Where Have The Good Men Gone?
Kay S. Hymowitz argues that too many men in their 20s are living in a new kind of extended adolescence. Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This “pre-adulthood” has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it’s time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.
“We are sick of hooking up with guys,” writes the comedian Julie Klausner, author of a touchingly funny 2010 book, “I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters and Other Guys I’ve Dated.” What Ms. Klausner means by “guys” is males who are not boys or men but something in between. “Guys talk about ‘Star Wars’ like it’s not a movie made for people half their age; a guy’s idea of a perfect night is a hang around the PlayStation with his bandmates, or a trip to Vegas with his college friends…. They are more like the kids we babysat than the dads who drove us home.” One female reviewer of Ms. Kausner’s book wrote, “I had to stop several times while reading and think: Wait, did I date this same guy?”
But for all its familiarity, pre-adulthood represents a momentous sociological development. It’s no exaggeration to say that having large numbers of single young men and women living independently, while also having enough disposable income to avoid ever messing up their kitchens, is something entirely new in human experience. Yes, at other points in Western history young people have waited well into their 20s to marry, and yes, office girls and bachelor lawyers have been working and finding amusement in cities for more than a century. But their numbers and their money supply were always relatively small. Today’s pre-adults are a different matter. They are a major demographic event.
It began after the baby boomer generation and progressively got worse!
I can only be with a man 12+ years my senior and I am immature and look very young for my age! My advice is to go for OLDER MEN who were already married! Or else, marry a military guy!
I believe that you can thank the Feminists and the extreme Left Wing Liberals for the breakdown of American Culture and Society. These so-called men have NEVER had to fight in a war and were NEVER DRAFTED!!! Unless you want to be a man’s mommy, do not marry a man who is your peer. That is anywhere up to four years of his age and also the age dynamic where most divorces occur!
hahhaha! love it! This is great! So it is saying these men make $$?
Yes, but who cares?? They are immature goons!! Think Wil Farrell characters with money and good jobs. The humiliation would be too much for me to take!
It is the female scenario of a dumb blonde dressed in a trashy outfit that you cannot take out to a corporate event.
I really don’t know how a woman can even find a guy who acts like a bufoon sexy at all! I STILL don’t get the Demi Moore-Ashton Kutcher thing.
Most women who have to MOMMY their husbands call them idiots and constantly berate them. How is that sexy??? Does that make YOU want to jump a man’s bones? “I wonder where that asshole is going now” or “Oh, I can’t wait until that goon comes home so that I can rip his clothes off?”
Doesn’t do it for me.