Things I Learned This Month On The Jersey Shore With The Barstool Beach House - Guys Are So Afraid To Talk To Girls In Person Nowadays So They DM Them Instead

Yesterday I wrote about how I Learned This Younger Generation Has No Clue How To Party, Drink, Or Stay Out Late. They Don't Make Them Like Millennials Anymore, while spending the past month on the Jersey Shore at the Barstool Beach House.

Today's lesson is about how I learned this younger generation is too afraid to shoot their shot. 

Four weeks in a crowded beach house surrounded by cameras, chaos, and a rotating cast of beautiful women will teach you a lot about life, partying, and just how far the dating game has fallen. I came in thinking this was going to be a summer-long frat party. Talking loud music, bad decisions, and wild nights. And while there was plenty of that, I also walked away with one depressing realization- the dudes out there have gone soft. Like baby shit in a cashmere diaper, soft.

Back in my heyday, seeing a rocket walk into a bar was like spotting a ten-point buck through your scope. Your adrenaline kicked in, your friends hyped you up, and you took your shot. Yah, you probably went down in flames. (Especially growing up in the northeast, where girls who are 6s think they're 12s). 

But this summer, want to know what I witnessed? Not one guy, not one, approached the girls in our group the entire time we were out. These weren’t just pretty girls either. They were camera-ready, walking into clubs like celebrities. You’d think that would spark competition. Instead, every dude just stared into their phone screens like scared kids on the first day of school.

Now obviously this doesn't apply to Nikki Smokes and Tommy. They were out there doing their thing, guns blazing before they got wifed up, running around like maniacs and talking to every girl in sight. 

But having the power of cameras and a little Barstool clout makes things a hell of a lot easier. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the regular dudes in the bars, the ones with zero excuse for standing on the sidelines. Watching them freeze up was painful.

I brought this up to the girls one night, shocked they weren’t getting hit on left and right. Their response? “Oh, guys don’t approach us anymore. They just DM us.” 

Excuse me, what? 

Apparently, instead of walking up to talk like a normal human, guys wait until the next day to send messages like, “Hey, I saw you at the bar last night.” That is hands down the lamest, weakest thing I’ve ever heard. 

Imagine seeing someone in person, then hiding behind a phone to say hi 12 hours later? 

That’s not game, that’s customer service.

We’ve all seen the studies about how Gen Z is hooking up less than any generation before them. After this summer, I believe it. 

To be fair, some guys hit me back after I ranted about this online, and the above clip got posted. And a few of them made decent points. They said, “Why risk it?” If you approach a girl and she rejects you, worst case scenario isn’t just embarrassment- it’s her putting you on blast for the whole internet to see. Or even worse, someone recording the whole thing and turning you into a viral TikTok clown. 

And girls today love doing this. I'm sure girls since the beginning of time wish they had the capacity to publicly humilate men to the fullest extent, and it's not just a thing this generation does. But they're fucking ruthless. And honestly, I get it. In that environment, even confident dudes are playing defense. It’s a lose-lose situation. You either get ignored, or get humiliated.

Yesm, hooking up might technically be “easier” now thanks to dating apps and the ability to connect with and endless amount of chicks online. But the stakes are higher than ever. Why put yourself out there when one awkward move could get you canceled, mocked, and memed? It’s like playing Russian roulette with your reputation.

I’m not saying it was easy for my generation. Fuck no. Quite the opposite. 

You think approaching a girl in person is scary? Try having to ask her for her phone number- her landline phone, not her cell number- and then calling that house phone. 

You’d pace your room for hours, rehearsing what to say, praying harder than you’ve ever prayed that she answered the phone- not her dad, and not her older brother. 

Because if her dad picked up, you were dead on arrival. There is no fear known to young men today like the fear of your voice cracking as you ask a girl's dad if you can speak to the apple of his eye.

Then, if you survived that gauntlet, you had to figure out how to get to the date. If she even said yes to one. There was no Uber. No easy outs. You either begged a parent for a ride or convinced your one buddy with a license to play chauffeur. It was brutal. But that’s what built men. Soldiers! We were hardened by that shit all through middle school and high school. 

By the time college came around and college bars and house parties were introduced to the mix, throwing a few beers back and walking up to a girl to spit game was nothing.

That’s why this whole thing frustrates me so much. At the end of the day, this all boils down to one thing- CONFIDENCE. 

Sending a DM is the opposite of confidence. 

It’s like admitting defeat before you even step on the field. You don’t have to be smooth or perfect- you just have to try. That’s the thing today’s guys don’t seem to understand. That even if you strike out, you took your swing. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to stand out from the betas. 

I don’t envy Gen-Z at all. 

They’ve got more tools, more access, and more opportunities than we ever had, but the pressure is suffocating. 

We had to work for it. Work our fucking asses off for it. And yeah, we failed a lot. But at least our failures weren’t immortalized in 4K video and blasted across TikTok for strangers to laugh at. Not gonna lie, that's daunting as hell.

Four weeks in that house showed me a lot about where we are as a culture. 

The parties were epic, and the memories are unforgettable. But the reality check was sobering. 

Generation z might have the youth and the tech, but they don’t have the grit. And until they stop hiding behind their phones and start taking their shots, the game will always belong to those of us who were courageous enough to dial a landline and pray her dad didn’t pick up.