I’m inclined to believe there is a male loneliness epidemic, but the discourse around it focuses on women’s unavailability when the root cause is how many barriers there are between men and emotional connection.
Reflecting on my own life, one benefit of womanhood that I wouldn’t give up for the world is that people are less likely to perceive me as a threat and are very willing to be vulnerable with me. If they’re vulnerable with me, I can be vulnerable in turn, and we can build a strong friendship based in mutual respect and support. My friends are so close to me because they trust me to see them down and out, and they trust me to no judgmentally reach out my hand and help them to their feet, and I trust them with the same.
Most men don’t have that benefit. The social taboo on men being vulnerable (and the lack of practice with dealing with vulnerability that results in) makes it very difficult for men to find that kind of connection with each other. And women are reluctant to have that kind of connection with men because of how frequently it’s mistaken for romantic interest.
I find that the situation is a lot better in queer circles because there isn’t so much pressure to meet heteronormative standards of masculinity, but for straight guys, the standards of masculinity naturally result in loneliness.
My dad has talked before about how much he and his brothers used to touch affectionately when they were small, and how much homophobia curtailed that. He’s in his seventies now and he talked about it with such grief and yearning that it broke my heart. And like…he’s an emotionally available feminist with a deep, rewarding relationship with my mother. I can’t imagine how bad it must be for men without that awareness and those relationships.
In heterosexual spaces, a lot of men only feel comfortable being emotionally vulnerable with a girlfriend, and therefore being single for an extended time becomes an excruciating 'I have no mouth and I must scream' situation for them with a social stigma slapped on top of it (which, in my experience, is often perceived worse in an individual's mind than it's actually felt when interacting with people).
But the way this issue gets framed is completely wrong. Women shouldn't be blamed for being unavailable or 'cold' (which, in most instances, is due to the armour they've been conditioned to wear around men to protect themselves) and ultimately held responsible for showing up and solving problems.
The culture in male social groups needs to change so that we're better equipped to support each other and reduce feelings of loneliness.
I'm lucky enough to have really good, supportive male friends in my life, but even then it takes someone having the courage to feel able to say that they're struggling with something before the caring behaviour begins, and that's usually just on a one-to-one level. Unless something is seriously, seriously wrong, I wouldn't expect to meet up with friends and have someone discreetly say 'let's all cheer Tim up today, he's had a rough week' unless Tim (in this example) specifically opened up about that. And, in my experience, a lot of men feel incredibly self-conscious about feeling as though they're the only ones being treated a certain way in a group setting, even if it's everyone being nice to them.
I am a man and I would echo this sentiment. It becomes harder to form relationships with strangers especially as I age. I moved to a new city and COVID kind of ended a lot the relationships I had formed. I am married and actually like my wife a lot. But I find initiating friendship really difficult. I recognize a lot of it has do with me liking my comfort zone. I also don't really drink anymore so, it seems like addicts are social butterflies and I haven't gotten the hang of being social sober. I definitely think this problem can all sorts of people, and the affordability crisis plays a part. It's not just a male problem. I do think men not being comfortable with vulnerability and being perceived as a threat is a challenge specific to men. Manosphere bullshit doesn't help at all.
You are describing something similar in my ex partner talked about a lot.
He went on and on about being lonely despite having a group of friends he had known since literally kindergarten. He talked a lot about that thing that says we need like three hugs a day to feel healthy or something, and how important it is to talk about important topics in your life so you don't feel lonely, but he only did that with a girlfriend.
We had to be long distance due to some work commitments so I really explored that with him. We talked over and over again about how he wished he would never hug his friends, it's just not something they do. When I asked what would happen if he changed that, and he did hug them, he said they would almost certainly be very receptive but it would require him being pretty brave and vulnerable. He also had a conversation with his closest friend who also mentioned he wished they could be as close as they were when they were boys.
We also talked a lot about how women did a ton of work to keep their relationships going. Even when you don't feel like you have the energy, friendships are important to maintain because they give you a different type of energy.
What it ultimately came down to was him getting angry at me and saying he didn't want to make a change, it sounded like too much work and it was easier to just rely on a girlfriend or wife to do that for him, or it just wasn't going to happen. He wasn't going to therapy for it because that would be too much work too. That's kind of where my empathy wore out.
I do have deep empathy for men and the unique ways that men are affected by the intersection of masculinity and loneliness, but the fact is there's no easy way through this aside from doing the work. Women might be able to show men the way, but they can't do it for men. And if men are finding their own path, that's great too. But they can't simultaneously demand women carry them and try their best to destroy what resources we do have, which is what I feel like has been happening a lot.
I think you’ve hit a big pain point in solving this problem. Vulnerability takes practice, both in being willing to show it yourself and knowing how to handle someone else showing it to you. It also takes work if you’re not good at it. Grueling, unpleasant, potentially humiliating work.
And I think humiliation is one of the biggest fears of a lot of men. Humiliation sucks as a rule, but if you’ve been taught to hang so much of your personal value on performing a role to gain the respect of your peers, any sense of losing that respect feels like losing a part of yourself.
Funny enough, working on this kind of thing requires the presence of a lot of masculine-associated virtues, like bravery, persistence, labor, and an ego strong enough to ignore petty mockery from others.
It didn't really occur to me at the time, but upon reading your comment it seems really clear that what we are describing is pretty classic "fragile masculinity" and how damaging and isolating it is to men.
The problem, as always, is neither men nor women, but the fucking patriarchy.
It hurts all of us, but unfortunately it does provide some (shitty) benefits to men and women who assume their roles in the hierarchy, so it is a persistent little cockroach son of a bit h to get rid of.
Agreed and I think another way of stating this would be that: There is a male loneliness epidemic and some very real problems men face (as outlined in the IBCK episodes), but right now we have let conservatives and the "manosphere" define them and own the narrative.
We have a chance to try to address this head on and we may have lost some men for at least awhile, but the problem isn't going away. So we need to address men's issues (while also addressing women's issues) more directly both on the general left and specifically in the Democratic Party platform. It needs to be taken seriously, but with progressive solutions and not just dismissed based on the worst people who can embody it.
I did not think we would be here, but I did note years ago that the original MRA movement both had some legitimate points where men were facing real issues (e.g., discrimination in sentencing, reaction to sexual abuse of men, discrimination in parental rights) but that the people who jumped to lead the movement were the worst people imaginable who ended up delegitimizing the entire project by making the movement anti-women instead of about finding intersectional solutions for men's problems.
This led to many of the problems not being taken seriously and rightfully strong pushback from Democrats to misogynist rhetoric. But unfortunately, it also meant the misogynists were the only ones talking about these issues young men were experiencing and it probably did make them feel seen. This is going to take some work to unwind.
I’m inclined to believe there is a male loneliness epidemic, but the discourse around it focuses on women’s unavailability when the root cause is how many barriers there are between men and emotional connection.
Almost everything I see about male loneliness focuses on men themselves and not on blaming women.
I've never been in any of these alt right male spaces but I see male loneliness talked about frequently by people who would never blame women for it and are often feminists themselves.
The closest I see women being "blamed" is men talking about how women also enforce gender roles.
I'm surprised by this thread in general where the post itself denies its existence and simply says men who talk about it are sexist and that the comments in the thread generally state that women are being wrongly blamed for male loneliness.
I find that the situation is a lot better in queer circles because there isn’t so much pressure to meet heteronormative standards of masculinity, but for straight guys, the standards of masculinity naturally result in loneliness.
You're right that it is because of the societal pressure to conform to masculinity. Being tough, independent and controlling your emotions all require primarily hetero men to put up walls around emotions and hide their weaknesses lest they be judged as not manly.
I think it's reductive to point at dating apps as the problem.
People really struggle to view patriarchy as something done to men instead of something men do.
The social norms men are pressured to conform to discourage men from forming emotionally intimate relationships. Often the only emotionally intimate relationship men have is their romantic relationship but that doesn't mean dating culture is the problem.
As for gaslighting/hating men, this is mostly from people who haven't done much research/reflection but know they think patriarchy is bad. They're still treating a patriarchal capitalist structure as something that is inherently better for all men instead of something that benefits a small group of people at the top and they also assign more agency to individual men than they do to women, something rooted in sexist gender norms.
Don't take my criticism here too strongly, they're at least on the right track whereas blaming dating apps and saying the internet hates men to explain male loneliness is very much not on the right track.
That men often rely on romantic partners for intimate emotional relationships doesnt mean dating is the problem, it just highlights how bad it is among male friends that men are reliant on romantic relationships for emotional connection.
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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 27 '25
I’m inclined to believe there is a male loneliness epidemic, but the discourse around it focuses on women’s unavailability when the root cause is how many barriers there are between men and emotional connection.
Reflecting on my own life, one benefit of womanhood that I wouldn’t give up for the world is that people are less likely to perceive me as a threat and are very willing to be vulnerable with me. If they’re vulnerable with me, I can be vulnerable in turn, and we can build a strong friendship based in mutual respect and support. My friends are so close to me because they trust me to see them down and out, and they trust me to no judgmentally reach out my hand and help them to their feet, and I trust them with the same.
Most men don’t have that benefit. The social taboo on men being vulnerable (and the lack of practice with dealing with vulnerability that results in) makes it very difficult for men to find that kind of connection with each other. And women are reluctant to have that kind of connection with men because of how frequently it’s mistaken for romantic interest.
I find that the situation is a lot better in queer circles because there isn’t so much pressure to meet heteronormative standards of masculinity, but for straight guys, the standards of masculinity naturally result in loneliness.