Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.
男人们，你们去哪儿了？请回来

May 17. A warm Saturday night in Wicker Park, a vibrant stretch of Chicago where seven restaurants crowd a single block.
5 月 17 日。一个温暖的周六夜晚，芝加哥威克公园（Wicker Park）热闹非凡，一条街上挤满了七家餐馆。

Troy and I were having dinner at Mama Delia, one of the quieter spots. The sidewalk patio held five tables: three two-tops, including ours, and a pair pulled together for a group of eight women. At those tables, Troy was the only man.
特洛伊和我在 "迪莉娅妈妈 "餐厅吃晚饭，这是一家比较安静的餐厅。人行道的露台上摆着五张桌子：三张双人桌，包括我们的，还有一对八人桌。在这些桌子上，特洛伊是唯一的男人。

The scene was beautiful — low lights, shared plates, shoulders angled in. The kind of evening people wait for all winter. Still, I found myself watching the crowd as it moved past us: women walking in pairs or alone, dressed with care. At table after table at the nearby restaurants, there was a noticeable absence of men — at least of men seated in what looked like dates.
这一幕很美--灯光暗淡，盘子共用，肩膀倾斜。这是人们整个冬天都在等待的夜晚。尽管如此，我还是发现自己在观察从我们身边走过的人群：妇女们或成双成对，或独自一人，衣着考究。在附近餐馆的一桌又一桌餐桌上，明显没有男人的身影--至少是那些看起来像在约会的男人。

Troy and I have known each other for almost 20 years. We met at Playboy, of all places, back when we were both learning how desire gets packaged, sold and sometimes misunderstood. We stayed close friends, bonded not just by our opinions, but by the effort it takes to stay in someone’s life.
特洛伊和我已经相识近 20 年了。我们是在《花花公子》杂志上认识的，那时我们都在学习欲望是如何被包装、销售的，有时还会被误解。我们一直是好朋友，不仅因为我们的观点，还因为我们在别人的生活中付出的努力。

That night, we made the effort. Still, what I saw unfolding around us felt like something else entirely: a collective shift I couldn’t unsee.
那天晚上，我们做出了努力。尽管如此，我所看到的在我们周围展开的一切感觉完全不同：一种我无法忽视的集体转变。

It started to become clear the previous April, when a man who had been pursuing me canceled a dinner at the last minute. There was a scheduling mix-up with his son’s game. I understood. I’m a hockey mom; I get it. Still, I went. I wore what I would have worn anyway. I took the table. I ordered well. And I watched the room.
前年四月，一个一直在追求我的男人在最后一刻取消了与我的晚餐，这一切开始变得清晰起来。他儿子的比赛安排出了问题。我明白了。我是个曲棍球妈妈；我明白。但我还是去了。我穿了我无论如何都会穿的衣服。我占了桌子。我点得很好。我看着房间。

Only two tables nearby seemed to hold actual dates. The rest were groups of women, or women alone, each one occupying her space with quiet confidence. No shrinking. No waiting. No apologizing.
附近只有两张桌子似乎有真正的约会。其余的都是三五成群的女人，或者是独自一人的女人，每个人都安静自信地占据着自己的空间。没有退缩。没有等待。没有道歉。

That night marked something. Not a heartbreak, but an unveiling. A sense that what I’d been experiencing wasn’t just personal misalignment. It was something broader. Cultural. A slow vanishing of presence.
那一晚标志着什么。不是心碎，而是揭幕。我感觉到我所经历的不仅仅是个人的错位。而是更广泛的东西。文化上的一种存在感的缓慢消失

I spent over a decade behind the curtain of digital desire. As the custodian of records for Playboy and its affiliated hardcore properties, including sites like Spice TV, I was responsible for some of the most infringed-upon adult content in the world. I worked closely with copyright attorneys and marketing teams to understand exactly what it took to get a man to pay for content he could easily find for free.
我在数字欲望的幕后工作了十多年。作为《花花公子》及其附属硬核网站（包括 Spice TV 等网站）的记录保管人，我负责管理世界上被侵权最严重的成人内容。我与版权律师和营销团队密切合作，准确地了解了如何才能让一个男人为他可以轻易找到的免费内容付费。

We knew what worked. We knew how to frame a face, a gesture, a moment of implication — just enough to ignite fantasy and open a wallet. I came to understand, in exact terms, what cues tempt the average 18-to-36-year-old cis heterosexual man. What drew him in. What kept him coming back. It wasn’t intimacy. It wasn’t mutuality. It was access to simulation — clean, fast and frictionless.
我们知道什么有效。我们知道如何通过一张脸、一个手势、一个瞬间的暗示来点燃幻想，打开钱包。我逐渐准确地了解到，对于 18-36 岁的同性异性恋男子来说，哪些线索具有诱惑力。是什么吸引了他。是什么让他流连忘返。不是亲密。不是相互性而是获得模拟--干净、快速、无摩擦。

In that world, there’s no need for conversation. No effort. No curiosity. No reciprocity. No one’s feelings to consider, no vulnerability to navigate. Just a closed loop of consumption.
在那个世界里，无需交谈。没有努力没有好奇心没有互惠不需要考虑别人的感受，不需要了解别人的弱点。只有消费的闭环。

What struck me most wasn’t the extremity of the content; it was the emotional vacancy behind it. The drift. The way many men had quietly withdrawn from intimacy and vulnerability. Not with violence or resistance, but with indifference.
给我印象最深的不是内容的极端性，而是其背后的情感空缺。漂移。许多男人从亲密和脆弱中悄然退出的方式。不是暴力或反抗，而是冷漠。

They weren’t sitting across from someone on a Saturday night, trying to connect. They were scrolling. Dabbling. Disappearing behind firewalls, filters and curated personas. And while they disappeared, women continued to gather. To tend. To notice who wasn’t arriving — and to show up anyway.
周六晚上，他们并不是坐在别人对面，试图与人交流。他们在滚动。涉猎。消失在防火墙、过滤器和精心设计的角色后面。在她们消失的同时，女性继续聚集在一起。关注注意到谁还没来--无论如何都要出现。

I’m 54. I’ve been dating since the mid-80s, been married, been a mother, gotten divorced, had many relationships long and short. I remember when part of heterosexual male culture involved showing up with a woman to signal something — status, success, desirability. Women were once signifiers of value, even to other men. It wasn’t always healthy, but it meant that men had to show up and put in some effort.
我今年 54 岁。我从上世纪 80 年代中期开始约会，结过婚，当过母亲，离过婚，有过许多或长或短的关系。我还记得，异性恋男性文化的一部分是通过和女人在一起来表明一些东西--地位、成功、可取之处。女人曾经是价值的象征，甚至对其他男人来说也是如此。这并不总是健康的，但它意味着男人必须出现并付出一些努力。

That dynamic has quietly collapsed. We have moved into an era where many men no longer seek women to impress other men or to connect across difference. They perform elsewhere. Alone. They’ve filtered us out.
这种态势已悄然瓦解。我们已经进入了这样一个时代，许多男性不再为了讨好其他男性或跨越差异而寻找女性。他们在别处表演。孤独他们把我们过滤掉了。

I recently experienced a flicker of possibility. With James. We met on Raya, the dating app. There was something mutual from the start — wordplay, emotional precision, a tone that felt attuned. It was brief, but it caught light. I remember saying to him, “Even fleeting connections matter, when they’re mutual and lit from the inside.” I meant it.
我最近体验到了一丝可能。和詹姆斯。我们是在约会软件 Raya 上认识的。从一开始，我们就互有好感--文字游戏、精确的情感、感觉合拍的语气。虽然时间很短，但却很有感觉。我记得我对他说过，"即使是短暂的联系也很重要，只要是相互的，从内心点燃的"。我是认真的。

There was just enough spark to wonder what might unfold. Enough curiosity to imagine a doorway. But he didn’t step through it. Not with a plan. Not with presence. He hovered — flirting, retreating, offering warmth but no direction.
有足够的火花去猜测可能会发生什么。有足够的好奇心去想象一扇门。但他没有走过去。没有计划。没有出现。他徘徊着--调情，退却，提供温暖，但没有方向。

Sexual tension and a spark aren’t reason enough to sit still and hope there’s substance behind the shimmer. So I named what I felt. I texted him clearly, with care, not simply to declare attraction but to extend a real invitation to explore what was possible. I didn’t chase. I invited, leaving the door open. If he ever wanted to cross the threshold — not just to take, but to meet — I was willing. I wanted. I still do.
性张力和火花并不足以成为我们静坐等待的理由，希望在闪烁的光芒背后有实质的东西。所以我说出了我的感受。我给他发了明确、谨慎的短信，不是简单地宣布被吸引，而是发出真正的邀请，让他来探索什么是可能的。我没有追逐。我发出邀请，敞开大门。如果他想跨过这道门槛--不仅仅是接受，而是见面--我愿意。我想要。现在也是。

He never replied. He still follows my Instagram stories — one of those small gestures of passive engagement that so many of us now mistake for closeness. It looks like interest. It feels like silence.

There are thousands of Jameses. I have known dozens. The arc varies, but the undertow is familiar.

What I won’t entertain is directionless orbiting. That thing so many men now seem to mistake for connection: the perpetual maybe. The emoji check-ins. The casual “seeing where it goes” without ever going anywhere. We call it a situationship. But mostly, it’s avoidance. An abdication of ownership — of feeling, of behavior, of sex that isn’t a means to an end, but is communion.

There was a time, not so long ago, when even a one-night stand might end with tangled limbs and a shared breakfast. When the act of staying the night didn’t announce a relationship, just a willingness to be human for a few more hours. Now, even that kind of unscripted contact feels rare. We’ve built so many boundaries that we’ve walled off the very moments that make connection memorable. And frankly, morning sex is often the best sex. Sometimes you even get a side of eggs before you disappear from their bed and their life forever.

This idea that vulnerability is a threat instead of an invitation has created a culture of hesitation, of men circling intimacy but never entering it. And the result is thousands of tiny silos. Everyone performing closeness, but no one making a move that binds. Isolation. Loneliness. A hunger for contact that has nowhere to land.

Maybe we’re between paradigms, mourning what’s fallen, not yet fluent in what comes next. The infrastructures of intimacy — slowness, curiosity, accountability — have been eroded by haste, convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat.

It’s not about blaming men. It’s about noticing the imbalance. About grieving what’s not meeting us. And about refusing to dress it up as personal failure when it’s actually a collective reality.

So here’s what I’ll say: You are missed. Not just by me, but by the world you once helped shape.

We remember you. The version of you that lingered at the table. That laughed from the chest. That asked questions and waited for the answers. That touched without taking. That listened — really listened — when a woman spoke.

You are not gone, but your presence is thinning. In restaurants, in friendships, in the slow rituals of romantic emergence.

You’ve retreated — not into malice, but into something softer and harder all at once: Avoidance. Exhaustion. Disrepair.

Maybe no one taught you how to stay. Maybe you tried once, and it hurt. Maybe the world told you your role was to provide, to perform, to protect — and never to feel.

But here’s what’s real: We never needed you to be perfect. We needed you to be with us. Not above. Not muted. Not masked. Just with.

And you can still come back. Not by becoming someone else, but by remembering what connection feels like when it’s honest and slow. When it’s earned and messy and sacred.

We’re still here, those of us who are willing to cocreate something true. We are not impossible to please. We’re not asking for performances.

We are asking for presence. For courage. For breath and eye contact and the ability to say, “I’m here. I don’t know how to do this perfectly, but I want to try.”

Come back. Not with flowers or fireworks, but with willingness. With your whole, beautiful, imperfect heart.

We’re still here. And we haven’t stopped hoping.

As for me, I’ll keep showing up. Not because I’m waiting. Because I know what it feels like when someone finally arrives.

Rachel Drucker is an intellectual property professional in Chicago.

Modern Love can be reached at modernlove@nytimes.com.

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