The Middle-Aged Genius’s Guide to Almost Everything 25 – The Changing Landscape for Men (1)
November 15, 2018
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We were talking about the changing landscape for men. This is for Middle-Aged Guide. What can men do to engage with the modern world?
Rick Rosner: Say you’re a guy in the modern world, this can apply to straight guys, trans guys, gays guys. Things are still pretty much the same in terms of partner selection. That people who are charming and attractive still do better.
So, your number one priority if you’re interested in hooking up and being romantically successful, then your best chance is to optimize yourself. See how you come across, and then do your best to optimize yourself, to dress as well as you can, maybe work out, get a decent haircut and have some decent grooming.
Also, I would suggest going on well-subscribed social media – Facebook, Twitter – and following a bunch of women.
Jacobsen: That may not be coming out how you think it’s coming out.
Rosner: Do not stalk a bunch of women. I follow a bunch of people on Twitter, about 1,500 people. The way to do that while not being swamped by their retweets is to stop seeing their retweets.
Unless, they’re batting .800 with their reposts, the pertinence of all those. But most of the people who I follow work in comedy or are writers of some sort. Most are women. I don’t know.
I haven’t done a gender breakdown. But it is probably a slight bias of 850 to 650, say. These are women with thinking based on reactions and responses to the forefront of how liberal society is going, at least in America.
So, I learned from them every day.
Jacobsen: What is the big takeaway from them?
Rosner: The first thing is to shut up and listen. You don’t necessarily have to comment on stuff. I would say Jen Kirkman is the main one. She is a comedian but also super pissed off about gender relations at the moment.
But what she has to say about it, it is the most instructive, if you’re trying to learn how to be a guy out in the world. She writes about the responses that she gets from guys. Most of which annoys her.
Because along with MeToo is this #NotAllMen, which pisses off a lot of people, it is that when you go out into the Twitter world and see all these stories of men being horrible. Your first reaction as a man is to think, “I don’t do that.”
Jacobsen: It’s an automatic of some men who identify with category “men” rather than people who are more cautious and rational in their thinking that “it is about this particular man or this specific trend.”
Rosner: But if you’re new to the world, you will think, “I am not that guy,” but that’s what bad guys say too. Even Kavanaugh, drunken and rapey Brett Kavanaugh, goes before the Senate committee saying, “I am a good guy. I am innocent. I am falsely accused.”
Obviously, he is accused of a lot of stuff. You do not want to be the guy going, “AGHH! I didn’t do anything.” It doesn’t prove the point and doesn’t prove that you’re a good guy.
Jacobsen: Maybe, instead of taking a defensive posture but listening and taking a proactive stance.
Rosner: Also, listen to organizations and people trying to clean the mess. Other people who come to mind are Parker Milloy and Molly Jung-Fast. There are hundreds of others. Just immerse yourself in comedy Twitter.
Listen to women or follow women with good takes on what is going on and basically what you want to do is still be a guy out in the world while learning what naive reactions or responses will not be helpful to you.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor-in-Chief, In-Sight Publishing
Footnotes
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Rick Rosner 