DISCOVER HOW SMART, STRONG & SUCCESSFUL WOMEN (THAT'S YOU!) CAN FINALLY Find Your Man
Take this short quiz
to discover what you need to do now.
In high school, I had three best guy friends. We loved each other. Said as much when signing each others’ yearbooks. By the time we graduated college, we were barely in touch. The last time we were all together was my father’s funeral when I was 26.
In college, I had four best guy friends. We loved each other and I thought our friendship was unique and special. It wasn’t. We all went to each others’ weddings in our late 30’s, but after we had kids, it was the end of the show. The last time we were all together was a group 40th birthday party in New Orleans. That was 5 years ago.
I’ve been married for nine years, a father for 6. I work from home in the suburbs. I don’t play poker or golf or drink scotch – I’d rather have a pool party with margaritas and my wife around. There is very little testosterone in my world.
My current friends are fathers in my community – kindergarten dads, temple dads, soccer dads, etc. They’re great guys, but we don’t have the same history. We couldn’t. What 40-year-old guy can spend countless hours talking these days? We have full-time jobs, kids to raise, and endless family obligations. I see the local Dads around once a month. I see my longtime LA friends two times a year. I see my college friends only when I’m on a business trip in their city.
If you have a guy friend, call him and let him know you’re thinking of him.
I’m busy, all right. But I’m a little lonely. And I’m one of the lucky ones. Happily married. Two kids. No commute. Highly active social life with an extroverted wife who knows everyone in town. Shed no tears for me. I’m only using my plight as a way into this viral piece by Billy Baker of the Boston Globe, which painfully identifies how middle-aged men don’t have the same sense of community or support as their female peers.
The results are visible everywhere. Go on dates. Ask your guy friends. Most of them will tell you. There are no fraternities or posses or bro-groups for men of a certain age. There are no men’s networking organizations, no conferences just for men, no Love U for guys.
There is mostly work.
If you’re lucky, you have a wife. If you’re luckier, you have a wife who encourages you to make guy time, like I do. If you’re extremely rare, you have one close friend or a small group of friends you connect with periodically and travel to see every year.
Want to know why guys bear their souls on the first date and want to marry you on the second date? Look no further than the loneliness epidemic, which has quietly swept across America, and is slowly destroying our male population. Disconnected men have no social contact, no warmth, no support, no touch, no one to celebrate successes, no shoulder to lean on during tough times. It’s terribly sad and relatively unreported.
If you have a guy friend, call him and let him know you’re thinking of him.
You’ll probably be the first to do so this year.
Are you a guy who has experienced this slow fracturing of social bonds? Are you a woman who has seen this up close? Your thoughts, below, are appreciated.
Middle-aged loneliness is definitely not gender-specific. I am a 53 year old single woman with no kids. My close friends are all married and very busy with work and family obligations. They have hardly any time or energy to enable closeness for their single friends (me). It is lonely indeed
Heidi,
My close friends are all married and very busy with work and family obligations. They have hardly any time or energy to enable closeness for their single friends (me)
I have experienced this, too, but I’m lucky in that the area where I live has lots of meetup groups. At the very least, you know the people in the groups have an interest in getting out of the house and meeting new people. Then you have to get to know them and find out if they value friendship, and by that I mean real friendship as opposed to friendly acquaintanceship. Someone you would call up and ask, “Hey, I’ve got a scary doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Can you go with me?” It takes time to filter out and find these people, but you can’t maintain a meaningful friendship with someone you talk to once a year.
Maria , I can relate. I am in the same boat. 53 and single with no kids….friends treat me like I am the lucky one.(?) To top matters I don’t drink, so any girl parties they do have are with drinking involved….. Netflix and chill with my cat .lol
I am a photographer and that gives me peace but don’t depend on friends to make me happy. Most envy me for my “free life style “.
One single guy I like is too busy hanging out with a married woman friend …. I stay out of it ….
I do volunteer and meet people thru that . Being my own best friend gets lonely ….but at least no drama ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
This is sad! It’s certainly not the only thing, but I think my exes loneliness was a factor in our divorce. He just had no guy friends – none. We had couple friends, but the only connection these guys had was that they were married to a group of close girlfriends. The guys never really seemed to bond with each other, not sure why. There’s such a thing as too much time together and when I couldn’t meet all his needs his resentment grew and grew. He absolutely hated it when I went out with my girlfriends alone and made sure I knew it. And there was always an argument when I got home. Now, he may have had some control issues as well, but I wonder how it would have been if he’d had a chance to blow off steam with a buddy or two.
The Billy Baker article mostly seems about how men with children (who also work) are lonely because they have no time left for seeing friends. As a child free, married woman in my thirties, it always seems to me that the people around me who have children have lots of friends, because they all have their children in common and can bond over this. So I also wouldn’t necessarily say that all women have easy access to friendship groups – where I live, it’s equally lonely to be a woman if you don’t have children and so can’t relate to other women of the same age.
Yes. And it is probably hard for child less men as well.
I’m 59 years old. Raised five kids. Divorced five years ago after 32 years of marriage. Just last week I was at a local club, rediscovering my love of dancing from my high school and college days. Throughout the evening, I noticed again and again, women dancing with each other. They were able to enjoy this expression of movement regardless of whether a male partner was available. It was a reminder to me of how, for a very long time, I have both admired and envied that women can do that. Women can openly enjoy emotional connection with each other and even to an extent, physical connection without ever raising an eyebrow or even a second thought. On the other hand, if men sought to express emotional or physical connection with other men in the same way, it would quickly be construed that they were gay. In general, society simply doesn’t allow for men to connect with other men emotionally. Men are expected to be tough and emotionless and to “buck up” under the burdens and struggles they face. In my own life, after a faith crisis, a bitter divorce and becoming an empty nester all at the same time, I felt for a long time that loneliness was my only faithful companion. Just reading this article was a little emotionally overwhelming as I thought back over the past five years…the hardest and loneliest years of my life.
There is an organization called The Men’s Division and another called Mankind project which helps men connect. My boyfriend belongs to Men’s Division. It is incredible.
Wow John,
Thank you for sharing that. It touched me and made me think. I have wondered why so many men seem to move on quickly after a relationship ends while so many women take a break before getting out there again. I wonder if it is because we have our friends that we share with and are close to and many men don’t and are longing for connection again.
I hadn’t considered that but I think your hypothesis is an astute one Lia. Even now, five years after my divorce and leaving the church that was the center of my life for over 50 years, I can count on one hand the number people, male or female (including my therapist and family members), I would feel comfortable openly conversing and sharing intimate thoughts or feelings with to try to work through my struggles. On top of that, I’m a freelancer and work from home so I’m alone 90% of the time. Like Brene Brown says, we’re wired for connection. It’s a fundamental human need and can be so illusive. Thanks for sharing your insight.
Men usually connect through similar activities where they are “doing” rather than just “being” as in conversation.
I thought there were conferences for men. I remember my shrink mentioning something about it.
I can relate to this topic. Early 50’s, divorced 5 years, one kid in college and the other a senior in HS. It gets awful quiet sometimes compared to when things were busy with the kids but I can’t say the loneliness is as excruciating as it used to be, certainly not as bad as when i was married or desperately trying to find a partner shortly after divorce. The memories of how good it was and how happy I was when I was in the honeymoon phase of dating someone post-divorce keep me looking for a suitable and healthy partner where we can settle into something good. But many times, it feels like it’s just me, by myself and the frustration of mid-life dating makes it very challenging. I think I’ve gotten very good at managing the disappointments, maybe too good.
ScottH,
The memories of how good it was and how happy I was when I was in the honeymoon phase of dating someone post-divorce keep me looking for a suitable and healthy partner where we can settle into something good.
But do you have interest in making friends? Friendships are like any other relationship in that they require effort and work to find and maintain. I’ve read other articles similar to the one highlighted in this post written by middle age men who have no social network beyond their spouse and families.
I have a couple of friends I’ve known for 25-30 years, one of whom I talk to 4-5 times a week on the phone and is brother-like. We used to eat lunch together every day for 10+ years. I have several women friends and I socialize at meetups too. I’m really not hurting to make friends and I like my alone time too but I wouldn’t mind another guy friend. It’s a female partner that I’m really longing for.
ScottH,
I have several women friends and I socialize at meetups too. I’m really not hurting to make friends and I like my alone time too but I wouldn’t mind another guy friend. It’s a female partner that I’m really longing for.
I like my alone time, too. Of course, it depends on what a person values, but I’ve never understood people who have no interest in friendship. I have known both men and women who use meetups just to meet a partner and disappear completely once they do. I just don’t want to be the only person in someone’s support network.
@Emily, the original
Some people are not just not interested in investing in new friendships. I have a few friends that I made in the first half of my career and a group of childhood friends, but I have not made more than acquaintances since I married. I am cool with it because I am not a social animal. I do not need to be entertained in the company of others. I can spend long periods of time by myself and not be bored. However, then again, I am an INTP, and that is characteristic of my personality type. For some odd reason, I tend to attract extroverts, especially ENTJs. 🙂
YAG,
Some people are not just not interested in investing in new friendships. I have a few friends that I made in the first half of my career and a group of childhood friends, but I have not made more than acquaintances since I married. I am cool with it because I am not a social animal.
Different strokes, I guess. You mentioned meetups being for extroverts. I am an introvert and not super social but I do like to have one fun thing planned per weekend. To be honest, a man having no friends or not having any interest in friends would be a red flag for me. I don’t understand people whose only interest is romantic relationships.
@Emily, the original
To be completely honest, I could take or leave a relationship as well. I have friends. I just do not hang out with them very often, as I prefer my own company. I get to do what I want to do 100% of the time that I am not at work or with my children. That is really refreshing after spending the better part of two decades of my life with a woman.
I recommend reading a book entitled “The Buddy System: Understanding Male Friends” by Geoffrey Greif before passing judgement on men for how they manage their friendships. Men are very different than women when it comes to friendships.
https://www.amazon.com/Buddy-System-Understanding-Male-Friendships/dp/0195326423
YAG,
I recommend reading a book entitled “The Buddy System: Understanding Male Friends” by Geoffrey Greif before passing judgement on men for how they manage their friendships.
I’m not judging male friendship. If you don’t want to have friends or don’t spend much time with the ones you do have, that’s your choice. I simply said a man not having friends would be a red flag for me. Just like a man who still lived with his mother (and didn’t need to do so for financial or health-related reasons) would be red flag. I value friendship and autonomy, but I’m one person. Other people may feel differently.
Hey Evan. It’s not just guys. I’m in the same boat. Happily married. A teen-age step daughter heading off to college. Very few friends in my area, and I’m an introvert to boot. I run into more people I know when I travel to foreign countries than I find here in Long Beach or see in L.A. Over and over women I consider my “best” friends disappear without explanation, leaving me wondering what’s going on.
So I spend too much time molesting my husband or hanging out on social media. It’s rough.
I get that men have specific challenges, but I think it’s bigger than gender. I’m feeling it, too, especially right now.
Namaste, brother. Happy Birthday.
I am in Long Beach, too!
I feel like your detracting from the male narrative of lonliness…
Men built capitalism and the nuclear family – if they are discovering the downsides to being Masters of the Universe, I’m sure they can apply intellect and effort to creating awareness, building networks and gaining/offering support. There must be hundreds of thousands of men in the same position.
Thanks so much for your warmth and concern. I feel much better having had this exchange.
It is a cause for concern, Evan. Here in New Zealand, the suicide and depression rates for men and boys are highly disproportionate to those of women So we are seeing the effects of this American phenomenon in our own backyard, and as a Kiwi (and social scientist) it disturbs me greatly. Identifying the capitalist system as being the root cause of many of these effects (work as a focus of male identity and accomplishment, moves away from extended family for work, the goal of “independence” away from an intergenerational home and therefore systems of support and togetherness) isn’t being unkind. From this article and public campaigns in New Zealand, it seems that awareness is spreading of these issues. Therefore it also seems that there is no impediment for that awareness to increase and a social movement to change this for the better can gain ground. It will take bravery and effort for those willing to apply it.
There are parallels here to awareness campaigns about mental illness, which has been a cause of mine for 20+ years. It can take as little as one gutsy person admitting that they are living with mental illness to start a domino effect of awareness, compassion and acceptance. So something like this column, if forwarded onto our male friends and relatives, could have that same effect.
I’ve experienced the “lonely man” through my father , who had no friends and found a new companion 6 months after my mother died of cancer, squarely putting his own needs before those of me and my siblings. This was a person who was trained to identify ways to kill human beings in Vietnam but could not acknowledge his own feelings of loss or navigate the world of friendship. I’m sure there are many men like my father in his generation, which is truly sad. However the tools that younger generations possess lead me to be optimistic that transformative change can be made.
Michelle said:
“I’ve experienced the ‘lonely man’ through my father , who had no friends and found a new companion 6 months after my mother died of cancer, squarely putting his own needs before those of me and my siblings.”
Is it possible that your father was taking care of your needs … by taking care of himself as well? Airlines instruct parents to put on their own oxygen masks before placing masks on their small children. (The child can handle a little hypoxia … far more easily than they can handle having a parent pass out and die from hypoxia.)
According to this 2011 longitudinal study (click here) a person has “about a 40% higher risk of death following widowhood than you would otherwise expect.” This risk is most evident in the first 6 months following the spouses death, but it is evident for at least a decade after.
When my wife lost her mother to cancer (long before we met), she was very concerned that she might lose her father next. Similarly, when she lost her favorite aunt to cancer, she feared she would lose her uncle as well.
In both cases, she encouraged them to get out, date and remarry. I don’t know if the time-frame was quite as quick as your father, but I think it was no more than a year before they were in long-term relationships.
Anyone can become lonely. Remaining lonely is an option.
Even if you don’t live in or near a major city, there are almost an endless number of options to meet new people through meet up groups, support groups, adult sports, book clubs, volunteering, etc.
I have the most compassion for widows and widowers who are not only dealing with newfound loneliness, but serious grief. That combination can be deadly.
I have a rich and full social life. I just miss my oldest and closest friends from high school and college.
Meeting a guy at a Meetup doesn’t replace 20-30 years of history. That’s all I’m saying on a personal level.
On a societal level, men without the social life I have could certainly benefit from your recommendations.
I hear ya!
It wasn’t until my dad retired that he made an effort to get back in touch with his old high school and college buddies. He was fortunate in that he and my mom had lived in the same area most of their lives, so it made it much easier to get together several times a week and doing so brought him a lot of joy.
Several years ago when my father passed, it was that group of men that told me stories about my dad that I had never known. Really cool stories that I will always cherish. Friendship is a wonderful gift. : )
Evan, have you told them how you feel? Your friends may feel the same way but are being too stoic or busy to say it. Friendships as well as intimate relationships take effort (not work–as you say 🙂 What would happen or what would be the worst thing that could happen? I love Brene Brown and think she is spot on about how difficult it is for men to develop and maintain friendships due to gender roles/identities, but courage and vulnerability always win IMHO.
KK,
Anyone can become lonely. Remaining lonely is an option.
I agree. You almost have to put the same amount of energy into a social life that you do dating if in fact a social life is what you want.
I agree that it’s not gender-specific. I grew up in another state, and met my partner soon afterwards. Never made the same types of friendships as when I was younger. I have kids but they don’t have many friends due to their ‘issues’, so don’t have the thing where you’re friends with all your kids’ friends’ parents. To make matters worse, my partner is an introvert, and likes to — needs to — be alone a lot (he’s always reading). I make friends now and then, but it’s a friend here, a friend there, and they don’t know each other. And everyone has their own, busy life to lead. I miss having a group of girlfriends! It can be quite lonely.
It is difficult these days to make male friends. Most men I know make their wives the center of their world. It is not that their wives won’t let them have a “man’s night.” It is that my married friends are totally unaware that they need male companionship.
Hanging out with friends is hardly purposeful, the way life with a wife is. Divorced and even widowed women don’t see it that same way however.
My feedback Evan, because well, you asked. All relationships including your friendships with your guy friends need nurturing. Relationships only dwindle if you let them.
Question: Would you let your relationship with your wife become like your high school or college buddies? Do you not make every effort to maintain the communication, closeness, bond and physical contact with your immediate family? Do you allow circumstances or situations to drive your partnership? Clearly not. I know the story of you and your wife. Your wife was not the woman you thought you’d ever end up marrying or having children with. Perhaps you decided that your friends were not the type of people you wanted to have friendships with, why else would they not be in your life unless you allowed it?
We choose who we spend our time with and the connections we wish to nurture. Loneliness as they say is a state of mind. You’ve discovered something missing and now all there is to do is to choose your next guy friend. The same way that you would coach a single, strong, successful woman into taking the actions to manifest her MAN. Her Guy. Her BEST FRIEND, with benefits. Is truly what you need to do when it comes to finding your BFF.
We recently connected by phone after many years of likes and the odd comment here and there on Facebook and I truly enjoyed the conversation. In fact. I would welcome a call from you every month. Every week if you wanted to. Heck – You and I could probably be FRIENDS in real life. I like you. I always have.
Now, if someone like ME is open to having and developing that kind of relationship with you, I would imagine there are others. And you should seek the testosterone kind of friendship you’re missing. Make it your mission. For women there’s an app called “Hey Vina.” Where women can look at other women’s profiles to find a BFF. A new girl crew or their next BFF.
Not sure if there’s one for men. You already said you meet other dad’s in your community. Why not stop and actually get to know one of them? Make the extra effort to pay attention and then create the relationship. As you know Evan, it takes two to tango and someone usually takes the lead.
Perhaps you seek friendships where your BFF pursues you. Calls you. Maintains the contact. Rather than putting that responsibility and obligation on you. There’s a part of me that wonders if people are really lonely, or if they just don’t want to make the effort because let down and expectations are too high?
My situation is very different. I often feel overwhelmed, spread too thin and have too many parties to go to, weddings (not so much given I’m also 45), graduations, baptisms, baby showers, house warmings, special occasion get togethers are constantly under my events notification. I have about 5 super close people in my circle and I’m fortunate to have the balance of both estrogen and testosterone in my circle.
You give so much of yourself to your craft, your passion and GIFT for writing, your love for your wife and family, that your relationship to your already very few guy friends has taken the hit.
I believe you can have exactly the kind of relationship you occasionally crave with a dude whenever you choose it. You’re probably not that lonely 🙂
And – thank you for sharing and allowing me to chime in.
Your friend-ish <3
If your assumption is “Relationships only dwindle if you let them.” I do believe you are wrong.
I’ll immediately throw in my usual caveats about generalization.
Men bonds are inherently different from that of women. One good example of this is the huge gap between discussions of intimacy or sexual practices. Men are, for the most part, considerably more guarded / discreet than women are, and this to a degree that is even perplexing or even disturbing. Many exchanges between women, overheard or quoted by a then partner, reach appalling levels of detail. Such disclosure may even reach extents deemed transgressions of the couple’s bond and privacy.
Getting together to watch a game serves a purpose, but a very limited one. The exchange is innocuous, has little depth or detail, and merely addresses a need for presence. A veneer of togetherness.
Ever heard the saying that true friends can pick up and catch up no matter how much time has elapsed since their last contact? This can be largely true, but may remain exceedingly superficial.
In men, as in women, different personalities define limitations. Soul-baring is not for everyone. Intellectual analysis is the realm of a few.
Go back to The Big Chill. The movie reveals how people used to relate.
“Wrong, a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don’t know anything about me.” And THAT quote sums up divergence with passing years. The crux of the friendship nucleus may still be there. Shared events, history, views, training, and fondness, or a kind of love.
Often, judgmental interpretations of another’s life will get in the way. You feel they went off in the wrong direction or got derailed. A very personal take, often missing MUCH detail.
Tried to do something, and failed? My be held against you. Succeeded? May be just as bad. Achieving neither more nor less than your former peers? That may please everyone.
Unemployed? Thousands of similarly qualified people may get dumped on the sidewalk simultaneously, and other corporations also downsize. To some people, this is a disgrace and the person or their situation / bad luck makes them uncomfortable, so the friend is shunned.
I have the advantage of being multicultural. From personal observation…
In the USA, the best of friends, whilst colleagues, are suddenly estranged when one moves away and/or changes jobs or corporations. This is largely reflected in most anglo-saxon spots. Efforts to maintain contact do little to alleviate the problem.
In French culture, friendships used to be solid, stalwart, quasi unbreakable. With progressive Americanization, this aspect has taken a serious hit.
In general terms, many psychobabble books advise to summarily dump negative people / influences, which is perhaps a sane mental health and preservation reflex, but there is a difference between temporarily troubled and permanent doldrums. This aspect also means that we seem to recommend being a fair-weather friend.
The more average / run-of-the-mill a person is, the easier it is to find a mate / partner, and make friends or sustain those links.
While you are right that lack of effort in supporting / feeding a friendship will eventually spell its dissolution, providing such effort may not always be met with reciprocity. Sure, a lukewarm reception may have nothing to do with you, as your friend’s current context may preoccupy him (recent fight w gf/spouse, trouble at work, etc.). Repeated contacts that feel unidirectional? Or never echoed? At which point do you “pull the plug” and stop trying? We do account for differences. One friend will never call. It’s not in his nature. Oddly, he’ll always express himself with “glad you called”. We get together for lunch, the exchange is very open. We’re different.
There ARE generational differences. Keep in mind that we hear, see, feel, and adequately perceive that people really are more isolated than ever before as they disappear in their chosen virtual reality. There are reasons.
Well. Fuck.
Evan. You are talking to the wind.
This has been the age group disparity. We’ve all loved and lost in a huge way at this point.
I have loved. Lost. Invested. Taken your advice heart and soul. But after decades of marriage and serious relationships…I don’t know.
Much of your advice is for younger years. My peer group of men? If they are monied in any way? At 60? Think they deserve a woman of forty.
I am finding the old axiom of nurse or a purse to be prevalent. I’m healthy and just not looking for a project or ill
I’m attractive and get a lot of attention.
I don’t have a lot of assets, but I have have a reasonable income.
It’s just too complicated.
I can’t afford another liar. It would wreck me. As would disappointment. So I just have stopped dating this last year
I wish it was different. And you still are my go to advisor. But I think I am sadly done.
men lie to especially ones on line they win your trust and disappear whats that
Meetup groups changed my life! This organization is in every city and has every activity you want! If it doesn’t you can start one. If you want a specific group and you don’t see it I believe there is someone else that wants it to! So start one! Join one! Participate in one or more….
Meetups are there. Dealing with groups of strangers does get old though.
Meetup groups are better for people who are extroverts. Extroverts need to socialize. I would rather have my teeth drilled without novocaine than have my energy consumed by a meetup group.
I’ve known about this issue for a while now and it breaks my heart. I personally know four men in my world…oops…make that five who are lonely. They are all individual, different backgrounds, good men but are lonely. ALL of them feel the pressure to succeed with work. All of them liked being with a female but four out of five are single. I know loneliness myself so I try to be supportive. It’s one thing the feminists are missing…men’s pain. I wish they could see it.
I saw this with my soon to be 3rd ex-husband… but it wasn’t for lack of me trying to support and encourage him to have friends and be more involved and social. I couldn’t understand why after we got married he would spend most nights and weekends sleeping and avoiding everyone (including me), until we separated after 1.5 years. I then realized he suffers from depression and either refuses or is incapable of doing anything to recover. I tried to help, tried to be supportive and loving, but nothing I did was good enough. He finally sent me divorce papers last week. It’s so sad.
I totally have seen this and agree that we should reach out to our single male friends. I’ve seen single men’s loneliness many times and I’ve even commented on it to my female friends and they didn’t seem to think it mattered. But, as someone who values male friends and really tries to include as many friends as possible in social activities, I’ve seen that a lot of my male friends push away after we become great friends and have a solid dynamic. I think I understand why; it seems to be exhausting for them to create strong bonds with women that they know might pull away a little once the woman finds love. But it still hurts me when they pull away.
All of this to say, the article says to text or reach out to our male friends because chances are no one else has recently, but my question is how do we show friendship and love without a male friend later pulling away? Now I know this is just case specific and I have tons of male friends that are there no matter what, but there seems to be a threshold regarding the closeness of our friendship. The men I’ve become best friends with seem to pull away after 4-6 months and the idea that a text from me would help their loneliness is true but also not the only emotion it would eleicit. Thanks for your advice and response in advance!
I think that’s why our grandfathers used to go to Elks clubs. Seems like present-day men could use an updated version of that.
Hi Michelle,
Unfortunately , the Elks club is no longer a men’s only club. They were sued for not allowing women. Well, that is the point; to have men only. Men are different when women are not around. That is what happened with that. It became a “cause” for ending discrimination against women by forcing men’s clubs to allow women to join.
Here is the link to the story if you are interested:
https://www.aclu.org/news/elks-lodge-settles-aclu-lawsuit-agrees-admit-women-members
It’s not just the US. I’ve read multiple articles and research from here in the UK that show the same conclusions, and as a 53 yo divorcee of 6 years I can vouch for the accuracy. Apart from work, if my sons aren’t around there are times I would rarely speak to a soul. Why? I have no family other than my sister who only just moved back to the UK after 10 years in Australia, groups/societies I belong to are populated by married couples – mostly older, I’ve lost touch with school and other friends and/or they live many miles away (some abroad now). Add to that being an introvert and you’ve got a recipe for loneliness.
When I was married it was mostly my wife’s friends and family and their spouses we socialized with, so when that all goes, what do you do? I think it’s probably true that men do make their wives (and family) the centre of their world (true for me certainly) and that women tend to maintain friendship networks that men simply don’t.
From my perspective now, I can’t see how things will change. In my limited dating forays over the past few years it’s clear to me that if you tell a woman you have no friends and you’re an introvert, you’re marked as ‘don’t touch with a barge pole’!
I have no doubt that there are many lonely women out there, as there are many lonely men. Yet notwithstanding that, I do believe this to be a gendered issue – not so much as to loneliness itself, but rather the reasons WHY a given individual is lonely.
I know many lonely women. Women who never married, whose old friends all married and with whom they now have little in common. Women whose lifestyle diverged from that of their old friends and lost the friendships. IME, what most of these lonely women have in common is that their loneliness comes from a lack of OPPROTUNITY – they want friendships, they crave them, they seek them, they go to meetups and attempt to phone people – but their efforts go unrewarded so they are lonely.
I know many lonely men. Men who lost contact with their old friends, who got busy with their families and jobs, who invested all their emotional capital into their wives and subsequently divorced. IME, what most of these men have in common is that their loneliness comes from a lack of INITIATIVE. There are people out there willing to be their friends, but they just can’t bring themselves to call.
I personally fit into this category, though like Evan, my life is full with my wife, kids, and the broad social network that my wife provides. But if I were to lose that, I would be very lonely indeed. And all the insight in the world will not change the fact that some fundamental instinct is lacking in me (and in the men I know) that my wife and all her female friends seem to possess. An instinct to tend and befriend.
Without that instinct, men are very much like the sharks from the movie “finding Nemo.” They want to be friends with fish, they don’t want to eat fish, they know that being friends with fish will ultimately make them happier and give their lives more meaning…..but it is almost impossible for them to overcome their instincts nevertheless.
Jeremy,
You’re definitely onto something, I’m just not sure it’s quite that simple. Nor am I suggesting that I have it all figured out. I don’t. But I believe lonely women can also lack initiative and lonely men can lack opportunity; or at least that’s their perception.
Since being divorced, my social circle changed in ways I could’ve never imagined. One of my oldest and dearest friends told me that she no longer had anything in common with me now that I was divorced. She felt if we remained friends, her own marriage might suffer. I was puzzled by this odd conversation because our friendship consisted of daily phone calls and getting together for lunch or shopping. I’m not a bar fly and certainly had no intentions of asking her to go man hunting with me. So now, she calls every 3 or 4 months and we catch up for about 20 minutes until the next time she calls. Out of my group of friends that remained, all but two are married.
I have every other weekend to myself. I have every opportunity to make plans and sometimes I do. Yet there are many times I lack the initiative. I know it will result in loneliness and I know that it’s my responsibility to take the initiative in order to avoid being lonely, but many times I simply lack the initiative. Many times I’ll turn down offers to get together because I cherish my alone time but it comes with a price.
Moving on to men…. I am absolutely certain you are correct when you say lonely men lack initiative and no doubt there are lots of lonely men. But what about those men who prioritize their friendships over their marriage and family? I live in the south and a lot of men here love to hunt. During deer season, they’re gone every weekend, much to the chagrin of their wives. Then deer season ends and quail or duck season or something else begins. A lot of these marriages end and the ones that don’t, are usually unhappy marriages.
The only reason I brought this up is because although there’s more than likely some gender aspect to all of this, (to reiterate) I’m just not sure it’s quite that simple.
KK, I’m sure that exceptions exist, and our personality (whether introverted or extroverted) plays a role.
I do know some men who fit Evan’s description of himself. Guys who are very extroverted – the ones who were very popular in high school and maintained all their friendships throughout the years and still get together for weekly basketball games 30 years later. That’s amazing, but not the norm (unfortunately). Because for those guys, extroversion is their instinctive behavior – they recharge by being with people. And if they are stressed and need to withdraw, they do it with their friends rather than alone. And I’ve seen all kinds of withdrawal behavior – excessive involvement in social/political groups to the exclusion of one’s marriage, workoholism, poker nights, strip clubs, etc. Sometimes a guy who looks like he is trying to connect with friends is actually trying to escape his life. And sometimes the guy who lacks initiative to engage with friends does so because engaging with his family takes everything he has.
Why doesn’t telling obese people about the potential for heart disease and diabetes persuade them to eat healthier? Why don’t cancer warnings dissuade smokers from smoking? Why doesn’t telling men about loneliness and mental health issues persuade them to take more initiative to forming friendships? Answer to all of these questions – because unless we can link un-instinctive behavior to immediate instinctive rewards, most people lack the wherewithal to overcome their inclinations in the long-term.
Hi Jeremy,
I personally fit into this category, though like Evan, my life is full with my wife, kids, and the broad social network that my wife provides. But if I were to lose that, I would be very lonely indeed. And all the insight in the world will not change the fact that some fundamental instinct is lacking in me (and in the men I know) that my wife and all her female friends seem to possess. An instinct to tend and befriend.
Did you have male friends in high school and college? Buddies you hung out with before you met your wife? You say you lack the instinct to tend and befriend (though from what Evan wrote to Barbara, it sounds like he has the instinct), but did you ever have it? I work with a lot of middle-aged, married guys and many seem to have no interest in friendship. Their lives revolve around their wives, who act as (for lack of a better description) their life cruise directors. Their wives make all the social plans and keep up their social network (which sometimes barely involves his family) as well as dictate their chores on the weekends. I’m not trying to be snarky, but I’m honestly asking why men do that. I’m thinking of one guy who spends all his time with his wife, her grown children, her grandchildren and her extended family. He barely makes an effort to keep up with his own family, so they get ignored because his wife is not facilitating those relationships for him.
I had friends, but not the close type of friendships that Evan described he had. At every stage of my life I had friends and slowly lost contact with them. Most of the men I know are the same. Most of the women I know won’t let a day go by without talking to at least one of two friends by phone or by text. The difference is stark.
When women are stressed they seek connections. When men are stressed they withdraw. And I’m stressed a lot, so seeking connections is often not in the cards for me. It may be a cop out, but I really think the best bet for men is to marry, because the social networks their wives create will be a huge factor in men’s future happiness.
Jeremy,
It may be a cop out, but I really think the best bet for men is to marry, because the social networks their wives create will be a huge factor in men’s future happiness.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think that is a lot of responsibility to place on another person and too much to ask. I don’t want to organize and run someone else’s life.
Once again, Jeremy, you are placing all the onus of men’s happiness on the shoulders of women. I understand this is how it is now, but why, with such self reflection and knowledge, doesn’t it also make sense for men to try to break through their own barriers? “Okay, so I tend to withdraw with stress. Though it makes me uncomfortable, what would happen if I reached out?”
This is actually why I wish a proper not misogynistic movement for men’s rights could come about. A true support system that fought through the stigma men face in demonstrating emotion, in reaching out, in wanting to have friends. There is so much depression out there that men face, so much that it leads to high rates of suicide. Wanting women to fix that for you isn’t the answer in my opinion, men need to start helping themselves and each other. And of course we women will do what we can, but you guys need to take the lead here.
I totally agree with Jeremy on this one and do not understand Emily’s and Callies’ reactions to this. Was it Rocky who said to Adrian, “I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.” Isn’t that the nature of partnership?
Seems that you guys need to reread the Dependency Paradox in the Attached book. What Jeremy is talking about isn’t being codependent in an unhealthy way or asking the woman to act like the guy’s mother. He’s talking about it in a healthy way.
I expect my partner to depend on me in certain ways and for me to provide things for her and I expect that she will do the same. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
How is it healthy to say this “I really think the best bet for men is to marry, because the social networks their wives create will be a huge factor in men’s future happiness”? How is it healthy to depend solely on one’s partner for one’s social happiness, especially when literally this post here that Evan made demonstrates it isn’t at all healthy to do this because men end up quite lonely when either they find themselves single or their wives are out of town or whatever? Loneliness is a massive problem for men, and if one of the factors is that they are not actively trying to meet and make friends but relying on someone else for that, and it’s NOT working (since men are considerably lonelier than women), then why on earth does it not make sense for men to consider possibly they ought to take the bull by the horns themselves and see if there are other ways to have a social circle and emotional support beyond just what their partner provides?
Also I practice what I preach in my relationships. My boyfriend has many male friends who he had before I came into the picture and who he goes and hangs out with still now. Sometimes I join them, sometimes it’s just a boys’ night. I too have my own friends who I spend time with and he does likewise. Having some independence and not wholly relying on the other person IS healthy. Yes obviously having someone else in one’s life who does fill some gaps in one’s life is definitely part of a relationship, but complete and utter dependence and if not complete misery and loneliness? There is no way you can convince me that’s healthy.
(also the reason why the women in this thread are reacting this way is that women get a lot of emotional labour placed on our shoulders with very little reciprocity, and guess what, we don’t like it. We don’t mind being supportive of our partners, but if we have to be EVERYTHING for our partners, that’s a lot to ask. Especially when so many men refuse to return it in kind (witness YAG for example who utterly refuses to be emotionally supportive in a relationship). And even though women have been doing it for generations so it seems like this is just the way things are, it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard work and a drain on us. It’s one of the reasons men are happier in marriages than women statistically because men get all the support they need, but women are the ones GIVING the support while not getting it in return. In other words: doing double duty and getting half as much. [A generalisation of course, I am most fortunate to have men in my life who give me fantastic emotional support, so it is definitely possible for men to do it and do it well 🙂 )
Callie
Once again, Jeremy, you are placing all the onus of men’s happiness on the shoulders of women.
Totally agree.
ScottH
I totally agree with Jeremy on this one and do not understand Emily’s and Callies’ reactions to this.
Well … Jeremy has written extensively about the fact that a man needs a woman to respect and admire him. For me, personally, I cannot respect someone who requires so much emotionally.
I expect my partner to depend on me in certain ways and for me to provide things for her and I expect that she will do the same. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
Of course, but that doesn’t mean structuring his life for him. From what I remember, didn’t you write that you had several friends (male and female) you keep in regular contact with? I thought I remember you got out and about and were open to meeting new people. It sounds like you have built a life and hope to add a partner to it. I think you have to create a life that someone else would want to be part of. I’m working on it myself!
Jeremy, ScottH, Emily,
I think Jeremy’s statement about men getting married brings up something very important. In all the talk on this blog in the comments on how men’s genes and behavior have evolved to want to have multiple sexual partners because it’s an effective mating strategy–and therefore marriage is “unnatural”–what is missed is that the reason marriage/pair bonding exists is because it conferred a survival advantage to humans.
Part of that advantage can definitely include having a spouse who brings with them and maintains a social support network that benefits both spouses as individuals. Social support, in this sense, is just as important of a skill to bring to a marriage as money or social clout.
I don’t think this is a bad thing when the marriage works, like in Jeremy’s case. But it can become a huge issue for a man when the marriage splits and the social support system he relied on was something his wife brought into the relationship.
For the men who are in this situation I don’t know if the issue is lack of initiative. Maybe it’s just a lack of basic know how, or rusty social skills.
I don’t think I said or implied that you should accept a guy who has no friends, no social skills, and relies on you to be his everything. I think it’s ok to reject a guy like that, but it’s up to you to do so if you want to.
All I meant to say was that most women are more social beings than most men. I wonder if that is how things evolved. When we were out hunting, you guys stayed back and did womanly things together in a tight knit group.
I think Jeremy’s statement might have been taken too literally but clearly, for most guys, one of the benefits of marriage is that women socialize more and we can benefit from that.
When I was married, one of the very few things that worked out well was that she was the social director for our family. She was better at it than I was and she liked it and it worked. And I’m not saying that I didn’t arrange things. She did, most of the time.
Would you disagree if Jeremy said that the best bet for men is to marry because of the possibility that regular sex can occur and that can be a huge factor in a man’s future happiness? or all the other benefits of partnership that are described in the Attached book?
@GWTF, I totally agree.
@Emily and Callie – I wonder if you might be misunderstanding me (or perhaps we just disagree). I don’t think that a man should rely on his wife to be his entire social support system in and of herself – that is too much pressure for any one person. Rather, most men rely on their wives to create a social dynamic wherein they will have others on whom to rely. For example, my wife makes Saturday lunch plans with different families, wherein she talks with the ladies, I talk with the men, and the kids talk with the kids. I’ve made many friends that way that I wouldn’t otherwise have made, and these friends help form my support network.
And what will this mean for men? It will mean that married men will be relatively happy and social, and that divorce will affect men disproportionally on an emotional level. And that is exactly reality. Callie, I agree that men should take responsibility and try to break through barriers to make their own friends to avoid exactly this issue. But realize that in spite of making such an effort, many (most?) will fail. Because humans generally suck at predicting what will make themselves happy in the future and tend to fall back on instinct when stressed. Men’s lack of this instinct is a major disadvantage.
ScottH,
When I was married, one of the very few things that worked out well was that she was the social director for our family.
Does that mean you never did anything socially without your wife? If she had female friends, did you always accompany her when she spent time with them? I know there are some couples who socialize that way, but I would think you’d want some separate friendships/interests.
Jeremy,
I don’t think that a man should rely on his wife to be his entire social support system in and of herself — that is too much pressure for any one person. Rather, most men rely on their wives to create a social dynamic wherein they will have others on whom to rely. For example, my wife makes Saturday lunch plans with different families, wherein she talks with the ladies, I talk with the men, and the kids talk with the kids. I’ve made many friends that way that I wouldn’t otherwise have made, and these friends help form my support network.
Actually, now that you’ve explained it, you meant exactly what I thought you did. She sets everything up and puts you in a room with people to interact with.
Here’s the difference: I’m in a meetup group with a married couple in their early 50s. Their only child is grown and on his own (which of course gives them more free time than a couple with dependent children). Sometimes she goes without him. Sometimes she hangs out with her best friend (who she met in college) and other women from the group without him. He always wanted to be in a band and now he’s in one. He went out on his own and cultivated. The man who manages the band is his longtime friend from college. She goes to his shows but is not at the rehearsals. I’m sure they do things as a couple and have met and made friends through their each other but they also have their own friends and own interests.
Hi there Miss Emily,
I think what you’ve described about your friends is what most us would see as a couple who has figured out how to have a healthy balance with their friendships. I also think it’s rare.
“Actually, now that you’ve explained it, you meant exactly what I thought you did. She sets everything up and puts you in a room with people to interact with”.
IME, what Jeremy is describing is very common for married men who actually prioritize their families. I think that’s what you and Callie are missing here. Although, I absolutely agree with you ladies, I also know that reality has shown me that men seem to either fall into the family man category or the selfish man category. Take your pick. Lol.
Woman here. I agree with Scott and Jeremy. It’s alright to say people fill in each others gaps. It is true in a relationship. Also, I don’t think men are lonelier than woman. I don’t have a lot of friends. I barely have any. None I could really lean on. I have tried, but people seem like they have what they need already. I am not married no kids. That’s being a woman that’s single. An ex and I shared friends from high school, ten year relationship. He manipulated those friends, it was abusive, I basically lost every friend I had up until that point in my life. I think Evan’s a whiner. A real big whiner.
I decided to let this insulting comment thru just to illustrate the reward for being vulnerable and authentic on my own website. Thanks for the lesson, Ssarah.
Hi KK,
IME, what Jeremy is describing is very common for married men who actually prioritize their families. I think that’s what you and Callie are missing here. Although, I absolutely agree with you ladies, I also know that reality has shown me that men seem to either fall into the family man category or the selfish man category. Take your pick. Lol.
Yes, I understand what you are saying. The couple I mentioned are no longer raising children, so their time is more their own. But I don’t want children, so I would prefer a man who had some outside friends/interests.
“Take your pick”
And that’s what I’m taking issue with. This notion that “this is the way it is and that’s all there is to it”. I am well aware of this general dynamic, what I’m writing and discussing is not “what do we do since this is the case”, but rather “is there a better way than these two options” and “how can we as a society move forward with more healthy behaviours”. The assumption that since things are this way they must always be this way is a fallacy. I prefer to look at how all genders and how social structures in general could be improved upon. After all things have changed vastly even just in 50 years.
And btw, I have a guy who hangs with his friends and yet is utterly devoted and committed to spending time with me as well (and I am likewise). So it’s not either or. There are absolutely things in between. What you are suggesting is only one or the other is more like the furthest extremes on a scale. There is a ton of middle ground to be mined, but only if both parties communicate their own personal boundaries, are generous and help each other, and are proactive in helping themselves.
“But I don’t want children, so I would prefer a man who had some outside friends/interests”.
Yes, and that should be doable. You and I are about the same age, Emily, so we are more than likely dating men around the same age; slightly older. If they have children, more than likely they are grown (or close to it). The trick, I think, is to make sure that whoever you get involved with not only has outside friends and interests, but plans on keeping them regardless of how serious the two of you become. And IF his ex wife was once his social coordinator, find out how he felt about that and if that’s something he’s hoping for a repeat performance of or not.
Hi Callie,
“The assumption that since things are this way they must always be this way is a fallacy. I prefer to look at how all genders and how social structures in general could be improved upon. After all things have changed vastly even just in 50 years”.
That’s great and you’ve done just that in your own relationship. But you’re missing one important difference. Middle age dating is not anything like middle age marriage.
What, I believe, both Jeremy and Evan are saying is that they’re perfectly okay with their wives taking care of their social calendar. They’re also saying that despite their full and happy lives that they can be a little lonely sometimes. The reality that the guys they grew up with are no longer an integral part of their daily lives… and if they think about it… it’s sad… it’s their reality… and hey, it kinda sucks.
But… there’s nothing to fix! Overall, they’re happy.
Why can’t we acknowledge and validate their feelings?
IMO, this directly ties into the post on honesty. These men are being honest here. Vulnerable. In effect, you’re basically saying, “No. You should do this instead. You should feel this way. You should see this the same way I do”. That was my initial reaction as well. But it’s the wrong reaction, IMO.
In all honesty, I am impressed not only with their honesty, but the capability to realize exactly what it is they’re feeling and attributing those feelings correctly. What I mean is that there are lots of people who become a little lonely and have no idea WHY, so they automatically start to blame their spouse, when it has absolutely nothing to do with their spouse.
Thanks, KK. It’s nice to be understood thru continued dialogue. 🙂
THIS is 100% true: “Despite their full and happy lives that they can be a little lonely sometimes. The reality that the guys they grew up with are no longer an integral part of their daily lives… and if they think about it… it’s sad… it’s their reality… and hey, it kinda sucks”
THIS is not, at least for me: “They’re perfectly okay with their wives taking care of their social calendar.” Part of my point is that I am NOT content being an accessory to my wife’s social calendar. It’s important for me to have a life of my own. But it’s hard to pull off because my wife gets a lot more time bonding with her Mommy friends than I do with guys and seeing old (or new) friends is not built into my life. The idea that I can willfully make that happen with my desire – forcing 45-year-old married men in SF, New Orleans, Boulder, DC and New York to coordinate a long weekend once a year for our families…despite work, school, obligations, schedules, family issues, health, etc… well, let’s just say it hasn’t happened yet.
If you want a window into my daily life, here it is. Domestic bliss.
Work out or get kids ready: 7-9am
Work from 9-5:30pm
Kids from 5:30-8pm
Dinner/TV with wife from 8-10pm
Read and fall asleep from 10-11:30pm
But since I work from home, I need more human contact. Here’s the last week in social plans for Team Katz. A little busy, but typical.
Saturday the 22nd – Beach party with family friends
Monday the 24th – Wife’s cousin and her 6 kids come over from 2-9pm for pool and dinner
Tuesday the 25th – Wife goes out to dinner with her friends. I put kids to bed.
Wednesday the 26th – Wife and I drive downtown for dinner and a play.
Thursday the 27th – Dinner out with the kids.
Friday the 28th – Stay in and prep for party
Saturday the 29th – EMK “Make 45 Great Again” party
Sunday the 30th – Mamma Mia at the Hollywood Bowl
Objectively, that’s a very active social life that puts me around a lot of people. I like ALL of them. But most of them don’t have HISTORY with me. Factor out my birthday party where I chose the guest list and what you’ll see is that my wife and I are virtually inseparable, but when we do have separate plans, it’s because she has more local Mom friends and my local Dad friends are, like me, working, traveling, and trying to squeeze in time with the family. Twice in the past three months, my family went away to Nana’s for the weekend. That gave me two free Friday nights. I texted 7 local guys to hang out. One time, I stayed in. The other, I ended up seeing a movie alone. No one could hang. That’s what over-scheduling, work, and family does to middle aged married men. It takes a lot of luck, timing and doggedness to make sure guys ever hang out. One person having the passion for it doesn’t make it happen. It takes a village. And my point is that the village is pretty fractured for a lot of men who may crave guy time but don’t want to have to take up golf or poker to get it.
KK – I didn’t realise they were happy. I thought they were saying there was an epidemic in Western culture that is male loneliness, and that the solution for that was for men to marry so that women would take on the burden of doing their social calendar for them.
And quite frankly I take issue with the notion that the solution to men’s loneliness is women doing all the work for them. I don’t think that’s fair to women, and, as we have seen, it doesn’t work out very well for the man either should the relationship fall apart or should a man not end up finding a woman with whom to have a relationship.
Also of course a man will be content with a woman being a social programmer for him because she is doing all the work. My other concern is about the women being forced into this role because of these kinds of men who refuse to attempt to take care of themselves. Not sure if you’ve been reading such articles lately, but a huge issue being discussed these days is the amount of emotional labour women do for men within relationships and how hard and draining that is for women, and that it is finally something that women are speaking up about. As I’ve said, just because this is the way it’s always been done doesn’t mean it’s the most effective and it certainly does not mean that it is something that both parties are happy with. And just because the guys are fine with it, doesn’t mean the women are.
“IMO, this directly ties into the post on honesty. These men are being honest here. Vulnerable. In effect, you’re basically saying, “No. You should do this instead. You should feel this way. You should see this the same way I do”. That was my initial reaction as well.”
Just because someone is open, honest and vulnerable doesn’t mean I have to praise that person and say “Oh I get it now, let’s not question your belief system because you were honest with me.” I remember a guy once telling me that I should never date him (I had no interest in the first place, but he thought highly of himself) because he wasn’t any good. I told him, “Okay good to know. Just so you know admitting that doesn’t excuse the bad behaviour. It’s still wrong whether or not you are honest about it.” He didn’t know what to say about that. Men being honest and admitting they like their wives to shoulder the burden of maintaining their social lives for them doesn’t mean I have to be all “Okay cool, sounds fine and dandy” because they opened up. If I believe the honest vulnerable thing you admitted to is wrong, I’m going to honestly say that.
I understand very well why men feel as they do and I feel a great deal of empathy for them. I really hate this epidemic of loneliness men are dealing with. I still don’t think the solution they came up with is effective however because it really seems to me that men are incredibly lonely in Western society so clearly something still isn’t working. I appreciate people saying they are lonely, I feel terrible about that. But someone saying, “I’m lonely and so it’s up to women to make me feel less so”? No, I’m not going to go, “Okay well that’s what you want and because you’re being honest that’s what you should get.” I mean if someone was, say, being honestly open about say being being bigoted or racist, sure that might be how they feel and sure that might be them opening up and being vulnerable. But I am under no obligation to accept that attitude a) as fact or b) as a positive.
And I feel the same way about this particular issue. Loneliness for men is terrible. But their solution of placing the burden of not being lonely entirely on women isn’t working either. Not for women, but also not even for men.
Evan and I are describing different situations, being on opposite ends of the introversion/extroversion spectrum as I think we are. For a man whose inclinations tend to extroversion, relying on his own initiative can work, as long as his friends are amenable. For men who tend toward introversion, they need to ask themselves a hard honest question – is this something I will realistically do for myself? If the hard answer is probably not, it behooves such a man to marry a woman who WILL do it.
Is this fair to the woman? Depends…what’s he doing for her. In the case of my marriage rest assured it is exceptionally fair. In a marriage of complimentarity such a relationship can work very well for both. In a marriage of equality where both partners expect to share all tasks relatively equally, it can become unfair very quickly. So what kind of marriage does each of us want? 🙂
KK,
If they have children, more than likely they are grown (or close to it). The trick, I think, is to make sure that whoever you get involved with not only has outside friends and interests, but plans on keeping them regardless of how serious the two of you become. And IF his ex wife was once his social coordinator, find out how he felt about that and if that’s something he’s hoping for a repeat performance of
He can have an ex-wife but no kids. 🙂
I think you can usually tell when someone has no outside friends or interests in that he wants to move you to the center of his existence very, very quickly.
Thanks for the acknowledgement, Evan. : )
Jeremy
Evan and I are describing different situations, being on opposite ends of the introversion/extroversion spectrum as I think we are. For a man whose inclinations tend to extroversion, relying on his own initiative can work, as long as his friends are amenable. For men who tend toward introversion, they need to ask themselves a hard honest question — is this something I will realistically do for myself? If the hard answer is probably not, it behooves such a man to marry a woman who WILL do it
The man I described in the band is an introvert. So am I. I have to force myself to interact and meet new people. It is not easy for me. At the end of the day, it’s if you want to do it and if you value it.
Hi Callie,
Just because someone is open, honest and vulnerable doesn’t mean I have to praise that person and say “Oh I get it now, let’s not question your belief system because you were honest with me.”
Just to offer another perspective, I believe when someone is being open, honest and vulnerable they are extending an invitation to perceive outside of ourselves, for a moment, and view the world through their lens with compassion and understanding.
This does not mean not to question the belief system, but that is secondary to being willing to step into another’s shoes for a moment and feel what it may feel to walk in them for a mile. Just a thought.
I used to enjoy having platonic male friends, but just about every one of those friendships has either ended with them getting into a serious romantic relationship or trying to ask me out. I often feel awkward as my male friends have trouble keeping things platonic. I really feel for men but I think that men in general need to support each other, as men are incredibly dependent on women for all forms of intimacy (not just romantic and sexual) in our culture.
Also, as a woman, I find my friendships with men less satisfying because I am skilled at giving emotional support to them, but they often have trouble returning the favour… and I’ve been hurt many times by insensitive comments from male friends. Even the sensitive, emotional kinds of men are typically have poorer interpersonal intelligence than a lot of my female friends.
This is why I only surround myself with single, childfree friends….just kidding!
In all seriousness, loneliness is becoming an epidemic in this country. It’s truly sad but it’s only going to get worse. In the little free time we have ( since we Americans are usually overworked) , we’d rather watch reality TV or hate on the Kardashians over some blog than connect with a loved one. Just do a little experiment and on click on the profiles of those who claim to be lonely (over YouTube for example)…now if only they’d put that much time maintaining their friendships or making new ones!
Personally, I never allow myself to be swept up by this tide. I have lost friendships over the years because they got too busy with their kids and spouses (or their careers )and I got busy making new ones. If you get together with your old friends again, you’d probably realize you don’t like them as much anyway… People change over the years and our values don’t’ match up anymore. I let go of the idea of “long-life” friends a long time ago, and I just enjoy the new friendships I have knowing I can make new ones if they end..
Just being ( regularly) social with others helps us feel alive, and I would rather that than have a really close friend I only get to see once a year.
Thanks for posting this. The following statement was especially insightful I thought:
Want to know why guys bear their souls on the first date and want to marry you on the second date? Look no further than the loneliness epidemic, which has quietly swept across America, and is slowly destroying our male population.
I’ve often wondered why this was the case. As excited as women might get after a few dates, in my experience they tend not to get as clingy or needy as quickly as some men. A good part of the explanation probably does have something to do with the type of isolation, and the longing for human contact this gives rise to, which is, I believe, a phenomena unique to men in our modern, atomized society.
Yes! I’ve had this happen to me but because l’d known him for over 20 years l didn’t think it was a red flag, but it happened, he did a runner after 6 months, it left me totally traumatized and l can only put his behaviour and some of the things said down to a borderline personality disorder! Yeah, yeah, l know, golden rule don’t be an armchair psychologist, Weird…
This post certainly rings true for me. I’m not saying women don’t get lonely, but in general men are more likely than women to rely on their partners to create their social life. And therefore suffer loneliness when relationships break down. Or their wife goes away.
I hear your loneliness Evan when your wife & kids go away. Whereas I’m pretty sure if your wife had a weekend to herself – it would be wine, bubble baths, salon time & catching up with the girls!! She’d probably look forward to it 😊 (no disrespect to you).
I was lonely for maybe 6 months after my divorce. But not from lack of social contact; either a friend or family member was consistently in contact to ask me how I was. If we’re really honest, do we check in on men as much as women? My guess would be no. There’s no chance my ex’s family were checking in on him the way mine were for me. If anything, they were probably angry at him. With good reason, but I did think it was ironic that if they were more supportive, he wouldn’t be the way he was. They helped create his issues.
I’ll often see a group of older ladies out having coffee in a big group. I’ll rarely see the same with men (unless they play golf). I said on another post that when I see an elderly gent eating alone, I think he’s probably lonely. I don’t think that about women. Maybe that’s unfair, but I do think women are far more likely to create ties and reach out, and it’s much more acceptable for a woman to call a friend, admit to loneliness and get suppprt.
There are organizations out there for men. And we have Movember here (is it worldwide?), a month for raising awareness of mental health for men.
I feel for you, guys, please reach out if you need to!
Danaellen and Jeremy brought up important factors that have been overlooked by most of the contributors to this blog entry. The reason why women are able to maintain friendships that are based almost entirely on communication is because they have been gifted with the tend-and-befriend response. That response results in the release of the hormone oxytocin, which serves to deepen the bond between a woman and the person with whom she is communicating. Men do not have this response; therefore, men do not bond by talking. What bonds men are shared sacrifices and experiences (i.e., doing).
Men bond side by side whereas women bond face to face. This response also dates back to the hunter-gatherer days where a man’s primary roles were to produce and provide protection, both of which were dangerous activities that required side-by-side cooperation. To see this dynamic in action, watch what happens when two men who have never met before bond almost instantly when they discover that they are both military veterans. It happens to me all of the time. I spent five years on active duty in the United States Navy. Serving in the military is not the same thing as attending college. I have been through both experiences, and college is nothing like serving in uniform. Military service is a period of a man’s life where his hide on this the line (men are subjected to combat positions whereas women are not). It is a period where a man has to be able to work cooperatively, side by side with another man while placing his life in that man’s hands, a man who is often a stranger from a different background. That shared sacrifice breeds a brotherhood that transcends branch of service.
The cold hard truth is that we still raise our sons to be expendable. This orientation came about via the producer/reproducer model that existed for tens of thousands of years before feminism. Men reaped all of the rewards in the producer world because they were subjected to all of the risks involved with being a producer, and one of those risks has always been expendability. Women are not treated as expendable by society. In the United States, women are still not required to register with Selective Service when they reach age eighteen. Four out of five suicides are committed by men. The overwhelming majority of people killed in war are men. The overwhelming majority of people killed in public safety are men. Show me occupation where the risk of being maimed or killed is high, and I will show you an occupation is that predominately staffed by men. Construction, oil exploration and extraction, mining, and commercial fishing are just a few non-military/non-public safety jobs that I can name off of the top of my head where death is a daily threat.
There are over two thousand shelters for battered women, but only one for battered men. Yet, one in three women and one in four men will be victims of physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes (http://ncadv.org/learn-more/statistics). If a man calls public safety to report that he is being battered by his wife or female partner, he is more likely to be arrested than receive help. Why is that so? It is so because men are seen as being expendable by society.
An underage boy who is raped by adult woman who becomes pregnant is held accountable for supporting the child; therefore, being victimized twice. If the roles were reversed, people would bring out pitchforks. Innocent men are killed in the gang-related drug wars every day, but it is not until a woman or child gets killed that these events make the news. Both of these situations vividly demonstrate that society sees men as expendable producers.
In summary, it is easier for women to bond with other women than it is for men to bond with other men because of the gift of the tend-and-befriend response. Men are not protected in the way that women are because society has always favored reproduction over production. Men cannot reproduce; therefore, they are expendable. Men disproportionately reap the rewards in the producer world because they are subjected to the most risk, up to and including death. Yet, women demand equal access to the rewards found in the producer world without being subjected to equal risk. In a nutshell, men are lonely because society favors conditions that lead to male loneliness. Men are seen as being expendable; therefore, they receive far less support than women from society.
I just want to thank the men who wrote in here. It’s not easy to be vulnerable and open about loneliness and it really gives me insight. I appreciate the comments here.
Hear hear!
My platonic friendships with men are among the dearest i have, and we can provide insights to each other which are just not possible in a same-sex friendship. What’s always surprising is that i am sometimes the only close friend they have that does not come from his wife’s or girlfriend’s social network! As their careers take off and/or they move about it becomes very difficult to make the friends with the same intensity that they did during high school and university.
Even if you have an amazing relationship with your SO, you need the banter and perspective from others in order to lead a full life. And if you’re in a heterosexual relationship it is definitely imperative to have the bond and understanding that can only be found in friends of the same gender. But it is not a natural gift for everyone and our addiction to screens has created a wider gap than ever with our fellow man.
One of my male friends has a weekly brobrunch with his friends as they don’t drink alcohol and are a bunch of early birds. They are all recent immigrants navigating a very different culture from their home countries, and it has made settling in here a much easier business. We always talk about the power of female friendships, but it is heartwarming to see them catching up and being there for each other. I wish such a bond for all the men out there.
@Callie, as you know, I have no problem discussing theoretical ways to better our society. And while I agree with you in principle that it would be wise for men to do as you say for their own benefit, it is unwise to ignore human nature in favour of ideology. I understand that you and your BF each have your own friendships – I hope that continues for both of you. Your situation reminds me of my own 15 years ago before kids, life stresses, a mortgage, and a mountain of responsibility made a cliche of me, despite my thorough knowledge of the advantages of maintaining friendships and the dangers of isolation. Stress. Stress makes us return to instinct. It is critical that we understand our instincts – our own and those of our partner, to better understand why we behave as we do and how we can engineer our lives for better outcomes, even accounting for our own irrationality. If we don’t account for our irrational instincts, our expectations of our partners will always fall short.
The herbivore wonders why the carnivore is starving, standing in an ocean of grass as he is.
And I maintain that we all have negative instincts we as humans can and do fall back on and they don’t result in healthy situations. And as humans we are more than just beasts that go only by instinct and that we need to work on ourselves constantly and fight certain instincts that are unhealthy for us. I mean a lot of guys (and gals) would prefer to just sit around and do nothing, but they know if they do that their bodies will get out of shape and become unhealthy so they go to the gym and eat better. How many people do you know when they hit middle age realise, crap, I better start taking better care of myself physically or I’ll be in trouble? I know a lot. So if we are capable of doing things like that physically against our instincts then we are capable of doing things mentally too.
It IS critical we understand our instincts. And I agree with the end of your post. We need to know our failings so we know how to fight them and how to also forgive ourselves. But to me that doesn’t seem follow your advice that is constantly about what women can do to solve men’s problems. I am assuming you just leave out the male accountability stuff because you are assuming men already know that and are just giving instructions to women here because this is an advice column for women. But it’s sometimes super hard to tell especially considering some of the men here. When one reads so many posts by men here blaming women for everything and taking zero accountability for themselves, it can be hard to assume the best when someone else comes along to advise women once again that they are the solution to a male problem.
Callie
I’m lost. How are women being blamed here? This post & the comments are saying women are on the whole better at something (maintaining social ties) than men. So often take that role in a relationship while the man is focusing on other things. Then the man looks up 5, 10, 15 years later and realises he’s lonely.
No blame. Just often the reality.
Men who make good, non -selfish, do-the-best-for-his family husbands, are most prone to this. (My Dad retained his friends as he often left my Mum alone with 4 kids). So it’s good for women to be mindful of what their partners may be experiencing. Or a date may be experiencing, in terms of loneliness.
It’s clear you need to be with a self-sufficient guy, and that’s completely fine.
To be clear, Evan isn’t blaming women, I only started responding when I was reading Jeremy’s comments, I take no umbrage with Evan’s.
Women aren’t being blamed for anything, I never said as much. I’m saying they are being given responsibilities that I don’t think they should be. I believe we should always turn inwards first to solve our own problems not expect the solution to come from without (as it is very clear so does Evan, this entire website is devoted to asking women what they can do and change so they can get a partner). Jeremy is putting a lot on women, essentially saying that the solution to a man’s loneliness is a woman’s responsibility. And I take issue with that. I think women have born the burden of men’s feelings for generations and has resulted in a lot of burnt out women. There are studies out there that show that a married man is happier in general than a married woman and a big part of that is the emotional support the men get vs the lack of such support the women get. You say women are just naturally better at emotional labour, I say that women are taught from an early age how to do it with the expectation that they will have to later on in life whereas men just never learn the skills. I believe men are fully capable of taking care of others and themselves. So I am of the mind when men say that the solution to problems men face is women doing something . . . I’m not so fond of it.
Absolutely it’s good to be mindful of how men are feeling and the struggles they face, but it’s also good for MEN to be mindful of their own issues as well, and just as proactive as women are being asked to be. I don’t mind advice that says, “Women here are some facts, keep them in mind and do what you can to be kind and generous” so long as it is coupled with “And men, here are some things you do too, and here are some things you can do to help yourselves”.
Also just because I disagree with the advice that women are the ones who ought to bear the burden of men’s loneliness, doesn’t mean I don’t understand and empathise with men’s situation. I really really do. It’s just don’t see it as an excuse to then burden someone else. Yes, it’s very hard when men withdraw when stressed, and that male friendship in the west in more recent years has been denigrated by society so much that men are scared to even hug each other (this is a recent development btw, there are so many fascinating articles and photo series online about male friendship from a hundred years ago that show a much more physically close and emotionally intimate relationship than it has become now, you should check them out). My desire to push men to maybe question their own role in their own behaviour and how they might solve their own problems in more effective ways, does not negate my empathy. It simply means that I don’t believe the current modern day solution is working for them. And I am not going to pretend it does just because then somehow it makes me seem more supportive. I want men to be happy, I want them to find a better way. If that means some people think I’m being callous, well I’d rather people find me so and push to find a solution, than for people to think, “Man she totally gets it, she’s a good gal” and the status quo that isn’t working remains the same.
Hi Callie,
“My other concern is about the women being forced into this role because of these kinds of men who refuse to attempt to take care of themselves. Not sure if you’ve been reading such articles lately, but a huge issue being discussed these days is the amount of emotional labour women do for men within relationships and how hard and draining that is for women, and that it is finally something that women are speaking up about”.
That is a valid concern.
So what would your advice be to these women? Shouldn’t they take responsibility for their own lives by setting healthy boundaries that are comfortable for them?
Just playing devil’s advocate here.
Men aren’t asking anyone to take care of their social lives. It’s a pattern that married couples easily and predictably fall into. Most women are okay with that. If you’re not, don’t do it.
“If that means some people think I’m being callous, well I’d rather people find me so and push to find a solution, than for people to think, “Man she totally gets it, she’s a good gal” and the status quo that isn’t working remains the same”.
Personally, I don’t think you’re callous at all. I simply think you’re conflating wishful thinking that comes from a place of good intentions with reality.
Oh absolutely 100%. I have always set such boundaries for myself, which is why I have ended up with the partner I have (I even had a nice chat with this very blog post and the comments here with my BF to reaffirm we were on the same page – we most definitely are 🙂 ).
Women are responsible for ourselves absolutely. In fact one of the things I do with a lot of my girl friends is talk with them about setting their own boundaries and teaching them better ways of communicating with their partners. And at the same time men should learn how to solve some of their own problems. And yes I am coming from a place of let’s work together for a more positive future, but I don’t think it’s “wishful thinking”. I think it is a very pragmatic act that while might not affect the current generation can trickle down to the next. I understand what reality is. I also understand that change doesn’t just magically happen. I can both live in the real world and work towards a better future. 🙂
And quite frankly, I might be a little idealistic in what I want, and it might have resulted in a pretty sparse dating life because I wasn’t willing to compromise on certain things (happy to compromise on others). But it has also resulted in a wonderful relationship with a partner who I feel hears me, shares my values, and is excellent at emotional labour.
As per Evan’s request, I’ve ceased commenting–this is a relationship-centric site, and relationships are no longer part of my life. That said, this post is about friendship, so maybe he’ll let me comment.
When I was in my teens and early twenties, I was desperately lonely, to the point of being suicidal. I’ve never been a big hit with women, to say the least. It was miserable and humiliating. Well, I thought that I was lonely, anyway. Though I didn’t consciously realize it at the time, I made close to no effort to have any friends. (To this day, I’ve basically had one serious friend in my life, and I haven’t seen him in years.) Once I was older, and I’d figured out women a bit more, I found that I wasn’t actually that lonely, I just needed sex. When I was a kid, I was extremely solitary, and I was perfectly content being that way. It wasn’t until my body started needing sex that I felt this “loneliness.” And now that I’m older, and my sex drive has decreased a bit, I feel less lonely than ever.
It’s strange–I never would have thought of myself as being self-sufficient. I’m more emotional than most guys, and I’m not particularly masculine. Despite that, I don’t feel needy, and I see other guys leaping into bad relationships to avoid being alone. This is probably the happiest I’ve been in my life, actually.
I’m not trying to minimize or downplay what’s being said here. Loneliness is an epidemic, I’m sure, particularly for men. I’m 99% sure that women and employers and even fellow men don’t see me as a person, they merely see my utility. We’re disposable, as someone said upthread. But I wonder how much of this is actual loneliness, and how much of it is a simple lack of sex.
One last remark. I’m a Gen Xer, and when the most well-known men in my age group show emotion, they tend to get mocked for it. (Think of the musicians and actors and comedians known for oversharing, or being willing to show weakness.) When men acted macho and aggressive, women didn’t like it. So, we tried to moderate…and now we hear a lot about “fragile masculinity,” indicating that too many women want fried ice.
@Callie, one final thought – if you or anyone else can think of a way to get men to prioritize friendship for their own benefit, I would be all-ears. I’ve not been able to do so.
A story – and forgive the length and possible TMI here. My sister was recently diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer. She is 43. The outlook is grim. It has been a very difficult time for the whole family, and the burden/privilege to plan for her has fallen on me, as I seem to be the only one in the family who can think outside of a circle. So I’ve collected money, arranged a caregiver, gotten her into the best cancer centre in Canada and taken care of a hundred little details. But the thing that has given me the most trouble was convincing family members to go for psychological counselling.
You see, I knew that counselling would be helpful. All the research shows it. But try to convince reluctant people who want to hide in a hole that this is so….not so easy. So how to do it? Offer to pay? They declined. Show them the research? They are not interested. Explain how counselling has helped me personally? They don’t care. So I used behavioral economics – specifically the idea of loss aversion. I let my sister and her husband know that I used some of the funds I saved for them to pre-pay for several counselling sessions, and if they don’t go they would simply lose that money. They went, and were better off for it. And if you think that makes me a manipulative bastard, I can live with that – it’s the outcome that’s important.
I say this to indicate that I know something about getting people to act in their own best interest. I tried to do the same to get my parents to go to counselling, but despite every trick I knew, I couldn’t get them to go. Because I just couldn’t think my way around their instincts – I didn’t have the leverage. And when I hear them complaining of how difficult it is for them to cope, it is hard not to lay some of the blame on their own failure of insight……yet I don’t blame them, they’re doing the best they can and are only human.
I have the same problem when it comes to the issue of male loneliness. I would like to find the fulcrum – the way to get men to overcome their instincts – but I don’t have it. If you can think of it, please share it with me. Until then, my best advice to men who have difficulty with socialization remains to marry sociable women and be sure as hell to be an excellent partner to those women so they never wonder why they should bother.
I don’t know how to get individuals in the moment to do it. I honestly don’t. If someone doesn’t want to do something, as you say, it’s bloody difficult to convince them otherwise. I think changing the larger conversation, giving men permission to have close male friendships, and even more than that, SEEK male friendships, without it being a knock against their masculinity, I think generally changing the way society considers the roles of men and women is the way to ultimately do it. It’s all much bigger picture stuff. And again, people here will accuse me of being too idealistic, but I’m no fool. I don’t think this will change over night, and I think for older generations this won’t make much of a dent. But I do believe that things change, I have seen it in my own relatively short lifetime. And I think having conversations about where we could end up, and discussing wider solutions beyond “find yourself a wife” when offering advice is a first step.
I believe that pragmatic in the moment advice can be coupled with larger picture musings. I believe that saying “It might make sense for you to find a woman who would do the emotional labour for you, but remember that she is doing something extra to support you and in return you need to go above and beyond in other ways for her. Also it doesn’t hurt to watch what she does in organising a social calendar, maybe even asking her for some advice, and trying it for yourself. Pushing yourself past your comfort zone.” I know that sounds like a lot, but I’ve had a lot of conversations about questioning the norm with some people you’d never think would be interested in such conversations to some pretty interesting and positive results.
Anyway, I think this too shall be MY last word on the subject.
(btw I don’t think you are a manipulative bastard, I think maybe an evil genius 😉 – no but seriously, that was very clever of you and I think you did something incredibly kind in doing that)
@jeremy: that psychological tactic u used was pretty clever 🙂 There’ve been times I felt my parents would benefit from seeing a counselor too–maybe I’ll try your method!
Gosh yes, I have seen this up-close – in my brothers, in my guy friends, and in the guys I’ve dated. And while I’d say there are plenty of women who are lonely too, there seems to be a unique kind of loneliness for men. Women can reach out more easily, we tend to maintain closer-knit relationships with anyone, and we usually have some kind of a shoulder to cry on.
Just last night I went on a first date with a guy. He was back home from working on the cruise ships for a few months and he told me about how his friends made very little effort to keep in touch. He didn’t hold it against them, but I could see how it had affected him.
This guy was good looking and interesting enough. He was also gentlemanly enough to pay for drinks and ask me questions about myself and listen with interest. But he seemed so nervous and tense, insecure even. This was borne out by his text messages prior to our date and also by his text messages when I got home, wanting to know if I’d liked him and confessing to his fear of rejection. This need for reassurance was draining for me in someone I’d known for a couple of hours, which is a pity because if it hadn’t been for this fear so readily expressed, I probably would have gone out with him again. I kept thinking, “For God’s sake man, suck it up!”
I was kind to him of course, and I felt for him. He told me how his fiancee had left him, and I see this all the time. Good guys who are trying to open up and are lonely. Desperate for love, support, companionship, hurt because of being left and let down in the past. People are flaky – we all know this. I think women are just a bit more resilient to it than men. We cry it out with our moms, our sisters and our best friends, while men just seem to suffer in silence. It does make me very sad.
One thing that frequently strikes me, is that the ongoing maintenance of friendships and social connections requires much more work than some people want to put in.
For example, about one night a fortnight I get out the family’s calender, my phone, and my emails, and co-ordinate social events for the next month. This takes at least an hour, and is in addition to a few hours every fortnight initiating and responding to a constant stream of catch up texts and emails. I maintain contact with my friends old and new, my oldest child’s school friends’ parents, my youngest child’s preschool and playgroup parents, work colleagues and work friends, and my husband’s family.
It is all work. It requires me to remember and do things, e.g. Annie is having surgery, I’ll ring and check how she is, and bake her a meal, or, Robert is overseas working, I’ll offer to help his family, or, let’s organise a mum’s night out next week, or a weekend lunch here, I’ll send the emails, co-ordinate replies, book a restaurant. It takes away time I would’ve spent watching some screen or relaxing or doing something just for me. And it seems to me that most men just don’t bother to do these many extra hours of social and relationship work, including spend the mental bandwidth on thinking of others. After paid work for the day, and time with the family, and household chores, many men just want to chill. So do I, but after work, after the kids are in bed, after tidying up, I still get out the calender and organise things.
For some men, after years of doing little to accumulate these connections, when something happens and they realise they have few friends and little social capital, they are at a loss to really understand what it takes to have a support system. They just haven’t put in the time or effort. What it takes, is constant work.
A good many of my male friends are indeed very closed off, lonely, as was my late father. The common thread I see here is an inability or unwillingness to reach out to others in public venues, i.e., the coffeehouse, community events, festivals, meetings, etc. Its as though men have a hard time reaching out to anyone new, that aren’t family members, through work, old school buds, dudes they met in bars. This seems to be a common thread regardless of socioeconomic status, lifestyle, education level. Sad as family can’t always be there, one moves away from hometowns, and bar life is not healthy.
Evan, thank you for your personal honesty in sharing your own feelings of loneliness. As a successful man that many would say “has it all,” your comments are important. By speaking so eloquently and poignantly about your own experiences, you have made a valuable contribution to the discussion about the importance of male friendships. Even when a man’s life in general is going well, he is still entitled to compassion and support for those areas which are problematic or painful. We can always point to people who suffer far more and far less than we do, but even the smallest of hurts or frustrations ought to receive tender, loving care.
I guess that is really what it is all about – having relationships in which there is a deep sense of genuine caring. So my only suggestion for men in general is this: the next time you get together with one of your friends, after you’ve exchanged the usual pleasantries, etc., take a deep breath and ask him this question: How are you really? How are things really going for you? Then just listen. You don’t need to fix it or have the answers for him. Just listen. Just care. That in itself will make all the difference in the world to him, and will create the opportunity for you to be cared for, and cared about, in return.
I think dealing with that loneliness of having little to no social support is important in becoming a man. In order to become successful and gain the freedom to live the life that you want it requires a tremendous amount of energy to be put in. You have to believe in yourself 100% fully even if no one else does. I personally don’t want emotional support from my male friends. I don’t want or need cheerleaders or yes men in my life.
What I look for in male friendships are other men who are willing to challenge me to be better. I want to exchange ideas and engage in challenging activities with my male friends. I want to see how my male friends react under duress. If they are able to keep their cool chances are they will probably make good friends. Perhaps the biggest problem is that men today looking for friendships through a more feminine model. Although this may work for some men, I think the majority are unsatisfied with friendships that are primarily based on emotional support.
Josh, I was struck by your very masculine (I mean that in a good way) approach to male friendships. I agree that male friendships based primarily on emotional support probably would not be workable. I like hearing about the male point of view from blogs such as this one.
Just to clarify for all readers, in my previous posting, when I suggested men ask each other how they really are, I was inviting and encouraging men to allow themselves to be human beings first, rather than having to live up to the classic male stereotype of never showing any weakness, or admitting to struggling in life, as that can be isolating, stressful, and lead to feelings of loneliness, too.
I understand and respect the needs that are being met by your personal approach to male friendships. You sound like a guy who is going places in life and I admire that. On the downside, however — and please correct me if I am wrong here — your approach to male friendships also seems t0 require your male friends to live up to a certain set of performance expectations.
So what happens if a male friend of yours is going through a personal crisis and cannot live up to these performance expectations? Would you distance yourself from him? Would you lose respect for him and would he then also have to deal with that as well? Would he have to pretend everything was just fine to maintain his friendship with you? Is this typical for most men in their friendships with other men?
Traditionally men were raised with the “big boys don’t cry” approach, forced to deny and swallow their feelings from a young age, to live up to a certain code of masculinity. In the same way that Betty Friedan’s book about the feminine mystique shattered the myth that traditional feminine role constraints were healthy for women, I am hoping that these kinds of discussions about the loneliness of men will help to shatter unhelpful elements of the tough guy male mystique, so men can lead more humane, less lonely lives.
If you look at how little boys communicate with each other, you’ll see that they often compete for informational superiority. They talk about baseball stats to see who knows the most. They talk about movies to see who has seen the scariest one. Because little boys (and the men they grow up to be) are judged based on their place in the social hierarchy. Judged by men, judged by women. Anything they say or do to lower their position in the hierarchy harms their status and their ability to compete – compete in the world of men, compete for the attention of women. Deborah Tannen writes extensively on this subject. This is why men hate to apologize or ask for directions. It is why they don’t like to show weakness.
Read comment 32, first example, where Clare describes a man who opens up about his pain and she admits that her gut reaction was ‘for God’s sake, suck it up.’ There was no second date, in spite of her empathy for him. Because although a woman may want a man who is vulnerable, they need to respect him in order to be attracted to him.
Josh’s unfortunate comment is a product of this hierarchical mentality – men must compete to see who is worthy. Clare’s comment was WHY this mentality evolved – competition for female attraction.
Because, Elle, as much as I agree with your comment in theory, men will not be open to being more human until women stop judging them negatively for being so. Telling a man to show emotion and then losing attraction to him for doing so (he’s too clingy, needy, insecure) exposes the cognitive dissonance. Men who are rejected for showing emotion learn quickly.
Hi Jeremy,
On a completely different note, and harping back to the topic of men and friends, I hung out yesterday with 2 female friends (one is 50, one is 55) who are both actively dating on match.com. Both are divorced. One has a grown son. The other has no children. Neither wants to get married again but would like a serious relationship and both want a man who has friends and outside interests. One said she even asks her dates, “How many friends do you have?” I just thought it was interesting in that we’d just had this debate/conversation about this very topic on Evan’s site recently.
Jeremy,
I really feel like your speaking about extremes and then laying 100% of the blame on women. Yes, women want someone they can respect, and while women might be able to respect a stoic pillar of masculinity from a distance, no one wants to be in a relationship with someone who is unable or unwilling to express their feelings. Likewise, no one wants to be in a relationship with a needy, clingy mess. (I’m pretty sure men would be turned off by needy, clingy women as well). What most women want is a man they can respect because of his masculinity AND love because of his vulnerability with her. Balance.
Thanks, Jeremy. I see the larger picture now, and am more aware of the intrinsic nature of maleness and how it expresses itself, and how social experiences shape that as well.
It is true, sometimes women want to have it both ways with men – the strong, silent, masculine type who also chats openly and easily! I read Deborah Tannen’s books years ago. I should read them again to refresh my memory on the subject.
But there are kind, compassionate women who don’t put down or judge men, or lose attraction for them and label them as “whiners” when they open up, so for men to generalize from one or two experiences is perhaps not carrying the right lesson forward, i.e. there are female “jerks” just like there are male jerks in this world, and their hurtful insensitivity isn’t necessarily representative of all women.
If we were all kinder to each other, and more accepting, the world would be a better place, that’s for sure. So I hope women reading these posts will take note, and expand their own sense of what it means to be a man.
The men in your life will not always remember what you said to them, but they will remember how you made them feel. Be careful and respectful with your words and responses, just as you would like men to be careful and respectful with their words and responses to you.
Jeremy I can understand what your saying the hierarchical model when competing for women’s attention at times can seem unfair. What is your alternative model for determining mate selection? I honestly believe that the provider model was not a bad model. It had its drawbacks; restricting women’s opportunities, a life of extreme hardship for some men, rewarding very feminine women and very masculine men while not rewarding those more in between the stereotypical gender characteristics. At the same time it give structure, roles, and a code of conduct on how to behave with the opposite sex. As well it give a sense of fulfillment of being able to be a good provider or a good homemaker.
Personally I love competing, especially when what I have to do to win is clearly defined. I don’t mind following old gender roles when it comes to relationships because the rules and expectations are clear and understood. A problem I have with the call for new gender roles is how do I become successful in attaining what I want? Which is a beautiful feminine girl that respects, trusts and loves me. If you can provide a alternative more effective way for me to go about achieving what I want I have no issue with changing my behavior. Until then I will keep doing what has worked for many other men.
@Josh –
Intrasexual competition will continue to exist no matter what, natural selection being what it is. But realize something – competition eventually gets old, just as we all do. Even for a highly competitive guy like me. What once made us happy does not always continue to do so, and the fact that we have out-competed others in the past is no guarantee that we will continue to do so. Ever notice how few wild animals live to old age, and ever wonder why that is?
What do I suggest?
Understanding that being one-up in the social hierarchy is not always the way to be happy.
Understanding that a partner who needs us to be one-up in the social hierarchy is not necessarily the one who will make us happy.
Understanding that the woman who is one-up in the social hierarchy due to her looks will not remain so, and understanding what that should or should not mean to our future happiness with her.
Understanding that occasionally losing a competition intentionally to allow another person the pleasure of winning can sometimes lead to greater happiness than winning ourselves.
Understanding that conducting ourselves with a deep understanding of human psychology and forward thinking is far more likely to make us happy in the long-term than instinctive behaviors.
And if none of that makes sense to you, and if what you’re doing is working for you, then keep doing it 🙂 Sorry for the rant, Evan.
Hi Jeremy,
You point something out, which I find very interesting. Within myself there is a dualistic reaction. From Josh’s post, I found the primal aspect of me reacting with instant attraction. However, when a man is vulnerable and open, I find my maternal, nurturing, compassionate instincts come to the fore.
How can this be reconciled in a marriage or partnership? Too much of the feminine displayed in a man(open, vulnerable; some may call it whining, ‘poor me/victimhood’) may lead to diminishing attraction, unless, perhaps they are partnered with an Alpha female? I don’t know.
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone was saying that during ovulation a woman will be more attracted to very masculine characteristics and energy (assurance of self, unfazed by the opinions of others, someone who knows his values, etc.) whereas when she’s no longer ovulating, she will be desirous of a man displaying the more feminine aspects (care, thoughtfulness, sharing of feelings, etc). So what ratio will create lasting attraction? Perhaps it’s entirely subjective, like different puzzle pieces fitting together, but dynamic vs static…
When other men struggle other men want to lift them up. I would allow my friend to wallow and be emotionally for a bit but after a time you have to move on. I would invite my friend out to do things that I know would be beneficial for him. If my friend continued to be emotional I would give him space but i would not coddle my friend.
I prefer traditional gender roles within the context of a emotional relationship. My life is very humane, I enjoy it. Some of the best periods of my life were when i was all alone and had no on but myself to count on to complete a task.
I do believe society has improved by feminism and the removal of some harmful gender expectations. At the same time many people want to throw the baby out with the bath water. As someone who was probably born more aggressive and masculine I feel as if I am holding my breath in today’s society. Personally I am very skeptical about women who talk about getting rid of the “negative aspects of masculinity”.
I don’t think this is a gender or age-related experience. I am a 26 year old woman who has never had ANY friends. Literally not a single one. I’ve never experienced the fracturing of social bonds, because I haven’t had any to begin with. When I was in elementary school, I got playdates whenever my parents were able to arrange it for me, but starting in middle school when everyone was choosing their own friends, I was completely left in the dust. My social life as an adult so far has not been much different from when I was 11 years old. I am very lucky if I ever get a “hey whatsup” text message all year, let alone a phone call or an invitation to hang out. The world of dating and romance might as well be on the moon.
Working on my social skills, adopting an optimistic mindset and trying to reach out to others hasn’t made a difference. It’s become clearer than ever to me that this is the way my life is supposed to turn out. I was always hoping that when I got older, I would find my group of people. I kept getting older and it kept never changing.
I think one of the big problems is that people try to console unhappy children with the whole “life gets better” thing, which leads to expectations and hopes that can never be met. More than anything, I wish that someone had told me when I was 13 years old the truth…. that in actuality, most people die alone (an exceedingly small number of people have happy marriages which last all the way up to death) and if you have friends at all, they will all fade away eventually. If I had known this back then, it would’ve saved me so much disappointment and heartbreak.
This is in response to SSarah in the post #20 thread.
I didn’t reply there, because that thread is long enough.
Evan opens up about feeling lonely. And what happens? Almost right on cue, someone calls him a whiner. This is the reality of what guys have to deal with.
Women say that they want men to open up, but yet when men do open up, they get called whiners. Then women wonder why men are silent and don’t open up or share their feelings. Of course men do this to other men too in order to put them down.
As Evan said, that’s what he gets for being vulnerable.
@KK, I’m not speaking about extremes, though. I fully realize that most women don’t want an entirely stoic man – they want a man who expresses some emotion and vulnerability. But that doesn’t change the fact that whether or not a woman finds a given man attractive depends on his emotional expressions falling within the envelope of what she considers appropriate/attractive, regardless of what his emotions actually are.
While it is true that men don’t like it when a woman is an emotional mess, the envelope of behavior that men will tolerate in women is FAR larger than what women will tolerate in men without losing attraction. Because when a woman expresses neediness, men become protective. The difference is that men still want to have sex with women they feel protective of (and in fact, often feel like a hero for solving women’s problems), whereas women generally do NOT want to have sex with men they feel protective of. This difference is key.
So yes, most women want a balance of masculinity and vulnerability….but the ratio is defined by the woman, not the man. Marika wanted a man who called her every day, but lost attraction when he did. Clare felt empathy for a man who had emotional difficulty, but did not want to date him. This falls under the aegis of “bad advice women give men.” The spoken advice – “Be emotional.” The unspoken advice “….but only as emotional as I want you to be, and don’t ask me where the boundaries lie because I will lose respect for you if you do. I want you to just get it.”
I don’t lay all the blame for men’s emotional state on women. Men definitely have a role to play and strategies to employ. But it would be very helpful if women would acknowledge their own cognitive dissonance on the subject. The same women who tell men to express emotion later describe how they lost attraction due to perceptions of neediness, clinginess, insecurity. Once a woman realizes that she wants a man who is both vulnerable and aloof – emotional and unshakable – alpha and beta – she can begin to understand the unreasonableness of her desires and why they might be confusing to men.
In the end, men have a choice – express your emotions and let the woman’s attraction fall as it may, or repress some emotions in an effort to maintain a persona. I wish more men would do the former.
@ Jeremy
“Because when a woman expresses neediness, men become protective.”
I don’t know about that Jeremy; I think KK is correct that the majority of men I know are hugely turned off when women become needy. And it’s often then only a matter of time before the relationship begins to unravel; becoming a cycle of her becoming needier and him retreating further away, which exacerbates her neediness…
I think men become protective of vulnerable women, not needy women.
A woman who allows herself to be emotionally vulnerable, just for you, because she trusts you; that’s what brings out his protective side. And ultimately his love and commitment.
And achieving that – allowing herself to become vulnerable, at the risk of being severely hurt – is as difficult for women to achieve, as it is for men to express their emotions whilst maintaining their attractiveness.
“In the end, men have a choice — express your emotions and let the woman’s attraction fall as it may, or repress some emotions in an effort to maintain a persona.”
But some people are able to achieve both; those people tend to fare well in dating.
I think I see where we disagree on this one topic, Jeremy. What you’re calling women’s cognitive dissonance is what I’m calling men’s lack of common sense.
Both men and women are attracted to confidence and people who have their act together. While it’s true there’s the exception that some men will be attracted to some women that are a hot mess, it doesn’t take away from the fact that overall, most people are attracted to confidence.
When I date someone new, I hold my cards close to my chest. I want to get to know someone slowly and deliberately. Once I trust someone, I will open up a little at a time with the very personal information. If it’s well received and reciprocated, we move forward. To me, this is a common sense approach to emotional intimacy and connection. I’m not going to tell some guy very personal information on a first date. And to use Claire’s example, if I were feeling insecure for some reason, I’m certainly not going to tell him that. Lol. Sorry, but that’s not real bright.
So… even as a woman, who is supposedly not judged negatively for her emotions, I still feel it’s ultimately my responsibility to interact with others in a way that I’m comfortable with. This means I don’t cry in public. I don’t emotionally vomit on strangers or acquaintances. I only share my innermost thoughts with a select few.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is not cognitive dissonance for a woman to want a masculine man who is capable of emotional intimacy through communication with her. Notice both times I said WITH HER.
Yes, I hear you KK, and have no issue with what you’re saying – in fact I agree with it. My issue is with women who say they want a man to be emotionally open (and I am referring to a long term partner, not a new date – to address what you and Tom wrote above), but then when push comes to shove lose attraction to him for doing so. Therein lies the cognitive dissonance. This is more common than you’d think, and happens with remarkably intelligent and thoughtful women, not just female jerks. It happens because of a gap between what they want and think they want. If this is not your experience, I’m glad of that and wish more people had your experience.
LMFO – thank you, you put it beautifully, Jeremy – I couldn’t help but have a good chuckle, and shake my head at myself!
Hah, obviously written by a YANKEE! Come to the South and you will get a million invites to go hunting or fishing. Or to swig beer on a sandbar for an all night thing where you put out catfish boxes. I get so jealous of men, because it seems they have more socializing opportunities. With the gals, I can organize trail rides, but they all make these very real excuses, such as child responsibilities.
You say “Yankee” like it’s an insult. It’s not
You say “Yankee” like it’s an insult. It’s not.
I didn’t say it like it was an insult, Dear. You merely perceived it as if it were an insult. I was born in Pennsylvania. I was born a Yankee, but I became a southern redneck.
Congrats?
Perhaps then, men need to find within themselves, more ways to alleviate lonliness and learn how to self-reflect and even vulnerable. My father, is an asshole and has isolated himself. Whatever mental illness he has, has been magnified and I haven’t spoken to him for a year since all he does is find a way to scream at me during every conversation.
I feel sorry for men in this sense. I wish societies across the globe had different expectations for men. In places like India, I think men are allowed to express themselves emotionally which results in the well-balanced, secure, male. I have been endlessly impressed by my male, Indian friends.
Perhaps the man who does not get in touch with himself, makes them less adjusted to dating amazing women. Perhaps the impossible version of “man,” is unhealthy, unfeeling, and cold. Perhaps the lonely man, could do a better job at understanding women and acting accordingly.
Now this brings me to a recent personal experience I had in my dating life that I wanted to share on this website, since I was trying to follow the advice that I’ve read in blogs. Mirroring, being relaxed, letting him take the lead, etc…this man was awesome. He was coming over every other night, he uttered the words: “love,” twice, told me he enjoyed spending time with me, there was partnership talk and future talk and mind blowing sex. Jeez, he was into me. We’d known each other a month and there was something brewing.
Then we ran into a snag. We’d been spending a lot of time alone and he invited me out to a party. Turns out, after later conversations, he doesn’t like pda. I had felt rejected by him during that party. He also had broke away from me to talk to someone else. It was like being akin to being shoved aside.
I was so hurt I dumped him thinking he was embarrassed of me. He came back and said he understood why I was upset, that things were fine, and we would talk.
Now I had felt guilty about my reaction. We texted all of this. I said I wanted to talk soon so we could move past this, I could have handled it better.
The texts were sporadic, he wasn’t trying to see me. I was getting more and more anxious so I asked him if he was coming over. No dice. We exchanged niceties. Two days later I asked to talk on the phone, explaining it would be nice to just hear his voice because I wasn’t feeling comforted. That the texts were not so meaningful to me. No dice. I lost my shit.
I went down this insane tunnel of anxiety and expressed my resentment and anger over the fact he could not just give me a small phone call. That we should just be friends because of my issues (which are really non-issues it’s just I was going batshit over this whole thing) or whatever and this is driving me fucking insane. The response I got was: I just read your texts and I will be your friend as it sounds I’ve interrupted your life.” I called him and left two messages asking to call me. He woke up to a good 30 Facebook messages. The final one saying: “Look I would hate to see this end because of a communication breakdown, I think you’re amazing blah blah. I hate messaging about serious stuff. so no more texting about this, call me when you want to talk.”
Naturally I haven’t heard a damn thing, it’s been a day since this happened. Oh the sadness in my heart…
Now I learned some valuable lessons about dating, expectations, and my own insecurities and behavior. Some advice from this blog started ringing in my head. Shit.
But I was pretty mad at my friends for trying to blame me, I told them I thought they were being sexist. Trying to say things like: well what about having no expectations; it was YOUR insecurities you can’t expect him to try to make you feel better; he’s a man he needs to go into his cave; you should have taken his word for it and you don’t have the right to ask for anything if you don’t know them very well.
FUCK THAT.
I say this bitterly:
The next time he finds himself lonely, maybe he’ll think about how I asked for a simple phone call. How I asked for a date to reconnect because I felt guilty and wanted to move past this. How I wanted to know if he was coming over.
Yes I freaked out. But so do lots of people in this world. Maybe he wasn’t as into it as I thought, but I think men could stand to learn how to be sensitive to a woman’s needs. That she is not needy or weak or insults his manhood if she puts herself on the line to ask for a connection with a man she doesn’t know very well.
It’s self-imposed lonliness. I feel sorry for men.
Sorry you experienced that, GL. You might find it helpful to read the book “Attached,” particularly the parts about anxious-avoidant relationships. It might give you insight into the past – both your own reactions and those of this man – and might help you choose better partners for your personality type.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. He has actually communicated with me, after I said that I couldn’t stand being ignored, made apologies for a couple things I said, and then I blocked him on Facebook stating that I can’t be friends at the moment but I hope we can down the road.
He reached out and said: “Look I really like you, but I don’t handle shit well, I’ll talk to you soon.” He also said he wants to maintain distance while I figure out my life (I just moved, and I was in a very bad place from where I left, very depressed and lonely).
So at least I got some vindication of his feelings. We’ll see if he comes back. At the very least he and I are on better terms than just ghosting or ending things in a fit of passion… lol And if we do end up dating I will never blow up at him again, that’s for sure.
C’est la vie…live and learn!!!!
Hi GL
He’s a douche bag. In my view it’s not some discomfort about PDA, as he could have reconnected with you privately. He’s basically a coward, was rude at the party because he doesn’t have enough guts to be honest with you that he is not in love with you, he liked the sex but didn’t want closeness at the party because it shut down his options.
It’s good you saw this at the party. Anyone who has been with you every other night for a month should have no problem with an arm around the waist etc. if they do and really are into you, he would of been over the first time you wanted to talk.
In sum, your friends are wrong in that he was a douche, but also right in that feel lucky he didn’t call as I suspect it would just have delayed him inevitably moving on after you got more into him
guess I should have read all your posts GL 🙂
I still think what he did at the party was a douche bag maneuver, one that places you in the bin of good enough for now.
Good you have learned to react more calmly, but doesn’t make what he did OK nor should you accept him doing something like it again just because you overreacted before.
Thank you, and I agree with what you said however his PDA problem might be very strong. This was an opportunity for me to exercise calm communication skills, instead I blew up and looked unstable and fucked up. There is a post on this blog where Evan essentially says men want women who don’t flip out when they make a doofus mistake. Thing is even though I did do that, I got to the root of why I flipped out like a jerk and I will be dating way differently from now on. This particular man cannot communicate either. I begged him for phone calls or a face to face interaction. He just messaged me. Lame.
So im 33 years old raised a Jehovah’s Witness left the religion when i was 21 i would have left earlier but my dad got cancer and died when i was 18 so i pretended until my mom met someone and was okay now looking at my life’s course i see my biggest problem as the difference in social skills taught in that religion versus those that the rest of the world learns messed up any chance of having game as they say i can count on one hand the number if women ive had sex with and only one long term relationship that lasted longer than it should have it was not a healthy relationship i have friends and family that i have strong relationships with but the lack of romantic connection is the biggest contributor to my often physically painful loneliness i can feel it even when with family and friends all i see are couples who have what i want yes i can survive with out but i dont want to but ive had no luck online used several sites and my luck in person when i see a woman who appers to be single is not much better sometimes i worry that i will die alone without ever finding someone who wants me
So I’m 33 years old single can count on one hand the number of women I have been with in my life only had one serious relationship I have friends and family that I have strong relationships with I’ve got a job I would vehicle but I can’t seem to wrap my head around the ideas behind flirting I think part of this has to do with growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness and leaving the religion late in life because the social skills that are used inside that religion are very different from the social skills used outside of it for dating and romance and the loneliness is often physically painful there’s times many times where I can be surrounded by friends and family at holiday get-togethers in the like and still feel physically painfully lonely because I’m missing that romantic Connection in my life I know what it is that I’m missing I just don’t know how to go about getting it
Same here. I was raised as a JW (I also left, or should I say disfellowshipped in my 20’s), and it totally screwed up any normal social skills that I needed to navigate this world.
I think there are quite a few males in similar situations (from different religous backgrounds), that wern’t allowed to just be normal males.
These comments are a perfect illustration of the reason why the problem of men’s loneliness only gets worse: any attempt to actually address it will either be immediately eclipsed by “yeah well, things are hard for women too and here’s 10 paragraphs about why”, or “you’re men. Your loneliness is your own fault, just like everything else.”
It may not be your job to fix anyone else, but you are definitely part of the problem.
Interesting, on this blog there was another article about how men don’t hate being single as much as women do, but yet studies show that married men generally fare better than single men happiness and health wise. I think (many) men are so closed off from their feelings, so conditioned not to show sadness, that when asked how they feel about being single don’t always answer that question 100% honestly.
SE,
Absolutely. Not necessarily just because they’re closed off, but also because they’re not “supposed” to show those kind of “weaknesses”.
Yes Sylvana – About the only unpleasant emotion men are “supposed” to show is anger. Men are considered “weak” if they express sadness, remorse or fear. Then we scratch our heads and wonder about “toxic masculinity”.
What women experience in mid life is what most men experience life long, including in their young and prime years. Men are invisible, pathlogized, unwanted, alone, and in many cases killing themselves.
Im a single woman and I get lonely lots of time and I am living with my aunt but even so I get lonely and I wonder how guys that’s single and living alone cope, especially when all I know is most males on dating sites are players. Good to know that males get lonely too and not just us females
You have the most fun of your life between 15-25. That isn’t a secret. You have the most casual sex and meet the most people during those years. It isn’t surprising that we feel some nostalgia for those years. You don’t realize that they are going to come to a fairly sudden stop some time around 30. I forget who said it, but there is a famous saying- “It is truly a shame that youth is wasted on the young.”
There are a lot of studies coming to the surface about the effects of divorce on men and women. Women typically get custody of the kids, and the man is left alone. Divorced men who don’t re-marry are being found to have significantly younger average ages of death that other men. Loneliness is absolutely a killer. I’m not going to cite a bunch of studies. They are there. If you care to fact check me, please do.
I’ve been divorced since 1983. Father of three sons. Seventy years old. I’ve met several good women, but it never lasts. I’m tired of being used, so I am alone. One ex girl friend, I get to be Grandpa to her grandchildren. I love these kids so much, but I’m still lonely. Retired for a week and a half at 67. Went back to work. Now the women I meet expect a free ride. Never thought I’d meet so many parasites. Nothing to look forward to but work. I cook and fix things too.
Awe… u see this with my cousin and her husband. Also with myself… there is no secret to any of this… just knowing your not a weirdo helps. We all just do the best we can. Eminent death seems to help me put life into perspective… however… my husband likes to wallow in sadness from time to time so I have to get crazy fun (and how) really fast… life is just so nuts people… none of us have the answer… we all just offer bits of possible help! That’s why I read these! The bits of help I see together in my mind! They make things better. Little by little.
It seems loneliness is a very complicated problem as is being human,the suggestions on this forum all have good intentions,From my experience a 66 year old male very lonely most of my life,there seems to be no easy answers,I have stumbled through life doing most of the things suggested.
Buddhism has been a great help for me. Our world is very complicated and generally very selfish,and driven by most peoples egos,that under the surface it is not all that it seems.
there is I feel a lack of honesty in our society.
The main problem with men is men,they are not good at being honest and letting go of their male egos.
Hi Brenda
Thanks for you honesty ,I feel you are right ,things turn out the way they do in our lives for all sorts of reasons,sadly for some people ,the perfect live does not happen (not sure if the perfect life happens for any body) what I am trying to say is that our real life experiences end up different to our imagined fantasies,dealing with this is the difficult part of our lives.
good luck.
Especially without a wife and family that many of us would’ve wanted.
What Evan wrote here rings true IME. In another thread, I wrote how our society might be less lonely if we stepped out of the (western male) norm of capitalism and the nuclear family, and considered living in groups or couples that didn’t need to have a romantic / sexual component. In other words, I agree with Michelle on the first page that although white males built up social norms in North America and Europe that are capitalistic and isolationist, we don’t have to live that way anymore. And that may help the epidemic of male loneliness.
Neither Michelle nor I are ‘blaming’ men for this. But this IS what white men have created: a system that might be good for accumulating wealth and passing on bloodlines, but is terrible for loneliness. Other societies have done it differently, and I won’t judge because for all we know, capitalism and nuclear families MIGHT be the best model we have among many societal models (depending on what we’re trying to optimise).
But times are changing, and our social models should change along with them. Women have much more financial, career, and legal freedom now. We are more open about sexual and gender preferences. Slowly, we see old toxic patriarchal practices collapsing (e.g., formerly acceptable sexual harassment, stalking, abuse). So can we come up with a new way to live together where we might live in groups or communes rather than nuclear families, where men shed old norms about what males may or may not pursue in terms of friendship, and children can be raised somewhat more collectively? Less loneliness would be the result. NB: I’m not describing anything new. Many societies have functioned this way in the past (and present). And maybe at last, this way of living is optimal for even the wealthiest societies. We have so much wealth, now we want companionship.
Jo, I don’t want to rain on your idea here, but as far as communal living, we tried that in 19th Century America (see the Oneida community, for example) and we tried it again in the hippie communes of the 70s. It just never seemed to work out as intended. Maybe it’s just contrary to some aspects of human nature, or maybe it’s just some aspects of anglo-American culture; I’m not a sociologist, so I wouldn’t pretend to know.
That said, there are alternatives in some situations. In my case, roommates (or more accurately housemates) seem to help. I’ve had two recently, both women. One was going through a bad divorce and had nowhere else to go, and only a part time job. She needed a time and place to heal and get herself together again, and I had a mother-in-law suite downstairs, so…she stayed, for about two years (totally platonic) until she got back on her feet. She finished her divorce, landed a good full time job, moved out on her own and is now saving to buy a small house of her own. The second is a single cardiac patient who ended up alone in a strange town after her sister and brother-in-law moved. I brought her here, where she’s closer to the medical care she needs, and has someone to look after her (she’s disabled, and awaiting a heart transplant). Again, platonic. If all goes well, she should have a more normal life a year or so post transplant, and she’ll have to decide then what she wants that life to be. Before that, I had a disabled veteran who lived with me for several months. A rocket blast in Iraq took his career (Combat Medic), and left him with a broken back, no short-term memory, severe PTSD, and a broken marriage. He’d given up on himself and no one seemed to give a damn, so I took him in, encouraged him to get back in therapy, found him more permanent quarters here, and got some Special Forces guys I know to help mentor him. I’m happy to say he’s now home in TX, is being a dad for his kids again, has remarried, and now helps other vets find the assistance and resources they need. There are more, but you get the idea. Someone asked me what I do, now that I’m (supposedly) retired. I told them I build bridges, which I guess is as good a description as any. I don’t talk about it much, don’t see much reason to. No reason to advertise; they seem to cross my path anyway; the lost ones, the broken ones, the forgotten ones, the ones who fall through the cracks…and where no one else can or will help… that’s where I step in. I guess I could do what a lot of people seem to do, just throw money at this cause or that, or expect the government to take care of it all, but that wouldn’t feel right to me. I’m just an old paratrooper and EMT/Paramedic, and my place is with the boots on the ground; I wouldn’t know how to be anything else.
Of course, that won’t suit everybody; I don’t know how many people really want to be a sort of guardian angel for lost and wounded souls, or have the time and resources to do the job. I will say this; I don’t feel lonely, and I really don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have much family, as such; but thanks to all the vets and first responders and everyone else I’ve worked with one way or another, I sure have a lot of “little brothers” (and some “little sisters” too) all over the place, and I stay in touch with a lot of them. I can’t say this is what I had in mind when I started; it just sort of happened; but then, the result has not been a bad thing at that.
Buck, our views do not disagree. In fact, what you describe of your current living arrangement (blessings to you for caring for so many) sounds like what I described in my first paragraph. Also, it is not as though communal living only occurred in bursts that ended. There are still many communal living arrangements scattered throughout North America today. I just think that there should be more of them, and more possible arrangements of living this way: whether an old-fashioned village mentality, or a large building or group of buildings with common areas and more expectations of looking out for each other. So that there will never be someone left out during holidays, always someone there in an emergency or pinch, and maybe even others to chat with on a daily basis so no one has to be alone if they don’t want.
Just as you do for your community, most of us do this in some fashion on an ad hoc basis with our friends, coworkers, or neighbours, but it’s less constant and less reliable. I think it should be an option that more people explore so that it’s not ‘romance/nuclear family, or no one!’ when it comes to living together. There’s so much room in-between, and we’re hardly utilising any of it, to the detriment of our well-being.
Loneliness has been shown in some studies to be as dangerous for human health as smoking a certain amount every day over years. We should discuss how to reduce it, and feel no shame in it. It shouldn’t be that romance is the only pathway (for the most part) to having a live-in companion.
Jo,
I recently listened to an interview between a journalist, and a young woman raised her whole life in a cult (Camp David, ‘The God Squad,’ in New Zealand); among numerous interesting points, the discussion made me realise how much these cults must be attractive for people who yearn for communal living.
While I can see the advantages, be careful what you wish for, because in nearly every such communal living set up I’ve ever heard about, and that includes long-standing cultures around here where multi-inter-generational and extended-family living is normal, and nuclear family, one-to-a-household, is not the norm, widespread childhood sexual abuse is rife.
The more non-1st-degree-relative older males (even just a teenage cousin, let alone ‘uncle’ or ‘second cousin’s step grandfather’ etc.) a female child (probably male child too, though less so, statistically) has living under his/her roof, the more likely it is that child will be sexually abused.
Maybe community living works best for older people, probably primarily older lonely isolated men, since older females tend to have more robust friendship circles after retirement. But perhaps such people do not have the numerous social, and friendship/acquaintance giving skills required to make this successful. There’s always someone doing more of the the giving for some people.
Mrs Happy, ugh, what a disappointment. While I’ve heard of isolated cases of this, I’d never heard that it was widespread, and the norm rather than the exception. As you say, community living may be fine for older people, though – and maybe for younger families, this is why traditionally, women have gathered to communally look after the children: they are statistically much less likely to sexually abuse them (all the examples you gave are of male figures).
Then what do we do for the lonely men Evan mentions in his post? Where do they fit if they don’t have a romantic partner and they’re not old enough to join a seniors community (where I live, it’s usually 55+)? It’s usually younger or middle-aged men at greatest risk for suicide all over the world, and loneliness is a major risk factor for suicide. As a society, what do we do for them? Now I understand a little more why many join the military…
Jo,
I don’t know what to do, and I’m wondering – and look, this may be the ‘over it’ mood I’m in right now – but I’m wondering, do women have to do whatever it is that needs to be done? If women are fairly connected and social, and (albeit it’s a generalisation) able to commandeer adequate networks through most of their lifespan, then why do females have to do work, to save men from themselves in society as a whole?
I’ve lived in an apartment then 2 different houses over the last 15 years, and at each of these 3 abodes, there have been a few neighbours that were lonely older men. Almost without exception, they were takers rather than givers, and often had mild social impairments of one sort or another, and thus weren’t the sort of people one would flock to or maintain close helpful ties with. These are the guys who are, or end up, really lonely – they cannot maintain romantic relationships, or friendships, or even reciprocal neighbourly and community connections, because they lack generosity, they cannot show interest or care in others, they’re fairly restricted in what they’ll do for anyone, but will accept others continually doing for them. It is these people who would benefit from more connections and networks, but they’re the worst candidates for community living, because they’re … I don’t want to be harsh, but …. selfish lazy gits. People are avoiding them for good reason.
Anyway this is somewhat removed from Evan’s specific example, but perhaps indicative of the end of the line, of how older individuals can end up, after a variety of life events combine with social gender forces and innate personality or temperament factors.
I was out at a school parent function last night (organised by some of the mothers, as these things always seem to be), and one of the fathers semi-teased me about how I organise small group school mothers/girls night dinners out, but the fathers don’t have such. He was teasing, but also looked to me, hinting to either include the fathers at the next one, or organise a dad’s one. (I chose not to explain how fun it was for the women to leave their husband and children at home while they escaped out to the occasional girls dinner, and how I’d not be thanked to open these up to partners.) I told him he was himself perfectly capable of planning a group dad’s night out (it consists of booking a restaurant and sending a group message, hardly rocket science or enormous effort), and I was sure many of the fathers would jump at the chance to go.
I will bet you all the money in my savings bank account he does nothing about it. I will have organised half a dozen such while he looks passively on wanting …. what? Someone else to organise his? Someone else to fix his problem? I honestly do not understand why men find this so hard, but they clearly do.
Mrs Happy, I agree with everything you wrote, and hope you didn’t get the idea that I believed that WOMEN should do something about men’s loneliness. I agree with you that this could lead to too many situations where men expect women to just organise and do things for them, because they can’t be bothered to do those things themselves. Women have no obligation to plan events to stop them from being lonely, if they won’t lift a finger to change their own situations. (In any case, sometimes men do prefer being alone, so it wouldn’t be right for someone else to assume they’d be happier in a social setting.)
Reading your story, I wonder how much this passiveness on the part of men to socialise is learned helplessness. They think they can’t plan social events, so they won’t even try. I think you and I both admire men who know how to make sh_t happen, but we’re surrounded by weaksters who expect others to do for them because they’re helpless in one context after another – whether it’s planning a social event or taking notes or doing laundry. Is it any wonder women can’t conjure any desire for them? While I also have no respect for women who won’t or can’t do anything, there seem to be fewer of them.
Your comment was interesting, Mrs Happy. Why should women do anything for men? Well…. why did men do things for women throughout history, when life and society favoured male traits? Why was the mark of a gentleman the fact that he put the comfort of ladies above his own, to the point of discomfort and even death? As a random example, to this day, the Jewish marriage certificate (hanging on my wall) lists the responsibilities of the husband toward his wife. It lists no responsibilities for her toward him. When men had the advantage, civilized men put women’s best interests above their own, and put their actions and money where their mouth was.
And when women have the advantage? What will they do? Not when they have achieved the traditional male advantages, but rather when society shifts such that traditional female strengths become pervasive advantages… Will there be a female equivalent of chivalry? A notion of women doing for men because men have certain disadvantages? Or do women simply not believe it’s their problem? If the latter (and o believe it will be the latter)…..irony to hear those women’s description of their love of male chivalry, no?
Oh good grief Jeremy,
people who are considerate and loving and caring do things for others all the time, as you well know. You are arguing just for the sake of it here.
My specific example was a man, who does the same paid job I do, for about the same number of hours a week and approximately the same remuneration, and has a wife at home doing paid work only about 1-2 days a month, i.e. doing everything at home for him including all the domestic chores and 99+% of their childcare, (which I do not get, because my spouse works full time) looking to me to organise his social outings with a bunch of men (i.e. I wouldn’t even be going).
Are you kidding me? He can plan his own dinner outings. I’m not his personal assistant. Or his practically unemployed, dependent wife. Maybe if I were either of those it would be my role to organise his dinner, though I’d still argue you on the wife stance, though that would be the very reason I wasn’t in his wife’s shoes, no?
Anyway if your previous arguments are to be believed, the only reasons men tended to do anything for women including chivalry anything, apparently almost entirely revolve around the men then being more likely to have sex, with some woman, somewhere, sometime, somehow. Apparently, otherwise, all motivation to even go to work daily, plummets? Considering this, I doubt you can go preaching your altruistic chivalry fantasies to the Evan masses who have already swallowed the Kool-Aid you’ve previously peddled. Or are we changing the flavour now, just for a bit of variety?
Dear Jo,
I don’t know if it’s learned helplessness, or there just isn’t as great a reward for men to socialise with other men, so they don’t bother, or they’re lazy, or tired, or feel sensitive if other men decline and don’t turn up, or want to avoid being out with only 1 other man at a restaurant, ….
I don’t know.
My husband has friends, organises his own social outings, plans regular weekly get-togethers with his friends and family that I don’t even often attend, books trips away, etc. I’ve tended to avoid being in relationships with people who expect me to be their only social director from my 30’s onwards, though that hasn’t been a conscious effort, it has just happened like that wrt who I’m attracted to. It is necessary to not be a clingy wife who balks at or prevents his planned outings and the like though; if you want a socially-able man, you get one, and he will socialise outside your control.
Anyway, I suppose I’m saying, I don’t really know what it is like, to be with someone who can’t or won’t do those things, and has learned helplessness about his own socialising. If he had enough other good qualities I’d be able to cover his deficits with love, there’s give and take in every relationship, but it is a big deficit, and I think the annoyances for me are that it’s invisible work, I doubt it’s always appreciated for the burden it is, and I want my network and social supports to expand via partnering. One of my close friends now is a mate of my husband’s who I would not even know if my husband didn’t maintain his own social world, and the only grandparents involved in my childrens’ lives are my in-laws.
Indeed Mrs Happy, your example does seem an anachronism. Kind of like having a woman who makes as much money as you do expect you to pay for all her dates, or buy her fancy engagement rings. We all know that anachronisms like that don’t exist in today’s society, right? Oh, crap, I forgot, they do. They just tend to run in one direction, don’t they?
The reason women are better at building support networks and friendship circles is because their brain chemistry rewards them for doing so. They don’t need to be taught to do it, most do it naturally, or at least try to do it naturally. A beaver builds a dam, a bee builds a hive, a woman builds a support network. The reason men don’t isn’t because they never learned how. It’s because our brains don’t reward us for doing so, and because our instinct when stressed is to withdraw, while women’s is to engage.
As far as men’s reasons for chivalry, see post 14 in https://www.evanmarckatz.com/blog/communication/how-to-disagree-with-your-partner-and-still-remain-civil. I won’t re-hash it here. It’s fine to criticize my Kool-aid, but at least be sure it’s my Kool-aid you’re criticizing.
Jeremy, with all due respect, I didn’t see that the link to your comment refuted anything that Mrs Happy wrote.
Mrs Happy and Jeremy, it might come down to this: in our current society, men need women more than women need men. Do you know, I do not judge men if they are chivalrous for the purpose of getting sex. Men need women for this (or is that so true anymore – they could in fact get it with other men if they are inclined or willing to take that route), so they offer something they think a woman will want in return. This, to me, seems fair at least.
What isn’t fair, in the past and the present, is men preventing women from obtaining the resources necessary for their livelihoods, so that they have to rely on men to live, and therefore have to give sex oftentimes against their will. Examples are: preventing girls and women from getting educations, preventing them from getting jobs, legally turning everything the woman owns over to the man upon marriage, preventing them from opening bank accounts without a male’s permission, preventing them from getting loans… the list goes on and on. All this crap was basically to take resources away from women so as to make them dependent on men. THAT is not fair in any just world. But in modern societies, women no longer need men for livelihoods and don’t usually need them for sex or emotional needs, so there is a needs gap between genders.
Anyway, Mrs Happy was right; this is taking us too far from the original topic of male loneliness. If what Jeremy, Tron, and YAG among other men have written is correct, then Evan’s original premise may only hold true for a fraction of men. In fact, many men may prefer not being in social situations. But I think that men and women both fall along a spectrum – think of it as overlapping Venn diagrams or distributions – and there is so much overlap that we cannot generalise that all women want to socialise and all men don’t. If that is true, then we ought to make a society that allows men to socialise without shame, including initiating the social events. Maybe shame is holding many men desirable of socialising back. And maybe if that is removed, men will need women less, and we will become more equal again in a fairer world.
Hi Jo.
What I’d intended to get across with the reference to the old post was that I don’t believe men’s only reason for chivalry was to get sex. Any given man might adopt a certain behavior to fit into a certain role and be seen to have value, or to adopt a given set of values for the benefit of his self-opinion, or to achieve a specific goal (such as sex). The personality of the man will determine his world-view, and the motivations behind his actions. I hadn’t told Mrs Happy that sex was men’s only motivation, but rather one of the main ones. A balance, really, between seeking the love of a romantic partner, the love of society, and the love (and good opinion) of one’s self.
I think, regarding the issue of loneliness, that the underlying problem here is the same as the underlying political problem in America – the role of individualism vs the role of society (or government, as surrogate of society). You cited the opinions of some men on this blog, for instance, who claimed that they prefer isolation. Those men have said so, and I believe they believe themselves when they said it. Yet….how true is it? Our minds are not simple, not linear.
My grandfather preferred isolation. He’d spend his days sewing clothes in his basement, sewing alone until he turned 96 and couldn’t see the needle anymore, nor hold his hands steady enough to sew. When asked if he wanted to go to a social event, he’d almost always say no. And yet, when asked about the happiest, most meaningful times in his life, he cited the times he’d been with others, not alone. Did he prefer isolation because it was his actual preference, or was it because he often felt stressed, and his response to stress was withdrawal?
I happen to be a fan of the ideas in the book “Nudge”, written by behavioral economists to encourage policy-making toward the benefit of human psychology. Because we all make decisions in the context of how those decisions are framed. If asked to opt-in to organ donation, for instance, few people do. But if organ donation is assumed and people are asked to opt-out if they prefer, very few do. I happen not to think that shame is the primary thing holding men back from socialization. Rather, it’s the split of what men want – the love of a romantic partner, the love of society, the love of the self….a pie chart of 3 slices of varying thicknesses, depending on the man. For a man whose psychology is such that the largest pie-slice is the love of a romantic partner, he will need that partner to help him with the other slices. The up-side to her is that he is more likely to be a good partner to her, especially compared to men whose other two pie-slices are thicker.
Just my 2 cents on the matter.
Jeremy, I like your pie idea, and it makes me crave pie! But here’s a question: you say that for a man, the largest pie slice may be a romantic partner, but is the whole notion of a romantic partner only a social construct? Previous generations of wildlife ecologists assumed mate-pairing in part because that’s what we do in human society. But more and more, we discover that mate-pairing is not as common as we think it is among diverse animal species, and in fact very few if any species are truly monogamous. Instead, many species live and operate in groups.
What I am getting at is this: if the idea of romantic partners (and remember, we both earlier wrote against the entire notion of romance) is just a social construct and not ‘natural,’ then can we envision a different way to order society to reduce male loneliness and the sometimes-accompanying problems of suicide, violence, etc.? That is what I was writing about in previous comments in this thread. I can’t help thinking of other species: that if they were FORCED to be with just one other animal and there were all these restrictions about what they could or couldn’t do with other animals, it would make them go crazy. If for some reason they couldn’t have even one partner and there was no group of which they could be a part, they would also go crazy. Why should we assume that we are different as humans, when we are clearly social creatures?
In group settings, it is no problem if some, like your grandfather, are more reticent. Again, it is a social construct to assume that if bodies are together in a setting, they always have to be making noise or interacting. They can just be quiet and feel assured in mutually protective and supportive company. Wouldn’t that be a welcome change.
All in all, I see that humans are such a smart species that we invent so many rules, many of them quite stupid really – or they may have served a function at one time, but there is no need for them now. And maybe we could learn something from other species about how to evade loneliness, that may further change how we order our own societies.
Hi Jo. I need no impetus to crave pie, it’s always been my favorite. Probably why my mind gravitates to pie-based metaphors.
Re this issue, many years ago I heard a great definition for the word “civilization,” as “time to think between meals.” The notion being that our hunter-gatherer ancestors lacked reliable food sources, and so their energies were almost entirely focused on obtaining food. Precious little time to think about invention or esoteric wants, or the meaning of life – and so, no civilization. Civilization only arose once people could stop focusing all their energies on food and shelter and start thinking about other things.
I bring this up because I think there are many domains of civilization (or lack thereof). For example, my experience is that many men lack a *mental* state of civilization until they have a reliable source of female companionship. Until then, their efforts and energies are focused largely on obtaining that – and hence Mrs Happy’s reference to an old conversation where I suggested that a primary factor in the jobs men choose is to make themselves more attractive to a female mate. Were that not a factor, many men wouldn’t bother much with demanding jobs.
I agree that the idea of monogamous romantic partners is indeed a social construct. But it’s a social construct invented for our benefit, not our detriment. For as long as female partners come and go, men have no mental civilization. We are constantly expending resources and mental energy on attracting the next woman. It’s like living from paycheck to paycheck, never any security, always hunger on the horizon. And while it’s true that some men don’t lack for opportunity – they in fact prefer the buffet of new partners because they have little trouble attracting them – most men find attracting new female partners difficult, effortful, something they don’t want to have to constantly do, because it leaves them no time or energy for anything else. No civilization.
I don’t think that eliminating monogamous romantic partners would be to men’s advantage at all. Not only would it not encourage men to pursue other non-romantic relationships, it would sap all their remaining energy to do so, focusing on obtaining romantic relationships as they’d be in such circumstances. I look at animals in the wild, and indeed they don’t often have monogamous pairings. Instead, the males often live a life of desperation, in constant effort to out-compete other males for mating privileges. Look at the desolation of the life of male lions, for example. One mates with the entire pride of lionesses, the others live out their lives in desperation, alone in the woods, or get killed in combat. Or, for species closer to humans, see the hierarchies of chimpanzees. Bonobos….are a bit of an outlier. But even in bonobos, the females are the social connectors, and the tensions are diffused by their extreme sexual promiscuity (which doesn’t exist among humans). Not by male camaraderie.
All this to say, I think we are indeed an intelligent species for the rules we’ve invented. I don’t agree that there’s no longer any need for those rules. The rules gave us civilization. We remove them at our peril.
Jeremy – Hmm, I wonder if you’re confirming what I suspected: that monogamy benefits men more than it does women.
Basically, I agree with your points regarding monogamy. But we may need to slightly disagree regarding rules: I think that they’re a mix of beneficial vs. harmful, and that we must keep evaluating them to determine which ones make sense to keep in our ever-evolving society, and which to jettison (e.g., rules restricting females, LGBTQ, races, etc.).
Evan’s original story was about male friendships, but this discussion has drifted into males’ want for a female sexual and romantic partner. This seems tunnel vision, and the exact problem. The fact men are so directed towards firstly finding a female to pair with, then orbiting around her for life, doing what she wants, so they can stay paired with fewer arguments and more chance for regular sex with her (and only her), seems to me such a bad situation for the male. The female of the pair will get her way most of the time, if nothing much else matters to the male, c.w. access to her goodwill for sex.
Jeez, I am so glad I’m female.
Pair bondings trumping discussion of loneliness … sad, really. Is the incessant male sex drive ….. enjoyable, I wonder? It seems to me such a narrow mindset way to be. If given a choice to take a medication that would allow a man to not want or contemplate sex so much, with the result being his interests in other things would expand, and his life would have rainbows of other colours other than just strong desire for a fairly predictable sexual act time and again at x frequency – would the average man want this? It seems amazing to me, the amount that men give up, and do, for just minutes of what is, let’s face it, often a fairly monotonous activity.
One argument here has been men are lonely because they’ve evolved to only or mainly prioritise this. I happen to think it is adaptive to successfully fight natural tendencies, and evolution doesn’t have to direct everything. For example, this week I felt slightly sick, and extremely tired, and didn’t want to go to work. (It was not an infectious complaint, I should add, given the current pandemic.) Did I stay home and sloth on the couch and feel sorry for myself and rest – the evolution directive? No, because in the real world I have bills to pay, and a responsibility to others to turn up at work. Maybe men need to look at what evolution directs them to do, and what makes them happy, and what options aside from the narrow drive to procreate are out there, that could improve their life, and get off their couch. Yes it is more effort, but it is probably better for them. And surely, it is their task, and nobody else’s, to do?
Jo, I’d think that monogamy benefits both men and women, with women more in the short-term and men more in the long-term. If we were to plot age/time on the X axis and perceived benefit of marriage on the Y axis, the female graph would likely show a sharp spike upward for about 10 years, then a fairly sharp decline to a baseline that would depend both on her own base wants and her partner’s ability to fulfill them. Whereas men’s graph would be a more gradual upward trend, followed by a plateau. Less of a spike upward, less of a spike downward. Funny thing is, men’s plateau isn’t necessarily because their female partners are doing more for them, but rather simply because they’re there. Women get no plateau due to the fact that men are there. They aren’t as lonely, and certainly not lonely specifically for male companionship. They want men for tangible things.
Mrs Happy, it’s not really that the discussion has drifted, it’s just gone deeper into the reasons why men are lonely. I think that if one were to design a drug to rob men of their sex drive, one would need to be really careful about it. Because men with low testosterone don’t become suddenly happier and more sociable as their sex drive decreases, but rather more cantankerous and depressive. Men don’t have the cocktail of other chemicals women have to replace the testosterone. Don’t have the oxytocin spikes, the balances of other neurotransmitters that make women happy to be social bees. A man without testosterone doesn’t become a woman, even if he’d be theoretically happier if he did. Building social hierarchies doesn’t make us happier in the absence of sexual relationships with women. Such is the nature of maleness.
This morning I overcame the directives of my brain and evolution, and got on the exercise bike. My instincts screeched at me that I’d much rather be having breakfast and slothing on the couch. I did it, because I suspect it’s better for my health. But it didn’t make me happier. My wife gets happier when she exercises. Running gives her an endorphin spike – she’s actually addicted to the pleasure of running. I lack the endorphin response. It makes all the difference in how easy it is to do the things that are good for me. How often do women shirk off things that are difficult for them onto their husbands? How many spiders have you killed recently, or heavy boxes lifted? Talk to me about things being men’s task, and no one else’s. In marriage, we fill each other’s gaps. If we had no gaps, we’d never marry.
Hi Jeremy. I think the fact that your examples focus exclusively on LTRs and marriages precisely illustrates Mrs Happy’s point about tunnel vision. Your response to me did not prove that monogamy was beneficial to women. There is no reason a woman can’t have the things she wants or needs as much or even more living in a group setting or any of a multitude of other possible living arrangements. And your response to Mrs Happy makes artificial divides between men’s tasks and women’s tasks. I have handled spiders and lifted heavy boxes nearly all my life. Even if other women didn’t, in a group setting, they could find someone to do these things. Being with one man is not the only (nor necessarily the best) solution.
Funnily, I agree with your last sentence completely. The point is that there are other living arrangements that would allow us, men AND women, not to have critical gaps, such that marriage isn’t a necessity. And it’s all those other arrangements that I’ve tried to highlight earlier, and that Mrs Happy alluded to when she pointed out the potential problems of only focusing on pair-bonding, to the exclusion of all other forms of social interaction and living.
Mrs Happy, I love your question: ‘If given a choice to take a medication that would allow a man to not want or contemplate sex so much, with the result being his interests in other things would expand, and his life would have rainbows of other colours other than just strong desire for a fairly predictable sexual act time and again at x frequency – would the average man want this?”
While I can’t speak for the average man, I think the world at large, especially women, would want this. Get rid of excessive sex drive, and you get rid of god only knows how much: violence, raping, stalking, harassing, abusing, killing, and (believe it or not, on the more INNOCUOUS side compared with this list) endless expectations for women to make their bodies and their behaviours just so, to please men. So you also get rid of: excessive anorexia, bulimia, body-shaming, fat-shaming, Spanx, and other more indirect abuses of the media and fashion industry.
I think this medication you hypothesise would be a marvelous idea. Isn’t it sad how instead, pharmaceutical companies try to make pills to make women as randy for sex as men? No thanks – we’re happy with how we are, and the world benefits from our being that much calmer about it.
I wasn’t trying to prove to you that monogamy is beneficial to women as an aggregate whole. I think it’s axiomatic that monogamy should be reserved for those people who want it, who feel they’d benefit from it. Not for those who don’t. The thrust of my comments on this blog has been to say that if a person, man or woman, wants monogamy because of what it offers them, they need to be prepared to offer back what their partner wants in return. But if you, or any man or woman, can get what you want in another sort of arrangement, then have at it as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve not seen other arrangements work well on a societal level in a modern context. I’ve seen lots of idealistic ideas fail because they didn’t consider human nature (I recall visiting an Israeli kibbutz as a child – a commune where children were raised by the collective and everyone worked according to their ability and received equal shares…. not many of those left. Everyone left them. Wonder why…). Human nature….why we do the things we do, our inborn motivations and the stories we adopt and believe…
I don’t think the group-living of Hunter gatherer societies would work today, and not just because we’d lack privacy and personal gain. More than that, we’ve lost the myths that provided group cohesion and sense of community that humans once had, the reasons to set aside avarice and work together for common good.. Religion, patriotism, community… myths that created in-groups and out-groups. To form a society of groups rather than individuals, we’d first need a common story to form the basis of the group. Otherwise, why should your problems be my problems, right? It seems to me that marriage is the only such myth we have left in post modern society. It’s not the only one that *can* exist or has ever existed. I’m just not seeing any other intact myths right now, and so am not in a rush to encourage the last one to be knocked down. I don’t see a beneficent society of groups waiting to take its place. Instead I see a society of people who mistakenly believe themselves to be self sufficient,
I’m a bit surprised we got this far into a discussion of loneliness, without discussing the elephant in the room that no one has really mentioned yet. Perhaps it may be the ultimate solution to loneliness, or perhaps it may make us more isolated than ever before. So what is it? Here’s a hint; we’re engaging in a sort of it right here on this forum.
Of course, we’re all familiar with the internet, and social media; as we’ve seen, that brought both some real benefits, and some profound problems(some of which we’re still struggling with). However, technology and the future are rushing headlong right at us, and the truth is, we haven’t seen anything yet; in fact, what’s coming in the next 5 to 20 years may well change everything , from how we work(and where), to how we spend our leisure time, to how we(and our children) learn. It may change many of our social paradigms, including the way we organize our societies., and raise some ethical and moral dilemmas most of us haven’t even thought about. Sound like science fiction? It’s not; in fact, it already exists, and the basic technological building blocks are all in place for it to go much much further. We’re all familiar with telecommuting, especially since the pandemic, and remote videoconferencing, but these only scratch the surface. You’ve probably heard of VR or Virtual Reality, most of it from the video gaming universe.Here’s a new term; XR, Extended Reality. In essence, that involves overlaying the real world with virtual data, and moving between the two seamlessly. What if I told you that within 5 to 10 years, this wouldn’t take a bulky headset, a computer, a gaming console, or or even a smartphone; only something with little more bulk or weight than a standard pair of eyeglasses. We see through the lenses, but the processor can overlay virtual data on them at the same time, while other sensors can track our head, hand and eye movements. All that has to be onboard the device is basically a transmitting, sensing and receiving chip(the main processor can reside say, in the Cloud). We could for instance, control a machine, or a computer network, from anywhere; we can manipulate the controls virtually, in real time (they’re projected on the headset, and we operate them just as we would manually; Need to see a different set of gauges, or readouts? Available with either voice command or a simple hand gesture .Instead of people going to work, the work can be brought to wherever we happen to be. Actually (although with bulkier equipment), this is already being done today.
Naturally, the same technology is finding its way into how we relate to each other. We’ve gone from internet dating to real time video chatting, to …yep, virtual sex. All that takes is a video/sound app, a device connected to the internet(computer/smart phone) and…teledildonics (which means just what it sounds like, a vibrator/dildo for the woman, and a sleeve for a man which mimics a woman’s vagina or mouth) with each party controlling the other’s device…and voila, virtual sex! This is fairly primitive, of course, but if we add the senses of touch (all over the body), and perhaps even smell/taste, it becomes a much more immersive experience. As a matter of fact (it’s already been done in a lab), partners can interact through a sort of hologram avatar of each other, complete with a pretty full range of tactile sensation, as well as visual and auditory sensation and in a virtual environment of their choice. The implications are obvious, and it’s only one step further to make each other’s avatar appear however we want them to; in fact one could so interact with a “virtual person” who’s actually not a real person at all (at least in the physical sense), whose simulated emotions/physical reactions are simply programmed into the application. In essence, we can enjoy any experience we wish, sexual or otherwise, with a virtual companion of our choice. Want a virtual date(or more) with the man or woman of your dreams? That would be possible, of course, but the question then becomes, what of our relationships with real life partners? Would we still want those, or prefer the virtual version?A ready made cure for the lonely, or Pandora’s box? In 20 years or less, we’re quite likely to find out.
As if that weren’t enough, some of you may remember my satirical posts about “Fembot”, the fully functional robot woman, complete with AI expression, etc. Well, for better or worse, Fembot (as well as her male counterpart , “Manbot”) already exists, at least in research environments. The current versions are somewhat primitive, but the AI, as well as the range of vocal and facial expression, and even skin texture, are all continuing to develop. Most of this is not in University labs, but in the labs of entrepreneurial researchers (no surprise as we all know, at least in western cultures, sex sells rather well), though that’s not the only potential application. Robot companion/caregiver for elderly people who have no friends of family left, but still wish to live independently? Sexual/ romantic surrogate and companion for the severely disfigured/disabled who cannot find a conventional human partner? And what of the AI itself? Might it develop feeling and emotions of its own, even be self-aware? If so, what are the moral and ethical questions of how we might relate to that, a non-human partner with human-like consciousness? I may not have to deal with some of this (except in the unlikely event I reach the century mark), but some of you almost certainly will. What choices will people make; will they choose the human partner, or the virtual/AI one; or perhaps some mix of both? Those questions and decisions certainly await as we go further into this brave new century…