I’d like to make a point about men approaching women and the problem that this article isn’t highlighting. The issue has once again been presented as a binary issue — with an underlying assumption that men approach women. It’s an assumption that is so obvious that it’s overlooked in articles like this all the time. An equal society should have equal levels of approach by both men and women.
In reality, the gap between male self esteem and the expectation of men to begin the romantic process is easy to exploit — Daygame is an example of this in action. Men are hugely insecure, more so than they let on, and as much as women don’t want to be approached by men who cannot calibrate the interaction effectively — they aren’t rushing to make the approaches either.
I’m aware that there will obviously be exceptions to this — there always are, but societal places a huge expectation on men to navigate this interpersonal minefield, when they can’t and without proper acknowledgement of the struggle that some men face — you get dark corners of the internet where incels are bred.
The wish list for how to meet a man is that it should be spontaneous, natural, he should have a good sense of humour, be respectful, attractive, offer to pay for things and read social cues effectively. Failure to do this will result in a termination of the encounter in some manner, politely one would hope. This can be a tough bump to endure on a regular basis. Men are not entitled to women, but women are not entitled to shirk responsibility for this imbalance indefinitely.
So, whilst this article does a good job of decrying daygame, it doesn’t provide an alternative. A vacuum formed by the patriarchy in which it is becoming increasingly difficult for men to find a way through. As this newest iteration of feminism finds it’s feet, expect men to avoid these social interactions all together. Some might see this as a good thing — I see it as a failure of society to form a mature and coherent response to the patriarchy…. a system that oppresses both sexes in different ways.
UPDATE: I expanded this comment into a full article — which was (surprise surprise) not curated. Enjoy.
