Be the Men We Need
- Agnese Capiferri
- May 13
- 6 min read
A Reflection on Heteropessimism
It came last autumn, quietly, liberatingly, though not painlessly: the realization that it is not my problem. That it does not depend on who I am, on the men I choose, on how unlucky I happen to be. It does not depend on wanting too much or compromising too little. And it does not even depend on how badly I want it.
Building a loving relationship today, at thirty-five, in 2026, is a fucking problem. Not mine, but everyone’s. That magical, romantic connection between two heterosexual people can no longer be what it once was, and we are failing miserably at defining its new identity. Whose fault is it? Mainly men’s, in my opinion. But I promise we will get there calmly.
I have recently put away yet another attempt to build something with someone, and I feel perfectly in tune with my time: the time in which the man-woman couple is in crisis. A time in which everyone wants to be chosen, but no one wants to choose. Because choosing always means giving something up: potentially better options, or a part of one’s independence. In a world of adults who are more individualistic than the previous generation, but also more self-aware, freer, and more independent, making room for the Other has become almost impossible. We only need to look at the rise and fall of dating apps to see how desperately we are searching for connection, while no longer being able to sustain it. We know we want love, but we cannot respond consistently to the effort required to build it.
Even I, who have not been in a relationship for years, know that love is built by continuing to be there, while the only continuity modern dating offers is novelty: endless romantic options, in a constant choose-and-return cycle, with the illusion that a better connection might be waiting behind the next swipe, or the next glass of wine. That minimal effort of curiosity saves you from the much more laborious effort of the heart that is needed to nurture a connection. To truly do it, in a real way, accepting its limits, its discomfort, its inconvenience. And staying inside it anyway, because that is how something is built.
But no. Modern dating brings us close at great speed, allowing us to reach remarkable levels of emotional intimacy, and then… poof, it forces us into sudden disconnection. Because that same intimacy, so attractive at first, has become, precisely, a little uncomfortable. If you have been through it, you know how exhausting it is. It feels like a continuous micro-grief: not the end of a story for which you have every right to feel pain, but only the fading of a spark you had hoped would turn into something more. And you had better not suffer too much, because, as your friend who has been in the same stable relationship since she was eighteen loudly reminds you, he-doesn’t-deserve-you and the-right-one-comes-when-you-least-expect-it.
And yet, over the past five years, I have found quite a few men worthy of my love, and five years is already a fairly long time for the when-you-least-expect-it. I feel as though I have continued to grow, to work on myself, to understand more clearly what I want, to become solid... and now? It is as though I find myself being too solid for men. I hope that does not sound arrogant, because it truly is not meant that way, but I have the feeling that those who cannot stay inside the discomfort of love are, for the most part, men.
It is not just my personal experience; here too, I am perfectly in tune with my time. I have intelligent, independent, fascinating female friends who collect stories similar to mine. My TikTok is full of videos of women joking about balding men who are still not ready, or about the fact that we have become collateral damage in men’s struggle against themselves. Even British Vogue, months ago, published an article suggesting that having a boyfriend has almost become embarrassing. And the idea that, for the first time in history, women are not marrying for economic security but for love, and that, funnily enough, we are all single at the moment, has now become an overused concept in generational discourse. The signs are countless, can we agree on that? And when that is the case, the problem is never about the individual, but about the collective as a whole. Heteropessimism seems inevitable for our generation: how can we still have faith in the relationship between a man and a woman?
I feel trapped in a dynamic that I discover is called “female demand – male withdraw”: women continue to show up for love, to try, to be there, to ask for a relationship; while men continue to retreat in the face of vulnerability and intimacy, failing to offer any ground of emotional safety. We ask for connection, and in return we receive only a maybe.
Earlier I said that the fault lies with men, but in reality that is not correct. I believe the lack is mostly on the side of men, but not because of them as individuals; rather, because of a series of structural problems that have created a significant relational and emotional gap between the two genders.
If we think about it, it was inevitable. We both grew up with standard models of roles, with one major difference: we women had, and still have, feminism. An entire movement that invited us to question our role within the couple, the family, society. We evolved beyond the model of womanhood that had been offered to us, and we began to desire something else, to build something else. To become economically independent, to form clearer opinions about what we are or are not willing to accept in a relationship, to seek in men something very different from the male figure proposed by patriarchal society. Men, on the other hand, had no alternative model to aspire to, nor a movement that helped them question their own role, their own masculinity. There was no awakening, neither about themselves as men, nor about how to relate to a sex that had now become so different from the one they had always been taught to imagine.
I also find myself thinking about how they were not given the right tools even on an individual level. While we, from childhood, were allowed to express our emotions and explore their full range, they were told not to whine, not to act like girls, not to be afraid. In four words: not to be vulnerable. And so here they are, these men sitting across from me with an Americano on the little table between us, or pressed against me under the sheets, unable to handle their emotional vulnerability; and the few times they manage to touch it and show it, they run away frightened.
After all, they are not used to carrying that heavy emotional labour even within their friendships. While female friendships blossom from looking each other in the eye and explaining one’s inner world, male friendships are consolidated by doing things together, often side by side. The love they feel for one another is certainly just as important, but the depth of emotional work and personal growth is not comparable. I imagine women moving with nonchalance up and down the spectrum of human emotions, accepting the fact of feeling all of them, and looking for that same willingness to explore in the person sleeping beside them. Only to realize that he simply cannot take it on.
And so here we are, looking at each other and desiring each other from opposite positions, with an abyss of vulnerability in between. We need to jump into it together, but someone does not jump.
And so we over-thirty adult women continue to grow beyond the over-thirty adult men of today, celebrating being single and happy, without having to compromise on our desires, and without needing the security of a couple in order to live a satisfying life. We reclaim our pride in ourselves, putting friendships first, taking up space around us without making ourselves small anymore. Meanwhile, on the other side, men fall into their male loneliness epidemic: a loneliness-phenomenon that shows how men are silent victims of the same patriarchal system that has held them up on its palm for a lifetime. We are all single, but the loneliness epidemic of our time is specifically male, not female. Let’s think about that. So how do we get out of it? Are we truly stuck in a heteropessimism that condemns us either to unsatisfying relationships or to a single life? No, fuck no. I say no. I do not know how we get out of this stalemate, but let’s talk about it. Because talking about it, writing about it, reading about it, is already a way of changing things. It is rebellion. Life has brought us this far, and now it is up to us, men and women together, to build an alternative.
Come be the man I need, as Olivia Dean would say. Step forward, men. We want you. There is no rejection of men as such. There is only the desire for a better kind of love.
Step forward as you are, vulnerable and afraid, but step forward. And be willing to jump with us. Only then will we be able to build a kind of couple that works for both of us. Only then will we be able to build the new love of our generation. Come on, we are waiting for you with open arms — and open legs.
Be the men we need
A Reflection on Heteropessimism
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