I inadvertently went down a rabbit hole with the picture of George Clooney and his wife. It was sent to me by a psychologist friend — a woman that I went to high school with. She asked me what struck me about the photo. I immediately said that the male dress preener on his knees was the discordant note. She immediately jumped all over me, accusing me of stereotyping masculine and feminine roles. She stated that seeing a man in a subservient role to a powerful woman was a threat to my masculinity. She was so wrong. What I saw was degradation due to economic disparity and inequality.
The psychologist went on to surmise that I didn’t see task of dress-fixer as an appropriate job for a man. She asked me if it would make a difference if the man was older instead of a young man. Without thinking about it, I said that it was somehow more egregious if the man was an old man. Somehow the idea of Life experience in any gender should qualify for a higher level job than a haberdashery arranger for a one percenter. I was reminded of the film called “History of the World, Part I”. In it, Mel Brooks, the comedic filmmaker, parodied entry level jobs with a position called pissboy, who held the bucket for nobles to relieve themselves while engaged in leisure activities.
It got me to thinking about the young man in the above picture. Perhaps his job title was “Personal Assistant”. Perhaps he didn’t see his role as a person occupying a lower caste in society. Perhaps he was thrilled with his proximity to society’s stars and the “elite”. After all, I carried the golf bag and caddied for the sports and entertainment stars at the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational and I didn’t see it as a menial job:
But this got me to thinking about the marginalization of young men in society and especially in American society. So I sent out my web scrapers and Natural Language Processing tools to gather data. It isn’t a pretty picture for young men. Here are some sobering statistics:
Women, especially millennial women outnumber men with a college education. The ratio at last count was 43% women versus 36% men. This has major ramifications.
College-educated women prefer college educated men. In a recent Pew survey, women graduates favored male graduates by a margin of over 80%.
Of all the young men under 30 years old, a full 63% are single. Only 34% of women the same age are single.
One in five, or 20% of young men report having no close friends, male or female.
Half of all young single men under 30 years old, have reported that they stopped actively pursuing dates and playing the dating game, especially online with dating apps. The next statistic tells you why.
On dating apps such as Tinder the top 20% of men get over 60% of the attention from women. Average male attractiveness (which most men are), do not see results from dating apps — especially those apps that require the user to thin-slice by swiping left or right in a few seconds, based on a photo.
Young people, aged 17-34 years old have 70% less in-person interaction than the generation before them. Social interaction happens largely with texting, or online with social media rather than face-to-face.
The disparity of young single women and young single men is largely due to young women marrying slightly older men. Young women who want to start a family want to do it while they are young and vibrant with lots of energy. Men their age either do not wish to start a family, do not possess the financial means to do so, or are too immature in the eyes of the women.
As a result, several academics such as Washington University professor, Dr. Liberty Vittert and Professor Scott Galloway NYU Stern School of Business have identified a “Loneliness Epidemic”. It hits two demographic segments very hard — young men and senior citizen women.
The Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, was one of the first in the medical profession to identify the risks of the Loneliness Epidemic. The physical consequences of poor connection can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. The risk for premature death is to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a new advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General.
As a result of the above, there is now a very large uptake in lonely young men using Artificial Intelligence chatbot girlfriends. This is deemed an existential threat to the well-being of young men when they do manage to form real life relationships with women.
Using Artificial Intelligence apps, "young men get in these AI relationships," says Professor Liberty Vittert. "And because the AI learns from you exactly what you like and don't like, you end up having these perfect relationships. So when you go into real life...there's ups and downs they are not able to deal with."
Professor Vittert goes on to state that these AI chatbot girlfriends can be customizable right down to the preferred butt size of the female avatar.
The marketing of these chatbots can be considered either as genius or unethical. The initial use is free. As the chatbot learns more and more about you, a connection starts to develop. If you want the chatbot to send you suggestive messages or send more explicit photos of your desired female form, you must sign up and pay a monthly subscription. Marketing proponents of these apps point out that it is probably cheaper than paying for dates in real life. Professor Vittert fully expects that one day very soon, you will be able to buy an AI infused robot who will perform sex acts in the bedroom. For me, it’s a scary thought. I am reminded of the scene in The Big Bang Theory television show where a robotic sexual device goes awry.
So what can you do if you are a lonely young man? The obvious answer is to sign up for college. It is a way of solving a problem now, and future-proofing yourself for when you do decide to settle down, and perhaps start a family. Other options include getting out in the world with face to face interactions with people who think like you. This includes participating in hobbies, entertainment, events, volunteerism, outdoor exercise, and pursuits that have a gender mix of participants. And if you are a parent of boys, you must inculcate a preference for person-to-person activities instead of taking the easy way out and using screen time as an unpaid babysitter.
I don’t know where these trends will take us a society, but for me, the change is unsettling.
Thanks for reading.