Older Sad Man Syndrome
psychologytoday.com
psychologytoday.com
For me, it's a matter of being misunderstood by everyone. Literally. I don't mean they can't parse what I say, I speak English perfectly clearly. It's that they ascribe thoughts, emotions and motives to my words and actions that are wrong. They then react to those misunderstandings and I find myself in a constant state of defense and trying to correct misperceptions, usually in futility. After the frustration and anger it definitely leads to an enduring, moderate sadness.
Middle aged white men are not all cut from the same cloth, any more than any other group is. For others to tell me what I think and feel based on my gender, race and age is as bigoted as anything else. Sad.
Eventually, yes - the frustration subsides into a cold, resigned, sense of fatalism.
Spoken as a minority who really can't find any labels they identify with.
2. His clientele, from what I could glean from the Internet, would be men in senior career positions who are either on the way out, or already out. And since he is BayArea-centric, these are probably tech industry types who are forced out pretty early.
So what he is describing is the natural detumescence that happens when senior guys are slowed or stopped, take a look around and wonder what the heck happened. Don’t need another pop psych buzzword for it. They were part of the Borg mind of a corporation, they leave or prepare to leave, start to get their mind and life back and realize they forgot what they were trying to do in the first place.
In trying to follow the thread back to their authentic self, they revisit sexuality and, not surprisingly, find it wanting. They find they are not the target demographic for the mass media that helped defined what they were. Death isn’t knocking at the door, but they see it driving around the neighborhood and feel it in aches and pains.
It’s a time for mature reflection, wisdom and spiritual development. Normally a solitary path at this point, if they haven’t found a faith or wisdom community by this time. Never is the history of the world has wisdom literature been more widely accessible. And by 50+, the dangers of the guru route are either instinctively known, or more easily managed.
The wisdom that is sought is probably not to be found in the advice of the author, who must be 50+ at this point himself, and whose first line of his bio reads “Marty's mother claims that he could read the New York Times at age 3 and that his reading comprehension in the 1st grade was at the 12th grade level.”