Why Young Americans Are Having Less Sex
politico.com
politico.com
I'm a young(ish) guy that's tall, fit and has a great career that pays well. On a (superficial level at least) I have a lot going for me in attracting women.
Yet I have no interest in pursuing sex or relationships.
Why would I bother going out and attempt to have conversations with women who have nothing in common with me.
Why have a relationship with a woman when it's taxing physically, mentally and emotionally?
There's so many other things I can do with my time that is much easier and more rewarding.
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After writing this I can't help but feel that my experience of relationships isn't typical.
Does anyone agree or disagree with me?
Obviously anecdotal - but yea. I'm an engineer in America and for the entirety of my career I have worked with 95%+ men. In my office right now it's 25 men and one woman who is non-technical.
I simply just don't interact with women unless it's professional, within mutual friend groups, at the bar, or in the dating scene. I won't initiate in polite small-talk conversations out of fear my friendliness could be misconstrued as flirting, and as a single 30-something guy I'm terrified of making someone feel uncomfortable.
This all leads to a lack of confidence in non-professional interactions to the point where I am legitimately shocked/concerned when a woman randomly initiates conversation with me (as seldom as that happens).
It's lead to the exact same conclusions as you - a lack of self confidence in a wide variety of situations. This turns into overcompensation and having bad interactions. That all reinforces the lack of self confidence.
Are women who have nothing in common with you your only potential conversation/dating options?
What's wrong with seeking out women you do have something in common with?
for example:
"how can i lose weight?"
"exercise and diet"
your response is akin to:
"that's not very helpful..."
I could do things that have a different male/female skew but to do things just to meet women seems disingenuous and energy wasting to me.
Have you dated in a major metro within the last 2-3 years? It's a pissing match of who can care less so-as to not come off as needy and/or thirsty.
A large majority of the people I am meeting on these platforms/real life are serial daters and I'm just one random guy in a LOOONG string of encounters. You can literally tell who's new to the dating scene because their ideals haven't been crapped on 9/10 times anything happens - they don't have "war stories".
I can _absolutely_ understand why someone says that it's taxing "physically, mentally, and emotionally" because it absolutely is for a lot of people.
If that sucks, why do it? Almost everyone I know that is actively dating (major metro or no) has had better experiences meeting people through meatspace activities centered around interests than online.
Online dating seems to be the modern iteration of the singles bar scene, which sucked for much the same basic reasons.
I've met single people through meatspace activities and often it comes with the exact same difficulties of online dating.
I'm editing that line to read "have you dated in a major metro..." - thanks for the heads up.
However if you don't have interests that have women in it how do you meet them genuinely?
Can you go into more detail on this?
Within the relationship context this causes many couples to not be able to hit the required escape velocity to exit the honeymoon period (3-6 months on average). If you're in a major metro, there is a multitude of additional options that are fresh and new so why compromise?
This is destructive to an individual's ideals within the relationship context because either you dig your heels in just like your opponent and move on to the next partner (easy/common), or you both decide to calibrate and compromise (hard/rare).
It's down to me to work out why I find relationships to be so exhausting. Thank you.
On the other hand, if you don't have that feeling, or if it's not that intense, you're right. The company of people you have nothing common with makes very little sense. It would be awkward to do things against yourself.
Well, the general idea is to find women who have something in common with you.
> Why have a relationship with a woman when it's taxing physically, mentally and emotionally?
Addressing the preceding issue may result in this being less often the case. But, yeah, if a relationship is like that, on balance, it's probably not one you want to be in.
It's a chore because you often get zero positive validation out of it (ghosting, relationships that go nowhere, blah blah)... You begin to not want to "play the game" which is what I'm reading from your post and I very much relate if that's the case.
I had to laugh.
"Those darn cellular-telephones, porn-ography, unwed couples, and consent. Back in my day we didn't have consent and we liked it!"
Don't get me wrong, the article is well written and cited, but it seems to be suffering from the fallacy of trying to draw conclusions based on things that you can easily get statistics on rather than admitting that you can't boil down human relationships into a few vectors. I'm prepared to have my experience challenged but I can't imagine any young adult thinking this analysis is anything but funny.
At least in SF, I see a lot of single men. I myself have been finding dating hard here (may be because I'm a foreigner), which translates to pretty irregular sex, but my friends in South East Asia are getting laid pretty regularly.
This is based on self-reported data. Is it not also worth asking if it has become more socially acceptable to admit to having sex less often (or not at all)?
Just as it probably has become more socially acceptable to not be in a relationship...