The month of February is almost synonymous with Valentine’s Day, a single day dedicated to celebrating the concept of love, whatever your definition of it may be.

I for one, think romance is dead. People don’t care about each other’s personalities anymore. Nowadays, if you look around, you’ll find that sex appeal is the only thing that matters to Gen Z.

I came to this conclusion after a series of highly obnoxious incidents in which I was blatantly objectified.

At first I’d noticed how many girls would stare at my butt and crotch. It wasn’t anything severe, just quick, casual glances that were only slightly obvious.

At first I didn’t mind; in fact, I took it as a compliment. I began to wear clothes that especially accentuated these features (yoga pants, I found, did this especially well. My butt looks great in yoga pants.)

If I could appreciate the female form, why couldn’t women appreciate my physicality too? No big deal, I thought.

And then I realized how it came to define my character. Women only appreciate me for my body.

I noticed how little they actually wanted to talk to me, or get to know me. I would try to strike up a conversation about anything from school to Netflix, and they refused to reciprocate. Once I displayed my character they became disinterested.

Then, some of the girls I text on a regular basis began to get really creepy.

“What’s up?” one of them texted me.

“Nothing much, about to take a shower,” I responded in earnest.

“Without me? ;)” she texted back almost instantly.

I tried to shrug it off as nothing more than a joke, but something really rubbed me the wrong way about it.

Then they began imploring for nudes. I trusted these girls, so I figured “why not?”

I proceeded to take a few selfies with my shirt off, my hands covering my nipples. After growing more comfortable, I stopped covering my nipples and started taking some full frontal shots.

Pretty good stuff. I sent them over Snapchat, setting the time to one second. Somehow, through some fate of superhuman speed, the pigs still found a way to screenshot them.

The next day I found that the three girls I had sent the photos to had sent them to a group chat consisting of the entire Powderpuff team.

The Powderpuff team sent them to the Field Hockey team, and eventually, every hormone-crazy girl at MHS had seen me naked.

These experiences haven’t been limited to the virtual world, however.

I was walking down the hallway in the G-Wing when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a group of senior girls, who shall not be named, dressed in Vineyard Vines sweatshirts with polo shorts.

They were giving me extremely sexual looks whilst pantomiming a variety of sexual acts, some of which I didn’t even know were physically possible until now.

I decided to ignore it and carry on.

They continued to holler and whistle at me, loudly exclaiming how big my butt was looking that day.

After clearly expressing disinterest through my tacitness, one of the girls ran up behind me and spanked me.

I proceeded to reprimand them in a fluster of anger and pent up frustration. Rather than realize the error of their ways, all they did was scold me for being a “prude.”

I decided to visit one of the principals to report this incident and get the girls in trouble. When I explained to the principal, whose identity will also not be disclosed, he called the group of girls down to the office to get their side of the story.

But he only did this before asking me what I was wearing.

“Well, I mean, you should’ve seen it coming,” he said to me. “That t-shirt is really low-cut. It could serve as a huge distraction to the other students.”

Needless to say, I gave up and silently left the office, feeling vexed.

I don’t know how it happened, but romance is dead for my generation.

The only thing girls want from a guy in this world is sex, and most of them will stop at nothing to get it from us.

These are dark, confusing times that we’re living in. Us men have to stay strong, and look out for each other to get through. Maintain strength through movements such as Meninism, and we can be the change.