Get back in the office and work dickhead!

I agree that this extended childhood thing goes for both genders. I'm 24 and still living with my parents. I have a cousin didn't move out of her mother's house until she was 28, and her sister who is my age is still living at home. I think the fact that people have more options these days (staying in school longer, less social pressure to get married young, ...) means we are putting off growing up.

 

In the Frebis household we wouldn't call that extended childhood. We call that being a lazy piece of shit.
I'm amazed people get away with this. If anything we should blame your parents for your extended childhood.

 

Yeah, I certainly remember 40 years ago when the coloreds and the broads didn't have any power, which is why I'm now spending my twenties dallying around. And if that math seems odd to you, it's probably because you had one of those fancy "real" majors in college where you took math.

 

I'm not going to totally blast the author because some of the points are true, we are waiting longer (as Americans) to get married and have children.

It is her conclusion that I take issue with. Many have noted that times have changed, I won't get drafted to go kill or be killed in a war and our society has changed as a whole rather than we, as men, are just a bunch of perennial loosers/kids.

I'm not picking here just using an example, how many of your mothers can cook? How many of them fixed dinner every day while they did the house work, cleaning, laundry, and more? How many women are willing to do this today? How many are able, or for that matter how many of us men prefer our significant other have a career outside of the home?

Times have changed and with those changes are changes in expectations. For that matter life is different. Those who are focused on getting married and having a family will do so and those who don't simply won't. There is so much to do in life now, as someone else stated "more distractions" for those of us who have not made the focus of our life to have a family and as a result, pretty sure I read this somewhere, the divorce rate is slowly dropping. That could be simply because its cheaper to break up than divorce and we're not getting married but it sounded good here.

 

Now that everyone had had time to chew on this...This article has three major core problems which many people have talked about
1. She is defining the end-game of life, "adulthood" as getting married and popping out kids. One word: Choice.
2. Men's entertainment as being juvenile. The reason I titled the topic the way I did is because if men are to be busting their ass at the workplace moving up, the author is completely ignoring the pressure being put on men. If a guy is at the office just trying to make it, maybe handling other people's lives if he's a doctor or billions of dollars if he's working in business finance, who the fuck is she to say he can't come home and watch 40 Year Old Virgin?
3. As a communications major in both undergrad and graduate, I hate the bullshit that the media influence on the mind is so strong. It is? Switch the Fox and MSNBC audiences for a month and see how that goes. (That'd actually be really fucking cool actually.)

Now a little background on how I found this article, spoiler-ed for length and ranting.

Spoiler

The girl who sent me this article is a very attractive (8.5/9), 24 year old brunette who is in the public relations field and lives in Chicago with me. Her dad is the CEO of a company and she's relatively loaded. I've hung out with her a lot, and even though I'm not her type (she likes these doughy, but not fat, with some facial hair white guys) if she blinked the right way I'd unleash the kraken on her. She loves sports, drinking beer, dancing, cooks very well, self-proclaimed to give head like a goddess and fucks like a rabbit, yet "I'm still single." I don't fucking understand how she's single either.

Enter in this guy John 34 lives on his own and works for ESPN, she dated in September. Let's ignore the fact she met him on the first night they both got drunk and fucked. They dated for a month and fell into an extremely comfortable zone quickly. I think they went out on one real date, after that it was always at his place or her place in sweats and what not watching TV. To her it was perfect. Then "out of nowhere", he gets shady and cuts it off. She has still not gotten over him even though she's dated other guys and has gone out. She's talked to him here and there, guess what he's doing? Hanging out with the guys, watching sports, drinking beer, and probably fucking other women. Now the detail she glosses over THE MOST of course, is the fact John got out of a 5 year marriage in May (4 months before they started dating) and she's the first girl he's really hung out with since. Does it occur to her that the simple proven concept of the rebound applies? Of course not. She reads shit like this and applies it to the reason why he doesn't want to get locked down by her. "I wish he'd snap out of his immature frat boy life style and get with it. He's missing out on a great girl. He just needs to grow up already."

So Gchat while she was at work being oh so busy, and I'm at home because my career doesn't start tell Thursday, we had a debate that lasted about 2 hours, this of course is boiled down:

I'm not exactly sure the word commitment was even used in the WSJ article but she read the whole thing as men being afraid to commit .

Her: The media tells men that being in a relationship is bad and if you're dating someone you're pussy whipped. The media tells men if you're in a relationship you can't do anything anymore.
Me: I don't think guys are afraid of committing, they don't want to lose their lives they've been busting their asses for, which happens. Let's say he was 10 he wanted a Ferrari, and he's busts his ass to get one. More than likely he's not going to get it until 30 or even 35. But if he gets hitched and has a kid, what is she going to say? Ditch the car, you can't put a car seat in it. Then the kid finally graduates college, he gets his car back and he's 55, it's a creepy mid-life crisis. Not fair. When relationships start, all you hear is sacrifice and compromise.
Her: A good relationship allows both people to do more, it doesn't tie people down.
Me: (I'm baiting her here) Definite "more" for me. Because after 3-6 months of dating, women are asking for exclusivity to "protect themselves" as a pretext, if not the guy is an asshole. Then they want the girlfriend tag, if not the guy is an asshole, Then they want to move in together, if not the guy is an asshole and hiding something. Then Beyonce starts playing and they want a ring on it, if not he's wasting their time and an asshole. After the ring, they want a house. After the house they want to have a kid, once the kid comes, he has to work to pay for everything, and spend time with the child so you feel he's putting as much work into it as you are, if not he's a bad husband and father. That's why some guys might be scared of commitment, they don't want to give their lives to kids.
Her: Guys also want kids Parker, I haven't met guys that said they didn't want kids.
Me: How many? 10? 15? 20?
Her: Most guys want kids.
Me: Then that means everything you just said is full of shit and the author is full of shit. No one wants to raise kids on their own, so if they want kids they more than likely want commitment. By your argument most guys want kids/commitment, so there isn't a problem.
Her: Well they want kids eventually.
Me: Well yeah, eventually, when I'm like 35 or 40.
Her: Women can't wait that long, you have to have them earlier.
Me: See what you there? You're rushing me into having kids, disrupting my life plan and we're not even dating let alone committed. See the problem?

Then of course when I asked her "Is it all on the men? Is there something the women are doing to not making commitment attractive? Is there something they can do to make it more attractive to men?" She had no answers. I guess that would be an Alt-Focus but it just took me way too long to get to the point.

Forget the gender roles and definitions of male and women, what I think is the most interesting shit is dating/courting/relationship dynamics starting out. She's basically saying "Women have all their shit together and men don't." Yet men still have to approach women, ask them out for dates, pay for dates, and make all the moves. I've heard too many girls say "I would never go up to a guy." "I'd never ask a guy out on a date." "Oh I'm going to wait for him to text me, I don't text first." What? Why not? "Because that's how it's done. Men approach women. Men pay for dates." Let's look at history here, this was before we realized women could also till fields, before they could own property and vote. This was during times when if a guy married a women, he could become a prince, duke, lord or knight over some land. This was during a time when if a guy married a girl, her family forked over a ton of stuff. Not anymore. Then it comes up. "We have the babies." I'm pretty sure there are two separate billion dollar industries and isles of grocery stores to prevent that sort of thing (also the loved pull-out method), that doesn't fly anymore.

I could keep going but I gotta stop. Oh boy.

 

Did it ever occur to her that perhaps 34 year olds who date 24 year olds do it for a reason? If you're trading on your looks and youth, don't be surprised when someone buys them.

 

Oh no, her reason for dating older guys is because guys her age aren't ready to commit. I forgot to mention I was laughing my ass off the whole conversation. I swear she's smart and pretty cool with everything else, but when it gets to boys and shit like this, the things that come out are fucking crazy.

You read stuff like this article, some of the posts, have conversations like the I did and I just come to the same conclusion: remove war, disease, world-hunger, stupid politics and all of that, we're still fucked because men and women rarely look at the same thing agree on little basics. We want the same things, but usually in different orders or at different times and it is crazy.

Now mind you, I was sent this article and had the previous discussion in the middle of my own life situation where I'd like to be in a relationship with this girl but she wants to use me as a boy toy. It's just perfect.

 

This. The fact that it wasn't meant to be ironic is hilarious. In a discussion about gender, some people's reaction was, "OK, yeah she wrote some stuff. But more importantly, SHE LOOKS LIKE A FRIGID BITCH!" That says a lot.

I know you're being extra smarmy for comedic effect and all, but you're being too literal. Obvious it's not "memory" as such. More importantly, it's societal expectation. We (not literally you and me, but as a social class) expect that, with a little hard work, we can inherit what our father's had, and possibly more. We don't realize that a lot of the reason that our fathers, grandfathers, etc. had the social position, power, wealth, etc. they did was who they pushed down to get it.

Your piece of the pie is a lot bigger when you tell 60% of the people they don't get a slice.



I'll probably have more to say later, but in her defense: it's worth considering that somehow, we've come to a place where a 25-year-old man living at home and financially depending upon his parents is considered neither abnormal nor the social equivalent of leprosy. That strikes me as sort of fucked up.

 

It's only social leprosy if the parents are paying for the kids World of Warcraft account. You know he catches hell for that in his guild chat.

The More You Know...

 

A few of you have already alluded to this point, and rightfully so. Her view of a Man is one that is married with a family that he can provide for. That was back in the 50's when 22 year old boys got married and had kids with their 19 year old wives. Why? That was the the expected norm for everyone back then. My grandma was married by the age of 20, and by 35, she had 10 kids, all with my Grandpa who was 28 when they were married.

Real Men now a days, to me, as a legit Man in my mind, picture another Man as a successful, upstanding guy, who is able to provide for himself while still being able to save, can live on his own with no help, and can chose to live his life as he sees fit. I'm pretty sure most of you see this same way. We don't need to be married or have kids to live a long, fulfilling life.

I believe what she is talking about in the article is that select group of maybe 10% of the population of males of her age demographic who live at home off their parents money, don't have decent jobs, and have no motivation to do anything to change. They, in my mind, are not Men. That number of people has obviously grown over the past few years because the entire world is getting lazier as a whole and can accept a part time job as a legitimate means of gaining success. The other 90%, in my mind, strive to be something greater and will not accept defeat when faced with some troubling times.

I'm curious as to how many of the users of this board think they are mature adults. I for one, do. I have a steady job, a car, no debt, and I can live on my own whenever I want. I choose to not have a girlfriend and get married with a family and kids because I don't think they could handle my job. If I just so happened to stumble on the right girl tomorrow, I would hold off on marriage for a while, like 2-3 years, for when I turn 28-ish and know that she will be well taken care of and I can provide for her and our eventual family. I wouldn't expect to be considered a Man just because I'm married, it's just something that would make me more Manly that I was before.

 

Sorry, but who argued that? You're completely changing the parameters of this discussion. Stick to reality please.

A 25 y.o. man who lives at home is not the same as a 25 y.o. man who is single, has a roommate, and likes to play videogames. The latter is a totally legitimate lifestyle; that guy can still have other interests, a developing career, and plenty of credentials that indicate he hasn't been lazy with his life.

 

Few thoughts on why guys aren't "growing up" like they used to (some of which have been mentioned already here or in the article):

1. College. If you delay starting your career by 4 years, expect everything else to be delayed, too. This one's pretty simple.

2. College (debt). Most people want some sort of financial security before getting married (or want security in their spouse). College is more expensive, and more people are going, so we have more people with larger debt burdens. Take your 4 years in college and add another 4-40 spent paying it off.

3. Less church. Younger people go to church less, and church used to be a community center, and thus one of the main ways you would meet potential mates. Smaller social circle means less chance to find someone you want to marry.

4. Women less desperate. Women are getting more college degrees than men now, and in major cities, they out earn men (because the cities draw more college educated people). If the options used to be Daddy or Hubby, you might find a Hubby when you want to move away from Daddy. Now it's Daddy, Hubby, or Selfy. If women have less need to get married, they'll be more selective in choosing their men.

5. Long tail economics/information age/cheap distribution tools. Got a mediocre band in the 1950s? Great! Go get a job in a factory. Got the same band in the 2010s? Get a Macbook, do some decent audio editing, put it on iTunes, start a website, and actually have a shot at making money. Creative jobs are a more attainable opportunity now, and that means people are going to be less likely to settle for a "grown up" job. (ConstitutionalDaily.com launches on Friday!) No grown up job means less financial stability, less likely to get married. Also, your fun job you're working on isn't going to be acceptable to your girl friend's parents.

6. More big business. In a small business, the guy with 5 employees under him is called the Owner. In big business, you're a Team Lead, and there are a dozen more levels of management higher than you. It used to be that becoming management meant you were somebody, but not any more. You can be a VP and your job still means shit. That's not going to motivate a lot of people to get a grown up job. Same deal as #5.

7. We look at 5 and 6, and watch that "our great depression is our lives" scene from Fight Club again, and see our parents accept Dilbert as the natural order of the universe, and a lot of us reject that script. It leaves us without a script though, we're not sure what we're supposed to do, and we're not likely to start making babies until we figure it out.

8. Birth control and abortions. Fewer shotgun weddings.

 

If you think this and the phenomenon of "extended adolescence" are not related, you must have had trouble with connect-the-dots puzzles when you were a kid.

 

I think we're getting mature adult and man confused, they are not the same thing. By these standards I am not a mature adult, even though I am 32. I love dick and fart jokes, if there was a channel called "Ow, My Balls" I'd tune it nightly. I play Call of Duty, Madden and whatever the fuck else captures my attention nightly. I drink, watch and gamble on sports, and hang out with the fellas.

Conversely, I have had a steady job for 11 years. My car is paid off, I just bought a house straight cash homie, my bills and those of my fiance are paid and paid promptly. There are steaks in the freezer and beer in the fridge, now I ask you does that make me a man?

You're goddamn right it does.

 

I do, if you take the regulars into consideration that somebody may look for in a man: I never miss paying a bill, I am a faithful husband and my heart beats for my kid. I don't break shit in my house when I get mad, I'm not a drunk and when I do decide to take a walk out of my mind I do it elsewhere from my own home. I stay in great shape. Jealousy and insucurities I have none to offer. I have a full time job plus I own a small-time disc jockey business.

HOWEVER

I am a complete flake that radiates sarcasm like a hyrdrogen bomb at any opportunity. I wear rock t-shirts, Chuck Taylors, beat-up leather jackets and hockey jerseys. I smoke pot, act like a nut completely void of inhabitions when I get drunk and will point out the hardest, most hurtful truth on anybody who gets on my nerves.

What's "mature" and what's "immature"? Anybody could say the bottom things I talked about are immature, yet I refuse to be ashamed and/or apologize for ANY of them, because that's me and I'm utterly proud of it. Even if they ARE immature in your eyes, the top things outweigh the bottom things by infinity. We're all different, I hold no grudge or contempt for people that want to stay single or choose to because of what they do. Being single is FUN. Every single guy on the planet that has ever had sex where money didn't change hands will agree with me on that one.

 

MOAR STICKS FOR THE FLAME WAR

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-louts-20110213,0,2024755.story

Money quote:

I've personally found rascals to be the bigger problem, but I am no supporter of louts either. God help us should rapscallions return to vogue.

 

Those "beer commercials" this dumbass is talking about where they guy doesn't want to hear from his "hot girlfriend", you know what that is? Vengeance. Vengeance from men who have had to sit in silence for the last 25 years while women decided to become offended by everything. Every sitcom: Dumbass husband with get-rich quick schemes, wife swoops in to save the day in the last minute, repeat. Every stand-up comedian: "Women are smart and men are stupid (thunderous ovation)!!" Give a woman the Heimlich maneuver and save her life, she sues you for sexual assault (actually happened). In every single plot in every movie that had a battle of the sexes, the women were not only the "good guys", they always won even if it was a sporting contest, which in real life 99.9% of the time would result in the women getting their asses kicked back to the Dark Ages (honesty is not sexism). Then came the fucking Spice Girls.

These are people who are basically saying "We've put up with your shit for two decades, it's time to level the playing field and declare a stalemate." So, it's half honest and half fantasy. Hot chicks do not date fat, ugly men in real life. Unless he has coke.

 

You are very right, and I didn't put the maturity thing in there so my rant wouldn't be so long.
I, like you, am immature. I play video games when I want, I drink excessively, I gamble when I probably shouldn't, I make $16,000 when some guy...I mean I drink excessively.

The immaturity argument has two sides though. Even though we're Men, we like doing things that most teenage boys do, like play video games, go paintball, etc. Every guy has this side. It's part of being a guy, there's no denying that. But, there's also the side of immature that equates to the responsibility in someone's own life. I mentioned the kids who live at home under their parents veil of cash. These kids are financially immature, intellectually immature, and motivationally immature (you can substitute 'absent' for each 'immature' if you'd like). They think that they can hide-and-slide by without having to do anything in life, but bitch and complain when they can't convince their parents to buy them a new car, and don't feel it's their responsibility to work for it. Immature as a human being vice immature as a Man.

As for this bullshit...The first thing I saw was that his name was Neal, douchey. Then I saw the stupid picture, again, douchey. Then I read the caption. This pussy ass is not a man, nor is he mature. He is one of those hipster wannabe's who criticizes the normal Man. He sips wine, he has a keen sense of fashion (read: hipster douche), he loathe's those who watch football. Who uses the word lout anyway? Another tool trying to look, as he put it, sophisticated. More like a douchebag to me than anything else.

And doing a Wiki search for this guy, he graduated from University of Michigan...this automatically makes him suck.

 

That article is none other than a desperate attempt to get laid, period. Just like those assholes that show up to protest with feminists or try to pick up at breast cancer walks. Just another sleazy, mundane attempt to sound like you're sensitive in order to get into some sucker's panties. Lying to get laid is one thing, but actually selling out? Pathetic. I hope people throw paper airplanes into his cubicle at work. Or cinder blocks.

Wishful thinking. The day I meet an honest woman that says she wants nothing more than a sensitive man is the day I blow a homeless dude in the parking lot for Kings Of Leon tickets.