As a father of a son, this is heartbreaking. I understand the motivation behind #metoo as outrage against predatory men. Men and women alike feel this outrage. But it's gone too far. My 39 year old single son was publicly shamed by Gen Z people around him for approaching a 22 yr old woman. Last I checked, 22 yr old women are adults who can say no if they want. It feels to me like my son has given up in this environment. He wants to get married and have kids, but it's not looking good at this point.
Obviously there's a huge amount of nuance in approaching another person. OTOH, I certainly know men who simply stay away from women - because "that's the best possible outcome anyway, and the least painful way of reaching it".
Cold approaching someone to ask them out - especially if they hadn't yet AT LEAST exchanged smiles - seems to be the sign of a deluded/misguided person. And even moreso with such an enormous - and generally creepy - age difference.
More prudent and effective would be to approach a group, chat with them, and build a rapport. Then see where things go.
Even more prudent would be to not be so utterly pathetic and desperate, and instead just focus on doing things that bring you fulfillment. And then meet people who also do those things, some of who you will just click with. And perhaps even romantically. There's no "approach anxiety" that way because there's no "approach" at all! Just live an authentic, contented life - that's what's actually attractive to people.
The problem is that most people do not live an authentic life. But there's nothing stopping them from starting today and endless options for it. But keep "dating" out of your mind - just go and connect with people, develop interests, skills, self confidence etc
That's a very Gen Z attitude that appears to be common. It's not shared among people of older generations. A 22 year old is an adult that can determine who she wants to date without a bunch of young femininst men rushing to defend her, which is what happened to my son. "May June romances" are a thing throughout history. Only recently have we expanded this to include young men and older women.
No, that's an "everyone younger than a boomer" attitude about age differences in relationships. In the early '00s I remember the "half your age + 7" rule being a decent guideline for what's socially acceptable. That would put your son's lower limit at 26.5.
So if a 22 year old woman wanted to date a 39 year old man you would discourage it and call it socially unacceptable? What if she was really wanted to? Or have younger generations now infantalized young women and decided they can't make up their own minds?
No point arguing with them. These people are just the puritans of the past -- they've just flipped what constitutes purity. I'm a younger millennial and it's hard enough for me to understand the supposed 'logic' of leftie morality police, and I've been surrounded by them my entire life. If you're a boomer (judging by you having a 38 y/o son), you're unlikely to ever understand the way they think, and it's not worth trying. Just reassure your son that there's nothing to be ashamed of for asking out an adult woman, and encourage him to brush it off rather than trying to justify it to anyone. They can smell weakness, and attempting to defend yourself against accusations is (somewhat validly) perceived as vulnerability. There's nothing you can say that will change their mind, and if you show them that it bothers you, they'll just double down on the attacks.
Nobody's obligated to follow your rules. We sacrificed the concept of societal obligation decades ago, and we're not bringing it back just because age gaps make you feel icky.
Enough people have taken this scorched earth attitude over random things like this that most people have few, if any, friends now so it hardly matters anymore.
It happens that groups invent their own rules, but I assure you, the rest of the world doesn't have a problem with a 39 year old man and a 22 year old woman. I don't know how the poeple in your bubble expect to have kids.
I’m struck by how much of this discourse functions as unintentional anti-natalism. You can’t build families in a culture where the first step (asking someone out) is treated as inherently suspect. Is the long-term plan here just to fade away politely?
Because she's attractive and has plenty of time to have kids, so he doesn't have to rush into getting married and having children with her. Your question also presupposes that there's some reason that he should prefer or limit himself to women his own age, but there's literally no reason to take that as the default.
The real question is, why do you care? What happened to not shaming people for their personal sexual and romantic choices?
One thing I've noticed--there are two types of people who get upset at older men dating younger women: young single men and old single women. It's almost as if the criticism is thinly-veiled jealousy, rather than any sort of principled critique.
Its sad that can't see why this is utterly bizzare, deluded/no recognition of how reality is, and likely creepy.
Moreover, at no point did you consider HER in your comment - do you think a 22yr old wants some 38 year old (of any sort) approaching her?
Ps I'm literally a late 30s, contendedly-single man - for personal reasons, not because of "how women are these days". If he was my friend (and someone so pathetic never would be), I'd have rapidly intervened as well, or admonished him when i heard about it. And then, tried to help him sort his life out.
>Its sad that can't see why this is utterly bizzare, deluded/no recognition of how reality is, and likely creepy.
This is all just a verbose way of saying 'it makes me feel icky'. Verbalize your issue with it, or keep your feelings to yourself. Lots of things make me feel icky, and I'm quite certain you'd call me mean things for many of them. Difference is, I'm not so self-obsessed as to think my personal disgust should matter to anyone other than me.
>Moreover, at no point did you consider HER in your comment - do you think a 22yr old wants some 38 year old (of any sort) approaching her?
She says, 'sorry, not interested', and moves on. It's not a big deal. Walking up to a person and asking them out doesn't require a person's consent, nor is it some terribly traumatic thing. In certain cases, it can be a minor faux pas, eg if her body language indicated she didn't want him to approach her, but it's still not a big deal so long as when she rejects him, he leaves her alone.
I didn't consider her in my comment because we know literally nothing about her other than her age and sex, and there's no reason to assume from those details alone that she wouldn't be open to going on a date with him. I could imagine it being uncomfortable for her, but that's not something anyone can know in advance (you do realize there are plenty of young women who date significantly older guys, right? it's not the norm, but it's also not exactly rare), and there's nothing so outrageous about asking a woman out that a person needs to avoid it in order to cater to the portion of women who would be uncomfortable with it. I am uncomfortable with lots of interactions I have, but that doesn't mean the other party is doing anything wrong. In fact, I've been uncomfortable being asked out before, by people who I believed should realize I wouldn't be interested in them -- but again, that doesn't mean they did anything wrong. This all has the air of nobility taking offense that a commoner would dare to speak to them.
>And then, tried to help him sort his life out.
Respectfully, a single almost-40 y/o man isn't in a position to help anyone sort their life out, particularly not one who gets upset over a grown man asking out a grown woman.
A lot of single women hoping to start families would be happy to have a tall, gainfully employed and hard working man take an interest in them. Your group has made rules that insure the fade out of the human race through depopulation, like Japan is experiencing.
It’s interesting that you’re in your late 30s, because you sound like the same kind of moral enforcer who publicly humiliated my son. Not protective. Performative.
You didn't ask whether the woman was harmed. You didn't ask what really happened between two people who knew each other. You rushed to frame a man who simply expressed interest as “pathetic” and “deluded.” That’s not feminism. That’s ritual purification through male scapegoating.
Well, didn't you just prove his point and your comment is exactly the same sort of finger wagging, virtue signalling bs that got us here. SHE IS 22, SHE IS AN ADULT! If you think that throughout history, 40 year old men have NOT sought out younger woman to mate with, you're fucking delusional. SHE IS AN ADULT, GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD. Your "disgust" over the relationship is no different then having disgust over a black man dating a white woman. Go outside and touch grass.
You seem to be the only one exhibiting disgust here, friend.
The main reason for my comment - though there's plenty more - is that a 38yr old and 22 yr old are literally a generation, and hopefully (for the older person's sake) immense life experience and maturity levels, apart.
I'm late 30s and couldn't possibly fathom being in a fulfilling relationship with a 22 year old - unless I was only interested in her as an object to be enjoyed.
That this guy had interest in her says to me that he's woefully misguided/underdeveloped. And she/the "defenders" could surely see that as well.
This is compounded by just cold approaching her in public. If they happened to meet through some common activity and got to know each other and hit it off - which is how normal people go about such things - it would be a different story.
I feel sorry for the guy, and all those here who are defending him.
You're assuming a cold approach from a stranger. They knew each other and were friendly. He asked, she declined. That should’ve been the end of it. But instead, she chose public shaming, which wasn’t about boundaries, it was about performing victimhood. That kind of social punishment teaches men to disappear, not to grow. What do you think that does to a generation of men already struggling with connection?
How did that public shaming happened, if you don't mind sharing?
I know that it's a different culture, but in my country (South America one), people would not see that age difference with good eyes. I'm not sure about public shaming (assholes are not a new thing, though), but I guarantee you that people would be weirded out by a guy almost in his 40s approaching a woman with half his age, and I live in a mostly "open" country in that regard.
It's not necessarily about the age gap, but her being younger than 25, at least here where I live.
By public shaming I mean going on social media to "cancel" him, with her friends piling on. I'm not worried about it anymore, since it appears to be something important to one slice of young Americans. It definitely was socially acceptable to most groups up until recently.
I can't speak to countries outside America. I'm sure there are a wide range of cultural norms across the globe. I recommended my son date women his own age and he agrees. He's thought about it and now sees he got older without updating his preferences for women. Now he realizes that a 22 year old woman is too young for him.
I come back to my original comment - why did he have romantic interest in a 22yr old? Theres A LOT of women out there who would be vastly more compatible with him due to being in a similar stage of life.
And, moreover, if he already knew her, he should have been able it intuit a) if she was interested and b) what her character is like - is she the sort to try to actively shame people.
I really hope your son does deep introspection as a result of all of this, rather than blaming her, women, or an entire generation.
This is a really weird article. For one, I'm shocked that the New York Times would even publish this from an editorial perspective because it has the ChatGPT's streaks all over it.
Second. Reading a eulogy for late-stage hook-up culture written by someone old enough to be by mother is awkward.
Worst of all, and I hate be crude, but she has to romanticize, I'm so sorry, I hate to say it...getting piped and objectified. And that somehow there is a subtle nobility to this and that men—ostensibly her age and possibly younger—in spite of all the nonsense taking place in the world should chase more booty.
She'd be better off packaging her ChatGPT prompts as a Lena Dunham Agent.
But I completely agree with you. She sounds like a cougar. And, worse, apparently has no ability for introspection - for herself or her collective gender.
I'm not saying that she or women are "the problem" in this story, but surely the question must be raised. Eg "ladies, do we have a part to play in this disappearance of men?"
The article is telling much more about the author than about men. The author appears to be exactly the kind of woman many men looking for actual love instead of just sex actively prefer to avoid.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Jane Austin, 1813) Vs. modern capitalism has, for most American men, optimized away any chance of enjoying basic financial security. To paraphrase Burma Shave - don't expect them to put their chins out there, if they feel hopeless about affording the ring and the flat.
Between older-style advertising, the web, and smart phones, modern capitalism's Borg has gotten incredibly good at optimizing human behavior for its own profit. Men having quality relationships with women is not very profitable for the Borg.
It ain't just men. Over the past decade, especially during the COVID mess, many of the women I know decided to seriously cut back their social engagement - "to take better care of myself" and other phrases.
(Yes, I know the NYT's "Modern Love" series is far more poetic than analytical.)
Did men ever enjoy the process of "connecting" on dates? Or was it a means to an end of establishing a sexual relationship? A ritual to reach the desired goal?
Many did...though perhaps only after they'd gained some maturity, and their testosterone levels had fall from the "24/7 beer goggles" level of teenagers.
Not so much anymore.
OTOH: I know a fair number of older women. From their PoV, trying to "date" in the past couple decades or so has also gone a long, long way downhill.
This "woman" is so original, she had to use Chat GPT to write her article. So, after decades of letting universities sell kids an "experience" and shoveling them into the mass brainwashing humanities departments, where young woman are taught to hate men by bull dyke lesbian professors this "author" is wondering why men are absent? Married with kids, and a divorce? You can bet the man will be getting the shitty end of the stick. You can bet the man will be paying all the expenses, you can bet the man will be blamed for everything. Look at a woman on the street who's wearing a thong bikini as she goes to pick up groceries? You're an animal who was raping her with your eyes. Want to make a connection with a woman you adore? Oh wait, she's got her checklist of requirements you need to meet before that will happen. And they wonder why.
The dashes thing is really only a tell for high schoolers and obvious illiterates –writers can and do use them. Next we need to teach GPT about interrobangs.
thank you for saying this. I'm not a writer, just vaguely literate, and I find em-dashes to be extremely useful as a way of approximating conversational speech without a string of comma splices.
Additionally, the observation about AI using dashes really only applies (if it applies at all) to informal text conversation, not published articles. Here's a random NYT article from 2014 that uses 4 em-dashes within the first 3 paragraphs. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/fashion/the-year-of-taylo...
It seems like everyone watched some video essay about how em-dashes are a sure sign of AI, and they're just parroting it without question. The thing that apparently goes over people's heads is that the reason AI tends to use a lot of em-dashes is because the text in their training data uses a lot of em-dashes, and the training data is largely published articles and books, so it's a terrible heuristic for whether a published article or book was written using AI.
The thing that actually is somewhat more telling is that many people will use hyphens instead of dashes, eg on a computer, I typically type '--' instead of an em-dash, partly because my xcompose setup is inconsistent, partly because I write most of my text in editors that use monospaced fonts and the distinction between -, – , and — is extremely subtle in most fixed-width fonts, for obvious reasons. But on macs and many phones, as well as in google docs and similar, by default a hyphen will be autocorrected to an en- or em-dash depending on context, so it's not really a tell that the entire thing was written with AI, just that there was possibly non-human involvement. But also, a lot of people actually just know how to type and use dashes. It's not really that hard.
Let me guess—you watched a tiktok video telling you that em-dashes are a sure sign of AI, and you accepted it without question. Go find a couple NYT articles from 10 years ago and check how many em-dashes they use—the answer might surprise you! (Hint: AI uses a lot of em-dashes because its training data uses a lot of em-dashes. What is its training data?)
I actually totally agree and was going to post this until I saw your comment. The writing is strikingly ChatGPT style. So many commas, weird phrase lists (especially with 3 items):
> No shrinking. No waiting. No apologizing.
> slowness, curiosity, accountability
> Avoidance. Exhaustion. Disrepair.
> It wasn’t intimacy. It wasn’t mutuality. It was access to simulation.
I do dread the wave of AI slop coming our way. But honestly what I dread even more is the comments that’s going to second guess every other article and comment, just because they use some character or style that people have decided is a sign of being AI generated. That’s gonna get tedious real fast.
I'm an amateur composer and it pains me to know that, given my lack of credentials, my work will always be viewed with the suspicion of AI involvement. I version control my scores for this reason, at the very least I can prove that it took me weeks, months, or sometimes years of effort and revisions to compose something, even if I can't prove that each revision wasn't just the output of an AI. It was already bad enough worrying that a melody or sequence I wrote is too similar to some other existing work and judged to be plagiarism, but that pales in comparison to AI suspicions.
Obviously there's a huge amount of nuance in approaching another person. OTOH, I certainly know men who simply stay away from women - because "that's the best possible outcome anyway, and the least painful way of reaching it".
More prudent and effective would be to approach a group, chat with them, and build a rapport. Then see where things go.
Even more prudent would be to not be so utterly pathetic and desperate, and instead just focus on doing things that bring you fulfillment. And then meet people who also do those things, some of who you will just click with. And perhaps even romantically. There's no "approach anxiety" that way because there's no "approach" at all! Just live an authentic, contented life - that's what's actually attractive to people.
The problem is that most people do not live an authentic life. But there's nothing stopping them from starting today and endless options for it. But keep "dating" out of your mind - just go and connect with people, develop interests, skills, self confidence etc
I’m struck by how much of this discourse functions as unintentional anti-natalism. You can’t build families in a culture where the first step (asking someone out) is treated as inherently suspect. Is the long-term plan here just to fade away politely?
The real question is, why do you care? What happened to not shaming people for their personal sexual and romantic choices?
One thing I've noticed--there are two types of people who get upset at older men dating younger women: young single men and old single women. It's almost as if the criticism is thinly-veiled jealousy, rather than any sort of principled critique.
Moreover, at no point did you consider HER in your comment - do you think a 22yr old wants some 38 year old (of any sort) approaching her?
Ps I'm literally a late 30s, contendedly-single man - for personal reasons, not because of "how women are these days". If he was my friend (and someone so pathetic never would be), I'd have rapidly intervened as well, or admonished him when i heard about it. And then, tried to help him sort his life out.
This is all just a verbose way of saying 'it makes me feel icky'. Verbalize your issue with it, or keep your feelings to yourself. Lots of things make me feel icky, and I'm quite certain you'd call me mean things for many of them. Difference is, I'm not so self-obsessed as to think my personal disgust should matter to anyone other than me.
>Moreover, at no point did you consider HER in your comment - do you think a 22yr old wants some 38 year old (of any sort) approaching her?
She says, 'sorry, not interested', and moves on. It's not a big deal. Walking up to a person and asking them out doesn't require a person's consent, nor is it some terribly traumatic thing. In certain cases, it can be a minor faux pas, eg if her body language indicated she didn't want him to approach her, but it's still not a big deal so long as when she rejects him, he leaves her alone.
I didn't consider her in my comment because we know literally nothing about her other than her age and sex, and there's no reason to assume from those details alone that she wouldn't be open to going on a date with him. I could imagine it being uncomfortable for her, but that's not something anyone can know in advance (you do realize there are plenty of young women who date significantly older guys, right? it's not the norm, but it's also not exactly rare), and there's nothing so outrageous about asking a woman out that a person needs to avoid it in order to cater to the portion of women who would be uncomfortable with it. I am uncomfortable with lots of interactions I have, but that doesn't mean the other party is doing anything wrong. In fact, I've been uncomfortable being asked out before, by people who I believed should realize I wouldn't be interested in them -- but again, that doesn't mean they did anything wrong. This all has the air of nobility taking offense that a commoner would dare to speak to them.
>And then, tried to help him sort his life out.
Respectfully, a single almost-40 y/o man isn't in a position to help anyone sort their life out, particularly not one who gets upset over a grown man asking out a grown woman.
It’s interesting that you’re in your late 30s, because you sound like the same kind of moral enforcer who publicly humiliated my son. Not protective. Performative.
You didn't ask whether the woman was harmed. You didn't ask what really happened between two people who knew each other. You rushed to frame a man who simply expressed interest as “pathetic” and “deluded.” That’s not feminism. That’s ritual purification through male scapegoating.
The main reason for my comment - though there's plenty more - is that a 38yr old and 22 yr old are literally a generation, and hopefully (for the older person's sake) immense life experience and maturity levels, apart.
I'm late 30s and couldn't possibly fathom being in a fulfilling relationship with a 22 year old - unless I was only interested in her as an object to be enjoyed.
That this guy had interest in her says to me that he's woefully misguided/underdeveloped. And she/the "defenders" could surely see that as well.
This is compounded by just cold approaching her in public. If they happened to meet through some common activity and got to know each other and hit it off - which is how normal people go about such things - it would be a different story.
I feel sorry for the guy, and all those here who are defending him.
I know that it's a different culture, but in my country (South America one), people would not see that age difference with good eyes. I'm not sure about public shaming (assholes are not a new thing, though), but I guarantee you that people would be weirded out by a guy almost in his 40s approaching a woman with half his age, and I live in a mostly "open" country in that regard.
It's not necessarily about the age gap, but her being younger than 25, at least here where I live.
I can't speak to countries outside America. I'm sure there are a wide range of cultural norms across the globe. I recommended my son date women his own age and he agrees. He's thought about it and now sees he got older without updating his preferences for women. Now he realizes that a 22 year old woman is too young for him.
And, moreover, if he already knew her, he should have been able it intuit a) if she was interested and b) what her character is like - is she the sort to try to actively shame people.
I really hope your son does deep introspection as a result of all of this, rather than blaming her, women, or an entire generation.
Second. Reading a eulogy for late-stage hook-up culture written by someone old enough to be by mother is awkward.
Worst of all, and I hate be crude, but she has to romanticize, I'm so sorry, I hate to say it...getting piped and objectified. And that somehow there is a subtle nobility to this and that men—ostensibly her age and possibly younger—in spite of all the nonsense taking place in the world should chase more booty.
She'd be better off packaging her ChatGPT prompts as a Lena Dunham Agent.
But I completely agree with you. She sounds like a cougar. And, worse, apparently has no ability for introspection - for herself or her collective gender.
I'm not saying that she or women are "the problem" in this story, but surely the question must be raised. Eg "ladies, do we have a part to play in this disappearance of men?"
As if they were afraid of talking.
Most of them only want dinner and taxi for free and have three pics for insta: one of the dinner, one of the dessert and one of the fool paying.
I met my girlfriend at a metro station just like that, unprepared, both with empty smartphones, we exchanged the numbers oldschool, on napkins.
Just avoid any situation that looks like "dating" - too many rules, expectations and pretexts. Too much lying and deceptions.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Jane Austin, 1813) Vs. modern capitalism has, for most American men, optimized away any chance of enjoying basic financial security. To paraphrase Burma Shave - don't expect them to put their chins out there, if they feel hopeless about affording the ring and the flat.
Between older-style advertising, the web, and smart phones, modern capitalism's Borg has gotten incredibly good at optimizing human behavior for its own profit. Men having quality relationships with women is not very profitable for the Borg.
It ain't just men. Over the past decade, especially during the COVID mess, many of the women I know decided to seriously cut back their social engagement - "to take better care of myself" and other phrases.
(Yes, I know the NYT's "Modern Love" series is far more poetic than analytical.)
Not so much anymore.
OTOH: I know a fair number of older women. From their PoV, trying to "date" in the past couple decades or so has also gone a long, long way downhill.
Notice the excessive use of the em dash throughout the article combined with the sycophantic contrasts ChatGPT loves to use so much:
"It wasn’t intimacy. It wasn’t mutuality. It was access to simulation — clean, fast and frictionless."
A sad state of affairs if the NYT is letting AI-slop through.
Additionally, the observation about AI using dashes really only applies (if it applies at all) to informal text conversation, not published articles. Here's a random NYT article from 2014 that uses 4 em-dashes within the first 3 paragraphs. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/fashion/the-year-of-taylo...
It seems like everyone watched some video essay about how em-dashes are a sure sign of AI, and they're just parroting it without question. The thing that apparently goes over people's heads is that the reason AI tends to use a lot of em-dashes is because the text in their training data uses a lot of em-dashes, and the training data is largely published articles and books, so it's a terrible heuristic for whether a published article or book was written using AI.
The thing that actually is somewhat more telling is that many people will use hyphens instead of dashes, eg on a computer, I typically type '--' instead of an em-dash, partly because my xcompose setup is inconsistent, partly because I write most of my text in editors that use monospaced fonts and the distinction between -, – , and — is extremely subtle in most fixed-width fonts, for obvious reasons. But on macs and many phones, as well as in google docs and similar, by default a hyphen will be autocorrected to an en- or em-dash depending on context, so it's not really a tell that the entire thing was written with AI, just that there was possibly non-human involvement. But also, a lot of people actually just know how to type and use dashes. It's not really that hard.
> No shrinking. No waiting. No apologizing.
> slowness, curiosity, accountability
> Avoidance. Exhaustion. Disrepair.
> It wasn’t intimacy. It wasn’t mutuality. It was access to simulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_three_(writing)
https://www.nightwater.email/em-dash-ai/
I do dread the wave of AI slop coming our way. But honestly what I dread even more is the comments that’s going to second guess every other article and comment, just because they use some character or style that people have decided is a sign of being AI generated. That’s gonna get tedious real fast.