I'm sympathetic to people who feel ill-served by our present hypercommodified and hyperliberated sexual culture, as I hardly feel entirely at home in it myself. But I'm even more strongly inclined than you to suspect that traditional social models appeal to us more from a distance and were likely just as dysfunctional as our own when experienced up close. As with everything else - people, ideologies, places - with culture we tend to notice the flaws in close proximity and idealize the remote. I've encountered enough first-hand observation and accounts from men and women thoroughly immiserated by the traditional models to cast a skeptical eye on any appeals to the grass being greener.
At the end of the day there may just be no escaping the necessary/difficult individual negotiations/compromises necessary to build an effective mutually fulfilling partnerships. We're only human.
I loved Love Affairs. I did feel though like Nate just is gonna end up marrying the influencer girl (not really an influencer but would be one today) and not feeling particularly happy about it. Which is to say, if the Nates of the world were deliriously self actualized, that would be one thing. They want to go back and time and heal the childhood self that never got love, but they can't ever do that unless they trust and respect the woman they're with. In Nates case he can't be with women he respects, like the doctor or the newspaper reporter, because he is still playing out some nerdboy insecurities, whereas the doctor and the newspaper reporter will eventually find the right guy and be happy, he probably won't be.
Yeah, part of me wants Waldman to write a sequel where Nate's middle-aged and about to hit a mid-life crisis (possibly married to Greer). But then again, some things are better left to speculate.
I definitely think Kristen (the doctor) is happy. But I don't think Hannah will ever be happy either because she has her own set of deep insecurities (e.g. contrast her long email to Nate post-breakup with Kristen caring so little about Nate that she gives him relationship advice as if they were brother-sister lol).
I agree with you that Nate won't ever be happy. At a certain point, Greer will stop becoming such a shining example of inherent hot-girlness, and Nate will likely start getting tired of or even annoyed by her. If they do end up getting married, I'm not sure if he'd cheat since that would be such an act of aggression that he is averse to. But maybe feeling trapped will spur him to what are extreme measures by his standards.
Probably you've heard of the growing strain of British feminism that has become explicitly reactionary about gender roles and sex.
You may have seen this in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/reactionary-feminism-differences-between-sexes/674447/
One of the feminists covered in that piece was recently interviewed by Bryan Caplan: https://betonit.substack.com/p/my-louise-perry-interview
I'm sympathetic to people who feel ill-served by our present hypercommodified and hyperliberated sexual culture, as I hardly feel entirely at home in it myself. But I'm even more strongly inclined than you to suspect that traditional social models appeal to us more from a distance and were likely just as dysfunctional as our own when experienced up close. As with everything else - people, ideologies, places - with culture we tend to notice the flaws in close proximity and idealize the remote. I've encountered enough first-hand observation and accounts from men and women thoroughly immiserated by the traditional models to cast a skeptical eye on any appeals to the grass being greener.
At the end of the day there may just be no escaping the necessary/difficult individual negotiations/compromises necessary to build an effective mutually fulfilling partnerships. We're only human.
I loved Love Affairs. I did feel though like Nate just is gonna end up marrying the influencer girl (not really an influencer but would be one today) and not feeling particularly happy about it. Which is to say, if the Nates of the world were deliriously self actualized, that would be one thing. They want to go back and time and heal the childhood self that never got love, but they can't ever do that unless they trust and respect the woman they're with. In Nates case he can't be with women he respects, like the doctor or the newspaper reporter, because he is still playing out some nerdboy insecurities, whereas the doctor and the newspaper reporter will eventually find the right guy and be happy, he probably won't be.
Yeah, part of me wants Waldman to write a sequel where Nate's middle-aged and about to hit a mid-life crisis (possibly married to Greer). But then again, some things are better left to speculate.
I definitely think Kristen (the doctor) is happy. But I don't think Hannah will ever be happy either because she has her own set of deep insecurities (e.g. contrast her long email to Nate post-breakup with Kristen caring so little about Nate that she gives him relationship advice as if they were brother-sister lol).
I agree with you that Nate won't ever be happy. At a certain point, Greer will stop becoming such a shining example of inherent hot-girlness, and Nate will likely start getting tired of or even annoyed by her. If they do end up getting married, I'm not sure if he'd cheat since that would be such an act of aggression that he is averse to. But maybe feeling trapped will spur him to what are extreme measures by his standards.
I kind of like the idea of women suffering a lot over this, especially being someone who isn't getting relationships himself.