Women Are Refusing To Be In Relationships With Men In Record Numbers, And This Is The Brutal Truth Behind Why

"Ava, 27, seemed unbothered by her partner's inability to communicate his emotions. "We have enough to think about," she told me as she slid her laptop out of her tote bag, still dressed in her tweed blazer from work. It wasn't serious, anyway. She'd been dating Max for a few months when it struck her - mid-conversation with a friend - that she had no idea what he felt about her or their future. So she stopped asking."

"Sara, 21, recalled sitting on her bed while her boyfriend begged her to hear him out. He wasn't remorseful for cheating; he just no longer wanted to sit with his shame. "I was done," she said. And yet, he expected her to comfort him. "I had to help him find the words for his feelings, not his actions," - long silences, teasing through shame and self-hatred. "He didn't know what he wanted to say," she said. "And then I made him feel OK about it.""

"These stories reflect a shift among young women in which more and more of them are "quiet-quitting" these relationships. Women are now 23% less likely to want to date than men, not because they don't care, but because they feel they've invested too much emotional labor without support in return. The Other Side Of The Masculinity Crisis? The Exhausting Emotional Intelligence Gap."

Young women report carrying disproportionate invisible emotional labor in intimate relationships, supporting men through shame, failure, and social isolation. Many men describe feeling uncomfortable opening up to male friends and reserve vulnerability for women, treating emotional unburdening as a natural part of relationships. Women characterize that dynamic as unpaid work and sometimes withdraw effort. Ava stopped asking about her partner's feelings after realizing she had no idea what he felt about her or their future. Sara was expected to comfort an unremorseful cheating partner and to help him find words for feelings rather than actions. Women are now 23% less likely than men to want to date, and researchers call this phenomenon "mankeeping."

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