Walk across any campus, scroll through any feed, or wander into any café where coffee costs more than a week’s groceries, and you will see him: The Perfomative Male. He’s part poet, part open-mic philosopher. He prances through life with a tote bag, a Moleskine notebook, and the unshakable belief that the world needs another man reciting Paolo Coelho over a matcha latte. He is sweet, soft, sensitive, and — if his TikTok tags are to be believed — spiritually aligned with the moon. He trims his beard with military discipline, but only so he can claim he no longer cares about “traditional grooming.” He speaks in platitudes and nods solemnly at everything. He has mastered the holy trinity of modern manhood: eye contact, thrifted knitwear, and a falsetto apology. He’s not, to be clear, a bad person. He’s simply insufferable. This new type of man has convinced himself that the only way to escape the furnace of “toxic masculinity” is to walk into the opposite fire — the one lit by scented candles and guided journal prompts. He performs sensitivity with the energy of a man auditioning for a role he wrote himself. He posts tears. He posts therapy-speak. He posts readings of short stories that should’ve been buried in the backyard beside his creative writing degree. Online, he floats through life like a human chamomile tea. The Performative Male is the natural child of an age obsessed with telling men to reinvent themselves. We tell them to be tender, then mock them the moment they try. We beg them to open up, then churn out articles accusing them of faking it. The cottage industry is endless: think pieces, social media analyses, viral therapy jargon, even academic papers dissecting whether a man’s feelings are “authentic” or “performative.” With that much scrutiny, a new creature was bound to emerge. So he arms himself with props —  mindfulness journals he never finishes, vintage typewriters he can’t type on, houseplants kept alive solely for aesthetic credit — hoping these signals count as substance. But none of it is depth. None of it is change. It’s camouflage for a culture that hasn’t decided what it wants from men. And in the process, he becomes a parody. Not of masculinity, but of himself. While these men are busy perfecting “the gentle aesthetic,” most women aren’t asking for any of it. The vast majority still want men who are men — steady, grounded, the kind of presence that doesn’t melt into a puddle of feelings every second Tuesday. A sensitive streak is fine; a spine made of tofu is not. When things go wrong, no woman on earth is thinking, “Thank God he packed his healing crystals.” When the power goes out, the car breaks down, or some lunatic starts shouting in the street, who do you want beside you? A man who can keep his head and defend himself — or a man who needs to recalibrate his chakras before taking action? Most women don’t want a boyfriend who folds faster than laundry. They want someone who can feel and function, not someone who cries because Mercury is in retrograde. This is the part no one says out loud: the joke is on these roobs. They think the knitted sweaters and soft-spoken monologues make them irresistible. They think offering a tampon to a stranger in a campus contest will win hearts. They think reciting Sylvia Plath will unlock passion. What they fail to realize is that most women watching this circus aren’t swooning. If anything, they’re dry-heaving. They’re thinking, “Bless him… but absolutely not.” The Performative Male wants applause for traits that real men embody. He wants a standing ovation for vulnerability, while countless men are vulnerable in silence every day, asking for nothing but a fair chance. He wants admiration for empathy, while real men show empathy by showing up, not by staging a performance of emotional literacy for an audience of strangers. And yet the culture encourages it. The modern world treats masculinity like a broken chair: fix it, sand it, repaint it, but don’t lean on it. So young men panic. They fear being too strong, too quiet, too confident, too decisive — in other words, too male. They build a new persona made of pathetic props and even more pathetic posturing, hoping the world will pat them on the head and say, “Good boy. You are safe now.” It is a strange sight: men terrified of becoming the villains they have been taught to fear. Meanwhile, the men who refuse to play this sordid game continue living, working, building, fighting, loving, and leading. They’re not crying for likes. They’re doing what men have always done: taking charge when it matters most. And most women — the ones not trapped in online bubbles or sipping the digital Kool-Aid — still want those men. They want steady hands. They want calm strength. They want conviction. They want a man who can listen but also rearrange an intruder’s facial features if necessary. They want a natural provider and protector, not a narcissistic performer. The Performative Male doesn’t understand this because he has confused attention with admiration. The internet rewards theatrics, so he thinks theatrics are the path to desire. But deep down, the women watching know better. They recognize a phony the way a bartender recognizes a fake ID. A carefully curated persona can’t compete with someone who can actually handle a crisis without drama. Women know the difference between a man and a mascot — the Performative Male is the latter. READ MORE by John Mac Ghlionn: The Hedge-Fund Arsonist Now Campaigning as California’s Savior A Passionate Defense of Christian Nationalism  The Slow Suffocation of Christian America