Advice for Dating a Hollow Man

Information Asymmetry in "Cold as You"

“We are the hollow men

    We are the stuffed men

    Leaning together

    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

    Our dried voices, when

    We whisper together

    Are quiet and meaningless

    As wind in dry grass

    Or rats' feet over broken glass

    In our dry cellar

    Shape without form, shade without colour,

    Paralysed force, gesture without motion”

The opening stanzas of T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Men” resonate, like a fun house mirror reflecting and caricaturing weak-minded human actions. Eliot perfectly captures the type of person who is “hollow.”  In his mind, such individuals are a “paralysed force,” incapable of acting decisively in their own interests. They are “gesture[s] without motion,” because, while they may try to pursue goals like happiness and fulfillment, they do not do so with any serious intensity or belief in the possibility of achieving those goals. Rather, the hollow men believe that their voices and their actions are “quiet and meaningless.” Simply speaking, a hollow man is convinced that he or she cannot do anything to impact or improve life, and therefore stops trying to do so.  

What’s it like to date a hollow man? Taylor Swift details the relationship challenges in “Cold as You.” In the song, she speaks to a former boyfriend, who walled off his feelings and was emotionally unavailable. Swift tells her boyfriend, “You put up walls and paint them all a shade of grey,” effectively blocking his emotional life off from his girlfriend. As such, Swift claims, “You never did give a damn thing honey.” She feels frustrated that he will not let her into his life enough to allow her to love him. The boyfriend clearly blocks himself off from the emotional vulnerability of romance, and therefore prevents the relationship from blossoming into a deep love. 

In refusing to be emotionally vulnerable with Taylor Swift, the boyfriend in “Cold as You” acts as a hollow man. His emotional iciness prevents him from achieving a fulfilling relationship (with Taylor Swift, nonetheless!). As psychologist Brenè Brown notes, “We too often lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love.” Being emotionally present and vulnerable is key to forging relationships that bring happiness. Refusing to act emotionally vulnerable demonstrates a “hollowness,” in that it shows lack of effort to create a fulfilling relationship.

But, norms of “masculinity” condition many (including the “Cold as You” boyfriend) and encourage them to repress that emotional vulnerability, and thereby act “hollow.” For example, one national survey found that roughly 30% of young men felt compelled to suppress their feelings (and that doesn’t even quantify how many women might experience the same expectations). Peggy Orenstein contends that men who follow this script of emotional closed-off-ish-ness are “less happy than other guys, with higher depression rates.” Fundamentally, this sort of walled-off emotional life demonstrates an attitude that T.S. Eliot would characterize as “hollowness,” in that it prevents many from striving for a fulfilling relationship. 

The problems of hollowness that Swift and Eliot describe exceed the realms of emotions and relationships. For generations, philosophers have pondered the actions (or inaction) of the hollow men, trying to understand why humans do not act in a manner that is consistent with their own happiness, and how to respond to these irrational actors.

Economist and moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that people ought to act in a “rational” manner. He  defined a rational action as one that maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. Bentham writes “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do,” arguing that all human action is governed by happiness and unhappiness. Given these two “sovereign masters,” Bentham contends that any act should maximize happiness and minimize unhappiness. As he says, “Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove.” It seems to make sense intuitively: people should do what makes them happy and not do what makes them unhappy. And yet, the hollow men (and Taylor Swift’s “Cold as You” boyfriend) do exactly the opposite. They do not take actions to increase happiness or decrease misery. In Bentham’s mind, they are obviously irrational actors. 

What causes people to act irrationally? Contemporary economists peg it to information asymmetry. People do not act in a manner that will increase their happiness because they do not have the full information about how to act to increase happiness. After all, Eliot shows that the hollow men believe that their voices are “quiet and meaningless,” suggesting that they don’t think they have the agency to make things better. Of course someone wouldn’t take action to increase happiness if they didn’t believe they actually could increase happiness. 

This brings us to Taylor Swift’s dilemma in “Cold as You.” Faced with a hollow boyfriend who refuses to be emotionally vulnerable, how should she respond? The obvious answer is that she needs to provide him with a more complete set of information (especially the information that emotional vulnerability = the happiness of being in a fantastic, fulfilling relationship with pop legend Taylor Swift!). Of course, it’s not simply enough to just give the boyfriend that information by yelling at him or writing a breakup song about him. Fundamentally, the boyfriend needs to internalize that information, since information is useless if one doesn’t believe in it or process it. 

In the face of this challenge, Taylor Swift storms out on her boyfriend. She gives up on him, shouting, “I start a fight ‘cause I need to feel something,” and the relationship falls apart. While it seems cruel to storm out on a boyfriend who is clearly suffering (and thus deprive him of the joy of dating a world-renowned singer), the action does provide him with increased information. It shows that he’s going to have failed relationships because of emotional unavailability, and leaves it to him to use that information to act more rationally (and be more emotionally available) in future relationships.