Rob Henderson@robkhenderson
One possible effect of MeToo is that now you see plenty of perfectly normal guys who are genuinely afraid of being accused of something—harassment, coercion, intimidation, whatever it may be. I think people misunderstood what young men are actually like and overinterpreted the problem.
Yes, there’s always some small percentage of genuine predators out there—people who are basically immune to laws, shame, or stigma. They’re going to be predators no matter what barriers you put in front of them. But the average guy is not like that.
The average young guy, when he’s repeatedly told about toxic masculinity, that men are the problem, “the future is female,” and that he constantly needs to prove he respects women, starts to internalize something different. He thinks, I should just hang back. I shouldn’t do anything. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. So he ends up walking on eggshells.
When I think back to high school, the average guy already needed basically every condition to be perfect just to make a move. In some ways, it’s amazing anyone ever pairs up at all.
I think about my best friend in high school—I lived with him our senior year. He had a crush on this girl in our class for ages. She liked him too; we knew from her friends. It was the classic setup where everyone knew, everyone was talking, and everyone was rooting for them.
His friends told her friends. Her friends told him. I told my friend. The entire social machinery was working overtime to make this happen.
And still, it felt impossible.
Finally, he walks up to her, and I’m standing maybe ten feet away pretending not to listen. He says, “Hey, our friends have been talking, and I guess I should tell you I like you…”
He was terrified. He even said, “I can’t believe how hard this is for me.”
She was encouraging him: “It’s okay. You can ask.”
He says, “I want to ask you something.”
She says, “It’s okay. You can ask.”
And he says, “I don’t know if I can.”
That’s your typical 17-year-old boy. All the nerves, all the emotional energy, all the fear of asking a girl out for the first time. Finally, after all of that, he asks: “Will you go out with me?”
She says yes.
This is with mutual attraction, friend approval, social permission—basically a green light from the universe.
And he was still terrified.
Now imagine that same boy growing up hearing over and over: don’t bother women, leave them alone, don’t approach, don’t be creepy, don’t be a toxic male.
At some point, the average guy doesn’t become more respectful—he just becomes more passive.
