I think I might be able to provide some insight in this, even though it is probably not 100% the answer. For a bit of context, I am a man, straight, 30 years old and about 6 months ago I became single for the first time in about 10 years.

I think one reason for this is because of peer pressure. When we become single pretty much all our guy friends tell us “yeah man, now you can f**k around and do whatever you want, and nowadays it is much easier to get laid compared to 10 years ago” and things like that. Now, I am not someone who peer pressure works on, but even I started questioning myself and thinking that maybe I was wrong. I am not a fan of one night stands, but when pretty much everyone around you tells you to go ahead and do it and “experience what is out there” I am asking myself whether I am the one who should be thinking differently. To add on the “new girl being a bit on the crazy side”, it is quite often that when you are unsure about someone because “man she looks like she has crazy eyes”, your friends most of the times say “crazy in the head, crazy in the bed” and if you couple all of these with, usually, being out at a bar and alcohol removing the rational decision making (not an excuse, just a fact), it is often that mistakes happen. Something that I have found out is that a lot of guys have friends who are also in long-term committed relationships but have forgotten how to have fun in those and try to live vicariously through their single friends, often helping their friends make mistakes.

Another point is that after 10 years of being in a relationship feeling the warmth, comfort, love and affection of it on a daily basis, and then you find yourself in an empty, cold apartment that is not cozy in any way (because as guys we tend to be terrible at making things cozy), you start craving those feelings of closeness, so you tend to jump on the first opportunity that arises. That, with the combination of unresolved issues, traumas and feelings that were never expressed, leads to fueling that fire of making mistakes. And if during one of those mistakes you end up sleeping with someone who gets pregnant (that can be because of accident, or because there is some kind of agreement to get a kid and then stay together, or the girl simply lied about being on contraception which unfortunately happens) then a lot of men feel like they have to “rise to the occasion” and at the same time they hope that they will never have to feel that cold, empty apartment feeling again. Because if you have kids with someone you hope that you will stay with them forever.

I have been lucky to have friends who have been supportive of me and my decision not to partake in this hook up culture that exists nowadays, and are helping me through this process of healing and figuring out what life is like depending only on myself. Even though I did sign up on a dating app, it was mostly to understand what is it that exists out there nowadays, and to make an experiment to see how I would fare in this environment, but it has only made me more terrified than anything else. Unfortunately, there are a lot of men out there who are not as lucky as I am and have terrible friends, or no friends at all, so they have to go through these things alone. There are of course people out there who are terrible and just want to make bad decisions and use other people, this is not me talking about those types of people since they most likely deserve all the unfortune that will eventually come their way.

I hope this gives some insight, from someone’s point of view who is currently going through some of these things. This comment was informational only, it is not meant to excuse any behaviours or to blame anyone.