A friend of mine, Layo, will say, “I cannot stand weak men; they bring out the worst in me”

 

Most men think women just became entitled.

As if one day they all woke up and decided they deserved everything while giving very little back.

 

But that’s not how this happened.

Entitlement doesn’t survive on its own. It needs an environment. It needs reinforcement. It needs people willing to tolerate it, reward it, and keep showing up for more of it even while complaining about it behind closed doors.

That is the part men do not want to hear.

A lot of the behaviour men hate in modern dating didn’t grow in a vacuum. It grew because too many men kept feeding it.

I’m not saying women have no responsibility. Of course they do. But men keep wasting energy talking about female behaviour as if they are helpless spectators in the whole thing. We’re not. That’s the lie. That’s the comfortable excuse. It feels good because it removes responsibility. It also removes power.

And that is exactly why I wanted to write this.

Because too many men are walking around angry, drained, and cynical, acting like they’ve been sentenced to deal with whatever modern dating throws at them. They talk like powerless observers. Like victims of a game they had no hand in creating. But that’s not true. The game continues because men keep playing it badly.

That matters, because the second you realise your behaviour helps create the dynamic, you also realise your behaviour can change it.

That is where your power is.

Not in complaining. Not in making videos about how bad women are. Not in posting bitter takes online and calling it “truth.” The power is in what you reward, what you tolerate, what you chase, and what you walk away from.

And a lot of men have been rewarding the wrong things for far too long.

Let’s start with the obvious one.

A woman shows up late. She gives low effort. She replies when she feels like it. She expects attention, validation, dates, energy, patience, understanding, and emotional labour before she has earned a damn thing. And the man still keeps going. He still texts. He still pays. He still explains himself. He still tries to prove he’s different. He still hopes that if he stays calm enough, generous enough, patient enough, she’ll eventually become the woman he imagined in his head.

That right there is where the problem lives.

Men say they want respectful women, grounded women, women who bring peace, women who show effort. But many of them act like none of that matters the second a pretty face walks into the room. Their standards evaporate. Their boundaries soften. Their self-respect goes into hiding. Then later, when it all goes wrong, they blame female entitlement as if they had nothing to do with it.

No. You did have something to do with it.

You told the truth with your behaviour.

And behaviour always tells the truth.

A lot of men claim they want substance, but what they really reward first is appearance.

That’s where this gets ugly.

Men will ignore arrogance, selfishness, poor character, emotional instability, and blatant disrespect if the woman is attractive enough. They will sit through conversations they don’t enjoy, excuse behaviour they know is wrong, and invest in women who have done absolutely nothing to deserve that investment. Then they wonder why some women move through the world like their looks are enough.

Because for a lot of men, they are.

You cannot keep handing out attention like loose change and then act shocked when somebody starts expecting it. You cannot put a woman on a pedestal because she is physically attractive and then complain that she acts like she belongs on one. Men helped build that pedestal. Men keep repairing it every time they ignore character in favour of chemistry.

And I think that’s what really bothers a lot of men when they read something like this. It exposes that some of the pain they feel did not just come from what women are doing. It came from what they kept permitting.

That stings, because it’s easier to be angry than accountable.

It’s easier to point at social media, dating apps, culture, feminism, hypergamy, or whatever label you want to use this week. And yes, all of those things shape the environment. But none of them force a man to abandon his standards. None of them force him to chase low-effort women. None of them force him to beg for attention, over-invest too early, or ignore obvious red flags because he is scared of losing access to beauty.

That part is still on him.

And until men face that honestly, nothing changes.

Another reason I blame men is because too many of them lead with validation instead of standards. They meet a woman and immediately start trying to impress her. They compliment her too quickly. They over-text. They over-explain. They offer emotional energy, time, money, and attention before she has shown any reason to receive it. The whole dynamic starts with him trying to win and her deciding whether he’s good enough.

That’s a terrible way to begin anything.

Because now she is the evaluator and he is the applicant. She is the prize and he is trying to qualify. The entire interaction is built on imbalance from the first conversation. Then men wonder why some women act like they hold all the power.

Because men handed it over before anything even started.

This is what weak scarcity does to a man. It makes him act like every woman is his last chance. It makes him invest in possibilities instead of realities. It makes him worship access. And once a man starts doing that, the rest of the structure collapses. You cannot negotiate respect from a position of neediness. You cannot create healthy dynamics while acting desperate not to lose the person standing in front of you.

Entitlement feeds on male desperation.

That is why some women can demand so much while giving so little. Because too many men have shown them that little is enough.

Then there’s the issue nobody likes to admit: most men do not walk away early enough.

They see the signs. They know. Deep down, they always know.

They know when she is self-absorbed. They know when she lacks warmth. They know when everything is about what she wants, what she feels, what she expects, and what she deserves. They know when there is no reciprocity. They know when they are being tested, drained, managed, or slowly turned into an approval machine. But they stay. They stay because they are lonely. They stay because she is hot. They stay because starting over feels exhausting. They stay because part of them still believes that if they just behave well enough, love her well enough, understand her enough, she will soften.

Sometimes she won’t.

Sometimes what you are calling “a rough patch” is just her character.

And every extra day you stay in something disrespectful, you make disrespect more normal in your own life.

That is how men lose themselves. Not all at once. Not dramatically. Quietly. Gradually. Through tiny compromises they keep pretending do not matter. Laughing off things that bother them. Accepting things they know are wrong. Making allowances they would never tell another man to make. Then one day they wake up and realise they are angry all the time, exhausted all the time, and weirdly ashamed of how much they have tolerated.

That shame turns into resentment. And resentment usually gets aimed at women. But often it should begin with the man in the mirror.

Because he knew better.

He just didn’t act like it.

I think a lot of men need this article because deep down they already know they’ve been giving their power away. They know they have been too available, too forgiving, too eager to please, too afraid to leave. They know they have confused patience with weakness and desire with lack of discipline. They know they’ve been trying to be chosen instead of deciding what deserves access to them.

That is the real shift men need.

Not “how do I get women to behave better?”

That’s the wrong question.

The right question is, “Why am I rewarding behaviour that makes my life worse?”

Because once a man asks that honestly, things start changing fast.

He stops being impressed so easily. He stops mistaking beauty for value. He stops praising women for things that require no effort. He stops explaining his standards like a man asking permission to have them. He stops trying to rescue every connection that feels off. He stops believing every attractive woman is an opportunity. He starts paying attention to how he feels around her. Calm or confused. Clear or drained. Respected or managed. Seen or used.

He starts acting like his attention has value.

And that changes everything.

Because female entitlement only works on men who are willing to submit to it. It only thrives in an environment where men fear walking away more than they fear disrespect. The second enough men stop rewarding bad behaviour, the dynamic shifts. Not because women get lectured. Not because culture suddenly becomes fair. Not because everyone starts acting morally. It shifts because incentives shift.

Human beings respond to incentives. Dating is no different.

If men keep giving time, energy, validation, commitment, and second chances to women who show poor character, then poor character will keep getting rewarded. If men start withholding those things until a woman shows effort, maturity, warmth, accountability, and genuine interest, then a different standard begins to take shape.

This is why I blame men. Not because women are innocent. Not because men deserve shame. But because men still have agency, and too many are pretending they don’t.

That pretending is destroying them.

It keeps them stuck in bitterness. It turns them into commentators instead of leaders in their own lives. It makes them sound perceptive while behaving weakly. They can explain modern dating for three hours on a podcast and still fold the second a pretty woman gives them ten minutes of attention. That’s not wisdom. That’s self-deception wearing the clothes of awareness.

And men need to be done with that.

The goal is not to become cold.

The goal is not to hate women. The goal is not to punish anyone. The goal is to become a man who no longer participates in his own disrespect.

That is different.

That man does not rant. He filters.

He does not beg. He observes.

He does not overinvest. He watches.

He does not try to convince a woman to be better. He decides whether she fits into the life he is building.

And if she doesn’t, he leaves without the speech, without the drama, without the need to be understood.

That is power.

Real power is quiet. Real power does not need to perform itself. Real power is the ability to say no to what looks good but costs too much. Real power is being able to leave what your ego wants because your standards want something better. Real power is refusing to keep funding the very behaviour you claim to hate.

That is why this matters.

Because the message men keep getting is that their only options are either blind worship or bitter resentment. Either pedestalise women or despise them. Either chase them or check out completely.

That’s weak thinking.

There’s a third option. The better option.

See clearly. Choose carefully. Reward wisely. Leave early.

The truth is, women are not going to suddenly become less entitled because men complain harder. They become less entitled in your life when you stop making entitlement profitable. When you stop giving your best energy to women who give you their leftovers. When you stop negotiating with disrespect. When you stop acting like access to beauty is worth the price of your peace.

That is the part men need to hear.

Because this article is not really about women.

It’s about men finally remembering that they are not powerless.

It’s about men understanding that the standard is not what you say in a podcast clip, a tweet, or a comment section. The standard is what you tolerate when you are lonely, tempted, flattered, or afraid of starting over.

That is your real standard.

And if enough men raise it, a lot of what they complain about starts disappearing from their lives.

Not from the world. From their lives.

That’s the only part you control anyway.

So yes, I blame men for women being entitled.

Not because men caused every problem.

But because too many men keep funding the one they say they want to end.

And the second they stop, the whole dynamic starts to change.