I (22M, straight) have never tried dating women due to gender roles. There is nothing that turns me off more than an unequal partnership where I’m pigeonholed into being some stoic protector who never cries, never needs comfort, doesn’t like “girly” things, and always leads affection and intimacy.
You know what I like? When a woman is strong, confident, playful, and comforting, but is also down-to-earth and vulnerable. Someone I could take turns caring for and being cared for by, pursuing and being pursued by her. I don’t want some stupid power dynamic; I want us to be like best friends, equals with matching vibes who care for and comfort one another. And for us to have lots of fun together: foam sword fights in the living room, baking cakes together despite neither of us knowing what we’re doing, having goofy staring contests… whimsical and silly stuff like that.
There is absolutely no room for gender roles in my life because I want us to feel like buddies, not the infallible chivalrous knight and the small vulnerable one. I see the opposite genders as complements that equally embody both strength and vulnerability. Hell, there’s not even any room in my life for this serious adult facade everyone seems to put on. Having adult responsibilities doesn’t mean I also have to act all serious and sophisticated. No, I’m going to be silly because we have only a finite amount of time on this earth and I’m going to use it to make people laugh and smile.
The Internet has made me disillusioned with the idea of a relationship because gender roles are constantly reinforced. “If you show your emotions to a woman she’ll use them against you later” or “If you cry in front of a girl she’ll break up with you” or “Guys who are too feminine give me the ick”. Often some variation of “If you want a girlfriend, you have to maintain the image of a strong stoic hero, and the moment that illusion is shattered, you’re fucked.”
That’s why, as soon as I realized what my attractions were, I immediately wrote off the possibility of ever fulfilling them because they didn’t fit a patriarchal world, and I saw the idea of trying to force myself into that world as torture. I had somehow “fallen out” of gender roles and was attracted to equality instead of hierarchy. I didn’t want to be “manly,” I wanted to be adorable, playful, caring, and sweet, and I was attracted to those exact qualities in women. Once I developed chronic health conditions and physical limitations, the idea of me being strong and infallible became even more unattainable.
I’m interested in hearing others’ experiences in navigating this. I really want to believe that equal straight relationships can be found, but I am surrounded by an information ecosystem that mostly points to their nonexistence, tainted by universal gender expectations.
Honestly, the fact that there isn’t an “incel” subculture full of progressive men who gave up because their personality wasn’t patriarchal enough makes me wonder if most guys with this issue: (1) don’t have the self-awareness or courage to post about it, (2) enter relationships where they spend their entire lifetime in hell suppressing their personality, or (3) actually did find partners who loved them for their authentic selves, and most people have figured this out and I desperately need to touch grass.
It depends a lot on the person involved. People vary a lot. A fair bit of women like the traditional female role but many don’t. They do tend to make relationships toxic in the modern day because being viewed in those terms, men have very little value in the modern economic games. Dating a man was more appealing when that meant you could just be a stay at home wife and raise children maybe, also maybe work part time when the kids grew older. Now there is little reason to date a man. It means mostly giving up your entire life for essentially nothing, having a roommate really. It might lower costs a bit but at the cost of taking on tons of risk and exposure and losing the sole claim on your property. The amount of women seeking traditional relationships far outreaches market capacity. Around 10% of Americans are doing well financially, even less than under feudalism in relative terms of social status. Half of Americans are basically in poverty. This means that even traditional relationships are probably not going to be good, as any man who has that kind of money probably has about 9 other options besides yourself as a woman. Men also just don’t really have a good place in modern society.
Pseudocapitalism and corporatism is so antihuman in so many ways, from fiat currencies creating high tax burdens making property ownership very unrealistic, to the very low economic efficiency making workers spend most of their time at jobs to get anything done, to the ruling class being full of actual morons who stay in wealth forever because of fiat currency and the stock market always returning more than what anyone else can expect to gain over their life, giving them infinite leverage to start one bad company after another to essentially move money and debt around. They spend tens of billions on propaganda and political advertising to keep power, while your average American is struggling decade after decade and has no political group to represent their interests as a working class person.