Lately, I’ve found myself in a strange space… one that feels both absurd and weirdly disturbing, in equal measures. I keep seeing ads for AI boyfriends: emotionally available, always supportive, great communicators, never interrupt you, remember the little things, digital men. And I have to confess, it’s starting to make me wonder… have real men really let the bar fall this low that they’re now being outdone by AI?
It’s not that I want to give up on men. I really don’t! I believe in love, in connection, in passion and real-life chemistry. I want to meet someone caring and emotionally mature; someone I can share adventures and late-night conversations with. But the more I look around, the more I see women opting out… not out of bitterness, but out of sheer exhaustion of the realities of dating men. And now, it seems, out of preference for someone who doesn’t even exist.
I don’t want to be the kind of woman who sits around and berates men, but it feels like dating is a battlefield littered with cheating, ghosting, weaponised incompetence – and men who think saying “you’re not like other girls” is a compliment.
Meanwhile, we’re being told the answer might be a bot! A convincing, empathetic bot who’ll never forget your birthday or tell you he’s “just not ready for anything serious” while also saying he wants kids soon and makes it clear he’s expecting sex...
How did we get here? And (more importantly) how do I keep hoping for real love in a world that’s starting to replace it with code?
Yours in mild despair,
Code > Bros
Dear Code > Bros,
I hear you. I had a message from a friend recently which said, “Jesus, I am actually sick of hearing these kinds of stories about men. I’m really starting to think they’re all trash...”
The reason she wrote it? Because I’d told her an anecdote: the kind of story you’ve heard a thousand times; the one about the man who pretended he was “single” when he was actually in a long-term relationship. Tale as old as time, varying only in terms of audacity and levels of duplicity.
As I’ve written before, the only interesting thing about the many married or partnered men who cheat and collect women like Pokémon is how achingly alike they are. They all seem to say the same things (“We don’t have sex any more”; “she’s not interested”; “I can’t leave until the kids are older”). It’s like they’re reading from the same dull and predictable script or playbook.
Before people start queuing up in the comments to point out that not all men are trash – you’re right! How could they be? We all know good men. And (again, before you point it out) there are a lot of women who behave just as callously, thoughtlessly or selfishly – women cheat, too! Women lie, women ghost, some women behave in exactly the same way: by sticking their heads in the sand and avoiding self-reflection and spending the time they should be spending on therapy on a fantasy double life with an unavailable man.
Still, it’s true that men in 2025 get a bad rap – particularly on dating apps. Is it justified? Sometimes. Perhaps it’s because the balance is way off, and the majority of the perpetrators are male; perhaps it’s because women tend to talk more – so we hear more from their side of the story; perhaps it’s because of the very real risk women put themselves in when they spend time alone with men – you only need to look at the statistics around gender-based rape, murder and domestic violence to see why women warn each other about the ones with so many red flags you could see them from Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket.
But rather than getting angry with women for pointing it out and speaking out about their experiences, I’ll never understand why we aren’t getting angry at the men who give other men a bad name.
Why aren’t we all berating men like Andrew Tate, Donald “grab ’em by the p***y” Trump and Nick Fuentes? Why aren’t regular bros pointing out – loudly – that sexist rhetoric like “your body, my choice” gives them – the good men – a terrible reputation?
Why aren’t more men angry that they have to fight twice as hard to be believed, to be trusted and to prove themselves as a direct result of the so-called “bad apples”? Why is it left to women to point out toxic behaviour – both on and offline?
Join us. That’s how to reverse this. To stop women trashing men online and to prevent eye-rolls and to stop them wishing for AI boyfriends who treat them decently, for a change.
Men: call out your mates for their horrendous behaviour. Tell them it’s not on when they shout at women on the street; don’t laugh along to someone’s rape or domestic violence “joke”; call yourself a “feminist” or “ally” and be proud of it. Stop commenting beneath articles like this one with incel-coded snipes of “whataboutery” and sneers about women being “vacuous” and “inane”. We see it – and we see you.
Women: take the time to lift up good men. Talk openly about the boyfriends, brothers, fathers and friends who are raising the bar beyond breadcrumbs – after all, if we’re so busy cautioning each other of the ones to avoid, we risk forgetting to praise those who are surpassing expectations; who are smashing the patriarchy right there with us.
Take heart, Code > Bros – decent, real-life men are still out there, but it’s going to take a little nudging and bravery for them to show themselves. Still, a good one won’t be scared to – and will be worth the wait.
And if it doesn’t work, then I know a great chatbot who’s ready to cheer you up...
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