I loved how you ended this timely and excellent piece
"If the point of modern romance is to marry your best friend, this will happen organically without a game or a sexy performance. Some light social filtering helps a lot. Friendship is not about the dopamine rush of romance (or exercise). It’s about oxytocin, the chemical of human bonding. Real friendship takes much longer to form than reading a titillating, dopamine-releasing romance novel.
Romance is not the end, it’s an initiation into an intense friendship bond. When mature couples say they’ve “fallen out of love,” I suspect it’s because we no longer have the friendship bond anymore. I don’t know what it means when a high school kid says the same thing. No clue."
In a relatively short period of time, the rich, western world went from viewing marriage as "let's make a deal so people don't die or I can consolidate power" to "find your soulmate."
As a Gen Xer, I think I've seen the final stages of this unfolding via media experiences like the romcoms that the late 80s started puking out.
I think there's something to be said about society's (understandable) rise in interest in women and their wants. But, emerging as it has from, well, a male-and-male-mode dominated world, spearheaded by feminism (of multiple stripes)... it makes it difficult to effectively push back or rebut.
If the history of much of the West (at least) can be said to be focused on men and male behavioral norms, then we're arguably in the "age of women" where we're not only balancing the scales between the sexes, but actively tipping them in the opposite direction. It makes it difficult to point out what men are now lacking without coming across as a misogynist by your opposition. More and more, *any* masculine behavior is labeled "toxic" - including things like men being stoic in the face of adversity. Our "better halves" are become convinced that the problem is not just that society was male-centric, but that male behavior, in general and in totality, is a problem in itself.
So, now, more than ever, we men are basically invited to conform to women's expectations or else be pariahs. Admittedly, this is a flip from "the before times" when you could argue women were expected to conform to male expectations or suffer the same fate. It seems to me, we're not "allowed" to note any downsides of this flip, or complain at all, lest we be "problematic." If the issue with the "male mode" being (more) dominant in the past is that it alienates roughly half of humanity - then why is flipping to a female mode the answer? The answer is finding an equilibrium that satisfies both sexes. Far easier said than done, and less fun than shouting about the patriarchy or toxic masculinity for some.
All this to say is that when women measure men by women's standards, we will inevitably come up short as a group - such as expecting men to be romantic throughout a long-term relationship. I'm more than open to the idea that *certain* behaviors qualify under "toxic masculinity" (sexual harassment, rape, outbursts of anger) but let's not lose sight of the fact that we could and should conceptualize of a "toxic femininity," including such "bad" behaviors as female-on-female bullying. Women can lean too far into their own ids as well. The trick is coming face-to-face with your nature and our nurture, and deciding what we (as men or as women) ought to be in order to peacefully and satisfactorily achieve balance. Tipping the scales exclusively towards women will only plant the seeds of an eventual (and perhaps ugly or harsh) pushback. This method of "social justice" that seeks to operate by simply inverting the "oppressor and oppressed" roles is just a recipe for discontent and continuous back-and-forth revolutions, with "power" swinging back and forth between whatever binary you've identified. The oppressed get relief until they get the power and now they oppress the former oppressors; then its the former oppressors turn to claw for relief until they are back on the throne. And on and on. This method never grapples with what equilibrium looks like. Some have said this is a feature, not a bug of liberalism (either classical or otherwise). I'm not sure what the answer is.
rapid shifts in gender roles and expectations of the other gender have generated multi-generational confusion. As usual, I think we will use fictional media to process...when we should be using group discussion..
I'm sure the only answer is that we have to stop generalizing about our own relationships and look at them for what they are. I get that it has to be awkward as hell as a man to know what to do or say. My only theory is if we want our partner to be really happy, and our motives are somewhat unselfish, we find a way to help them gain their happiness and it is to be hoped that they will do the same for us. Yeah, i know. It doesn't often work that way.
Thank you James for this piece! It’s incredible for me to wrap my head around how long the dating and courtship wandering around takes and how people have come to or are forced to accept all this wandering around.
Ironically, I read this just after celebrating my 40th wedding anniversary. Pete and I were friends first, and we began to hang out together because we worked together at a homeless shelter and the place was like a 24-hour circus. Also, we both wanted to go camping and nobody in our circles wanted to go with us. So we did. Our honeymoon was spent canoeing in the glorious Algonquin Provincial Park, many miles of wilderness north of Toronto. We kinda skipped the romance thing. Somehow, it works. Damned if I can explain it except to say that some things are not meant to be analyzed.
I loved how you ended this timely and excellent piece
"If the point of modern romance is to marry your best friend, this will happen organically without a game or a sexy performance. Some light social filtering helps a lot. Friendship is not about the dopamine rush of romance (or exercise). It’s about oxytocin, the chemical of human bonding. Real friendship takes much longer to form than reading a titillating, dopamine-releasing romance novel.
Romance is not the end, it’s an initiation into an intense friendship bond. When mature couples say they’ve “fallen out of love,” I suspect it’s because we no longer have the friendship bond anymore. I don’t know what it means when a high school kid says the same thing. No clue."
In a relatively short period of time, the rich, western world went from viewing marriage as "let's make a deal so people don't die or I can consolidate power" to "find your soulmate."
As a Gen Xer, I think I've seen the final stages of this unfolding via media experiences like the romcoms that the late 80s started puking out.
I think there's something to be said about society's (understandable) rise in interest in women and their wants. But, emerging as it has from, well, a male-and-male-mode dominated world, spearheaded by feminism (of multiple stripes)... it makes it difficult to effectively push back or rebut.
If the history of much of the West (at least) can be said to be focused on men and male behavioral norms, then we're arguably in the "age of women" where we're not only balancing the scales between the sexes, but actively tipping them in the opposite direction. It makes it difficult to point out what men are now lacking without coming across as a misogynist by your opposition. More and more, *any* masculine behavior is labeled "toxic" - including things like men being stoic in the face of adversity. Our "better halves" are become convinced that the problem is not just that society was male-centric, but that male behavior, in general and in totality, is a problem in itself.
So, now, more than ever, we men are basically invited to conform to women's expectations or else be pariahs. Admittedly, this is a flip from "the before times" when you could argue women were expected to conform to male expectations or suffer the same fate. It seems to me, we're not "allowed" to note any downsides of this flip, or complain at all, lest we be "problematic." If the issue with the "male mode" being (more) dominant in the past is that it alienates roughly half of humanity - then why is flipping to a female mode the answer? The answer is finding an equilibrium that satisfies both sexes. Far easier said than done, and less fun than shouting about the patriarchy or toxic masculinity for some.
All this to say is that when women measure men by women's standards, we will inevitably come up short as a group - such as expecting men to be romantic throughout a long-term relationship. I'm more than open to the idea that *certain* behaviors qualify under "toxic masculinity" (sexual harassment, rape, outbursts of anger) but let's not lose sight of the fact that we could and should conceptualize of a "toxic femininity," including such "bad" behaviors as female-on-female bullying. Women can lean too far into their own ids as well. The trick is coming face-to-face with your nature and our nurture, and deciding what we (as men or as women) ought to be in order to peacefully and satisfactorily achieve balance. Tipping the scales exclusively towards women will only plant the seeds of an eventual (and perhaps ugly or harsh) pushback. This method of "social justice" that seeks to operate by simply inverting the "oppressor and oppressed" roles is just a recipe for discontent and continuous back-and-forth revolutions, with "power" swinging back and forth between whatever binary you've identified. The oppressed get relief until they get the power and now they oppress the former oppressors; then its the former oppressors turn to claw for relief until they are back on the throne. And on and on. This method never grapples with what equilibrium looks like. Some have said this is a feature, not a bug of liberalism (either classical or otherwise). I'm not sure what the answer is.
rapid shifts in gender roles and expectations of the other gender have generated multi-generational confusion. As usual, I think we will use fictional media to process...when we should be using group discussion..
I'm sure the only answer is that we have to stop generalizing about our own relationships and look at them for what they are. I get that it has to be awkward as hell as a man to know what to do or say. My only theory is if we want our partner to be really happy, and our motives are somewhat unselfish, we find a way to help them gain their happiness and it is to be hoped that they will do the same for us. Yeah, i know. It doesn't often work that way.
💯
Thank you James for this piece! It’s incredible for me to wrap my head around how long the dating and courtship wandering around takes and how people have come to or are forced to accept all this wandering around.
https://flowingdata.com/2019/03/19/the-relationship-timeline-continues-to-stretch/
I love Flowing Data...thanks for this URL
Ironically, I read this just after celebrating my 40th wedding anniversary. Pete and I were friends first, and we began to hang out together because we worked together at a homeless shelter and the place was like a 24-hour circus. Also, we both wanted to go camping and nobody in our circles wanted to go with us. So we did. Our honeymoon was spent canoeing in the glorious Algonquin Provincial Park, many miles of wilderness north of Toronto. We kinda skipped the romance thing. Somehow, it works. Damned if I can explain it except to say that some things are not meant to be analyzed.
you're leading the way in our evolution as a species...congratulations...!