In a 1971 interview with Life Magazine, one member of a ‘Men’s Rights Activist’ group explained: ‘Our enemy isn’t women — it’s the role we are forced to play.’ Writer Laura Bates continues, ‘so-called Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) might more accurately be described as Women’s Wrongs Activists’, who ‘are concerned, to the point of obsession, with attacking women’, as a redirective in the new sphere of a blame-centered dating game.

There are two operative sides to the coin of the ‘male crises’- one being of women who believe that “men aren’t lonely enough”, and the other being the social starvation of young men. But the title of ‘Male Loneliness’ as an epidemic is a casus belli, an otherwise widening flag in the bunting of redpill ideology.

Trinity’s counteractive approach to the siege of barren, virtual courtship seems to be apps. It’s anathema to say aloud; one doesn’t simply admit to finding their soul-tie via a right-swipe. It’s common to see a dissenting “let’s lie about how we met” response to Hinge’s own ‘prompt’ section. You met on Camden Street, at Blackbird, or your hands briefly passed over a slice of Sano’s pizza. It’s not reality per se, but it’s romantic.

The alternative to this dishonesty on Trinity’s campus seems equally bleak – stolen glances across a tutorial table and polypropylene carpets cannot compete with a false lead. Why face trial and error when a facsimile of a meet-cute is one conversation away?

Is anti-sociality the crux of the dating sphere’s apparent deflation, or is there a gendered venality to our love lives?

One third-year male student (who chose to remain anonymous), told me, “I’ve had too many experiences where women decide to just like […] give up.” He continues, “It’s difficult because women have a more open forum to complain about, like, ghosting and stuff. Men kind of have to suck it up and deal.”

The aftertaste of “ghosting”, in a complete withdrawal of communication, will always be a bitter one. A tightening torque must be applied to your previous defense mechanisms– you have to prepare for the other to abandon ship before you even see the gangplank. But for many men, particularly in the collegiate domain, walking the plank is the only way to avoid the blame game.

“I feel like it’s easier to walk away first, because girls usually stick around. Sure, if I’m being dry over text, they usually stay until I cut the cord,” says another male student. “When they do ghost, it’s kind of like a power play. It’s a bit ego-deflating.”

It’s an inconspicuous trap of blame; it hides under the grass of impervious bright screens and dislodged X’s and check marks. Often, it’s thinly veiled by ‘nuance’ and ‘balanced’ approaches to dating, when in reality, dating still exists in the context of a not-so-far segregation from its dictatorial and patriarchal past.

And thus lies the problem. In a post-third-wave dating territory, where statistics suggest that men are ‘at a higher risk of suicide’, and that the “‘resentment (toward the spouse and “the system”), bitterness, anxiety, and depression’ may all potentially contribute to suicide risk”, the de-escalation falls on women. Women who therapise, who pathologise men’s shortcomings, and therefore fall victim to the cyclical nature of blame.

Trinity is not exempt from the rhythm of gendered ignition and Freudian hang-ups. We see the coin vortex on campus, we hear our friends complain of another failed “talking stage”, and the molasses of moving towards commitment. And the thing is, we might end up blaming one another until we finally make it down the aisle.