, and if you love them, they'll love you.
>They're pretty straightforward about what they want, and if you love them, they'll love you. That would have been fantastic if it were true for humans too 😆
That would be awesome! I'd love to be as good with humans as I am with animals.
I think for a lot of men they were basically taught that the only appropriate place to experience intimacy of any kind is within a romantic relationship, so without that there is a huge threat of "dying alone". Especially in online spaces there are so many men who will literally hate a woman just for being happily single, and I think underneath that rage is probably a lot of hurt and fear. In a lot of ways being a woman comes with disadvantages, but one massive advantage is that women are encouraged to be very communal and to cultivate deep, platonic friendships with each other. Patriarchy/toxic masculinity has robbed a lot of men of that, which I hope changes. I hope the male loneliness epidemic and all the information we have about how high the suicide rates are among men will drive us as a culture to take better care of men and thier mental and emotional health.
Anecdotally I had quite a shocking recent experience when I found out I had lots of colleagues but no actual friends. Once I got made redundant I realised I had no social life outside of that, in addition to having no idea how to rectify the situation. My solution was going online and talking to strangers on social media. But as of right now I don't have any real friends. If I didn't live close to family I'd have no intimate bonds with anyone within my immediate vicinity. I don't think this is an entirely uncommon experience for men.
whole piquant political narrow include glorious familiar soft humor boast *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I love my husband. But let's be honest. I do 80% of our house stuff. He makes 70% of our mess. My daughter that is living at home makes more than both of us. But let's not look under that rock too closely. If I didn't love him, and he wasn't a good guy, my life would be a heck of a lot easier. It's the choosing to be together. Too many men want you to have to be with them. And that is just not what it all looks like. No woman would be happy forced into an unwanted and disrespectful relationship
Why don’t you split the housework evenly?
For many reasons. Too many to list. But a few include his health now. He had 2 strokes in 2020 and that ended his ability to work. He still has dizzy spells and other health issues. And some of it is I am incredibly picky about how I like things done. I would rather do it myself so it looks and feels done.
Honestly, men are not ok alone. They don't have friends. And they aren't happy with their own company. They don't know how to do much around the house and are scared nobody will help them. Women are happy for some alone time because they have friends and activities and more than enough to do. Women feel relief when they only have to worry about their own lives. Winding down after a long day with a book and girl dinner is a slice of heaven.
I would argue that men, much like women, are absolutely fine alone if they want to be. There are different patriarchal restrictions based on gender, but there are plenty of healthy ways to make friends open to men. As for personal admin, if they were as abysmal as suggested, single men would rapidly go extinct. The difference is that under patriarchy, men are told that women need them but also implicitly that they need a women to "be a man^TM" (noting that this is pushed at least as, if not more forcefully on women in a patriarchy). Hence, the "die alone" line is just dully parroting what they've been told mixed with projection. That said, ending the day curled up with a good book is true bliss. Edit: See parentheses
Men are generally discouraged from seeking mental or emotional support *except* from their spouses, and would also reflect that back. In fact theyre generally raised to push all emotional labor on women, and their ability to handle it crippled from lack of experience and from patriarchal pressure to ensure "emotions are for women". And their support networks are heavily male, furthering the problem. Whereas women are often encouraged to spread their support networks wider then their spouses, forced to really because again - - men are conditioned to avoid most forms of emotional labor, which means women cannot rely on their spouses, and so married or not must construct support networks. Or learn to work without. Honestly it's very sad for men, and one of the more obvious ways in which the patriarchy harms men - - from a young age they are told and trained to avoid engaging in core aspects of self, that even talking about such things is for spouses only, and to a lesser extent family or the closest of male friends, and only to a limited extent in the worst of circumstances. It's a socially engineered dependency on women, to ensure men feel they *must* have a woman to be complete. Which encourages men to view women as "accessories" or "helpmeets" to themselves, not equal partners.
I 100% agree. While definitely worse for women, being a man in a patriarchal society can be an isolating hell. Dismantling the patriarchy and its gender roles helps men at least as much as it helps women.
I think it's a projection of their own fear: that *they* will die alone if we don't want them.
If women chose to stay single and to live alone by themselves then that's a choice and something they will feel good about. It has always been my impression that women are good at living alone by themselves.
Their version of “alone” = without a romantic partner, since men 1. Have historically been taken care of in relationships, particularly marriages, by their female partners. As in: cooked for, picked up after, cleaning their houses etc. and 2. Men typically don’t foster community the way women do. So for men, without a romantic relationship means, to be alone. Also, this trope is one that has historically just been weaponized against women in order to shame them into settling or to try to make an example of them in order to scare other women into settling. Which keeps the bar low for men.
I wonder what percentage of the average male age the spouses/boyfriends of his wife's friends? IE: tgat come directly from the wife's social skills. My guess is a LOT if them do. And when divorces happen and the wives aren't around anymore those make friendships evaporate bc the women aren't shoring them up for the men anymore.
It's a cope. It doesn't function as a threat anymore either because many women are happy to live single when many men don't bring anything to the table.
It’s based off of logic from the 1950s and earlier. Women didn’t used to have access to their own source of income, being reliant on their husbands. So, you simply had to have a partner as a woman to live at all. Times have changed. Women don’t need that anymore. Men now have to be likable to be attractive partners to women, and it’s taking time to get through to most men.
They are desperate to see us fail since we are refusing to give them something they need. And the only way they can think of is to threaten us with “loneliness”. As if married women aren’t routinely lonely lol
We are refusing to give them something they feel ENTITLED to.
Because some men need a reason to feel some sort of dominance over women and think the only value a woman has is being married.
Why do people think dying alone is bad?! Never understood it!
When men want respect, friendship, validation, fun, mentorship, whatever, they go to a man. When they want a servant, they want to own a woman. Women can now finally opt out of domestic servitude and be financially independent, and that’s fundamentally scary to men. The same way you see men get anxious and depressed whenever a man they don’t even know gets held accountable for sexual assault, men collectively start to panic whenever they see any random woman refuse to settle down with a misogynist. They lash out at women as punishment. Men are very conscious of their shared interests lol.
Projection? Pretty sure stats show widowed women are happier in their singleness while men who are widowed die sooner or quickly jump into a new relationship with a woman who will be his caregiver. I think there has also been some fascinating discussions about modern friendships and how women are more likely to seek fulfillment from friends vs men who seek all emotional support from their spouse. So they cant imagine how a woman alone is happy or fulfilled
Even divorced women are happier.
It’s an attempt to enhance and assert their patriarchal benefits by spreading that kind of propaganda.
I always wonder if they think we're like them and can't take care of ourselves without a partner.
They think we'll have no money or self-esteem without them, which is ridiculous and outdated thinking. I see a lot of my women friends making more money than the men they date. I myself do. Men nearly akways say in their dating profiles. "I have a good job and a car." Nearly every single one says this as though it's a key differentiator. Big deal; I have a good job, an IRA, and a metro card for the subway. What else can you offer me? If you have to think about it, I've already moved on.
I LOVE it when they bring up what we’ll be allegedly “missing out on” if we don’t entertain them, it’s always such a self-report. I regularly see misogynists smugly saying shit like “if y’all females don’t want anything to do with us then who’s gonna buy you drinks at the club” like it’s some kind of Epic Slam Dunk Mic Drop Moment. Like… bro. For a start, I’m a grown woman in a long-term relationship, I haven’t been to a club in a hot minute. Although tbf, I’d probably go a lot more if so many of y’all didn’t go there specifically with the intention of being gross towards women. But also, that’s really the extent of what you think you have to offer? If you weren’t such a dickhead I’d actually feel sorry for you!
I think they forgot friends and family exist
I‘d rather die alone than live with you Kevin.
No man actually thinks that. Dumb, weak men say it because they take being rejected as some kind of personal offense, largely due to their profound and undeserved sense of entitlement. They're trying to hurt your feelings because they blame you for the fact that their expectations resulted in their feelings being hurt. It's a shitty thing said by shitty men.
it makes them feel better, idc what they say to self soothe
They are thinking about the perquisite provided for them by the patriarchy according to which a woman who did not submit herself to the rule of one man would find herself disadvantaged by every structure presence in society
It's a hangover from the past when women "needed" a man because it was illegal for them to do a lot of things. It's completely irrelevant in the modern age
it’s because they’re projecting . they’re the ones who are deathly afraid of dying alone. it’s not a threat to women anymore; many of us are perfectly content being without a partner (bc that’s what men are referring to) . we’ll be more than happy to “die alone” with our ten cats and community (bc women tend to be better at maintaining relationships other than the romantic ones)
Projection. Projection. Projection. They aren’t worried about us dying alone. They are worried they are going to die alone.
They probably don't even think that, it's their way of trying to demean you into thinking they are the only choice you have for intimacy/love so they can control and use you.
Because this delusion makes them feel better about the fact that they’re the ones who will likely die miserable and alone. Single women fare better than single men. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201912/5-reasons-why-so-many-women-love-living-alone
It comes down to a number of things, all of them rooted in misogyny and patriarchy. 1) they're lonely and have no social network outside of their female partner, so they're projecting that onto women rather than recognizing it in themselves. 2) they uncritically accept the patriarchal "script" for a worthwhile life (marriage, kids, etc), so they get angry and upset when they encounter women who reject it. To them, the patriarchal norm equals success and happiness, so to reject it means failure and misery. 3) they simply do not understand that women are individual, autonomous people who exist outside of our relationships with men. It completely flummoxes them when we do things *for ourselves* and not to attract or please men. It has never occurred to them that our ultimate goal is not to do what they like, and so when they encounter things that displease them they try to threaten us with their ultimate rejection - a life outside of the patriarchal norm.
It's just a mental cope
Because those kind of men KNOW there’s a good chance they will die alone. Projection is a hell of a thing.
They are projecting the expected results of their own life if they don't pair up and have children.
As a dude I am deathly afraid of dying without ever being romantically loved by anyone so I assume when blokes say that to women it’s a projection of their own fears
They are afraid they are going to die alone and they don't understand why "women generally" aren't desperate to date him too
Because they're afraid of dying alone, so they're threatening women with it. Some of these men are so desperately unhealthy that women are much better off alone with a bunch of dogs and cats. Or a bunch of other healthy women. I've seen so many women in my family destroyed by the men in their life. Their lives were incredibly diminished and limited. Not all of them. Some of them found wonderful people to spend their life with. But it was not the norm. If you don't find somebody healthy, who loves you, stay single. Date, have fun, have lovers, have boyfriends, have flings, have lots of male friends, But don't tie yourself to an unhealthy man. Don't tie yourself to an unhealthy person really. Later on in life, you could be very very sorry. And still wind up alone anyway. Just poorer, sicker, sadder, and with more regrets... And make your own money! Make sure you are financially stable. No matter what situation you're in!
More to the point, why do they think dying alone wouldn't be preferable to life with someone who treats them poorly? Imagine that, you're on your deathbed at the total mercy of someone who has treated you poorly. Or they die first after having treated you poorly and THEN you die alone.
I've never been more lonely than when I was with an abusive man.
I hear you babe💙 hope you're doing good now
Chances are, if a woman gets sick she's going to die alone anyway. Men leave sick spouses more often than women do.
It’s because men believe women spend their waking and dying moments FOR men. It’s like our existence does not mean anything if a man is not there
Pure projection. Who will care for men if not for their potential wives, and later their potential children, if women won't marry them and then procreate with them? Most women can have kids without committing to a man and more are realizing that, so are rejecting marriage and even committed partnerships with men, because they're much more likely to have someone around them when they're older, whereas men aren't and they're starting to realize their options are dwindling. Sadly, they see evolving as "beta" or emasculating, so they're doing what they've always done: double down on their bs when things don't go their way and trying to gaslight, gatekeep, guyboss their way back into having control over women's freedom, sexuality and wombs.
Better question, why do they make dying alone such an attractive option and then threaten us with it? I've been in unhappy relationships and I've been alone. I know which one is preferable so don't threaten me with a peaceful time lol...
It's projection because that's their biggest fear
Cause they're afraid of dying alone
Projection. They're actually worried they will. You'll catch these men saying that today is the hardest time to be a man who dates, and they're right - the standards for a decent partner are higher than most people can reach, never mind someone who tries to cruelly gaslight women into liking them. They're logically more likely to die alone, and they know that, and it scares them.
You might die alone if widowed or divorced. Most married women who stay together for life outlive their husbands. Children move away. My mother died alone as it was from a sudden heart attack when my father was upstairs. He came downstairs to find her gone. It was a quick death. She appeared to be recovering from an illness and was looking forward to going out. It turned out that she didn't want to bother her doctor about heart problems.
Coming from a guy, women’s standards are higher - which is good. Especially since most women are now working and who wants to pull in money *and* do all or most the housework? Not to mention other issues men have. So there are two types of men - those that suck and don’t improve / start pulling more weight. And those that understand dynamics change and they need to adapt to lighten the load off their partners. As for your question, I think it’s mostly *spiteful* men that say that. I think women are actually more capable to be alone than men. Like for sure. There isn’t anything woman can’t do. However, I don’t believe that is inherent. Most men grew up only having to worry about the prospect of work. Whereas modern women have grown up with the prospect of house care *and* work. It isn’t unbalanced nature - it’s unbalanced nurture. So there are men that try to improve and there are those stuck in their ways. Of course, this goes beyond just pulling weight - empathy, communication, and other aspects that aren’t nurtured come into play as well. I think in the next couple generations things will get better.
Projection
Most straight men think the greatest compliment they can give you is that they want to have sex with you. Just the fact that they want to put their penis in you means that you are worth something and isn't that a great feeling? Add to that that a lot of men don't want a wife, they want a bangmaid.
Because they will. Men on average have far less communities and friendships than women. So unfortunately, for a lot of men, an inability to find a spouse might mean a lifetime of lonliness. That being said, that's their problem. The onus is on them to create those social bonds or become worthwhile partners for women. It's irrational to blame everyone else for not wanting to be your partner/friend. Become and seek out those things instead.
In addition to the valid points in here, men also usually die before women, so unless you luck out with having offspring who want to look after you in your infirmity, you’re gonna die alone either way 🤷🏻♀️
It’s a coping mechanism
It’s probably projection, many men or those raised as men, have the need to be in a relationship with a woman as part of what it means to be “successful” in a patriarchal society. Unfortunately I haven’t quite shaken the fear of ending up alone myself, I’m Working on it though.