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‘There were no warning signs’: what happens when your partner falls into the ‘manosphere’?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Men's Liberation
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I don't care what excuses you want to pull out of your ass about the absolute horror for young men growing up in a world where women aren't just sex objects and kitchen appliances. If you support and cling to the words of a known sex trafficker and rapist like Andrew Tate, you are a complete and utter piece of shit. And any pathetic excuse about loneliness or feeling left behind goes right out the window there. It's like men are on a mission to reinforce and prove all of the negative stereotypes right. Fuck these pieces of shit, I wouldn't waste my piss on them if they were burning alive.
As someone who has always been a good person and yet has never managed to secure a decent relationship, I can say that that view is massively too simplistic. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be around next month, but other people have massively different reactions to that sort of loneliness. It breaks you down and makes you question every aspect of your personality. At first you try to improve yourself. You study yourself, and you talk with other to try and identify what it is that makes you unlikable. Then you work on those issues. But eventually people stop being able to tell you what is is you're missing, and thats when you realise it's not something you're missing. It's not that you lack something, it's that you have something. Something makes you fundamentally different from other people, and you start to accept that you will never have the things that other have.
From here i see two possible solutions: change the world to allow me by force, or give up. Im not the type to force myself on anyone who doesnt want me there, so I've pretty much accepted the latter. But for people that have more attatchment to this world, it's difficult to tell them to have empathy for a world that explicitly hates them.
Edit: also its worth noting that I have never had any compulsion to listen to any of those rapists, but I can feel the draw when it feels like there is some fundamental aspect of being a man that everyone else seems to get but I don't. These guys offer easy answers which do in fact tend to result in you getting partners: force. And from a lot of the complaints I hear about men online, it almost seems like I am the only person not forcing myself on people. Which, consistency wise, checks out.
Again, obviously I am not considering becoming one of them but our society currently definitely seems to be designed to create more of them.
I know this seems like an unserious response, but it is, and it's one of the main points of the Barbie movie: you need to learn, perhaps accept, to be enough for yourself.
Ken was looking for validation from Barbie, but when she didn't, he became angry and all. But the message at the end is right: people should not look to other people for validation. Why? Because you are enough. You don't need someone else to tell you that. You can tell yourself that. All people are flawed in some way, so what's it matter what someone else thinks? They're no better than your to judge you.
And the truth is, the other way is off-putting. I don't want to be with a person who isn't enough for themself. If they're not enough for themself, how can they be good enough for me? I don't want someone who wants or needs me to be responsible for their emotional management. I want a whole person who is secure in themselves.
One of the problems in society, I think, is the idea that people need to pair up. Women, as a whole, have learned much more quickly than men that romantic relationships may be nice, but they are not essential. We (and maybe our cats) are enough for ourselves. I don't know how to get men on that same page, too.
I really appreciate that perspective. I've heard similar concepts, but I've never really heard it quite that eloquently or explored. I think my main issue is just that I don't see a point. It's not that I am particularly unhappy with myself beyond this "something" that I've convinced myself I must have. In fact I'm reasonably proud of who I've become, and reasonably shameful at what continued failings I do have. I'm fully capable of doing everything a normal person would do, I just get little to no fulfilment from doing most of my hobbies without a partner. I'm fine with living by myself but if it were that way forever, i'd prefer to just die now. A life devoid of anyone to share it with just seems like an empty life.
I think this might be the crux of the issue though, is that I don't know how to get rid of this sense that I've before been told is desperation. Like, am I supposed to just not want a relationship? Is that what it takes to get my goal, to give up on it? That's pretty much where I'm at... but it's more unfulfilling than ever. I try to just be myself, it's not like im harassing people. In fact, I have a suspicion that I'm coming off disinterested in women in person because im scared of coming off as overly interested. I don't know what level of interest is expected of me and there's no manual. I try to put myself in others shoes and see what I'd want, and I'd desperately love it if someone my age were to approach me in pretty much any manner, but I understand that there's a gender and cultural dynamic at play here thats seemingly impossible to fully grasp as a male. I also can't even imagine what social cues could indicate the difference between polite interest and genuine interest. When people compliment me, i generally compliment them back. Should I pursue further personal interaction? I'm having difficulty focusing right now but ill probably return to this later
You know what did it for me? Actually being in a relationship, once upon a time. It was short, it was bad, the rose-coloured glasses came off. Socierty and media portray being in a relationship as a happy conclusion, but more more often than not, it isn't. How many people have dated more than one boy/girlfriend before they married, and then how many of those marriages end in divorce? How many not-divorced marriages are miserable and unhappy? A lot. Being single is way, way better than being with the wrong person, and there are a lot of wrong people out there.
Now, wrong person doesn't mean bad person, it can just mean incompatible because you want different things, have different values, etc. (Of course, there are actually bad people, too.)
I prefer to live my life embracing the freedoms of singleness. I can come and go whenever I want without having to account to anyone. I only have to consider me when making job and career choices. Finances and obligations are freer. I took a year off work and went away to work on my own self-development; I couldn't have done that if I had a partner, and certainly not if I had kids. Maybe you would prefer to exchange the freedoms for a partner, and I acknowledge that. But I am saying appreciate and make the best of the situation you're in now instead of spending the energy wishing for it to be different.
I'm also absolutely not against relationships or marriage in any way. I'm just being realistic about the fact it's not all rainbows and roses, and there are rainbows and roses to singleness, to.