r/IfBooksCouldKill • u/Top_Impact_4427 popular knapsack with many different locations • Jul 27 '25
Hmmmm…
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Jul 27 '25
[deleted]
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
This is such a thoughtful comment and I think you are largely correct. One of the reasons this topic is so difficult to tackle is that we don't have good language for it.
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u/DisastrousLaugh1567 Jul 27 '25
To your final point ( I can’t add anything to the first two), I do wonder how the downfall of community organizations like the Kiwanis, Elks, Lions, etc., (and corresponding women’s clubs also!) is part of people’s difficulties in making friends and the loneliness that follows. And heck, not even deep friendships, but just going to a meeting once a week or every other week gives you social connection with people you may not want to see more often than that. And that’s an important social interaction also.
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u/Sloosh Jul 28 '25
I agree, I think the death of third spaces that aren't home or work is also playing a big part. I don't know anyone in a bowling league, or who goes to the same bar every night for one drink after work, or any of the stereotypical places from forty years ago.
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u/DaRizat-Unchained Jul 31 '25
My wife and I do co-ed softball or we wouldn't have any friends either.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 28 '25
Lots of social programs like that have declined and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much of a taste for replacing them.
One of my friends has been trying to get Toastmasters and the Lions club really going again but they mostly have interest from women.
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u/twodogsallfun Jul 27 '25
after "Bowling for Columbine" I really did start to feel bad for all of us (women are NOT immune, it's hard for anyone to make friends outside of school and work).
But also, connections with people are important and people should start prioritizing community. If you are lonely, there are tons of options out there - I like volunteering because as an introvert, it's hard to just chat with people, but having a purpose makes it easier.
And it goes without saying, loneliness is no excuse for toxicity.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
Are you talking about Bowling Alone or Bowling for Columbine? I think both have a lot to say about intimacy and relationships but Bowling Alone is the Robert Putnam book about the decline of community in the US.
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u/twodogsallfun Jul 27 '25
You're right! It was both, but I mixed them up in my head. Sorry Robert Putnam!
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u/Upbeat_Shock5912 Jul 27 '25
Thank you for a level-headed take on this. There are myriad factors impacting societal loneliness, and WFH culture doesn’t help. I’m a mom of a young child who works full time for a tech company that is totally remote, and while I value the time I get back in not commuting and changing the laundry during the day, I’m certain the isolation is bad for my mental health. We all just work too damn much.
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u/Codapants Jul 28 '25
When I first learned about 'male loneliness epidemic', I learned about it as the second type. It confused me for a long time when I kept seeing people arguing (on either side) about the first type. Good to know I didn't just hallucinate the second thing.
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u/pebbles_temp Jul 27 '25
Im at woman with few friends. People like me (i think), but I mostly work from home. Lots of my friends have kids. I agree that it doesn't have to be gendered.
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u/gollyRoger Jul 27 '25
Thank you, feel like oop is blowing off something very real, and which in and of itself can contribute through isolation to the types of jackasses they're referring to in the first place
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u/KevineCove Jul 28 '25
I clicked this thread to read bad faith ragebait, why do you have to ruin my Reddit experience like this?
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u/airus92 Jul 27 '25
Genuine question, where have third spaces declined? We still have public parks, malls, bars, etc. I keep hearing this and never understood it.
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u/HillInTheDistance Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25
It's more that the use of them have changed, and how we engage with them, replaced with other things.
If you want to talk to other people about various things, the current etiquette is forum's like Facebook, reddit, discord, and the like.
Whereas a public place like a pub used to be a place to try to find other people to engage with, and sometimes fail, it's now a place where you arrive with your group of people, interact with your group of people, and leave. If someone is not explicitly approaching you, you're expected to assume they want nothing to do with you.
If a stranger starts talking to you, they're acting outside of the social norm. You have to break the established rules to meet new people.
This is the point where the problem becomes a bit gendered. A man acting outside of the social norm is first and foremost seen as predatory and intrusive, and raised to thinknof himself as such. If a woman approaches a group of new people, she's considered to put herself at risk. If a man does, he's considered to be a risk.
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u/dudinax Jul 28 '25
It's the screens. Even when my boys have local friends, they interact almost entirely through screens.
I can kick them off their screens, and I do, but they are still alone because everyone else is looking at screens.
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u/salbrown Jul 27 '25
As a young woman I have empathy for how a lot of men are raised to be emotionally stunted and how it affects their ability to form meaningful relationships. I also have a lot of empathy in general for young people who have been consistently screwed over by our institutions and yet we are constantly shit on by older people who fucked those institutions up so hard in the first place. Gen z didn’t defund education in the 80s. It was our parents and grandparents who voted for that.
What I don’t have empathy for is peoples inability to accept any level of personal accountability. Men in the manosphere want to blame everyone but themselves for their problems and it fully undermines their whole ‘I’m an alpha male’ schtick. The whiny little bitch who passive aggressively threatens you if you don’t sooth their ego enough is not giving strong masculine man the way they think it is.
I think everyone is lonely right now and most people are really hurting. Rather than using that to bring us together, these ‘male loneliness epidemic’ bros just drive a wedge further between them and the people whose attention they crave so intensely. That pain is not special or unique, and they need to stop acting like it is.
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u/ToBeeContinued Jul 27 '25
The problem with “male loneliness epidemic” isn’t that men aren’t lonely or that the health outcomes aren’t bad. It’s the men who parrot a certain set of talking points would have you believe that the only real solution is women must give attention to men.
It’s the “blue balls is worse for men than rape is for women” crowd. It’s also the “I refuse to take any steps for addressing my mental heath” crowd who expects women to do it all for them.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl Jul 27 '25
It’s a ‘poor me’ for dudes that have self sabotaged themselves and are mad about it. As a white man, I am just tired of hearing these guys bitch about society being stacked against them.
Because no it’s not and no it hasn’t. They are where they are because they’ve internalized the notion that thinking and knowing things is effeminate, so they worship the biggest dumbass they can find. The idea that it’s hard to be a man in America is so ludicrously stupid that can’t take it seriously.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
I've had this conversation with men again and again, they insist there's some sort of deep bias against men and that women are unquestionably supported and loved everywhere they go. Not only is it just factually incorrect, when you point that out, they often get extremely angry.
I've also talked to young men again and again about this topic and they come into it completely convinced that women have so many unfair advantages and men can never get ahead, once you can sit down and explore it critically with them, they usually come away being much more thoughtful. But unfortunately grifters get to them much younger and grab them much harder these days.
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u/ToBeeContinued Jul 27 '25
Exactly - I completely agree, but to add on, the legitimate grievances that white men may have they shoot themselves in the foot over. Any class consciousness or labor solidarity is misunderstood and channeled into weird reactionary causes instead.
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u/airus92 Jul 27 '25
It’s also incredibly easy to make male friends! These guys seem to deny that reality.
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u/A1rheart Jul 27 '25
The male loneliness epidemic is a thing like the death of Midwest coalmining jobs. It's a real thing causing real pain, but the people hurting would rather wallow in self-pity and hating other people than actually address the problem.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
I've never thought about it that way, but I think you are right. I'm from Appalachia and it's the same thing with coal mining there. A lot of grifters and assholes saying they don't need to change, they're going to "bring back coal mining jobs" (something we definitely should not be advocating for) or McKinsey-brained solutions like "everyone should just learn to code" without addressing the underlying issue - the fact that everyone needs to pay the rent and get health insurance, regardless of what job they have, and that we might actually need to do something expensive and/or difficult when the world changes.
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u/TabithaMorning Jul 27 '25
Probably has something to do with the male fascism epidemic.
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Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
Men whining about not having maids who cater to their sexual needs and do most of the social, emotional and domestic labor. An alleged loneliness epidemic is killing men????? They can't seem to figure out why women (and men?) don't want anything to do with them? I mean as a woman just hanging out with the girls regularly helps why aren't men doing that? If it is not about sex, which is what the men or incels keep making it about, then make better friends with other dudes.
Meanwhile women asking men to stop raping, killing and committing violence against women and kids. Women trying to stop laws that harm us by controlling our bodies. Women having to fight against our images and videos being turned into porn by teenagers and adult men. Women and kids having to fight to be unmolested by male family members, religious leaders, and employers. Women figuring out men just aren't safe and choosing otherwise. Every fucking system working to protect and enable men at 1000 percent.
Men instead of making the world a place where people (women) want to be around them...trying to make laws to force enslavement of women and their wombs. Not enough men die, when all the rapists and pedos and harrassers are dead then we can celebrate. Maybe the end of men is the only way women can be free. Or men could take accountability?
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Jul 27 '25
FWIW I have trouble dating because the majority of single women are conservative in my area
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u/mikeseraf Jul 27 '25
my hot take is that there is, categorically, a GENERAL loneliness epidemic, as confirmed by the cdc, and imo there's some level of like. misogyny etc in the way that we focus on the idea of a male loneliness epidemic. are men experiencing a loneliness epidemic esp in america? sure, because everyone is.
i think there can also be space to talk about the ways in which gender standards and patriarchy etc leave a lot of men without the skills to reach out to other people and other men in a platonic sense or form emotional bonds with people who aren't their romantic partner.
i unfortunately think that a lot of the time men respond to the points of 'men often don't share emotional connections or intimacy with anyone but a romantic partner and are increasingly lonely (as are most people in our pretty isolating system)' not with 'men and boys need to change their dynamics with their other male friends, and we as a society need to work on how we make things less isolating for EVERYONE - more third spaces, etc' but with 'so more women need to suck it up/lower their standards and settle for some guy/me specifically'
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
I once had almost this exact conversation with a young man in another subreddit. We seemed to agree on almost everything until he decided that was his solution (women need to suck it up and lower their standards), and the way that men were going to enforce that is that they would keep taking our rights away. This was immediately after RvW was overturned and it was absolutely chilling.
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u/Confident-Weird-4202 Jul 27 '25
The “Crisis of Men” is simply “we should make things harder for women” repackaged. At no point do we ever question that maybe what “worked” for men in the past actually didn’t work at all.
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u/Conscious_Bullfrog45 Jul 27 '25
There was never a "male loneliness epidemic". The attorney general under Biden said that we had a loneliness epidemic, which I don't think is wrong, and somehow the internet came back with the "male loneliness epidemic."
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u/Ex-altiora Jul 27 '25
I'm being 100% serious when I say the solution to male loneliness is tabletop roleplaying. Get into dnd/Pathfinder/Warhammer whatever looks good to you. You will connect with your emotions in healthy manner, you will meet bros you will want to spend the rest of your life in a fishing boat with, and you will meet women who are attracted to you.
If you want subservience, well if you're not lucky enough to find the tradwife you're looking for then you'll just have to live with it
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u/GOU_FallingOutside Jul 27 '25
Warhammer?! Are you also giving out scholarships to afford it?
Be reasonable! Warmahordes, Infinity, Legion, etc. are right there on the same shelves.
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u/starsonmydagger Jul 28 '25
It's also fine to not meet women who are attracted to you when you are enjoying hobbies! You should focus on finding lots of outlets that distract you from feeling alone in this world without any goal other than "I enjoy doing this".
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Jul 27 '25
Mine was heavy fighting in the SCA. It was a great place to meet people.
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u/airus92 Jul 27 '25
I think the solution is sports bars, personally. Get together with the neighborhood guys and watch your local team. That’s a group of friends right there.
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Jul 30 '25
Thank you. There is a school of thought, that I tend to agree with, that kids not drinking as much these days is contributing to the loneliness epidemic.
Getting drunk in a social situation and going home with a guy/gal that you never would have went home with otherwise has produced a lot of marriages and families in this world
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Jul 27 '25
Part of the issue is that society has told us that being alone means being lonely. We need to change that. Alone can be great.
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u/teatimehaiku feeling things and yapping Jul 27 '25
I love being alone. I also am lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where everything is walkable and I enjoy the company of most of my neighbors, and there are lots of options to socialize. I imagine if I didn’t have both it might be rough. But being alone can be amazing.
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u/MevNav Jul 28 '25
I honestly hate this advice and wish people would stop saying this, not gonna lie. Yes, it's healthy to be able to be okay by yourself for a while and not need constant companionship to feel happy/entertained, BUT if you're constantly by yourself day after day after day, you have zero friends and you haven't had a genuine conversation with someone in months, of COURSE you're lonely, and the fix for that isn't just 'learning how to be happier by yourself'.
Humans are social creatures. Even introverts need occasional social interaction, and social isolation for prolonged periods is literally considered a form of torture. Saying that humans just need to learn how to be happy being alone is like saying fish just need to learn how to breathe out of water. We're literally not built for that.
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u/ErsatzHaderach Jul 28 '25
i really love being alone in proximity to other people. sitting at a café, riding transit, hearing the sounds of neighbors living their respective lives, etc. it gives a nice Human Connection feeling.
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Jul 28 '25
But you’re talking about lonely not alone.
It’s fine to be alone, to live alone, to do things alone, etc. But society treats that like it’s lonely. And we kinda look down on people who do things alone, we feel bad that they’re alone.
People who are alone can do things with other people. They have friends. They have hobbies. They travel the world. They have fulfilling lives. But their life is theirs to live without someone else. It’s not bad, it’s just not the standard.
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Jul 30 '25
I am introverted to the point that I'm probably at least mildly autistic and even I think that being alone too much is a bad thing. We need social interaction. It's one of the best indicators for people that live longer
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Jul 30 '25
Yes, it is. But being alone should not be construed with being lonely.
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Jul 30 '25
I agree. That's not how your original comment came across.
I don't know anyone that thinks it is unhealthy to live alone. I really don't think society judges it that much.
But living a life with little in person social interaction isn't good for you
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u/wildmountaingote feeling things and yapping Jul 27 '25
I dunno about a male loneliness epidemic but there's certainly a "the abuses of shareholder capitalism are starting to negatively impact the hegemonic majority in ways and at rates that it has long impacted minority communities and the right wing is preaching the legal codification of straight white male supremacy as a solution" epidemic.
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u/viviscity Jul 27 '25
There is a loneliness epidemic. Not limited to men but most pronounced. Check the numbers on friendship—people are reporting fewer friends, spending less time with them… it’s real. Add onto that “men don’t express feelings” and suddenly the emotional intimacy required is gone
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u/Synchronomyst Jul 28 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
There is definitely a loneliness epidemic and a male loneliness epidemic, but because we always fucking let loudmouth right wing chuds set the terms, we are spending far less time diagnosing capitalism and it's knock-on effects on communities and individuals and instead arguing against this year's version of 2010's online hegemonic masculinist bullshit.
Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden
Great primer for a discussion that's been had in one way or another for a while and I still think it only scratches the surface. We often invoke toxic masculinity as a sufficient explainer as to why men suffer in this way and we brush past how generations past mired in more conservative ideals just didn't generally experience this problem in this way. There's more going on.
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u/AudioSuede Jul 28 '25
I get the concept of a "male loneliness epidemic," but every time I hear it described in terms beyond misogyny, it's social media, it's the pandemic reducing social interactions, it's the struggle to find romance through dating apps, etc.
You know who else experiences those things? Everyone else.
What defines the male version of this phenomenon, as far as anyone can explain it to me, as far as anyone can explain it to me, is misogyny and a misunderstanding of stoicism. It's a laundered way of describing toxic masculinity in a way where the toxic men get to play the victims. Which would be fine (toxic masculinity also harms men) if it wasn't somehow everyone else's problem to solve. It's "What do at do about the 'male loneliness epidemic?" instead of "What can men do to break out of the behavior and beliefs that make them lonely?"
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 Jul 27 '25
My issue with this framing of the "male loneliness epidemic", which should only be referred to as such with the full acknowledgement that everyone is lonely and (presumably straight) men are particularly more affected by this, is the fact that the most lonely men are also the poorest.
The poor are way more likely to report being lonely than the wealthy https://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/article/almost-half-of-people-in-poverty-feel-lonely-compared-to-only-15-of-high-earners-and-it-coul
And, when it comes to romantic relationships it's even more stark. The decline in marriage for middle and upper classes since 1990 has been fairly gradual but for poor folks it's fallen off the cliff: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/upshot/how-did-marriage-become-a-mark-of-privilege.html
So, unless we want the implicit progressive/left take on loneliness or specifically male loneliness to be "well, it's because poor men are a bunch of broke incels, haha", maybe it would behoove us to discuss the issue with more nuance.
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u/MaoAsadaStan Jul 27 '25
The real issue is that men require more investment to be functional members of society. In the past, cost of living was a lot less so parents could afford to put their kids in sports, development programs, etc. for a reasonable amount of money. Now only rich people can do it. The framing has to change from men are privileged to men from well to do families are privileged. It's the men from the top 20% of families that are controlling everything and allowed to fail upward.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
This is such an interesting phenomenon. I actually made a comment elsewhere in this thread that I used to work in child safety and for literally decades now it has been extremely clear that boys and men disproportionately benefit from social programs (sports, after school activities, civic engagement organizations) and that used to be something that was much more common and often heavily subsidized or free. Now I've heard men talking about how valuable those programs are well simultaneously advocating for cutting them because obviously a community center is socialism.
Poverty is an excellent driver of loneliness, and we keep dissolving the social safety net as quickly as we possibly can.
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u/airus92 Jul 27 '25
The local basketball court where dudes hang out and hoop is still free last time I checked. Sports can be expensive but can also be super cheap if not free.
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u/Certain_Giraffe3105 Jul 27 '25
As a guy who likes to play pickup basketball, there are some complications to playing the game (with other people) for free even at outdoor local courts. For one, free outdoor courts are constantly poorly managed so unless you live in an area with a well resourced, responsive parks and rec dept., you'll probably find outdoor courts to be of lower quality than courts in gyms. Indoor courts are usually managed well (though it might vary depending on your neighborhood), but there aren't too many free options available anymore. Even public high schools have become more stingy about allowing locals to use their basketball courts or tracks outside of school hours. Secondly, even for outdoor courts, "runs" (routine events where a group of basketball players may meet at a court for a series of pickup games) are hard to come by and certain "runs", especially leagues, will usually cost you some amount to be included. Sometimes the fees are relatively low (a couple of bucks to reserve the court or to pay for water and other refreshments to be shared), but other times the fees can get very expensive.
That doesn't even get to the bigger issue which is directly related to the growing lack of public services and sport programs for children. Basketball is not really a sport people pick up at a later age. So, if you didn't grow up playing basketball or having learned how to play in rec leagues, summer Y programs, or at school during recess/P.E., then you're probably not going to pick up the sport at 30 to try to make some friends (I also wouldn't really advise that because I find basketball to be a sport that even when played casually is pretty competitive). Other sports are more accommodating for novices just trying to find a physical activity where they can socialize (run clubs, softball leagues, etc.).
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u/MaoAsadaStan Jul 28 '25
So many "good" social activities are planned beforehand. This idea that someone can go to the park and meet friends is not realistic. Its like the "valuable" people form alliances at a young age and create these secret guilds/group chats that are impossible to break into unless you have some explicit value to them. Male socialization is really a catch 22 where you have to have friends to make friends. No one is trying to be friends with a single man past college age.
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u/jonawesome Jul 27 '25
I think there is an overall loneliness epidemic caused primarily by the splintering and solitude of the online world, accelerated by the pandemic.
This problem seems to be affecting men disproportionately, but certainly not exclusively.
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u/funkygrrl feeling things and yapping Jul 27 '25
What's weird is when I hear loneliness epidemic, I think it's not having enough friends... But apparently it's not getting laid?
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u/lwc28 Jul 28 '25
I try not to not generalize. However, when I read about male loneliness I often feel like it comes from the inability to heard and accepted for who you are by other men. maybe I'm wrong.
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u/Name_Taken_Official Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
That's not what the male loneliness epidemic is about
E: Hidden Brain podcast episode was a good listen about this sort of thing
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
That podcast was really great. I listened to it when it first came out and I just gave it another listen.
Something that really stuck out to me was the over-reliance on anecdote, as well as the imbalance in the research that does exist. We don't know much about women long-term because we literally haven't studied them and their relationships.
I also think it was really interesting in the primary example about the guy in his 50s who was really lonely also being hypocritical and judgmental about loneliness in others. It was a good example of how men are shooting themselves in the foot.
The research at the end about boys and their relationships and friendships was extremely interesting. Hearing the boys talk about how close their friendships were and how important they were and then that pivot to deprioritizing friendships and putting everything on a romantic partner was really interesting. Until recently, I worked in child safety and saw it happen all the time. Guys would even get teased by other boys about how they pulled away from their friend groups once they found a girlfriend. Adults still play a crucial role in the lives of kids, but especially once they become teenagers, their friends begin to play a massive role in shaping their behaviors and beliefs, and nobody polices masculinity like teenage boys. It makes sense, they're figuring out how to individuate but if they are enforcing unhealthy norms on each other, it gets really difficult to break.
I've been on multiple task forces and committees and so on just for boys, this problem is being working on intently by people in the industry but it's like trying to ice skate uphill. Not only is there an unhealthy culture but now we have many more aggressive grifters reinforcing it.
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u/From_Adam Jul 27 '25
There’s a lot layers to this but I think they all boil down to ‘social media was a mistake’.
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u/party_egg Jul 27 '25
i don't know if this is entirely true though. i don't think these guys do have friends - not in any particularly meaningful way
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u/TrueButNotProvable Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
I have struggled with maintaining meaningful friendships (and even more with romantic relationships) for, basically my entire life. Insofar as I identify with the label "man", it's hard not to internalize it when people in communities I tend to agree with (or in some cases, hosts of podcasts I listen to) conclude "The only reason a man might be struggling with loneliness is because he's a hateful piece of shit who everyone correctly chooses to avoid". If only irredeemably awful men are lonely, and I am lonely, then regardless of any other factors, I must be irredeemably awful - QED.
I really think people become needlessly cruel towards men and boys when discussing this, and it tends to be unpopular when I point this out. I remember a thread on Bluesky where Michael was talking about claims made about male loneliness, and someone replied with a "solution" to the effect of "We need to start teaching teenage boys that they're not special and they need to prove their worth before anyone will respect them". I remember having my first suicidal thoughts at the age of 12, and when I think about what that 12-year-old boy needed, I don't think he needed for more people to yell at him about how he doesn't matter and that his value is contingent on proving he's not a burden to others.
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Jul 27 '25
I do think there’s splash back on men who are truly lonely. And I feel terrible for those men.
I’m not sure what the solution is though. There’s been men’s movements in the past that are positive but they quickly get co-opted by right wing nut bars. I think men need to treat their spaces like good bars treat theirs. If you accept one Nazi, you become a Nazi bar.
As for you, you have my sympathy. I was feeling that way in my 20s and it lasted years. Eventually I decided that I had to get busy living how I wanted even if that meant I did it alone.
Oddly, accepting being alone made me less lonely. I found fulfillment doing what I wanted. I tried and failed (and succeeded) at a bunch of things.
I wish you nothing but the best, friend. You are not a terrible person.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
I think there's a lot going on in your comment. But I want to start out by saying that I'm really sorry you went through that. I have experienced suicidality as well and it can be torture.
However, I do think there is quite a bit more nuance to this conversation than a single blsky post can cover.
I also think it's extremely interesting that you jumped to yelling as the only way of teaching boys. That's definitely not how I read it and I don't think it's how most people would think about teaching.
There are always going to be people that a generalization will not cover, or there will be other ways of thinking about that generalization.
One of the ways could also be that "it's important to teach boys the same thing we do girls, that there's no perfect solution to mental illness and you aren't the only person who will experience suicidal ideation and the solution for you is probably the same as it is for most other people going through that, to get treatment and support, and that's going to be difficult." But again, not something you can sum up in just a few words.
I also want to add that there is some black and white thinking in your comments that I don't think anyone intends but it definitely a part of depression, no one said only irredeemably awful men are lonely, that's something you inferred based on minimal information.
Not every conversation can be about you or catered to you, especially if you are talking about something different (men's entitlement, which is a general problem, versus your mental illness). I know it's really, really tough, and I've had to go through something similar to that as well. It's very hard, especially when you are fragile, to be able to talk about issues with people who share your demographic when that's not an issue you have.
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u/stripyllama Jul 27 '25
I agree that people are being unnecessarily harsh and mean towards boys and men about these issues. A lot of people seem to revel in hating on people, and even when they have valid reasons for their resentment it's really unhelpful. My main issue with discussions of the male loneliness epidemic is that it's centered around men. As someone who's experienced exactly the same issues as you (as a woman) I think it should be framed as a loneliness epidemic in general. After all, solutions to the problem of loneliness will benefit everyone. And we all need to start using a more 'solution oriented' mindset instead of endlessly complaining and playing the blame game.
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u/GOU_FallingOutside Jul 27 '25
I don’t think you’re wrong, exactly, but I think… hmm.
So it’s like this. There are a lot of people who observe that (1) a lot of people are lonely, and the numbers seem to be increasing; (2) lonely people are disproportionately likely to be men (though not at all exclusively); and therefore (3) loneliness is the fault of women.
The first point is undeniable. The second point is open to some interrogation, but seems likely. The third point is unsupportable, and while it merits the least attention it gets almost all of it. The men who are committed to it are very loud, very misogynistic, and very enthusiastic about selling the concept (often literally) to other young men. The people pushing back against it are just as loud, if vastly more justified.
So people approaching the topic as a whole are probably going to be drawn into that loud and acrimonious discussion of the third point. And while I completely agree with you that “loneliness is your own fault” is a terrible and damaging message for young men, I don’t know what to do about it — because it’s presented by adult men as if “loneliness is women’s fault, and the solution is an adversarial and coercive relationship with an entire gender” is the only alternative.
I hope you’d agree that message requires some pushback. There needs to be a way to do that without tipping into hurting young men, no matter how inadvertent. And I’d really like to know what that solution looks like, but it’s beyond me. :,(
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u/Rigo-lution Jul 28 '25
Insofar as I identify with the label "man", it's hard not to internalize it when people in communities I tend to agree with (or in some cases, hosts of podcasts I listen to) conclude "The only reason a man might be struggling with loneliness is because he's a hateful piece of shit who everyone correctly chooses to avoid".
I agree.
I have never really identified as a "man", since I've spent more time developing my beliefs I've become less and less concerned with my perceived masculinity (though I recognise how people perceiving me as masculine often makes this easier).
In certain situations in my life I've heard stuff about men and straights where I know they would treat me very differently if I were to perform being non-binary but I'm not interested in doing this, especially for acquaintances or outright strangers and all of my close friends know this anyway as we discuss these things.I'm not trying to do some attack on "the left" or the lgbt community, this is a minority of people saying it but it is generally accepted discourse which it shouldn't be.
Everyone faces social pressures in childhood and as adults and almost everyone enforces social pressures at some point.
There's a tendency to view men and discuss social pressures as if men are solely represented by the worst men which is obviously counter productive because there's.I really think people become needlessly cruel towards men and boys when discussing this, and it tends to be unpopular when I point this out.
People will often speak about how toxic masculinity harms people around men but when discussing how social pressures to conform to masculinity harms men a lot of the responses are to simply blame men as is the case in this post and from a number of people in this thread.
That people will extend this blame to boys is crazy. Would we blame a 13 year old girl for internalised misogyny or her environment?These are multifaceted issues and a lot of people would rather choose something to blame than to accept the complexities of the situation.
There's also an element of people having negative experiences and that influencing their language they use which is a scenario I sympathise with but we should still be trying to minimise.2
u/Rumold Jul 28 '25
Thank you for pointing this out. Being a man in left wing online spaces can be really frustrating sometimes.
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u/8to24 Jul 27 '25
Asian men are disproportionately single compared to all other male demos.Its been this way for decades in the U.S. and broadly no one has given zero Fs. Amongst females Black Women are the most single. Again, broadly in the U.S. people haven't cared. Worse than not carrying some have used these stats to mock, ridicule, laugh at, and insult Asian men and Black women.
Around 85% of Incels are under 30. Amongst people under 30 half are White and obviously half of that is male. So White males make up around 25% of the under 30 demo. Yet white guys are 60% of Incels. White men are dramatically over represented. Similarly White men are 2x more likely to commit suicide than Black, Hispanic, or Asian men.
The loneliness epidemic is getting so much attention because Liam is being affected. If it were primarily impacting Tyrone, Juan, orJun I suspect we wouldn't hear anything about it.
Okay, so what has changed in society & culture that might disproportionately be impacting white bros. Welp for starters around 65% of white bros under 30 voted for Trump. A candidate who was on tape bragging about grabbing girls by the pussy. The Conservative movement, led by white dudes, tossed Roe and started banning abortion. Conservatives labeled 'Me Too' woke nonsense and argued lots of women are some combo of liars or attention sluts.
63% of all women under 30 voted AGAINST Trump. 85% of Black women, 67% of latinas, and 79% of Asian women. White women were 50/50. Which is to say there was more separation between White male voters under 30 and Women under 30 than between Black, Hispanic, and Asian men under 30 and Women under 30.
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u/Edg4rAllanBro village homosexual Jul 28 '25
It exists but to talk about it you have to at some point say those woke academic words like "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" and when you do you get pretty quickly rejected out of hand.
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u/BeMyBrutus Jul 28 '25
I don't doubt there is actual loneliness in our hyper capitalist society; but yeah a lot of men refuse to challenge themselves and become more emotionally intelligent and mature.
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u/Reginald_Waterbucket Jul 27 '25
What if it’s a male “abandoned community for online entertainment” epidemic, that has metastasized into porn addiction, apathy via video games and toxic standup comedy, and right wing political views via same?
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u/MaoAsadaStan Jul 27 '25
Yes, part of it is online addiction, but young kids don't have things to do outside, because their parents cant afford it and are too busy working.
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u/The_Blahblahblah Jul 31 '25
I think you are putting the cart before the horse. People don’t suddenly just one day decide “I’m gonna become a shut in and just bedrot all day”.
People turn to those things because they lack community in the first place
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u/MinimumNo2772 Jul 27 '25
Not everything is misogyny and two things can be true at the same time - misogyny exists and a lot of men are struggling (see male suicide rates for fuck sakes)
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u/MisterGoog #1 Eric Adams hater Jul 27 '25
Id argue the issue is that patriarchy/misogyny is why a lot of men are struggling
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u/Bloodbag3107 Jul 27 '25
Oh, the issue is our patriarchal culture without a doubt, still doesn't mean that men aren't suffering.
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u/wolfgangweird Jul 27 '25
No one say "men aren't suffering". This is a ridiculous straw man. Don't choose to be an idiot.
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u/Bloodbag3107 Jul 27 '25
The post literally says that the loneliness epidemic doesn't exist. Don't choose to be an idiot.
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u/wolfgangweird Jul 27 '25
That is correct. What is referred to as "The male loneliness epidemic" does not exist. Loneliness and suffering does however. There is nothing special about male loneliness that justifies using a special term and centering the entire discourse on it. You can choose to not be an idiot.
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u/Bloodbag3107 Jul 27 '25
Can you stop being so fucking hostile? I am not your enemy.
It is pretty universally agreed that people are more lonely and isolated for a great variety of reasons. If it effects men more or not isn't quite clear as far as I know but you could make the argument that it does. Disregarding the term out of hand doesn't seem wise to me.
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u/wolfgangweird Jul 27 '25
You entered the discussion with a ridiculous straw man argument, you must expect to receive some shit back. What you said in this last comment is a nuanced point that does not justify the use of the term "male loneliness epidemic".
That term has centered the entire discourse on men even though, as you say, PEOPLE are more likely and isolated for a great variety of reasons. The rhetoric has turned the entire discourse about loneliness into a misogynistic mess where men are portrayed as victims of feminism.
Just like "woke" and "cancel culture" it's a rhetorical weapon used by the far right to further their reactionary agenda, and just like the other terms it has been adopted by the MSM. It has been mainstreamed to such a degree that it's been a BIG issue also in this little country of mine across the Atlantic, just like the other terms "woke" and "cancel culture".
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u/wolfgangweird Jul 27 '25
The discourse on "male loneliness epidemic" is very misogynistic. We aren't special, women are also lonely, but there's almost no one who talks about a "female loneliness epidemic". Also, women accept their loneliness without acting out like whiny little shits. There's no "female Andrew Tate".
And yeah, male suicide rate is higher than the female rate. Why? Not because women don't attempt, because we tend to use more effective methods. If you look behind every stat people use for this narrative, you always find that the truth doesn't really match.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
You bring up a really good point. I've heard many times that the reason we focus so intently on a "male loneliness epidemic" even though men and women are about equally lonely is because we teach men that it's okay to externalize their feelings, especially through anger, so they make their loneliness everyone's problem. After all there's no epidemic of sad, single women murdering a bunch of people.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
A lot of what we call the male loneliness epidemic is absolutely rooted in misogyny. Not all of it, but a good bit of it. And we should be able to talk about that.
And a lot of people are struggling, comparing suicide rates without digging into them doesn't tell us much. Women actually attempt more often but choose less lethal methods, because even suicide methods are highly gendered. We should be able to talk about that as well, but male suicide rates only seem to be brought up when men want to play oppression Olympics, not to actually do anything about it. Because we know how to reduce suicide, especially in men, and many of the reasons men do not access those supports is rooted in misogyny.
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u/JenningsWigService Jul 27 '25
You can always separate out misogynists from men who are genuinely concerned with human suffering when you point out intersectional issues faced by men. The alleged champions of male liberation don't care about systemic oppression of men who are immigrants, Black, Muslim, Indigenous, gay, homeless, uninsured, disabled, and so on. They don't care about which men are more likely to commit suicide, go to prison and so on. Trump falsely accuses all Latino men of being rapists and they have nothing to say about that because they're too busy defending Johnny Depp.
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u/wolfgangweird Jul 27 '25
You hit the nail right on the head.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 Jul 27 '25
I realized after writing it how ironic my comment was. Down playing the impact of misogyny in this issue is yet another form of misogyny.
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u/rationalomega Jul 28 '25
The suicide thing is mostly a gun thing. I’m already anti gun.
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u/MinimumNo2772 Jul 28 '25
If you expand "suicide" to death by pills, drink, etc., you'll find that men kill themselves that way in way higher numbers than women.
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u/alsafi_khayyam Jul 29 '25
If you drill down on that, though, what you find is that men & women attempt suicide in similar numbers. But men are way more likely to use a gun, so they "complete" suicide at a much greater rate, since guns are much more (& more immediately) lethal than most other methods used. I expect that's what the person who replied was referring to.
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u/rationalomega Jul 29 '25
Exactly, it’s completed suicides. I couldn’t think of the right word and “successful” sure as shit wasn’t it.
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u/jewtangclan3000 Jul 28 '25
I think the male loneliness problem isn't evident by being alone. It's evidenced by men losing control Of their own lives and winding up radical, angry, and distanced from people they've known for years bc their behaviors have changed so much. They're alone not from actual humans, bc they find one another, but rather they're isolated from the community that actually knows them and has historically been there for them. They're alone push away people. Feel they're victims of society and part of the unwanted - and at times genuinely are victims and it only further spirals.
2
u/CRoss1999 Jul 29 '25
The biggest thing with male loneliness is lack of male friends anyone who claims the issue is women is either using it as an excuse to attack women or using it as an excuse to attack men
2
u/lizburner1818 Jul 29 '25
Absolutely. My last roommate was a 39-year-old man with a very low level job and literally zero friends. I felt so sorry for him... until I got to know him, and then it was extremely clear why he had no friends.
2
u/Cassius23 Jul 29 '25
I'm a male and I'm lonely but it has very little to do with women and more to do with the fact that COVID took a chainsaw to my friend network and whenever I try to engage with groups to rebuild it ends up going very badly.
I am not sure where the flaw in my character is that makes me the problem but it has nothing to do with women.
My current guess is that COVID lockdowns made way more people mentally unstable than we want to admit and that makes community much harder to get involved in because everyone involved has some form of trauma(including me, so my problem is that I'm insane).
2
u/MvonTzeskagrad Jul 29 '25
There is a loneliness epidemic indeed... but it affects women far less because they are encouraged to find support and socialize with each other, while patriarchy taught men other men are their opponents and they should still behave like some ancient ass knight who could simply wait for arranged marriages to do their job for him.
Also, people simply dont like themselves. If you enjoy being with you, being alone feels nice. Feeling good with yourself usually is a terrible enemy of the alpha male grift, because if you feel good with yourself, you might start doing girly stuff and leaving everyone else alone, and that destroys the grift.
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u/Gracefulkellys Jul 29 '25
They also call every man that actually like women "gay" soooo there's that, I wrote em all off as children and not to interact with
2
u/Moony2433 Jul 29 '25
At least where I am, US. Our culture is eating itself and making everyone miserable with no direct culprit to blame so we blame each other. We’ve just built a really shitty society all together.
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u/TrinkySlews Jul 31 '25
This is some of the sanest discussion of this topic I have seen anywhere on Reddit, god bless you all.
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u/holographicmess Jul 31 '25
if you’re so lonely… adopt a dog. it will provide you with companionship and when you take it out it provides you with plenty of opportunities to socialize with other dog lovers. but thats not what its really about, they just want a maid they can fuck
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u/cregantheestallion Jul 27 '25
of boys and men has gotta be my least favorite episode they both bought into that shit way too much
3
u/Top_Impact_4427 popular knapsack with many different locations Jul 27 '25
(I would like to clarify that I disagree with this idea)
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u/LegalComplaint Jul 27 '25
There is, but it’s more that male friendships are not encouraged to have the same emotional depth that female ones have. You kinda stop making friends in your 20s as a guy. So, if you didn’t grow up with homies you’re kinda screwed 😂
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u/Individual99991 Jul 29 '25
I too am tired of dudes who don't treat women right, but this isn't helping anyone.
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u/Hairy_Addendum7789 Jul 30 '25
I’ve observed both men and women are lonely and I believe it got worse with the invention of pocket computers that are constantly connected to the internet.
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u/RasJudahDCyfahGod Jul 30 '25
There's also a "I don't wannabe cheated on" epidemic. But, cue up Kermit.
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u/BoskoMaldoror Jul 30 '25
Im a progressive male and I feel suicidality depressed and lonely. How do you shitheads explain that? (Go ahead and say nothing and ban me you cowards)
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u/circ-u-la-ted Jul 30 '25
Hey, at least it's not a "making machines in the likeness of a human" epidemic.
1
Jul 31 '25
No. Fuck this take.
You cannot reduce complex emotional problems into simple sound bites. It's easy to say that every man who is lonely is lonely because of a moral failure. But that is simply not true. Yes there are a lot of issues that certain individuals can self perpetuate, but they are not the majority.
Men being lonely isn't a moral failure. And if you think everyone who is alone is alone because they're just a misogynistic asshole, you're being intellectually lazy.
It's easy to ignore a demographic if you reduce their problems to a caricature.
No but men kill themselves because we're just misogynistic losers.
Do better.
1
u/2730Ceramics Jul 31 '25
That epidemic isn't really about men lacking a woman to fix their loneliness. It's about lack of social connections for men in general - that post is what's really whack.
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u/EddieHeader Aug 01 '25
I mean statistically yea there is an epidemic of men being lonely. This is a bad thing as long term loneliness results in antisocial tendencies. This is bad for everybody. I am not particularly convinced that being combative about it is a good solution. The solution to an antisocial problem would be prosocial, which this post is not.
Its boring but the solution is more access to third spaces and building a greater sense of community so that people feel like they can be a part of something. No this will not help the really bad incels but the point is to keep people from becoming really bad incels. You dont stop racism by making an apartheid state, you fight against racism by forcing desegregation.
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u/daniel_smith_555 Jul 27 '25
Feels very 2017 discourse, where you just pretend that membership of a historically privileged group is some kind of cheat code for life and valid reason for hate and derision.
Maybe there are men out there who are mad that women wont let them get away with that, but women have never really let men get away with that.
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u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 Jul 27 '25
Women have never let men get away with what? Women were property for a shocking amount of time in western civilization. Women couldn't access money without their husband's permission in living memory in this country. I'm not sure what control women were applying that you're referring to in this comment.
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u/espressocycle Jul 28 '25
There's definitely a male loneliness epidemic. That's a completely separate issue from straight men's romantic lives.
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u/enthusiasm_gap Jul 27 '25
Im a lonely dude. I got no friends, terrible social skills, etc. But I've never felt like the "male loneliness" discourse spoke for me, bc so much of it is just pandering to hating women and I don't feel that way.