January 7, 2023
For New Years, I got hit with COVID, leading to a lovely sentence of one-week solitary confinement away from all those whom I hold dear. I must confess, after the whirlwind of the holiday season, it wasn’t such a bad thing. I had been enjoying a new weekly routine for the past month or so that included boxing training six days a week, weightlifting twice per week, and some cardio every night courtesy of Planet Fitness (about the only useful thing they provide; treadmills as far as the eye could see). This routine, along with some simple dietary changes, led to me losing 18 pounds and seeing my blood pressure from hypertension drop from 135/100 to a very healthy 114/69.
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While stuck inside, I did what every adult ends up doing eventually, clicking on YouTube videos, the new version of channel surfing. As I was recently re-introduced to fitness, many of my searches led to fitness YouTubers such as Sean Nalewanyj and Noel Deyzel.
However, this rabbit hole very quickly veered into what is colloquially known as the “manosphere”—that is, YouTube content geared towards younger men and predominantly dealing with issues of self-improvement, dating, financial management, and becoming “high value.” Picture a whole YouTube section that sounds like you made Jordan Peterson become a gym bro.
Perhaps what the manosphere easily gets the most correct is preaching to men that self-improvement is important and that masculinity is not something to be discarded or feel ashamed of. Denying the basic masculine traits such as competitive drive and aggression is not only irresponsible in modern society, but it’s also inherently dangerous,
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Without positive outlets for those instincts, such as sports and other means of personal improvement, men have no mechanism to learn how to control their instincts. Society ends up forcing young men to bury their own instincts, causing internal conflict until it comes out in much more destructive and uncontrolled ways.
Image: A young man who believes in himself by diana.grytsku.
These YouTube creators decry the term “toxic masculinity” and often counter with the phrase “Reject modernity, embrace masculinity,” This is a popular topic for many YouTube video montages showing the worst excesses of modernity while showing exceptional accomplishments of men of the past. These videos often preach many principles that modern men should re-discover, such as honor, chivalry, duty, and commitment, regardless of what the modern world thinks of those values.
Another talking point in the manosphere is trying to explain to modern women why they cannot find “good men.” Modern women are very quick to write off all men as horn dogs and scumbags while not understanding that they are all chasing only the top 15-20% of men. This leads to an abundance of options for those men, while the remaining 80-85% of men on dating apps are completely ignored.
Indeed, to get a pretty good indicator of the delusions powering the modern dating scene, one only needs to look at the hundreds of women on social media demanding a man over 6’ tall (less than 10% of the male population) or, worse, over 6’2” (less than 3% of the population). It gets even crazier when these same women think that $200,000 a year is the median income for a 35-year-old man.
That’s the good stuff in the Manosphere. The problem with the Manosphere is that, while it correctly diagnoses some of the troubles of modern society, the prescriptions are often ridiculous and, in some cases, destructive. The manosphere preaches self-improvement, but the end goal isn’t monogamy and a steady, happy marriage with children. Instead, its advocates teach men to strive to live as a “Top G,” living a lavish materialistic lifestyle complete with hedonistic exploits with multiple women.
Basically, rather than fix the imbalance that has women chasing a small percentage of men, the manosphere says, “Hey, if you can’t beat them, be them”; that is, join that percentage and enjoy the spoils of the harem. This doesn’t fix the inherent issues with marriage rates or birth rates in the Western World, nor does it foster soul-fulfilling relationships.
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Maybe, just for a change, we could start by being honest to both men and women about what behaviors will lead to actual fulfillment. I’m going to take my best shot at it. I’ll start with the men.
Guys, your life will be one of hardship, and you will need to step up and be the provider. I’d rather you learn this now and not get blindsided by it in the future.
Most of you will not become rich, but it’s way more important for you to become secure financially to help build a home for a family. Wasting your time playing video games, getting lost in anime, and other mindless, wasteful activities is to live in the children’s domain. It must be relegated to small amounts of time, if not eliminated entirely.
Find what you’re good at and make a career for yourself. If that involves college, great; if not, that’s fine too.
Work on yourself in all aspects, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Women will always judge you on looks, and it’s not their fault because that’s how we’re all wired, so make yourself the best prospect you can.
Be respectful, be honorable, and be a gentleman, even if someone doesn’t like it. Have discipline in your life, honor your commitments and, above all, maintain your integrity.
Look for a woman who shares your values, be they religious, political, or personal. Be committed to fatherhood when the time comes and instill in the next generation the values of hard work, discipline, and the satisfaction of building a home, not just a house.
Ladies, if you want a high-value man of the type I’ve just described, there are two things you must do. The first is to keep the body count to a minimum. I know it’s an unrealistic requirement in 2023 for anyone to save themselves for marriage anymore but try to keep it to committed relationships only.
The second thing you do is try to get a high-value man before he’s achieved that high value. That may sound counter-intuitive but stick with me here.
While a man most likely won’t have financial stability in his early to mid-20s, you will be able to tell what his personal values are. I can assure you that the right values and the right mindset lead to success. There’s a reason the joke in the past was that women went to college to get their MRS.
No one’s saying you can’t finish school or have a career of your own, but the time to find whom you want as a life partner isn’t when you’re in your 30s; it’s when you’re in your early 20’s that you are at your highest value. It’s at that moment that you should be looking for your high-potential prospect and buying low on him before his stock soars, which it will, thanks to the values he’s put on himself.
I wouldn’t preach this approach if I didn’t know from experience. My wife saw the diamond in the rough that I was and, while I hardly had the financial stability or the career planned out yet when we met, she saw the values I carried in myself, so she went all in. Sixteen years later, we have a beautiful daughter, a house, a six-figure income, and a happy fulfilling life, no “Top G” lifestyle required.
Gregory McCants is a pseudonym.
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