Based on my much more extensive experience of observing young people in great numbers daily for 20 years as my actual job, I have to say that this take is off by a mile. Young men are wonderful. A young woman who is not managing to get paired up with a good, solid, reliable dude should do some soul-searching.
By the way, the only male student who asked me for accommodations in the past several years was blind. Not a single male student asks for accommodations for mental issues, nervousness, anxiety, or anything.
Yesterday, a student came to my office to work on his research project, and I asked what his motivating idea in life was. He said it’s to become a good provider and a reliable, responsible presence for his future children. If that’s not ideal young masculinity, I don’t know what is.
Clarissa's Blog 
— Not a single male student asks for accommodations for mental issues, nervousness, anxiety, or anything.
Not my observation. Here students with special needs (usually learning disabilities of some kind, ADHD, etc) are writing exams in a set of separate rooms, and students from multiple classes are mixed together… maybe based on the nature of their problem, or the extra time or special conditions they got. I do not know. So my observations go beyond my own department. Do not see any predominance of women there.
Otherwise students (of either gender) only ask for situational accommodations, so to speak. Family emergency, public transport on strike, etc. Nobody, of any gender, asks profs for some abstract accommodations for “anxiety”. If they have certified anxiety disorder they belong to my previous paragraph.
—He said it’s to become a good provider and a reliable, responsible presence for his future children.
I guess it is better than some other options. But knowing some young women and trying to put myself into their shoes – they probably would treat an answer that is literally as above as an expression of traditional attitudes towards the relationships and family. Either sincere, or giving an answer that women in his opinion like to hear.
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All that you need to do to get accommodations for anxiety is to go to Disability Services and say you feel anxious. No medical certification is required ever. It takes less than 5 minutes to be granted accomodations and zero proof beyond what the student claims is required.
The Prof of Public Speaking is climbing up a wall because half of his students have accommodations saying they are too anxious to speak publicly. It’s not a required course, so the whole thing is puzzling.
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v07
“But knowing some young women and trying to put myself into their shoes – they probably would treat an answer that is literally as above as an expression of traditional attitudes towards the relationships and family.”
Hmmm, looks like you didn’t get the memo; men tend to admit when they step on their dick, women not so much, but given the election results, the more intelligent of the herd are finally beginning to sense that they have buggered up big time. The traditional attitudes developed because they were functional, because it slowly but surely created the freedom, wealth, and security of the Western belief system — and you know it ;-D
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I was responding to a tweet that talked about finding “a suitable husband.” I’d assume that a dude doesn’t get more suitable as a husband than by declaring that his goal is to be a husband and to be responsible for the consequences of being a husband.
If the guy said, “my goal is to lay as much pipe as possible with a large number of women”, I’d assume he’s not husband material. As would everybody e, regardless of their ideology.
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https://x.com/HazelAppleyard_/status/1971646863930687656?t=DojoJ9_jb_6w1zGB1VJaHA&s=19
This is a reminder that marriage is the only way for a woman to receive peer validation. There’s absolutely none other.
I’m not saying this is a good thing. I’m saying this is objective reality.
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I feel bad for the girls in those videos though. That’s a mean thing to prank them with.
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I have nothing against anybody being a husband or being responsible for being a husband. My reaction was based on the particular choice of words used (e.g. “provider”) and not used (nothing about emotional connection with the wife) by the man in your example. So it sounded that he is a bit stuck in whichever time it was when having connection with the kids already became important (in addition to being a provider) but having connection with his wife was not as important yet.
And the woman who wants to get married for peer validation is not wife material.
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““provider”) and not used (nothing about emotional connection with the wife)”
Aren’t the words provider and wife used closely together a statement of emotional connection?
How many men want to provide for people they don’t like?
On the whole, men don’t really seem to receive a great benefit from thinking/talking about relationships. They like demonstrating rather than verbalizing. And I really don’t think most women, normal women, want a husband who’s verbalizing all over the place, they’d prefer that he go out and do a good job so they don’t end up camping out under a bridge.
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—Aren’t the words provider and wife used closely together a statement of emotional connection?
I do not feel so. Maybe it is my imperfect feeling of the English language, but to me “provider” is narrowly defined as “provider of material security” (in the best case) or somebody who BS-s a lot about providing material security (in the worst case), and says nothing whatsoever about providing any other kinds of security, including the emotional one. The latter, by the way, is not synonymous to verbalizing… Although self-awareness and the ability to verbalize one’s position, and to hear partner’s position are very important.
If “provider” automatically includes things other than material providing, then why include an additional phrase about children? Wouldn’t that be also implicitly understandable without saying it explicitly?
Look, I wish that man well. I wish him to find a genuinely compatible woman. But as long as he did not find one… maybe what I said explains why some women might not find what he is offering too attractive. If that is how he is advertising himself..
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““provider” is narrowly defined as “provider of material security”
I think in the context of marriage….. provider presupposes love, at least that is the traditional case in NAmerica.
“some women might not find what he is offering too attractive”
Well marriage and kids is a young woman’s game (for the most part, exceptions exist but they’re not the rule) and waiting around for the guy that can verbalize things the way most women can…. is a express ticket to Spinster’s Lane.
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People seem to be reading a lot into that.
I think the young man in question sounds earnest and reasonable, and to the right woman (one who shares his family-and-stability orientation), saying that out loud is a big plus, not a turnoff. The great part about it is… if “I want to be a good provider” is a turnoff for you, as a woman, you are not suitable wife material for this man. And so it’s an efficient sorting mechanism for everyone involved. I’m a big fan of efficient sorting mechanisms.
You don’t need or want to appeal to everyone. The best strategy for a family-oriented person in the 20something short-term-no-commitment-dominated market is to be very very clear about your intentions and eliminate unsuitable candidates as quickly as possible. That’s going to be most people, and it’s crucial not to waste your time on people who don’t share your goals.
Good luck to the kid!
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“how he is advertising himself”
While here…. you’re reading a _lot_ into a short conversation repeated here.
We have no idea how he is ‘advertising himself’ to women. But with an authority figure he stressed the provider role because that’s what authority figures are looking for. If anything it’s in his favor that he didn’t talk about emotions since that’s not what was asked.
With young women he might go all goopy…. or expertly mouth the latest talking points about ’emotional labor’ or other nonsense or get all tongue-tied. We don’t know.
Young people are famously not very good at judging long term marriage prospects which is why they used to get a lot of help from older generations. Now they’re left to their own devices and they are not doing well….
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OK, fair enough. I may be reading too much into a short interaction indeed. We indeed have no idea how he advertises himself to the women he is romantically interested in. And I agree that it is always better to openly advertise what one actually wants from a relationship, as opposed to presenting something fake in the hopes to be liked.
As far as what “provider” presupposes… Of course in the NA context willingness to provide implies loving the partner. However, different people have very different ideas of what love means. Since everybody offers all kinds of extreme examples here to make their point, I’ll do too. There surely are people who sincerely believe that they love their partner but are in fact unable or unwilling to accept the position of their partner on a variety of important topics. They “know better” what is good for the partner, etc. As a result, the woman may feel unseen and unheard despite being “provided” for.
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Fair enough, but the innate male drive to protect, to defend not only both his family but their territory is routinely ignored by the foolish. Do you remember maybe a decade ago, back when the mindless feminists were ever so pleased with themselves being selected as ministers of defence in half a dozen European nations? What do you suppose that ridiculous image told the enemies of the West, hmmm?
https://www.glamour.com/story/four-european-countries-now-ha
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I agree that young men are on the whole pretty wonderful. I see my students and most are really solid young guys, smart, respectful, hard-working, and ambitious. I don’t see quite as many young women because of the field I work in, but those that I do see seem just as solid and hard working.
However, I do think there are serious issues with young people meeting each other, much more so than in the past. Young men on the whole seem to be more fearful of rejection and less intent on the pursuit of young women, and these are not guys who are doing poorly in school or generally failing at life. Yet a lot of them would rather be alone than put themselves out there and face (more? any?) rejection. There’s a lack of confidence and also a scarcity mindset (“there are no girls / so few girls who would want me”) that has no basis in reality, but meeting new people and members of the opposite sex in particular is somehow harder for young men these days. So much of socializing happens online and people are reluctant, or perhaps too anxious because they’re not skilled, when it comes to interacting with new folks in real life. It doesn’t help that the cultural signaling has been labeling most normal male behaviors as toxic or dangerous (including things like approaching someone always being unwelcome and downright predatory). The real predators are deterred by nothing, but the effect on normal guys is that they’ve completely withdrawn to avoid bothering women … and now no one is meeting anyone and everyone is lonely and miserable.
Apps are another level of horror, in that most men do extremely poorly on them (in part because of not being able to present themselves in a flattering light). The ones who do well generally look for hookups only, so women looking for something serious quickly get disappointed and abandon apps altogether… It’s rough for the young people out there!
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The “swipe right” form of dating was definitely a huge mistake for humanity. And it’s people of all ages who suffer. I have a divorced friend who has gone through a collection of app-suggested girlfriends. They are all very nice women. But they are also all incredibly wrong for him. They don’t just break up. They break up in nasty, devastating ways. My friend is an excellent guy. But every time he introduces us to the App Date du jour, we clearly see that it won’t end well. And it doesn’t.
We all need collectively to abjure the dating apps.
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I ran across this series yesterday afternoon that covers this. It was surprisingly detailed about how things went so badly wrong that currently 2 in every 3 men under 40 are single.
Youtube – Channel name Effective Purpose, the series in question is a four part series starting with the first episode (The Occult Origins of the Modern Dating Crisis – Timeline of the Dating Collapse, Part 1).
Despite the title of episode one, the series itself was extremely good, very informative, and actually managed to keep from running off into the bushes, which considering the number of things talked about was amazing.
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2 in every 3 men under 40 in America, no idea how bad things are elsewhere.
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This boomer and his generation engineered the very conditions that have made it nearly impossible for young men to secure stable, long-term employment. They inflated housing costs, shipped jobs overseas, gutted unions, and then shat on them as they withdrew into video games. Young men today are at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. While women have seen institutional support through DEI initiatives. The result is that women are now, on average, outcompeting men professionally in what was once the primary metric of male social value: career and earning power)
And then, by refusing to “marry down” many women have set up a mathematical impossibility. You cannot, on the average, be better off than your mating pool, and at the same time insist on only dating people better off than you. There just aren’t enough men above them on the ladder.
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4 downvotes? Impressive. I want to beat this record. Here goes:
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Remember the big uproar last winter over panda express? Chris Rufo actually suggested that young men should work their way up Panda Express, and boomer conservatives fucking ate it up! But here’s the kicker. The same boomers will never give their daughters the same career advice. No, it’s the college to girlboss pipeline for daddy’s little girl!
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My parents are boomers. I’m on the young end for their kids, barring boomer men who’ve traded in for a younger model three or four times, and are now sad geriatric dads.
I’m middle-aged and my parents don’t exactly have a say in my career choices anymore, so this seems kind of irrelevant.
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My response was directed towards the boomer clown whose tweet clarissa posted, whose analysis of the dysfunctional mating dynamics of the modern era was “kids these days.”
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I still believe in giving old people a pass for not keeping up with the times.
Just assume it’s early-stage dementia setting in, inability to assimilate new information, etc. It’s OK gramps, the cold war’s over. Time for a nap.
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LOL, why you ungrateful young whipper snapper ;-D
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