Masculinity is in crisis and today’s young men are either toxic or terrified of sex. Or are they? Megan Agnew messaged six of her recent dates to find out what’s going on inside boys’ brains.
Leo doesn’t know how to incorporate an exfoliator into his life. Does it go before a soapy lather or after? Morning or evening? And what, exactly, is the point? “Maybe I can talk you through my current skincare routine,” he says, “and you can tell me if it’s good or not.” I used to date Leo, 27, not long ago. Go on, I say, tell me.
First it’s a “carbon and charcoal” face wash, which he ordered online after it was suggested to him by an Instagram algorithm. Then he holds his face above a bowl of hot steaming water, after which he dunks his face into a sink of cold. He’s not sure why. It just feels right. “You should try that, definitely,” he says. I nod. Then he “does a moisturiser”, and finally he keeps a jade roller in the freezer that he rolls over his face: “Ooh, it’s so nice.”
Welcome to the world of the modern man, at least the modern men I’ve met: slightly chaotic but desperately well intentioned, a little lost, figuring out how to be.
We talk often about what it is to be a young woman today — being ghosted by cruel men and choked during sex, about shattering heartbreaks and the friendships that get them through the other side. We hear much less, however, from the men. Are they OK? I have dated some of them, so I called them up to see.
Six of them agreed to be interviewed. They are all different but they are, in the grand scheme of things, largely similar. They are all about my age (27), straight, and live in the same city as me, London. I met one on a dating app and the rest around and about (mutual friends, parties, the pub), our relationships lasting between one evening and 10 months.
One wears a suit to the office and one works as a chef; one works on film sets and another works in Westminster. They have long hair, a mullet and a shaved head, one went on more than 50 dates last year, another went on just one; one of them wanted to get married at 18, another doesn’t know if he wants kids. Two had found new jobs since I last saw them. One had lost a friend.
They spoke on the agreement of anonymity, over pints of Guinness and packets of crisps, or on Zoom as we ate dinner. They were all incredibly honest, telling me about the moments of awkward teenage shame and undiscussed feelings of guilt around sexual encounters; about the scars of heartbreak from long-term relationships and the knocks of a second-date rejection; about the anxiety of WhatsApping people you don’t fancy and the thrill of taking your clothes off with someone you do. About hair, height, grief, loneliness and being mercilessly teased for being a virgin.
Micah wants to put ‘lad culture’ behind him
Age: 29
How we met: in a pub
When we dated: 2022, for a few dates
Micah and I met at a pub in east London on an evening last summer when I asked him for a lighter. We hopped over a park fence and sat under a tree as the sun came up. He is a great laugh and, by his own admission, a bit of a “showman”. He’s got a bit about him.
When we went out for dinner we split the bill — as I always do — though when we speak today he says he sometimes pays. He says this can stem from insecurity about wanting to seem like a grown-up. “Paying is like saying, ‘Look what I can do.’ I did it when I was younger, much less so now.”
Unfortunately I dated Micah in my migraine era — poor bloke — in which I would be struck down mid-pint, Emily Dickinson-style, and I’d have to go home and put a bag of frozen peas on my face. I felt pathetic and he was lovely. Instinctively kind. So it surprises me when he says that he can’t remember the last time he cried.
“There was a huge lad culture at school,” he says. “As a teenage boy the important things were being sporty — physically strong — loud, funny, cheeky, a bit of a twat. And to get with girls so you could tell everyone about it.” This was the Noughties, the era of lads’ mags, pints and footballers sleeping around. The Inbetweeners was one of the most popular shows on telly, about four hapless teenage boys who laugh at each other for their attempts to get off with girls. Basically, Micah tells me, the priority was impressing your (male) mates, which often came at the expense of other people (girls).
I guess we’re trying to articulate ourselves now, when we learnt as teenagers not to.
“Sensitivity was not a thing,” he says. “If you cried once at school you would be mercilessly teased for it until you left at 18. I suppose being bullied for showing your emotions was like a form of trauma.” If you learn to distance yourself from your feelings to survive in the playground, it’s difficult to find them again. “You block things off.”
Today it is cool to be sensitive — feather boa-wearing Harry Styles and socially conscious Marcus Rashford are the current Generation Z pin-ups. And men are trying to keep up, trying to find the right words.
“I talk about my break-ups with my male friends, but it seems like we go round in circles,” Micah says. “I guess we’re trying to articulate ourselves now, when we learnt as teenagers not to.”
The murder of Sarah Everard changed things for him. It prompted a long conversation with his sister about how women cross the road out of fear or carry their keys between their fingers, in case they need to use them as a weapon. It was a shock to him. How did he feel when that dawned on him?
“There’s definitely an element of guilt,” he says. “A male guilt — that men have been horrific to women for a very long time. And a guilt associated with ignorance, for some of the things I might have said when I was younger. There’s an element of that guilt that’s self-indulgent, a bit of self-flagellation to atone yourself,” he says. “But it also moderates your behaviour. It makes you more sensitive.”
Eli doesn’t like watching porn
Age: 29
How we met: set up by a mutual friend
When we dated: June to December 2020
As a teenager, Eli says, he definitely got together with girls who were too drunk, in a way he would never do now. And though it was only a kiss, he was probably more pressuring then than he is comfortable with. “There’s some shame there, for sure,” he tells me.
Eli and I spent a large amount of our time together walking up and down the canal near my house in northeast London, during various Covid restrictions. Our preferred walking speeds were different. He likes a stroll; I don’t see the point in walking unless you’re getting somewhere quickly. We spoke often about masculinity, expectations from his parents and avoiding pornography — the things we will speak about again.
Today Eli works in television, although it took him a while to figure out where he was going. He was lost and I was charging forward, but for a while we were what the other one needed. I needed someone to tell me to slow down and he needed someone to tell him to keep going.
Are guys still threatened by driven women? “I find it attractive but, yes, 100 per cent. Although that is such a taboo to say now, no one would ever say it. I mean, I could see how people could be intimidated by you.” Thanks. I think.
Consent is pretty straightforward. You just know if the girl isn’t into it.
“It relates back to the Andrew Tate thing” — the self-proclaimed misogynist and influencer who was arrested and detained in December over allegations of rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. “Some men are feeling disconnected and confused, as though they no longer have the power that they were told they would have. They feel threatened and scared, but obviously you’re a man, so you can’t be scared. So you get angry.”
We hear stories today of young men not feeling able to try to kiss girls, worrying they will be accused of assault. What does he think of that argument? “Consent is pretty straightforward,” he says. “You just know if the girl isn’t into it. Whatever your age, you know, deep down. It’s whether or not you choose to listen.”
Porn was never discussed at school when he was there, the era when it became freely available online. It completely changes your perspective, Eli says. “I try to avoid watching porn, but there was a period when I wasn’t seeing anyone and I got back into it. The sex I had afterwards was significantly worse: I was less present because I was used to objectifying someone on a screen. It turns sex into something two people do to each other, rather than with each other.”
He doesn’t love one-night stands and hates dating apps — they make him feel “hopeless”, and he can’t make any of them work. “The great thing about romance is seeing someone at a party and thinking, ‘Oh, wow, this is exciting.’ And when you meet someone on an app date, having been speaking online, it’s generally the opposite. You know straight away if it’s going to work out — and most of the time it doesn’t.
“I do have moments when I sit there thinking, ‘Am I ever going to meet someone?’ When I’m going on these dates and I don’t feel a connection with them, it is a bit upsetting. It makes me worry — what if I’m just one of those people who doesn’t ever find anyone?”
Leo is prolific on the dating apps
Age: 27
How we met: dating app
When we dated: September to October 2022
Unlike Eli, Leo loves the apps. How many first dates have you been on in the past year, I ask. “Maybe 50,” he says. “The most I’ve done is four in four nights. That was really exhausting.” In the four years he has lived in London the number of dates is in “three figures”. “A statistically significant sample.”
I am one of those statistics. We went out last year having met on an app and, I have to say, he is very charming. “We’re on a first date,” he told a stranger at the pub, deadpan, minutes after we met. It was disarming and made me laugh. He looks like a scruffy boy in a band but he has quite a serious job — a combination, he says, that does well for him. When he was younger he liked indie bands, Liam Gallagher, haircuts and parkas. But back then they didn’t help him get girls.
“I went to uni a massive virgin,” he says. He hadn’t even kissed a girl. “I wasn’t bad at talking to girls, but I just couldn’t get further than that. I suppose that’s just called being shy, right?” One day at university his friends walked into his room to find him googling “How to get a girl to like you”. They thought it was a joke. He was mortified.
Now he’s very much into the swing of it. Are all those dates enjoyable? “I find meeting new people really fun,” he says. “But meeting people with the aim of impressing them, and possibly impressing them to such an extent that they might take off their clothes — I think that’s quite thrilling.”
Someone should write a book about how to get over girls.
He has properly liked about two or three girls out of the hundreds. “That’s not a very good return, is it?” He says it would be “nicer” to meet someone organically, but he doesn’t ever hit on anyone in “real life”. “First, because I don’t want to seem creepy. And second, because I can just do it on Hinge [a dating app], which gives you that protection from seeming creepy — because that’s what we’re here to do.”
Leo had a big break-up a year or so ago. He found it “really, really difficult” to recover. She kept getting back in touch with him and knew he was still in love with her. He didn’t have the strength to stop replying.
“I’ve been on so many dates since her and I’ve not found anyone remotely like her,” he says. “I don’t know if love at first sight actually exists but, yeah, it sort of was that. We just got taken with each other. And I felt amazing for eight months and then I felt rubbish for 18 months. Someone should write a book about how to get over girls. Because I don’t know how to do it.”
Lucas worries about putting his foot in it
Age: 31
How we met: through mutual friends
When we dated: April to May 2021
Lucas had a setting on his phone that would ping up “memories”. His ex-girlfriend of eight years, whom he thought he might marry, popped up nearly every day. “It would show me the last weekend we spent together or her dancing to our favourite song,” he says. “It was dreadful. Then my friend said, ‘You know you can just delete that function.’ I knew I could change it, I just couldn’t bring myself to.”
It ended a couple of years ago, but sometimes he still wakes up feeling heartbroken. He remembers her so clearly he could draw her. “But I don’t think that’s sad, I think it’s lovely. There are more than seven billion people on this planet and there is one person I have had that connection with, and it will be part of me for ever. I think that’s amazing.”
Lucas and I had a fun time — swimming in the reservoir near my house, going to weird, wacky gigs, cycling home together (he’s Dutch, so it was difficult to keep up).
Four dates in a week is too much.
When he first moved to London he struggled to flirt with women. English is his second language, so he felt less funny, less clever, less himself. It made him nervous. So dating apps were useful.
“I had a stint where I went on about four dates a week. I wanted to understand how far can you take it before it stops being fun.” When does it stop being fun? “Yeah, four dates in a week is too much,” he laughs, smoking a roll-up and drinking Guinness across the table from me at my local. “You start forgetting which story you’re telling to which person and you’re, like, did I already tell you that? It’s horrendous. I felt terrible.”
Now he would approach someone in a pub — and people approach him. “I have long hair and I’m tall, so I do OK for myself.” He’s 6ft 2in. You look so pleased with yourself about being tall, I say. “Obviously I am! There are plenty of things I’d love to change, but I’m tall, so that’s nice. And I can still spoil it by opening my mouth.”
Alasdair wants to talk about sex
Age: 28
How we met: through a mutual friend
When we dated: June 2019
Alasdair and I were set up on a blind date. We had beers on the South Bank and it was lovely, but that was it. We see each other around sometimes. He’s incredibly clever — a catch — and more spontaneous than I could ever be, deciding to do a job in some far-flung country because he wants to. He recently dusted down his Hinge profile. He asked a female friend to review it and got his sister to send some recent photos.
“It’s quite a depressing process,” he says. When he’s feeling good about himself he isn’t knocked by a rejection. But when he’s feeling insecure or low it hurts. “It’s very easy to go into a bit of a spiral of self-analysis — ‘Maybe I’m doing this wrong, maybe this is wrong with me.’ "
I’ve been in situations where someone’s asked [to be choked].
People have definitely become more open about what they want in the bedroom, he says, though that has also come hand in hand with potentially dangerous sexual practices — such as choking, commonly featured on porn sites — becoming mainstream. “I’ve been in situations where someone’s asked for it to be done — to choke them — and it’s unnerving,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt someone. So what do you do?” It feels as if we’ve gone in a circle: it was once progressive to be sexually liberated, but this kind of pressure to be progressive is not progressive at all.
Sammy gets anxiety when he’s seeing a girl
Age: 27
How we met: in a pub
When we dated: March 2022
Sammy thought he would be settled down by now. As a teenager he imagined “having this great relationship through my twenties, that we would just do life together”. He recalls: “My ex, who I was with when I was 18, said she wanted to have kids in a couple of years and I was pretty open to it. I was obsessed with this girl. It was, like, ‘Oh well, seems a bit early but sure, why not?’ But that’s probably my problem. Love making me,” he pauses, “have children.”
We met in an Irish pub on a Saturday night and he asked for my number. He’s an art school scruffbag, a loveable rogue with whom I smoked rollies when I was supposed to have quit. We went for a drink the following week, then I went on holiday to Mexico. Then his best friend died.
He had met his friend skateboarding in east London as teenagers. “He came up to me, said, ‘Waddup?’, we had a spliff, skated — and we were living together six months later.” Sammy was a “car wreck” in the months after he died, drinking too much, pushing friends away. “Grief was just explosions of emotions — me getting drunk, shouting at people. I couldn’t go out on a date, I could barely talk to my friends.”
Grief felt unsurvivable, he says, and he’s scared of losing someone again, someone he loves. He’s still trying to understand it all, but he has a new flat and a new job and is getting up early in the mornings and going on long bike rides. “The remedy has been focusing on myself, being an adult,” he says. “There are so many things I want to improve — like I haven’t got any furniture in my room.” He’s got a bed, though, right? Silence. Sammy! What are you sleeping on? “I don’t have anything. I have a bare room. And a mattress.”
I put too much pressure on the whole thing. Like, relax. Don’t text them.
He generally meets girls out and about — which he is good at — but he struggles once something gets going, becoming anxious when they don’t message back. “I’m looking at my phone the whole time, overthinking everything possible,” he says.
His problem is that he becomes obsessed with a future that doesn’t yet exist. “It has been a bit of an anxious struggle the whole way, the dating thing,” he says. It is at odds with the way he looks, I say — a chilled-out skater dude. “Yeah,” he says. “I put too much pressure on the whole thing. Like, relax. Don’t text them.”
Does he believe in marriage? “Yeah. But I also believe in divorce.” Does he believe in non-monogamy? It’s certainly very trendy at the moment. “I don’t think I could do it. It sounds like actual work, where you have to have an appraisal every week. What you’ve been up to, who have you had sex with? Do you have any STIs?”
Anyway, he says, he’s feeling more optimistic about everything. The world feels a bit kinder, less brutal. All he needs, now, is a bed.
The men are all right
The conversations I had with the men I have dated were some of the most honest and touching conversations of my career as a journalist, as well as personally, no longer bound by the self-conscious performance of a date or fear leading me to keep things back, to not ask the big questions.
It is a small — and self-centred — research group, and I don’t want to use it to make sweeping generalisations about a whole gender. Still, a number of things came up again and again — particularly the attempt to transition away from a lad culture they were exposed to in their formative years. These men are trying to learn the right words, learn a new language. Consent is easier to get right than we think. It is a feeling, a sense, an instinct. They knew when things were right — and knew when things were wrong. They thought about their own “masculinity” much less than I thought they would, they just live. The obsession with masculinity comes from elsewhere.
Restaurant bills are split 50-50 but money and how much of it women make is still unsettling. Women have a limitation on when they can have children. Men, mostly, don’t. Height is important. So is hair. Dating leaves small bruises for everyone, break-ups leave bigger ones. There is no road map for heartbreak. Your teenage years are a hot mess, your twenties are a muddle — and we are still figuring things out. But the men I know are doing all right.
Written by: Megan Agnew
© The Times of London