The most desired and praised men are mostly those devoid of responsibilities
The most desired and praised men are mostly those devoid of responsibilities
Today being a Saturday, the 7th of March 2026 — the Year of the Fire Horse — has been a week of roller coasters. Emotions, experiences, the lot. After serving the kids breakfast, I stepped out for a walk around the estate, classic music in my ears, no plan in mind. Just movement. And as I walked, one thought kept circling back: the most desired and praised men are those devoid of responsibilities.
Think of someone you know who is the life of the party. Funny, easy to talk to — genuinely, not as a performance. Someone who seems to know all the exciting things life has to offer, who is plugged in, current, alive. I’d wager almost anything that somewhere along the line, that person has found a way to reduce or sidestep the weight of day-to-day domestic life.
Because when you start a home, something shifts in you — quietly, permanently. The person you were before begins to recede. The three-hour blocks of time you once took for granted, the ones you used for hobbies, for wandering, for simply being — those disappear. Not all at once. Gradually. And one day you look up and realise the life you were living has been replaced by a different one.
I love a good pair of trainers. I used to browse, compare, consider. Now when I think about buying shoes, the first questions are cost and warmth, not design. I need a new winter jacket and the only thing on my mind is whether it will keep the cold out. Practicality has swallowed everything else, and honestly, I barely noticed it happen.
In social settings, I find myself in a particular kind of silence. My identity has become so anchored to being a father and a provider that the stories I can tell naturally circle back to two things — kids and the economy. The cost of keeping the lights on. The pressure of a shifting job market. The anxiety of watching artificial intelligence reshape entire industries while you quietly wonder where you stand.
I have made a real effort to join social groups, get out, be present in spaces beyond home. And when I sit at those tables, I notice the same pattern every time. The people commanding the room, the ones with story after story, the ones everyone leans in to hear — they are almost always single, or separated. They have had time and space to invest in themselves. And so while they speak, I sit there grinning, genuinely enjoying the atmosphere, but quietly aware that I have nothing to match it. I make a note not to bring up the kids. Not to bring down the mood.
These days, what I crave most is a quiet moment of nothing. A walk. Music. No agenda.
Though I should mention — this post took far longer to write than it should have. At least twenty interruptions. You can draw your own conclusions from that.
I know I am not alone in thinking this. I have heard other men say similar things in passing, carefully, briefly — before bottling it back down and moving on. We do not talk about it much. But the feeling is there.
How about desirable men?
Try to name a popular family man. Someone known specifically for what he does for his family — the bedtime stories every night, showing up to every school event, the quiet consistency of being present, doing the work, keeping the household running, building a career on top of all of it. I’ll wait.
For a while I watched dating shows and relationship podcasts. I used to dismiss them as trash TV — and in many ways, they are. But if you set aside the noise and listen carefully, they reveal something real about what our society actually values. The men held up as role models in those spaces are rarely ordinary. The focus leans heavily on what a man can offer — financially, experiential, aspirationally. The soft life. The destination holidays. The elevation.
And when you look closely at those men, there is a pattern. Desirability seems to travel alongside availability. The less encumbered a man is by the grind of responsibility, the more room he has to be the version of himself the world finds compelling.
You cannot have it all
I have made my peace with that.
The first time I truly felt the weight of what I had taken on was the moment I heard my son’s heartbeat during his scan. Something in me understood then that the man I had been was gone. A new purpose had settled onto my shoulders — I have to live so he can live. Now there are two of them, and that weight has simply doubled.
The work now is finding balance. Not surrendering entirely to others, but not hoarding too much for self either. And while I speak from the lens of family, the same principle extends outward — to friendships, to work, to how you show up in the world at large.
The image I return to most often is that of a Samurai. To survive, he devotes himself entirely to mastering the sword. Not because he loves the discipline, but because without it, he cannot move through life. The sword is the life.
That is what responsibility has become for me. Not a loss, exactly. A different kind of mastery.
This is a piece written in a moment, raw and honest. The original thought was sharper when it first arrived — I had it recorded as audio and it flowed differently. Written down, something always gets lost in translation. But I am leaving it as is. Maybe one day I will revisit it as a podcast. For now, this will do.