Are Men the Problem, Or Are We?

Why undergraduate women at Columbia can’t find men who know how to commit

Sophia Evans/Columbia Sundial

At Columbia, the undergraduate women are supposedly the top of the top. They are intelligent, ambitious, and know how to compete and how to win—at least academically. Yet when it comes to dating, that same strategic mindset seems to vanish. Over and over, in every session of heart-to-heart girl talk, I hear the same question whispered with frustration or shame: Why won’t the guys here commit to me?

We’ve all heard the usual explanations: “men are immature,” “women mature faster and start thinking about the future while men are still having fun,” “college dating is a hellscape,” “there are no good guys left.” As girls, we rack our brains, stay up late texting our friends, trying to decode the same mystery. We come up with theories, and we convince ourselves they’re right.

But I’m here to say something you might not want to hear: Those explanations might sound comforting, but they miss the real point. The truth is more nuanced than that. The problem isn’t misogyny or immaturity—it’s incentives.

I’m not writing this to judge or criticize you, but to help you. I’ve also stayed up at night spiraling over the same question: Why on earth won’t he commit? I’m your big sister who’s been in the trenches, and now I think I have an answer.

So, how do you get what you want? How do you find a man who treats you with respect and takes you seriously? The answer isn’t to blame men; it’s to understand the game. The problem actually isn’t that undergraduate men are immature or unworthy.

So where does that leave us? You can’t change the incentives overnight—but you can change how you play the game. If you want a man who leads, commits, and respects you, you have two choices: better yourself so you can date upward, or be honest about who’s on your level.

The reason why our girl-talk conversations keep running in the same loop is that they start from how we feel, not from the reality of how the dating market works.

Here’s what some undergraduate women at Columbia had to say about dating undergraduate men.

“I haven’t dated undergrad men, but I have gone on dates with them,” said Emily, a sophomore at Columbia College. “Many of them don’t quite understand dating etiquette or how to be a gentleman. I’ve never had a guy try to split a bill with me, but I definitely hear about it—even if it’s just coffee.” She continued, “And so many guys say they’re looking to date, but then sleep around.” For Emily, this all “makes me see them as immature and not ready for what I’m looking for—even if they insist they want a serious relationship.”

Emma described a similar pattern: “Usually, my dating experience with undergraduate men has been that they are indecisive and express a refusal to be vulnerable—if they are, it’s only as an act of love-bombing.” Then she said, “They can’t sustain the respect that real connection requires.”

Stephanie, a Barnard junior, agreed: “Undergrad men treat relationships casually nine out of ten times. They’re still figuring out who they are, which is completely valid, but that means they need low stakes and low commitment.” She added, “Most college guys aren’t looking for commitment. The truth is, most of them have a lot of growing up to do before they are ready for a real relationship.”

Emily, Emma, and Stephanie reveal what a lot of undergraduate women think about undergraduate men. But, to understand the issue, we have to understand the causes, not merely the outcomes.

To understand undergraduate men at Columbia, we have to stop treating them like failed 30-year-olds and start treating them like what they are: men at the very beginning of their building stage of life. A man in his early 20s is still building himself—career, confidence, status, and wealth. He knows—consciously or unconsciously—that in ten years, he’ll have more options with women. These are Ivy League elites—the future power players of New York. For a man at the top of that hierarchy, why would he commit early when time only compounds his value?

This isn’t unique to Columbia—it reflects a broader asymmetry in dating itself. Women tend to peak earlier than men. A woman’s value is tied to beauty and youth; a man’s, to experience and achievement. So it wouldn’t make sense for him to lock in a permanent relationship when his options will be better in five years.

It’s no surprise that we hear the same advice: date up, date older. And it’s not weakness or submission; it’s just common sense. Older men have already proven themselves. They’re more established, and they’ve more likely outgrown the novelty of casual dating. Their incentives align with what we say we want—stability, seriousness, and long-term intent.

This is something older male students notice. Adam, a graduate student finishing his final year, confirmed this. “Undergrad dating was way more casual,” he said. “You’d go to parties, start talking to someone, and things go from there.” He said that people don’t “[think] too much about the future. It’s more transient.” Graduate school, for him, was “more serious,” not because graduate students are saints but because age forces intention. “People who are older can be more intentional about dating,” he said. “They might be looking for things other than, you know, physical attractiveness.” He added, “Maybe there’s a higher probability that they’ve dealt with their stuff and matured.”

James, a second-year law student, agreed. “Life experience doesn’t always make them better partners,” he said. “It just gives them more time to establish themselves and their views.”

Both were saying the same thing: age doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but it builds perspective. Older men start thinking about money, stability, and even marriage—not from sudden virtue, but because they have the means to afford to.

The problem isn’t male immaturity—it’s misaligned incentives. Older men have reached the stage where they have the means to attract more options; undergraduate men are still looking forward to that. We psychoanalyze a man’s disinterest in commitment as a personal flaw when in reality, it reflects our misunderstanding of his incentives.

Here’s where the disconnect begins. Most undergraduate women at Columbia would agree with the frustrations Emily, Emma, and Stephanie expressed—that undergraduate men are inconsistent and emotionally unavailable. But instead of recognizing a difference in life stage, we label it “immaturity.”

Before we keep blaming men, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. We say we want maturity, but do we actually go for mature guys? Regardless of what we believe about our morals, we’re drawn to charisma, aloofness, and popularity. It feels good to walk into a party on the arm of the guy everyone wants. Yet we’re somehow shocked when those same men—who have every option—don’t commit. People usually show you who they are when you first meet them. So when we go on that date with the hot frat guy who has five girls on rotation and takes two days to respond—do we really, honestly, expect him to change who he is and commit to us?

So here lies our hypocrisy: we keep chasing the same kind of men, even after being disappointed again and again. We cling to a fantasy in which a man plays the honorable knight and we are the princess he chooses to serve and protect. But for the undergraduate men we’re drawn to—especially the confident, charismatic ones—that isn’t their fantasy. We expect them to embody our ideals: the protector, the provider, the emotionally available partner. But that’s not what men in their twenties want. They want freedom, options, and variety; we want security and connection. And why would they play the “knight” when they have a line of women competing for their attention? He’s not immature; he just doesn’t want what you want.

And here’s the part we don’t want to hear: Emma’s complaint—“[undergraduate men] just can’t sustain real connection”—is valid, but incomplete. He can, just not with us, not now, not at this life stage. Men aren’t bad people, and we’re not victims—they’re responding rationally to a world where a man’s value increases with time.

Once you stop blaming men and start seeing the pattern, you realize the problem isn’t just them—it’s the market itself. Most women are chasing the same small pool of high-value men, and those men know it.

Stephanie implied this when she said, “Women mature earlier than men. It should, therefore, be perfectly logical to date a guy who matches your level of maturity—in other words: an older guy.” She’s right—date a man whose incentives align with yours. But that instinct is also hypergamy: wanting a man further along than the ones around you. And nearly every woman on campus wants the same thing.

So, when every woman wants the same older, established, intentional man, that man has no incentive to commit—unless you give him a reason that every other girl cannot. Emma captured this perfectly: “Then reality sets in—they have a million female friends, all prospects, and a million nights out planned where they don’t want responsibilities attached.” Every woman wants to date up, but the reality is that few are high-value enough to be chosen up. The brutal truth is that most of us aren’t yet good enough for the men we want. If you want a man who has options all to yourself, you need to be better than all those other options put together.

We all want to be chosen by the man who could have anyone, not by the one who’s already acting committed. A man who takes a woman too seriously too soon signals lower value—he’s desperate. That’s why the thoughtful, ambitious, loyal men fade into the background because they seem “too eager” or “too serious,” while the charismatic, nonchalant ones dominate the dating scene.

We say we want stability, but we chase the men least incentivized to provide it. The average man—the ones who aren’t dazzling or socially magnetic—gets ignored in college and suddenly becomes desirable at twenty-eight, after he has made the money and earned the title. And that’s the irony: the men who could actually give us what we say we want already exist right here on campus. We just don’t choose them.

So we should be asking ourselves: do we actually find traits like maturity, thoughtfulness, and emotional vulnerability attractive—or is it just that we want men who are attractive for other reasons to show those things to us specifically? Would those same traits make an unattractive man appealing, or would we friend-zone him as the “nice guy”?

Not all undergraduate men are unserious. Some are doing exactly what we claim to want—they’re intentional, forward-thinking, and quietly planning for the future. But these men are often rejected.

Ben, a Columbia College junior, rejected the stereotype that college men are emotionally immature. “It’s a generalization,” he said matter-of-factly. “Some guys are immature, some aren’t.”

Liam, another Columbia junior, went further, pointing out that what women often interpret as immaturity is usually just inexperience. “I don’t disagree that some guys are immature,” he admitted, “but I think a lot of what comes across as ‘immaturity’ is just inexperience. When she told me to leave her alone, I was supposed to comfort her instead of actually leaving her alone??? Things like this are hard to learn without first-hand experience.” He understood women’s frustrations but argued that it’s unfair to call men emotionally unavailable when many are simply still learning how to love.

And here’s the real twist: some undergraduate men aren’t avoiding commitment at all—they’re actively seeking it. Liam put it plainly: “I date to marry.” Ben echoed the same sentiment, saying, “Dating for the long term is how it should be.” He didn’t say it as a boast or a moral stance, but as if it were common sense. To him, commitment wasn’t naïve or unfashionable—it was only natural.

Liam also questioned the narrative that men are the flaky, non-committal ones. “Maybe I’m an outlier,” he said, “because none of my friends nor I are partiers or take part in hook-up culture, but regardless, I think we approach relationships with the long term in mind. In fact, I think it’s the opposite, where men are very direct and straightforward about intentions while women—whether it’s to avoid commitment or because they are genuinely unsure or whatever—tend to be wishy-washy.”

So why aren’t we dating men like Liam and his friends—the ones who actually want what we say we want? As young women, we like to see ourselves as the mature, relationship-oriented ones. But some men see it differently.

Liam’s next point cuts even deeper: “Some Columbia women aren’t that interesting, where their individuality is replaced by ideology,” he said. “I want somebody independent in their beliefs. There’ve been multiple instances where I’ll start talking with a girl and she’ll say something like, ‘Trump supporters shouldn’t be able to vote,’ and that makes me not want to date them.”

What he’s describing isn’t political disagreement—it’s exhaustion. Fatigue with conformity, with college girls who sound the same, think the same, and parrot the same campus-approved opinions. These men aren’t avoiding commitment; it’s just that most of the women they have access to are not worth committing to.

James, who also attended Columbia for his undergraduate degree, summed it up best: “On one end, you have more traditional, moderate, conservative straight folks,” he said, “and then you have the more wild, unpredictable, progressive, experimental, transactional types.” In other words, there’s something for everyone. The problem isn’t that serious men don’t exist—it’s that we don’t notice them.

The “Columbia guy who won’t commit” is less a real man than a situation we put ourselves in over and over. Together, Ben and Liam reveal that the issue isn’t male immaturity—it’s misalignment. The emotionally intelligent, loyal, long-term thinkers are already here. They just don’t advertise it. They don’t chase, they don’t posture, and they don’t perform for validation. But in a culture that prizes charisma over character, silence looks like absence.

Maybe that’s the uncomfortable truth: the problem isn’t that men are noncommittal players, but that as young women, we are attracted to the wrong signals. We mistake nonchalance for confidence and excitement for love. We call men immature while rewarding exactly the behavior we claim to resent. We chase the thrill, the status, the charisma—and then act surprised when those men don’t stay.

The deeper, ickier truth might be this: the real immaturity isn’t theirs—it’s ours.

And it’s costing us everything we say we want.

So how do we fix it? Change the strategy.

First, let’s set the stage. The problem is that deep down, we all secretly believe: “I can change him.” We all want to be the girl who tames the player—the exception who makes him stay. We all want to be loved “just as we are,” in all our quirks and contradictions, and for that alone to make him choose us. But that’s not how reality works.

The question isn’t “Does he want commitment?” but “Does he want to—with you?” Blaming men is easier than asking the harder question: What value do I bring to a man’s life? Because success in dating—like in anything else—comes from understanding incentives and offering the kind of value the other person actually wants.

Once you see dating as an economy of value exchange, it becomes less emotional and more strategic. Stop asking, “Am I drawn to him?” and start asking, “Does he want what I want?” or “Do I have what he wants?” Trying to change someone to fit your fantasy isn’t romance; it’s simply a bad strategy.

And if you want commitment, stop dating men who explicitly don’t.

So, the two options are:

One, be realistic. Date men who are genuinely on your level, even if they’re less charismatic. There are thoughtful undergraduate men—like Ben or Liam—who want commitment, yet we overlook them while chasing the magnetic, high-status ones everyone else wants as well.

Two, better yourself. Emotionally, intellectually, physically—become the kind of woman high-value men want, whether they’re older or peers. Cultivate discipline, loyalty, emotional stability, and grace. Shaming the world is a loser’s game. Compete better.

That’s the point of all this. The goal isn’t to shame anyone—it’s to help us get the results we say we want. To do that, we have to shed the campus myth that “men just need to grow up.” Some will. Some won’t. Our job isn’t to rehabilitate them—it’s to select wisely.

We’re not passive girls waiting to be chosen. We’re not aristocrats who are entitled to service. We’re equal players; we must give as much as we receive. If we want partners with discipline, maturity, and purpose, then we must cultivate those traits in ourselves. Older men don’t simply offer stability—they elevate the standard, and it is up to us to rise to it.

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Ms. Ma is a sophomore at Barnard College studying English and philosophy. She is a staff writer for Sundial.

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The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sundial editorial board as a whole or any other members of the staff.