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.
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.
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.
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 always took "work on yourself" to mean "go to therapy". That's always a good start.
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.