For women who are wondering where all the grown up men have gone and why don’t men they are dating want to grow up and get their stuff together, I offer a brief and hopefully compelling explanation below.
The truth is that most men never really “grew up.” Not now, not ten years ago, not fifty years ago, not three hundred years ago.
Tens of thousands of years ago the men who didn’t grow up didn’t get to reproduce. That worked well for females – a few “grown up” alpha males were shared by many women. This worked for everyone, women and men at the top, except the hordes of the less-grown-up males.
The most “grown-up” men (Kings and of-shoots of the royal courts) eventually found a stable balance: few hottest women in their harems, and the rest can marry other men. There was a catch, as any one peasant man could only marry one woman. Kings were happy, men were happy, women were happy.
Everyone accepted their place and civilization flourished. Eventually, mostly due to religious ideas, even the kings could only marry one woman – but for the general populace the situation was largely unchanged. Clear gender roles combined with preaching based on Judeo-Christian ideals assured that everyone knew what to do, how to do it and people accepted the situation as stable and if not outright good then at least acceptable. This set up has proven itself to produce stable and well-organized society. Culture based on monogamy dominated any other social structure in any other neighboring groups.
Around the time of the Industrial Revolution in the Western world this situation began to change. Women began to work more outside of home, previously their exclusive domain, and child-rearing was distributed among partners and government ran schools. Eventually giving rise to the women’s movement and shortly after WWII to the movement which is now known as the American Feminism.
Through out this time the role of the men remained largely unchanged. Previously outside of the house work domain consisted primarily of men. As more women entered the workforce the rules, regulations, work-politics and other changes were made over the years to make workplaces more hospitable to women. As many women entering the workforce quickly found out the men’s environment wasn’t very hospitable or pleasant and so they set out to adapt it to be more friendly to themselves. To a degree, men have also benefited from the changes championed by women, but for them the changes were largely minor and in the grand scheme of things ultimately detrimental – the effects of which we are now seeing just two short generations later.
Few educated on the subject women nowadays hold the delusions shared by early Femenists, but lack of general understanding of men is even more prevalent than before. It’s hard to fault women for not being able to understand men, as even most men lack a solid understanding of themselves. Ultimately, this is what is causing many women to come to the conclusion that there are not enough “real” or “grown-up” men for them to marry. To be fair, there is plenty of eligible men – but according to women who have now climbed high enough on the totem pole, there’s not enough men at their level.
I don’t blame women for not wanting to marry “down.” Being a man myself I wouldn’t advocate any man to marry “down” either.
The reason that men don’t grow up is that they don’t have to. Forget about any logistical barriers like lack of mature masculine role-models and defined gender roles to shape the boys growing up. For a man in United States, there is no need to grow up! Preposterous, but hear me out.
Women wanted to get to a happy place where they wouldn’t need men to provide for them, to own property that women would share in, to earn profits to also support women. They wanted their independence from men. Now they have it. And as an unintended and unforeseen side-effect, men have independence from women.
When women talk about men not wanting to grow up what is usually meant is that men need to share in the household responsibilities, child-raising, and providing for life expenses. To “fully grow up” also means the guy would be working more outside of the home and allow himself and the woman a more enhanced lifestyle than either one could obtain on their own. Basically a win-win from a woman’s perspective – you continue to do what you’ve done all along and get more help and more to show for it.
Unfortunately this carefully arranged logic breaks down once you realize that men aren’t motivated by the same things that women are. It’s true (and studies have proven again and again) that men are just as capable as women. Men just aren’t motivated by the same things as women are. When women set out to make the world a happier place for themselves, they inadvertently made it less motivating for the men. Women’s drive is to get everyone to sit down and get along, and men just want to get the prize and if they have to step on a few opponents that’s just fair competition.
Men are really comfortable. It’s a wonderful world they didn’t know they could ever have. There is an abundance of entertainment, cheap tasty Pizza-Hut (and Beer and Buffalo Wings), tones of available women to date (who are sexy and they know it – and will prove it due to their liberated sex appetite), a place to live (even better if it’s with guy roommates), TV to watch. And that XBOX will not play itself now, would it?
Some men will pursue grandiose goals and few will succeed as in centuries past. With the changes in the workplace, schools and universities to accommodate women’s predisposition towards comfort and motivation, what has motivated men for centuries have been stripped away. Combined with a more metro-sexual/new-age/hug-a-tree/sensitive-guy ideas more prevalent and encouraged many men simply opt to pursue personal and spiritual endeavors over traditionally considered men’s pursuits of conquest – with women and in business.
Why work hard for the stuff a guy wouldn’t get to enjoy much? Women? Blah. They’re independent enough to support themselves, earn their way, date the men based on factors other than financial and social success. Some women still think that men see them as enemies or at least competitors. That’s not true at all.
To a modern westernized man who has his stuff together any single woman is just a cherry on top. It’s a bonus.
Those men already happy and fulfilled with their life – woman next to them or not. There are, of course, many men who don’t have their stuff together – and it’s those men who need a woman to prop them up so they can stand up straight. But that’s not the guys women want to date, let alone marry to.
But what about women? Aren’t women with all the equality they have able to stand on their own? Why not just accept that men have grown up. They’ve not just grew up – they outgrew women by such a margin that they’re on a completely different plane of existence. They’re happy and fulfilled with their twice-weekly beer-pong, Halo marathons in to the wee hours, vacations and personal pursuits that they’ve left women in the dust. They’re great, thank you very much.
Guys are way past hoarding shoes and mansions and Ferrari’s thinking they’ll be happy when they get married and reproduce, at last. They have women when they want them, and don’t have to be with women when they don’t… or what scares the bejesus out of women: guys don’t have to be with a crappy woman at all. They got their independence and can now happily go about their day without feeling bad about someone-somewhere depending on them to take out the trash, or cook them dinner, or pay their mortgage.
There’s a misconception that men need a lot of things to be happy, but they really don’t. Have you ever seen a single guy? He’s happy with chicken nuggets for dinner! No fancy 3-course meal required. Just give a guy a spork and an XBOX with some games and they’re all set for the week. Talk about being content. These guys are unfazed, content, and are living the life of their dreams. They’re ahead of Buddhist monks in the detachment from outcome. These men don’t even need (wait for it…) women.
The horror: men found something more interesting than women!
I mean, men still get bigger with age, clearly they’re growing up. Every thing’s fine, nothing to see here folks… move along now. But I emphasize with women… it’s a sad time when women are ranked below FIFA Soccer or Portal 2 on the attention-grabbing scale.
This is a grandiose problem for women on an unprecedented scale – fully more than half of the world’s population is ranked below a video games (entertainment) and Patron shots (third-rate alcohol).
Just a few centuries ago men feared women. Now we consider women an endangered species with a whole array of government and social programs to help them survive.
Men have grown up and moved on, leaving women in the spiritual dust.
