The Softboi Reckoning

It's getting harder to be soft

Listen to an audio recording of the text below. Trigger warning: this recording contains a Scottish accent.

“Jesus fuck, oh my god – insufficient opening credit trigger warning, Netflix,” whines a slight man in his mid-twenties with delicate features and several chestnut ringlets of hair cascading down either side of his triangular face, which looks like Frodo Baggins as interpreted by Japanese anime. The alabaster skin around his wide eyes is illuminated and contorted in horror by what he’s watching on the television in front of him. The sound of a whip slices through the silence in the room.

“How is he not like, yelping or whatever?” asks the doughy man in his mid-forties who is sitting next to him on a mint-green roll-arm sofa and twirling only the right side of his jet-black mustache into a shiny, narrow point. Bespectacled with chunky, square glasses that match the color of his obviously dyed mustache and receding hairline, he has the expression of someone watching elevated porn: slack-jawed but transfixed. 

“Supposedly redheads have a higher pain tolerance, so it’s plausible,” notes Frodonime. 

“He’s found his zen,” observes a barefoot man sitting Indian-style on the floor in an Aztec poncho with a filthy, dirty-blond manbun who’s probably in his mid-thirties but pretends to have the wisdom of someone in his hundreds, which is about how many bracelets crowd his slender wrists. “He’s resigned himself to accept his punishment. It’s actually really beautiful,” he says, cocking his head, which causes his manbun to slump over. He takes a pull from a vape. 

“Why did Hannah tell me to watch this?” asks Frodonime. “How is this useful breakup homework?” 

“My stepsister is a therapist, and she told me last week that all of her female clients want to fuck Jamie Fraser,” says Halfstache. 

“Is there a reason you made such a point to use the word ‘female’?” scolds Frodonime. “What does their gender have to do with literally anything?”

“Dude, chill,” says Halfstache. “Can we just admit that sometimes a group of women-” 

“Female-identifying,” corrects Frodonime.

“-might have a certain, um, collective interest-”

“Prevailing vibe,” corrects Manbun. 

“-in something that maybe men - er, male-identifying people don’t?” finishes Halfstache.

“They told me everyone is obsessed with Outlander, not just female-bodied people,” says Frodonime.

“Who’s they?” asks Halfstache.

“Hannah,” mewls Frodonime. “This sadistic testosterone-soaked romance novel run amok is apparently what they and all of their friends have been watching. They told me it was why they broke up with me.” Frodonime’s bottom lip quivers. 

The bottom lip of every Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X softboi in Brooklyn, California and the Pacific Northwest has been quivering since the release of Dune II, in which Timothée Chalamet severs his softboi roots and seems almost like a male who would eat an actual cow meat hamburger, grow wispy-splotchy facial hair, and not rely on crying as foreplay to brief, sulky sex that ends in performative, self-sabotaging erectile dysfunction. 

Softbois were manifested and enabled by young, highly educated metropolitan white women as a collective rebuke of their upper middle class fathers’ (who paid for their Sarah Lawrence tuition) support of Trump in 2016 and was amplified by the #metoo movement. Recoiling from toxic masculinity in the White House and at shitty sports bars in Midtown Manhattan, they were briefly drawn to the emasculated, emo, moody penis-puppets they met at floor parties in Bushwick, Bed Stuy and Silver Lake or accidentally matched with on Feeld while exploring their reactionary bisexuality.

But as the uncertain Western world lurches towards AI-driven unemployment, a Republican autocracy caused by the self-loathing descendants of colonists, and Chinese as the international language, younger women who had quietly resigned themselves to precisely splitting the bill, sharing nail polish, and choosing matching pronouns with their softboi boyfriends are looking for a new type of man. 

The door buzzer rings for a full three seconds. 

“That’s probably DoorDash with my goddess bowl,” says Manbun. He slowly stretches up from the floor into a tadasana pose, takes a deep breath, and flows over to press the intercom button by the door. The footfalls on the steps sound less like the labelless sneakers of a lethargic DoorDasher and more like the black low top Doc Martens of someone about to perform a ceremonious castration. 

The doorbell rings. Manbun peers into the peephole. He looks incredulously at the television. 

“I think it’s Jamie fucking Fraser,” he says. 

“Is he armed?” asks Halfstache. 

“Only with a fanny pack,” says Manbun. 

“I’m here for Louis,” says a sonorous voice in a gruff Scottish accent. Frodonime whimpers and pulls his legs towards his frail body. Manbun fastens the security chain on the door and opens it two inches. 

“What do you want?” asks Manbun. 

“I’ve come for Hannah’s Scooby Doo pajamas and her strap-on,” says the voice through the door. Manbun looks at Frodonime and shrugs. Dejected, Frodonime closes his eyes and nods. Manbun undoes the chain. A broad-shouldered statuesque blue-eyed woman with a shock of slicked back red hair with cropped sides walks into the apartment. She looks like the lovechild of Tilda Swinton and Rob Gronkowski. She sniffs the air and grimaces.

“It smells like an estrogen-infused palo santo candle melted into a ballsack in here,” she says. She regards Manbun, who looks fearful. “And what box did you come out of? You look like Trust Fund Gandhi got bleached and turned into a hotel store mannequin in Tulum.”

“Who are you?” asks Manbun.

“I’m Hannah’s girlfriend,” declares the woman. Frodonime flinches. 

“It’s my strap-on,” squeaks Frodonime. He clears his throat. “I bought it for us.” 

“Well, she wore it, so it’s hers,” booms the woman. “She bought you that nose ring and she definitely doesn’t want that back.” Frodonime defensively touches their nose. 

“Do you have some sort of letter from Hannah?” asks Halfstache. The woman narrows her eyes at him. 

“Are you Louis’ mum, then?” she bellows. “You look like Elvis Costello dressed up as Salvador Dali, had a stroke, and became a failed copywriter.” 

“Intergenerational friendships are important,” replies Halfstache, sitting up straighter. “And I am an award-nominated copywriter.” 

“Look, I don’t have time to muck about, just get the jim-jams and the strappy and I’ll be on my way,” says the woman. “She’s downstairs waiting for me.”

“She?” asks Frodonime. 

“Hannah,” says the woman. 

“They changed their pronouns?” demands Frodonime. 

“She never wanted your stupid pronouns,” says the woman, crossing her arms. “She wanted to be a woman, and you wanted to mutually masturbate while watching Euphoria.” Frodonime crumbles into tears. Halfstache winces. Manbun exhales loudly. “Let’s have her things, then,” says the woman more gently. Frodonime runs into the bedroom and slams the door. The woman looks at Manbun. 

“You smell like a Bushwick soundbath,” she says. 

“Thank you,” smiles Manbun. 

“Not a compliment,” she replies. The buzzer rings. 

“Finally,” says Manbun. The labelless sneakers of a lethargic DoorDasher trudge up the flight of stairs. Manbun opens the door just as Frodonime walks out of his bedroom holding the Scooby Doo pajamas and an alarmingly large fuchsia dildo hanging from a white leather tangle of straps. The DoorDasher’s eyes fixate on the strap-on and then dart around the room. He hands the bag to Manbun. 

“Enjoy,” he says, and scurries away. The three softbois look at the hard woman. She uncrosses her arms. 

“Look, I know it’s sad to feel weak, stunted, and stuck in the past,” she says. “But you can change-” she looks around the room, scratches her head “-a bit, perhaps. There are books and podcasts about how to harden up. David Goggins, Ryan Holiday, Rich Roll, Tim Grover, Tim Ferris, Joe Rogan, Peter Attia, Chris Williamson, Matthew Hussey-”

“I listened to Andrew Huberman once,” says Manbun. 

“Let’s start with being a man for one woman at a time, shall we?” she says. Frodonime paces across the room, head down, and hands the hard woman the hard strap-on and the soft pajamas. 

“Tell her I miss her?” he beseeches. She places a large hand on his small shoulder.

“Don’t be a pussy,” she says to him, taking Hannah’s things. “Nice Paul Rudd poster,” she says, chinning to the wall behind the couch. She nods and walks out of the open door and thumps down the stairs. The softbois look at one another. 

“Should we keep watching Outlander?” asks Halfstache. 

“I’d rather watch Euphoria,” says Frodonime. 

“Episode 7?” asks Halfstache. 

“Yup,” says Frodonime.

For AB