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when i first heard about the male loneliness epidemic i was like oh yeah close camaraderie and bonding between men is often discouraged in favor of competition or, if not discouraged, at least filtered through a lens of individualism that precludes deep connections. and then i learned what people meant by it (men arent getting laid) to which i say skill issue
to all the men out there not getting laid: try less hard to get laid and try more hard to be an enjoyable and relaxing presence
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I feel like this type of reply to the male loneliness epidemic (or y’know just the loneliness epidemic, since loneliness has been on the rise independent of gender) really does not give a shit about the people that experience loneliness by reducing them to the most horrible and loud of subset of them.
Sure, there are incels that will twist and turn every societal tragedy into why they are victims and deserve to keep hating women. But by listening to them and reducing the entire problem to hahaha, the women haters are getting what they deserve, you are just hurting everyone else.
I think it is funny how you post this, then in the comments deny that this is the type of opinion someone like you, a proud leftist feminist have, and that it is actually most men who think like this.
depends on your circles. in feminist and leftist circles, it usually means the first but most men outside of those circles use it just to mean “im not getting the dates i am ENTITLED to 😡"
If that is the case, why did you make this post? What was the purpose of your post if this isn’t how you think about lonely men? What did you want to achieve with it? I can tell you, that you’re not going achieve anything positive.
I assume you’d like to be treated with respect and compassion yourself since you have that blåhaj attached to you. That respect and compassion is a two way street.
The fact that SOME men feel entitled to women doesn’t mean that most men think or feel like that. The loneliness many men (and women for that matter) feel is very real and it is a far bigger and more complex issues than just “lawl, can’t get laid”.
I personally know what it is like to be mistreated by very bad men. It left deep scars on me that I have to carry for life. However, I promised myself that I would not become a man hater back when I was going through my trauma. I refused to let a couple of asshole determine how I would meet the world and the men in it. It would be unfair to those who had never done a thing to me and it would be unfair to myself because I was better than that.
You too are better than this and you either have to start treat all people with respect and compassion if you want the same in return or you need to own that it is in fact not “most men” who think like this, it is you who think like this. Stand by your convictions and own them or change course because you know that what you’re putting out into the world right now is ugly and reductive.
That isn’t what people mean by it. Loneliness means loneliness.
Imagine what would happen if somebody said this about women. Are you lonely, ladies? Have you tried being enjoyable and relaxing? And you should smile more!
OK, but…no? That’s not what people are talking about with the male loneliness epidemic. They’re talking about how an inability to connect with their peers on a more than superficial level, coupled with a lack of older male role models, are causing Gen Z and Millennial men to report extremely high levels of loneliness.
It’s tangentially related to, “getting laid,” as many of these men are driven towards misogynistic monosphere influencers who make sexual conquest a measure of self-worth, but that’s a symptom of the problem, not the totality of it. Also, some people debate the existence of the loneliness epidemic altogether, but no one defines it as, “men aren’t getting laid.”
Haha! Hey, look! Men expressing feelings in comments and getting attacked by alphas and women for doing so! Next post on askmen - “Why are men so closed in and do not share their feelings?”
Maybe some are making it about getting laid, but overwhelmingly most men struggling with it have completely different reasons for why it is happening, in many cases outside of their power.
I am in a relationship, but also lonely. I would like someone to share relationship-problems with for when they occur every once in a while. But it’s hard.
Don’t believe all the crap you see on TikTok and talk to actual people about their problems. Please.
Well this is just… Wrong. The “loneliness epidemic” doesn’t just have to do with getting laid. What an absurd take.
Having sex is just a part of it, because lo and behold sex is a healthy and normal part of the human biological process.
However, ask a man what it’s like trying to make friends. Or if they made any new friends as of late… Or in the past 5 years. Yes, just friends, not sexual partners.
You’ll find a lot of guys past the school phase and into the work/career phase haven’t made any new friends. If you’re a man with a career then congrats! You probably have money. But no real time to make new friends, get back in touch with old friends, or find someone to date. If you’re a man with work, but not a career, you’re probably broke most of the time. Too broke to go or do anything.
Even men in relationships, having families, can suffer from loneliness. Yeah, you got a wife, abd maybe a kid… but you still need friends!
An issue with this loneliness problem is that it’s not taken seriously, and dismissing it as “Oh it’s just a sex thing. Git gud.” is exactly that. Not difficult to see how something like the so-called “manosphere” can swoop in; religions, cults, and similar find the lost, stuck, and disenfranchised easy prey.
no, make loneliness epidemic is exactly what’s described in the first post. societal norms mostly hinder men from forming meaningful friendships with other men, and women as well. they’re discouraged from expressing feelings (maybe other than aggressive ones) and being vulnerable. i don’t know how you can form any relationships without doing either. and turns out you really can’t. hence a lot of men feel lonely.
Going anywhere in public to socializing is expensive as hell, third places are dead, and the primary way people meet potential SOs is through apps whose purpose isn’t to make anyone happy but to extract maximum value from them.
There are people who are off the deep end, yes, but the answer isn’t to attack them like this. That’s never going to snap anyone out of it, and there really are huge societal problems that are resulting in people withdrawing, which is obviously bad for their mental health.
This is one of those “people hate every piece of capitalism, but refuse to connect the dots to see the picture” things.
Yes exactly.
I found a local private club where drinks are cheap and there’s tons of regular customers. Feels like what the Cheers bar seemed like on TV.
That sounds cool as fuck
It’s pretty great. Everyone is really chill and if you just want to find a comfy chair and read you can do that, too.
I can’t wait for football season, not because I particularly like football, but because I like watching football with everybody.
And a few drinks and a couple appetizers are like $60, tops.
Oh, and the bartenders know your favorite drink and will just start making it when you walk in.
And the stereo, quieter or louder than the ass end of a 727?
Loud enough to hear but quiet enough to talk to someone across the bar.
And it’s got one of those jukeboxes where you can pick the song and there’s not many people so you’ve got a good chance of hearing it.
And folks who aren’t there will pick a song to let their friends know they’re thinking about them.
third places are dead
I’ve heard this line quite a few times. But… as far as I can tell, camping is still absolutely a popular past time. Parks and beaches are still a thing. Gyms and bars and clubs are as crowded as ever.
This reads much more like a meme than reality.
There are people who are off the deep end, yes, but the answer isn’t to attack them like this.
There’s a lot of mass media that’s screaming at people about how women and men are natural enemies and the only path to intimacy is through sexual assault.
Absolutely attack this ideology. Drag your friends back from it if you can. Mock and deride the notion if you can’t. Don’t tolerate the intolerable.
there really are huge societal problems that are resulting in people withdrawing, which is obviously bad for their mental health
Absolutely. So throw a party. Invite people out to do things. Mix and mingle.
Mocking and deriding people is very effective at radicalizing them, please do not do that, it consistently makes the problem worse.
I get that they would deserve that behaviour if they are advocating sexual assault, but if you care about that person, or the cultural issues they’re succumbing to, or the rising sentiment that men have to be rapey to ever have success with women, please don’t do that, it’s detrimental to the cause.
Mocking and deriding people is very effective at radicalizing them
To your side, certainly. That’s how hazing works. Exploiting people’s insecurities by calling them cucks and betas while presenting a facade of success and popularity is the Andrew Tate Special.
Piercing that bubble and outing fanatics as weirdos is necessary if you want to break their grip. If you’re tolerating abhorrent behavior - or, God forbid, rewarding it - you’re reinforcing it.
The key point here, however, is that exploiting insecurities through insults is not the only thing that Andrew Tate does.
He simultaneously messages to young men that they are weak/poor/unhealthy/cucks/betas/etc, but also that they deserve more, that it’s not entirely their fault that they’re not getting rich/women/success/etc, and that if they do xyz, they’ll fix themselves. Solely insulting them isn’t what makes the messaging effective, it’s the putting down of their current position in life while simultaneously promising a solution through notions of them having things like sex or money “taken” from them.
It’s certainly okay to mock or insult ideologies that are harmful, and to do a bit of that to the people that promote them, but only doing that will only radicalize them away from you. Think about these 2 scenarios:
Scenario A: “You’re worthless, you’ll never be anything, you’re poor, a virgin, and will die alone”
Scenario B: “You’re worthless, you’re poor, a virgin, and you’ll never be anything unless you follow these x steps to become a better man”
Scenario B is what Andrew Tate uses on young men. Scenario A is pure harassment that doesn’t motivate anybody on its own, Scenario B motivates action.
If you just ridicule a friend that has negative beliefs and don’t present any alternative, they will stop being your friend. If you deride them for sharing a harmful belief, then explain the alternative and how it would make them better off, you’re more likely to get them to actually change. (though this is, of course, not universal, and I’m sure a small subset of people could be motivated to change purely off insults and nothing more)
I hope I explained that well, I’m quite prone to rambling 😅
That sounds like an extremely good way to ensure they cling even tighter to the lies sold by the Tates of the world
Antagonism is extremely effective at shutting people off from change. If you antagonize someone and they actually change, they almost certainly could have been better reached through compassion.
And when, like the vast majority of people exposed to antagonism, they don’t? You have now convinced them anyone outside their bubble is unreasonable and cruel, and given them a sense of persecution they will reflexively hide behind any time they’re confronted with an outside perspective
That sounds like an extremely good way to ensure they cling even tighter to the lies sold by the Tates of the world
That’s because you’ve bought into the right wing propaganda. The endless campaign to coddle fascists has only ever produced more fascists.
Holy, this thread is a mess. If you think all men who struggle dating are fascists, this conversation ends here. If you accept the fact that not every man not in a relationship is a fascist, then we can talk. More specifically, we can talk about how the point isn’t to “coddle fascists”, but rather to not antagonize new men into the arms of Andrew Tate and others.
Is someone with social anxiety, therefore struggles dating, a fascist? You might know a far-right socially anxious guy, sure, but that doesn’t prove anything beyond the fact that this one person is a fascist. I’m not sure how it’s right wing propaganda to say that generalization is bad. But I’m also not sure whether you realize an issue (in this case, men struggle with relationships) can have more than one cause.
Word. I’m demisexual and greyromantic. The idea that any guy who isn’t dating or may have trouble dating is a fascist is inherently aphobic.
If you think all men who struggle dating are fascists
No idea where you got that. But I do see a lot of fascists who alienate women as friends and partners, then grow resentful when they don’t receive “respect” they feel they deserve.
This can quickly escalate into stalking and further violence against family or ex-partners, unless other people intervene.
The idea that a violent misogynist shouldn’t be argued with or deterred, because their sense of superiority is more important than anyone else’s safety is what’s brought us to the modern fascist moment.
Is someone with social anxiety, therefore struggles dating, a fascist?
If “social anxiety” means lashing out at women in order to force them to comply with your demands?
Absolutely.
What a dumbass take.
Dead isn’t precise enough. Expensive is generally what they mean. Along with many free spaces being dead.
Having to spend money to socialize is a concern for many. Often times this is a lack of a car too. Or lack of public transportation. Sprawl, Stroads.
It’s a multi variate thing when people quip that third places are dead.
I…simply don’t know what to make of this. I’m a guy who finds himself thinking about the male loneliness epidemic a lot, and never in terms of finding a romantic/sexual partner. It’s always about solid platonic bonds outside of that and kin, and factors that make those harder to find and maintain these days.
Is this just a shitpost and I’m too stupid to get the joke?
Sucks that men’s issues are being treated as a joke or mischaracterized as something else and not important.
Semi related but it’s actually so irritating how I have to go through life where my value as a human being is decided by how much money I make, how many girls I get, how successful I am when I could not care less about any of that, but I will get judged severely for it if anyone “finds out” that I’m not successful in… things I don’t care about…
Like why is that my value to people? I don’t want to have kids with you, you don’t have to live my life, if it’s fun and rewarding being around me why is that not enough? It seeps in even to progressive speech where people will say “clearly he gets no women” like that decides their value as a person. Very cringe. Also don’t forget to downvote for minimizing male loneliness as men can’t get women for the 9999th time.
I mean, the answer is that it is both. Like, not having close friends sucks. And not getting laid sucks. And both are valid and legitimate things to complain about.
Like, honestly, the “skill issue” take is super toxic. It’s basically the same as telling a poor person that not being rich is a skill issue. The lack of understanding and compassion for peoples’ legitimate problems will only radicalize them further.
It’s not both because “not getting laid” has nothing to do with the male loneliness epidemic and is not what people mean when they talk about it
It’s clearly both. Men who are lonely tend to not get laid, either.
Getting laid is an activity that does involve other humans, so it certainly is a method of combatting loneliness. But if it’s not as part of a partnership, it hardly does anything for some of the deeper cutting problems that are described as the “male loneliness epidemic”, particularly not having anyone to share your struggles with…
The issue is that for a lot of lonely men (probably most), the issue is social ineptitude, hangups and all the issues in modern life that make forming connections hard. That impacts their ability to form friendships, find romantic partners and to get casual sex.
Some men might be able to get casual sex but not friendships, but I doubt that’s true for most.
For me, while getting laid regularly doesn’'t actually solve any of the other problems in my life, it is like an “easy button” for being happy. Things have to be pretty bad for me to get upset when I’ve had sex in the last few days or expecting it soon. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to maintain a relationship where that is the case so it ends up having the opposite effect until I eventually end things and go back to being just mid all the time.
I’m getting laid regularly and also incapable of joining voice chat with my best friend or inviting them over.
Yes I’m in therapy, it’s helping, thanks.
Also tend to be a less “relaxing presence”, creating a bit of a negative feedback loop.
So it’s misnamed?
What do we call the epidemic where males are lonely in general? We … are discussing that very real problem affecting the minority sex, right?
Right?
What do we call the epidemic where males are lonely in general?
The male loneliness epidemic
the men who won’t man up need to be told to man up, especially if they tried to man up by imitating a child predator fascist.
That language will get you nowhere fast. Given that this post is meant to highlight toxic masculinity and its negative repercussions, “manning up” is the furthest thing from what they should do. Redefining what it means to be strong is closer
“redefining what it means to be strong” is stupid
maybe reconnecting with strength and disparaging weak conceptions of strength
I cannot fucking wait for the day Lemmy ships the “blocking an instance removes its users from comment threads” feature.
There are plenty of good people on .world. Being tribalist over a few ignorant takes is absolutely assinine and is the exact kind of thought process they are using against lonely men. Do better if you’re so wise as to understand the loneliness epidemic.
What is this place anyhow? I get pushback on .world for telling feminists that men’s problems won’t be fixed if they understand the patriarchy harder, and here people are defensive of the notion that politics made some men really shitty.
Did a bunch of lonely men end up here instead of lemmy world?
You are making the mistake of anthropomorphising communities. There are no singular trains of thought here. There are just people of many sorts posting messages for others to read. Full stop.
The only instances that might warrant some anthropomorphizing are those with stated goals and admin approved joining. That is the only condition a singular identity of some sort should be expected to arise.
The only sort of unifying factor for lemmy is “not reddit”, which includes nerds of many sorts, leftists of ALL sorts (which is its own entire topic of how freaking diverse that is), and the few who simply want to try a different media that’s like reddit.
You seem to be using politics as a cudgel against men instead of attempting to understand the social forces that are creating this problem in the first place. There are forces that push ignorant men to those politics you’re so fond of making fun of. Forces that come before the politics.
You can pretend to not understand all you want, but your ignorance won’t be tolerated for long here.
You are making the mistake of anthropomorphising communities. There are no singular trains of thought here. There are just people of many sorts posting messages for others to read. Full stop.
Yeah ok but you are not immune from having a local culture sorry
leftists of ALL sorts (which is its own entire topic of how freaking diverse that is),
so is it like the subset of leftists that isn’t outright commie?
You seem to be using politics as a cudgel against men instead of attempting to understand the social forces that are creating this problem in the first place.
yes, because using the cudgel is preferable to endlessly theorizing
You can pretend to not understand all you want, but your ignorance won’t be tolerated for long here.
🫡
the problem isn’t the good people on .world.
the problem is the endless horde of dipshits on .world who need to do a lot more detox from shithole social media like reddit, and stop spewing their ignorance into every comment section they infest in the meantime.
since they won’t stop doing that shit at anywhere near the rate necessary for me to enjoy & derive value from this place, I will be removing them from my default experience the instant that option becomes available to me.
it’s on the good people of .world to either help their compatriots self-improve, or find a less shitty instance. because when it comes right down to it, there are a hell of a lot of good people not on .world for me to talk to, and that’s plenty. the ones who stay indefinitely on a shitty instance are not irreplaceable. not by a long shot.
We’re not compatriots, you tribalistic buffoon. We’re random people on the internet. I’ve met just as many idiots and trolls from other instances, but you don’t hear me screeching at random users to fix other users… You’re anthropomorphising of instances is pathetically small-brained, frankly.
I think you’re funny, spewing your impotent frustration. At least I actually want men to man up.
And by dismissing their very real issues as a trivial matter not worthy of even discussing, you’ve now pushed them into the arms of people who make false promises and exploit them.
Congrats, you shot yourself in the foot.
I’m not saying that punishing politically toxic men is trivial, I’m saying it’s worth doing. You can’t make a man change by pandering to him, you have to actually communicate with them directly, or they’ll tune you out.
What you’re doing is not communicating with them. You’re preemptively dismissing them as your enemy and then acting surprised when they walk towards those who are acting welcoming.
“Not immediately insulting them over their voiced concerns” isn’t pandering…
I get you. Some of these boys need to be told to get out there and get scared. Everyone wants to huddle in their comfort zone, and to hell with anything or anyone that drags them out. That’s a toxic black hole. If you’re not experiencing some discomfort and fear, you’re not living life.
Had to break myself away from that black hole today. Went out to my camp. Ah fuck me it sucks out there in the summer. You gotta bathe in bug spray, and reapply constantly. Thought I would stroke out several times. Got some walking and shooting in, got some work done, came home and showered, feel great. Imagine if I had sat at this keyboard all day talking to you fuckers. Downward spiral.
Bravery is being scared and doing it anyway. Be brave.
The problem is that attitude of yours fixes nothing. Blaming the individual when there ARE many more societal contributing factors is ignorant at best and hateful at worst.
You may as well blame every poor person individually for being poor instead of things like minimum wage having not changed significantly in 30 years.
You may as well be one of those idiots telling people to recycle more plastic to fix global warming instead of blaming the massive industries that pollute millions of times more than any individual ever could and spend their billions bribing politicians to keep the gravy train going.
Most people do not have a “camp” to go out to. Your privilege is clearly making you fucking ignorant on this topic, and you need to shut up and listen to everyone else on this one.
Good lord are you worked up with assumptions! I say again, young men need to get off the coach and get out their comfort zones. This is a thing anyone can do. You don’t need 2 acres of swamp, you can go walk till you drop, talk to a girl, go somewhere you’re leery of, anything that scares you will do. We can’t experience bravery without fear, and we can’t live a full life without bravery. Anything less is merely waiting to die, and no one deserves that.
I’m not blaming these men, and if we’re making assumptions, that smells like victim mentality. Fuck all that. As I said:
these boys need to be told
How to encourage them to get out and purposefully be uncomfortable? I have no ideas. But it has to happen or we lose a generation to ennui, depression and reclusive dweebs. Again, downward spiral. That’s a hella gravity well to escape.
As active as I am, been fighting it for a year since I lost my job. Young guy across the street and I were tight a couple of years back. Now he sits and plays video games all day, growing fatter every time I see him, zero social life. What am I doing? Chatting with you people. I’m certainly not helping him. Best get off my ass and eat my own dog food. Charity starts at home they say! :)
And don’t for one fucking second lecture me on privilege. I understood and internalized the fact of my luck and status since the 90s, since long before society at large started talking about the concept. You been alive that long? How many stories you want where I felt my privileges in my very guts? I am well fucking aware, thank you for your concern.
You are way out of line and owe me an apology. That’s not a thing I say online, but you have wronged me, put me in boxes I don’t fit in or deserve.
You are using one person to judge every single lonely male. Congratulations on further proving your utter inability to think beyond steroetypes. Your mind is truly a vapid space of generalities and presumptions. Just stop commenting on this topic for your own good because you are just constantly proving the sheer depths of your ignorant judgement.
(Can’t edit my own posts)
Just texted the guy. Nah. He just jumped in a game with some people. See what I mean?! He’s getting fatter and more antisocial by day by day. He’s in his comfort zone, totally unbothered. I’m not baggin’ on gaming, but outside a part-time jobs, that’s all he does!
No, it’s actually the first but being shoved aside and ignored as the second.
I’m tired of this bullshit attitude. It contributes to the very issues it diminishes. Men are allowed to have problems without being incels.
It’s not all men’s fault, but there are things you can do increase your chances. If your problem is that you never shower, then who is going to date you?
Way to trivialize the issue, dumbass. If it were as simple as showering, the mean critique would be “smelly” men, not “lonely incels”. Way to completely and utterly fail to understand that it is an emotional problem, not a physical one.
Ok, what is the emotional problem?
For example, if you easily get upset and attack other people for little reason, then who is going to date you?
If it is that you get sad sometimes, lots of people would date you.
There are far more emotions than “mad” and “sad”, so no wonder you cannot fathom the depths of this problem.
Fascinating, you seem to be telling me there is a problem with my though process, but instead of just telling me specifically what it is, you choose to insult me instead of answering my basic questions.
Is this the emotional problem you have?
There are literally hundreds of posts already made right here on this post explaining things further. So again, if you cannot understand the implications of me saying, “there are more than two emotions”, then perhaps you are simply too immature to understand it in the first place.
For your own good, grow up and learn what the word “nuance” means.
I have nuance, I have not claimed there were only two emotions. I gave an example of only two emotions. I know there are more than two. I just decided not to write them all out because they are uncountably many of them. That is also why I asked you, what specific emotional problem we are dealing with. So that we could get specific.
This is peak
“Well if you dont want to be homeless you should get a job”
Energy.
No, it’s more of “If you want to increase the probability of being in a relationship, you can work on yourself.” energy.
“If you don’t want to be homeless just get a job to get money and then rent a place to live”
See how that’s overly reductive to the point of it being a useless thing to add?
maybe that’s what you were intending to convey, but that is not at all what comes across.
