A couple of years ago, I went to a HR Tech trade show in Austin. One night, I went and had some beers on Rainey Street. The funniest thing that happened on said night was the bartender told me that, during his gender reveal (ha), they gave the cake to the grandma — who then fell down the stairs, smattering the cake (it was blue for a boy), and everyone reacted to the incoming boy but no one immediately wondered if grandma was OK. Alright, I suppose maybe that’s not so funny.
The most insightful thing I learned at that bar was by talking to a guy who did installs for Kendra Scott (I.e. brick and mortar stores) and had a 13 year-old daughter. He said that every guy who came over to the house for his daughter had no idea how to talk — to him, yes, but also to the daughter. They basically just sat and looked at Reels and TikToks together. Odd.
At one level, this is not surprising. Men are not very good about talking on anything that’s vaguely relevant.
But now there’s a moral panic about this:
Said moral panic emerges as part of the Culture Wars, but it’s bigger than that.
The Culture Wars piece says “Well, #MeToo made it so that men cannot talk to women without facing a lawsuit or HR case opened.”
Is that true? In maybe 1.5% of cases, yes. In general, no.
Some guys are slimy and toxic and, when they approach a woman, it probably could result in a lawsuit. Last night, I was bartending and had a 71 year-old male at the bar. One of the servers came over to me, who is a 18 year-old female, and he began hitting on her within about 17 seconds. That’s a bit odd/creepy. Most men are not like that.
There are bigger culprits at play here.
The obvious elephant in the room that no one likes to discuss is bad parenting.
A lot of parents, feeling overwhelmed themselves and having to balance all the realities of adulthood, shove their kids in front of screens from an early age to chase a reprieve. That behavior scales, and it makes it harder for kids to relate IRL, especially when you bring hormones into the mix.
People don’t like to blame parenting for anything, unless it’s wholly external, because to even kinda sorta blame parenting if you have kids seems like you might be telling on yourself a little bit. No one wants to think they’re doing “the big thing” in life wrong. So I get it why we downplay this one.
Part of it is how we raise boys, which isn’t ideal.
Boys don’t often have a true conversational model. Their dad kinda does the fun, physical stuff with them but maybe isn’t conversationally-elite himself. Their mom coddles them, often. (These are very generic buckets, but often true.) If you don’t have a strong conversational model, it’s hard to form bonds and friendships, and definitely hard to speak with women.
Pornography cannot be ignored here. This was addressed yesterday on the Megyn Kelly show:
To me, the most interesting aspect of men and porn is how porn analytics are a true window into what men find erotic, but I digress.
The problem with porn is obviously desensitization and now, entire genres of porn where it’s almost “Choose Your Own Adventure” and you can make a woman do whatever you want. I’ve been sexually active for maybe 22 years or so at this point. I can tell you that some women exist who will “do whatever you want,” but it ain’t many — and it’s usually in the context of a very safe and secure relationship. Porn cuts through all the steps needed to foster said relationship and makes it easier to get to the payoff fast. That’s damaging, and there are dozens of studies on that (by dozens I mean thousands), and I think most people inherently know it’s a problem anyway.
One other thing we ignore is the possibility that Instagram (and later Tik) have made young women more bitchy, vapid, and hard to speak with.
I’ve had probably four waves of dating in my life, including post-divorce. When I “got back out there” post-divorce, I was surprised how vapid everyone seemed. Women wanted to talk a lot about IG Reels and Taylor Swift, and not much beyond that. When I was dating nine years prior, it was vapid in parts, but it seemed like you could talk about more in bars on first dates — and yes, Taylor was still big back then.
I can also tell you anecdotally when I bartend, I often see couples come in, decide on a drink/food order together, and then instantly go to their phones with only a few comments between them after that. That happens in couples ranging from 24 to 60. It’s odd to see. It’s easy to say “phones destroyed us,” but ya know, maybe they did.
A final wrinkle would be: a lot of guys love to validate their own brilliance in conversation. (That’s ostensibly what “man-splaining” is.) That makes things harder too.
As for whether this is a moral panic, I’m not sure. So long as women want children in their late-20s and early-to-mid-30s, and so long as guys want partnerships and the ability to periodically have sex without hunting for it, I think we’re going to have to find ways for men to approach women and have discussions. (Years ago at a travel trade show, I met a lady who ran tourism for the city of Orlando. I asked her if any years were down years and she said, “Honey, as long as guys play golf and people have kids who like Disney, we’re good.”)
So we’re good in the sense that, for marriage and relationships to keep working, we need men to eventually talk to men. It’s not quite a moral panic yet — but there are some bad signs.
What’s your take?
I would make a terrible young person. I don’t know Swift’s music. I don’t like videos. I also don’t care about golf or Disney.
I also don’t like spending time with boring people — those people sound boring AF.