OPENING CAVEAT: this is purely a rant about my own experiences as a not-rich leftist cis man in a mostly liberal city trying to date women. I cannot speak to any other experiences but mine.
I’m an occasional poster, mostly lurker here posting on a burner acct cause I don’t want to get at all personal on main.
all that out of the way….I am in my mid thirties, living in a large city, strongly leftist (maybe not by hexbear standards but certainly those of….virtually everywhere else), and holy shit does straight dating fucking suck in the 2020s. or at least it has for me.
over the course of my adult years I have rejected one way or another pretty much every structural advantage cis white men typically enjoy (especially higher income) in search of somewhat more ethical ways to get by. I quit my old “real” (bullshit) career and switched over to physical labor work that lets me completely unplug and helps me stay (relatively) fit but also keeps me perpetually on the edge of broke. when I tell women what I do there is a total incuriosity about it, as opposed to when I had a relatively well-paid bullshit career with a ladder - that, strangers can respect. now I scrape by but I no longer have panic attacks wondering what the fuck I’m doing. a personal win that has nevertheless rendered me a lot less dateable in the eyes of my peers. I am not imagining this change in perception, I don’t think, nor did I anticipate it. I guess I should have.
that’s when I even get to the stage of chatting someone up, mind you. when I walk into a small venue or party surrounded by strangers, to steal a line, “I do not light it up.” a single man (or at least a single me) at a social gathering or event is like a fucking wandering fart. (I have described this phenomenon to a couple of female friends and they didn’t disagree.) I guess this helps explain the enduring “wingman” concept but p much all my friends are partnered women I would never dare ask to help me in that way.
I’m slightly below average height which rules out dating basically all women over 5’7 due to idk internalized misogyny or whatever (ftr I would have absolutely no problem dating a taller person if they were attracted to me, and in fact was with someone significantly taller for several years, but since the advent of the apps I get the sense I’m getting filtered out altogether, whether on an app or in person). I know there are a lot of jokes about this but it really is just statistically measurably more difficult in my experience to date women as a short-ish guy (unless you’re rich I assume).
in theory I could end my misery of abject singlehood by submitting myself to the mercy of The Apps - I met my last partner there a couple of years ago after a fucking shit ton of swiping - but I am too full of spite to consider going back right now. I hate hate hate using them, hate the feeling that I am entering a highly competitive meat market in which I am clearly a below average cut due to the above mentioned reasons, hate being reminded every time I open them up. also as mentioned I’m fuckin broke and at least as a man, ime, you gotta pay money to make them usable/useful (AKA shoot enough shots to even get a response before you hit the paywall).
that’s all beside my philosophical/political objection to using them which is that I fuckin abhor having to give my extremely personal information to some evil company. that’s why I have tried to manufacture as many scenarios/activities as possible to meet ppl IRL, but it’s been a couple of years of this with barely a hint of a spark anywhere.
here’s another major problem specific to my age bracket and gender: I emphatically DO NOT WANT to try to date significantly younger women, but ime they really do seem to make up the majority of women interested in dating a man my age who lives the way I do (that is, sans any sense of upward mobility or interest in “traditional” ways of doing things).
lastly, I wanted to add something about the cis aspect of all this….most of my friends and associates are women and nb folks, and virtually all of them are some flavor of queer. I’m not really, or certainly not enough to comfortably identify that way. it really seems like all the cheap and no-cost speed dating events and mixers I’ve spotted, or at least the ones that would theoretically be good for meeting other leftists, are queer-centric or queer-exclusive. great for you folks! not very helpful for me tho…
also before anyone chimes in with “it’s cool/ok/fine to be single” or any variant thereof….I’ve already spent major chunks of my adult life, years at a time, on my own. I’ve reaped all the benefits there are from singlehood, and I’m grateful for them, but I’m just so fucking lonely and it gets harder every year.
thank you for entering the leftist cis man rant zone. I invite other hexbears to share their grievances as well. I’m not really looking for advice tbh just wanted to yell somewhere
EDIT: shout out to all fellow hexbears struggling in this area I very much like you all!
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holy shit does straight dating fucking suck
this has always been the case. gays stay winning
It sucks, man. Mostly agree. No idea what to do.
I tried publicly messaging dating proposals (on both knees, as per tradition) to every confirmed woman on Hexbear. Didn’t work. Did the same for every non-confirmed woman or user with feminine-sounding user name. Didn’t work. Tried making a sockpuppet account that I’d use as a “is this man bothering you ma’am” ploy amidst this, which almost worked but as soon as I DMed them from that account they somehow immediately recognized my posting style from the love screeds I’d send them (it’s beyond love bombing, I’m a love terrorist and I’m detonating the vest). Got banned from all the Lemmies, so I can’t do it there. Reddit is all neolibs whomst I won’t even touch.
Also, no one fucking masks and everyone listens to lame shit.
put this in the site banner
mine must’ve gotten lost in the mail
oh its okay dw about it
everyone listens to lame shit.
D:
Excuse me I mask and listen to a combination of machine noises and toilet flushes.
Where are the love IEDs in my inbox???
Unless those noises are combined with extratonal gabber kicks and pounding beats, it’s lame.
That’s actually pretty spot on too most of the time but I’ll admit to being lame due to my age alone
Since you invited grievances, here’s mine: I went through all of the online dating bullshit 12 years ago, met my soulmate, spent 10.5 years with her. She was in and out of hospitals the entire time and never got a clear diagnosis. Then one day she just suddenly fucking died at a horrifically young age. I found out a couple months later that she had an undiagnosed congenital disease that killed her. We both felt like she was never taken seriously at hospitals because she wasn’t insured, wasn’t white, had tats and piercings. Basically, she fit a profile. Shit fucking sucks. I’ll add that I understand not wanting to be alone. Although I’m alone now as a widower, it’s entirely different than when I was single before I met her. Having met her totally filled my heart, and I hope you can find the person that does that for you as well.
yeah I’m on disability and can’t even imagine how much it would hurt my chances if I even somehow had a social life where I met women occasionally
I think I’m a completely hopeless case
I feel you. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one with similar experiences, but also
that so many of us seem to be going through itcw self harm
After cheating on me, my last ex threatened to kill herself if I broke up with her about it. But I’ve been single for about 5 years now and dating has been so bad that I’m like “maybe it would have been better to try and make that toxic relationship work” lmao
I have had the thought sometimes that I can’t even find someone to be abusive to me and exploit me and it hurt immensely to have it
I know how fucking toxic that thought is now, and I’m getting better, but it still hurt to tell myself that I’m so fucked up and useless there’s nothing to exploit or take advantage of
Oh yeah I’ve been through a version of that bullshit wringer. I definitely prize being single over being/staying in a toxic situation…but the former can still be a huge bummer.
nothing to add, just wanted to say I’m basically in the same situation. it seems like most people meet online these days, but I’m a 5’4 guy and not particularly attractive so the apps are just completely hopeless.
where do I find the women who won’t care that I’m unemployed / on disability?
Plenty of disabled women, you already have shared experiences to talk about
Plenty of disabled women, you already have shared experiences to talk about
maybe so. but where do I find them? 😩
sensation like a spiked knot in my stomach on reading that post title, which only became worse when i opened it and saw how long the post was
A knot in your stomach is a diffrent type of dating than the one in question for this thread I think.
meet people through friends? That’s worked for me before. I’ve never dated a woman before though (I’ve dated people with a number of gender identities, and I wouldn’t really be opposed to dating a woman), so I can’t really give too much specific advice on trying to date women.
I’m a hermit so I can’t relate. At a certain point the desire to date vs the energy I need to put into it becomes not worth it in my mind. Sometimes it sucks but I’ve got no choice at this point.
Plus the city needs me
Yup
haven’t been face-to-face IRL with a person (of any gender) since 2020
Well I still talk to people lol but I don’t go out unless it’s for food, work or to have a walk
My recommendation, find a buddy or two you can get baked and watch movies with. Do this regularly, it’s good for the soul.
I have roomies for this purpose. Not the same :( incidentally, having roomies ALSO makes it harder to date women my age smdh
Yeah roomies definitely get in the way of dating a lot more than you’d think.
I have my toes weirdly in this space as well. The kink/poly/other dating has it’s own problems but it is a lot more chill
Gloria Steinem said you should be just fine because women only supported Bernie for the boys.
In all seriousness I’m sorry dude. It’s hard to even make friends when you get older let alone meet partners.
good lord yes, it’s ugly out here. And I love when the go to excuse you usually receive from the internet is “well you must just have a shitty personality,” nah, my personality is great, I make friends easily as hell when I actually get the opportunity to make them. (And let’s be honest, we all know a good personality has never been a necessary prerequisite for intimacy)
But the opportunities simply do not exist, they are drying up just like our freshwater sources. Alienation is intensifying across western society, and social relationships become increasingly transactional and nakedly self-interested. And my god, I swear interpersonal communication skills are at a historic low. I don’t think people even really know what they want anymore, after being fed so much manufactured, individually targeted corporate culture and living under “democratic” political regimes whose entire purpose is to gaslight you into being proud of your own exploitation. No wonder everyone seems fucked in the head psychosexually in the west these days.
Imo it’s because liberalism in all its glorious “brilliance” has created a patriarchal society in which no one can become patriarchs anymore (though that was always sort of a myth for most people to begin with, but it’s like there’s less smoke to obscure that fact now). Tons of people don’t even want this dynamic anymore. but society seems completely stagnant, like there’s nothing to do about it but suffer trying to either attract or become one of these ridiculous caricatures of “dominance” while 99% of the population are forced to live as pathetic losers in comparison (aka “the proletariat”). The dissonance is fucking people up (men AND women) just like it fucked up the chuds into becoming qanon freaks. And personally I feel this phenomenon is partially why younger people are becoming more open to queer and nb ideas because the “standard” gender norms don’t make any god-damned sense anymore in contemporary society.
Did you just suggest people are becoming gay because there are fewer available mates?
If so this sounds so familiar like a fever dream or a documentary, or some sci fi I have read.
not that people are becoming gay, I don’t think that’s something you can actually do if you aren’t already. More like people are more willing to consider alternative sexualities and genders because of a broader sense of discomfort with traditional norms (plus people aren’t oppressed as much for doing so). it’s a type of dysphoria I suppose.
people just keep inventing political lesbianism over and over and over again
i love that for each new generation.
OK I got you
Also I figured out I was thinking of Jurassic Park, some of the female dinosaurs turn into males because of their frog DNA. One of the protaganists explains that frogs will do this if there are not enough males.
because of their frog DNA
epigenetically altered sexuality
the frogs are turning dinosaurs gay
That is the kernel of truth to that whole thing. Groundwater from farmlands blasted with growth hormones and pesticides got in some swamps and did genetic damage to frogs who are capable of jurassic park style hermaphrodism/sex change (not totally sure, I’m not a Frog Guy) resulting in unusual frog sex behavior and physical expression in many ways including i guess what you could refer to as ‘being turned gay’ if you were Alex Jones
tbh I want a gf with frog DNA because then I’ll have a frog gf and I can give her a big container of waxworms when she’s mad at me and it’ll smooth things over
The dig at polyam people is kind of bullshit tbh. I’m polyam and all the other polyam people I know exclusively date other polyam folks. It has nothing to do with them being married or not or tricking anyone, it has everything to do with them having a shared lifestyle/interest and social community that bonds over that shared interest. We go out with our polyam friends to parties or dinners or polyam meetups or whatever and we meet other polyam people and sometimes we also date them.
So that’s really the clever trick that polyam folks have already figured out, and is the exact same trick you and everyone else I’ve ever seen or will ever see complaining that dating is hard need to figure out; go out and do things with other people who have shared lifestyles or interests with you and you will make friends and those friends will introduce you to their friends and at some point along the line you’ll probably find someone who wants to date you. Don’t do it with the intention of dating, do it with the intention of sharing experiences that you enjoy with other people who also want to share those experiences and the rest will come. It’s the exact same thing as what polyam folks do except that polyam folks can also date their friends that they’re already hanging out with. That’s pretty much it.
Outside of early life relationships (high school / college) where you’re just constantly in proximity with single hormonal folks who also want to date…that’s pretty much how much people do it. You either get on the apps with your hot face and attract people that way and go out on tons of shitty dates until you find someone who you actually click with, or you go out and share interests with your community and you’ll meet someone.
It has nothing to do with them being married or not or tricking anyone
That wasn’t the sense of “trick” being used. It was in the sense of, uh, “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick!”
was not meant as a broader dig at poly folks, just frustrating to contrast my life vs my friends’, and operating as a pair makes a lot of things undeniably simpler vs being alone (again, ime)
Thanks for saying so. I will say operating as a pair absolutely makes things much more difficult, despite how it may look. Healthy married polyamorous couples often take years of work to get to that healthy spot…years of unlearning toxic monogamy and relearning how to date in a new broader more ethical mindset. Also at least in my groups most of the polyam folks I know don’t date together, although there are some who date primarily as a unit.
Like, yes, sometimes it’s simpler because if you have a bad date you can come home to your partner for support. But sometimes it’s harder too, like you’re having a bad day and your partner is out with their partner and you just have to deal with it alone.
Lotta people see happy polyamorous folks with our big groups of happy people we’re all dating and think “wow that looks so easy and nice.” And it can be, sometimes, and often is, more publicly. But there’s a ton of work that goes on behind the scenes. That’s true for every relationship, and multiply it by however many relationships you’re in, plus the added complications of their partners, and yeah…it gets messy quick.
Anyway sorry for spamming your thread, I got lots of opinions and experience in this area and also really love talking about it with folks. As much as “dating” can be anyone’s hobby ethically, I would count it as one of mine.
yeah honestly I think the struggle with meeting people outside of apps might be partly just that we all have less and less time away from work to just be out, recreationally, in the community, socializing. And that when we are out social norms are shifting away from talking to strangers.
That’s totally fair. I have no issue chatting with total strangers when I’m out too, and neither does the partner I go out with the most, so we meet all sorts of interesting folks by just…sitting down and talking to them. And not in the creepy polyam way of “hey we liked your vibe can we buy you a drink,” we really just like talking to people. Once in a blue moon they’re polyam too and we expand our community that way but…yeah it can be tough. I’m not gonna pretend it’s easy but the old standby of “just do stuff you enjoy with people and you’ll eventually meet someone” does work better than pretty much anything else. It can def be tough though.
I saw a guy who I sorta hooked up with once, at a rally/protest recently and honestly major swoon, he’s so much cooler than me. I gotta just commit to doing more mutual aid and organizing work and maybe the right crossover of people will happen and I’ll make a connection with someone (in addition to the work being meaningful of course, but I’d be much more effective at it if I stopped to talk to people more
And that when we are out social norms are shifting away from talking to strangers.
gotta love social atomization, baybee!!!
So that’s really the clever trick that polyam folks have already figured out, and is the exact same trick you and everyone else I’ve ever seen or will ever see complaining that dating is hard need to figure out; go out and do things with other people who have shared lifestyles or interests with you and you will make friends and those friends will introduce you to their friends and at some point along the line you’ll probably find someone who wants to date you.
You’re right. But there is nowhere to go out and make friends (at least not where I live). If you don’t already have a social life you’re screwed.
It’s not so much a dig but it does feel like some people are going back to the buffet for more while some of us don’t have a plate yet
(the analogy works even better when you realize at a buffet you’re supposed to get your own plate)
Sure, but we’re at a different buffet. If you’re monogamous most of us aren’t going to date you anyway. We’re in different markets.
I don’t have either box checked I still can’t find the fucking buffet
