Men who are going their own way (commonly known as MGTOW) are becoming more and more common even as many of the men doing so don’t realize it. The core idea behind MGTOW is that men are simply checking out of society by not marrying, not working harder than they need to, and spending their time doing things for themselves.
The response of the Baby Boomers and the early Gen-X’ers has been a resounding “man-up” call to them. In many cases, video games, pornography, and other hobbies are blamed on a man’s lost interest in doing what societies generally desire them to do.
Yet for all of this, I cannot help but wonder why these people do not even bother to question what it is they are doing or have done to make young men want to check out of society altogether.
In the first place, consider that divorce rates are anywhere between 30% to 50% depending on the study you look into. Also consider that women who are not virgins when they get married are much more likely to divorce than women who are. Finally, consider the toll that divorce takes on men like perpetual alimony (at the time of Robin Williams’ suicide, he was paying six figures to two ex-wives if I recall the facts correctly), child support, and just losing half of your stuff.
The risks for most men getting married are incredibly high right now. Men love a good challenge, yes, but not one where the risk-reward ratio is next to nothing. It would be one thing if a man was guaranteed sex, home-cooked meals, and pleasant company most of the time with his wife. But these days many women are incapable of doing those simple things and instead desire to browbeat men using emotional and verbal abuse. Effectively, the average maturity level of women is that of a ten year old girl.
So men would rather not sign a contract with a woman which is treated like a perpetual dating contract rather than a serious commitment backed by an oath made before God. A wife’s love comes with conditions while a husband’s love is supposed to be a given.
On top of that, we have a stagnating or depressing economy right now. Many younger men are not seeing prospects beyond the retail outlet jobs they picked up as a summer job while at school. More and more these type of jobs are requiring college degrees of some kind, which means a man needs to be in debt to the government before he can be hired to be a cashier, flip burgers, or make coffee.
So with those bleak economic prospects, many men have little to offer women who are more attracted to wealth and status rather than looks. Yes, women do appreciate a good looking man. But slap a Starbucks apron on him and suddenly his attractiveness drops 5 points on the 10 point scale.
So men are checking out of the procreation game entirely. For them, it simply isn’t worth the time, the trouble, and the risk involved. Who wants to be married to someone and be unhappy? Who wants to be married to someone who has a good chance of running off with half your shit and demanding payments to fund her pornographic lifestyle while his kids are left at home with no babysitter? Who wants to get married with no guaranteed sex or comfort from his wife?
I’m not saying they are necessarily right to do so. Hell, I’d say take risk and know that most men who get divorced ultimately end up better off than their ex-wives in the end so long as you fight her in the divorce proceedings. And the economy is only as good as the number of productive people engaged in it.
But I understand them and their attitude. I’m tempted sometimes to take my own route that would lead me to that lifestyle as well. No, I will not abandon my family, but I do enjoy solitude from time to time.
But for our society to combat this growing trend, we need to understand that it is us who are driving men to this. Porn and video games are the easier route right now as having sex with a real human being is much more desirable but produces way too many risks for men.