A reader, Brett, writes in to air his concerns about how women’s high expectations may play into men going on strike:

If it isn’t covered explicitly in the book, I’d like to see you write an article on how much the strike is caused by constant rejection due to unreasonable expectations on the part of women. … To be clear, I can get dates. Quite a few, and with attractive women. I can get second and third dates. And yes, to be vulgar (again, my apologies), I can get them in bed. However, at some point I always fail a “check box test”. Over night, the lady will go from “I had a great time, I can’t wait to see you again” (words backed up by actions such as initiating contact in between dates just to say hello), to “I just don’t think we’re a good match”. Now, I fully recognize that Love & Lust are strange beasts, and quite unpredictable. However, one starts to suspect that the problem lies in the women and/or what popular culture has told them they should have. For all the yapping we get from certain quarters of society that pornography is bad because it warps men’s perception of women, I don’t know any guys that seem to be negatively affected. It’s true, we might find an entertaining fantasy in the notion of walking into a Starbucks to find a smoking hot barista who does a strip tease and offers to have sex with us on the counter. I think most mature guys would actually be put off by that in real life (what would such actions indicate about the girl?). Even for the ones who do want that in real life, I don’t think any of them actually expect it to happen. None of the hundreds of thousands of men who bought coffee at Starbucks this morning are surprised or disappointed that all their barista gave them was a cup of coffee and a smile. In other words, men seem perfectly capable of differentiating between reality and fiction.

To sum up some of Brett’s concerns, he finds that when he goes out with women and doesn’t meet some expectation like being a great ice skater etc., they give him the brush-off:

I think my point is….. If my experiences constantly tell me that all I’m going to get for all my money, time, and effort is at best some nookie, why bother trying for anything else? There are women out there, attractive women, who don’t want anything more either. Why not just hook up with them for my physical needs, and satisfy my emotional needs by hanging out with my friends and playing video games? If I have a need for children, I can just become more involved with my nephews.

I think that as women become more “empowered” and told how wonderful they are, the more picky they become of men. Pair this sense of narcissism with a steady diet of fantasy novels and shows, and it’s no wonder women have little patience with a man who can’t ice skate. It makes for negative relationships between the sexes and may drive many men to feel that relationships are so difficult, they give up on them.

What do you think?