Young men who grow up without guidance often step into the dating world without understanding what emotional intelligence even looks like in practice. Meanwhile, it’s common to see women online criticizing dates for lacking basic relational skills — without always recognizing the disconnect: many of these same women may be raising children, including sons, who aren’t being taught those exact skills at home.

Men need guidance — not as an excuse, but as a reality. Even when parents’ divorce works out well for the adults involved, and both parents move on to healthier situations, the absence of two consistently present figures in a child’s life still leaves a gap. And too often, that gap gets filled in unhealthy ways — sometimes through addiction, sometimes through unhealthy relationship patterns — as a way of coping with a sense of incompleteness that was never fully addressed.