A first-person account by Jean Garnett of what it's like to be a straight single woman looking for a man these days makes for a bleak reckoning of the dating and mating scene. In her New York Times Magazine piece, Garnett makes clear she's not alone in her complaint, given the collective exasperation regularly vented by her single friends. One key point:
- "There are many routes to the species of disappointment I am circling here, but however we get there, the complaint is so common, such a cultural and narrative staple, that the academy is weighing in. We now have a fancy word, 'heteropessimism,' to describe the outlook of straight women fed up with the mating behavior of men. Coined by the sexuality scholar Asa Seresin, who later amended it to 'heterofatalism,' the term seems, at first glance, to distill a mood that is no less timely for being timeless."
Garnett isn't talking about the hyper-masculine type—"It's the sweet, good ones. Dammit." They seem incapable of commitment and communication, always wanting to keep their options open. It's not that they "can't" commit, it's that they "don't want to." The swipe-left culture might be a factor here, she suggests. "It occurs to me that the multiverse mind-set may also reflect the cognitive effects of dating apps that, defeatist by design, project a mirage of endless romantic possibilities across infinite timelines." (Read the full piece.)
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uBlock 
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Ghostery 
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