The Psychology of Modern Men and The Relationship Recession

This video took me forever to write. There is a big problem happening with a lot of men right now. Most of us, including myself, did not see this problem coming. And even when we did, we did not take it seriously enough. In this video, I am going to talk about what that problem is, how it is creating huge numbers of disillusioned, unhappy men and a record number of single women. And I am going to finish by giving some practical tips for both men and women who are struggling to find love. because of this problem. Let's start with a cultural moment many of us are sharing right now. The TV show Adolescence currently airing on Netflix. I, like so many other people, took four straight hours of my life to binge watch this show that everybody is talking about. Don't worry, there won't be any spoilers here, but the show revolves around the story of 13 year old Jamie Miller, a young boy whose life takes an unexpected turn after a tragic event involving a classmate. Over four episodes, the series explores themes of adolescence, societal pressures, and the impact of online cultures. At the time of making this video, this show has been watched by over 70 million viewers, more than the population of France. That's not just because it's an incredibly made show with exceptional acting, which it is, it's also because it struck at the heart of something that has been bubbling under the surface for a long time. the issue of what's happening to men in society. If you don't know me, my name is Matthew Hussey. I am a coach, a speaker, a writer, the author of the book Love Life, and I have this YouTube channel that helps people with mental health, relationships, and their confidence. If you haven't subscribed to the channel, be sure to do that. Don't forget to like the video and hit the notification bell so that you don't miss future videos. One of the most disconcerting themes in the show adolescence is its focus on the influence red pill culture has had on teenage boys. I recently spoke with a friend of mine back in England who said that the show has got parents heads spinning as they rapidly try to play catch up with what their kids have been consuming online and how it may be affecting their views towards women, which if you've seen the show is actually a mirror of the experience of the parents in the show. If you're wondering what red pill means yourself or you've heard it floating around the internet in debates around masculinity, dating, or even politics, the term comes from the Matrix, where taking the red pill means waking up to a harsh, uncomfortable truth instead of staying in a comforting illusion. In the modern world, red pill culture has become a philosophy around men who believe society has lied to them about women, relationships, and male identity. Basically, the idea is that men are often taught to be overly agreeable, emotionally vulnerable, or self sacrificing in ways that actually hurt them in dating and in life. In reality, the red pill community argues 80% of women want to be with the top 20% of men who are in that top 20% because of their looks, status, confidence, and money. The remaining 80% of men are often overlooked, friend zoned, are not seen as attractive partners, especially in the age of online dating and social media where comparison is constant and perceived options are endless. Some aspects of this philosophy, at least ostensibly, focus on helping men build confidence, set boundaries, and stop being people pleasers, while other parts have veered into anger, resentment, and broad generalizations about women, promoting a kind of us versus them mentality that quickly becomes excessively toxic. so when people say they've taken the red pill, it's possible they mean that they're waking up to the fact that they need to improve their life, but it's also highly likely they've started to see women and relationships through a deeply cynical lens. While red pill culture raises real issues like loneliness, rejection, and the pain of feeling unseen among men, too often it answers those issues with hostility instead of healing. For the purposes of this video, I'm less interested in what's happening to highly impressionable teenage boys and more interested in the adult culture that is influencing them in the first place. The insecurity, bitterness and disillusionment seen in the barely teen boys in the show is echoed in what's going on with an ever-growing number of adult men in the world today. Here are some scary recent stats about men. Suicide rates among men under 30 have risen by 40% since 2010 and are four times higher than among young women. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey revealed that 63% of men under under 30 identified as single, a significant rise from 51% in 2019. The same survey found that the percentage of single men actively seeking either a committed relationship or casual dates decreased from 61% in 2019 to 50% in 2022. So what exactly is going on here? And what does it have to do with why so many men and women are finding it harder than ever to get into a relationship? The Relationship Recession. Firstly, if your experience is that it's harder than ever to find love, the data supports your experience. In an article from the Atlantic titled, Americans' Marriage Material Shortage, Derek Thompson writes, American adults are significantly less likely to be married or to live with a partner than they used to be. The national marriage rate is hovering near its all-time low, while the share of women under 65 who aren't living with a partner has grown steadily since the 1980s. the past decade seems to be the only period since at least the 1970s when women under 35 were more likely to live with their parents than with a spouse. This is also reflected in the data on birth rates in recent years. John Byrne Murdock wrote in the Financial Times, in the US between 1960 and 1980 the average number of children born to a woman halved from almost four to two, even as the share of women in married couples edged only modestly lower. There were still plenty of couples in happy, stable relationships. They were just electing to have smaller families. But in recent years, most of the fall is not coming from the decisions made by couples, but from a marked fall in the number of couples. Had US rates of marriage and cohabitation remained constant over the past decade, America's total fertility rate would be higher today than it was then. The central demographic story of modern times is not just the declining rates of childbearing, but rising rates of singledom, a much more fundamental shift in the nature of modern societies. So basically what all of this is saying is that it used to be the case that birth rates were falling because less people were deciding to have kids. But now they're falling because there are just way less Couples, way more people are single. So if birth rates are declining because there are way less couples, why are there way less couples? Lyman Stone, a researcher at the Institute of Family Studies suggests it is because young men are falling behind economically and men's odds of being in a relationship today are still highly correlated with their income. Stone said, Women do not typically invest in long-term relationships with men who have nothing to contribute economically. So the theory goes like this: Less men are graduating from college while record numbers of women are graduating from college. Alongside this, the income of less educated men has stagnated while women's earnings have increased. The result, Stone says, is a lot of young men today just don't look like what women have come to think of as marriage material. In basic terms, this means as women have progressed, as their lifestyles and their earnings have gone up, their standards have also gone up. They've become choosier. Damn you female empowerment. An enormous amount of this, unless you are someone who believes in the subjugation of women and having them be forced to be reliant on men is a good thing. Do we actually want to go back to a time when it was enough that a man having a job and not being violent gave him bragging rights as a good husband? What are you talking about? I put food on the table. I never laid an hand on you. I tricked you like a queen. I know if I am ever to have a daughter, I will be teaching her how important it is that she go out and earn her own money so that she never makes a relationship decision based on the need to rely on a man or a woman financially. Financial independence isn't just the freedom to choose the life we want, it is the freedom to choose the partner who is right. Others, however, have argued that women are hypergamous by nature, which is to say they marry up in terms of wealth, status, and resources. So when they become financially independent they don't exercise the freedom to choose anyone they want, free from the constraints of financial practicality. Instead they now have an even higher bar than before. Find someone with an even bigger paycheck and even more resources than I have. Well let's just assume this is true for a minute and that the data is correct. That young women aged 16 to 24 now earn nearly 10% more than their male peers and in 2022 single women owned 58% of the nearly 35 million homes owned by unmarried Americans while single men owned 42%. 52%, then you do the maths. What that means essentially is that there are way less men than ever before who are deemed marriage material. As Scott Galloway put it, how many of us have said, I know a ton of great single women. They just can't find a date. That's not true, he said. They can't find a date that they find economically and emotionally viable. many men are also quick to point out what feels like a brand new double standard that men still be expected to pay, even though they are dating women who do just as well as them, if not more so. Looking back, if I were a smarter person, I would have realized that a video of me on stage talking about these double standards titled who Should Pay on a Date? Going insanely viral many years ago was a sign of things to come when you're on a date who pay. I know. I mean, that's what I told them, you know, I'm sorry. But I'm dating. We're dating. But here's the gentleman here. Okay. He's supposed to pay. Yeah. But you're supposed to have sex with him whenever he says. No. Whenever. What's where, where, but what's that. Where does this double standard come from? I'm sorry, it's the reality. You guys can, you can, you can moan at it or you want, but the moment you say to a guy, you have to fucking pay for my time, you're saying this relationship isn't equal. This relationship isn't equal. My time is worth more than yours, so you should pay for it. I wonder what paradigm that sets up. One comment I saw online reflected a growing sentiment among men. where he wrote dating for men is like paying for a job interview. Combine all of this information with the fact that I hear all of the time from women that when they try to date men who have less than they do, the men themselves seem to have a giant hang up about it and get intimidated and, well, it's a giant f***ing mess. So basically we have an army of newly choosy women and an army of men who feel invisible, overlooked, and increasingly hostile, all put together in a pressure cooker of economic uncertainty and unprecedented political division. Never fear, social media and dating apps are here. Top 10 places to get pancakes in New York. What was. What was this video again? Ah yes, smartphones will save us, delivering an endless stream of stimulation and options to us from the comfort of our own couch. the two Insidious words that are ruining our lives here are options and couch. First, let's look at the options problem. Options create entitlement on both sides. Men and women alike are awash in profiles that depict impossibly curated lifestyles and bewilderingly filtered faces that lead to expectations that simply cannot be met by reality. I look like a rat right now, don't I? It is now entirely possible to go on a date with someone you met online and find that when you arrive at the restaurant or coffee shop you literally cannot find the person because their actual face is different from the person in their pictures. But social media doesn't just create entitlement when it comes to who we want to attract. It invites massive amounts of comparison with our perceived competition. Women see other women looking perfect. Men see other men the same age as them seemingly living a millionaire lifestyle while they struggle to to pay rent. The effect of all of this isn't just in America or Europe, it's all over the world. John Byrne Murdoch in the Financial Times wrote, Gender researcher Alice Evans has shown that relationships are down just about everywhere, like a stock in the stock market. Relationships are down. Some Islamic authorities blame Western values and social media for the shift. Damn you Western values. When women are exposed to more Western media, Evans argues, their expectations expand. We must find a way of stopping these women's life expectations from expanding. But how? Max, get my cloak. Social media, a woman veterinarian in Tehran told the Financial Times, also glamorizes the single life by showing how unmarried people live carefree and successful lives. And it makes people keep comparing their partners to mostly fake idols on social platforms. we have the options problem. Then there's the couch problem for both men and women. Social media has constricted so many people's lives, which is especially dangerous for men who typically spend less time investing in their friendships and real life support systems than women do anyway, and whose motivation to go out and meet women, even for fun, is muted by the unending and immediately available rabbit hole of online porn. I don't want to claim that this video is comprehensive in discerning all of the factors going into what's going on with many men right now. For example, I haven't even touched on the fact that men are way more likely to be right leaning politically now than women and how the political differences between the sexes introduce a litany of incompatibilities, some superficial, some far more fundamental. But hopefully this video is a start. In a sense, none of this would really matter if we were all happy with our lives the way they are. But as Derek Thompson writes, marriage is strongly associated with happiness. According to General Social Survey data, Americans self-described life satisfaction has been decreasing for decades. In a 2023 analysis of the GSS data, the University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman concluded that marriage was more correlated with this measure of happiness than any other variable he considered, including income. None of this, by the way, is designed to be leading to some kind of grand statement of belief on my part that we should all be in relationships and that we can't be happy single. I don't believe either of those two things. And I wrote a chapter in my book, Love Life Happy Enough for that reason, because I believe it is entirely possible to be happy enough to live a great life without a relationship. But the fact remains that many people deep down truly want companionship and either feel that it is not available to them, have given up, or are letting their superficial preferences get in the way of them experiencing an amazing relationship. so for the people who want a relationship, whether they will say it out loud or not, what is the answer to these deep and complicated challenges? This is probably the subject of a whole other video because this one is already way too long and some of the solutions are macro, like Scott Galloway's suggestion to invest more in the middle class to help men who are falling behind. But I am not in government and my impact is always the most powerful, in my opinion, when I'm helping people work with how life really is, not how we'd like it to be. So I will just give you some initial thoughts and you can tell me what you think in the comments. First to all of the men who are struggling or relate to any of the things that I have said in this video. For many of you, I know that life has not been and continues to not be the privileged walk in the park that you keep hearing it is from the outside. You may be struggling both financially and psychologically, feeling behind in life, and to add insult to injury, feel like because you're not successful enough, tall enough, or good looking enough, you're fundamentally not enough for women in general. But this does women a disservice, and it treats them all as if they're some kind of giant hive mind with no will of their own as individuals to decide their own nuanced preferences. Not all women want the same thing, and many of them are far deeper than the people on TikTok simply looking for a six five blue-eyed trust fund chat. But yes, if you aren't stereotypically attractive, you may find yourself with very few matches on dating apps. But charisma, humor, being interesting, being great company and having a great outlook on life go a very long way. But these aren't tools you can easily flex online. So maybe online isn't your place. Maybe it's out there in the real world, being in communities, having face to face interactions, and letting people organically come to the realization that you are way more awesome and attractive than any of the superficial people they have dated before. For that to happen, it's important that you aren't constantly anticipating the punch, imagining that women won't want you once they get to know you, or feeling emasculated the moment you find out there's an area of life she's excelling in. Her success takes nothing from your intrinsic value and your ability to admire her success without feeling threatened by it or feeling the need to compete with it will set you apart from other more insecure men. Also, be careful on hating on people who are drawn towards people who are successful. It doesn't automatically make them superficial, and it's a double standard that some of us have to be mad at someone else for having a preference when we ourselves disqualify people based on our preferences all the time. In any case, you don't need to be outwardly and superficially successful, to be a hardworking man, to have a vision for a better life for yourself, and to have a resilience that is noticeable and admirable when it comes to getting through hard things. These are all insanely attractive qualities that don't require superficial success for them to be expressed on a date. Dating is storytelling. You are telling the story of where you came from, who you are, and where you are going. If you learn to tell a better story, you will attract more women. And in regards to the women who don't give a shit what your story is until they know what car you drive, don't give them a minute of your time. You don't want the woman who wants you because you have it all. You want the woman who would be by your side if you lost it all. Now to women, whenever I hear this toxic stereotyping BS about you coming from certain male communities online, I champion you everywhere I go. You know that. You've watched me on interviews on YouTube and constantly fighting that fight for not allowing you to be stereotyped in unfair ways because I've spent 18 years of my life working with you and I know you deserve better than that. but man, does some of you give the rest of you a bad name and make it hard to defend you against those stereotypes. If you want an authentic relationship based on mutual respect and admiration, date someone who respects and admires you, not someone who gets the message loud and clear that the reason you are into them is because of what they've achieved and what they have. If you achieved a great paycheck in your life, an enviable lifestyle and a fancy job title? Good for you! That's amazing! Wasn't the whole point of that so that you could choose whoever you wanted without relying on anybody? If you're in a position to choose a relationship for love and not security, you already won! So take advantage of that position. Realize that you being more successful should make the dating pool bigger, not smaller. You can't go around calling men superficial when you yourself cannot see past the fact that a man doesn't have the exact style you'd like him to have, the height you said you wanted when you were 25, or the kind of job or status that you think would impress your friends when you tell them about him. And to everybody of any gender, we have to realize that physical attraction is way more interesting than simply finding someone who fits our preconceived type online. Life is way more interesting than that. We get attracted to people we never would have expected to get attracted to when we actually spend time with them and find out what's beautiful about them, what's unique about their energy, or what we respect about their standards in life. And no matter what, remember, statistics don't matter to the individual. No matter what the trends are in dating and relationships, the reality of your life is that you are one conversation away from meeting someone who makes this entire video irrelevant. Before you go, there is a program that I would love you to try of mine that for those of you that are struggling in dating because you reach out to people and you don't hear back, or maybe you start texting them and you feel like they're just not trying very hard. They're sending you one word response. or maybe you feel like you get talking to people or you even go on a date or two, but then it just fizzles. Nothing comes of it. And what you want is real momentum in your dating life. This program is that program. It's called the Momentum Texts. In it, I give you 67 pre-written text messages that are all designed to give you momentum in the early stages of dating for all different situations, right? from the minute you start talking to someone in that first message to after a first date to when you're well on your way to having a relationship and looking for commitment. And of course, you can make them your own. It's not that you have to send them word for word, but they're things that I have created that you can play with as ideas and they're really valuable. Program is $7, which is basically the price of a coffee these days. Go check it out. I know that you're going to love it. It's at momentumtexts.com so I'll leave a link below as well momentumtexts.com let me know what you think and I can't wait to read your comments on this video. Thank you so much for watching as always and I'll see you next time.