
Why Modern Women Keep Asking Questions They Don’t Want Honest Answers To
Rachel Drucker’s recent Modern Love piece in The New York Times, titled “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back,” is poetic, wistful, and emotionally sincere. But like so many mainstream essays written by women about the “disappearing man,” it’s riddled with blind spots. It asks a question, then subtly refuses to hear the actual answer.
Spoiler: Men didn’t vanish. We walked away, eyes open, hearts scorched, and wallets lighter. And we had our reasons.
The Core of the Disconnect
Drucker observes a cultural shift: restaurants filled with women, phones filled with ghosted threads, and the emotional vacancy of men she once saw as eager participants in the dance of romance.
Her conclusion? Men have “retreated,” not maliciously, but softly. Quietly. She sees it as a kind of sadness. A tragedy.
But here’s the twist: it wasn’t passive disappearance. It was active self-preservation.
When the Game Is Rigged, Players Quit
Drucker doesn’t mention:
- Hypergamy, the real-world, observable tendency for women to seek partners of equal or higher status, leaving average men invisible.
- Dating app economics, where 80% of women swipe right on the top 10 to 15% of men.
- “Situationships” she complains about, which often result from women keeping options open while seeking a “better” deal.
- Or the reality that modern men are told to “open up,” “be vulnerable,” “do the work,” and then find themselves ghosted for a guy with better biceps or more Instagram clout.
This isn’t bitterness. It’s data. It’s lived experience.
Drucker Asks for Presence. But at What Cost?
She writes, “We’re not asking for performances. We are asking for presence.”
But for many men, presence has meant:
- Being used for attention, meals, or validation.
- Being punished for vulnerability.
- Being rejected for not “sparking” that elusive chemistry after doing everything right.
She says, “We never needed you to be perfect.”
But the reality is, for many men, anything less than perfection equals irrelevance.
Men Went Their Own Way. Literally.
While Drucker sat at candlelit tables wondering where the men went, she missed the Passport Bros boarding planes. She missed men building businesses, lifting weights, escaping the algorithmic trap of Western dating, or just quietly opting out.
These men are not “lost.”
They’re focused.
They’re healing.
They’re done playing a rigged game.
You Don’t Get to Ignore Men for a Decade, Then Mourn Their Absence
There’s a kind of emotional entitlement in the essay, a soft demand that men reappear, re-engage, recommit.
But Drucker, and the culture she speaks for, never reckons with how we got here. There’s no self-inquiry. No admission that maybe, just maybe, the modern dating market, the feminism of convenience, the casual cruelty of swipe culture and emotional ghosting drove men away.
You can’t burn the bridge and ask why no one’s crossing.
We’ll Come Back, But Not to the Same Rules
Drucker ends with a plea for men to return. Not perfect. Just present.
That’s fair, and human. And there are many good women who do want connection, who are sincere, who are showing up.
But the new generation of men isn’t coming back to be emotionally milked, disposable providers, or walking therapy dolls.
If we come back, it will be as equals.
With boundaries.
With standards.
And with full awareness of the cost of connection.
Wrap Up
The next time someone asks, “Where have all the good men gone?”, try listening to the answers. They’re not hiding. They just stopped showing up for a story that never included them.