Counter-Currents
A Puzzling Situation
or The Story of a Young Man
F. Roger Devlin
2,075 words 
In recent years I have been experiencing something I had often heard about from others but somehow never expected might happen to me: I have found myself getting old. So far it does not seem quite as bad as I have heard it described, but at sixty-one years of age I am, so to speak, still a youngster at being old. We’ll just have to see.
I am still somewhat partial to young people, however, possibly because I was one myself for a time. I have plenty of young friends trying to make their way in a challenging and confusing world, and find myself wanting to help them out in any way I can. But they often appear less anxious to hear my hard-bought wisdom than I think they ought to be. I keep feeling reminded of an old definition of “expert”—someone who has already made every mistake it is possible to make within some limited domain. To myself I seem a highly qualified expert in any number of domains by this standard, and I would be more than happy to share the story of my mistakes with the younger people I observe repeating them. Perhaps it is my unprepossessing exterior, or perhaps it just isn’t the fashion today for the young to seek out advice from their elders.
An exception occurred recently, however, and that is why I am setting pen to paper. A young man of my acquaintance approached me with the most intractable and confounded difficulties of which I have ever heard. He is really a good kid, about nineteen or twenty I would reckon, well brought-up and now gainfully employed. But he finds himself in a perplexing situation. It turns out that if a dilemma appears sufficiently difficult to resolve, a few young people are still willing to learn from their elders. This gives me hope for the future.
His difficulty concerns a young lady of his acquaintance. I don’t know her well, but have every reason to believe she is a respectable girl of good family and sound principles. He has known her for some time: in fact, he occasionally crossed paths with her when they were children, what with their both living in the same town and all. For this reason, he was taken by surprise recently at what happened when he ran into her again after about a year and a half. I will try to recount his story the way he told it to me, but must ask the reader’s indulgence due to the extraordinary nature of my young friend’s experience. It was not always easy for him to find the words to put it across to me.
Viewed from the outside, not all that much happened. He went to one of those small-town family-type get togethers. Folks were barbecuing and talking, kids running around playing ball, men were arguing over politics while women compared notes on family matters—you get the picture. Well, there stood this young lady, and she must not have been too upset to see my friend again, because when he appeared, she smiled. And although it probably wasn’t the first time he had seen her smile, something different happened on this occasion: as near as he could describe it to me, his whole being suddenly seemed flooded with a sensation of extreme happiness. He wondered what was going on, because he could see neither why such a thing should happen at all, nor why it should have happened today, nor why with this particular girl. He has been puzzling over these mysteries ever since.
Despite the unexpectedness and intensity of his feelings, his interaction with the young lady was rather limited. They exchanged some conventional greetings and conversed briefly about a few matters of hardly any importance at all. Then she had to leave to look after her little brother. She’s very good with children, you see, and hopes to have her own someday.
One reason my friend did not speak longer with her, he tells me, is that he seemed to be overcome by shyness. He hadn’t expected that either: they were, as I mentioned, acquainted from childhood, and he is not usually a shy young man. But he suddenly found himself fumbling to produce even the most commonplaces remarks in the lady’s presence. He has only seen her a few times since that day, but each time he finds the same thing happening.
So he came to me for advice. Perhaps he was relying on my reputation as the author of Sexual Utopia in Power. I actually do know quite a lot about sexual matters, as it happens. I am familiar with the gay liberation movement, have followed the recent kerfuffles over transsexualism and men competing in women’s sports, and once even reviewed Jim Goad’s account of the artificial vaginas transsexuals can now pay to have drilled into their bodies, along with the debate over how their odor compares to that of the natural prototype. But I’m not sure whether even a complete study of Kraft-Ebbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis would suffice to equip me to deal with my young friend’s situation, and I am ashamed to admit that I did not know quite what to tell him.
You can buy F. Roger Devlin’s Sexual Utopia in Power here.
There are other matters to be considered. Although young, my friend is already aware that this world can be a dangerous place. It has seen wars and revolutions, fires, floods, and famines; criminals lurk in dark corners. This gives him cause for concern, because the young lady of whom he is so fond scarcely weighs a hundred thirty pounds and is not nearly as robust as he is. For the moment, he admits, no one appears to be coming after her with gun or knife. But he still finds himself worried about her well-being. He can’t even quite explain the nature of his concern, but it just plain seems to him that there ought to be someone capable of coming to this young woman’s assistance should such need arise.
My friend really does have a good heart, and I found his solicitude admirable, but when it came to practical advice, I did not find the case an easy one. I do, however, know someone who works in security, so I took the problem to that fellow. He has provided armed guards for businesses, banks, and meetings of right-wing extremists, but says he has never heard of a security detail being assigned to a young lady. Well, maybe the President’s daughter—but certainly not an ordinary girl in a small town like the one where these two live. Perhaps the market just is not there.
And now my young friend is facing even greater difficulties. I asked him how he imagines the future of himself and this girl he cares so much about, and he isn’t too sure of the matter. Being so young, I suppose he just is not used to thinking seriously about the future. All he could tell me is that every time he thinks about her—and he thinks about her quite a bit—it seems to him that the supreme happiness of which a human might be capable would somehow involves clasping this girl in one’s arms.
The reader will surely understand my alarm. I asked my friend if he did not realize that this was precisely where the very greatest danger of all for young ladies was to be found. To my relief, he assured me that he did. He is a serious young man who does a bit of reading, and the family leans Republican. Well, according to what is said in many highly-respected conservative publications, horrifying things can happen to innocent young women on American college campuses these days. The young men are quite simply predators, without honor or conscience. My friend is beside himself with anxiety because he understands the girl’s parents are seriously contemplating letting her matriculate at the local university. He is going to ask her father to reconsider the whole thing. If anything should happen to this young lady, he does not know what he would do.
I asked him to describe to me the dangers that face young women on college campuses. He reports that they are rarely described in detail because conservative authors are rather decorous and old-fashioned in their use of language and dislike being overly explicit. But according to what he can understand—and this is precisely the most confusing and disturbing aspect of the entire situation—the campus predators clasp girls in their arms.
In other words, it appears from what these writers are saying that my young friend may himself be a predator. I’m sure the reader will appreciate his agony at the thought that his cherished dream of happiness might turn out to be a source of the greatest possible danger to the girl he loves: the very thought is almost too much for the poor fellow to bear.
I am not the first person he went to for advice about his situation, as it happens. Despite his generally conservative leanings, my friend has gotten wind of possible objections to his association with this young woman from a different quarter. How many obstacles there are to happiness on this earth! It turns out that young women have a right to bodily autonomy. Their bodies belong to them, obviously, so who should have any rights over them if not the women themselves? In fact, my friend enthusiastically agrees with this point of view.
Now, it appears that women are sometimes subjected against their will to inappropriate touching, but this young man is vehemently opposed to any such thing. In fact, he says that if anyone should come along and touch this particular young lady inappropriately, he would scarcely be able to contain his rage. He might not even be able to answer for his behavior! I was amazed to hear him speak like this because it was so out of character. He was never a violent kid.
Well, braving all the predators, he went down to our local university to seek the advice of Dr. Naomi Rosenberg, Chair of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. Dr. Rosenberg is the author of the well-received monograph Transgressive Biker Sluts Going for Broke, and is married to Alejandra García-Martínez, a Guatemalan labor activist and woman of color. A ten-year resident of our local community, Dr. Rosenberg is also an internationally renowned authority on the theory of inappropriate touching.
The young man explained his concerns. One point on which he was particularly keen to be instructed was that the very term would seem to imply the existence—at least as a logical possibility—of another kind of touching that was appropriate. But academic specialization has now gone so far that even Dr. Rosenberg’s extensive expertise on inappropriate touching did not translate into any ability to provide a young man with guidance as to the appropriate variety. Dr. Rosenberg did, however, express the hope that the young lady might enroll in one of her classes. No aspect of her work gives her greater satisfaction, she says, than the extremely personal interest it allows her to take in the development of young women.
The girl herself appears to like this young man, and she shares his perplexity. They hope they might eventually discover some sort of reliable, mutually beneficial arrangement to solve their difficulties. If such a thing were to emerge, my friend says he would not hesitate to “proposition” the young lady with it, if the reader will pardon the expression.
In my younger days I earned a PhD in philosophy and devoted many hours to some fairly abstruse issues: free will vs. determinism, idealism vs. materialism, realism vs. nominalism, you name it. But the novelty of my young friend’s situation is such that I can find no solution at all. So I have decided to resort to what is nowadays called “crowdsourcing.” Counter-Currents has some very intelligent readers, and I am hoping one of them may be able to suggest a way forward for this deserving young man and his lady friend. Commentators are urged not to shy away from even the most far-fetched suggestions, for nothing is so exotic that it might not provide a clue to the solution of a difficulty that has so far eluded the young man, myself, and even the learned Dr. Rosenberg.
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36 comments
It’s a perfectly normal situation. The young man fell in love with a girl and now he doesn’t know what to do. We’ve all been there. A young man is unsure of himself and doesn’t know what to do. If I were solving this problem, I would take the girl to something unusual-an art exhibition, a car race, an adrenaline rush-so that she would have this unusual experience associated with me. If the young man gets up the courage, let him take the girl to the ball and dance, ask her to wine and the evening can end at his house.
“My friend is beside himself with anxiety because he understands the girl’s parents are seriously contemplating letting her matriculate at the local university. He is going to ask her father to reconsider the whole thing. If anything should happen to this young lady, he does not know what he would do.”
This young man sounds more than a little bit unhinged. He needs to focus on establishing a real connection with this girl and not some imaginary relationship as her protector against all the evils of the world. Given how carried away he is, he may be mistaking her ordinary kindness and perhaps mild affection for a return of the eternal love he is feeling. Until he gets a few kisses and an agreement to explore having a committed relationship, it is just an unrequited fantasy. He needs to bring it into the real world or move on; it doesn’t take long for many girls today to see a charming shyness as pathetic weakness or even creepiness.
And, almost without question, if he were to talk to her father in the way he suggests about preventing her from going to college, she would likely never speak to him again and she may be right to do so. That is exceedingly controlling behavior by a guy she probably hasn’t kissed or committed to yet–every girl with any common sense would consider it a red flag.
Furthermore, most colleges are very safe places. I’ve seen the actual Clery Act statistics. The bad stuff happens in the surrounding area. If a girl doesn’t drink at bars, fraternity parties, or house parties, and if she doesn’t go out off campus by herself past 10:00 at night or date sketchy guys, there is very little chance something physically bad will happen to her at college.
Yes, he is unquestionably a bit unhinged. This sometimes happens to young men, strange to say.
“This young man sounds more than a little bit unhinged.”
To me he sounds more than a little bit fictional. Pedagogical. Parabolic?
Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idvxh33q3RA
Thanks: that brought back memories! Yes, Waldo was almost as much a romantic as my young friend.
Laughing my [censored for the prudes] head off. OK Roger let’s just admit what you’re doing. Some of us can tell, especially if we’ve read your previous work.
By the way, you were wrong in your prior article about what “the immaculate conception” is. It’s not Mary conceiving Jesus without sex, it’s Mary herself having been conceived (born) without sin. An all-too-common mistake made by people without a Catholic background.
Sounds like an immaculate misconception then.
Bro you’re funny. Have you considered a career in comedy? I’m sure they’d love you.
Thank you for the correction. Nietzsche, son of a Lutheran pastor, made the same mistake.
This is definitely a tough one. I appreciate your willingness as a movement veteran to offer help and advice to the younger men and women in our community. I’m a few years older than your friend and have experienced firsthand the difficulties of dating in college today.
The relationship between your friend and this girl is a bit unclear. Are they in a committed relationship? Have they at least been on a few dates? Or are they just friends?
In any case, I would caution him very strongly against trying to change her father’s mind about her college education. This is almost certain to upset both her and her father, come across as improper and “creepy”, and will likely ruin his chances at becoming her boyfriend in the future. Her decision to go, or not to go, to college is a very significant one that will have a profound effect on her future financial prospects.
Being worried about her safety on a college campus is understandable, though the risk varies quite a bit depending on the location of the school and the demographic profile of the surrounding area. But from how I understand this article, his worry seems to be worried less about her becoming the victim of a violent crime than he is about another guy on campus “stealing” her from him.
If this is so, it seems to me that he is not confident that she will stay loyal to him while living in an environment where there are plenty of opportunities to cheat. I can relate to this feeling, and it’s indeed very painful. But trust and loyalty have to be the foundation for any lasting relationship.
If your friend is having trouble trusting her because he has been cheated on in the past, his feelings here are completely understandable, but at the same time she isn’t in any way responsible for them. In this case, it’s probably best for him to recognize these insecurities and where they stem from, and it might benefit them both if he has a conversation with her about it.
However, if he is in the unfortunate- and again very relatable! – position of having strong feelings for a girl who he knows does not reciprocate his feelings to the same degree and is not willing to commit to an exclusive relationship with him, it’s likely best for him to move on.
No matter how beautiful she is and how amazing she makes you feel when you’re around her, if you can’t trust her, she’s not the girl for you.
Speaking from some measure of experience, this young man needs the round the clock protection. Who in their right mind would go to a lesbian gender studies professor for advice?…of any kind. Unless he’s really a prankster.
I know I’m dating myself, but back in my day the girls would have eaten up a naive guy like this…if that’s what he is. The gals were the aggressors back then.
We can’t discount the possibility that Dr Devlin is being trolled by this guy.
I don’t believe the young man and woman are real; if you wanted to do an article on how college campuses and extreme far-left liberal professors are poisoning young people’s relationships, I guess there are worse ways to tiptoe up to the subject.
This story is fictitious.
That said, my advice to young people is that “love’s young dream” doesn’t often work out, and sad to say, your first love is unlikely to be your last love. “Marrying your high school sweetheart” is a beautiful idea but in real terms it happens very little.
If you’re 19 and you fall in love, the worst thing you can do is to prioritise your new relationship over your self-development. You’ll probably hate each other in 2 years’ time, and you’ll be looking at a lot of wasted energy.
Before age 26 I had five different relationships that lasted over 18 months. Each of these girls was absolutely not worth my time in retrospect. I met my wife when I was 26 and she was 21. We’ve been together 10 years now and still going strong.
Finding “the one” is not as easy as 123. Remember that Romeo and Juliet is a CAUTIONARY TALE, not a romance.
The theme in this little fable is that young men are becoming so neurotic and fearful of being accused of some transgression on politically-correct campuses that normal human relations are being obstructed. Hence, the healthy image of the young man just taking the maiden in the statue.
Thank you, Peter. Satire is clearly dead, for reality has moved beyond it.
It’s true that reality has transcended satire, but the bigger problem is that irony, sarcasm, and all other forms of passive-aggressive expression are so ubiquitous that satire feels too played out to be funny. Satire can only work in a culture animated by sincerity, principle, and propriety.
“The theme in this little fable is that young men are becoming so neurotic and fearful of being accused of some transgression on politically-correct campuses that normal human relations are being obstructed”
More like politically correct social reforms by way of new political legal impositions on the male population. It is just to neurotically fear family courts today if you are a husband or dad.
First, I would have to see his picture to tell if he is really in her league or not. The way he idealizes her—I doubt it. The optimal course for him is probably to work hard, get some kind of professional degree and “put money in his purse.” That’s probably the best shot he has at a trophy bride. Fionn above put it eloquently: “prioritize personal development.”
I believe the ancients used to talk of what was once called “ro-manse”. It was an expression of “love” and considered the natural way for young men and women to express wicked carnal desires. Good thing we through liberalism and equity have moved beyond such anachronisms.
The good news is that campuses are actually a bit safer than the rest of the general public, despite the remarkably inflated statistics your young friend has heard from feminist data-torturers. If she avoids binge drinking, the wrong kind of frat houses, hookup culture, and sketchy neighborhoods, and follows routine precautions, then her worst hazard at college is getting her mind reprogrammed at an exorbitant cost.
As for your friend, I’m quite sure he felt something very powerful, though I’d caution him against “ONEitis” – the feeling that someone is your one and only, and the world will come to a screeching halt if it all comes to naught. She may like him, but it’s far from clear that she feels the same way about him, and it’s a really bad idea to count one’s chickens before they’re hatched.
Other than that, freezing up with shyness will hurt his prospects in a big way. It’s very important to make normal conversation, warm and lively. Acting nervous or even starstruck is at cross-purposes from being cool. You can send him my guide to the perplexed:
https://counter-currents.com/2024/02/game-101-part-1/
Finally, tell him he should quit listening to radical feminist professors – they want to sneak up on you and do unspeakable things to you. In the words of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mister Tinkertrain”, you’ll never be the same again.
EDIT:
Well, ya really had me going there for a bit…
“Commentators are urged not to shy away from even the most far-fetched suggestions, for nothing is so exotic that it might not provide a clue to the solution of a difficulty that has so far eluded the young man, myself, and even the learned Dr. Rosenberg.”
Maybe direct your young friend to the archive of Roissy/Heartiste?
As much as I hate to admit, he was correct about how to capture the attentions of young women.
Speaking of Heartiste, who is his successor? Andrew Tate (of all people)?
New site:
Chateau Heartiste – Where pretty lies perish. Chateau Heartiste
Before they got censored:
Heartiste Archive (theredarchive.com)
I thought Señor H. had nuked his previous site. Was that all melodrama?
From what I heard, he really did get censored. I’m not sure what for exactly, but he had been putting out some pretty edgy stuff for a while. He lost a lot of important drafts he was working on too. So he was down for a long time.
Is there some way for the young man to act without being a villain?
That question has the same answer as the following question:
Is there some way for whites to interact (or to NOT interact) with nonwhites without being racist in some way?
The young man is real and there are many like him. For those of you who doubt that (an entirely understandable reaction), consider that, being younger than you, he has likely had more brainwashing than you.
“But from how I understand this article, his worry seems to be worried less about her becoming the victim of a violent crime than he is about another guy on campus ‘stealing’ her from him.” The sad thing is that there is no way for him to avoid being a villain even with some here on this website.
Recall this, watch at the 1 minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaY2Kb_PKI
I looked up “Transgressive Biker Sluts Going for Broke” and was disappointed to find the author made it up. It sounds more interesting than whatever this diatribe is.
I’m sure it would be, and probably easier for many Counter-Currents readers to understand as well, but I flunked out of women’s studies.
If you hadn’t flunked out you might not have needed to post this article. A shame.
Oh my God, he made it up? I feel so betrayed. Thank God you’re the only person on earth who can use Google!
Why do you keep telling our host you’re totally done with him, for real man, and then continuing to post here? It’s sad.
I’ve noticed that you occasionally reply to opinions you clearly don’t like by basically telling the person to keep their opinion to their self. How is that supposed to be constructive criticism in a forum for voicing opinions?
He should point out to the young woman that the best time for her to have babies is right now. If they have three babies in a row, let them grow up a bit, and the woman could do college later, if she wants.
Having three children is actually less work than one, because the children keep each other entertained.
But he should probably get some kind of legally binding contract before making babies with her
As for getting old, check out the Raramuri indians of Mexico. Bucks ninety years old cracking off 20k jogs over the canyons. They have their own lingo, their own dress code, they don’t ask questions and they don’t tell lies. And they spend one third of their adults lives either drunk or recovering from a hangover. But it’s all organic homebrew, of course, not industrial booze.
Chris McDougall in his book “Born to run” reckons this lifestyle was common to all pre-industrial societies. If you are physically active, eat healthy food and are reasonably cheerful, it’s hardly a surprise that you will be in excellent shape even when you are ninety years old.
A common failure of advice columns is we generally only hear the concerns of 1 person when there is some sort of 2 person conflict. The one side, the guy in this case, can be expected to paint themself as being mistreated, misunderstood, unheard or ignored. One has to be concerned that an “unreliable narrator” may be at hand. That is even if this guy really exists and is not some archetype.
In this I hear a shy kid with a crush who may be overestimating the interest of a girl he is infatuated with. The awkward kid often has a bit of a “savior complex” in a feeble attempt to woo a woman when he has yet to learn how to flirt. At its most pathetic is the guy who thinks he can get a girl to dump her boyfriend by trashing the guy and acting like he is saving her from the “bad boy” who arouses her than his simpering pleas. It is the defamatory gossip that women do, yet themselves don’t find attractive when coming from a man. Not every guy in this situation is going to become a Travis Bickle (of Taxi Driver), going to ridiculous lengths in a fantasy he is ‘saving’ a girl from …. College (in this case)? He best learn to woo her by getting her come to him by liking him, rather than hoping she will come to him by trying to scare her that he is the safer option.
Whether fact or fiction, whatever happened to a chaperoned date? The cookout was the most reasonable place to connect or reconnect in a most platonic way. Maybe even broach the possibility of getting together for a coffee sometime to catch up? The character certainly shouldn’t have been fearful for her safety on campus. Those are mostly false alarms and leftist stereotypes. Infatuation can make even the most well spoken and confident young man into a blathering idiot. As the kids might say, he should chill with her over coffee and they can get to know each other. Nice public place. Non threatening. Then you know for sure if there’s mutual interest. I speaketh from experience and coffee is safer than alcohol.
The part about the “wife” of the gender studies professor being a Guatemalan labor activist woman of color was particularly funny! There are, in reality, so many such people in our country! (Always my question to them: Why are you here??)
By the way, that is a very beautiful classical statue in the illustration at the top.
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