A columnist at the NY Times, Jean Garnett, describes her frustrating dating experiences in which the men make weird excuses for not wanting to commit, such as “I have anxiety.” But does this tell us something about men, or is it more of a her problem?

For example, a guy she was seeing texted her:

“I was really looking forward to seeing you again…but I’m going through some intense anxiety today and need to lay low :(.”

That is kind of funny and pathetic, so she’s right in that respect. But it just sounds like an excuse, so not really a statement on men in general. And the excuse is especially funny coming from a man. Her friends have similar experiences.

But the guys that she dates are “good guys.” They’re not toxically masculine. She explains:

“He tends to signal, in various ways, his exemption from the tainted category of “men,” and it is perfectly understandable that he would wish to do so. It must be mildly embarrassing to be a straight man, and it is incumbent upon each of them to mitigate this embarrassment in a way that feels authentic to him.”

Are men really this gaslit and that’s how they think of themselves?

I’m not Mr. Macho, but it never even occurred to me that the category of male is tainted. That’s a rather sad way to look at your own gender. Are men really this gaslit and that’s how they think of themselves? That they’re continually in the process of denying themselves?

The take from Red Scare podcast was simply that the men she was dating were simply not that into her, and that’s why they wouldn’t commit, rather than reflecting as a statement on the state of men and dating in general. Whether you want to say they’re being rejected, Daisha says, “They’re experiencing ambivalence and rejection.” That’s a pretty devastating take.

The article continues:

“Maybe my friend was right about male anxiety at this moment. Maybe the men are taking a beat, “laying low,” unsure of how to want, how to talk, how to woo. Maybe they are punishing us for the confusion.”

Again, it could be a you problem, rather than a reflection of men. But then again, maybe there is some truth to what she’s saying.

As she continues giving anecdotes from her friends, I begin to suspect that men are just using psychobabble to avoid rejecting a woman with whom they don’t want a relationship. Take this example:

“It was rly nice,” a close friend texted me recently, reporting on her third date with a lawyer. “He’s really really sweet and nice to me and good at sex. …On more than one occasion, when my friend checked in with the lawyer to confirm tentative plans, he did not respond to her for many hours, or even a day. Granted, he worked a punishing schedule, but, my friend reasoned, it takes 90 seconds to send a quick reply. The dissonance between his caring and attentive in-person behavior and these silences confused her, and she mentioned this to him. The lawyer was sorry he had kept her waiting — he hadn’t meant to — but, he said, her complaint had got him thinking: He unfortunately wasn’t able to escalate whatever was happening between them into a “relationship.”

So it sounds like the guy just got sick of her and felt like he wanted to move on– sorry to sound harsh. But he is a lawyer, he has options, he has dating apps, and he just didn’t want to keep seeing her, especially if it became a chore for him. It might say something about dating in 2025, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us something fundamental about men and women, as though something has changed.

The article continues:

“If the experts say my romantic letdowns have some larger social significance, I am not going to argue. The men I want are not wanting me badly enough, not communicating with me clearly enough, not devoting themselves to me […] the problem cannot be me. It must be men, right?”

Well, that’s convenient. You have female psychologists pathologizing men to suit the psychological needs of women bitter about their dating experience. This is why you can’t trust the pronouncements of psychology nowadays.

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