this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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My qualm with "working on yourself" advise is that it is too broad and non-specific, which I think makes a person even more confused. There are so many little details that a person may miss in relation to themselves. It requires a lot of introspection. But even then, even if the person does a lot of thinking, the conclusion may be wrong. For example, the guy does work out and believes he will attract girls; but if he doesn't realise he's got bad breath and got turned down for it, it could lead to the wrong conclusion for him that women in general are just mean, or whatever other wrong conclusion that the guy could draw from.
I've seen guys struggle with dating, even good looking ones, but most of the time it is because they struggle to figure out the finer details. However, the problem is that it is hard to broach the topic because it may offend the person. Each individuals are unique and as much as we are all unique in our own good way, it also applies that we are all uniquely flawed. We have to figure out the latter and rectify it without putting ourselves down. But even the process of rectifying one's own self can be challenging, because introspection could lead to unhealthy conclusions and behaviours if not done in healthy manner.
I don't know if it makes sense, but that's just my two cents based from my personal experience and what I observed about others. I think many men are struggling because they don't get specific enough advise. There is no "one size fits all" advise for men in dating and relationships (if there is, unfortunately the broad "one size fits all advise" are easily used for exploitation by those who could influence, as we saw with Andrew Tate and others). But as I mentioned, providing specific advise to individuals is a hard thing to broach.
A person who has bad breath for a long time, and doesn’t realize it, is correct to assume that others are selfish.
He may not realize exactly what’s happening, but what’s happening is that hundreds of people are perceiving his problem clearly and choosing not to tell him because it would cause them a few seconds of discomfort to do so.
My mother pointed that typically only family members would be blunt about your flaws, and not necessarily from your friends. From my own experience, she is kinda right. The thing however is that in Western society, individualism is overly valued. People are expected to be on their own. Staying with parents is stigmatised. Or, friends and family move out so there is increasingly little socialisation and more isolation. You receive relatively fewer feedbacks as a result. And even if a flaw is pointed out in a polite and constructive manner, you don't know how the person will react and respond. The person may think others are selfish for not mentioning about the bad breath, but if that person lashes out or took it personally, that person is selfish for not taking a constructive feedback. Instead of having negative reaction, the person should say "okay, I will take care of myself next time."
Even if a flaw is pointed, there could be many other things. Like a machine, there are moving parts. Sure, you can improve your hygiene; but if you are too uptight, too shy, rude, your attempts at flirting comes off as too creepy etc, few or or all of those things will be a turn off for women. Never mind not owning a Porsche or being 5'5" in height, less shallow women like men who takes care of themselves, a gentleman, not too serious and confident. Mature women take personality more than physicality any day. I know short, less good looking guys date tall, model-looking women because they are confident and a gentleman.
Having a bad breath is an example I could think off the top of my head when I typed my initial comment, but there are other examples I could have pointed out. Although, those other examples would be too uncomfortable to mention to the person, like having neurodivergence not being alleviated, or "too feminine" (I am for delineating traditional gender roles but there are still some foundations which I believe would be required to qualify for the expected image of heterosexual man and woman). They are two examples I have seen of my friends (they got partners now but struggled with dating before), and good luck telling them that why they struggled.
Yep. "Work on yourself" sounds right but where's the rest? Nobody has an answer except the far right who use that as an opening to groom them into the incel politics/culture war army. Usually the answer from everyone else is "figure it out yourself". Because you're supposed to be a big man. And men just figure shit out.
That's a traditionalism that is still being upheld. Especially by left leaning. It's not very progressive to uphold traditional gender stereotypes is it. These are guys that need help. And you tell them "work on yourself" in other words just figure it out bro. Oh, they figure alright. Figure right into the very thing you all hate so much.
As you said these topics are hard to broach. Why then does "clean your room" and "take a shower" come so easily from a certain type of person.
If the left wants to help men grow I’m all for that. Until then, I’ll enjoy my right wing friends who give a fuck about me, value growth, and encourage me to take on responsibility.
I think it's important to consider who is on the other side of that conversation. If a woman rejects a guy, she does not owe him an explanation. She does not owe him "constructive criticism" and actionable things to work on because that is a monumental amount of emotional labor that is wholly unreasonable to demand of someone. This isn't even getting into the issue that many women feel unsafe about rejecting certain types of guys because there's a very reasonable fear that her "no" will just be ignored and she will become the target of assault or stalking.
Yes, someone needs to have serious, in-depth conversations with these young men, but the quiet part no one is saying is that that nebulous "someone" is implied to be the women that reject them. It is frankly disgusting to expect that emotional labor from someone who is explicitly trying to extract themselves from that relationship/interaction.
I always took "work on yourself" to mean "go to therapy". That's always a good start.
Incels probably need industrial strength therapy, not grooming. The mindset that they world owes them a woman, and that it's somehow women's fault that they're celibate, is deeply toxic
There are people with a similar woman-hating mindset who are successful at attracting women, which might make them happier, but not better.
I concur. It's also not helping that men don't really get a lot of compliments, so they don't know what they're doing right. Plus certain people, like the creators of dating site or those awful PUA sites, trying to make a business from other people's suffering. I mean, the general idea of getting neckbeards out of their comfort zones is laudable, but those parasites then took it way too far and turned to full-on exploitation and misogyny, cementing the status quo.
I used to know this pretty normal, likeable guy who used to be a real ladies' man until his early 30s. Wondering what happened, he swallowed this whole PUA BS hook line and sinker, but things didn't improve. What has changed about him, though, was that he had gotten a career and, while being quite successful and hoarding money big time, his free time was gone. He just wasn't fun anymore. Also, he just didn't look healthy anymore. And then we lost contact.
Social media is terrible for this too. Spend any time on tiktok or youtube and it will at least try to serve you some light "men today have it so hard and it's women's fault" content. I imagine that if you bite, the algorithm will ramp it up.
We need more "men and women have it hard, let's do something about it" content. It's not a competition, it sucks for everybody.