Heh. I somehow managed to get hitched twice (married my first girlfriend, it lasted four years, married my second girlfriend, it lasted six years), and only reached what seems to be the abundance mindset after second divorce. Which is funny, but it left me with a strong allergy to the whole paperwork and ceremony of marriage. (might be a symptom of some leftover resentment or fear though)
Another explanation for why us men didn't do so well visualizing a relationship is that there is a tendency for men to be more thing oriented than people oriented, and viceversa for women. I'm betting this is especially true for the men who read this blog.
"A man’s dating success comes with confidence and with understanding what you and women really want from each other. Confidence and wisdom come from experience. Experience requires some initial success."
Maybe I missed it in the list of related blog posts, but what's the next step forward for someone who is having little or no initial success?
In my case I can find a few first dates per year, either from in-person interactions or from dating apps, but it's been over eight years since the last time I had a second date. I'm also underemployed (been trying to find a full-time job for a couple of years with no offers) and autistic (which for me includes not being great at talking about emotions, although I'm working on that with my therapist). Those definitely contribute to my lack of initial success, and I'm doing my best to change both but it's slow going.
I think a lot of us don't see the advantage of marriage, to be honest. When you're younger you think you can keep sleeping around forever, and the whole middle-aged (or later) solitary decline tends to be out of sight, out of mind. It ain't fun having to pay someone to take you to your colonoscopy, not to mention the end of life stuff like people cleaning out your assets when you're demented or leaving you to die in your own poop at a substandard nursing home.
There's also a *lot* of stories from the left about how divorce is liberating for women (on our assets), women are better off without marriage, men make women do invisible emotional labor, and so on. From the right (especially the redpill/manospherian end of it) you keep hearing about how women start over half of all divorces and get a nice payout if they do. You also hear stuff like 'happy wife, happy life' which implies you're going to be slaving for someone who can take half your stuff at any time. Childrearing is also much more intensive than it used to be for prior generations, so I think a lot of guys get scared off.
I'm past the age of marriage at this point (Xennial), but I think my key issue was I had a pretty low estimation of my ability to tell when the relationship was going south, and figured marriage would lead to my dying alone with half my assets rather than all of them. (I have above-average assets--low seven figures-- and am on the spectrum and my experience may not be typical. But I figured it was worth sharing.)
And, you know, maybe I spent too much time online.
Good luck with your project. You're probably doing God's work, if he exists.
Do you think maybe you were hurt by being too online? You have a whole paragraph of horror stories you heard from “the left” or “the right” but what about like, normal not extremely political ppl you know IRL? (No judgement, I was/am also way too online!)
I also think you should bite on the thing about not knowing where to meet good options. I think my biggest issue by far at this point is not meeting new women consistently, hence why I'm going through the protracted exercise of overcoming my approach anxiety enough to cold approach. Whatever other issues I have can only be taken care of through trial and error.
Heh. I somehow managed to get hitched twice (married my first girlfriend, it lasted four years, married my second girlfriend, it lasted six years), and only reached what seems to be the abundance mindset after second divorce. Which is funny, but it left me with a strong allergy to the whole paperwork and ceremony of marriage. (might be a symptom of some leftover resentment or fear though)
Another explanation for why us men didn't do so well visualizing a relationship is that there is a tendency for men to be more thing oriented than people oriented, and viceversa for women. I'm betting this is especially true for the men who read this blog.
"A man’s dating success comes with confidence and with understanding what you and women really want from each other. Confidence and wisdom come from experience. Experience requires some initial success."
Maybe I missed it in the list of related blog posts, but what's the next step forward for someone who is having little or no initial success?
In my case I can find a few first dates per year, either from in-person interactions or from dating apps, but it's been over eight years since the last time I had a second date. I'm also underemployed (been trying to find a full-time job for a couple of years with no offers) and autistic (which for me includes not being great at talking about emotions, although I'm working on that with my therapist). Those definitely contribute to my lack of initial success, and I'm doing my best to change both but it's slow going.
I think a lot of us don't see the advantage of marriage, to be honest. When you're younger you think you can keep sleeping around forever, and the whole middle-aged (or later) solitary decline tends to be out of sight, out of mind. It ain't fun having to pay someone to take you to your colonoscopy, not to mention the end of life stuff like people cleaning out your assets when you're demented or leaving you to die in your own poop at a substandard nursing home.
There's also a *lot* of stories from the left about how divorce is liberating for women (on our assets), women are better off without marriage, men make women do invisible emotional labor, and so on. From the right (especially the redpill/manospherian end of it) you keep hearing about how women start over half of all divorces and get a nice payout if they do. You also hear stuff like 'happy wife, happy life' which implies you're going to be slaving for someone who can take half your stuff at any time. Childrearing is also much more intensive than it used to be for prior generations, so I think a lot of guys get scared off.
I'm past the age of marriage at this point (Xennial), but I think my key issue was I had a pretty low estimation of my ability to tell when the relationship was going south, and figured marriage would lead to my dying alone with half my assets rather than all of them. (I have above-average assets--low seven figures-- and am on the spectrum and my experience may not be typical. But I figured it was worth sharing.)
And, you know, maybe I spent too much time online.
Good luck with your project. You're probably doing God's work, if he exists.
Do you think maybe you were hurt by being too online? You have a whole paragraph of horror stories you heard from “the left” or “the right” but what about like, normal not extremely political ppl you know IRL? (No judgement, I was/am also way too online!)
Perhaps. Add it to the list.
I also think you should bite on the thing about not knowing where to meet good options. I think my biggest issue by far at this point is not meeting new women consistently, hence why I'm going through the protracted exercise of overcoming my approach anxiety enough to cold approach. Whatever other issues I have can only be taken care of through trial and error.
Good post.
The solution to most of this (men’s delay in getting enough experience/maturity) is age-gap relationships