You can have sex and be a totally toxic bastard that people don’t want to be around once they get to know you. You could have sex frequently but still be deeply lonely.
Those statistics seem to be AI hallucination.
Also, if you have one sexual intercourse encounter per year, you’re not lonely? AND you could be pounding every week and still be lonely because the chemistry is not there, the love is vapid. People can just wank or pound for sexual release, but it doesn’t solve loneliness. Hell, people are lonely in a household of 6 people. Why? Because everybody is doing their own thing, ambivalent of each other. Thus, they can be lonely.
The movie “Shame” is a pretty good example of lonliness despite having sex constantly. I think it was with Michael Fassbender and from 2012, but it’s been awhile so I don’t remember. Good movie, though. Real feel bad film.
The feeling of loneliness is likely the basis for “I missed you.” Forlorning. And it’s noticed during reflection, alone.
We grow up in schools, where we’ve known 60%+ (of our class) since 1st grade (or earlier), and now – in adulthood, we’re thrown into a world full of strangers, everyday strangers. Friends help, but it doesn’t mend that community we had in our day-to-day school work.
There is a capitalist alienation epidemic.
‘Everything circles back to capitalism’ is really a meme because it’s true.
First of all: that is not how it works
Second of all: the loneliness epidemic is not just happening to men, it is happening to everybody.
Third of all: loneliness can happen to anyone, even people who appear to have it all. It is not just the extreme stereotype of the hermit who barely speaks to a living soul for two years, that is valid in feeling lonely. Sometimes it’s the people who seem to have a big network of friends who are the loneliest because all their friendships are superficial and the person may struggle to commit to others and be vulnerable. Other people become distractions from a deep hurt and selfloathing, they don’t know how to address. No one is ever let in because it’s too scary and risky to show weakness. But you have 50 friends and is everybody’s pal, so you can’t be lonely, right?
And then there’s the more mundane type of loneliness, that happens to a lot of people in the first world when they enter the workforce and/or start a family. It can become terribly lonely when you don’t have the time and energy to nurture friendships and community because you work all the time and in the current day and age, social activity takes place on screens. People hang out on social media where they share pics and political views instead of meeting up for a beer or a lemonade to chat like our parents’ generations did.
I have seen countless posts from 30somethings over the past decade, who ask about how to make friends at their age because they feel so lonely and all their old friends live far away. These are men and women. Some of them are parents of newborns others are single career people who have been grinding and suddenly realized they have neglected their social life.
Everybody is lonely in this day and age. I have felt lonely for years because i had to grind at work and didnt have time for recrrational activities. I have plenty of friends, good family and a lovely boyfriend and I was still lonely because I had to work all the time. Doesn’t help that all my friends and family live far away so most of our interactions are on screens and not in the flesh. And if there is anything I think the modern first world human being is undervaluing and neglecting, it’s physical closeness and irl community. The screens have replaced that despite being the shittiest substitute for physical touch imaginable.
To me, there is nothing that can calm every cell in my body like a hug from someone i love and whom I know loves me back. It is irreplacable.
As if married men or men who have had sex at least once can’t be lonely. “You got your dick wet 20 years ago, what’s the problem?!”
Dudes don’t have friends. That’s the epidemic.
They might not have friends. And even if they have friends, where’s the love? Everybody is doing their own thing. Even a married man can feel loneliness, and if they do, it’s good to start a conversation.
Yeah, can you imagine living in a house 24/7/365 with a glass wall full of strangers? And you feel like the last member of your species? Perhaps, we solved “what would you do if you were marooned on an island, alone (or with a strange female/male)?”
Dudes make friends with each other so damn easy it’s a meme for a reason.
Like women have to simultaneously live in a world where you call us all catty bitches who compete with each order but also you all have no fucking friends and can’t make any and boohoo. Pick a fucking lane!
It’s a fool who believes that the circumstantial “friends” you make because you happen to be in the same place at the same time are true, ride or die, listen to your problems, give good advice friends.
The former you can make practically anywhere you go, like you said, it’s a meme. The latter are tough, maybe a couple in your whole life kind of encounters. The former will fill a room and you won’t be alone, the latter will take up one seat and you won’t feel lonely. Quantity vs quality.
Cause friendship is surface level. Try talking about your feelings to one of them and see how quickly you feel alienated.
And it’s not sunshine on other side either in their defense. I’ve been in kind of an all women group once, it was genuinely a suffocating experience. Like there are just so many mannerisms and subtle etiquettes you need to pick up, it’s almost harder to talk your mind in all women setting than in all men.
And who’s you? I don’t think either OP or the commenter is the person calling women catty bitches. Everyone’s experience is different, and its better if you give it back to those who called you a catty bitch rather than a random dude on the internet.
Women are about as lonely as men.
The problem is that they’re human and exist in an anti-human environment.
You know who else are lonely? Animals in zoos.
Sex, relationships, and loneliness are all distinct domains. There’s important overlap to be sure. But they are not the same things. You can be a casanova and still be lonely. You can be stuck in a bad marriage and feel very lonely indeed.
I think a lot of modern people (regardless of gender identity) have problems making and keeping friends, too. Long-term friendships take work, sacrifice, and compromise. It’s not just compatible interests and personalities.
I agree entirely. Anecdotally, dating has always been easier for me than building platonic relationships.
I think for dating the ‘rules’ are a lot more clear, so it’s easier to figure out what works and what does not. I can be fairly straightforward when dating, whereas budding friendships from my perspective and experience require a very different approach.
I thought “male lonileness epidemic” meant how fucking hard it’s to make friends as a guy/boymoder.
It takes extreme luck to join a friend group, and as soon as people get comfortable they start ranting about gay people or such.
Fucking this right here. Do these people have any idea how living in a red state fucks with your ability to make friends?
A loneliness epidemic is literally the most obvious effect of capitalism/consumerism/individualism I would expect. But very few of the ‘male loneliness epidemic’ clan has anything to say about capitalism being the problem.
TIL that the opposite of loneliness is having had sex
We could learn a lot from anon
There is no male loneliness epidemic; there is a loneliness epidemic. They have been talking about it since at least 2020 and it predates the pandemic. Anyone calling it a male loneliness epidemic is absolutely engagement farming. The entire manosphere is a rage-bait-engagement-farming scam.
it is particularly male though because studies show older men don’t have friends
There’s a general loneliness epidemic, but there’s a difference between men and women.
If only I knew earlier that the males are all suffering with virginity. I could be out there solving this thing one by one (I’m gay).
Not just engagement. Back when it was just a loneliness epidemic, there were talks of maybe bringing back third places, or changing society to help. Then it became a male epidemic, and suddenly it was someone else’s problem, it’s an individual issue, no need to make a cause of it.
They were talking about it way before the epidemic. I remember at least as far back as middle Obama presidency that there was a show talking with one of his campaigners and they brought up the statistics on the number of people that would claim to have X amount of “close friends” declining.
There is a definite difference in the man/woman divide though on those numbers.
It’s useful to talk about how the loneliness epidemic affects men and women differently. But when someone talks about the “male” loneliness epidemic and all it’s statistics about virginity, you know their bigger problem is how they spend their time online.
Oh, agreed. Anyone who brings virginity into the context of adults having fewer and fewer relationships that matter is either an incel or a troll.
having sex (perhaps just once?) doesn’t equal not lonely, though.
In fact sex being used as the indicator is actually a clue to one of the largest contributors. There’s a very wide reaching assumption that men should get most of their emotional support from their female partner. This is often very stressful to the female partner and is a fragile way to meet a basic need; if she gets sick or dies he’s probably not far behind her. Men need to learn how to compliment and hug each other platonically. It’s 2026 and it’s for their own good ffs. I keep giving my male patients brochures for men’s support groups and I really hope at least some of them are actually going.
It seems so surreal to me that other men don’t hug each other, or tell their friends that they love them
Sometimes I lightly punch my friends in the balls to thank them for being vulnerable around me.
Furry here, we do that stuff. It’s pretty good, can recommend.
Also men used to do that a lot more, before the world wars.
We do it a lot more but it does exist in other places just less hug centric more a hand on a shoulder. Normally social groups and clubs. it requires older men that are not entirely Jaded to set the example. Unfortunately those guys mostly have passed at this point and most boomers don’t have the cognitive bandwidth.
As a men with almost a bromance with his best friend… Frrrrrr.
Like, let’s not even go as far as a hug (for many it’s simply uncomfortable, whether it’s with a man or a woman; I only hug my mother and my sister, for example xd), but there are other forms of intimacy and emotional support that shouldn’t be tied to gender.
I mean, words of affirmation, the simple act of crying openly or expressing fears, anxieties, feelings or emotions, or expressing love or affection (platonically, as many mistakenly associate an “I love you” with something exclusive to romantic relationships); even just staying near to each other or hanging out with each other is a huge help.
Romanticism is something overrated and the same goes for sex, and I say this as someone who is alloromantic and allosexual.
And of course, they’re for sure a genuine and legitimate, and overall valid way of social and emotional interaction and intimacy, but not the only one or the best one for everyone.
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No, I’m pretty sure that every man who has had sex at least once in their life turned out to be a top bloke
Or bottom bloke
But can’t top blokes be lonely?
They say it’s lonely at the top, bloke.
So… more men as bottoms?
Having a ton of sex doesn’t equal not lonely either.
Like Barney from HIMYM, or Charlie Sheen in 2.5 men.
how do these numbers work? do they just ask and hope everyone tells the truth?
More or less. There is a lot of brainpower involved in making sure numbers aren’t juiced one way or the other, though, so don’t think it’s just a shot in the dark.
Eh idk, my experience with the “male loneliness epidemic” is:
It’s not just about “sex” (which it seems like that’s all EVERYONE can focus on, so I get it,) but also about deeper meaningful connections. Personally, I have a few FWB, I want to fall in love with someone again, though, tbf, the part of me that had the ability to do that could also be dead, kinda hard to tell tbh.
It’s also about (again, for me) the fact that increasingly it seems that the ONLY places acceptable to meet a woman you have not yet talked to are:
A) Online dating services that sell your data, are designed not to give good matches because they want you to stay on the app, and charge a fee for the apps to even be useful, and they’re all owned by one company.
B) The bar. That’s it.
Well, as for A, I value my privacy, and don’t enjoy paying money to have horrible experiences. I run GrapheneOS idek if tindr would run. I don’t even have social media, I can’t stand writing my own bio and don’t take selfies, it’s not a good option for anyone but doubly so for me. Also I’m not Tom Cruise (or whoever you’re horny for just sub them in) level attractive and as such I have to rely on my personality, which isn’t really text and picture based. As for B, I do still drink but not like I used to, and even if I did I can’t afford to go out as much as I used to in this fucked economy, and tbh meeting drunk women doesn’t seem like a good idea anymore, feels like it opens me up to problems I don’t fucking need tbh.
So where does that leave me? Well, common advice is to:
“Have your friends set you up with someone.” Ok great. None of them have any single friends, at least none that have expressed interest in being set up with me, or that I am interested in myself. So, either “pray,” or I could actively make new friends just for the express purpose of finding out if they have hot friends that want me, if not, move to the next friend I can find and try again? Sounds like a bad plan to me. I don’t have the social battery for all that honestly.
“Go to the gym,” you mean the place women complain about being hit on the most? Sure, that’ll help, “idfk how to use this giant machine and I know you just watched me look like a giant idiot, and I know you hate being asked here, but I saw you from across the yoga mat and thought you had a cool vibe, wanna go out some time?” That’s setting yourself up for success right there lol.
“Find a hobby,” yes because when I’m not at work or sleeping I simply stand and stare at a wall. OF COURSE I have hobbies, but not only do “women want to enjoy their hobbies without being approached” also my hobby is hiking local trails and taking pics of (mundane to you but to me,) neat animals like salamanders and snakes. Idk if you guys are aware of this, but women would rather meet a literal bear in the woods than a nerd with a camera, I used to talk to people on the trails but now I just give them a wide berth (unless they’re dudes, dudes are chill). Also like the library, but I’m the only one under 70 (well, and above 18, lots of parents with kids but that doesn’t help me lol), other than the cute librarian I have a crush on (but you’re not supposed to ask them out while they’re working either, and also if she says no it’ll now be awkward every time I go cause I’ll feel like a creep, so she’ll never know).
The real solutions seem to be we need a third place that is acceptable to meet someone and ask them out politely and take no for an answer, or women would need to start asking men they like if it’s unacceptable the other way around, or I need to become gay because as I said earlier guys are chill, you can talk to them anywhere. Unfortunately we’re actively killing third places and the ones still alive women complain about being approached, women so rarely ask a guy out and I don’t think it’s becoming more common, and afaik I was born unlucky on the gayness.
And I mean, am I “lonely?” Idk. I have friends, FWBs, kitties, I’ve had abusive relationships worse than loneliness, so “no” I guess, but also yes insofar as “I haven’t felt real love in about 15 years and it’d be pretty cool to feel that for someone again,” and I’ll guaranteed never find it if I don’t start doing the secret solution: Just say fuck it, fuck you, and fuck what is socially acceptable, just start asking out ANY woman I see/like ANYWHERE, politely and take no for an answer of course, but anywhere. At my job, at her job, at the gym, in Aisle 10, on the trails, fuck it. If I don’t it seems my only option is to pray to a god I’ve never believed in that a lady falls in front of me like goddamn Rufus in Dogma and she happens to like me, and I happen to like her lmao.
You need to find a trail hiking group. You don’t need to change hobbies it sounds like. Try organizing a hike in your area and invite people to come along if you can’t find any. You’ll meet people quickly doing that.
Genuinely though the bar is at the floor for guys right now. If you are well groomed, friendly, and genuinely interested in learning about the specific woman you’re talking to then that alone would bump you up a lot of your potential matches. If you’re walking anywhere and the other person looks like they’re not trying to ignore your existence then you have better chances.
Try going shopping on the weekend; lots of woman are more willing to talk in stores and such when they’re not stressed out from work. If they hold eye contact with you in a friendly way then try saying hi and just chatting to get to know them a little and what they’re out and about for.
I’m down, but where? That whole “not doing social media” thing means no Facebook, where all those local hiking groups would be organizing, or where I’d have to post if I were the organizer (and organizing a meeting then trying to meet a woman there feels sketchy, anyway).
Genuinely though the bar is at the floor for guys right now. If you are well groomed, friendly, and genuinely interested in learning about the specific woman you’re talking to then that alone would bump you up a lot of your potential matches.
Yeah honestly that isn’t my issue, once I get my foot in the door I’m good, but all the doors are locked and I can’t find my pick, the issue is starting that conversation to begin with.
Try going shopping on the weekend; lots of woman are more willing to talk in stores and such when they’re not stressed out from work. If they hold eye contact with you in a friendly way then try saying hi and just chatting to get to know them a little and what they’re out and about for.
Fair enough, this is basically a more succinct and less explicit version of my final conclusion lol. That’s kinda the plan, but most women I talk to (irl or online) seem to indicate that is socially unacceptable now too.
Which actually probably helps the bar being on the floor btw, all the guys afraid of making women uncomfortable and being creepy are not approaching them because they complained and we listened, now the only guys approaching women in public are the ones who don’t care about creeping them out, because they didn’t listen. I’m not saying that’s the whole problem but it has to be some %.
There might be public postings already out there listed at a local community college, community center, or city website for public events near you. If you post a meet up, do so with the intent of just bringing people to together and having fun, doing so with just intent of meeting women should come second. If you meet people that you vibe with then for sure invite them to more hikes or other shared activities.
Hosting Partifuls could help a lot to get things off the ground as well. My friend does those all of the time even for the most mundane things and lots of friends and acquaintances will show up and bring friends along.
For getting your foot in the door, it’s a lot of putting yourself in the right spaces to meet people. If you don’t have an issue actually connecting, then that’s a great start. I’d advise trying friend finding apps too since the pressure is offloaded on those compared to strictly dating apps. Lots of women want to find guys they could at least be friends with first before committing to dating. You remove a lot of the barriers of pressure when meeting up doesn’t have to be a date, but can be if you both are connecting.
Fair enough, this is basically a more succinct and less explicit version of my final conclusion lol. That’s kinda the plan, but most women I talk to (irl or online) seem to indicate that is socially unacceptable now too.
I feel where you go matters, what time you go matters, and not forcing the interaction matters for this. If you go to a woman dominated space and are confident and cool headed about it, just that and being dressed the part for being there could have you being checked out by women. Probably less a bookstore, more a ‘healthy’ lunch spot or outdoor/indoor mall. After their first coffee and before lunch? You’re golden. Specifically during/after lunch? Golden. After dinner? Generally fine.
Which actually probably helps the bar being on the floor btw, all the guys afraid of making women uncomfortable and being creepy are not approaching them because they complained and we listened, now the only guys approaching women in public are the ones who don’t care about creeping them out, because they didn’t listen. I’m not saying that’s the whole problem but it has to be some %.
You gotta believe and know that you’re coming with pure intentions; if you get caught up in the anxiety of not trying to look weird/creepy it’ll just come off that way instead imo. Out in the world, woman are way more chill than online makes women out to be. There are certainly a number of women that are reasonably wary, due to weirdos with no respect boundaries, but if you look, act, and are friendly then you definitely will meet woman that have been looking for someone like that.
Maybe don’t say fuck it all the time but if it feels like it might be a good idea.
It’s a redirection. Capitalism demands a lot more from us than it did even 50 years go. That makes women, on average, more choosy and men tend to need to work harder to keep up if they want that happy relationship. We’re just selecting for good capitalists because bad capitalists might have kids too, but they’re more likely to repeat mistakes of their parents or die off. It’s kinda how most people can trace their lineage to royalty, because they were the ones surviving and thriving, not the peasants.
If things get worse faster than we can address them, this trend will continue. Maintaining any kind of birthrate in a positive direction would require the people falling out of the system to support it too, which are now in the majority.
So you can’t create conditions for the family makers when the losers have voting power. The family makers will always try, but there will be fewer of them, and the capitalistic pressure only creates more losers.
Capitalism demands a lot more from us than it did even 50 years go.
Because we’ve lost bargaining capacity for better living of everyone. When we go toe-to-toe for a pay raise (or simple, better working conditions), we’re alone against a rich institution. Unions granted us more than we’ve accepted it had.
