Straight guy here, I want to provide my inside take on what's going on with this.
Genuinely, the straight men OP is talking about are the type that has such a poor vocabulary, they literally don't have the tools to describe relationships. Those traits, the laté snaps, septum piercing, cat ear headphones, those are all stand-ins for character types that they're unable to describe using specific terms.
Lots of men grow up with this idea that they're supposed to die in battle; men get off the Titanic last, so they find meaning in "being of service" in a "manly" way. This is usually accomplished by working jobs that destroy them, also resulting in utter neglect of their education and relationships. The whole "tradwife" attitude revolves around this idea that "since men are socially disposable, but also sensitive creatures, the female companions in their lives should notice their hardships, appreciate their sacrifices, and support them by making up for their deficits."
I shouldn't need to outline how fucking flawed that worldview is, but it's a common one that many men internalize.
So you get these "poor, hard done by" men who see their daily misery as some fucked up noble sacrifice, and who generally don't spend time enjoying life outside of destructive, manly persuits like after work drinking, womanizing, or drugs. Or sports, because that's a proxy for masculine violence, and another avenue to destroy your body and ""die in battle.""
They don't know how to relax, they don't know how to enjoy their own company, they don't know how to manage a household, they develop unhealthy attitudes and coping mechanisms, their relationships are all based on money, their routines revolve around work and nothing else, and their home lives and family dynamics suffer as a consequence.
What's laté snap girl doing, really? She's cultivating an online following, she's slowing down to note small details that please her, she's taking time for herself to enjoy a moment. If these men did that, they'd suddenly be confronted with the emptiness of their lives, the futility of capitalism, their substance use problems, and the various aches and pains that riddle their bodies, as a result of their flawed lifestyle.
So, these men construct a type; the anti-their lifestyle type, that's empowered, educated, and self interested. This type finds meaning in others and in themselves, not in lives based on imagined noble self-sacrifice. This type has blue hair and piercings, is aware of social issues and patriarchy, is independent and self regulates well, and doesn't put up with the "poor him" attitudes of the shitty men out there.
As a result, "women with cat ear headphones" represent anti-matter to the "poor him" bros, and they can't use more specific language to describe this, because that would require awareness of their pathetic worldviews and systemic disfunction in their lives.
And I feel bad for these guys, because they're guys like my dad or my highschool pals who went down a shitty path. But wow, their whole fucking orientation towards life sucks, and they tend to expect deference and respect for their bad attitudes and lives of suffering, when they've really just been grease in the wheels of capitalism. They love women, but have constructed a life where only a certain type of woman can really fit into it, and this excludes most folks with enough self interest to have a sense of style that breaks from traditional norms.
blakekathryn
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