Wednesday's Most Active Threads

A thread in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum absolutely ran away with lead in both replies and views, more than doubling the number of the second in line. Titled, "What's Behind the Rise of Lonely, Single Men", the original poster linked to a blog post on the "Psychology Today" website describing challenges that younger and middle aged men are having with dating. The original poster expresses concern about this trend and wonders if anything can be done about it. When I first learned of this thread, it had already reached 21 pages. After reading a few pages, I decided to lock it because it had gone completely off the rails. I really can't provide a better description of the thread than that written by a poster on the tenth page which said, "Like all DCUM posts, what started as thoughtful posts on pages 1-3 turned into man-haters and misogynists yelling at each other for the rest of the thread....". My only quibble would be that this does not describe "all DCUM posts", but it does describe quite a few in the relationship forum and certainly this one.

The initial replies in the thread explained that increased financial independence of women means that there is less pressure for marriage. This has resulted in women raising their standards for dating partners and less opportunities for men. Others pointed to changing gender roles. Where once men were expected to go to work to provide for their families and women were supposed to stay home and raise the family, now both work and men are expected to contribute at home. In the view of some posters, the failure of men to adapt has made them less attractive partners. What struck me about this argument is that the posters are acting like 1950s June and Ward Cleaver social norms just ended yesterday when, in fact, they haven't been the expectation for decades. Other posters blamed women and today's "Me Too" influenced society that has allegedly left men afraid to even hint at attraction to a woman less they be accused of sexual impropriety. That is a pretty hollow defense in a day of dating apps on which women are literally advertising their availability. Swiping right is not going to get you accused of being Harvey Weinstein.

As the earlier description of the thread said, eventually the discussion deteriorated to little more than man-haters and MRA incels yelling at each other. One post in particular stuck out to me, saying "Men built this world." I think these four words, and more importantly what they apparently represent to their author, is at the bottom of numerous conflicts our society now faces. Let's accept for the sake of argument that men did build the world (spoiler, they didn't). Even so, the guy who wrote this post didn't build it. Why does he believe that he deserves to be rewarded for simply sharing a certain combination of chromosomes? This way of thinking is based on an out-of-date idea of a social hierarchy in which white men placed above white women with both trancending people of color who were also saddled with similar gender stratification. At the root of it, the "men built the world" poster has failed to realize the increased irrelevance of that supposed hierarchy. In today's world, he can no longer expect the unearned benefits that may have once been awarded for simply being a white male. If this guy wants to find someone to date him, he is going to have to bring quite a bit more to the table than simply being a white male.

Second in both number of views and number of replies was a thread titled, "Is Tulane the Ivy League of the South?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This forum has gone through a rather remarkable transformation recently. It fairly regularly is the top forum in posts per day. While threads still tend to deteriorate eventually into useless bickering, they now often stay on topic and substantive for quite some time. Whether there is any useful information is still up for debate, but at least the forum is not a total dumpster fire. The original post of this thread does nothing more than repeat the subject line. This leads to a series of responses demonstrating considerable disdain at original poster's description of the University. The thread then morphs into a discussion of which universities might better deserve such a characterization. On the last page, posts for some reason turned to a discussion of school mascots with one poster who wrongly identified Stanford's mascot being accused of having attended Tulane.

Another thread in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum was near the top yesterday. Titled, "Husband says nagging is humiliating - what to do?", the thread was fourth in both replies and views. The original poster provides a rather lengthy description of her husband's behaviors which she is compelled to address. When she brings up these issues, her husband considers it "nagging" and "humiliating". I have not read a single reply in this thread and have no intention of doing so. The issues cover a fairly wide span of topics from leaving shoes lying around to accumulating speeding tickets. Based on the original poster's telling, the husband seems rather childish. The original poster might be wise to pick her battles, but her husband may also just have to accept a certain amount of humiliation if he is unwilling to change. I am almost curious enough to look through the thread to see how many posts it took before someone recommended divorce. I would be surprised if it made it much past the first page.