797
on the male loneliness epidemic
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Show transcript
Screenshot of a Tumblr post by nongunktional:
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
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?
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.
Yeah ok but you are not immune from having a local culture sorry
so is it like the subset of leftists that isn't outright commie?
yes, because using the cudgel is preferable to endlessly theorizing
🫡
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:
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!