Men Are Creating The Dating Crisis They Fear

I spend my days working with men who've convinced themselves that women only want the "rule of 6's." Six-figure salary, over six feet tall, six-inch penis.

Here's the thing that doesn't make sense about this: they're manufacturing their own dating apocalypse.

These men exclude divorced women, single mothers, anyone with a "body count," women who aren't conventionally attractive by their standards. They've eliminated 80% of the female population before they even start.

Then they look around and say, "See? All the good women left only want rich, tall men."

You created that scarcity. You built the world you're angry about.

The Psychology Behind Self-Created Scarcity

When men come to Mensano Foundation, they're often deep in this manufactured crisis. They've spent months, sometimes years, in online communities that feed them a steady diet of exclusionary criteria.

The psychological mechanism is brutal in its simplicity.

Start with legitimate insecurity. Add algorithmic content that confirms your worst fears. Mix in pseudoscientific justification. The result is men who've convinced themselves they're victims of female selectivity while being impossibly selective themselves.

Some women do prioritize height or income. But these men take that minority and project it onto all women. They fail to account for one crucial fact: they can change their situation.

Instead, they get bombarded with information telling them if they aren't rich, tall, or traditionally handsome, they're out of luck.

The manosphere has weaponised male insecurity into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When Pseudoscience Becomes Justification for Violence

The "alpha male" worldview perfectly illustrates how legitimate science gets twisted into dangerous ideology.

They point to animal hierarchies. In certain primate species, alpha males do compete for breeding rights. They fight other males for access to females.

The manosphere took this and ran with it, adding debunked wolf studies about lone wolf leadership.

Here's what they conveniently ignore: the original wolf study observed wolves in captivity. The same researcher later debunked his own findings after studying wolves in the wild. Real wolves cooperate in groups, sometimes switching leadership during hunts.

But facts don't matter when you're building an ideology.

They've created a pseudoscience of attractiveness. You must be tall, broad, symmetrical. If you don't have these characteristics, you're unwanted and unattractive.

The communities reinforce this by promoting attractive men (Chads) and unattractive men (who they identify with). They believe the right to sex belongs to males based on twisted evolutionary theory.

This creates a toxic world of self-exclusion, divine rights to access sex, and targets for anger and hostility.

The blurring of actual evolutionary biology with pseudoscientific beliefs is making men lonelier by their own hand.

The Real World Impact

These aren't just online arguments. The UK has declared violence against women and girls a national emergency. VAWG crimes increased 37% between 2018 and 2023, with over one million crimes recorded.

Meanwhile, 80% of British boys aged 16-17 have consumed Andrew Tate content. More than the 60% who had heard of the Prime Minister.

In these communities, traditional views and twisted evolutionary psychology create the idea that men were made in God's image and women are second class. Women should be guided and controlled by men.

They fail to grasp the emotional world within themselves and with women. They don't recognise that sex involves emotional intelligence to navigate successfully.

Attraction matters, but trust is essential.

These views erode that trust. They reaffirm that women use sex as economic currency to control men, not understanding that women fear male violence more than anything.

We can say "not all men," but men do commit acts of violence against women. From Sarah Everard, abducted by a serving police officer, to the growing domestic violence behind closed doors, women's distrust of men is understandable.

The only way to stop this is addressing the twisted narratives and selective interpretation of what women want.

Why Men Must Intervene

When toxic echo chambers of incel forums get ignored by the vast majority of men, it allows a small group to dictate what masculinity should be.

Men who are happy and content in their relationships pay no attention to this rise in violence against women and girls. That's the problem.

What we need to do as men is show that rejection doesn't kill. Having emotions is normal. Women have autonomy to do as they wish, even if you wish they didn't.

Loneliness isn't the fault of the opposite sex. It's something within your control to change.

You have to put yourself out there to be rejected. Understand that this builds character. Character builds personality. Personality can be more attractive than physical appearance.

If nothing else, you'll have some amusing anecdotes to share.

People expect to go from hello to married instantly. Social media and dating apps project speed, swipes, likes as definitions of how valuable you are as a person.

But they miss out on all the things that make us human. Sadness, rejection, laughter, love, and a sense of humour.

We take ourselves too seriously. This becomes a barrier to relationships.

What will you talk about if you've spent all your time angry and not finding out what you love about being alive?

The Practical Path Forward

When men come to Mensano already radicalized, I ask them one question: are you happy being angry?

Has it got you what you wanted from life?

If it hasn't, then it's time to look at another way of living.

All the fears and insecurities you've built up are of your own making. These can be changed. But if you've never lived, how can you make a connection with someone?

Women don't need your money or your power. They need your connection and understanding.

This is only learned by doing, trying, failing, and succeeding. Each time you get better, even in rejection.

In your time alone, find something new to do. Learn an instrument. Join a sports team or outdoor club. This leads to meeting new people you might actually enjoy spending time with.

Who's to say love isn't hiking the mountain with you?

Why Peer Support Works Where Prescriptive Approaches Fail

The men who come to our groups have made the first step. They'll be triggered when challenged on certain beliefs and will be defensive.

But they're here in the conversation. They've made the choice to be here. That needs encouraging.

They need to find their own solution. We're here to show there's another way to live without rigid worldviews.

The challenges they face in this ideological battle are within themselves. The competing ideas can only be actioned, changed, and assimilated by them.

What they have to recognise is that their identity might not actually be theirs. It's been defined by voices on the internet and in forums.

The simple rules offered in forums come at an emotional and financial cost. When you strip away those barriers to understanding, where you have no financial investment or requirement, you remove the barriers and create the support needed to change.

Change doesn't happen instantly. If the person challenges what we say and what they believe, these are the core skills needed for making change.

The Alternative to Anger

At Mensano, we don't tell men how to be. We give them an opportunity to explore.

The lifestyle they want exists. But it comes minus an enemy and minus the anger.

Mathematical reality makes the "rule of 6's" absurd anyway. Only 5-8% of US men make over $100,000 yearly while about 20% are over 6 feet tall. The intersection is statistically rare.

Most women don't believe in these standards. But men have convinced themselves they do.

The manosphere created the crisis it claims to solve. Men are manufacturing their own dating apocalypse through exclusionary criteria and pseudoscientific justification.

The solution requires men to step up and challenge toxic male behaviour. Not just online, but in classrooms, workspaces, bars, and clubs around the world.

When someone says "your body my choice," as the far right does, other men need to respond.

When women are victims of sexual violence, only men can stop it.

We need to change how we deal with this. We need to stand up and be counted. We need to stand up for women too.

The alternative is watching more men radicalise themselves into loneliness while violence against women continues to rise.

That's not the future I want to build. And I don't think it's the future most men want either.