You scroll through the dating apps, and it’s a goddamn comedy. Every other profile, a woman staring into the camera, trying to look both sexy and profound, and the caption always says the same damn thing: “Not here for a hookup. Not just looking for sex.”
Then there’s a disclaimer, a list of rules at the door: “If you’re married, if that’s all you’re looking for, swipe left.” They’re tired of being asked just to have sex, they say. “Please, stop bugging me,” they plead, “I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
All this, while she’s wearing a push-up bra that could stop a bullet, her face painted for war with rosy cheeks and blood-red lips, showing you a picture taken from an angle so high it could give God a nosebleed, all to hide the fact that she’s not twenty-one anymore.
And the men? Let’s be honest. We’re on there for one reason. I’m on there for one reason. I want to get laid. I want a quick conversation, a couple of drinks, and then I want to go back to my place and give you the best goddamn performance of your life. Ninety-nine percent of the men on that app, that’s what we want.
But no. You have to play the game. You have to pretend you’re not a man, and she has to pretend she’s not a woman. She’s the innocent blonde in King Kong’s hand, swinging off the Empire State Building, all wide-eyed and pure. But deep down, you know she has a certain passion for that big, dumb monkey.
At some point, you just have to be honest. Men and women are not built the same. But they keep pushing this narrative down our throats that we’re supposed to be gentle, to seek meaning, to treat every woman like she’s somebody’s mother, wife, or daughter. All while they’re being elevated to a new kind of masculinity, bragging about how many dates they’ve been on, how many relationships they’ve burned through. “Oh, my last date was with an Asian guy,” she’ll tell you. “Before that, a black guy.” No one wants to hear that shit. A man doesn’t want to hear the numbers, especially if he’s trying to date with some kind of real intent.
And yeah, the hypocrisy sits heavy in my own gut. My batting average is around .750 on first or second dates. But when it happens that fast with me, the hypocrisy kicks in, and I start thinking, “Why? If it happened this fast with me, it’s happening this fast with everyone else.” A woman who’s been around, she has her own moves, her own mechanics. My grandfather, he used to say that a woman in bed is a reflection of her last lover. A man in bed is a reflection of all his lovers. So when a woman tells me to spin her around, pull her hair, and spit in her face, it makes me wonder what the hell kind of rodeo I’ve just signed up for.
But I digress. The real issue is the disclaimer. The list of requirements they post outside their digital door. You have to be tall, have a full set of hair, have your own teeth, broad shoulders, a good job, a good family. They’re going to judge you on every goddamn thing you say. “Why did you get a divorce? Why are you single? How much money do you make?” And if you meet all those criteria, and you pay for the goddamn dinner, then guess what? The combination lock clicks, and the door swings open.
It’s all a game. Men are just running down the hallways of life, knocking on all the doors at the same time. One door opens a little later, another opens a little faster. Sometimes, it’s the same door, once a month, like a subscription service. I have a friend, every second Friday, the same door opens up, just so she can keep herself “available” in case the “right person” comes along. A smart move, I guess.
And what really sparks this whole rant, what really gets me, is this: I saw a woman in a wheelchair on one of these apps. An electric wheelchair. And her profile, her little sign outside her door, it said, “Not here for a hookup.”
And I thought, Christ. If a woman in a goddamn wheelchair is being so bombarded with offers for a quick tumble that she has to put up a disclaimer, can you imagine the power? The sheer, unadulterated power of a woman who can walk? The selective basis you can operate from? The manipulation that comes with that kind of power?
It’s been my observation that in this world, women are not to be reckoned with. They are the absolute authority. They’re running the whole damn show.
You try to challenge any of it, and you get the automatic pushback. The goal is “equality,” but that’s a lie. Their idea of equality is a one-way street, a toll road where all the fees are collected from the side of male masculinity. You want real equality? Fine. No makeup in the workplace. On dating sites, avatar pictures only. And let’s get a “village bicycle” rating on the app so we can all see the mileage before we take a test drive. The shaming of the male side has gone on long enough.
These are not the traditional women who deserved the old social benefits. So let’s get rid of the old rules. No more automatic child support, no more spousal support. The marriage laws need to be torn down and rebuilt. You don’t want to be a traditional wife? Fine. Then don’t take my last name, and don’t you dare touch my money. Good motherhood, if such a thing still exists, should start with keeping a father in the kid’s life. Not having some stranger raise your child for eight hours a day while you’re at your hourly-wage job, sneaking off to the bathroom to check your dating app messages, and still having the balls to claim the title of “mother.”
My point is, the old traditional values, the old titles, they used to mean something. They were earned. Now they’re just costumes people wear to hide their own failures.
So you want a concoction to end it all? You want a solution? Fine. Here it is.
First, you legalize prostitution. Nationwide. You take it out of the back alleys and you put it on Main Street. You tax it, you regulate it, you make it as clean and boring as buying a goddamn quart of milk. Why? Because it’s honest. It ends the game. It ends the bullshit courtship, the expensive dinners, the phony conversations. It turns the whole song and dance into a simple, clean business transaction. It calls the thing what it is.
Second, you make mental mind games a criminal offense. Gaslighting, manipulation, leading a man on for three months just for free meals—that’s not just bad manners; it’s theft. It’s the theft of a man’s time, his money, and his goddamn peace of mind. You treat it like any other crime. You get a good lawyer, you present the evidence—the texts, the lies, the broken promises—and you sue the bitch for damages.
But that’s all just legislation. That’s just changing the rules of the cage. You want the real concoction? The one that actually sets you free?
It’s this: you stop playing.
You just stop. You walk away from the whole goddamn table. You accept the hard, ugly, beautiful truth that you are on your own. You stop looking for a woman to complete you, to save you, to be your mother or your whore or your goddamn everything. You learn to be a man who is whole all by himself.
You learn to enjoy the quiet of your own company. You find work that matters, something that leaves a mark, not just a paycheck. You build a life so solid, so real, so completely your own, that you don’t need anyone else to validate it.
And then, if you’re lucky, if you’ve done the hard work, you might just find another person who has done the same. Not a game player, not a manipulator. Just another survivor who is tired of the bullshit and is looking for something real.
And that, my friend, is the only goddamn “relationship” worth a damn.
