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!
This is an aspect I’ve thought about a lot. I haven’t really seeked out any romantic connection since high school, so this is mostly academic, but I don’t particularly value that my partner be a leftist or align politically with me at all. Obviously I wouldn’t date a bigot, but someone who doesn’t care about politics is fine as long as she’d be ok with me ranting about current events occasionally. Or a lib who isn’t too enamored with the status quo who’d just see me as a deranged tankie lol.
But what about COVID? The default position on it has become complete disregard for the health of immunocompromised and elderly people. Am I willing to date someone who gave up protecting others, for essentially no cost to themselves, because the government said it was ok? I’m sure I could convince a few people to mask up if I showed them the data, explained my situation with elderly family, etc. But would I be ok with dating someone who didn’t think twice about ceasing to wear a mask while they could visibly see how many people have been sick at every stage of the pandemic so far? It’s weird to think about, maybe it’s too judgemental and individualistic since there are many social factors in people’s decision to not mask up.
It’s apples to oranges, but it’s like being with someone who has been a landlord or a troop in terms of the social harm that person has done.
All philosophical arguments aside, kinda hard to believe I’m someone’s Soul Mate or that we have an incredible connection when they’re not willing to do the bare minimum to protect me. My love language is definitely not Social Murder.
Edit: just to expand on this a little. It fell on me to be caregiver for me grandparents in their final years, which were not pretty. Unrelated to covid, my grandfather actually passed in the midst of lockdowns in 2020. And let me tell ya, anyone who doesn’t have the courage to wear a mask right now because it’s ‘not what everyone else is doing’ isn’t gonna be there for you when shit hits the fan. There’s people with Long Covid who have been bed ridden for years now; You think someone who’s been ignoring reality is gonna suddenly step up and start doing the right thing when it’s you, or you think they’re gonna find a reason to keep ignoring reality and leave your ass? While there might be some who step up to a reality check, there’s a lot of immunocompromised folks out there finding it’s the latter.