When you have styled yourself as somewhat of a Casanova over the years your start getting questions that you don't think have basis of being directed at you. "Why don't guys pursue women any more?" One person asked me over tables while we sipped on our coffees. I gave some reasons at the time, but kept thinking about it. What has changed in men and women that causes men to pursue women less than they used to.

  

Most of what I know about relationships comes from sitting at the feet of the elderly. As they discuss their youth, and concerns for the present generation, I glean and learn as much as I can. Granted, I find some of their views to be off the mark. Times have changed, so have people. Some things that worked for our grandparents and even our parents will not work for us. The aim is never to replicate as is, but rather to get principles from the way that they did things. It is those principles that are timeless and can be applied today.

Years ago, I recall at least 3 elderly men telling me about how they had pursued their lady for a long time. The longest was 3 years! 3 years of pursuing someone? 

They had obstacles that we don't have in our times. At times, the girls didn't have a phone at home, so they'd have to find a way to run into her. You know, what might be considered stalking nowadays. 

Older brothers, cousins and father were much more protective of their girls in those days. The boy in pursuit would either have to gain their approval or play cat-and-mouse with them the entire time. 

The result of all of this were marriages that lasted much longer. Couples that were left with no doubt as to how their partner felt about them. I mean, if you can spend 3 years just focussed on me, what are the odds that you would venture elsewhere? Persevering through rejection, beating, threats and so on, you deserve a medal! These were the true heroes.

It’s often phrased as, “What’s wrong with men of today?” Well, I wish I could give a satisfactory answer to that. Some will even go as far as to say that there is crisis of manhood in our generation. They don’t make men like they used to! I’d argue the same applies to women in some ways. Except that we are a product of the environment and conditions in which we are raised. We cannot get today’s women to be the same as the women who had to fight for their right to vote, their right to be viewed as a human being, their right for equality. Don’t get me wrong, I will clarify this before I am misquoted. Today’s women have their own struggles; they are still fighting for equal pay. The struggle has evolved.

Trevor Noah gives a splendid example of this in his book, Born a Crime. He explains how the internet has made porn more readily available. Not too long ago, we would have to wait for ages for a dial-up-connection to load up a porn image. Nowadays we have videos at our fingertips. There is not as much effort required for one to connect with women.

Do you remember the days when you could live in a neighbourhood and never meet or know the stunning girl from the next street? Yeah, I do too. Tinder and other location based apps have come to our aid in that regard. It used to be easier to cheat as well, as long as the females didn’t go to the same schools, churches, and so on.

Men and women alike are bombarded with a plethora of potential mates on a day to day basis. There is less and less of an incentive for faithfulness. Dr. Seltzer explores this subject in his article for Psychology today.

Men are visually stimulated, that is one of their main arousal routes. They see – they like what they see – they are inclined to take action. In this regard, men are seeing more women than ever before, but it is also uncommonly easy to reach these women than ever before. Women have become more available.

The direct result of women becoming too easily available, is that men no longer have to feel the need to “work for it”. They can be lazy and still get girls. Nowadays we are no longer confined to our own towns, cities or even countries. I can easily begin and maintain a relationship with anyone within Europe. It’s only a few hours flight anyway, which would likely be the time that it’d take me to drive from one end of London to another anyway.

Whatever happened to those good men? The sort of good men who fathers would want to give their children’s hand in marriage? Honestly? There are still a lot of good men around, I know quite a few of them. I will admit that I too did see myself slack at one point. It wasn’t because I didn’t have a woman that deserved my attention. Neither was it because she wasn’t the fairest about, dammit, she was a beauty!

It comes down to how loyal one is. When I had the ideal girl, I was satisfied but also bolder. It made me chase other girls willy nilly. Not because of genuine interest in them, but just because I could. I have the best girl, so the rest should just follow. In the end, you are in danger of losing both birds, when you make yourself that one stone that chases two birds.

Remember when we had to make calls to landlines? When you would ring the girl’s home number, only for the father to answer and grill you? Do you remember the way you would then try to speak like a girl when anyone else besides your intended picked up?

Things have become much easier, God bless technology. We have all the social networks, where we can track down girls whose telephone numbers we haven’t had a chance to get.

Further than this, the options have become limitless. We have no boundaries of who we can fall in love with. Our circles are larger than they have ever been, larger than they would have been a decade ago. We connect with friends of friends of friends on social media. This is where a chunk of relationships come from.

Older generations will tell you that their relationships were not as smooth as we would like to believe. Most of our grandads were rolling stones. It was common, and somewhat acceptable for men to be such. Women would hate it, but invariably accept it.

When you have marital problems, women would run back to their families. At which point, their aunts, their mothers and sisters would console them. The consolation period would always end either by the man coming after his woman or the woman being encouraged to go back and fight for her marriage. This still happens in some cultures, by the way. It happens in African communities, and some Asian communities as well.

Our default is to move on. If there are issues, we are inclined and encouraged to seek better! There is a problem in that. I am not saying we should stick with every bastard out there. We ought to preserve ourselves.

We have often been referred to as a microwave generation. This is true to the t. We have less patience than our parents and their parents had. Patience is built by having to wait for things. We no longer have to wait for much. Our internet pages load quicker than most things, yet we still complain about that. We hate queuing for the added seconds or minutes when service providers are slower than we have grown to expect. McDonalds and other such places are built on this truth! We want what we want, and we want it now! We have tonnes of pages open in our browsers when surfing the web. Shorter concentration spans make it easier for us to move on.

Evan Mawarire said, “We are a sex ready generation.” From the time we are young, we are being prepared for sex. All forms of media are geared towards this. Sex sells! And we are selling it to all age groups nowadays. Our children know things that we wouldn’t have ever known at their age. The internet gives us unprecedented access to information, but this is not all good! There is limited filtration.

I remember being on a bus in London a few years ago, and overhearing a conversation between some boys. They couldn’t have been an older than 11/12. One of them was speaking of how a female had been performing fellatio on him. That shook me. I wondered how much I knew about that by that age. That was the sort of age where kissing was a big deal to me and my peers. Clearly, this lad was ahead of me. I do not envy him though, these sort of things robbed me of part of my childhood. God knows how much more of his they will take away.

Sex used to be a man’s ticket to sex, unless he wanted to use the services of a sex worker, which was frowned upon. With sex being readily available, less men are inclined to want to marry. Why would you buy the cow when you can get the milk easily? Hahaha, that’s perhaps an overused analogy.

I don’t know a lot of people in my generation that want to get married. The ones I know who are married, seem to be suffering through it. Some of my friend will read this and think I am a bastard for not recognising their wonderful marriages, so I will admit that there are some marriages that we could all aspire to. Those are few and far apart. Most people are not looking for forever. Most of us just want immediate pleasure, and hope the rest sorts itself out. My grandparents had an amazing marriage, and I have always wanted the same. A part of me still believes and is holding out for that, yet another part is done with the waiting.

There is a nagging feeling that when we wait, we are missing out on the pleasures that others are enjoying. My personal fear is that of investing a lot of time in someone and something that doesn't work. Something that only eats you up and spits a different version of you out.

The truth is, relationships are work, it no walk in the park! You get in what you put into it. And when you don’t, you ought to keep putting in what you want to get out. We reap what we sow. Although, not all seeds that we sow will bear fruit, we are not to stop planting!

I want forever! I will have forever, no matter how much it costs me. I have seen what forever looks like, and will not settle for anything less than it. As sad as it is that men no longer pursue women as much as they could. I count it privilege to still be one of the hopeless romantics. There is little to no competition for us nowadays. Sadly, this also means most women are not prepared to be treated that well.

Society has conditioned our women to worry about being taken advantage of. It is smart that they remain vigilant, but not to shut the few good men out.