DnD08: POOR BOYS

POOR BOYS

Last time we spoke about the (at face value) lose-lose-lose situation of trying to date while living costs explode.

What’s a (stereotypically) boy to do? Pay out the nose for a date to keep up with social media expectations, put oneself into massive debt for dating, or keep it free and risk rejection all around?

And if they DO partner up after putting out dollars to win over a match, then they’re seen as the relationship bankroller rather than a crucial half of a two-party connection - leading to relationship dissatisfaction and greater conflict.

Poor boys. In two ways.

And this week, I want to continue that thought while we cover something controversial, especially in the dating media sphere. You may hate this episode.

Contrary to popular internet opinions, we’re not being facetious when we say “poor boys.”

I, for one, feel for them, as they try to navigate “being a man” in the right way, with few tools, models, or instructions to do so. With most people spitting on them for their trials and missteps.

The male societal struggle is real, it’s not given credit, and it’s contributing to the downward spiral of an entire sex as their experiences are overlooked, laughed at, or used for schadenfreude – our joy at the suffering of men - especially in dating contexts.

Yeah, I know, you might be feeling a way already. I told you “controversial episode.”

After everything men have done to the planet, to women, to each other, while being allowed to freely run things without any third party overhead authority keeping them in line… I do understand why righteous vengeance has been the name of the game.

But a person, observing neutrally and empathetically, may wonder…

How fair is it to make these younger generations pay for the sins of literally every generation that came before? Even the generations that are still currently in power?

One might see this as a huge overcorrection.

A curse put upon modern man, in reference to the ways they’ve been awful in the past. Punishing the sons, grandsons, great grandsons into infinity, for the power, control, and violence perpetuated by half of a species for tens of thousands of years.

And one might consider how this negative attitude and expectation effects their efforts at emotionally connecting. Or ever forming real relationships.

As we spoke about in the Sharks episode, and nearly every other episode, online interactions and educations have forced a new wellness and psychoeducational culture upon all of us. Brand new rules of conduct for what’s correct or – one of the internet’s favorite words – toxic.

Especially for men. Leaving them with no choice but to adapt – often, in an inauthentic, somewhat scripted, way – or to face immense rejection and scorn, humiliation, isolation.

PUWBs (performative unintegrated wellness boys) – the inauthentic guys using said scripts and media prompts - are obnoxious and disappointing, but also, they have limited other options. Short of flipping into red hatted trad living, they must demonstrate certain attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in order to make any dating headway.

And they must first learn how to create this presentation.

Which, at best, stops being a script and begins resembling a dynamic interpersonal dance.

Which doesn’t come with an instruction booklet.

(Or, unlike the incel education efforts, hugely popular youtube channels to learn the moves.)

So, today, let’s talk about the shameful challenges men face when attempting to internet date and the stress of navigating these new social expectations, on the fly, as they learn what’s required of them through swiping, ghostings, and learning the shimmies, jimmies, and shakes of sexual choreography.

Today, we return to an article from our tech challenges in dating episode that I wasn’t done with yet.

‘Men seeking women’: Awkwardness, shame, and other affective encounters with dating apps

Kath Albury, Anthony McCosker, Clifton Evers

Research design

Participants were recruited via an online survey shared on social media, and via advertising circulated by partner organisations in two states. As detailed in Table 1, participants were aged between 18 and 28 (mean age = 24). All identified as male and most as heterosexual or straight, with three identifying as heteroflexible or bisexual.

One participant who identified as heterosexual reported using Grindr to meet men, reflecting a not-uncommon disconnection between self-identification and sexual practice (Persson, et al., 2019). Recruitment material specifically invited participants to discuss experiences of ‘seeking women’, and all interviewees focused on this aspect of app-use. Cultural and ethnic affiliation varied, reflecting the multicultural population of Melbourne.

Interviews drew on the ‘media go-along’ method (Jørgensen, 2016), inviting participants to delve more deeply into their own positive and negative experiences of app use, and to reflect on experiences of negotiating personal safety and sexual health. Participants were also invited to open a dating app on their own phone (without showing the interviewer), and reflect on their experiences of matching, image-sharing and chatting on apps.

Group workshops were designed to invite participants to reflect on their history of app and social media use and to share their perceptions of the ‘rules’ for creating and interpreting dating app profiles. Workshops were conducted in face-to-face settings in 2019.

Additionally, we were mindful that participants in group workshops were strangers to one another, and we did not want to place them in a situation that seemed to solicit public disclosure of distressing experiences. Consequently, workshop discussion prompts invited participants to discuss their understanding of app cultures from a third-person perspective.

Over the course of two hours, participants undertook several creative activities (including designing profiles for a celebrity ‘friend’) paying attention to the ways that ‘red flags’ were understood in app profiles. Discussion in the group workshops helped to give greater social and cultural context to app use, and targeted norms and dimensions of everyday app use. Through the analysis that follows, we elaborate on negative affective encounters in young men’s dating app use as consequential for gendered experiences of safety and well-being [11].

Now let’s get into some background information, and you may remember this line from that previous show on dating tech obstacles:

In contrast to the LGBTQ+ people and cis heterosexual women in our study, cis heterosexual and bisexual men ‘seeking women’ seldom expressed concerns regarding their personal safety — although many acknowledged women’s concerns.

However, ‘men seeking women’ were far more likely to describe negative affects relating to apps and app use, including shame, contempt, embarrassment and ‘awkwardness’.

Let’s expand and examine that lead.

As Byron (2020) observes, experiences of dating app use among cis men who date women — particularly heterosexual men’s experiences — have, to date, been under-represented in comparison to studies of heterosexual women and LGBTQ+ people. There has been limited inquiry into heterosexual men’s understandings of heterosexual women’s safety concerns when using apps. Additionally, there is limited evidence to suggest how those men learn to use dating apps, and what counts as ‘successful app use’ for men ‘seeking women’, in terms of constructing profiles, matching and meeting up with new partners.

My words: Similar to women and healthcare, men and dating have not been funded research projects. Kindof an interesting crossover. To me, it suggests that society estimates that women don’t need to worry about their bodies working and men don’t need to be concerned about their emotions operating correctly.

Both of which help describe our current state of society quite nicely, I think.

Luckily, some researchers HAVE found means to probe the cis hetero male dating experience:

In a series of interlinked studies, Bollen, McInnes and colleagues explored the ways Australian gay men acquire ‘knowledge, skills and capacities’ via their embodied navigation of sexual spaces (Bollen and McInnes, 2000); and through encounters with new sexual settings, practices and partners (Bollen and McInnes, 2004). McInnes and Bollen deploy the metaphor of choreography as a means of moving away from the notion of the ‘sexual script’ (Gagnon and Simon, 1973). Within McInnes and Bollen’s framework of sexual choreography, sexual encounters are neither intrinsically constrained by sexed and gendered ‘scripts’, nor inherently free or transgressive, but rather as “a constrained deployment of improvisational capacities”, which facilitate the development of an embodied and affective sexual repertoire [2].

A paragraph that succinctly describes the issue with PUWBs. They aren’t performing a two-person dance, with adaptive responses and mutual sharing according to the moves of their partner; an embodied and affective sexual repertoire. They ARE performing a script, which reads flat and fake, one-dimensional and disconnective.

Choreo is what we want. What we need. But it takes time to pick up those moves.

They say:

Guided by this approach, we understand the capacity for sexual learning as something that accumulates over time, which is constrained and enabled by the material effects of technologies and environments, and is enhanced and enabled by reflection. Sexual learning is not simply the product of planning or rational decision-making — as McInnes and colleagues put it “you can learn by doing and being done to, by watching and being shown, by talking about what to do and recounting what went on” [3].

You must get on the dance floor to pick up the routine. And as most of us probably know, though it can be invigorating to throw your self-image to the wind… those first attempts to bust a new boogie don’t always come with ease, positive feelings, or strong self-regard.

In their reflection on their interviews, Bollen and McInnes note that “where men recount sexual experiences that are transforming in some way, those experiences are marked in their telling by particular affects” — particularly relating to surprise and excitement associated with new or unexpected encounters [4].

Similarly, we have observed strong markers of affect in our participants’ accounts of app use. However, the men in our study were more inclined to recount not surprise or pleasure, but experiences of shame, humiliation or ‘awkwardness’.

Michael Kimmel (1994) and Thomas Scheff (2006) argued that shame has come to play a central role in heterosexual men’s negotiation of masculinity, underpinning a homophobic policing of sexuality as well as leading to emotional suppression, silence, violence; and a register of acceptable and unacceptable masculine standards that formulate belonging (or not). Both Kimmel’s and Scheff’s account of shame leads them to frame men’s affective negotiation of masculinity through a wholly negative lens.

And then that lens of shame becomes a magnifying glass in dating apps. Where it’s unclear what men are supposed to do and how, to avoid any of the undesired forms or outcomes of toxic masculinity from the jump.

Let’s talk about setting up profiles.

Profile pictures, shame and shaming

Profile pictures establish the rationale for initiating contact and further communication. Interview and workshop participants almost universally emphasized the importance of carefully selected profile images in establishing worthiness for further contact, or suspicion of misrepresentation, or judgements of derision and even disgust. For example, in keeping with the broader cultural ambivalence around selfies, profiles featuring this genre (especially mirror selfies) were seen by many heterosexual men as indicators of inauthenticity or ‘shallowness’ (Senft and Baym, 2015).

Several interviewees noted their negative self-judgment and associated it both with the platform arrangements and demands, and their ‘low self-confidence’, as Darsh put it. He speculated on his problems with Tinder: ‘maybe it could be I’m not good-looking enough or something ... I think you need to look really good on your profile. Maybe I just didn’t look good enough’ (Darsh).

Some of the most explicitly negative personal experiences of image-oriented judgement were expressed by our interview participants who were targeted racially. Half of the interview participants reflected on experiencing racial shaming and a broader awareness of it happening on the apps.

Jai said his worst experience using Tinder was a match messaging and asking ‘which nationality are you’. He explains: ‘I felt very bad when I saw that message, you know. It was like, what’s wrong with people? If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, just ignore me or whatever you like. But that’s being rude if… the first message is like, what nationality you are’ (Jai). With no further chance for confronting this sentiment through conversation, Jai is left with a more embodied learning — McInnes and Bollen’s learning by being done to — that shapes a wariness in certain future encounters, along with tacit acknowledgement of disparaging practices.

So do men worry about their pics? Yes.

Appearance? Yes.

Societal identifiers? Yes.

And negative experiences around any of these issues create wounds, future anxieties, and self-disparagement. Complexes, one might say, similar to the physical appearance pressures that women experience.

But actually, when it comes to dating apps, women have a leg up in this regard:

Failure, rejection and self-disparagement: ‘It makes me feel like I’m not good enough’

Failure and rejection are common and an almost expected experience of dating apps for young male users. Many of our interviewees and workshop participants are very conscious that the ‘odds are stacked against them’, with the feeling of there being far more male than female app users.

Before we get too far, I want to validate this experience. As a woman, I get bountiful likes and matches. Based on what men tell me, this isn’t the case for them.

Is it because men are playing the numbers game, swiping right on more profiles? I think so, in part.

The other part is this gives women more choices to pick from and the illusion of being higher-value individuals, so that taken together, they’re more selective.

And also… let’s not forget that the apps are gamified for addictive purposes. How many people is your profile being shown to? For women, it might be a higher figure in order to keep them interested, feeling attractive, and generally active on the app. Like a ladies night, this then keeps the men around, in a “hunting” mindset or swiping with desperation.

Overall, it creates a sense of scarcity and rejection for the boys that culminates in low esteem.

They say:

There are two standout affective aspects to the experiences of failure we encountered among our participants. The first is where male app users talked about their various experiences of rejection on the app, with varying degrees of reflectiveness about the causes. The second involves a surprisingly common experience that we understand to be a generalized sense of self-disparagement.

Self-disparagement is the act of belittling, devaluing, or criticizing oneself, often stemming from low self-esteem, perfectionism, or past experiences.

Unlike experiences of being rejected, blocked, unmatched or ‘ghosted’, self-disparagement does not have an object or direct cause. Interviewees are less able to pinpoint a cause or reflect on a resolution.

So let’s call self-disparagement a generalized sense or memory of uselessness, based on multiple, unseen, wounding experiences.

This is where the shame becomes most clearly internalized in the contempt-disgust range as self-contempt/self-derision, resulting in feelings of “naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity or worth” [17].

Self-contempt is self-devaluation or assertions of self-worthlessness.

Self-derision is self-humiliation, mockery, ridicule.

Both, in this case, are derived from the cumulative effect of unsuccessful matching and experience of repeat rejection, which highlights personal error, ineffectiveness, or unallowability – rejectability – and cause the individual to feel flawed without specific cause or ability to resolve it.

One might say that’s quite significant.

When interviewees talked about these moments, there was some acknowledgement of their contributing role:

Certain behaviors were understood to affect connection and ongoing interaction. In the regional male workshop, one participant reflected on his preference for sending memes as a form of communication and interaction, even though they were often rejected by his potential matches:

Overwhelmingly, however, participants expressed a sense of self-disparagement surrounding specific times of rejection, or more generally in response to not getting any matches over time, and to what was seen as the frustrations of the platform in enabling successful connections and relationships. As Mason put it: ‘Every day that you do your swipes and you don’t get any matches. It’s always a sad day’ (Mason).

So while I, personally, think absolutely nothing of likes or matches – they’re streaming in all the time and I pay them no attention because of their commonality – these have become measures of self-acceptability and self-esteem for men.

On days without the validation of a match they’re sad, which suggests human needs aren’t being met. It sounds crazy, unless you consider the importance – the self-confirmation – that dating apps have been providing to the populations in the absence of other IRL human connections or romantic options.

Some people may even be reliant on those pings for a sense of contentment.

Bailey saw himself as shy and socially anxious, and attributed his successes on Tinder to helping him become more outgoing through his dating experiences. But it also had a heavy effect for him: ‘There was one time where I went three days without one [match] and I was like oh, is there something wrong with how I look?’.

How quickly a few days without app action turn into a 180 degree turn in self-esteem, huh? Clearly these dating platforms are supporting our emotions and mindsets – again, in the absence of real life social options.

Demetri was explicitly self-disparaging and referred to his failures on Tinder with a degree of self-contempt:

In many ways these kinds of self-disparagement played out among each of our participants as the background affect that shapes and underpins the uncertainties and frustrations of dating app use.

And when we’re reliant on apps with manipulative algorithms and flippant users, lacking in other social connections or sources of self-acceptance, how does this turn out?

It builds frustration, desperation, and aggression.

These moments signal the role that affect plays in the acquisition of knowledge, skills and capacities, as established by Bollen and McInnes (2000). Most managed rejection or failure through self-reflection.

For others, these moments set off consequential responses and troubled affective states ranging from disappointment to frustration and anger leading to aggressive or abusive behavior, as discussed further below.

And here, we get into the negative effects of long-term negative affects. The outcomes that have created these negative narratives about men on the apps, which perpetuate the negative narratives about men on the earth.

Unpacking shame and related affects: Consequences for safety, respect and well-being

In analyzing our data, we were struck by repeated examples of shame-related affects including humiliation and contempt-disgust. Interviewees shamed others or were the object of shame. Some were self-reflective, acknowledging their potential cause these forms of negative encounter. Some reported trying to adjust their behavior and the contempt-disgust (worthlessness-repulsion) they may trigger in others through their actions.

And here comes the troubling sentence:

Experiences of awkwardness, embarrassment, discomfort, frustration and creepiness were seen to explain or justify different levels of impropriety or inappropriateness, from ghosting to direct acts of aggression.

Negative, unsure, self-uncertain feelings in interactions become the justification for subsequent negative, aggressive behaviors.

For those of us in the know, a negative emotional state is created. The beholder creates a story about why and what it means. Likely feels sadness, which is transmuted into anger – a less vulnerable emotion. And that anger motivates and mobilizes the individual to act afool, emboldened by their feelings and their resulting story, acting in a self-defensive way that the other party “deserves.”

Potentially, not seeing the other party as a real individual, but a representative of all the other negative interactions that have come before.

So we can say that insecurity, self-non-acceptance, and poor emotional skills are implicated in this flow from “awkwardness” to “aggression.”

If reflection is utilized, this can be avoided, and the experience can be a learning tool that advances the individual’s understanding of sexual choreography.

If not, we get more abusive male behavior out of their emotional reactions to unsuccessful connection.

So let’s talk more about feelings of awkwardness (self and social uncertainty) as part of learning the dance.

For some, interactions both online and when meeting in person were defined by feeling ‘awkward’. For example, Bailey was ‘not good at socializing’, and often didn’t know what to say when he connected with matches on Tinder: ‘It depends, if I’m vibing with you yeah I’ll get used to it and I’ll stop being socially awkward but if I’m not, then I just keep going because if I’m not vibing with you then what’s the point in staying right?’ (Bailey). He felt this awkwardness was amplified by the restrictions to meeting up brought about by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Asadi used the term ‘awkward’ often to describe the difficulties he had in managing interactions and hookups:

Hey, it turns out that growing up on phones and screens haven’t prepared us for actually interacting. And to resolve many ongoing ghosting mysteries: some have such a poor grasp on what to do that they simply stop speaking or block you, to spare themselves from the shame of awkwardness. Of not knowing how to behave or finding ease between themselves and others.

That should reassure all of us, on both sides of the issue.

Awkwardness is normal. To be expected. Something to work through, or else awkwardness-dissipating skills will never be learned and it will never get better.

And if you have no idea why someone dropped off the face of the earth after a slightly uncomfortable engagement – go ahead and give awkwardness appropriate credit. It is more than many grown adults have learned to handle, and they flee from the threat.

And consider that being on the apps, itself, is a recipe for awkwardness or self-humiliation…. So…. The likelihood of aggression or abandonment is quite high.

They say:

Embarrassment was most commonly discussed in relation to the stigma of being on apps or developing relationships through apps. ‘The stigma... I guess it really is real. I guess because [...] we met online. [...] We had a common friend, so that’s what we use to tell everyone or our parents how we met’ (Edward).

Why did that online match suddenly disappear? Because he got self-conscious about online matching.

Why else might an online match go AWOL? Because real life is miserable, encouraging app over-usage, which comes with limited and then negative returns.

They tell us:

Embarrassment about excessive app use is also part of this, and it is related to the shame bound up in the self-disparagement that can result in self-contempt and low self-worth, especially when men saw themselves as ‘failing’ in the connective logic of the app. Zach explains this from his perspective:

For these participants, affects (emotions) were bound up in both their expectations for themselves, and their perception of others’ expectations.

(i.e. how will others view this match, since it was made online?)

Both successful matching (in Asadi and Edward’s case) and unsuccessful matching (for Zach) could result in awkwardness, embarrassment and shame, as participants reached the limits of their own repertoires for intimate communication, or the limits of the connective affordances of apps.

Learning, in the absence of scripts and rules, involves making use of these moments of experiential learning (McInnes, et al., 2002).

Awkwardness and embarrassment can force a rethinking of app use, but these affects can also establish a range of negative responses and practices.

If the awkward and embarrassing moments aren’t used for reflection, but for justification of compulsive behavior.

Luckily, there is some promising self-awareness in these men.

Let’s talk about their desire to protect the people they interact with… and also how it feeds back to worsen their experience, again.

Awareness of triggering discomforting affect in others

Many participants articulated an awareness of their own capacity to cause their matches to feel not only awkward, but unsafe and ‘creeped out’. Darsh explained that he always meets new matches in a public place with lots of people, ‘just to make the girl a bit more comfortable’ (Darsh). Asadi’s awkwardness also manifested through an awareness of his potential to create situations of discomfort:

These micro (visual) cues are crucial elements of the sexual choreographies made possible through the app interface. They are often sites of potential intervention and adjustment, as much as they are the cause of feeling unsafe.

Creepiness — a term that carries a fair degree of shame — was frequently invoked when participants described their efforts to avoid provoking discomfort in potential matches:

While all participants described strategies they used to avoid being perceived by women as unsafe or creepy, Demetri was also open about past experiences where he behaved aggressively on app and was subsequently banned:

Demetri shared this story in terms that indicated an element of shame and regret: ‘I would say to myself, don’t do antisocial. Don’t harass. Just calm down. Honestly, there were a couple of dates where I wish I’d done better, because I really liked that person genuinely’.

Where does the line between awkward and creepy exist? I think it’s blurred and transient.

So when a man might sense that things feel awkward, he may also feel coming across as creepy – making another uncomfortable or unsafe feeling – going too far or doing too much.

These both appear to be massive challenges to the male gender, through lacking social skills and also fearing the potential effects of their unskilled attempts. Low self-esteem and the potential result; disastrous interactions that spawn even lower self-esteem, are potent fears, deterrents to trying, and sources of shame.

Something that we all need in a healthy dose.

Because shame, put to good reflective and self-accountable use, is how we learn to be safer social animals.

And the good news is… some men are doing this.

Let’s talk about what can happen when emotions are explored and applied, instead of used for avoidance or aggression, through means of online dating app.

Learning through shame

The accounts of affective learning and choreographies of shame expressed by our participants included both social and technical dimensions. Bart, a 21-year-old workshop participant, reflected that much of his discomfort relating to app use was triggered by the affordances of apps themselves:

Bart had experienced multiple ‘failures’ of app use. In his words, ‘I would swipe 100 people and no one swipes back and that was just crushing’. However, he attributed his disappointment and bad feelings not to other users, but to his own approach:

For workshop participants, comparing their experiences of dating app cultures with the very different experiences of their female friends sparked empathy and self-compassion, expanding their relational repertoires. For example, George shared his experience of using emoji as an ‘affective signal’ (Gesselman, et al., 2019) that facilitated successful matches on Bumble.

Others described learning from male friends to curate profile texts and images that successfully communicated their preference for specific kinds of sexual encounters and relationships. In these accounts of affective learning, men were able to respond to their experiences of shame and awkwardness without expressing self-disparagement or contempt for the ‘other’. Instead, they reflexively adapted their in-app expressions and elicitations of interest and desire, while acknowledging the specific opportunities and limitations of ‘straight’ app cultures.

In a best-case scenario for app users, interest-excitement is mutual. When it is not, the lack of interest triggers shame. As Probyn observes, shame is an “experience of the self by the self”, a reflexive response, and self-awareness “is an integral part of the experience of shame” [18]. Where there is shame, there is the potential to account for actions, norms and practices differently.

Where there is shame… there is the potential to learn sexual choreography and become a better relational partner.

As long as the shame is utilized and released, not fled from or hunkered down into, so that it creates echoing or boomeranging aggression.

A lesson for us all.

But here’s the main one for this episode:

Conclusion

As Bollen and McInnes outline in their account of sexual choreographies in sex-on-premises venues, moments of surprise and uncertainty — and even shame — offer opportunities for experiential learning, and the expansion of sexual repertoires.

However, there is no guarantee that an experience of shame will be seen as an opportunity for learning, as opposed for a justification for contempt and/or the disparagement of self and others.

While a number of men in our study were able to resolve the shame-humiliation that arose in response to a potential match’s perceived lack of interest, others were not. Some developed filtering strategies for matching, but these often relied on externalized expressions of contempt for the profile images of the potential matches they ‘rejected’. Others deleted apps, but this was often seemed to be an expression of frustration at perceived ‘failure’.

In the absence of rules and scripts — or Internet ‘walkthroughs’ as our study participant Bart put it — the affective moments we have detailed offer an important site for ensuring self-disparagement, despair or embarrassment do not turn to depression, anger or harassment.

The men in our study primarily negotiated shame and humiliation through technical means (left-swiping, ghosting matches and deleting apps), or by attempting what might be termed ‘emotional blocking’ including expressions of contempt for potential matches, or modulation of interaction explained by ‘awkwardness’.

However, some described practices of learning through reflection: “If someone doesn’t swipe back or doesn’t reply, it shouldn’t piss you off. You can’t help it, it’s such a fickle thing to look at someone’s picture and swipe left or right. It’s not your fault, it’s not like you’re unattractive. That’s something I should have learnt earlier.” (Darsh)

And with that, lettuce:

WRAP.

So, are we feeling any empathy towards men in their attempts at navigating an all-new, instructionless, environment and finding love?

And can we understand some of the negative behaviors that are popularized on the internet when those attempts don’t pan out?

As usual, the aggression and abandonment problems come down to shame. Whether it’s utilized or internalized.

And in our modern world, with the trend of shitting all over one of the sexes and the lack of opportunities for them to establish self-esteem in real life (economically, educationally, and romantically), it’s easy to understand how app usage correlates or causes increased off-color dating behavior.

I think there’s a popular opinion that dating apps are built for the convenience and enjoyment of males – shopping for bitches to bang, without leaving the couch!

This article would suggest otherwise.

Because apps don’t exist in a vacuum. They hold up a magnifying glass to the wholly negative lens society has been viewing masculinity through.

If a person lacks social opportunity and self esteem IRL, it turns out that internet dating is a provocateur of the same online - sparking awkwardness, embarrassment, self-contempt, self-disparagement, and shame.

How that shame is used will determine how successful the individual is at learning the sexual choreography of the 2020s… or how harmful they may be towards others, by neglecting to reflect and recalibrate their actions.

So, while we might say that it’s not women’s fucking problem to protect the soft shamey feelings of men… And that is accurate.

I would also say that it’s the empathetic thing to do, when one of their prevailing concerns is creeping out or causing feelings of unsafety in women… which is one cause of said shame.

They can’t be expected to protect our feelings, if we’re not held to the same standard for theirs.

AND THAT may be the greatest unfairness bestowed upon men, causing great turmoil and self-destruction within the male gender around the globe… which, of course, will play out, also, on tinder.

As we become more educated about what women have never had and always needed (empowerment, control, safety, autonomy) – we also need to balance the scales by recognizing what men have never had and always needed (understanding, vulnerability, and allowance for self-uncertainty).

Which aren’t easy things to achieve with the measure of left and right swipes from strangers.

So let’s keep what lies below sex or gender, appearance or economic stability - our shared humanity - in mind.

As we keep empathetically

… and healthy-shamefully?

Dating

In

Dystopia.