The Lost Men

A man finds himself when he finds out where he's needed.

Writers are often told to write for their younger selves. This doesn’t necessarily make the writing better, but it makes it easier. Your younger self is the perfect audience: he almost gets it. You know that eventually he does, and what it took for him to get it. Just write whatever it was.

Second Person is written for people who almost get it. I’ve written about letting go of counterproductive stories, committing to being someone, becoming that someone through active practice. It’s a simple path, but not everyone is a blog post away from finding it. You need awareness that the stories you date by are just that, stories. You need to have a glimmer of who you want to be. You need some perception of actions you could try and risk you could take.

If you’ve stumbled into the bushes, you could hear me shouting from the clear path nearby. But some are lost in the deep wilderness. I’ve mostly hesitated to venture in to try and reach them. These people are angry and sad and unpleasant and very hard to help. I just hoped someone else will try.

Taxonomy of Anomie

One such intrepid adventurer is the young woman who reviewed Dating Men in the Bay Area. The author meets the men she writes about on dating apps, but the review is not of the dates but of the many ways men get lost without a map. Lost not knowing who they are or could be, not knowing what they want and what they’re worth.

There’s the man who slowly turns invisible, begging to be seen but unable to get anyone to care:

He’s lonely. He doesn’t like admitting it, not even to himself, because it feels pathetic. After all, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s a perfectly pleasant individual, and people have said he’s smart and funny, and he’s never struggled to make friends in the past. Yet the thousands and thousands of people who surround him couldn’t care less about his existence, and their apathy begins to grow a heavy lump of despair within him.

There’s the man who followed a plan that wasn’t his own off a cliff:

He’s never really done anything without a plan. And he’s still not entirely sure what he’s trying to accomplish; he knows he wants to “find himself,” but he’s unclear on what that requires, and the self-help books he consumes seem to have muddled and contradictory answers.

There’s the man who hid the sexual part of himself for so long that he can’t find it:

It all feels so futile and so unfair. All around him, he sees women who settled with crappy men who don’t treat them properly. He wouldn’t do that; he’s a good person. […] Some of his single friends have officially given up on ever finding a woman, and they encourage him to do the same. It’s peaceful, they insist. No more pointless pining, no more painful daydreams that never come true.

They’re right, he decides. He’s done. It’s over.

And of course, there’s the man who listens to Andrew Tate:

Fuck those people and all they stand for, says the influencer. If you want anyone to care about you, you have to make them care. And this influencer knows exactly how to accomplish that.

These men have one more thing in common: they end up spilling their guts on dates with the author. The dates are stillborn. Even the author, a woman of deep empathy and understanding, will not enter into a relationship with a man who is lost. She has met men who are whole and knows that only one such could be the partner she needs:

His passion gives him motivation; his goals give him intention; his community gives him purpose. Combined, they provide a scaffolding for him to build himself into the best version of himself. […] Dating a Man Who Is Whole is a rare and precious experience.

Women Can’t Save You

Surely the midst of an existential crisis is the worst time possible to be on the apps. Why does the lost bro try to find a girlfriend before he finds himself?

The lost bro’s predicament is that he can’t see the whole version of himself. He has no passions to motivate him, no goals he believes in, no community to guide him. The only thing he knows about the best version of himself is that it has a girlfriend. So that’s where he starts.

Unfortunately, this only sinks him deeper into the murk. Women reject him, which only serves to reinforce his feelings of worthlessness, resentment, and despair.

Smart women are angel investors. They evaluate a man’s potential based on his goals and character, not just his status at a point in time. But they’re not angels. If you need saving, they can’t save you.

The author readily admits it. She goes even further: she correctly notices that the map to manhood offered by polite society is unhelpful because “polite” means feminized. It cares more about “toxic masculinity” and “male entitlement” than male disintegration. Overt hostility to masculinity has long been the dogma in clinical psychology, which has educated a generation of (overwhelmingly female) therapists.

The predictable outcome:

It turns out the therapist doesn’t have any interest in listening to him, either. She seems preoccupied with reminding him of his “luck” and “privilege” and insisting that he needs to use it to better his life.

At the end of the essay, the author offers five “fixes” to the map of manhood, albeit more out of a desire to end on a positive note than out of any real conviction:

1. Encourage positive male role models to provide detailed directions on how to “become a man.”

2. Stigmatize sexist behavior toward men.

3. Remind men of their worth.

4. Encourage men to discuss the issues they face, and listen to them.

5. Openly acknowledge that men and women share some biological differences, and embrace the beauty of this diversity.

#1: Yes, fine, that’s why I’m writing this essay at last. If anyone reading this thinks of me as a positive male role model, I’m going to offer more detailed direction than I’m normally inclined to. #5 I’ve already written about: men and women are different, and that is a wonderful thing. I also agree that while any discussion of binary sex differences will flatten and overgeneralize, smart people are vastly more likely to underestimate these differences than to overstate them.

This includes the author herself. Stigmatizing sexism, reminders of their inherent worth, and safe spaces for expression are things polite society does to help women. Men aren’t starved of politeness, and they don’t need validation of their status as victims of bigotry. Men who question their worth need to remake it, not to be condescendingly reassured that they’ve always had it.

Here’s a flat overgeneralization that is nevertheless first-order correct: girls become women by default, often earlier in life than they expected to. Their struggle is becoming irreplaceable, differentiated from “women” at large. In contrast, boys struggle for longer than expected to be valuable. Once they are, they become men.

That’s why “hey, woman” feels like an insult, but “hey, man” is a friendly acknowledgment. The former denies the woman’s singularity; the latter recognizes the man’s value.

In Regione Autistum

I arrived in NYC at age 26 with a small car cubed out with boxes of crap, a job offer, and a lot of insecurity around making friends. My three previous stops were an intense military unit, a failing hedge fund, and an easygoing business school. Three different environments, yet at each I was painfully aware of being on the periphery of social life — tolerated, but not cherished. I made no lasting friendships at any of them.

I decided to make friends in NYC through sheer tenacity. I was out every evening after work at whatever random meetup or event I saw an invite for. I said “yes” to everything, showed up early and with snacks, and maintained such an eager and friendly demeanor that everyone could tell I was new to the city.

Pretty soon, I was mingling in a few different scenes. I partied with a camp of burners who threw elaborate costume masquerades and impressed each other with crazy art. I hung out with comedians at improv classes and open mics. I joined a co-ed soccer team which always went for drinks or karaoke after the game. Except for 90% of the comedians, these were all really cool people who knew how to have fun. I really enjoyed their company and also have no idea what any of them have been up to in the last decade.

Around the same time, I attended my first rationalist meetup, OBNYC. It took place in a cramped apartment, not a dazzling venue. The guys were conspicuously uncool. The girls were conspicuously absent. The agenda was arguing about some Sequences post. I was the only one who brought snacks.

I’m still friends with several people who were in that room. One reason is that I actually enjoy arguing about the Sequences and very few people are into that. The other reason is that my intellect, which was load bearing for my self-worth up to that point, was neither needed nor remarkable. However my social skills, the main focus of my prior insecurities, were suddenly in high demand.

At the rationalist meetup, I was the one who remembered everyone’s names, who smoothed conversations over, who invited guests and even girls. Pretty soon I was organizing meetups and some of the social hangouts that spun off the community. Young, slightly autistic guys were asking me how to connect with people better.

In other groups, I wasn’t filling any particular social role, and I certainly wasn’t one of the best artists or funniest comedians. People were happy enough to have me there, but they didn’t really notice if I wasn’t. In OBNYC I was counted on for what I contributed.

That was also the year when I discovered abundance in dating, which isn’t a coincidence. I was, for the first time since high school, a respected member in a hierarchy I wanted to be part of. Far from the top, but high enough that at least some people looked up to me. I had discovered and leaned into something that both I and people around me wanted me to be: I was a rationalist, and a funny one at that.

Then I met a girl who needed a funny rationalist in her life and married her.

How to Be Valued and Needed

Young men who arrive in the Bay Area are generally good at two things: working hard and getting grades. Since they were little kids, they were told that if they worked hard and got grades they would succeed. And mostly they do: making rent in San Francisco is an achievement in itself.

But they’re lost: they don’t derive meaning and self-worth from their job or their academics. And women don’t seem to care much either.

The reason is that no one needs your grades, nor even your hustle. Entry-level workers contribute a lot, but their contributions are fungible. If you fail to do good work, the company won’t collapse. If you leave, your eventual replacement will contribute about as much. It takes rare genius or many years of experience to become someone an organization truly depends on.

For most men, grades and grind aren’t egosyntonic, they’re not part of your ideal self-image. The motivation for both always came in large part from other people, not from an inborn drive. You may have had drives that aligned with hard work, like competitiveness or the desire for power and dominance, but these were discouraged and suppressed.

A man finds himself when he finds someone who needs him, with real stakes, for the very traits he wants to see in himself. For a man just starting to find himself, this almost certainly means a community of younger men who aren’t very cool.

If your ideal self is competitive and dominant, you could join a martial arts gym that lets competent journeymen teach beginners. If it’s courage, you can volunteer with firefighters or EMTs. If it’s wisdom and caring, you can be a youth mentor or sports coach. And if you actually take pride in your conscientiousness and technical acumen, you could maintain an open-source project or civic tech that people rely on.

There are unmet needs in groups all around you, which usually aren’t the main thing the group is about. The NYC rationalist meetup didn’t need one more nerd who loves debating, though obviously I am one, but someone who brings extraversion and snacks. I have a group of theater kid friends who are constantly trying to out-art and out-drama each other, and whose productions always teeter on the edge of technical collapse. A man with zero artistic talent who owns a pickup truck, a toolbox, and an electrician’s manual could become the most beloved member of that group in 3 months.

A man needs someone who counts on him for what he does. Anything that fits this bill, no matter how humble, forms the seed of a virtuous spiral. A man is counted on, he does the thing, he gets better at the thing, he earns respect and notice, he is counted on for more. And so it goes.

This is where the manosphere leads men astray. The author posits that young men gravitate to it looking for authority figures, but the manosphere promises belonging, not instruction. Andrew Tate fandom is a brotherhood of last resort for men whose insecurity manifests as anger. MRA is for those whose insecurity breeds resentment. Inceldom is the brotherhood of last resort for sadness. Incels don’t have gurus, and Tate himself is more mascot than paragon to his fans, a lightning rod for the outrage that fuels the movement.

The manosphere gives men validation for emotions they can’t express elsewhere. This can be salutary, to a point. It certainly feels good after years of repression, for men who were too busy pleasing authorities as a teenagers to express themselves. But come on, you think emotional validation will make you a man? Are y’all feminists or something?

A man needs to be needed, and no one in the manosphere needs you. You’re the audience, not the stage crew. You’re recognized for how you feel, but not for what you contribute. No one will miss you if you leave.

Then You Get the Women

Being depended on and recognized for your contribution isn’t a stop on the way to manhood, it’s the way itself. Keep going, and women will notice as well.

Of the types of lost men catalogued in the review, the most likely to be reading this post is “the man who opts out”:

He decides to shove aside dating and focus on the other things society tells him are important: his schooling, his career, his social circle. […] More years pass, and his friends who are coupled feel increasingly alien. They’re having weddings, honeymoons, kids; buying houses and saving for college; attending recitals and soccer practices. He’s still playing Call of Duty and Dota with his dwindling group of single friends.

So what if he’s only five-foot-six and a bit heavier than average? He has an amazing job, a stellar reputation, a gorgeous apartment, and a great sense of humor. He’s a catch.

Yet once they discover he’s never been in a long-term relationship, they once more seem to recoil. […]

He considers trying to make one of the connections more serious, but it becomes obvious that she’d expect him to change so much. His hobbies, his sleeping patterns, his work habits, his furniture, his friendships… all of it would require modification to keep a girl around. […]

Their lack of self-confidence causes a painful shyness and refusal to open up. They’re convinced that at any second, the woman will find something about them to reject, so they hide as much of themselves as possible.

At 20, the man who opts out was held back by his shyness and lack of physical attractiveness. At 35, his main problem is that he optimized his life for never needing or being needed by another human being. On his own, enjoying his fun hobbies in his nice apartment, this man does great. Nothing in his life requires improvement by any specific sort of woman. There’s only this pesky girlfriend-shaped hole. Any girl would do for that one, so why won’t a single one stay there?

The reason is the opposite of what he thinks. It’s not that they eventually find some reason to reject him. Every happily married woman could find a dozen reasons to reject her husband, if she wished to. Every man is imminently rejectable.

Women stay with men they need, despite whatever else makes him rejectable. They leave the men who opt out when they give up on finding anything to depend on him for. He doesn’t want to be depended on. He’s not nervous on dates just because he expects failure, but also because he fears success. Success means escalating obligations. He’d be counted on to plan the second date, to listen and understand her troubles, to buy a ring, to change diapers…

The man who opted out of being needed has to start small, a junior report at work or a volunteer shift. Or perhaps a summer fling, some casual thing with clearly marked expectations and an expiry date. At 5’6” skinny fat but with a great career and friends, the man thinks he’s a better husband than hookup. He’s wrong. He’s nowhere near abundance, let alone commitment.

By dating casually, this man will learn another important lesson: he’s not getting what he needs from his casual girlfriend. In fact, he needs some very specific things. There are lacks in his seemingly perfect life that he not so much papered over as simply learned not to look at, but that reappear in vivid HD when someone almost touches them. He learns that he needs a very specific woman for very specific needs.

And then he might actually find her, because women need to be needed too.