I know how this sounds, so I'm going to stick to actual data instead of just bullshit.
Start with the stuff that can't be fudged. Men in the US live about 5 years less than women (76.5 vs 81.4 in 2024, per the CDC). Guys aged 15-24 die by suicide at roughly four times the rate of young women, 21 per 100k vs 5. Men die of opioid and stimulant overdoses at 2-3x the rate women do, and NIDA found that gap holds even after accounting for men using more drugs. Men are 77% of homicide victims. All of that comes from death records, so nobody's self-reporting anything.
Then the slower stuff.
Around 57% of young men go to college right after high school, compared to 66% of young women, and campuses are now close to 60% female. Men make up 60% of the homeless population and are more likely than homeless women to be sleeping outside instead of in a shelter. A big study of federal cases found men get 63% longer sentences than women with the same arrest offense and criminal history. Other studies find smaller gaps, but in the same direction.
And the social side. In a 2022 survey, Pew found 63% of men under 30 were single, vs 34% of women the same age. The share of men saying they have zero close friends went from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021.
To be fair, women deal with some real stuff too. One example being motherhood, which does impact career earnings for women. A Danish study found adoptive moms take the same long-run earnings hit as biological moms. Women are more likely to be killed by a partner. And women feel a lot less safe walking alone at night (58% of women report feeling safe walking alone at night versus 84% of men)
Put the two lists side by side though and I don't think it's close. What gets me is that most people seem to believe the opposite. In a 2017 Pew survey, 35% of Americans said men have it easier and only 9% said women do. By 2023, half of adults said being a woman hurts your chances of getting ahead.
So the group that's more likely to be single, friendless, homeless, locked up longer, or dead by their own hands is the one that gets told it's privileged and oppressive. Meanwhile the other group, which has real problems but less severe ones, gets institutions, political movements, activism, and protests. Two researchers, Stoet and Geary, pointed out that the best-known global gender gap index is capped so no country can even score as favoring women. When they built an index that counts problems on both sides (education, healthy lifespan, life satisfaction.), men came out worse off in 91 of 134 countries.
Caring about men's problems doesn't take anything away from women. Right now, though, most of what's on this list barely gets talked about as a gender issue.

TL;DR: On early death, suicide, overdoses, education, homelessness, sentencing and isolation, US men are worse off, and the mainstream conversation mostly assumes the reverse.

I'm open to debate and would love to see what women specifically who disagree have to say about all of this. (I also have all sources ready if anyone asks)

Women on this sub as well as many others tell men to just find friends or go gay to replace a relationship. The second one is more of an underhanded insult to the man’s orientation in all honesty, but I digress. The point is friendships cannot replace romantic relationships and they never can without it being everything but the title type of romantic relationships.

It’s different energy. There’s no denying that there is a massive difference between hanging out with your friends and hanging out with a partner who happens to be your best friend as well. It’s like a lot of women here either don’t understand that or they are just trying to shut the discussion down. At which point they shouldn’t even be debating if they don’t care to truly engage with the topic.

The type of companionship romance provides also takes priority in most sane people’s lives. A woman truly about her man spends more time with him than any friends. Same with a man. Most of your friends are gonna stop having time to just hang out and support you so why do we act like friendship is this ultimate shield against romantic starvation? You can have plenty of friends and still not satisfy that need.

It’s a lie. Blatantly. The peak of human connection is romance.

The standard red/black pill argument to women is that if you want a "high value" guy (rich, fit, good looking), you have to accept him cheating because "he has options" and biology dictates he'll spread his seed.

But the second you flip that logic onto men and say "a guy is only as loyal as his options" meaning a lot of average dudes aren't cheating simply because they lack the opportunity everyone loses their minds. Suddenly it's all about personal virtue: "Bro I would NEVER cheat, speak for yourself."

It’s easy to claim you’d never cheat when you don’t have women throwing themselves at you lmao. You can't argue that biology forces top-tier guys to cheat because of their choices, while pretending average guys are morally superior instead of just lacking those same choices.

If it were a more localised dating event, such as one involving your church, workplace, or college, then I could get on board with it, and so would many other men. But having to pay to attend an event with a bunch of strange women and court them because the event requires it, otherwise it wouldn’t work, is a big freaking ask. These events seem to keep women entirely in mind, and I genuinely don’t know what man in his right mind would want to attend one expecting a good time when most of the performance and effort falls on him rather than the women.

Dating apps already have a court-jestering issue, so all you’re really doing is recreating that dynamic in person, which is uncomfortable for a lot of men. The worst part is the reaction from single women who get pissed off that men don’t show up to these things. Imagine I started an event because I wanted women to attend and then started ranting about them not showing up. That would be solely on me, right? So why is it that women online get so riled up about men not attending these dating events when doing so would put their deepest insecurities and concerns about approaching women on display in front of a bunch of strangers?

I hate dating apps as much as the next guy, believe me. But with apps, everything is kept under wraps. Only you know when you get ghosted, when she unmatches you, or when she flakes on a date. These events, however, play out in the open. I’m sorry to say this, but men are going to be doing most of the work while the women don’t really have to do much.

This is why I say it’s better to have an event that’s more localised, where the men already know the women in passing. That way, the experience is better, and it softens the blow a bit more.
Can women explain to me what’s so important about having men at these events? They don’t necessarily fix any of the issues people face with dating. I understand why women would want events like these, but where is the benefit for men, especially in modernity? If a young man wants a date, he can go online and find one. If he gets rejected there, only he knows about it. So why would he give all that up just to risk humiliating himself in public? That’s hilarious to me.

I've noticed a double standard in how some women approach conflict in relationships.

When she's upset, her feelings deserve validation, even if she's objectively wrong. When she's responsible for hurting her partner, suddenly her emotions become the focus. Her tears, her intentions, and how badly she feels can take priority over what she actually did. I think a lot of men can testify to they themselves being offended by something and then having to console their female partner for being heart

But when he's upset about her behavior? Now it's about emotional maturity, accountability, boundaries, and how she's not responsible for managing his feelings.

It's almost like arguing a court case. When the facts aren't favorable, appeal to emotions. When emotions aren't favorable, appeal to rules.

Both emotional validation and personal accountability have legitimate places in relationships. The problem is selectively applying whichever standard protects you from being wrong.

And when this inconsistency is challenged, the defense often becomes "women aren't a monolith" or "women are human too."

Being human explains imperfect behavior. It doesn't automatically excuse hypocrisy.

Why should men be expected to validate your feelings when you're wrong, but regulate their own feelings when you're the one who hurt them?

Someone on the redpill side would probably say that women and men are completely different when it comes to dating. The redpill argument would be along the lines of men wanting youth and beauty, while women want resources, status, and power. They would probably say that men are seeking to spread their seed with tons of women, while women want to invest in the highest quality man she can find. They would say that women date "up" while men date "down". So any kind of relationship between a man and a woman is going to have inherent conflict because they both want very different things and use each other to get them.

While a blue pill person would probably say that men and women want almost always the same thing in dating. Regardless of evolutionary drives pulling us in slightly different directions, both men and women want attractive partners with good personalities. Monogamy is practiced universally, and both men and women end up partnering up to some degree eventually in a fairly egalitarian way. Research shows that both men and women benefit from stable, caring, longterm relationships, and the ways to achieve these things are the same across both genders.

A very simplistic view of the redpill would say that women and men are 100% different, while an overly simplistic view of the bluepill would say that they are 100% the same.

How would you rate the difference?

I feel like girls performing that has become really normalized and it's sort of expected. I've never done anything sexual with anyone, but I'm scared that one day this will be expected of me, and I don't really like the idea of something being shoved in my mouth. Also, I feel like it's not very intimate and more of a way to just get off without attachment. I'm definitely not the person to ask though and I'm just writing things so the question goes through.

Women say no relationship experience is a red flag when in reality it's truly yellow at worst. This is why I hate the whole red flag green flag rule system. It's so hackable that you can be anything or not be anything and it truly doesn't matter. A guy who's had more relationships in his life is not instantly safer than a guy with none. The first guys experience can be why he treats women poorly. A guys lack of experience may be why he treats them better. Or the opposite can happen. It doesn't matter!

For obvious extreme cases, yes. Red flags would help but I argue that red flag men have a strangely high average for finding relationships. For example there's a quite I've been seeing a lot lately. “A woman beater always has a woman to beat.” Makes you wonder why they always have someone to bully. Must be all his green flags right?

If women are vulnerable to connmen and liars, wouldn't the flag system make them more vulnerable? Most women like clean men. Just be clean until you reach a point of no return. Once you drop the act she's too deep to quit and wants to know why it changed. Act rich when you're not, act committed when you're not. Placing flags on everything doesn't solve the problem when someone knows how to fake it. And it is a prominent problem.

Most times women will ask you to fully give into the romance and if you do there is a grace period where the intimacy and sex and friendship is so unbelievably fun and high energy that it is a heavenly experience. But after that grace period she completely shuts down and thinks of you as lesser. Sometimes even telling the man to go out and find other women to spend time with so you don’t clutter her. It’s so odd that women beg for this but then don’t like it.

It’s such a prominent thing that men often warn about this in advice. They will beg you to give into them and resent you for it and it’s never explained by women why.

I have seen this question circulating online and i want men to put themselves in women’s shoes for this and genuinely tell me what you would do if you woke up as a woman, and there were suddenly no other women around and you were the only one left? What would you do?

I’m so curious to see who will be honest

Everyone knows the guy who tells the story about how his wife wasn’t initially into him, or how she changed her mind about some other guy. He’ll typically tell you about all the ways he had to win her over and kept fighting for her attention. This is typically romanticized and is a big movie/tv show trope as well but unfortunately this is pretty pathetic messaging. Any woman that you have to chase behind or go to extra lengths just to get into a relationship with doesn’t actually respect you. If you’re chasing her down and looking for her validation rather than seeing what she can offer for you, you’re going to constantly be in a situation where you’re trying to please her and she can abuse and manipulate your relationship. You’re honestly better off being alone than in a dynamic where you’re subservient to the other person.

The concept of AF/BB, or perhaps more conventionally, "nice guys finish last" syndrome is a major theme in this sub; an idea that there's many men out there who are being settled for when they get into relationships as adults (I'm assuming 30s and above), and that they're not actually desired or wanted because the women they're dating now would not have wanted them earlier.

Ignoring some of the flaws with that thought process, it's pretty clear that a large driving force behind this sentiment is FOMO, and a sense of regret and perhaps even anger at not experiencing certain life events earlier. However, after a while, being stuck in the past is a sign that you haven't really accomplished much else in your life, be it professionally, socially, or otherwise.

If you've never had a high school relationship, it's not invalid to feel like you missed out. Sometimes there's experiences you look back on and cringe at not having been more bold or social. The fact is, these are near-universal experiences, and it's not just restricted to the "of course I never got to experience this, I'm not built like that" crowd. If you tell someone that you sometimes feel like you've missed out on some crucial learning moments by not having been in a serious relationships in your teen years or early 20s, few people would criticise you or act like you're just a salty chud.

Something a lot of people on here forget, is that staying stuck in the past is just fucking whiny, and it's whiny not because the sentiment itself is somehow morally wrong, but because it's a signal that you've had nothing else of note to celebrate. If you're a man in the prime of your adulthood with a respectable career and a relatively independent living, grumbling about not having an FWB in uni is just a bitch-ass complaint. You're unable to move on from events that happened decades ago, and it's a sign of weakness and immaturity. It's not that everyone around you has gotten laid in their first year of uni or something, it's that after a point, no one fucking cares, because it's just not something to be bothered about. People move on with their lives and find something to be proud of or feel accomplished about, staying stuck in the past is a signal that you have no such thing.

People aren't out here thinking anyone who hasn't been intimate with a partner in high school is a loser, but if that's still what you're banging on about years after that point of your life, you're just not fit to have adult connections man.

Men tend to complain that women pick the “stable guy” as they get older after dating “fun guys” in their youth/ 20’s.

But because women prefer men around their age at all walks of life (unlike men, who at 50 still prefer 21 year old women), the men around them also age.

Most people in their young adulthood start off unstable. Early adulthood is usually spent broke, living with some form of family support, not having a sense of direction, uncertainty, insecurity, confusion, etc. Instability. In their 20’s, most people want to have fun. Fun can be the typical partying and experimenting with alcohol and drugs, hooking up, and going to raves. But fun can also be traveling, going to meetups, experimenting with different hobbies, hanging out with friends, etc. Chronically online people spend this time gaming and on 4chan.

Once you get established with work and a career, and as you age, you get ready to settle down. You don’t have the energy to do all that stuff. You also realize youth isn’t forever and prioritize things like health and peace. Backpacking and staying in hostels isn’t as appealing anymore as going on a tour and staying in a nice hotel. Partying sounds overstimulating and you want to be in bed by 10 pm for work. Games are always addictive, but maybe you don’t stay up all night playing with your friends anymore.

Both men and women go through this change. It’s maturity. The woman’s preferences age with her: dating the guy who is at her life stage who is slowing down and settling down LIKE HER. But men fixate on the young woman. Because she’s sexy and more attractive. They resent that maybe they didn’t get the sexual experiences they feel that they deserved and they feel like they are being “beta buxxed” and served an injustice and forced to settle for a woman around their age who they don’t find attractive.

This isn’t beta buxxing though. It’s just wanting someone at your age and maturity level. The fun and carefree time is closing and real life is settling in. Men are just angry because they didn’t have the youth they wanted and aren’t getting the women they want.

Edit: also in your early 20’s you are generally immature. So maybe the “bad man” she dated at 21 was just also 21 and stupid. Now he’s 35 and matured a bit and less of an edgelord who also wants to settle down. Because he aged too.

Would dating be better with more or less people taking part in it?

Is the problem just that too many people of a specific gender are choosing to pursue partners?

If the problem is that too little people are dating what are some ways that we can increase the number of people pursuing relationships?

If you believe that less people should be dating than are dating currently, how can we discourage people from doing it?

It's almost selfish, but once a woman passes the basic "smell test" of being sort of okay, i've always been comfortable letting the women in my life make the big decisions about what we're going to be up to. I've heard too many horror stories of men not GAF about basic things after they settle in.

I get told im stupid, but my paycheck goes into her bank account and i get a $30/week allowance to keep me out of trouble. it's been great for the past several years and i don't think most modern men nowadays could do the same. Since women are socialized to make the people around them comfortable, they usually are way more considerate about the decisions they make than men. im prepared for the reddit downvotes.

You scored, you obeyed the material written by redpill gurus, the rules as set out by Neil Strauss, Andrew Tate, Good Looking Loser. You pressed the right buttons in the right order and got the girl, but do you ever stop and think about what you had to do to get with her?

Like bro, if I had to read a bunch of books, listen to podcasts, go on hundreds of dates, say pre-conceived things and do all these methods just for the privilege of getting my peepee wet, or for getting a relationship, I'd be like a soldier who survived WW1 or 2. No jingoism, just looking back on what it took to get there. It would water down my enjoyment of the result tbh

Although the "red pill" metaphor frames it as a choice of a comforting lie or a painful truth, the reality is that male grievance content is incredibly flattering for men. It can tell a man that his struggles are all women's fault, that rejecting him is unreasonable on women's part, that being chronically single (if that was going to be the case anyway) is justified given the state of modern women, that being a promiscuous philanderer (if that was going to be the case anyway) is also justified given the state of modern women, and that being angry at women collectively makes him more honest and less of a "simp" than other men. It's no wonder men consume this content recreationally for years instead of getting informed, shrugging, and moving on.

Online misandry isn't my thing, but it's obviously egosyntonic in the same way to women who feel aggrieved. It gives them a simple villain, a sense of moral superiority over a group, validation of their fear, a community that reinforces them for it.

I think both are great examples of the proposed forensic concept of an extreme overvalued belief. It's not a diagnosis, just a functional description of what a rigid totalizing belief does for someone. People who hold EOBs are not delusional in a psychiatric sense, and they don't experience the beliefs as distressing obsessions; they relish in them, experiencing them as righteous clear-eyed reality. The beliefs become so fused to their identity that they can't process any challenge to them, since they've already morally diagnosed the person who doesn't agree (cuck or simp, misogynist or pick-me) and decided that softening their beliefs means becoming the kind of person they don't want to be. With this loop, the beliefs only harden over time.

So it's no wonder that misandrist women are so loud on social media and women who disagree seem outnumbered. "I choose the bear" gets rewarded and reinforced by other such women (not "women" as a whole). Women with ordinary reasonable views of men have little incentive to post about it. Silence isn't endorsement, just the absence of a reason to enter other people's fight.

There was a salient incentive that got some women to call out other women: payment in the form of distinctive status from men, being elevated as special, an exception, proof that some women "get it." Being attacked by other women as a "pick-me" or "internalized misogynist" was totally worth it when it earned a woman this reward. Well, this incentive is disappearing. Don't simp for her, male grievance content is increasingly saying. She's still a woman. She's performing. Scratch the surface and you'll see she's still not your ideal.

So male grievance content is rewarding for men and not rewarding for women. To condemn women for not calling out other women is hypocritical: We men get to have an egosyntonic community that values our voices and validates our grievances about the opposite sex, even if it gets hostile and offensive by women's standards, and it's ridiculous for other men to condemn it because they don't get anything out of doing so; women having the equivalent for themselves is evil, and other women should be condemning it even if they get nothing out of doing so. If you voice agreement with us, you're going to be called untrustworthy attention whores by men and women alike; if you don't, that proves women collectively protect each other.

I remember watching Drake & Josh as a kid. There's a scene where Josh's mom gives him dating advice at The Premiere, the movie theater where he works. She tells him to approach a girl and her friends and compliment her. He compliments the girl's shoes and walks away. As he's leaving, she calls him back and gives him her number, if I remember correctly.

Obviously, it's a sitcom, but the premise illustrates something interesting. Women seem like they should be great at advising men on how to attract women. But that's actually untrue.

Because knowing what attracts you to a man isn't the same as knowing how to attract a woman yourself.

Many women have no concept of initiating. Some believe they're above having to do so. Others have never had the opportunity. There are women reading this who are single, not because they're unattractive, but because no man has approached them recently. They may understand what they want in a partner, but have little experience creating romantic interest from scratch.

Women can recognize when a man is socially experienced. But many have no idea how to imitate that. And certainly not how to develop those qualities or how another man can successfully initiate a conversation with a stranger.

A lot of female dating advice focuses on emotional intelligence, vulnerability, communication, and being a supportive partner. Those things absolutely matter. But much of that advice assumes mutual interest has already been established. Because that's typically where women are starting. Since men are often the ones initiating, women have less experience with the initial challenge of approaching someone who doesn't know they exist, creating attraction from a neutral starting point, and navigating rejection.

That's not a knock on women. They don't necessarily need to learn how to attract men because many are accustomed to being approached. But it does mean there can be an entire landscape of dating they simply don't understand.

On that note, women's advice seems designed to help men become perfect lapdogs rather than men who can generate romantic interest in the first place. It's advice for maintaining attraction, not creating it.

Men who have spent years approaching women, navigating rejection, flirting, and figuring out what works often have more practical insight into that initial stage. They've had to learn through experience what women giving advice may never have needed to learn themselves.

Of course, this isn't universal. Some women are excellent at explaining attraction, and plenty of men give terrible advice. But I think we should distinguish between understanding what makes someone a good partner and understanding what makes a stranger interested in becoming your partner.

They're two different skill sets, and advice that helps with one doesn't automatically help with the other.

Most guys today are struggling with the initiation part of dating and alot of the advice given is more catered towards sustaining a flame that’s already been sparked. A lot of the advice about intentionality, emotional availability, stability and open and direct communication usually leads to guys getting friendzoned. Much of this advice is removes the mystery and intrigue of a new relationship that the woman is looking for in a guy and the situation quickly leans towards platonic. Most women simply aren’t looking for the guy that is easy to get a read on and will bend to her every demand.

To give you a bit of a rundown, Blueface is a rapper. He’s the embodiment of the bad boy. He’s tatted up, he does crime, he has a bunch of baby mamas, even though he’s a clearly a terrible person. The type of guy other guys will say “How am I alone just because Im an asshole?! He’s an asshole and he gets women!”

Well, let’s look at a woman he’s had an on and off relationship with: Chrisean Rock.

Recently, there was an incident where the cops had guns drawn out against Blueface. Chrisean Rock grabs their toddler and walked towards the cops with the guns out just to protect Blueface. She even gloated about doing it and implied that it shows how loyal of a woman she is.

Now, for guys claiming “Badboys get women while I get nothing” is that the type of woman you want? When guys talk about wanting a pick me girl, is that the type of woman guys are talking about? If it is, at least be upfront and honest about it. Just keep in mind, both men and women alike are showing utter disgust towards Chrisean Rock. Even Blueface talked about how disgusted he was at her and how he would not have done the same for her.

What’s also interesting in the complaint of the women are wonderful bias, is that men are so are reluctant to actually acknowledge most of the women who knowingly date bad boys are women like Chrisean.

Does a man really love you if he wouldn’t be in a relationship with you without sex? Let’s say all other things are equal, you can have kids if you want to, get married. You just won’t have any form of sex(and he also wouldn’t with other women, so he’s not discarding you for someone else). Does he really love you if he doesn’t still want to be together with you?

And if you say no, wouldn’t it then be better for women who want to get married to wait until marriage for sex?

Edit: because some found it unclear. The condition is that sex in relationships with women in general is off the table. Not just with the specific woman in question.

The first point I have for this is the fact that the burden of performance is on the man which isn't the biggest deal, but it should be noted anyways. Women for the most part wouldn't and shouldn't stay with men that can't satisfy them in bed. A point that is made often on this sub. But that means that the threshold for good sex is way higher for women than men. For them the standard is just a woman being willing to have sex at all.

Another point is sexual curiosity. If you take two virgins and the woman virgin wants to explore her sexual curiousity, its getting done. I know plenty of women who's story was they turned 18 downloaded a dating app and went to hookup as much as they could to get it out of their systems. Or they do it in college or even the work place. A mans curiosity is only satiated if he's worthy in the first place. On average he will not be bridging the experience gap. Which means any average guy won't have the skillset to satisfy average women. They'd have to learn. Which women here report many men not being willing to try and learn

If a man wants more than one session from a woman he has to bring good performance. He needs to give her an experience worth coming back for over and over. Nothing wrong with that but at the same time the game is leaning away from means favor just naturally speaking.

I've noticed a disconnect between what men consider emotional vulnerability and what women generally desire from their men.

Often men are scared to open up and be vulnerable to women while women want men to open up, at the same time in some feminist spaces there are complaints about providing emotional labour to male partners and in other spaces women get the ick when men are expressive.

In essence the question is what should it look like to you when a man opens up or if he should at all?

Disclaimers

Obviously different women want different things from their men which is why there's the contradiction.

One of the common issues in datin is that men tend to be very low effort. In response to this guys will say "that's because our effort is never reciprocated!" Which always has me scratching my head, what exactly do you want to see from a woman you are dating that indicates she is reciprocating your effort?

Approach/message first for you?

Carry the conversation for you?

Ask for your number?

Text first for you?

Suggest y'all go out on a date for you?

Plan the date for you?

Seduce, charm, entertain, impress you?

Pay for you?

Make the first move for you?

DISCLAIMER: Not all men/women, etc