The more I hear people talk about it who aren’t cis-het men, the more I hear criticism about the concept. But so far, I’ve only heard people say that it’s stupid, that it’s not a thing, that it’s men’s own fault etc. But I’ve yet to understand where that criticism comes from. I don’t want to start a discussion on whether or not it’s real or not. I just want to understand where the critics are coming from.
After reading most of these comments I’ll have to say this comment resonated the most with me. It’s exhausting to always be the one who needs to put in effort to talk to new people, and then you need to maintain it pretty much one sidedly as well, you end up just giving up on it and looking more for good friends to rely on than romantic things.
I’ve heard from female friends that there are women also dealing with this so it’s not a uniquely male thing, but social norms have sadly made it so and it really gets to you as a guy when you’re not also being pursued by people. I’ve seen some nice clips tangential to this asking women when was the last time they bought flowers for a guy and some of them couldn’t think of an instance.
It’s rough out there, and unless you’re at the top of your game (mental health wise) it’s a huge struggle, and with the economy as it is a lot of people people sadly are having a tough time dealing with it, but as you say women are usually better trained to work together on this stuff, whereas guys largely aren’t and suffer alone as a consequence.
I’m lucky to have some good male and female friends I can open up to, but I definitely feel like the exception on that.