…So what comes out of this schizoid mating system is basically an open-ended, perhaps multi-year period of casual dating or FWB. It’s perpetual dating. The ambiguity and insecurity never stops—there are no benchmarks for the relationship to develop across and for progress to be tracked by, no rainbows, no pots of gold. There is clearly no SAHM exit option built into this plan—both man and woman are essentially on the professional treadmill for life. The investment incentives are limited for both parties and either one can be looking to “trade up”. This approach is by and large the norm in young-ish finance circles in NYC and London right now. I think that both men and women suffer, but the suffering *tends* to be greater for the women because unending, firewalled dating/hangouts with no advancement into housemates, marriage, etc. is agreeable for a lot of guys if they have the option. Several female friends are caught up in these situations and they hate them. They just find dating to be brutal. I was out with one the other night and she basically explained that when a woman says she wants “emotional intimacy”, what she means is that she wants a relationship that offers a kind of nonjudgmental Green Zone in which detonations of psychological volatility that would be intolerable (i.e., considered “crazy”) in, say, a workplace environment are now allowed. The current dating regime she is in has no such Green Zones and the dominant aspirational persona for BOTH genders is now one of detached, smirking McQueen-like cool, and thus she feels compelled to put on an easygoing, unflappable, hyper-tolerant cool-girl persona 24/7. She finds this exhausting and unnatural and wishes to be able to escape to a more sensitive romantic environment in which she can “freely display her vulnerabilities.” I observed the obvious that guys probably preferred that she maintain that easygoing persona and found it very attractive (she’s great at projecting it), and she admitted that the “emotional intimacy” thing was a bit of a bait-and-switch pulled on men. https://input.scs.community/s/Fu6YJoSM95 https://hedgedoc.catgirl.cloud/s/ruYUJ_SYOE https://pad.riot-os.org/s/n2oA19QloF https://hackmd.openmole.org/s/IyZjxUeb0 https://pad.codefor.fr/s/SwvrWgDU6j https://md.inno3.fr/s/HIBkNeOvy https://md.ctdo.de/s/MDbZpIBqtu https://md.linksjugend-solid.de/s/3R0th4yiR https://pad.karuka.tech/s/EpiLtg89j https://md.coredump.ch/s/JRxYHIPTB https://md.swk-web.com/s/A-GUD9W8S