Opinion: Dating men can suck, but it doesn’t have to

A woman hides her boyfriend behind a large bouquet. Art by Wes Mowry-Silverman.

Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? 

This is the question that launched a thousand think pieces. The original article that inspired it, written by Chanté Joseph, focused primarily on women’s presentation of their boyfriends on social media. Instead of centering their content on their relationships, many women were opting to post about their boyfriends more subtly or hide them entirely, which Joseph concluded was a result of romantic relationships no longer holding the social cachet they once did. Johnson was never investigating whether or not women should or should not have boyfriends. She primarily talked to influencers, many of whom had male partners. It was never about intimacy, only ever about image.

Nevertheless, Johnson’s provocative title and final paragraph, focusing on the empowering nature of women embracing singledom, led a lot of people to believe women weren’t dating men anymore. This inspired many people to investigate their own relationships with heterosexuality, to contextualize the article within the conversation about the male loneliness epidemic and, most disappointingly, to completely mischaracterize the concept of heterofatalism. 

The term was coined by gender and sexuality scholar Asa Seresin in 2019. When he wrote the piece, he identified as a lesbian, and he used they/them pronouns for many years. He has since adopted he/him pronouns. 

In his words, heterofatalism “consists of performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience.” Now, many people have disregarded Seresin’s critiques on the limits of this behavior and use his definition to conclude that dating men sucks, will always suck, and the best solution is just to complain and move on. 

Firstly, it’s important to look beyond the heightened internet characterizations of the heteropessimism phenomenon and address the reality of the situation. Do women really want to stop dating men? To a certain extent, yes. 

According to 2020 data from Pew Research Center, “61% of single men say they are currently looking for a relationship or dates, compared with 38% of single women.” In light of this data, men’s rights activists around the world rejoiced, comforted by the ability to back up their claims that the male loneliness epidemic was real. Women were rejecting men and destroying family values, leaving a trail of broken hearts in their wake. 

The men’s rights picture, unsurprisingly, also leaves out a lot of key data. The same Pew study gathered that, “Women are much more likely than men to say someone they have dated or been on a date with has pressured them for sex (42% vs. 19%) or touched them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable (35% vs. 9%).”

Outside of boundary violations, women report that they have trouble finding compatible partners and people who are looking for the same kind of relationship as them. Men’s and women’s differing desires are also contextualized by history. For centuries, avoiding a relationship with a man was not an option for most women. It was a financial necessity and a cultural obligation. Maybe some of the surveyed women don’t have an issue with men at all — they’re just enjoying the freedom that was only recently afforded to them. 

So yes, maybe men are having trouble dating. But it’s not women’s fault and it’s not women’s problem to solve. Admittedly, some women have raised their standards impossibly high because they’ve been influenced by patriarchal ideas of masculinity, unrealistic conceptions of how a man should look and what he should provide. Even then, men are being victimized by the patriarchy, not by women. 

It’s not the problem for any individual man to solve either. Some have suggested that all these lonely boys just need good male role models to teach them healthy masculinity and how to be normal to women. That’s also an oversimplification of this issue because the radicalization of young men is not just a result of sadness. Their rampant misogyny is not a result of women’s behavior, and the violence they carry out is not a result of just needing to know more nice boys. The term male loneliness epidemic itself is just an easy way to gloss over deep systemic and ideological issues.

It seems that the women in question are having quite a hard time dating, too. Many women may not be dating men, but not for lack of trying. The data on women’s compatibility issues is backed up by Jean Garnett, author of the viral New York Times article, “The Trouble With Wanting Men.” In the piece, Garnett writes about the challenges of many men’s emotional guardedness and their inability to commit, as well as the hopelessness this provokes in herself and her female friends, using the term heterofatalism to explain her predicament throughout. 

Garnett reckons with women’s vocal heterosexual hopelessness in her piece, weighing whether or not criticizing men is a radical act or if it just serves to perpetuate a vicious cycle. Generally, she sides with Seresin, recognizing that performing her dissatisfaction with men does not undermine the heterosexual status quo. However, she comes to a very different conclusion than Seresin about how to apply this notion to her life, writing, “Maybe this is the utility of ‘heterofatalism’ — naming the bitter pill before we force ourselves to swallow it and put on a carefree smile.”

In this framing, heterofatalism just helps women accept the inevitability of their circumstances. Men may not be able to give you what you need, but it’s better to cope with this reality and adjust your actions accordingly than to delude yourself. In the next few paragraphs, Garnett becomes the infamous cool girl, one who is not demanding, but nonchalant. She meets the men where they're at, delights in the scraps they give her. 

Another path that women disillusioned with heterosexuality often take is the veneration of queerness. They bemoan their attraction to men, wishing instead to be attracted to women. Most do not take action on these statements; they’re purely an expression of discontent. However, some put their statements into practice, emulating the Greek play Lysistrata or South Korea’s 4B movement, pursuing celibacy or political lesbianism. 

Even women with male partners seem interested in distancing themselves from their own desire for men. Some women are claiming their boyfriends are “spiritually lesbians.” Unfortunately for them, simply owning Carhartts and liking Big Thief does not a lesbian make. Influencer and writer Zara McIntosh believes this is a way for many queer women who are dating men to reassert their queer identity. She also suggests this is a strategy for women, straight and queer alike, to prove to themselves and others that their boyfriend is not an agent of the patriarchy. 

While this is a reasonable instinct, it just serves to blind women to the truth that their boyfriends do play a role in patriarchy. Because everyone does. The sooner that we reckon with that fact, rather than try to deny it, the sooner we can begin to disentangle ourselves and our romantic relationships from the treachery of misogyny and restrictive gender norms. 

This is the essential call to action that is missing from a lot of the conversation: an opposition to the inherent drudgery of heterosexuality was central to Seresin’s initial analysis of heterofatalism, yet it remains conspicuously absent from the majority of the pieces that now reference the term or spinoffs of it. Seresin critiques those who use the term “straightness” when they mean misogyny. He emphasizes that performatively distancing oneself from heterosexuality isn’t a rejection of anything but personal responsibility. And most importantly, he rejects hopelessness. He recognizes the myriad of challenges that women who date men experience, yet he rejects the fatalistic notion that heterosexuality will always be so bleak. 

His writing is a far cry from the “boyfriends are embarrassing, men just suck” mindset. This mindset suggests that dating men will always be an exercise in futility, that the only way to alleviate this misery is to accept or to abstain from men completely. While decentering men is a beneficial practice, a complete rejection of them is impossible or undesirable for a lot of women. There is a large portion of the population who will never stop being attracted to men, and they shouldn’t have to deprive themselves of the joys of boys. 

Hot take, but it’s okay to like men. If those of us who are attracted to men forget why we like them, we will accept that straight relationships are inherently doomed. We’ll become sitcom caricatures of the nuclear family, complaining about the old ball and chain instead of indulging in the joys of loving and being loved. 

Counterintuitive as it may seem, more women feeling comfortable being single is a step towards this more loving future because it can help establish a culture of dating for joy rather than obligation. It’s equally important to reject ideologies that present men’s poor behavior as inevitable. Or worse, biological. It’s gender essentialism masquerading as feminism and completely detracts from the fact that misogyny is a learned behavior and thus can be unlearned. It’s no easy feat, but it’s also not an impossibility. And just think, once you’ve completely deconstructed patriarchal norms, you won't have to wonder if having a boyfriend is embarrassing ever again!