"My girlfriends and I joke that men are in their flop era..."
It's funny because it's true.
Writing this newsletter for the last two years (!) has been an eye-opening experience, but the one thing I love about it the most is that even when I’m feeling at my most hopeless and pathetically single, I know I’m not alone.
It’s easy to get caught up in main character syndrome for your own dating life: why am I suffering when my friends are meeting decent men? Why do I have a track record of having a perfect one-month romance before it all implodes? Why am I the one to go on these strange dates with men who say weird shit but everyone else seems to find dating so easy? Why do I decide to only like men who either aren’t a permanent resident or who live in completely different states? (Yes, I know this comes back to being an avoidant!!)
The truth is, it’s easy to focus on yourself and forget there are many incredible women (and men, and non-binary people) out there also going through the exact same struggles, regardless of gender and sexuality.
Recently I interviewed Sheree Joseph. I’ve followed her on Twitter for quite a while now and almost get a palpable sense of relief when I see her also sharing awful screenshots from dating apps. As much as I hate the thought of other people also suffering through this minefield of people saying shitty things on dating apps, there’s something comforting about it too.
Sheree’s interview came at a time when I was starting to wallow (again) in my own main character syndrome, wondering what was wrong with me. Am I too unapproachable? Are men too intimidated when they find out that I write about dating? Does that man not want to see me after date three because I didn’t sit there and agree with all his fucked up viewpoints? (The funny thing is, even though I didn’t want to see him again it’s easy to still turn it into a complete spiral of what’s wrong with me if the right mood strikes!)
Reading through Sheree’s interview is borderline therapeutic. I think any single person can get a lot out of this chat, so I hope you enjoy it.
Before we dive into it: a quick note to say you can now join the official Shit Straight Men Say FACEBOOK GROUP! In speaking about knowing we’re not all alone in this wild, crazy world of dating, I want this to be a safe space for people to vent their dating dilemmas, share their bad screenshots, and get advice if they need to.
You can join it by clicking this link.
Sheree on the modern day dating dilemmas we’re all facing.
On her own experience using dating apps:
“My experience on dating apps can be likened to Dante’s Inferno, and the nine circles of hell. I think I’m in the seventh circle currently, the one known as ‘Violence’, but it did start out in Limbo, Lust and Gluttony for a while, so it’s not all bad. It is, however, very, very bad currently.
I am a victim of my own success though: I get thousands of likes on the apps, but only because I have big tits and I accidentally neg men. I once had a Hinge prompt saying ‘I’m weirdly attracted to: ugly hot people’. I then received HUNDREDS of messages from men asking if they were ugly hot, worried they were ugly hot, hoping they were ugly hot, asking what ugly hot is. Everyone loved the accidental Ugly Hot Experiment of 2021. Another one was on Tinder where I had ‘listen up 5s, a 10 is speaking’ in the bio. I enjoyed that one for the accuracy of the situation at hand, it’s important that men know they are almost always punching, keep them humble. Most of the messages were acknowledging their lower status and affirming my higher status, except for one particularly monstrous looking chap who took it a little too seriously and it hurt his feelings, he said ‘more like you’re the 5!’ and then unmatched. Still thinking about that hot uggo, the one who got away.”
On horror experiences with men:
“One 28-year-old communist ghosted me 3 times over 6 months but not before getting hit by a car on his way to see me, so it was almost a real life ghost situation. One former rugby player wouldn’t tell me his last name, lest I Google him and ‘call him a criminal for something that happened 7 years ago!’ I didn’t need his last name, I typed his first name, “rugby” and his king hit assault came up first go, I Homer Simpson’ed into the bush quick smart.
One Lebanese engineer from Beirut insulted my family’s village by implying everyone from there was tight with money, even though I was buying my own drinks, and he said all Lebanese in Australia are trash. As I tried to leave, he kissed me aggressively and then he put his hand up my skirt and tried to drag me down an alleyway, but I ran towards oncoming traffic, which seemed like a good idea at the time.
There was a plumber who casually told me how he came inside a girl once, went down and sucked the cum out of her, then put it in her mouth, and still his worst trait was being an anti-vaxxer, which I discovered far too late. I somehow made it to 4 dates with a professional clown who said I was the type of girl he could introduce to his parents, and I said maybe if you play your cards right, and I swear on Christ he pulled out a deck of cards and started doing magic card tricks. These are just the most iconic and memorable of the horror stories, I have hundreds more, they’re just a lot more common and depressing.
I only have one success story. I met a guy on Hinge who is now my best friend. We mutually friend-zoned each other after we realised he’d hooked up with my best friend and I didn’t want to get involved in that, but he still wanted to be friends and that was quite attractive to me. Even from the Hinge to platonic pipeline, it’s so easy to talk to him, he takes such an interest in my life and genuinely seems to care about me. Recently he offered to drive me around to my insane amount of health appointments. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. It’s so rare to meet good people this way. But he’s the best of them. I’ve tried to think of anyone else who comes close to that level of care and love with no vested interests, and I’m coming up short!”
On the biggest challenge when it comes to dating straight men:
“There are so many smart, incredible, hot, successful, funny women who are struggling to be treated decently and with respect, from fairly average dudes who wouldn’t have made the cut in a normal world, but who have the extreme fortune to get a look in with this one, based on there being no one better. And yet they’re still constantly fucking it up, which is absolutely insane to me.
Why are we still asking for the bare minimum and not demanding better? Why is it so hard for us, and seemingly easy for them? I see these women settling for pure trash and it infuriates me.
I’m also not a fan of the way that the apps have made all dating this arduous, transactional thing, where you’re objectified and not treated like a human person with feelings. The way there are no consequences to treating women like shit: they’ve made people disposable to each other. There’s this kind of false notion that there’s always someone better around the corner. It’s making us all so cynical and jaded and it’s a cycle that’s impossible to break.
It’s also an extremely boring, tiresome experience. Really average, tedious, boring chat every which way. So many have really basic and unoriginal prompts and responses. The culture surrounding these apps has made it impossible to cultivate real intimacy and connection, and I genuinely fear that we’re losing the ability to see the good in front of us, and maybe even the ability to love.
It also inspires apathy. I get it, I feel apathetic too. But a guy that thinks he has heaps of other options, has like 10 likes, and is talking to a woman who is nursing thousands of likes comparatively. It seems insane to me that you wouldn’t put in two minutes of effort to carry a conversation and get straight to it, otherwise don’t be on there until you’re ready to do so. The odds aren’t great for them but because they still have a small amount of success, it means they think they don’t need to try. It’s crazy they don’t realise the algorithm doesn’t really favour them, but society still does. That tide is going to shift eventually, there will be a reckoning.
Clear intent, clear communication and taking action is one of the sexiest things you can do and it’s within everyone’s control.
On being a woman dating in your 30s when we’re all ticking biological time bombs.
“It’s funny because there’s an assumption that if a woman wants commitment, she’s going to automatically want that with the first man she stumbles on. I’ve matched with and talked to hundreds of guys in the last year – I wouldn’t procreate with a single one of them, not even if you told me it was my last shot (and honestly for me, it has been!)
I think men find women who know what they want intimidating, full stop. It’s a bizarre cocktail of them not knowing how to communicate, thinking they have an endless biological timeline, keeping options open, and commitment being so rare these days, that it definitely freaks them out. They can barely ask you out on a date with a time and place, so this is not a dude who is going to create a human life with you (and really… why would you want that with this large adult son?)
I was only open about wanting children recently as a kind of thought experiment. I had a prompt that said ‘a dealbreaker for me is: having a baby in a year’. It freaked some men out but it also intrigued them. Firstly, it’s hilarious that they’re assuming you’re looking for someone on the apps to have a baby with. At the time of writing that prompt, I was looking for sperm donors to have a baby on my own, so it was actually more like me wanting to see what dating would be like in that transparent context.
It turned out to be a good filter for the more normal dudes who just know very firmly they don’t want kids - trudge on, kings! But I still had more matches than ever and most responded to that prompt with some variation of, OK let’s do it. Some questioned the logic of it (how can it be done in one year, we’d have to get started tonight, OK horny Einstein). But of course the majority of my usual fanbase of creeps just saw it as another opportunity to get to the sex with me part, which actually got worse with that prompt. Some bought into the idea and then apologised later because they were only looking for something casual and of course, using words in sentences is apparently really hard for them, but this at least forced them to see the hypocrisy of their actions. I think it just showed me that being upfront benefits you in that you get to be as clear as possible and ensures you don’t move forward unless you’re on the same page, but if someone has nefarious or manipulative intentions, nothing is going to change that, so you may as well lay all your cards out on the table ad filter it out as early as possible. I’ll say this with certainty: nothing will scare the right person away. I’ve seen that first hand.”
On dating apps now being worse than ever:
“They’ve become even more transactional, but now there’s a layer of hopelessness, a futility to it all. I think the apps started building this world, but then the pandemic made it impossible for any other way to meet. It brought to the surface everything that was already wrong with this culture, but amplified it because there was no other way. It was not a good time.
My girlfriends and I joke that men are in their flop era, but it’s not really a joke anymore. Many don’t take care of themselves. They don’t have good photos or know how to promote themselves, they put zero effort in, they either don’t know how to communicate or they’ve forgotten. So many are completely apathetic, the very tired trope of being afraid of commitment, which is really such an outdated mode of thinking in a world where open relationships are becoming more mainstream and so many different relationship types exist. They’re also terrified of picking the wrong one, and of rejection of any kind in a world of so many micro rejections. There’s so much fear. They just don’t seem to be coping well, I don’t know. I feel sorry for them in a way.
When the big lockdown happened, some of them sort of panicked and realised they had to do something, or they’d really just be alone for endless periods of time, and that seemed to inspire a brief and promising shake up, but it didn’t last. And because it made casual sex harder (didn’t stop it, don’t worry) it made them remember the reason they usually seek a mate in the first place – because it benefits men more than it does for women (research shows this!) And yet they are stuck in this purgatory of their own making.
I can’t speak for how straight women are on this app, although as a bi woman I have experienced the similar frustration of women not responding at all, and it being difficult to even initiate something, so no doubt it’s also impacting everyone in similar ways. But I have seen my male friends kind of cruise along with relative ease and be able to find partners pretty quickly, whereas more of my single women friends are having a tough, even traumatic time of it.”
On her advice to single men:
“Talk to your women friends, find some women friends, if you don’t have any, then talk to them about their experiences. Run your profile by them, try to see how the other half lives so you’re not just operating on assumptions.”
“If you like or are interested in someone, make it clear. Don’t waste people’s time. Don’t lead people on. Treat everyone you talk to like a person with feelings and needs. Never make any assumptions ever. Wear sunscreen. Don’t send unsolicited nudes. Learn basic life skills like cooking. Put effort in and organise cute dates, think about what that person might enjoy and take charge. Suggest a time and a place, call up and book, show that you’ve thought about it.”
Be clear about your intentions but if you’re not sure what you want, be clear about that too. Even if you think you only want something casual, you actually have no idea whether that person is your person until you meet, so don’t be presumptuous, treat each encounter like it’s holy. Give it the respect it deserves. Give each other the benefit of the doubt, you have no idea what people have been through to get to this point, or when you might cross paths with them again. I know you think there are endless options out there, but there aren’t endless options that are going to be compatible with you, who have an ease and flow in the conversation, people who understand you, are keen and interested, have similar values, interests and compatibility, are willing to put in the time, effort and care into making something work. When you find something good and special, hold onto it, don’t take anything for granted.”
On an important reminder to women:
“I want women especially to shift their mindset and realise that they are the prize. And if they really scrutinised the situation and assessed it properly, they would see all the red flags upfront, and know what their values and dealbreakers are and really stick to them! They would approach it like someone is also needing to prove their worth to you, it’s not a one way street. Once that penny drops, that changes everything. You’ll never settle for less again. I wish more women would realise the power they have to be discerning and scrupulous, to question the status quo, enforce strong boundaries and to raise the bar back up. It would force a reckoning for men, shift the narrative. I have no doubt that it needs to go both ways too, but my experience has been so incredibly insane to date, that I just have to say, this culture needs to absolutely go in the bin. Do better, be better!!”
You can follow Sheree here.
Interested in being interviewed for Shit Straight Men Say? (Yes, even if you’re a man!) Let me know by emailing shitstraightmensay@gmail.com or sliding into the old DMs on Instagram.