The biggest threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The biggest threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (2017)

bostonglobe.com

72 pointsmooreds30 comments

Are we sure its just men ? I'm a woman, and I'm low on friends these days. Everyone keeps moving away for work! Relationships seem secondary to our jobs these days.

This is one of a number of articles/pieces/reddit posts I've seen on this topic lately. It's definitely a thing affecting more than just the male gender, but it's probably also worth discussing as a male gender thing specifically.

I definitely think work/life balance is a huge societal miss right now. For one, there's all sorts of negatives pushed against being social at work-where probably most people spend most of their waking/sociable hours. Ostensibly, that'd be a natural place to build friendships/relationships (and was in the past) but both can be "sketchy" to outright banned in modern/western workplaces. Friendships can probably set off fear of unions amongst management, for example. Or just fraught with professional dangers.

Otherwise, as a male, it was made clear to me through many different venues/sources during my younger years (especially 20s) that society and people would only be interested in me in direct relation to whatever resources I had (personally, for relationships, professionally - all of it). Don't have a job and a guy's out of the running. My 30s have been dominated by work and just generally not taking many risks that could affect my work. This includes avoiding anything which could set off management.

it was made clear to me through many different venues/sources during my younger years (especially 20s) that society and people would only be interested in me in direct relation to whatever resources I had

wow, which culture is that? i have lived in europe, the united states, new zealand, and a few countries in asia, and i have never even noticed a hint of any such attitude.

Hard to define. US southwest regionally. But also experienced in college towns where the male:female ratio is anywhere from 3:1 to 30:1 depending on context. Then online avenues just reinforced it. Browse r/tinder for an idea of the difference in experiences in online dating. I’ve had women (hundreds?) come out and tell me as much online across the decades-not confined to any one location obviously.

Edit-just so this doesn’t seem solely bashing one side. I’m not gay. But I actually had a fellow/alumnus grad student friend for a while who all of a sudden was asking me to do all these minor tasks for him from afar. Turned out he had somehow gotten into his head we were in a relationship despite nothing of the sort having been discussed. (I’m not gay and would have made that clear had the topic came up.) Stands out I think because he ostensibly was only interested in developing a relationship with me through these tasks or something.

ok, i didn't go to college in the US, and i also didn't experience the tinder demographic, fair enough.

the second part of your comment is a bit confusing to me. wanting to be friends doesn't imply that someone is gay. doing things together and for each other is one way to keep that friendship alive.

we actually had this topic a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31713720

asking someone for a favor is an opening for that person to ask for a favor in return. obviously it doesn't work if the other person is not interested.

I’m sorry. I think the concern is that men’s issues can be hard to talk about. It does seem to me that many women have stronger networks.

It’s probably both, but I think the statistics are much worse for men.

Purely anecdotal conjecture, but I’m guessing it’s more prevalent in men because more and more of the stereotypical machismo male bonding activities have become illegal, cost prohibitive, and/or frowned upon in the past few decades. There have been strong feminist movements that take aim at masculinity and seek to silence or subvert men in the past decade. Combined with the stereotypical breadwinner responsibility, lack of concern with mens’ struggles as a social norm, and the need for male friends to not be too emotionally available to avoid coming across as more than platonic friends.

As a middle aged man this hits home. There were a lot of good observations in this article too. The photos of men staring at the world together, while women tended to face each other, was a fun observation.

Having lived a bit of a nomadic life, and now in a new city since last year, connecting with old friends in a meaningful way is hard.

Old friends? As if I had any of those. I agree with you hits home. Father of 3, between work and family it is hard to connect with anyone. I have no father, mother, grandparents, uncles aunts etc. Alone is the new normal it seems. My local church has male gatherings but I am the only one under 60. Fun!

https://archive.ph/8X76D

This is a result of our modern attitudes toward marriage and child rearing.

Back in "the day" couples weren't expected to become practically one person. It was expected that the commitments required of marriage and raising kids could take a back seat a couple times a week for men to hang out with their friends. So when one person got married or had a kid they would still show up on the regular and the friendships and friend groups would survive because that wouldn't interrupt the friendship.

There are no more hours available in the day or week than there were back then so when we prioritize something we inherently de-prioritize other things.

i am not sure those days where really better. wasn't the reality that men could do this because they were the head of the household and not involved with their kids at all?

i am sorry, but that does not sound appealing to me at all. there is no reason why families can't socialize together and allow building friendships within that group

That’s hyperbole though isn’t it? Like no one is saying men should abandon their families, only that maybe they shouldn’t have to dedicate so much of their time to family to not be viewed as a deadbeat.

a deadbead dad doesn't even provide for the family. that's different.

i mean this: https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/o-t-lounge/are-modern-fa...

the average mother spent 54 minutes a day caring for children in 1965 but 104 minutes in 2012. Men do less than women, but far more than men in the past: their child-caring time has jumped from 16 minutes a day to 59.

You're just arguing over language to avoid addressing the question. Imagine he said "bad parent" instead of "deadbeat".

Also, per the numbers time spent caring for children has tripled since the 60s and child rearing outcomes don't seem better at the same time as women have entered the workforce. Since society didn't also invent some magic stimulants that reduce sleep requirements in that time that's a bad deal no matter how you look at it. We're wasting more time to get the same amount done.

how do you make the connection that childrearing didn't get better since women entered the workforce? according to those statistics, women doubled the time they spend with kids. seems that working didn't make a difference.

i don't know what that means though. either women were already working in the 60's or while they were at home they did many other things besides taking care of the children. (i suppose some housework got more efficient thanks to technical advances)

If you count "having few male friends with whom you often spend personal time" as lonely, then I am definitely lonely. If you consider lonely to mean "feeling of a hole or gap in your personal/social life", then no. I am not lonely, whatsoever.

Different people need different amounts and types of social interaction in their lives. Where I'm at in my life, I'm very comfortable, happy, and content. Closing in on 40 with my wife and recently-adult child, and with the rest of my family (who I rarely see, as many are out of state). I have a small handful of male friends in other states that I see once or twice a year. Otherwise, I've mostly fallen out of touch with male friends, and that doesn't bother me. And that's me/personally ~ I'm not suggesting that this should or should not be acceptable to others.

Just saying: The threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (as the article states), not lack of male friends per-se. I fit the description of the men in the article, but I am not lonely now. Perhaps, in a few years, I will realize that my priorities change, that I am lonely then, and I will resent my 30s self for allowing so few male friendships to grow and flourish.

> Just saying: The threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (as the article states), not lack of male friends per-se. I fit the description of the men in the article, but I am not lonely now. Perhaps, in a few years, I will realize that my priorities change, that I am lonely then, and I will resent my 30s self for allowing so few male friendships to grow and flourish.

I was like that, as well, and am roughly at the same point in life - I turned 40 this year, and was happy with my life with my wife and daughter. I would also have told you I had “a few” male friends I talked to “a few times a year”.

Things changed for me, rather abruptly at the start of the year, when my wife decided she was capital-U-unhappy, and that the best way to deal with that was start a relationship with another man. In addition to the swirl of emotions I had to deal with, suddenly and unexpectedly, I quickly found out that I really didn’t have any close friends left, and had basically nobody to talk to about what I was going through. And, that I had nobody to blame but myself for at least that part of the situation I found myself in.

My point is not that my situation is typical, or that anything like what I described will happen to you (or anyone else reading this,) but that I found out just how important friendships were when I needed them, and didn’t have them. So, I’ve spent the last few months treating my lack of social interaction like the emergency it is, and I strongly encourage others to do the same. Hopefully, it will just make a person’s life more fulfilling. At the margins, it might keep you sane in a very difficult situation.

I'm sorry for what you're going through. If you can afford it try paying a therapist to talk to. Just saying things out loud to another human can make a big difference.

Thank you. I am seeing a therapist, and am in a men’s therapy group, and started going to a men’s workout group that explicitly exists to foster friendship amongst men. Talking to a therapist helped immensely, in being able to express my thoughts out loud and a) have another person acknowledge that my feelings were valid and b) walk a line between giving me honest feedback about things I needed to change and take responsibility for[0] while not make excuses for my wife’s behavior.

That said, my experience was that talking to a therapist was not an immediate thing — I had to find one, and they’re all pretty busy these days — and by the time I needed to talk to someone, I was a suicidal mess and I really needed to talk to someone. I ended up calling my mom, which was honestly pretty humiliating, but that’s what I had to work with. If I had done a better job maintaining my friendships, I think I would have felt able to talk to one of them. It just didn’t seem right to call up someone I didn’t talk to regularly and dump all of my problems on them.

0 — for reasons that would take some time to fully explain, I don’t feel like leaving my relationship is something I can do. In short, I had a fairly traumatic childhood and can’t stomach the thought of not being around to protect my daughter on a daily basis. My therapist made me acknowledge that I am making a choice here, and am not a bystander in my decision to stay.

If only you left your country to find that there are probably lots of great girls world wide that would appreciate you.

This so much.

get out of the country, women are far more appreciative of good men when you leave the western bubble.

I do not have any desire to do this, for a variety of reasons. I’m willing to accept the consequences, good and bad, of staying in the United States.

Thank you for your perspective. I'm sorry to hear about the abrupt change. A change like yours was somewhat what I was vaguely getting at with the suggestion that things might change in the future (who can know for certain). Having "few" male friends is a risk factor (but not the problem itself), whereas the problem itself is the loneliness. I had a relationship fall apart in my early 20s after I'd moved across the U.S. for college. It wasn't marriage, but I had left all of my old friends 2 thousand miles away, and didn't establish new male friends. When the relationship fell apart, I was very very lonely. One would have thought that I would have learned a lesson to ensure that I maintain male friendships; not because I need them necessarily to avoid being lonely (because I'm not lonely, as indicated in my first post), but because it's a risk factor mitigation with no real downside.

A follow up to some of the other comments: (a) Regarding moving out of country: Hopefully that's not a serious suggestion. That's simply not possible for a lot of people, nor is it desirable for many, and cross-cultural relationships (while very enriching and rewarding) bring their own challenges to the table (source: my marriage is multi-ethnic/cultural one), let alone cross-national, which has its own geo-political challenges. (b) Regarding moving out of country to find an appreciative woman/partner -- that's also missing the point; the point is not about a romantic relationship - the point is about loneliness. A romantic relationship is wonderful, and for some it can fully address any feelings of loneliness, but not for all. For those of us whose social needs are fully met by our romantic relationships - great for us! But we're at risk of loneliness should they evaporate. (c) Regarding a Therapist - yes, that can certainly help a relationship ending (any many other things), and I too recommend seeing one if you can, but it's also missing the point of the original post, as it's no substitution for actual friendship.

@throwaway789738, feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to talk further. Twitter handle's in my HN profile. I'm not very active on Twitter, but I'll respond if I'm pinged.

one advice that i received was that not having friends means that i would put all my needs for social interaction on my wife, which makes any problems in the relationship feel bigger than they might feel otherwise.

that person was very concerned that being a foreigner in a small city without any other foreigners would be a bad idea. never mind that living in a bigger city where i'd go out to international tech/networking events multiple times a week didn't help me to find any friends either.

that, in part answers the question on whether moving to another country is a good idea. it may work well to find a partner (it did for me) but finding friends is a completely different question. (i am not saying that it can't work, but that it takes careful consideration)

i am not on twitter, but my email is in my profile, if anyone would like to talk more.

A related thought: if you think you don't need people, then see what happens when you get sick.

My wife and I are each others' best friends. We both have other friends, but we rarely have time to see them. We're also not too interested in meeting new people, because we feel we could be doing a far better job maintaining friendships we already have.

Compounding this is that many of our friends are at different life stages. We both know many "older" singles - people our age (late 30s/early 40s) and they find it awkward to hang out with us, at least too frequently. Likewise we know many couples with kids, and hanging out with them is mutually awkward (we are childless).

One of my best friends from childhood is single, and one of hers is also single. We'd love for them to get together but so far we're not seeing the signs.

Someone needs to make a "dating style" app that helps people find platonic friendships based on shared interested.

Sounds like a great place to pick up women ;)

There are things you can do to make this much easier, such as, no pictures. Looks shouldn't matter at all when making friends. You either click with a person or you don't.

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