Where have all the good men gone? You’ve heard it, have you wondered what’s happened?

Perhaps we can figure it out together, I don’t pretend to know the answers, only there may be some clues we can follow to come to a conclusion. For now, all I will say is I’m deeply unsettled by the direction the West has taken. A prescient man once said, present trends form future events. Maybe we can do something about the trends even if only to acknowledge their existence.

As men drop out of society, women are increasingly forced to bear its burdens and they do not deserve this.

So where have the good men gone? To answer it, I’ll first ask you to define: what is a good man?

Is it a tall, independently wealthy, handsome man, willing to be your lifetime companion? Could it be the rough and tumble bad boy, tatted and pierced, riding a road hog and generally being the rebel without a cause? Could it be both with the initial bad boy phase transitioning into the dashing and debonair millionaire?

Everyone has their preference, but let’s dig a little deeper, who exactly wants these mythical beasts?

I daresay the majority would be women. Judging from my own sisters, it’s when women have had their fill of dating they realize the endless parties and parade of men must come to an end. After all, to look down the barrel of half a lifetime being alone is a bitter pill to swallow. Most of us, men and women alike cannot fathom a life of solitude. We know, lonliness is just as much a predictor of mortality as smoking or morbid obesity. We die sooner because of it.

It’s only when women decide to settle down, they begin to look around at the pool of men willing to commit and discover there are almost none. Where could they go? And if one is spotted in the ‘wild’ why isn’t he willing to settle down? What changed in the minds of these men? I asked some of my friends. This is what they said:

The effect of the media:

Lawrence (Pharmacist, married, one child, wife is pregnant):

“Have you seen a sitcom lately that features a good man? Last one I remember was the Cosby show. At the time, Bill Cosby stood up a mile tall. A father, a husband, the functioning half of a whole family. Beloved, revered and the archetype of good men everywhere, black or white. Somewhere between then and now, the concept of an intelligent compassionate and loving man changed into a generation of bumbling idiots. Of clueless men, partially formed; but for the steady hand of his significant other, he would collapse into chaos. A king, lost without his queens. These are the modern role models as presented to the last two generations of boys; to be a man requires some level of dysfunction no?

Good enough to marry but only with constant correction. Never quite making it, unable to stand on his own, a draft animal, inherently blinkered, saved from himself by his loving wife.”