The other day, my wife and I were getting into a conversation about our kids’ dating lives. Right now, it is pretty much non-existent. It is not a big deal at this point, my oldest son is nearly 17 and although he is tall and athletic, he never had a girlfriend. Sure, he took out a girl bowling with a friend and his date once, but it is pretty slow.
My oldest daughter is not ready to date yet, she will be turning 15 in a few months. She is a quintessential good girl, smart, athletic, and very good looking. I noticed guys looking at her at times, but she is actually struggling to fit in. We homeschool her, and she has acquaintances at church, but she feels like she never really had any close friends.
I talk with my wife, she too was one of the “good girls” when she was in high school. Looking at her old pictures, I would have given her a 6, she was skinny with that Shelly Duvall look. Not ugly by any means. But she says she always felt ugly because no guys would ever ask her on a date.
With modern hookup culture, I hear most women who participate in that lifestyle get all sorts of attention, especially with the internet. My wife went to high school where it was small enough that reputation was important. Everyone knew there was no chance of getting sex from her from dating her. So, logically unless a guy wants a lasting relationship with her, there would be no reason to date her.
Modern dating (despite being called “traditional”) has put a lot of pressure on the man. He is expected to ask, pay, show a one sided chivalry, and basically simp for her several times before she rejects you most of the time. It is no fun. The only real incentive for a guy to go through all that when they are young and not looking for a relationship is the expectation of sex. A good girl takes away that expectation, and leaves no real incentive. Consequently, guys would rather just “hang out” with a good girl.
There are many complaints from feminists that all guys see women as sex objects. This may be true, when young and the hormones are raging, that is all a guy is thinking about. He doesn’t care if his girlfriend can bake cookies, if she is good with little kids, if she keeps her room clean, or even if she has a decent personality, all he wants is to “hit it” when he is not looking for marriage. All those feminine traits only come into play if the guy is looking to marry her.
100 years ago, when slut shaming was common and sex before marriage was uncommon, women had to compete for their suitors by developing those feminine traits, now sex has served as a crutch. The creates a situation where women allow the skills needed in long term relationships to atrophy. Looks has become far more important as a result, and the traditional feminine skills have diminished in importance.
Maybe it is too late for our generation, but if you want your sons to have good girls to pick from, we need to teach our sons to reward the girls who are good by taking them out. Just like women ignoring the “good men” and only wanting to get with them to be a beta provider once they rode the carousel, we too are rewarding their bad behavior. We get what we reward.
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