Tag: relationships

Seriously, WTF?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

A billboard in Bismarck, ND blew my mind.

Source: Photo by The Glorious Studio from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-diamond-rings-12427696/

I had to go out of town recently for a dentist appointment as medical service providers are few and far between in the great stupid state of North Dakota. Since there was nobody in network in my town, and my previous dentist office hardly ever has an actual dentist on staff — just hygienists and one moron office manager— I had to drive three and a half hours to go to a new dentist for X-rays and a cleaning.

Yes, I had to stay over night in a hotel, rent a car, and drive halfway across a state just for a one hour appointment. It’s insane, I know.

But that’s nothing compared to a completely fucking insane billboard I saw while I was down there.

I was parked at a Wendy’s eating my actually not bad spicy chicken sandwich when I looked across the road and I saw a big yellow billboard for a jeweler in town advertisting payment plans for engagement rings for as long as 48 months.

What??? I almost dropped my sandwich in shock. Who the fuck is financing a diamond engagement ring for four years? Good Christ, most marriages don’t even last seven years. You might be getting divorced by the time you pay the damn thing off.

My mind was blown. I was utterly floored. Are people — “men” — actually doing this, I wondered. I couldn’t believe it. Then I began to think about the many, many imbecilic male slobs I’d encountered in my life. Slovenly creatures in backwards hats, flip flops, scruffy beards, cargo shorts, forearm tattoos, fast food afficionados, fantasy football betting, sports-enthused, vape-toking, video game playing, Monster Energy drink sipping Neanderthals — yes, I could totally see many of these specimens going “Hur dur, happy wife, happy life,” and walking into that jewelry store ready to sign up for basically car payments on a twinkling rock for their idiot girlfriends.

Am I the only one who sees how insanely stupid this is?

How dumb do you have to be to sign up for four long years of debt just for a rock? There are a million better things to spend money on in a new marriage than a piece of bling.

Dear men, stop doing this to yourselves. Seriously.

No woman who truly loves you and wants to be with you would want you to finance a rock for four years. Only a gold-digging Instagram thot who takes seflies at the gym in her booty shorts would demand that, not someone truly worthy of years of your sacrifice and financial hardship.

A worthy woman would want you to put that money toward a house, furniture, a car, baby things, or other practical purchases that really matter and help build the foundation for a successful marriage and family. Not a shiny stone.

An engagement ring is just a symbol. She didn’t win the fucking Super Bowl, gents. Buy her something modest and within your budget, and move the fuck on in life.

In fact, this makes for a good litmus test. The bigger the rock she expects, the bigger the undeserving asshole she likely is.

This simp epidemic has to stop. I mean, think about the underlying misandry of that billboard’s message. It reflects a societal expectation that men go out and financially fuck themselves royally as a traditional precursor to marriage.

Now imagine the message, but directed at women. Imagine that billboard was offering payment plans on appliances like washing machines, dishwashers, and dryers that women go buy so when they get married they can be good little stay at home housewives. Or imagine it was advertising payment plans on BOOB JOBS so hubby can have a nice set of flesh pillows to bury his face in after a hard day’s work. Imagine all the outrage at that.

Well, it’s the same thing with this silly and frankly asinine expectation that men burden themselves for years for a stupid rock.

Fuck. That.

I could see dropping like $5k on an engagement ring. Maybe even $10k if it’s within your budget. But only if you can pay that in cash and it’s not going to force you into indentured servitude for the length of a presidential term.

Marriage is tough enough without additional and unnecessary financial burdens. Why make it needlessly harder on yourself?

I wouldn’t care if it were Sydney Sweeney. I’d rather be single for life than finance a rock for ANYONE.

Seriously, WTF?

Women Are Abandoning Marriage Because Men Suck So Hard Evidently

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

How do you find your missing half when you’re already perfect as is?

Made with Midjourney.

There’s this hilarious scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry is over a friend’s house eating dinner and he notices that the glass of water he’s drinking is unfiltered from the tap. This petty but not unimportant observation leads to his host being offended, and Larry (surprise, surprise) getting kicked out.

You just can’t win with people like Larry. You serve them a nice dinner in a nice apartment with good friends and fun conversation, and they’ll still find some unforgivable flaw in your presentation that crumbles the whole affair.

What does this have to do with the point of this article? Well, it would seem many women have essentially become a bunch of Larry Davids, while men are that distasteful unfiltered tap water. Except while Larry David remains cuddly and lovable despite his eccentricities and obsessions with behaviorial minutiae, this whole “men ain’t up to snuff” refrain we keep hearing is getting old and ugly and obnoxious, not to mention making women actually come off looking worse.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “American Women Are Giving Up On Marriage.” A title written as if it should be blasted by a bullhorn atop a castle wall and met with wailing and gnashing of teeth by sackcloth-wearing commoners in the streets below.

However, I think a more honest title would be what I wrote in the sub-title section above: “How do you find your missing half when you’re already perfect as is?”

These types of rah-rah-women articles pop up now and again like herpes sores, and like that STI, they ain’t ever going away. Nor should they. It’s good to be reminded that women are surpassing men and that men are falling woefully behind and that women are so clearly better and have tons of options and that men suck and blah, blah, blah. Afterall, women’s clear superiority may not be readily evident to us boorish and ignorant men with our thick skulls. We must be constantly reminded of women’s superiority and our unfiltered tap waterness lest our puny male brains forget. Frankly, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t see these articles constantly.

I’ll spare you the details of this latest update on the state of the Überfem. It’s your standard, “women are making more money and graduating with more degrees while the pool of men in similar economic positions is shrinking” celebrat — or, lament. Basically, we’re suffering from an epidemic of unworthy, unmarriagable male losers! Meanwhile, the number of elite world-beating boss babes has never been higher.

A 29-year-old woman says of house hunting and having kids:

“I’m financially self-sufficient enough to do these things myself,” said Vorlicek, a Boston-based accountant. “I’m willing to accept being single versus settling for someone who isn’t the right fit.”

Well, given the absurdly low-barrier to qualify for mortgage loans, virtually anyone is financially self-sufficient enough to “buy” a home if they have a job and a pulse, so I’m not sure how much of a flex that really is anymore.

But let’s examine the glaring contradiction in her statement. This lady is NOT okay with settling with a full-grown man who “isn’t the right fit.” Okay, fair enough. However, she IS okay with giving birth to a child, who could end up being any random personality, good or bad, and to whom she’ll be legally and physically responsible for, and unable to extricate herself from without severe difficulty.

I mean, at least with the man you can dump or divorce him and make him go away (eventually). A kid is kind of stuck in your life FOREVER. Or at least for 18 years.

I could be wrong, but what I’m picking up subtextually from this almost-thirty-lady is a pathological need for control. What kind of a person is incapable of managing the vagaries of an adult relationship, but feels they are finely suited for taking on the rearing of a child? Children as we know never present any difficulties whatsoever. They are houseplants, really. Stick them in the corner and just forget about them.

No, seriously, you’d have to be some kind of anti-social asshole control freak to actually think that.

This next lady was confronted with a simple directive from her mama bear: Get a boyfriend by Christmas. But she ran into complications:

Katie spent the first half of 2024 going on three or four dates a week with men she met on apps, such as Hinge and Bumble, in the hopes of finding a husband before turning 30. By the end of the year, she had ramped down the search, calling it “the only thing you can put 10,000 hours into and end up right where you started.”

[Bold-face above mine]

Three or four dates a week? For the first half of the year? Hmmm…let me break out the abacus for this one. Thirteen weeks…three or four a week. That adds up to anywhere between 39 to 52 dates in total.

Mind you, these are NOT just random men. These are the men that SHE chose from the vast sea of spermatozoa via the apps. These are the cream of the crop, no pun intended. Yet none measured up after a real-life meeting in the flesh? Seriously? None?

NOTE: If you can’t find an acceptable partner amongst a pool of prescreened applicants that YOU chose for fifty dates, most likely YOU are the problem, not them.

But no, let’s hear the cope:

Many of the men Katie met, she said, either seemed turned off by her ambition or weren’t career-oriented enough for her. She felt discouraged by just how many of her male friends similarly said they expect their future wives to prioritize their families over their jobs.

By the way, Katie’s big professional ambition is running Lume, a “leadership coaching startup” in NYC. I tried looking it up and the only companies I found with the name Lume were a cannabis dispensary in Michigan and some site that sells women’s deodorant. Since I’m sure Katie’s Lume is a highly lucrative elite consulting empire and surely not just a couple gals gabbing away in a rent-by-the-hour office somewhere, I’ll just assume this glaring oversight on Google’s part in not ranking it on the front page is due to sexism and misogyny.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-black-tank-top-holding-white-ceramic-cup-3779760/

This next young, er, middle-aged rather, lady, laments a failed relationship, saying:

“He wanted the white picket fence and me at home with the kids,” Jones said. This despite the fact that her salary was nearly 50% higher than his.

Jones is 38, and from her picture, bordering on obese. In other words, she likely has a narrow chance of becoming pregnant and carrying a child fully to term without luck or expensive IVF treatments anyway. So, I’m not sure where her former BF got off thinking she was going to be having kids anytime soon. I’d say that ship has sailed. And since we don’t know her salary, we don’t know how much more she makes than her ex-beau. But it’s not like she’d have to become a dreaded stay at home mom forever. Likely just for a few years until the kid is old enough to go to school on their own. Then she can return to work. Millions of women do this every year. It sounds like her former BF was just concerned that his child would have a committed parent there for him or her for the first few critical years of their life. I say good on him and hope he found someone better.

This next lady is 33 and has a five-year-old from an ex, but she frets she won’t be able to find anyone because:

She has yet to date anyone else in part because she worries about living in a red state with a six-week abortion ban. “I have a child that I can’t leave behind to drive to Virginia if I had a pregnancy scare, and I definitely can’t afford another child as a single mom,” she said.

LOL. Fucking LMAO.

In addition to the litany of criteria men must worry about qualifying for in a relationship, now we must contend with being rejected solely because some lady can’t run to the nearest kill-a-kiddo center in the offchance our rigorous premarital boning results in an unexpected pregnancy?

“Hey Bob, why’d your last girlfriend dump you?”

“Because Planned Parenthood was two states away!”

Imagine hearing that.

What kind of low lifes is this lady fucking? No, let me put it another way. Why would you be okay with fucking a guy but not okay with him babysitting your kid for a few hours while you dash across state lines for the ol’ vag vacu-suck? That’s essentially what she’s saying here. If he’s not responsible enough to babysit your kid, then maybe you shouldn’t be fucking him. Just a thought.

Here’s the deal. When you’re consistently presented with dozens of partner options; when you’re in your late 30s and you’ve sampled a buffet of male suitors for two decades; when you’ve been through college and had one opportunity after another to partner up; when you live in a fucking major city and you still can’t find a guy who “measures up,” it’s not because there aren’t quality guys. It’s because you’re a picky, unsatisfiable asshole. You’re a female Larry David. That is who you are. Only not funny. Not cuddly. And not lovable.

And to quote the hostess from that Curb scene, “I think you should leave.” Thank you.

Rich Idiots Are Paying $1 Million For A Chance At Love

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

This bizarre new scheme also raises questions about our culture’s ultra intense selectivity towards mates.

Made with Midjourney.

I think it was the Beatles who sang about how “money can’t buy me love.” Well, clearly that’s very wrong, stupid, and backwards thinking. Because now there’s a new matchmaking service called Three Day Rule in Los Angeles catering to ultra high net worth clients. The price tag — one million dollars.

Now, you would think with a cost that high that maybe only a handful of people would express interest. You’d be wrong again, as over 100 people applied. The service only plans to take on three people, however. Which means hypothetically — and this is for all you side hustlers out there — that you could TOTALLY take advantage of the remaining 97+ with your own million dollar dating scheme. That’s more than $97 million left on the table. Good luck.

Man, here I am thinking paying a dating app $50 a month for “Platinum Level” is outrageously egregious and akin to buying into an obvious pyramid scheme. Turns out I’m woefully underestimating the willingness some people have to burn cash for empty promises.

So, what do you get for a million bucks anyway? According to the service’s CEO, Adam Cohen-Aslatei:

Cohen-Aslatei described the service as a “one-year intensive dating program,” in which Three Day Rule manages practically every aspect of clients’ dating lives. The company assigns each client a dedicated recruiter, who flies across the country, visiting social clubs, bars and Equinox gyms in search of a match. Matchmakers plan dates in minute detail, and dating coaches prep clients and their matches for dates on everything from hairstyling to etiquette.

It sounds like Three Day Rule is basically a booking agent, like an actor would have. Only instead of hustling to get you a bit part on some shitty sitcom for union minimum, Three Day Rule is out there scouring the globe for a potential lifelong partner. Along the way they are coaching you to make you a better catch in the process.

Hmmm, I could be wrong, but if you’ve got a million bucks to throw around on something like this, I’d say there’s a good chance you’re already a high-value Type-A prospect anyway. People spending this kind of money don’t just have a few million. They are probaby multi-decamillionaires. They are in the top one percent of the one percent. How much better could you really get?

Also, Three Day Rule? That sounds a little too close to “Five Second Rule.” The maxim that says if you drop a cookie on the floor it’s still okay to eat it if you pick it up within five seconds. Might want to consider a name change there.

If you’re looking to be included into the pool of potential recruits for a shot to shack up with a millionaire, you better be ready at the airport. Cohen-Aslatei adds:

…we send our recruiters to airports around the country to sit at the gates going to the cities our clients are located in. And they strike up conversations, they get to know them, and then we decide they’re going to be palatable and the right type of a match for our client.

Just great. Now instead of only worrying about handsy TSA agents patting you down, assholes playing music loudly on their phones, flight delays, and overpaying for crappy food and beverages, you’ll have to contend with under cover Cupids possibly probing you as match for some rich dork who can’t be bothered to chat people up on their own. Nice.

Look, anyone who uses this service is stupid, obviously. But it raises questions about the ridiculous way in which we as a culture value and assess possible mates, and the oftentimes impossible standards we apply. No one wants to “settle” these days. Everyone wants to hold out for a “better deal.” This is largely due to social media and the infinite scroll of dating apps, which, like a viewing portal into a magical land, offer a fictitious glimpse of a better life with glamorous people. We’re beset with a paradox of choice, always thinking something better is just around the corner. The effect is people become disposable, useful only until the next “upgrade” is available.

Meanwhile, marriage rates and pregnancy rates continue to drop. All this apparent availability and choice haven’t made the process of finding love better. It’s made people crazy enough to actually try a service like this. If people are willing to pay this much for a chance at a partner, that to me is indicative that things today are truly desperate and broken.

Using this service is also hideously materialistic and soullessly calculative. As if you could buy a partner as you would a yacht or a personal jet. You could almost certainly do better attracting mates by simply getting a cute puppy and going for walks around your neighborhood. There are free dogs at the shelter up for adoption everyday. You could revamp your wardrobe for a few thousand. You could hit the gym and get into shape. You could take classes in-person at a local college. Or participate in expensive hobbies that other high networth people tend to be attracted to — private pilot lessons, going on luxury vacations, or golfing, for instance.

Let’s say you did happen to find a marriage partner using this service, but then you get divorced in two years. What then? That’s a pretty high price to pay just to have someone share your bed for 24 months. You could afford a high-end $1000 escort to fuck your brains out every weekend for nearly TWENTY YEARS for the same price, and you wouldn’t have to worry about losing half your shit in divorce court when your partner randomly decides things “aren’t working out for them” anymore.

Maybe money can’t buy you love. Or maybe it can. There are plenty of gold diggers out there willing to shack up with an uggo just to drive a Mercedes-Benz. But I do agree with the notion that the “best things in life are free.” While we as a society keep trying to monetize and systemize everything in sight, love will remain the one thing you can’t put a price tag on.

Tired of Getting No Matches On Dating Apps? Just Lower Your Standards Into The Basement

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

My brief experience with Match.com.

Made with Midjourney

As an experiment, last night I created an account on Match.com. I know, I know. Why the hell would I do that in this day and age? Dating apps have gone the way of the dodo bird and all. Well, I like to think of myself as a sexy rogue scientist. I don’t have any credentials, degrees, or research papers to show for it. But so what? Edgar Allan Poe dreamt up black holes and the Big Bang theory (the theory itself, not that stupid show) while scribbling drunk off his ass decades before so-called “real scientists” confirmed them. If he can theorize things, I can too.

I says to myself, there’s just no way all these reports I hear of the shockingly low number of quality female matches on these apps can be correct. It has to be Red Pill Propaganda. Fake news designed to demoralize men so they don’t even bother trying in the first place. Disinformation to help juice the search algo for all those Andrew Tate “woman-hating” clones out there. I refused to believe any of that. I will remain an eternal optimist.

Anyway, I create my profile. It’s easy, and only takes a few minutes. I even uploaded a few hot pics of myself. I mean, all pics of me are hot, but just to clarify. After inputing all the necessary info, Match then confronted me with some criteria questions. Would you date a woman with kids? Since there’s not a “Fuck no, I’m not a step-sucker,” option, I had to contend with just clicking the box for “No.” Then there’s a tab you can click that says “must-have.” That means single mommies will be EXCLUDED from your results. Good riddance, says I. I’m not into funding some other man’s sperm bank. I mean, when you go into Mcdonald’s, do you start digging into the trash can for a leftover half-eaten Big Mac? No. You walk up to that counter and order a brand new one. Only degenerates, beggars, and the mentally ill eat out of trash cans. So, why would you treat your dating life any different?

Next came the age criteria. I’m 42 so I usually set the age between 27–35, but I was feeling magnanimous so I upped it to 37. I know super old Bill Belichick, 70s, is dating some hot chick in her 20s these days. But since I haven’t won any Super Bowls (yet) and I’m not worth $100 million+ (yet) I have to try to be realistic. It is what it is.

I live in the upper midwest, which is basically like living on Mars at a giant truck stop. So, usually on ANY dating app I have to expand the search zone out as far as reasonable in order to get any matches whatsoever. This time I set it to 350 miles. Though honestly, 345 miles of that is just me humoring the site. I don’t think I’d make the effort to even cross the street these days for a date, much less travel across an entire state. But you can’t just put five miles where I live, and even 50 miles wouldn’t be enough. Tree fiddy felt like a happy medium.

Then, it was off to the races. If by races, you mean a pitiful rogues gallery of candidates. Like, I’m pretty sure Batman fought some of the freaks I saw. Match doesn’t let you search by grid unless you have an upgraded account, so I was forced to inspect each profile one by one “swipe-’em” style. It took about as long to get through them as it does to read this paragraph.

How did I do, overall? It was absolutely awful, to be blunt. I ran into the same issue I had with speed dating, which I talk about in this article here. Out of about 20 or so candidates, realistically I’m left with only about 2–3 that are legit potentials. Meaning women who aren’t too old, aren’t fat, don’t exhibit a bad attitude toward men or have “trauma,” aren’t covered in sleeve tattoos, don’t have a list a mile long of necessary atttributes for the perfect man, and haven’t done the ol’ slut-to-born-again-Christian routine so many post-30 year-old ladies like to do these days.

Match has the gall to beg for pricey upgrades. Like I’m going to pay $40 for a meager 2–3 above average profiles that are most likely months old and long forgotten by their users, or are getting spammed by a hundred other dickheads on the daily.

Sometimes, Match would get clever and try to sneak one in from my reject list. I’d be swiping along and then suddenly see a half-decent female, click on their profile, only to see she had two kids at home, or see that she was 48 years old, or see some other disqualifying bullshit. LOL, nice catfish, Match, but this guy has standards.

It’s hard to understate how atrocious these results are. This is Match.com, which is basically the Wal-Mart of dating apps. The Match Group owns like half the online dating sites. I think Match itself is the biggest dating site on the planet. Yet by simply tweaking a few parameters over a massive region and adjusting for women in the PRIME dating/marriage range, I was met with nothing but slim pickens, though ironically few were actually slim. If Match results are total shit, I can’t even imagine what lesser sites might produce. Probably something from the Garbage Pail Kids. Gross.

It’s not really Match’s fault, I guess. They only show you whoever signs up. Dating apps aren’t as popular as they once were. The best people are typically not on or in need of dating apps. Or maybe they’re using Facebook, Instagram, or other sites.

Then it hit me. My eureka moment. What if I were to lower my standards? Or abandon them altogether? What if I tried removing ALL my previously set parameters. Surely that would open the floodgates of opportunity. Surely, by some chance, I’d happen across a nugget of gold in this landfill. Right?

Nah, fuck that, I thought, and deleted my account less than an hour after opening it. So long, Match. Burn in hell.

Years ago, when I was a little kid, I had this sudden weird urge to dig a hole in my backyard one day. Why? Hell if I know. It made sense at the time. So, I grabbed a shovel and started digging out behind a giant bush in the corner of the property. I dug and I dug and I dug until it was past nine o’clock. The sun was still out as it was summer. I had probably reached maybe three feet and had a nice heap of dirt beside me. My step-dad came out and asked me why I was digging the hole. I didn’t have an answer. What kid has a rational explanation for anything he does? I just kind of stood there, shrugged, and then went back to digging. He was wearing shorts and tube socks pulled all the way up. He was the kind of guy who needed his tube socks always pulled up past his calves. He stands there a bit. I keep shoveling with his stupid step-dad tube-socked feet in the corner of my eye. Finally, I hear him sigh and then walk away from me, leaving me in peace at last. Not long after my hole has become the shape of an upside-down tear drop as I couldn’t flatten the sides anymore. And that’s when I see something at the bottom.

A little piece of blue something. I reached down to pick it up, straining my shoulders against the top of the hole, until I am able to pinch it between my fingers. It’s a piece of plastic. Maybe from a shopping bag. Or perhaps the coating of a pipe that peeled away. Except there’s no pipe in my hole. It’s just this random tidbit that somehow got down in the dirt and stayed there until I rescued it from oblivion. I take this little blue “treasure” inside with me and store it away. I’ve since lost it. But it became a haunting metaphor for life about chance, timing, opportunity, and such, that I’ve thought about from time to time. I’ve applied the metaphor to job searches, school applications, business ideas, stories, and now of course dating websites. Dig and dig only to end up with a piece of trash. But who knows. Maybe if I’d dug just six feet to the right where my step-dad’s tube-socked feet were standing I might have dug up a wheat penny. Or maybe hit an electrical line and shocked myself to death.

Dear Broke Old Men Knocking Up Young Women In South East Asia: You’re Not Mick Jagger

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Cradle-robbing, wrinkly, and penniless sad sacs are giga-generating single moms and fatherless kids in SEA. That is some bullshit right there.

For a guy who sings about not getting any satisfaction, Rolling Stones frontman, the legendary (and knighted) Mick Jagger actually has eight kids. His latest, named Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger, arrived back in 2016 when the singer was freaking 73 years old. At the time his partner, American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, was 29 years old.

To that I say, good for you, buddy. With the population plummeting across most of the world, we need stone cold Sperminator’s like the old Mickster firing on all cylinders, so to speak. Afterall, the guy’s got to be a billionaire at this point. He’s been a rock and roll legend for over five decades. If he croaks tomorrow, he’ll be leaving an enormous estate to his wife and children. I bet each of his kids already has a $50M+ trust fund in their name ready to go for fast cars, vintage clothing, and high-quality blow, or whatever it is trust fund babies get up to these days.

While a massive pile of cash can never replace your one and only father, it certainly goes very far in securing you a comfortable existence, and allows you to appreciate the legacy of your sire.

But is this good idea for every old guy out there with a solid sperm count?

Having children in your 70s as a man, while biologically possible, is fraught with various risks and downsides. Chiefly that you likely won’t be around to see your kids grow up, or won’t be in any kind of shape to do so anyway. It’s hard to play catch with a 12-year-old when you’re in a nursing home hooked up to an IV.

But hey, love is love, and if you’re a guy like Jagger with “wealth and taste” and still able to get that sweet, sweet honey, I say go for it.

However, pulling a Mick Jagger is not something that can work or should work for most men. Which brings me to my point of outrage in this article.

What the fuck is up with broke and old ass loser geriatrics knocking up young hotties in South East Asia, and then leaving behind penniless single moms and fatherless children after they croak?

There’s an old guy I follow on YouTube who lives in the Philippines. He chronicles his experiences there, interviews other expats, and shares pearls of widom about love, life, money, and getting older. He’s married to a beautiful Filipina in her 20s. Just this year his wife gave birth to a son.

But just recently, this guy died unexpectedly from a stroke and heart attack at the tender age of 69.

I won’t name or link to the channel out of respect for the friends and family of the guy. He had an interesting life story. He moved to the Philippines about five years ago out of desperation, unemployed, broke, with only social security, needing to live in a place with a very low cost of living. But most importantly wanting to restart his life somewhere after years of health and employment problems in the States. He’d been divorced for some time, and had grown children. After settling in, he started his YouTube channel, which eventually blew up and has nearly 100,000 followers now.

Now, I liked this guy, don’t get me wrong. He was a model expat in some ways. Productive, enterprising, intelligent, and contributing back to his adoptive country. However, his wife and a friend posted a video where they announced his passing, and then proceeded to ask for donations to a PayPal link for help during this tough time. This guy was not totally broke. He was living off SS and YouTube revenue. But now with him gone his wife is a single mom and will likely have to move back in with her parents. She has no financial support. They intend to probably keep his channel going, but YouTube channels die quick deaths if you don’t post regularly, and even “successful” channels don’t all make a lot of money. This poor woman is only in her late 20s. She still has a long life ahead of her. Worst of all, this infant child will now grow up without ever knowing his father.

I’m sorry, but that is some bullshit. I don’t have a problem with age gaps in relationships. Even wide ones like this guy and his wife had. I don’t even care so much if these old farts are knocking these young women up. However, if you’re going to do that, you’d better have plenty of resources to leave behind if/when you die, so that, you know, you don’t leave your wife and offspring in dire fucking straits.

Obviously this old guy was going to die way before his young wife. It’s great that he met someone and fell in love and had a kid. But you have to take into account the problems you’re creating when you leave your family nothing. The Philippines, and South East Asia in general, is filled with impoverished single moms who got either got ditched by expats, or the expat up and died. Many old men go over there and find relationships with younger women. That’s all fine. But let’s not pretend that these women are not naive about the risks. Many of them just want to have a White baby with a foreigner. They don’t care or are not aware of how screwed they can get.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy old guys are able to make a go of the expat life over there. I’m happy these old guys are able to restart their lives. But let’s not pretend the West is “sending its best” over there. Most of these guys are broke losers who wouldn’t get a glance from women their own age back home. Most of these guys are barely getting by on pensions or SS. Many of the Filipinas over there don’t realize that, of course. They just see a Western guy and think that’s their ticket to security. Or they see a White guy and want their shot at a mixed-race baby with White genes. I’ve visited the Philippines before myself. Fuck how these YouTubers glamorize that tropical country, people are desperate as hell over there.

I grew up without ever knowing my real father. There isn’t a day that goes by where it doesn’t hurt that I lost that opportunity. While I’ve since connected with my dad, who’s still alive and active, this expat guy’s son will never have that chance. I think it’s very foolish and irresponsible to leave your wife and kids in that situation like this expat guy did. But he’s not the only one. There’ are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of old dudes doing the same thing, and leaving these women and children behind in the same conditions, if not worse.

I’m not saying you’ve got to be a multi-millionaire if you’re a geriatric with plans for having a late family. But you’d better have enough so your wife isn’t going on the internet with a virtual change cup and asking internet strangers for alms for the poor. What the hell kind of a legacy is that to leave behind?

Do We Need To Start Husband And Wife Schools?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Society must deal with declining birth rates, low population, and the shocking lack of baseline domesticity of our species.

Teenagers at a party in Tulsa, Oklahoma 1947. Author unknown.

I have an ex-girlfriend who was borderline incompetent at most things in life.

That’s putting it as nicely as I can.

Her apartment was always a mess. I came over one Thursday night with groceries to make dinner. Her place looked like a bomb went off. I cleaned up the kitchen, then proceeded to make our meal. The following night I came over and her place was a disaster again. I’m talking plates with crumbs left on the floor by the sofa. Food wrappers left on the carpet. I had to clean up the kitchen again before making dinner for us both.

Her car was equally a disgrace, littered with papers, CDs, food wrappers, and other things.

She was a lazy slob who put ZERO effort into the relationship. She never came up with date ideas. Expressed no interest in having kids one day. Had no career ambitions. Couldn’t cook. Couldn’t clean, except when compelled. She constantly complained about part-time jobs she had. I think she got fired from one as a restaurant hostess.

She could, however, dress well. She looked nice. Put together. The only job she ever performed well at was as a model for a painter. A job that literally only required her to sit still and look pretty for an hour. That’s it.

Oh, and she was “pansexual,” or something that meant it took her a “long time to warm up to being physical with anyone.” Long time as in months or even years.

So, a prude. I love these modern made-up words about sexuality that describe basic human behavior that’s been around for thousands of years.

Unsurprisingly, our relationship did not last. I couldn’t stand to be with someone who seemed incapable of baseline adult functioning. She was also petulant and child-like in her attitude. I once took her to a college football game and she literally sat there and stewed the whole time. This was after enthusiastically agreeing to go. We left at halftime.

Now, possibly this lady was inadvertantly trained to be useless. She was the baby in her family, and her folks had money. So, there might have been some poor upbringing in there. But her older sister and brother were competent adults with jobs and families and drive. What the hell happend to her, I used to wonder, before finally breaking things off.

It wasn’t just that she couldn’t do most adult responsibilities. It was that she almost seemed proud to be deliberately helpless. It was a badge of honor. This is not a unique thing amongst many modern women I’ve observed, especially uber feminists. Domestic duties are somehow seen as beneath many of them. As if being able to do laundry and clean the kitchen is a betrayal of some feminist code or something. Yet such duties are common household functions. I do them all the time and I don’t feel “feminized.” It was just one of my chores growing up that I still use in my everyday behavior today. Because, you know, I like things being clean and not disgusting around me.

The oppressive, patriarchal 1950s we’ve all been told was a living nightmare for women. Photo from 1959. Author unknown.

Years ago I had a very good-looking friend. I mention he was very good-looking because I’m quite sure his attractiveness was the source of all his good fortune in life. He was a POS lazy ne’er do well, otherwise, and the kind of guy I tend to have contempt for. But he was a nice guy and had an easygoing personality. He had an attractive girlfriend who did EVERYTHING for him. She cooked, cleaned the house, managed his finances — giving him an “allowance” out of his own pay after deducting for expenses —all while holding down a full-time job. She also had a bachelor’s degree. They were an odd couple. She was a driven, capable professional. He was a former pot dealer who slept on his friend’s sofa before shacking up with Wonder Woman. There could not be a bigger contrast. Yet they were together.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. My good-looking friend confided to me one evening that he and his girlfriend hadn’t been intimate in a long time. I was surprised, kinda. I suppose it’s hard to fuck a guy — even a hot guy — when you’re practically his mother. They’re married today, however. A development I’d cynically say was probably due more to the sunk costs fallacy than some genuine deep connection they shared. Or maybe my bum ass ex-friend actually matured and started pulling his own weight for once in life.

He was also your typical gamer dude, capable of long hours in front of the big screen zoned out doing whatever-the-fuck. What is it with dudes and gaming nowadays? I played the original NES for a few years as a kid, but that was it. If I try to play a game now I start to go quietly insane. They’re so stupid and pointless. Yet guys in the their 30s and beyond will devote hours and hours to seeing if they can find a silly fucking sword or something for their character. I know guys with huge tattoos of their favorite game characters. That’s just weird to me. So many men are stupidly infantalized, desocialized, and underperforming these days. When you throw in ubiquitious pornography, and you might as well have most men plugged into a 24/7 morphone drip. We may not live in a bombed-out hellscape, but our society feels very dystopian these days.

As nice as my friend’s girlfriend was, honestly, I’d go crazy in a similar set-up myself. I don’t need a woman to baby me or run my life. I do just fine on my own. And the no sex deal…well, that’s a deal breaker, right there. Especially if we’re living together.

My point with all this is that men and women are not optimized for one another anymore. They are not optimized for a marriage or relationships in general. We are only optimized for our own individual needs, wants, and desires. We are like Baby People crying out for our bottles. There is only one word that exists in the collective unconscious — ME. Me, me, me.

Possibly — well, quite likely — this is the result of our ultra-individualist society. We are trained from birth to go through the school system, get an education, all so we can squeeze ourselves into some corporate Borg Cube. All while being hypnotized by the glowing rectangle of the computer/phone screen. Recently, I saw a post on X about how Gen Z women rank marriage as low as seventh on their list of priorities. Career and college were likely at the top.

I’ve mentioned before how in college when asked our future plans no one, not even the women, mentioned things like having a family or kids. Frankly, the very idea seems quaint and cringe or characterized as “traps” to anyone who isn’t a bonnet-wearing Mennonite or an immigrant from a region where having 5+ kids is basically a rite of passage. That’s honestly a shame, and narrows the reproductive window of opportunity. The women in my class were not in their teens, but mainly in their mid-20s. By contrast, my mom had me when she was 24. She had four kids. My grandmother started late relatively-speaking for her era, at 28, but she had 8 herself. Out of all my direct family, half-family, and former family, no one has had more than three kids, with most having none or one. And many of the women in my family had their kids after 30, which historically is pretty old to have a kid for the first time. I have none myself.

I don’t say of any this to shame or make fun. It’s just rather sad, and maybe more indicative of a restrictive and toxic economic climate than a statement on the broader culture. Or perhaps all our comfortable modern technology has lulled everyone into a numb ennui toward family and offspring. Who wants to change diapers when you could binge watch the latest Netflix slop? Why have actual kids when you could be a dog mom or a cat dad?

As in my two examples, even when relationships do miraculously occur, they can often be fake and unfulfilling as plastic flowers.

Whatever the reason for the divide, it seems men and women need some kind of New Deal. A restart. A reacclimation to one another. We put all this time and effort into training people to become monkeys for our corporate overlords. Why not add a School of Domesticity? Or at least pivot our cultural attitudes toward viewing genuine human connection as a natural positive, and not a punch line.

Should Men Only Get Married After They’re Financially Secure?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

The status of men today.

Made with Midjourney

Men occupy a strange Twilight Zone social status nowadays. On the one hand, we’re constantly barraged by charges of “toxic masculinity” while also many of us are simultaneously called “incels.” We’re both useless but also needed to serve as providers. Family courts see men largely as cash cows. The vast majority of divorces and child custody hearings favor women, at least in financial terms. Sometimes the child(ren) must stay with the mom because they are are still physically dependent on her. But most times it’s simply because men make the most money, and are therefore target-rich environments to scheming lawyers.

We’re a polarized, hierarchy-divided species. We’re either Alpha Male Chads (a small minority) or low-grade beta simps (the majority). Most of us are considered “ugly” by women, at least if reports from some dating app research are to be believed.

We’re a relic of the patriarchal past. Yet it is men who largely perform all the sweaty blue-collar labor that keeps society running. Who’s driving all those big rigs across the highways? It’s like 85% men. Same with plumbers, electricians, oilfield workers, etc. We do most of the work that keeps civilization humming.

And yet, despite performing so many essential functions in society, many men remain invisible, single, and alone these days. Relegated to acting as background code in the matrix of the universe, as it were.

Perhaps there are too many of us. In centuries past, many young men were sent off to war, where they died in battle or from disease. Or men went off to sea, encountering a variety of lethal dangers. China infamously enacted a one child policy years ago that favored male offspring. Now the country has a glut of men and not enough women to meet balanced mating needs, leading to a population crisis.

Most men in the past had to endure a culling process of some kind that thinned the herd a bit. Not now. The draft ended in the 1970s and there hasn’t been a war in the West since that’s required calling up millions of soldiers. At least not yet.

Meanwhile, women have made strides toward “equality,” if one believes such a thing can exist between the sexes. Women make more money and occupy more positions of authority. The result on the mating market has been seismic. Women are more selective on who they commit to long-term, and more prone to just staying single. Many are happy to wait until their 30s and even beyond for “Mr. Right.”

This new choice dynamic has favored high-status men, while often leaving many average men in the dust. It’s become like an arms race between the top-shelf men and women, with few winners, and many staying single and alone. Birth rates have dropped hugely, and as a result native populations around the West have declined. Even when people do get married today, they have far fewer children than before. Often only one or two, which barely keeps up the replacement rate.

No one wants to see a return to bloody wars and deadly maritime activities that saw the demise of millions of men over the centuries. But given the intense competition many young men face in the dating world, perhaps it’s better they turn their attention to leveling up financially and professionally before trying secure a long-term partner.

Men often go into the modern dating market completely unprepared for its harsh demands. They waste their time shooting their shot into the void of dating apps. Or they chase after women who just aren’t into them. Then they despair when they don’t gain traction.

It’s a costly blunder with often a net negative outcome, this ruthless pursuit of women in youth. Imagine if all that early to mid-20s energy were directed toward business enterprises, collegiate excellence, gymmaxxing, networking, hobby procurement, or at the least a fierce dedication to one’s job or industry. Instead, hours and dollars are wasted on chasing the siren call of “true love.”

Much time is wasted on other pointless things, too, of course. Things like video games, porn, binge drinking, TV, Netflix, movie marathons, and more. But much of the aforementioned is in the “blowing off steam” category. Often done after work or as a way to relieve stress. Not necessarily intentional with the end goal being a lifelong commitment to another person, offspring, and major lifestyle changes.

Though I disagree with the Red Pill’s often corrosive, schizoidal, and cynical outlook toward life and women in general, I do tend to affirm a lot of its generic be-your-best-isms and level-upping maxims for men. Men tend to do best when grouped in strict and clearly defined roles while directed by a forceful leader or “coach.” This is why men thrive on sports teams, military units, business squads, and other places that foster a brotherhood. The Red Pill sort of approximates this tribal dynamic.

You have to remember that most men today grew up with either absentee fathers or a limited fatherly presence, often while being raised by a single mother or by a dominant mother. All while going to school with most likely mainly female teachers. Women can complain all they want about men “sucking” today, but women by and large raised the current generation of men. So who’s to blame?

Anyway, back to the pursuit of marriage. Personally, I feel as a man that there are two best scenarios when it comes finding a partner. The most ideal is you find someone in your youth and stay together for life. I think it’s a shame that few people today have the opportunity, or even look for the chance, to find someone when they are really young. Instead they spurn that by screwing around, only to find themselves alone going into the dark early years of adulthood. Young love is the best kind, though it’s often not taken seriously. Granted, it’s rare for most people anymore. How many people meet their significant other in high school? Very few. I’m not embarassed to admit that as a teen I was a naive romantic myself, often dreaming of finding “the one.” Of course, like many male teens during that age period, I was a hot mess. I had neither the maturity nor means to manage such a situation. Nor was I ever seriously “in the game” to begin with, if we’re being honest. I never even had dates for the proms. But for those few who are and who find the right person, I say go for it.

The next ideal avenue is the ol’ seek your fame and fortune first before seriously seeking a mate option. This is actually the course many women choose today, though economics and the intense individualism of Western culture often forces the “choice” upon them. Often they forego marriage, children, even relationships in general, in favor of career and college. That leaves them with a much narrower reproductive window of opportunity.

But what is the alternative for women? Abandon their own careers for average schmucks who barely make $50,000 a year to be stay-at-homes with three and four kids? With today’s inflation? You can see the dilemma. Unless the guy is a real prize, he’s probably not worth lowering the drawbridge. Unless he’s just a rent-a-dick for the night.

I can’t speak to what women should or shouldn’t do, as I’m not a woman. But I think if you’re a man today the second option —become the best prize you can be — is the only practical route for most, really, as it provides the most optionality. Men may not go through a war or sea gauntlet today, but perhaps they need some kind of proving ordeal. Not in some fairy-tale-win-the-princess sense. But in a becoming a responsible adult person capable of dealing with the shit life throws at you sense.

The ugly alternative is this current “bottlenecking” of the mating market. I suspect my proposed male recession from the dating scene is actually already occurring. Except instead of self-improvement and leveling up, many men are regressing into an infantile state, playing video games, or substituting porn for human intimacy. Perhaps a gradual dawdling away into oblivion via mindless entertainment and distraction is the new war and sea gene filtering mechanism. Evolution does not seek sit-arounders, edible munchers, chronic masturbators, and button-mashers, but men with a plan. Heroes not zeroes.

Examining Another Red Pill Dicktum: “She’s Not Yours, It’s Just Your Turn.”

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Another Red Pill Dicktum anal-sis.

Made with Midjourney

The other night I went on one of those fantastic once in a blue moon dates that started off perfectly. The kind where you’re finishing each other’s sentences, laughing uproariously at each other’s jokes, and looking into each other’s eyes with chemical attraction, both thinking “This is the one!”

I’m not sure how the floodgates of simpatico opened. Was it our mutual rizz? My confidence? Her charm? Or maybe my seductive sweet talk.

Her: You’re unusually confident. Most guys turn into jibbering idiots around a Mars, Inc. heiress and Miss America contestant like myself.

Me: It’s because I know you’re not mine, it’s just my turn.

Her: That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.

Me: Right? If you and I were to get together, eventually you’d leave me beause of hypergamy, also known as “monkey branching.”

Her (swooning): You know so much about female nature.

Me (taps head): I’m a Red Piller. I’m in the know, baby.

Her: But I really do like you! I swear!

Me: Oh, sure. You say that now. But in two years? Five? Ten? Fifty?

Her: No, I’m serious. I’ll marry you right now.

Me: Sorry, but I’m not going to be the sucker who gets his heart broken at some indeterminate point in the future. It’s better to not try at all than to risk that. Goodnight, Miss America.

Sadly, our true love was not to be.

Out of the many Red Pill dicktums that are out there, this one may be the most cynical and toxic. However, technically it is true. In every relationship there is a 100% chance it will end. It’s just a question of when and how. Death? Divorce? Due to cheating? Or simply “growing apart?” Obviously no relationship is forever. But is it productive to go into one already anticipating (if not expecting) its eventual failure and the ensuing potential heartbreak? Do football players who reach the Super Bowl go into the game expecting to lose? Fifty percent of them will not hoist the Lombardi at the end of the night, but such a loser mindset is destructive and can create its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Red Pill solution to this Gordian Knot of inevitable relationship obsolesence is to “spin plates.” That means to have a number of women on rotation that you sleep with and/or with whom you maintain a connection. This way if one has a “hypergamy-gasm” on you, you can counter by just ringing up the next bimbo in line. Putting aside the fact that for average men this is largely an unrealistic scenario, “plate spinning,” even for high-value Lord Cockuluses, is time consumptive, expensive, largely superficial, and leads to nothing but complications.

There’s no genuine social regard for such plate spinning behavior, either. Society does not view you as King Solomon and his many concubines. You’re just a dude who can’t keep it in his pants. Though the family court lawyers chasing you down for child support and paternity tests will love you, I’m sure.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the Red Pill, aside from some generic be-your-best-isms, is just hedonism in disguise. Some are out there saying men should have sex with as many women as possible in preparation for marriage. Will these guys just start their own indy porn studios already? It’d be a lot more efficient.

“She’s not yours, it’s just your turn” best articulates the caustic outlook of the manosphere, which views relationships as inherently temporary and disposable. Interchangable, even. Like picking up used parts for a factory machine you expect to break down. On the surface it seems like good advice. The subtext is the admonition to not allow a relationship with a woman to consume you from succeeding in your life’s work and mission. Fair enough. I recall watching an animated series on Newgrounds decades ago centered on a bright young guy who gives up a scholarship to M.I.T. to pursue his high school girlfriend to some state college, only for the girl to abandon him so she can “explore” herself. That scene always stuck with me. What an idiot, I thought. Though there have been many such cases in the real world.

Making yourself an attractive quality partner and focusing on your unique gifts and your work so that you become the “prize,” is a worthwhile endeavour. In so far as the Red Pill espouses that doctrine, I’m on board. But then why the need for plate spinning? Why add all that unnecessary drama, not to mention the greater chance for STI infection or illegitmate children? I’m the bastard product of the kind of, shall we say, “excessive amorousness,” the Red Pill promotes, and let me tell you, it ain’t good being an infant football getting kicked around between two warring ex-lovers in family court, and losing one’s father in the fallout. To say nothing of being the proverbial redheaded step-child. Especially when you’re racially mixed.

You have to judge a philosophy or thought process based on the results as seen by the behavior of its followers, not entirely on whether it holds any real “truth.” The Communist Manifesto may have some worthwhile nuggets, but in practice communism is a ghastly inhumane system, as evidenced by virtually every country that’s tried it. The Red Pill is not waking men up from the Matrix of feminism, it’s demoralizing them and putting them to sleep, mainly. Most men aren’t even trying with women in the first place. Almost half of young men haven’t even approached a woman in person. They’re certainly not going to “spin plates.”

“She’s not yours it’s just your turn,” may seem like some a cold, hard truth to shield one’s heart from the cruelties of break-ups, but it functions as an install code for manwhorism, while devaluing potential quality relationships that might arise were one not seething 24/7 with pathological distrust. It’s less the war cry of a victor and more along the lines of Milton’s “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Don’t Worry, These 13 New Dating Apps Are Here To Fix The Dating Woes Of Today

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Including a sure-to-work idea for one that I came up with myself.

Made with Midjourney

Are you an average guy who’s tired of striking out with the honeys on popular dating apps like Tinder and Match? Are you a woman who’s fed up mindlessly swiping on random dudes?

Well, don’t you worry. Socially conscious venture capital has your back. Here are 13 of the absolute best all new dating app startups that are sure to usher in a new age of love and relationship bliss for millions of lonely singles out there.

(Also, I have a BONUS genius dating app idea of my own down below that you’ll want to check out, especially if you’re an investor. So be sure to read all the way through to the bottom.)

1. Smitten

Smitten’s schtick is using creative games and interactive ice breakers to help bring lonely hearts together, while promising to make conversation easy.

This is a great development as we all know the biggest problem for men on dating apps is that too many women want to message them. But what’s a guy supposed to say? I don’t know! Thank God Smitten’s been invented to help take all the effort and guesswork out of coming up with stuff to discuss.

2. Datefit

This app aims to help connect people who are into fitness, healthy living, and want to become the “best version of themselves.”

I don’t know about you, but typically people who fall into that elite “Type A” category already have an active social life and a lot going on for themselves. I don’t see too many high-powered types needing some stupid app to find the love of their lives.

Also of note, more than half the adult population in the U.S. is obese. And that number is only going to climb. Just look around. Nobody cares about being the “best version of themselves” unless they’re some weirdo hanging around a Tony Robbins seminar. So good luck chasing after a rapidly shrinking market, Datefit. Maybe try rebranding to “DateFAT.” Now THAT’S a billion dollar idea.

3. Clover

You probably think to build a company that attracts millions in venture capital you have to be original and offer something unique and valuable. Well, you’d be wrong. Clover has the most generic description ever, promising to help people find “high-quality dates with minimal effort.”

Thanks, but no thanks, Clover. According to a pop-up ad I’m looking at right now, there are tons of hot women in my area that want to fuck me. And I didn’t even have to download an app. Suck on that.

By the way, Clover has gone bankrupt and its app is defunct. Shocker, I know.

4. Lex

This forward-thinking “text-based” dating app was founded for the LGBTQ+/trans/non-binary crowd, but switched its focus from dating to community last year. Wow, even dating apps are transitioning these days.

But if Lex is going to get into text-based forums, they’ll have their work cut out for them. Everyone knows if you want to find true love you go to 4Chan.

5. Crossed

Serial killers and stalkers rejoice! This app helps connect people who “have recently crossed paths” using geolocation.

Finally, no more having to lurk in the shadows or dark alleys while hunting down your latest infatuation. If only John Hinckley, Jr. could have had this app, he might have been able to win Jodie Foster’s heart without having to go through the trouble of almost assassinating President Ronald Reagan.

6. Marriage Pact

This app aims to help college students find their life partner by using a questionnaire-based dating system.

Because if there’s one thing college students definitely want to do, it’s take yet ANOTHER damn test. Maybe try making a dating app based around keg stands, cramming for a biology final, or banging out a five page essay on Nietzsche two hours before it’s due.

7. Dua.com

At first I thought this was an app designed to get you a date with singer Dua Lipa. Talk about an Illusion.

But instead, it’s just supposed to connect people from different cultures with those who make them “feel at home.” Dude, I’m from Philly. If you want to make me feel right at home, you’ll need to jack my car, cut me off going 85 while driving on the expressway, or spit at my feet while I’m walking down the sidewalk.

8. Quivr

This app lets you play Cupid, or you can let someone else be a matchmaker for you.

What a great idea. Let some random stranger decide your fate in life. Why stop there, though? Just have an app that randomly connects you with some person and only that person. You could call it Randomr or Arbitray. That’s how this works, right? You just delete a letter from a word and it instantly becomes a million dollar app? Wow. I just founded two dating apps right there. I’m a genius.

9. Couple.ai

You didn’t think we’d explore the latest cutting edge dating apps and not find one using AI, did you?

Couple, or Couple.ai, uses online interactive events like speed dating and trivia, combined with artificial intelligence to help forge matches. Basically, the AI tracks your every move, learns from it, and then delivers highly compatible matches. Not a bad idea. At least now when you get ghosted or another date fizzles because you don’t share the same liking over the latest dumb Netflix show, you can just blame the algorithm.

10. Bloom Community

This cutting edge app is geared toward sex-positive people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Hey, no fair. Why does it always seem people who are sex-positive are exclusively in the LGBTQ+ camp? What about us straights? Don’t we get an app for no-strings meaningless sex that’s sure to leave us empty shells questioning the meaning of life, too?

11. Blueheart

You think you know about love? You don’t know the first thing! Luckily, Blueheart is here to “put things right” by using a combination of “courses, exercises, and science-backed advice.”

Man, that’s an awful lot of homework. But what if you’re only on a dating app to get your dick sucked? How much studying do you got to do for that? Hopefully just a quick fill in the blank quiz or something. But then I guess you’d have to change the app’s name to Blewhard.

12. Ex-human

Tired of presenting yourself honestly in the hopes of attracting a like-minded partner? Now you don’t have to. Ex-human allows you to create customizable “AI Humans” and characters that will do all the interacting for you.

This is fantastic. Maybe I can import one of my many anon Reddit profiles I used way back in the day, and put it to work helping me lure the love of my life. Hello again, AssCheese69420.

13. Hulah

This one is my favorite. Hulah takes Bumble’s idea where women get to make the first move and goes light years beyond. I’ll let the app explain:

Here’s how it works: As a single woman going through men, you’ll only see the best of the best guys because every guy on Hulah has been endorsed by a woman to be on the platform. If you’re a guy who is lucky enough to be endorsed by a Hulah ringleader, you’ll earn points for good, gentlemanly behavior.

This is honestly very brilliant as it mimics the way some women play matchmaker with their friends in the real world. It’s also great because I’m sure there’s no way this can be gamed. It’s not like a guy could just pay a couple girls to endorse him on the app so he looks like Prince Charming. We know scams and fake profiles don’t exist on dating apps whatsoever.

It’s also incredibly encouraging for average guys. Most of whom can barely get one woman to return a message. Now they need one to endorse them just so they can be presented on some shitty app like a show pony? Good luck with that. You might as well rename this app “Rich Alpha Male Chads with Golden Cocks” because that’s just about the only guys who will be using it successfully.

Wow, that’s a lot of dating apps that I’m sure will all work extraordinarily well. Now we just need an app that lets you use all these apps simultaneously. I like to be as efficient as possible when wasting my time.

On the plus side, I’m glad no one has yet stolen my brilliant idea for a dating app. Allow me to present:

CerealDater

Made with Midjourney

A dating app that brings singles together based on their favorite breakfast cereals. Are you a Wheaties man? A Lucky Charms girl? You could meet your Count Chocula cutie or Cinnamon Toast Crunch chick. “How’d you two lovebirds meet?” they’ll ask. “Oh, we’re both Corn Poppers,” you’ll say. No matter if you’re a Frosted Flakes Freddy or a Raisin Bran Betty, you’ll be sure to couple up through your cereal of choice. Try CerealDater today.

Online Dating Profile Clichés That Annoy The Hell Out Of Me

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

They’re also what’s possibly killing the dating app industry.

“She’s fluent in sarcasm, too? That’s the third one in ten minutes.” (Made with Midjourney)

Online dating is a pathetic slog anymore. Which is why I gave it up years ago. It’s like rummaging through the junk drawer looking for your favorite keyring, and instead finding a rusty pair of scissors, chewed-up No. 2 pencils, and a coupon for Lay’s Potato Chips that expired 18 months ago.

Dating apps make it easy to doom scroll through infinite faces, thumbing left or right with snap decisions. Though I found it was often what was written (or the lack thereof) in the bios that put me off, no matter the attractiveness of the face. People put so little thought into their profiles when it’s all you have to go on.

Your writing reveals a lot about you. What and how you write can indicate your intelligence, wit, self-awareness, education, social class, and perhaps even your character.

Here are some annoying cliché phrases I came across far too often, and my no-holds-barred opinions of them.

“If you want to know more, just ask.”

Thank God, because I have a detailed census questionnaire to send your way.

I mean, of course if I want to know more, I’ll just ask. No shit. That’s the whole idea of using an online index of random single people. Do you think if I find your profile and become interested but I DON’T see an invitation to “just ask” I’ll just be stuck wondering what to do next like a Sim person walking in place against a wall?

“ . ”

No, that’s not a mistake. I’ve really come across profiles with nothing on them except a simple period. Yes, some people do this with the intention of filling in their bio later, but I’ve seen it on profiles I knew were weeks old.

What is it about bio pages that stymies so many people? How hard is it to write about yourself? Even just a few lines? Are women too modest? Are they skeeved out by putting down details about themselves onto the internet? It shouldn’t be that hard to summarize yourself in a few sentences. No doubt any woman at least in her early 20s and beyond has had to do job interviews where they’ve had to talk about themselves on the spot. Yet a simple bio page renders them mute? Weird.

“Do I look like I need to add details about myself?” (Made with Midjourney)

“I’m fiercely independent.”

This is like the “Eat, Pray, Love” of 28+ professional boss bitches. Yeah, we get it, you’ve got a business degree and you’re making $78K a year in the big city working for Dipshit, Inc. Congrats on making it to mediocrity. Girls really do get it done.

If you’re truly “fiercely independent” then you’re most likely not really interested in a relationship. Those are kind of 50/50 things. So then why the hell are you even on here? You do realize that a phrase like “fiercely independent” sends a not too subtle message of unfriendliness, hostility, and a desire to be left alone, right?

My theory is that this phrase springs up due to an unconscious conflict between a woman’s need for affection and her feminist I-need-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle social conditioning. Like how in Get Out the personality submered in the Sunken Place emerges when they see a flash of light. “Fiercely independent” is the compromise. Yes, I deserately need love. But I’m also totally strong and independent, too.

“Fluent in sarcasm.”

Aww man, just what every guy wants. A sarcastic asshole to deal with.

I saw this one a lot as well. I suspect it’s evidence of the toxic “Twitterification” of discourse. Or it could be a stupid Moo-llennial thing, in which one becomes buried under so many layers of irony and unseriousness that one’s head becomes lodged up one’s rectum. Or maybe it’s just another bothersome cliché signifier of hipness and badassery.

It’s one thing to be snarky writing online articles or tweets. Or with your friends at the bar. But I wouldn’t lead with my ability to caustically banter if I was trying to attract a partner.

“You could be a part of this.” (Made with Midjourney)

“My kid(s) are my whole world.”

I bet they are. If only contraceptives or the idea of choosing a man who isn’t a loser or psychopath to be the father of your children were also your “whole world” as well. Maybe then you wouldn’t be a broke single mom on a dating app looking to snare some poor sucker who should know better.

I don’t date single moms for the same reason I don’t visit places like Chernobyl or go on deep sea dives inside oil barrels operated by Xbox controllers. No man should. And if more didn’t, this epidemic of single mother households would begin to diminish.

Fellows, please. You’re not a stepdad. You’re a step-sucker.

Single moms will write this down to communicate how much they love their child(ren). Which is great, of course. But how much could you really love them if you’re willing to bring some strange man into their lives, especially one who may have no kids of his own? There are substantially higher rates of conflict and abuse between step-family. To say nothing of the difficulties that often occur in the adjustment period of a new family dynamic. It’s rarely The Brady Bunch.

“Tired of the games. I want something real.”

This is almost always written by someone with excessive baggage. Baggage that they brought on themselves due to poor partner decisions and bad lifestyle choices that they’ve taken little to no acountability for. When I see this it’s the equivalent of seeing those highway reflector cones police put up near a bad wreck. Proceed with caution or avoid altogether.

A common variation of this is something like, “Looking for a real man.” Or, “I want a real man.” Excuse me, but what the hell does that even mean? What is a “real man?” There’s never a concrete definition. It’s just an empty phrase. You might as well be asking for a “good person.”

“Are there any real men left?”

Nope. We were all replaced in the 1970s with pod people. Didn’t you know? It was known as The Great Swap. The Deep State’s been covering it up. I’ll probably be killed for mentioning it.

Aside from the slightly insulting and entitled undertone of this cliché phrase, there’s also the subtext that a woman’s screwed around a lot with fake men (i.e. fuck boys) and now that the party of her youth is over, is looking for a legit relationship that doesn’t involve being used like a public toilet. Or it’s evidence of relationship baggage and “trauma.” Either way, it’s just more highway cones.

“I’m not here for hookups.”

This one isn’t totally bad. It’s like putting up a “Please stay off the grass” sign, even though you know the neighborhood kids are going to come clomping through anyway.

Except very often, like the previous two phrases, it’s indicative of a woman with a rough past. Of one who’s trying to break out of the party life. It even comes off like it’s something she’s telling herself more than telling potential guys scrolling through the app. Like an affirmation.

And does it even work? Will your typical fuck boy read that and go, “Hmm, this one will obviously be immune to my innate charm. I think I’ll leave her alone. Afterall, if she wrote that, she must surely mean it.” Or will he be like those neighborhood kids and come racing through the corner of the lawn anyway? If I know fuck boys, they usually don’t follow the rules or care about things like feelings. That’s why they’re fuck boys.

“I’ve been hurt before.”

Thanks for letting me to know that you’re in all likelihood a complete basket case. I’ll be sure to steer clear.

Why would you broadcast this? What is the relevance? What am I, a random dude, supposed to take from this statement? Is this supposed to activate some white knight gene that will compel me to ride to to the rescue? Is this like a Bat Signal for simps, to come and lavish you with emotional support and free dinners? GTFO of here. Learn to deal with your past on your own and be discreet about things. You think you’re the only one? Everybody’s been hurt before. That’s life.

Anyway, that’s quite enough. I appreciate the numerous women who used the above clichés in their shoddily-detailed “profiles” that resemble more the scribblings you’d see on a toilet stall than a mini-biography indicating one firmly resolute in finding a suitable partner. They served as excellent sign posts alerting me which entities to avoid. They also saved me money as I realized paying for a subscription was clearly a total waste. They might even be the reason Bumble’s stock has crashed 90% since its inception. Who knew clichés could kill a billion dollar industry?