Hey, I came across this on one of the blogs I follow. I wanted to post it to Lemmy and this is the closest community that fit. Hope it’s okay - it doesn’t seem I’m breaking the
I must admit that I got defensive reading the article and I didn’t appreciate the savior complex in the last few paragraphs, but perhaps I’m misdirected. After all, the article isn’t complaining about lack of long-term commitment, marriage etc., but the ability to experience dating emotionally. I feel this by the below paragraphs:
I recently experienced a flicker of possibility. With James. […]. There was just enough spark to wonder what might unfold. Enough curiosity to imagine a doorway. But he didn’t step through it […] — flirting, retreating, offering warmth but no direction.
Sexual tension and a spark aren’t reason enough to sit still and hope there’s substance behind the shimmer. […] I invited, leaving the door open. […]
He never replied. He still follows my Instagram stories — one of those small gestures of passive engagement that so many of us now mistake for closeness. It looks like interest. It feels like silence.
There was a time, not so long ago, when even a one-night stand might end with tangled limbs and a shared breakfast. When the act of staying the night didn’t announce a relationship, just a willingness to be human for a few more hours.
Maybe we’re between paradigms, mourning what’s fallen, not yet fluent in what comes next. The infrastructures of intimacy — slowness, curiosity, accountability — have been eroded by haste, convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat.
Wow there’s a lot to unpack there. I think the author has some old assumptions and expectations that are holding her back.
Men don’t show off women anymore because they aren’t objects.
Also the language she uses to describe her interactions and dates implies she wants to be pursued and for men to make all the initiative, so she could probably fix her own problem.
This feels like the ranting of a woman who has been aggressively pursued most her life and now that attention is waning.
The Men didn’t go away, the active hunting of the 90s has gone away though. Also, people don’t have the money to have obvious awkward early dates at upscale restaurants.
I like the last part:
So here’s what I’ll say: You are missed. Not just by me, but by the world you once helped shape.
We remember you. The version of you that lingered at the table. That laughed from the chest. That asked questions and waited for the answers. That touched without taking. That listened — really listened — when a woman spoke.
You are not gone, but your presence is thinning. In restaurants, in friendships, in the slow rituals of romantic emergence.
You’ve retreated — not into malice, but into something softer and harder all at once: Avoidance. Exhaustion. Disrepair.
Maybe no one taught you how to stay. Maybe you tried once, and it hurt. Maybe the world told you your role was to provide, to perform, to protect — and never to feel.
But here’s what’s real: We never needed you to be perfect. We needed you to be with us. Not above. Not muted. Not masked. Just with.
And you can still come back. Not by becoming someone else, but by remembering what connection feels like when it’s honest and slow. When it’s earned and messy and sacred.
We’re still here, those of us who are willing to cocreate something true. We are not impossible to please. We’re not asking for performances.
We are asking for presence. For courage. For breath and eye contact and the ability to say, “I’m here. I don’t know how to do this perfectly, but I want to try.”
Come back. Not with flowers or fireworks, but with willingness. With your whole, beautiful, imperfect heart.
See also the complementary https://emjsmith.substack.com/p/is-technology-making-dating-worse
There is a simple and painful answer to the headline there. Yes, and while men shoulder some of the blame, they aren’t the ones who shoulder the most. The same is true for women. The intentional destruction of community is.