Hooooooo boy. There is no way for anyone - of either gender - to read this, take any of it to heart, and not end up bleaker than when you started. Unless, of course, you can pull back the curtain.

1) If you read XOJane or Jezebel you get what you deserve. These are journals of small-minded snark whose pageviews are generated largely by controversy. None of that controversy will be at the expense of the audience. It will always be at the expense of the other.

2) There exist women who will marry wifebeaters, divorce them, then cheat with them on their new wives after the wifebeater gets out of prison. These women are tragic, these women are unfortunate, these women show poor judgement, and dollars to donuts, neither you, me, or anyone but "Henry" wants to date them. This may not be obvious to someone who doesn't work for a state mental hospital but trust me - back when CorrLinks had an unofficial facebook page, you could see the sort of people who would take to social media to complain about the prison email system. It was not an assemblage you'd wish to add to your dating pool. Simply put: lots of lonely losers are single because they're picky. And that isn't a bad thing.

3) Men objectify women physically. Women objectify men socially, financially, emotionally and physically. I have no doubts that twice as many MIT grad students are virgins as are high school seniors. I also have no doubts that there's a correlation between "have you used a weapon in a fight" and "how often do you get laid." Fuck, marry, kill. How many older women can say things like "I cashed the 40 for a couple 20s?" Yet we joke about it. Can you name anyone besides Madonna who ever took a "trophy husband?" Those MIT grad students will have social status, wealth and security in 10, 15, 20 years that the average high school senior can only dream about. In fact, one might surmise that the dedicated MIT grad student has reasons not to be weighed down by the pursuit of chicks. Sure, we all want tail but a lot of those guys who get a lot aren't really pursuing anything else. They don't have a grad thesis weighing them down. The reality is this: there are people who are attractive in the short term, there are people who are attractive in the long term, and there are people who are not attractive. Do not presume you are the last. You might be the middle. And to someone, you might even be the first.

But the primary thing to take to heart is this:

Only an idiot lets the generalists of the Internet determine the specifics of their love life. Both sides aren't debating humans, they're striking out impotently at ideas and the cardboard cutouts that present them. The staunchest defenders of both sides are the least happy humans who interact with the opposite sex on the rarest of occasions. Arguing about loneliness on the Internet subjects you to worse than an echo chamber; it traps you in a feedback loop that can only cull you from the gene pool. I mean, really - who THE FUCK is going to give useful, measured discussion to someone who thinks "men's rights activists" have eliminated the ability to gripe about being lonely? Why would you EVER have that discussion on the open, unbounded Internet? How is that line of questioning NOT going to attract the bitterest of haters? I mean, we know the Internet. We've seen it. We've been on it. Ostensibly, it's a network that connects human beings from far-flung corners of the world. So why are we astonished every time something good happens but drearily expectant whenever it reveals the lowest common denominator of human behavior?

Honestly? This whole discussion is an argument about which is worse: anthrax or smallpox. THEY'RE BOTH BAD. Clever people avoid both of them. Happiness lies in NOT bathing in weaponized agents, in NOT asking the violent, other-hating masses why you, the other, are violently hated. A group that identifies via exclusion will NEVER provide viable, reasonable, useful discussion about the excluded.

You engage them at your peril.