Looking for People Who Don’t Exist Yet

I read a line on Threads recently that stopped me in my tracks:

“Dating currently feels difficult because women are looking for men that don’t exist yet, and men are looking for women who don’t exist anymore.”

It perfectly captures the friction point of my own life. Over the last several years, a profound shift has taken place inside me. I have slowly, painstakingly become a woman who desires herself. I no longer go through the mental dance of determining what I think a man wants and shape-shifting into that version.

But as I step back into the dating world, I am realizing the consequences of that evolution: there is a vast, quiet canyon between the woman who desires herself and the woman men have been taught to desire.

It is easy to let this reality harden into resentment, but the truth is much more complex. Neither gender is malicious here; we are simply caught in the gears of a massive cultural transition, and both sides are struggling in ways that deserve to be seen.

For generations, women learned early on to abandon themselves in relationships.

We over-adapted, prioritized others’ needs, and carried the invisible mental load. We ran the homes, allowing our partners to direct their energy toward careers, hobbies, or personal goals. We managed their stress and absorbed their emotional fallout, often at the direct expense of our own well-being.

I know this because I lived it. I performed for men at my own expense.

I remember going to Thanksgiving with my then-husband. The women cooked, while the men watched sports, drank beer, and laughed loudly. We set the table. The men arrived with energy and gusto, sitting down with ample appetites and thank-yous. But the moment they finished, the men stood up, leaving the entire mess for the women to tend.

I once made a beautiful home for someone who had absolutely no interest in creating a space for me within it.

Women are tired.

We are caught between the independent lives we have fought to build for ourselves and the old, self-sacrificing roles we are still expected to slip into the moment we fall in love.

Our frustration isn’t born out of bitterness; it is born out of a deep desire to finally be seen as a whole person, not a placeholder.

At the same time, we have to validate what men are experiencing. It cannot be easy to enter a dating world where the rules changed mid-game.

For decades, men were given a specific blueprint for what it meant to be a “good partner.” Their role, they were told, was to provide, protect, and show up. They watched their fathers and grandfathers receive domestic stability and emotional nurturing in exchange for that role.

It is entirely human to long for the benefits of a system you were promised.

Life sure seems easier when you haven’t been socialized to over-perform for someone else, and I cannot blame men for wanting to hold onto that comfort.

Now, men are entering relationships where the old blueprint is obsolete, but no one has handed them a new one.

They are being asked for deep emotional intimacy, co-regulation, and shared mental labor, skills that society traditionally discouraged them from developing. They are often left feeling confused, inadequate, and unappreciated, operating in a world that demands a version of them they were never taught how to be.

The reality of modern dating is that both genders are grieving from opposite sides of the room.

“The reality of modern dating is that both genders are grieving from opposite sides of the room. Women are grieving the years they lost to self-abandonment; men are grieving the loss of a predictable landscape.”

We don’t have to keep repeating the same exhausted cycles.

Women can practice the brave work of holding their boundaries without closing their hearts.
Men can practice the brave work of stepping into emotional maturity and dismantling the urge to outsource their lives.

We don’t want to use each other as shields or buffers from the tedious parts of life anymore.

We want to stand and face the world together.

To get there, we have to co-create a new blueprint, one where neither partner has to disappear for the relationship to work.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ♥