Well yeah they used to. I’m sure ancient women liked their men coming home bloody and covered in hair.

There was a time when not a single man wanted anything to do with a thin woman.

It’s always changing. We want to look good for ourselves and each other, and we use what we ourselves perceive as attractive. We all wanna get banged and we all wanna look hot. As someone who has been around a while don’t worry, it has gotten better. Even back to the 80s look at how much people used to peacock, now half of us are wearing Mom jeans and track pants. As you get older you start to give less of a shit about all that stuff.

Gen z doesn’t seem as interested in all that stuff which is nice. I notice their generation is more chill than ours, they rather code and stream than go to parties like my generation did

It doesn’t have to be makeup, but caring for how you look can help you feel fly, too. A haircut that fits. Face treatments or creams with nice scents feel good. Finding the right products for you can make you feel good. I helped my husband find the right soap and shampoo for his skin and hair type, got him to use moisturizer and better shaving products. His acne that he had for years vanished completely, his skin is nice and smooth now and he feels so much better because all the dry skin was uncomfortable. He also goes to a barber shop now that massages his head and gives him a haircut and beard trimming and he loves having a little spa time.

It won’t magic magically cure your depression or reduce your weight, but it will help you feel better in your body.

No, because the thing that makes a person feel good when they wear makeup is the anticipated reaction of their peers. Per modern grooming standards, straight men (assuming you are straight here) are expected not to wear make up, and thus will garner quizzical or negative reactions from the average person. You already know this, and if you didn’t, it would quickly become apparent once you started interacting with anyone. And once you noticed others’ negative judgement, you would not “feel fly”.

Instead the way to “feel fly” is simple, if not easy - hew better to culturally agreed-upon beauty standards. Cultures and subcultures differ in exactly what this entails. But common things are wearing clean clothes without obvious wear that fit well; getting a good haircut; taking care of your skin; eating a healthy diet, getting exercise, and sleeping well to improve mood and energy levels; unabashed self-expression within cultural constraints through clothing choice, haircut, hair color, tattoos or piercings, or accessories. And, most importantly, by not being overweight.

If it makes you feel more confident and happy about what you see in the mirror, then yeah it’s going to help.

You’d probably get some detractors who won’t be able to help making remarks but all they’re really telling you is they’re not your friend.

You can also do something natural looking that most guys don’t recognize as ‘makeup’ but helps improve your look.

There’s more men who do this than you might realize, e.g. anyone behind a news desk on tv

Go to the gym, it will make a world of difference. Lifting weights is not even difficult (like cardio, I hate cardio and never do it). But the extra muscles will help burn fat and make you want to eat better to get nice gains.

You are not going to be depressed when you start to get a nice body.

As it is right now? I doubt it. But the actual percentages are unknown to me. It’s not something that’s particularly easy to track.

But then what do we do about it? The wider issue is with social media and its effects on girls and young women. How do we change it? Young girls especially are vulnerable to social comparisons, starting around middle school age. We can try banning social media for young people but the effectiveness of that strategy is not yet known since we’re still early in the process.