To feel like I don’t like men anymore

[Dogsinsantasuits]

Not as in not attracted to them, although I am less bothered these days
It’s almost like i’m coming to a realisation that most (not all) are not great and women are infinitely stronger people.
Is this an age thing-late 40’s? Sad as I used to really like men. Now all I see around me is amazing women with men who aren’t a patch on them or dangerous and/or perverted men in the news.

Agree, a lot of women become AWFUL as they age. Selfish arseholes who badge it as peri empowerment or some crap.

Having survived DV, being drugged, raped, publically humiliated through my trauma and survived narcisstic abuse, I relate to your post. I am also in my 40s and men are on pause (menopause).

However, I am unfortunately still attracted to men and my sex drive is high. I watch & read romance series/novels quite a lot. I only pleasure myself now.

I still have a fantasy man in my head though, in no particular order:

Polite
Intelligent, well read, well spoken
Loyal and protective
Respectful, caring, compassionate
Witty
Affectionate
Pulls weight in household/family life
Cultured
Reserved
Well groomed
Handsome
Tall
Well built
Passionate - life, love, sex, career, nature, etc
Enjoys watching sport/the arts - minimum
Solvent
Sees women as equal - all people
Centre to left voter

Sadly, he doesn't exist 😂 (This is exactly a description of me) 🤣

Mid 40's and married, also on HRT.
Totally agree. If my husband leaves I will not be bothering with another man ever again. DH does what he can but just has no zest for life. I want to do stuff, go out and life and he's just so content doing nothing. Work and watching telly every night. He has no friends and I know quite a few men like this. On the other hand I know so many amazing, independent women who are strong and inspiring. Isn't there a statistic whereby women live longer single and men live longer when coupled up. Says it all!

I feel a bit sorry for them really, some of them are nice, funny people - not that I'd want to be married to them or anything.

I’m neither disgusted by nor scared of them, but you’re definitely onto something with the losing respect point. I think realising how driven by sex they are was a turning point. I just find it so pathetic.

But I remember this at school. I must have been about 14. Boys thinking they were shit hot for giving very mediocre feedback. And at uni, being so eager to speak up in tutorials, but again, nothing amazing to feedback.

I think it was always there but the procreation drive fooled us into thinking the majority were our equals.

Hope you don’t have sons

the most amazing dad ever is basically a bog standard everyday mum.

Am with you OP, so many impressive women and very few men of the same calibre

Some of the posts on this thread are an incel’s wet dream.

In my opinion women change more (and more suddenly) than men. I know plenty of women in their 40s who suddenly revert to behaving like 16 year olds, and others who just become more world-weary. The things that used to matter aren’t a priority any more, and a paint by numbers relationship with the big car on the drive doesn’t matter anymore.

But I don’t think women are passengers in their own lives until they reach the menopause.

The very sad thing is that some of us do and pre-puberty, can see that they are on a par with girls. I think it must be the hormones that kick in. The sex goggles.

There is a reason girls excel in education at 11, 16, 18.

then you have very low standards.

Same .just turned 50. Most are selfish arrogant and self entitled. I’m not a man bashing
feminist, I just see them now for what they are. I know maybe 3 men who are genuinely good people. And I reallly hate the fact I totally doted on one for the majority of my adult life who I now see as a total and complete loser but fk me it took to 50 to actually see it. Oh well better late than never.

I think this is a fairly common realisation as you mature.
Certainly in my youth a range of male behaviour from lazy right up to overt misogyny was widely accepted.
Took me until my fifties to really start to see the selfishness which is endemic in men.
It seems that many young women today are still letting them get away with shite.

No small wonder couples of today are having less sex than previous generations and less children are being born.
The common denominator is in the main, useless men.
Women who were already resilient have evolved further and so many men haven’t.

Of course future generations of women just aren’t going to put up with what so many already have.

I could have written the last bit of your post myself - my maladaptive daydream relationships are so amazing , that no real life man or relationship or sex has ever come 😳 close.
It's hard to explain to people who are in a happy couple cult that I'm fine and dandy as I am.
And to leave me the fck alone and stop trying to set me up with substandard arseholes.

The one thing that sticks in my mind was those adverts from around 10-15 years ago aimed at young men saying it's not ok to hit your girlfriend and it's not ok to have sex with a girl if she's said no. I mean FFS that's just obvious isn't it? But apparently young men needed to be told these things🤨 proper gentlemen don't seem to exist anymore ☹️

Seeing this too. I do a lot on my own and am seeing that from other couples too. It's the woman driving things.

I 100% feel the same way. Even the men in my life who I adore - I can still see the selfishness and entitlement in them. And the complete obliviousness to the invisible labour that women do.

Plus every other news story is about men killing women or being massive fucking predatory perverts. They really don’t sell themselves well.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say there’s a particular issue with fecklessness, grumpiness and inertia among straight men middle aged and older. I know a lot of gay men who are hugely capable and energetic and engaged / engaging throughout the lifespan, but relatively few straight men who make it past 50 without becoming helpless, grouchy, embittered, and sedentary.

I don’t notice so much of an age-related temperamental change in women unless they are living alone in their 70s and beyond, when I think there’s a tendency to become quite anxious and rigid about plans.

My daughter feels exactly like this aged 19.
It saddens me that this has become her world view, but no amount of ‘but it’s not all men’ will change her mind 🥺

It’s not up to women to change men either. I don’t want more responsibility. I do think men just haven’t evolved. The fact that 99% of issues on the planet are caused by men doesn’t help. A lot of men seem very entitled in their mediocrity.

I wrote a PP and I just want to add that what confuses me if my own DF is not mediocre. He pulls is weight in all areas and is most definitely not helpless, disloyal or a misogynist. He always treated my DM with love, care and respect. Which is a significant factor in not fully understanding or being aware of patriarchy until later on in life.

Plenty of us have DSs too who we strive to raise to be good men who see us as their equals.

You do you. Why have you surrounded yourself with such men?

There are better ones out there . . .

It's age and maturity and recognition.

Eg the first time a married man hit on me (I was 18) I remember being quite flattered. I had no idea that this was just what men did and I think my reaction was along the lines of, "Wow, this man is married and has a wife and yet he still noticed me!" It was just a bit of harmless flirting but I had no concept of the fact I wouldn't have been the first or the last. Or that his wife wouldn't have considered it 'harmless'.

By the time I'd reached my 40s, I was just telling married men who hit on me to fuck off.

Oh, really, what is this I see before me? Another married man whose wife doesn't understand him? Who has agreed with his wife that they'll stay together until the children have left home and then they'll both be free? Who has been married for 10 years and never looked at another woman until he saw me? Who has never felt this way before? Who never has sex with his wife?

Please, do go on Random Man/colleague/friend's husband/dad of my child's schoolfriend...

Or just fuck off and don't be a dick.

As for the other stuff, I told my mum and her friend when I was 15 (so not menopausal) that I wasn't going to get married because it was just servitude and I couldn't see how it benefitted women.

They laughed at me.

I did get married (and divorced) and now co-habit with a partner but never had anything less than equality in terms of domestic chores, child rearing or mental load.

I've never carried a man and I never would.