.png)
With the many ways men abuse, degrade, disrespect and denigrate women worldwide, I really do feel that many men either cannot love or do not want to love.
I've come to learn, from all the reading I've done, that women have higher levels of empathy than men. Some say it's biological (i.e. nature) while others say it's due to socialisation (i.e. nurture). Whichever it is, women certainly show more care towards others. I think this explains why more men happen to be anti-social than women (i.e. it’s why so many men tend to be narcissistic, sociopathic and psychopathic). If men naturally have less empathy than women and you combine the socialisation that teaches them to be as toxic as possible, the outcome is men that are completely devoid of feeling, affection, warmth, empathy and sympathy.
The way men can toss women away, like used tissues, after sex, is still something I can't get over, no matter the number of times I've read that men produce less oxytocin than women from sex.
The way men lead women on and only care about the chase more than the woman they're chasing; completely dropping the woman once he gets her, never ceases to disappoint me.
The manner in which men can fake entire relationships, waste women's time and use women for our love, affection, support, body, conncetions, intelligence, and so on, then dump or ghost us for "the woman of his dreams" will never be something I can get over. This refers to the men who will date a woman for 10 years and give every excuse in the book as to why he can't marry her, but the minute the relationship ends, within 6 months to a year, he's married with a child on the way. Ain't that something?
The way men become nasty and inconsiderate when they decide that they no longer “like” or “love” us will always be the stuff of nightmares. I use quotations for ‘like’ and ‘love’ because many don’t like or or love us at all.
The fact that so many men only seem to value the woman they lost or never had, instead of focussing on the woman they're currently with, is mind-boggling. This ties into the avoidant attachment style we've all heard about and the "phantom ex" so many men seem to have. I've heard so many stories of men who dump a woman, get with another then pine over the woman he dumped; only to, in many cases, cheat on his current partner with the dumped woman and then immediately start thinking of getting with a different woman altogether! It really seems that for men, no one is ever enough. They are never satisfied and have the attention span of goldfishes who reportedly have attention spans of just 9 seconds. This ties into how men can flirt with you extensively for an entire evening, take your phone number and never call you or tell you how much they like you, see a future with you then ghost you out of the blue.
I'm completely convinced that love isn't something most men can do or know how to do. They simply coexist alongside whichever woman they happen to be with until they move on to someone else.
What does everyone think? Do you agree or disagree? I'd really love to read about anyone's experience with the scenarios I listed.
I think some men are capable of loving a woman, if they had a loving and respectful relationship with their mother, who was herself a strong woman and not submissive to the man's father. But this is unfortunately a rare dynamic, and porn has made it so much worse. The rise of hookup culture and the pornographication of everyday life has destroyed most men's ability to form lasting bonds with women.
This is also in no small part because women enable such behavior. Imagine a world where rather than turning into desperate pickmes at the first sign of disrespect from a man, women shunned such men and refused to associate with them at all. Imagine if the reward for acting the way scrotes act were not another string of Tinder "dates" (sleazy futon hookups in his shabby bachelor's hovel), but total blacklisting by every woman he knows.
FDS is incredibly important--revolutionary, even--because it teaches women not to accept LVM and their abusive behavior. Women with standards don't settle for men who don't know how to love, or entertain fools who refuse to learn. HVM are out there, but they aren't interested in desperate pickmes. LVM should never be rewarded for acting like human trash, but the culture is currently dominated by LVM and their pickmeisha handmaidens. It's our job to continue promoting awareness and pushing the FDS philosophy on women everywhere.
Notice also how men's porn is all about degradation, lust, power, pure animalistic sex... while women's version of porn/erotica is romance, love, bonding, long term relationships. Women lean toward love and romance, while men lean toward lust and power...in our "porn" we view men as decent human beings...while they view us as human flashlights, desperate whores..etc...which is telling. No wonder the world is in such chaos, it's ruled by men after all aka the problematic violent gender, so of course we are living in such a fucking mess
I have been thinking about this myself. I think men are more than capable of loving other men but yes, I don't think most men can truly ever love a woman. If there are any men like that they are very very few in my opinion. Our hypersexualized and pornified culture has completely destroyed relationships in my opinion.
Couldn’t agree more! I just finished reading The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks and it’s all about this exact concept. Would highly recommend- it’s incredibly validating for women.
You definitely have a point here. I genuinely think that the over-objectification of women and general pornification of just about everything has ruined most men to the point that they are incapable of healthy relationships. If men don't see us as human beings and keep seeing us as objects, I'm not surprised that they are incapable of love. However, if a guy has a HV father and has good relationships with his mother and female relatives (sisters etc) I think there's a much better chance he won't be like this. Also look at his friend group. If he hangs out with misogynistic 'bros' that's a reason to leave. It's not hard to tell if a guy is talking to you like a human being or like an object. Does he treat you the same as he treats men and listen to/remember/respect/value your opinions? It's all about vetting.
Some men I know have as great of a capacity for love and empathy as any woman. Why so many men don’t seem to, I don’t know. Socialization is important but it’s not just that. You mention that they produce less oxytocin than women. I think I read somewhere that they are also less responsive to oxytocin than women. So even if they are exposed to a lot of it, they don’t have the same benefit that women get. I‘m just guessing but maybe there more subtle neurological things going on as well.
My dad was a deeply empathetic & loving person. He was the person I talked to when I had a problem unless it was specifically female. He had good advice & a calm way of delivering it. He was an all around decent human being. My grandfather was as well and some of my uncles & cousins, but by no means a majority. There were plenty of ordinary men & bad apples in the family. After becoming an adult I just was not prepared for how most men were because I thought my dad was ordinary. We could psycho analyze what was different about him compared to many men and maybe find the answer. If we do, I think a lot of it still points to socialization.
I haven’t commented much here but when I was in Reddit many of my comments about men were negative, hateful, angry, and hopeless sounding. I have had a lot of rude awakenings about men. I have a lot to say about the overwhelmingly disappointing norms for men that seem to get worse every generation. I think it has gotten easier for bad men to reproduce, and maybe there some subtler things being passed in that were at least somewhat limited before. I find a disturbing parallel between very abusive, violent men and genetically inherited mental illnesses. These men often present as adventurous & exciting on first glance but turn out to be hot messes. I don’t like old patriarchal constructs of relationships for women, but they did at least weed out some men who couldn’t hold it together long enough to land a wife, in the old days. Yet we’re there ever a lot of good men? I don’t know. As long as men get to dictate what they are perceived as, we may never know. Or maybe there have always been a lot of mediocre to bad men and a few good ones and women just had to put up with them. Isn’t that why women sometimes poisoned their husbands, queens plotted coups against their king husbands, etc? Maybe the only thing that has changed is now we can just leave.
They love us like pets. Some ppl dote on their pets and feel great attachment and affection for them. They are pampered and loved but not in the way you would love your child. I would argue that many men also love their children like pets (or expensive toys?) with the exception of boy children growing in to potential men and getting the chance to earn their humanity through performing masculinity. Some men borderline abuse and neglect their pets. Some pets also have jobs, like a therapy dog, brood mare or plow horse. Some pets are impulse purchases and quickly abandoned for the next fun thing. Pets always fall short of being human, no matter how much they are loved. I have been treated incredible well by several men. Cherished, doted on, I even felt loved. But when it came down to it I was still an object of some kind. When I enforced boundaries and asserted my reality they always got resentful, annoyed, angry. When I behaved in ways that didn’t align with their idea of me they believed I was broken, even if they didn’t say it out loud right away. When I expressed the smallest preference or request, they may comply and appease in the moment but alway felt taken advantage of somehow. Or something like that, i will never really know for sure and I doubt they will either bc they are still thinking im the problem. I have many flourishing friendships and community connections. Mostly female but a few awesome HVM. I know I am not the problem. I am good at relationships and a kind person. These men are delusional.
I've made it a mantra for myself in my life, "men don't love". Maybe there are a few that can or do. Maybe.
My thing is, how can they when theyre misogynistic. How can they love things that are subhuman and that they hate and are entitled to. That power must feel too attractive to them. If I was a libfem, I might say this inability to love is the damage patriarchy does to them, but of course my sympathy is nil and i wish it did yet more.
It's sad but what passes for love with men is attachment; attachment to some image/scene in their mind.
An example might be a guy decides that the woman he wants has to be blonde and have big breasts. He wanders thru life, dating brunettes, small busted redheads. Finally he meets an amenable blonde woman with large breasts. They form a "relationship," live together for awhile, maybe get married, have kids. He's married a picture in his head, not a real person, i.e. an object. Obviously this can't turn out well, it's like marrying a refrigerator. Men are taught that they "own" women. Not individuals but as a class, e.g. "I need to get a blonde and a nice house and a car and then I'll be a real man."
I dunno but how can you have a relationship with a refrigerator? It's why many marriages break up when the kids leave home; the woman's gained insight by then and knows there's nothing left.
At some point this might actually show up in a guy's brain; maybe a parent dying or a near-death experience; maybe he knows something's off and starts reading feminist literature. Once a guy realizes this is what has passed for love and human connection, the realization would bring him to his knees. Then, that's when the man can mature and truly love. This is why it's hard to find an enlightened HVM.
Look sometimes I get real suspicious of myself and am 90% sure I’m a sociopath then I remember that men exist and that even on the off chance that I-the biggest crybaby in the world) am a sociopath, it’s no big deal because I still have only an 11% chance of turning violent vs a sociopathic man’s 34% chance (source is howstuffworks.com so accuracy on these stats is iffy but I do know they do most of the violent crime anyway+men who haven’t been caught+ all the things stats leave out). That is insane that even as a woman without empathy I would STILL be unlikely to pull a Chikatilo whenever I got hungry (I would however be way more likely to get away with it vs my male counterpart- women are better at everything even serial killing). I have definitely lost the thread of this response so in conclusion if a man does not do his work to heal and get some goddamned empathy, respect and admiration for women like he does “his boys” then as far as I’m concerned he can use “his boys” as daddymacbangmaids ✌️
Liked for the incredible description of how empty it feels to be around LVM/NVM. If it is anything like this, I don't want it. It's not worth it. Women were duped into "tolerating" this behavior, and IMO men who engage in this behavior probably did not have strong moral masculine role models.
Love? Perhaps. Inability to * Respect* a woman? Definitely. With zero doubt.
If you don’t think men have the capacity for love, why are you on a dating strategy forum? Seems like you’re in the wrong place. Are there depraved men and would I classify most men as LV? Yes. But I know good men exist, I’ve dated them and I’m friends with them. If you truly believe no men are capable of love I suggest finding a new forum. Beyond that, the kind of man you’re describing is an immature, porn sick scrote who can’t focus on one woman bc his porn fried his brain and ruined his ability to create real, lasting relationships. Scrotes are gonna scrote. While we can vent about depravity, I disagree that all men are lv scrotes. Men who don’t watch porn don’t act like that.
I believe men do have a capacity to love women. They definitely aren't the majority, but they aren't super rare either. I don't want to feed into the scarcity/lack mindset, because that encourages us to settle.
I agree. They are not capable of love.