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‘There were no warning signs’: what happens when your partner falls into the ‘manosphere’?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Men's Liberation
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As someone who has always been a good person and yet has never managed to secure a decent relationship, I can say that that view is massively too simplistic. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be around next month, but other people have massively different reactions to that sort of loneliness. It breaks you down and makes you question every aspect of your personality. At first you try to improve yourself. You study yourself, and you talk with other to try and identify what it is that makes you unlikable. Then you work on those issues. But eventually people stop being able to tell you what is is you're missing, and thats when you realise it's not something you're missing. It's not that you lack something, it's that you have something. Something makes you fundamentally different from other people, and you start to accept that you will never have the things that other have.
From here i see two possible solutions: change the world to allow me by force, or give up. Im not the type to force myself on anyone who doesnt want me there, so I've pretty much accepted the latter. But for people that have more attatchment to this world, it's difficult to tell them to have empathy for a world that explicitly hates them.
Edit: also its worth noting that I have never had any compulsion to listen to any of those rapists, but I can feel the draw when it feels like there is some fundamental aspect of being a man that everyone else seems to get but I don't. These guys offer easy answers which do in fact tend to result in you getting partners: force. And from a lot of the complaints I hear about men online, it almost seems like I am the only person not forcing myself on people. Which, consistency wise, checks out.
Again, obviously I am not considering becoming one of them but our society currently definitely seems to be designed to create more of them.
Hey Scubus, I found your comment and the discussions with others interesting. What caught my eye was your statement that you are probably "not going to be around next month". It got me worried you are considering hurting yourself!
If that is the case, please reach out to any of your friends that you say do see value in you as a person, or family. There are also organisations that you can contact to help you deal with these feelings, if you would prefer a more anonymous route. I might be able to suggest some resources if you tell me where you live.
I completely agree with one other commenter saying that thinking about yourself as having a fixed, unlikable component is a simplistic view of human nature. The fact that you haven't been able to find a romantic partner until now does not confirm it. There are so many factors determining whether two people who are compatible with each other come together, of which one commonly missed, but in fact immensely important, is luck!
When you ask people what they think might be wrong with you, they will come up with something, mostly out of their wish to help you. The fact that some cannot come up with anything is a further testament of there being nothing fundamentally wrong with you. Rarely do people realise they should actually challenge your frame (some commenters here did): there is nothing wrong with you, you are simply asking a wrong question.
This is not to invalidate your feelings of worthlessness of love which I sensed are sometimes too much for you to handle. It simply means that these feelings and thoughts about yourself, however real and strong, do not represent some objective reality.
Again, please reach out for help if you need it! Just from reading a couple of your comments, I could tell you are a thoughtful person, capable of reflection, which is a very attractive characteristic in my romantic book. I am positive there are many, many more which, I am sure!, are going to lead the right person to you.
I am sending good karma your way and wishing you the best of luck. 🍀