“I am tired of meeting BOYS who tell me what they think I need to hear, make and break promises, and aren’t ready for something serious. If you are dealing with unrequited love, childhood anger, or emotional dismissiveness, stay away. I have dealt with many people who carry baggage and seem to think it is okay to ‘put themselves out there.’ Two words…Get help.”
The above frustrated female poster to an online forum might at first appear to be singing the same dirge of frustration at males’ commitment avoidance as has been sung for many years. But it’s a bit more involved than that. On to the (or rather, an) analysis!
America men wait longer and longer to get married, on average, than they used to. No longer are the majority of men married by their late 20s. The reasons are likely complex, despite all the tie pullers on inflammatory radio who would have you believe in a (their) single cause.
Yes, young men may have paid attention to how marriage has become in a culture that throws so much burden on the nuclear family and gives next to nothing in support of it. Even when divorce hasn’t been the observed result of years of slogging, marriage may not look all that appealing, especially with the selfish undertone of the culture poisoning the well. And that’s even without the observed woman or women being controlling, manipulative, or any of the other things examined previously in this forum, which would obviously throw a big negative bone into the mix.
That the young men (extended boys, really, in many cases) are often socially stunted, is in little dispute. Whether it’s the proverbial “playing video games in their (indulgent) parents’ basements” for the same endless hours a drug junkie devotes , or other evasions of manliness and responsibility, socialization is lacking. Without socialization, semi-isolation is too easy, especially with the pseudo-connectedness (and pseudo-reality) of the internet—and all amid a culture that seems to teach or at least okay manipulation, exploitation, and other things that poison honest relationships.
Their average testosterone has also taken a nosedive, and that only accentuates most of the problems. Difficult to be the complete man when the very foundational hormone that both makes someone a man and drives nearly every aspect of physical and psychological make-up, is lower. Add to that the atrocious nutritional quality of much food and drink, and it only magnifies the problem.
In the female-dominated social structure, men, married men especially, and fathers in particular, are portrayed as stupid, foolish, simple, malleable, etc.—the target of jokes in sitcoms, comedy routines, and real life. THERE’s certainly some low bar expectations to live down to—or avoid altogether. A lack of respect also gets reciprocated by the way. You ladies who are wondering where the Mr. Darcy’s, and Noah’s, and others of romantic literature are—while your expectations may have perhaps always been a bit excessively magnified due to literature’s ideal portrayal, your chances are often slim of getting even a remote semblance if respect is missing from the cultural equation.
Economically, the real job prospects, and especially the exciting ones, have gone away for probably a majority of men in the culture. Few things are more emasculating and depressing to a man than having his work identity gutted. Evasion of the society that wants to give him no good options, or force him into poor ones, doesn’t look quite as completely irresponsible as it might have before considering that. Even when he can find a job (FAR less than a certainty today), the chances of finding one at a livable wage (and mostly forget about one that can provide for two or more people) are much reduced. And that he knows that he alone can’t care for a wife and children, does something to his psyche, probably unrealized. If the women in Grapes of Wrath were looking at and testing their men to see if they’d given up, perhaps many young men today have—deep inside their psyches—given up before they start.
That there is a general underlying feeling of driftlessness, shallowness, off-the-track inertia in this culture only reinforces the problems exponentially.
William Bennett has a new book out (“The Book of Man”) about the demise of manliness. It’s a start. We need a discussion on it, and a whole lot of related subjects in this culture.
Are there other probable causes of the changes in young men’s behavior? Certainly. We may have barely scratched the surface.
Only the fact that the human pair-bond is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, chosen relationships around, keeps marriage in the running.
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