Are you a mankeeper?
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This is Roundtable.

You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang. I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun in the studio. Coming up, to the ladies out there, do you ever feel like you're dating with a job description you didn't sign up for? Think of it as being in a relationship and quietly managing someone else's emotional health, friendships, and life logistics, all while your own needs are neglected. And that's

apparently called man-keeping in English reporting. We take a look at this oniglo...

unacknowledged role women often take on, and it's leading to serious burnout and dating fatigue, and life's best moments from the soundtrack of your heart to little things that make you smile. Join us at Roundtable's happy place. Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable Podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

Actually, go look up Roundtable China on the podcast platform of your favor. And have you got a question worth exploring? We are game. Send it over to roundtablepodcast at qq.com. Emails are fine, but bonus points for voice memos, they are our listeners' favorite. Now on Roundtable, let's switch gears. Ever feel like your relationship's

come with an unspoken extra job, that persistent feeling you're managing someone else's emotional landscape, their social life, or even their daily needs, often without it being asked for or reciprocated. This growing dynamic, increasingly known in English as man-keeping, is

is causing a significant shift in modern dating, leading many to question the balance of emotional labor. As a woman, and reading many random articles on social media, as well as feminist literature, I know emotional labor has traditionally been something that women sort of automatically take up more.

But I'm surprised that this term has been given this very stark gender specific categorization here. What exactly is mankeeping? Do you feel like you're sitting in the principal's office right now?

I feel, I'm feeling a lot of- For our listeners, this is how our studio is set up. Heung sitting on one side of the table and then on the other side, Yushin and I are here alone, it feels like. And yeah, I remember being called to the principal's office in middle school and it felt a lot like this right now. Tell me why.

I hope you had a nicer principle, at least in speech. But Steve, you gave it away. This is not necessarily a round table physically. Anyway, you should go on and tell us what we're doing wrong. Yes. And this has been a hot topic in Western media recently. Many outlets have published articles on it. Huffington Post, Forbes, Vice Media, others. Man, keeping refers to...

a situation in romantic relationships where women take on a disproportionate amount of emotional, social, and logical labor for men, even though I believe this doesn't happen in all romantic relationships.

Oh, that's a good metaphor. Yeah, it is good. Yeah, that's a good one. But it's really...

Oh, my. My first reaction. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about it before I'll give you my reaction to it. When I first was introduced to the topic, because, yeah, I haven't heard of this term. I hadn't heard of this term before either. So it's the excessive reaction.

part of things, right? It's taking care of your boyfriend or your husband's emotional needs and their social calendar. You'll be booking events to hang out with friends together, but that falls on the girlfriend or the wife's responsibility list.

So there's logistical labor there. And it's an imbalance, right? So it's where the wife or the girlfriend is really taking care of the husband or boyfriend's emotions. How was your day? Oh, you're upset. Okay, tell me about it. Oh, that's too bad. Oh, he said what to you? That's terrible. I can't believe that. But it's not reciprocated.

So it's a one-sided thing. And that's why they say that it feels like a heavy, unspoken job for a lot of these girlfriends and wives. And that's where the term man-keeping came from.

As opposed to maybe housekeeping? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right? So you're maintaining the guys, everything. That is why it's called man-keeping. I think that's why, yeah. So everything's clear. So when I first was introduced to this subject, my immediate defensive, man-defensive reaction was, well, hold on. I've heard complaints for decades in the media that women always want their boyfriends and their husbands to be more...

in their emotions and saying how they feel and crying from time to time and things like that really show what's on the inside. So why are you complaining now that men are doing this? But then when I learned, oh, it's one-sided.

And that's the issue here with mankeeping is that it's not reciprocated. So it's not like the boyfriend or the husband is unloading their emotions and then saying, okay, your turn. Now you tell me all of your things, what's going on with you. It's like they're treating their girlfriend or wife like,

therapist slash social planner and it's unpaid. Well, if you pay your significant other, that is also a bit strange. There's a word for that, but we're not going to go down that road today. See, this is interesting. As a younger millennial lady, I've been raised here in China as well as with my international experience. And

I think one thing actually, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I think I've been raised and feel free to jump in fellow girlfriends out there of this generation and younger possibly.

I think we've been raised in a slightly gender neutral way. And I grew up always thinking, well, I'm going to earn my own living. I'm going to be an independent woman and I'm going to support my man if I get to find him. And it should be a two way street and we should march on this journey of life together. But one thing I did not really like.

pick up when I was younger was that if I could emotionally support my boyfriend a bit more, it would make me, first of all, so much more attractive. Second of all, I just were kind of raised in the same way as the guy in many ways. And then I just didn't really think, okay, so for a woman, there's this very nurturing supposedly instinct that

instinct that is very good for you in dating and having a long-term relationship. But I just didn't pick up on that social cue. And I was just like...

being on roundtable in my relationship. And obviously that's not very attractive because you're not playing into the female qualities. And here in this Western term or this discussion of mankeeping. So yes, of course, you know, like you two need to like take care of each other. It can't be a one way thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and also what's expected from both genders is kind of expected.

So the lack of reciprocation is one big issue. But another aspect to mankeeping is where the girlfriend or wife will have to coach their man. See, like not always.

all young women know how to do this. Wait, wait, wait. They shouldn't have to. Right. That's the point. You shouldn't have to. Here's the complaint. They're having to teach their boyfriend or their husband basic social and emotional skills. So they feel like, and we've seen this in movies and TV shows a lot, like, I'm not your mom. Right? We've heard that in TV shows and movies, right? So there's that aspect of it too. I'm not going to teach you how to have sex

Um,

emotional intellect. I'm not going to be your coach here. And that's the complaint. Part of the complaint is like, hey, we're supposed to be in a 50-50 healthy relationship here. I'm the one who's taking care of your emotional needs. I'm planning social events. You can't even do that. And when you do try to share, I have to teach you how to do that in an effective manner so that we're having an adult conversation. It's

emotionally draining it's physically draining and as a result only 38% of single women in America are currently looking for a relationship while men that number is 61% that's from Vice from June 2025 that's a hot off the press statistic

But I was thinking, of course, females are more good at meeting people's or their partner's psychological need, I would say in this case, where we're listing. I agree with that point. I mean, they are taking more responsibilities, according to the stats we're listing, right?

But doesn't the same apply to men as well? If the men is supportive enough or they if they are like taking the same responsibility in this relationship, should they like on the flip side, if we don't provide enough emotional support, we're also seeing not being supportive enough. Right. And girls can talk. And girls don't want to date you anymore. Yeah. Yeah. That was an interesting point.

path and logic that you just took. And I'm kind of still in there trying to find my point there. But I think now a lot of women, including myself, I don't think I'm apt to coach anyone. And I'm not even so in tune with my potential partner's emotional state of mind either. So

No wonder this isn't working because like both parties, I think we're kind of both lost in a way. Yeah. So if it is positive enough and you are...

taking mutual responsibilities, this should be the thing that you do to try to sustain your relationship. It should not be a one-sided job for one part. Yeah, well, and if it is a healthy balance, then it's not man-keeping, but that's not what we're talking about.

We're not talking about healthy balance here today. We're talking about the unhealthy imbalance. And it seems like this imbalance is more common than maybe we think it is. Yeah. They say that the shrinking male social network plays into this mankeeping phenomenon because men are increasingly relying on female partners for their emotional and their social needs.

There's a researcher from Stanford, her name is Angelica Ferreira, and then another researcher called Dylan Varguera, and they talked about the declining close male friendships

and the narrowing of emotional outlets. You can find that from media outlets, their study. The declining friendships that men have in their lives means they don't have any emotional outlet other than their wife or their girlfriend.

the loneliness statistics will support this. Men with six or fewer close friends dropped from 55% in 1990 to 27% in 2021. And get this, men with no close friends rose five fold from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021. That's from psychology today. So those statistics,

will tell you that men don't have as many friends as they used to.

If they don't have as many friends as they used to, that means there's not enough emotional or not enough opportunity for emotional outlet. And men, when they hang out with their friends, typically, stereotypically, I'll say, don't want to share their deep emotions, their relationship stuff with their dude friends anyway. So where does that fall? It falls on the wife and the girlfriend. And these days, the term mankeeping has popped up because women have said, hey, I'm not

I'm not going to be the only person in your life who's responsible for that. And one can't help but wonder what happened to...

These men, I mean, why the loneliness? We've talked about on this show many times, actually. Every year we get listeners' questions about feeling very lonely in a big city, especially once you move to a new place. And it comes from men and women in China. But Steve, you cited figures that seems to be a male loneliness epidemic. I mean...

I'm just curious what contributed to this. There's two reasons. I'm sure there's more than two, but two reasons that they stated was, number one, a lack of third spaces, places for men to go and have kind of a natural social environment that's outside of their home or outside of their work.

where they can establish male connections and build friendships and foster sharing there. And another reason, they say, is because of the influence from technology, because social media, it builds this superficial interaction type of thing where deeper bonds are not seen as important anymore, so that even if interactions do take place, they're more at a surface level as opposed to anything deeper. Mm.

Another factor I saw is the societal norms. Traditional masculine...

norms discourage male emotional vulnerability. Yeah, that's like a Western culture longstanding thing, though. I'm sure it's true in other parts of the world, but that wouldn't be specific to 2025, I don't think. And actually, I think that linked to your factor of the loss of or the lack of third space. I don't think there aren't any or aren't a lot of third space groups

for male to socialize. Bars, places who you can hang out on, like football fields. Everything can be a social environment, right? But the thing is that the connection and the communication or

the way that we define loneliness. It's more about will you just express yourself, express your vulnerability or your feelings to others. And that is how we define whether you are forming a true relationship

or relationship with others. I think there's something, too. We talked about this on Roundtable a long, long time ago, and this is just my opinion about masculinity in Western culture, but I think, and this is what I said at that time, too, I think it's been redefined, where a long time ago, decades ago, a real man would

would never cry. A real man doesn't complain. A real man doesn't share his emotions when he's feeling hurt or depressed. I've never heard my dad say the word depressed, or I've never even heard him say he was feeling down. But now I think that's been redefined where the, the sexy modern man is in touch with his emotions, right? And is, is comfortable sharing, right?

But if we don't have, as we've just learned, a decline in natural social environments outside of work and home for male connections, if those are disappearing, combined with men now feeling more in touch with their emotions and more comfortable about sharing them, well, then where is the outlet? It's going to be your romantic partner. Yeah.

That's all I can say. Interesting. I try to fathom what this is about. And I look at the men in China trying to see if there's any comparison. And I think some of this stereotypical masculinity ideal is

still holds to a certain extent in China, but also I think with the younger generation of male Gen Zers, for example, I think it aligns with the Western new ideal as well. It's, you know, guys who are in touch with their emotions and are caring and are, you

comfortable in sharing that. I think that's similar. But also, I'm not sure about this. There are no studies supporting my observation. But isn't it always easier for most people to find friends of your own gender?

I know for women it is. Most of us can socialize quite easily with another girl, another woman. And then we chat, we offer each other compliments. And this is something that Yushun and I chatted before the show one day. I'm always kind of baffled with how

close male friends trash talk each other and the language they use, the insults. It's a love language, though. I just don't get it. Such insults can be a love language. And with women, we exchange pleasantry and it's like from the heart compliments, those kind of things. But anyhow, so...

Yeah, I just feel really sad if this were true, that guys can't even find like their male friends. Because for a woman, I know that so much strength and comfort comes from your close girlfriends. And even if you can't find a man, don't have one now, but it's okay. I have my close band of girlfriends and they're my rock.

I wonder, too, if there's an overcompensation happening for decades and decades of keeping emotions bottled up inside that now men are saying we're finally emotionally free. And I'm going to tell you everything I'm feeling at every moment of every hour. I wonder if there's a bit of overcompensation happening. I have no idea. And also that.

Nobody can take up that much emotional pressure. So no wonder the relationship can't last. But what's really, I think, potentially devastating from a society point of view is if heterosexual people

they want to find a partner, but if they have lost faith or feel just very burned out of the other gender. Yeah. And I wonder too, you know, if you are, if you're listening to this chat and you feel like, yeah, maybe I'm mankeeping right now, then what do you do about it? I don't know the answer to that because I,

How do you tell somebody, hey, stop sharing so much with me? You're going to crush their soul. And you're going to number that's number one. And number two, you're basically telling them this is not a safe space. Don't share with me anymore. They'll just stop communicating altogether, I would think. That is why, you know, at the beginning of the discussion, I was thinking and He Yang was saying, you didn't think that is quite a burden when you are

doing these kind of things and and i think yeah if you are in the relationship that you really like him i don't think uh it will be that much of a burden for you and that would be just a thing that you would like to be supportive but it has to go back and forth it has to go both ways yes and also it's not necessarily like um i've been uh

nice to you cleaning up the dishes today and then you must cook tomorrow. It's not like that. There are so many aspects in a relationship. Maybe I cleaned the dishes today, but if you, I'm sorry for using this slightly gender stereotypical example, but if the guy can fix the sink tomorrow or a week later, I mean, that,

That's great. You're contributing in some way. It doesn't have to be in the exact same way, but you know, like that's how a relationship works. Oh my God. It was like five months ago. My wife texted me and she said, there's something wrong with the sink. Now in my brain, because I'm not like a guy that knows how to fix stuff. Right. But in my brain, I said, uh-oh.

We have to call somebody. But no, put on your husband hat. I went home and I opened up the area under the sink and I don't know. I didn't have any idea what I was doing. And I thought, oh my God, I'm going to destroy this. I took off one pipe. I found the, I magically found the thing that was blocking it. I put the pipe back on. Oh,

It's done. I fixed the sink. Oh, bravo! Relationships saved! For like a week, I was walking around with my chest puffed out like, babe, anything else needs fixing in the house? I got this. And I think she saw me as just maybe 5% sexier too for about a week or so. Yes. That's great. A lot of things can be easier than you think, to be honest, when you're fixing things. I was so scared. Yeah.

Good job, Steve. Thank you. Yeah. Well, relationships are complicated and everybody's situation is different. And I think it's interesting to introduce this man keeping vocabulary to some of our listeners, I suppose. Yeah, but reciprocity.

Cation. Cation, yes. City or two-way street. That's really essential in any successful relationship. But again, just as a final point, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, I didn't even know I was in this situation right now. We can't exactly tell you how to address it, but at least maybe you can be aware of it. And if you're a dude and you think, oh my gosh, maybe I'm doing this, then maybe back off.

Yes. And also, if you're a dude and you're feeling I'm woman keeping, feel free to write in roundtable podcast at QQ dot com. And I hope everybody's relationship can't work out and we will reserve our happy place for another Friday and do something.

you know, look forward to that. And thank you so much, Steve and Yushun for joining the discussion. You can always find us on Apple podcast at Roundtable China. I'm Hei Young. We'll see you next time.