Number of 'lonely, single' men is on the rise, says psychologist
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I think the modern world is alienating and isolating. We compare ourselves to each to other constantly and treat each other as commodities. The destruction of the family and various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.
The difference between the modern world and the world of yesterday is that we're the ones they aren't religious. I would argue it's the opposite-- religion limits you and forces you to be with your community. You have to meet them every week and sit with them, you are obligated to attend their weddings and funerals. The church was historically the center of life in the western world. It's the fact that that doesn't exist anymore, and there is no replacement. The church was a place the lonely could go to find friends, the odd and awkward could go to find purpose, the sick could go to find helpers. I'm not even Christian, but the role it played in yesterday's world was huge. It's because we don't bother to replace these institutions with modern equivalents that people have these problems
Volunteer groups, sports, hobby groups, hiking meetups, dance classes, or the nearest bar. YMMV
Being close to a hip city and having no trouble traveling, I did find motivation (for actually going, doing the scheduling, etc) to be a thing - and there are sometimes many layers to that thing.
As I encouraged others to do meetup dot com and find groups to hang with - I found that people do indeed have to muster up the motivation - but also location can be an challenge / obstacle.
I also think meetup has changed with less options, partially for pandemic but also they went pay to play for listing groups I think?
Looking forward to more decentralized group listings and virtual water coolers in the future, maybe web rings coming back to help with that.
Also been planning to open more real world 'third place' options hopefully - scouting locations and sketching ideas anyhow.
For instance, Men’s Shed, “a dedicated, friendly and welcoming meeting place where men come together and undertake a variety of mutually agreed activities.” They often perform charitable work and if you need social or emotional support, they’ll listen and help. They fulfill the roles you feel are only available from churches.
My brother committed suicide because of loneliness and depression. So when I read articles about women and men being lonely and on tons of mental health meds, I think something went wrong in our society and I have a personal connection to this.
Most people WANT to be in families, and have relationships. Humans are social creatures. A world with out religion doesn't seem to be keeping the promises of a better life. Religion filled a void for many people, and I don't think medication can replace it.
I'm not sure what the path forward is, but I think the first step is admitting we have a major problem in our culture.
But I say, good riddance. People should group together based on common interests, hobbies and activism, not circumstance and superstition.
To have a truly democratic society, we need people to engage with the broader human community beyond their families and churches. We need to think bigger than that.
Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo.
There is a lot of untruth in this statement and I will tell you why, because I was literally living this lifestyle. I'm not saying I still continue to accept these ideologies. The problem with these people is there is a huge gap in the wants vs have within men nowadays, i.e., they want something, but do not put in the effort. If things were easy, then would it make any sense? You wouldn't value what you have.
There's a sense of lack of values, morals and humanity within these communities and they perpetuate all the bad ideas.
Instead of repeating the grief cycle and trying to break out of it, they continue to wallow in this grief cycle. There's actually a diagnosis which is called prolonged grief disorder.
While pain is good for growth, grieving without a closure and trying to continue it without the presence of personal morals, values and humanity is dangerous. Humility is extremely important, and people nowadays don't seem to have it.
with the progress of society certain appeasments were no longer possible, and certain social conditions either. this is a primal way to share dissens and ask for things, not cool with our society but the appeasment that should be offered should be mental health care to "unradicalize" and some kind societal integration. understand the game to understand the player or you want to tell them to bootstrap themselves?
And this is the key takeaway for me. Nobody has the "right" to get a partner, hence, it is critical to learn to be alone, not only for guys, but also for old people.
I think this article is itself evidence of this. Of course DM know exactly what they're doing.
There's the real problem. Most of the women I know who use apps hate them, too. The incentive structure around dating apps is terrible, and from what I can tell, it's deepening the already ridiculous polarization of gender. Men and women alike reduce eachother to the worst stereotypes, and their dating preferences get twisted into cynicism and materialism contrary to previously-held moral stances.
If you think the problem is that women have it easy, I've gotta question if you have friends that are women. The problem is the loss of Third Places, which creates a market that dating apps monopolize.
Craigslist Personals was also fun. Until it got taken down.
The late 90's through early 2000's internet was way better for meeting people online.
Right? I made quite a few friends and even a couple of romantic partners on forums and BBSs. For what it's worth, I've seen this happen (tactfully!) on facebook (before they decided that they needed to be a dating site too -_-), through mutual friends and special-interest groups. But, that specifically doesn't work for straight people who are locked into gender-isolated bubbles.
(european POV, internet became mainstream in 2010s with social networks)
Wow. In the US, 2010 was about when AOL stopped stuffing our mailboxes with install disks... (some research later) make that 2006.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma...
Whether or not they want it -- "opportunity" isn't the right word for this.
Loneliness was measured with the following 4 questions:
"Do you feel a lack of companionship? Do you feel left out? Do you feel isolated from others? Do you feel in tune with people around you?"
Certainly many if not all of those needs could be met without a romantic partner. So it doesn't necessarily follow that the numbers must be the same between heterosexual men and women.
or, from a different perspective, we're experiencing a population cap, as experienced through cost of living increases. Starting a family is a luxury not everybody can afford.
Really a failure of culture imo.
Sure, the most intolerant minority and the most vocal minority pushes the change. This is how the feminist movement started and that gave way to women being liberated. They focused their energies/anger into the right direction.
Promiscuity is something of a completely different topic.
The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice. And this is the state of affairs we are dealing with. That's why women say they want a "high quality" man. Do what you want with that information, it's certainly not an easy thing to digest for a lot of men, because they themselves would not put themselves in the "high quality" man box.
This is an absolutely insane statement. No, most women have men they love such as fathers, sons, brothers, and even husbands. Not to mention many important jobs are still dominated by men as women aren't interested. For example dangerous and disgusting professions like plumbing, underwater welding, physical laborers, loggers, firefighters, soldiers.
I do agree, but the thing here is that, we are now in a setting where individualism has been able to replace every single person. In an atomized society everyone is replaceable.
I'll give you an example which is very real, in Japan you can rent a person, say you want affection of a father(because your real father was emotionally absent), and brother etc. You can experience them. Although in the west, it is not done due to many reasons, but it makes sense to have these paid services where a person who is a complete stranger can pretend to be your father or brother.
The rest of the professions are meant for hire anyway.
I think the only relationship which seems to be unconditional love is between mother and sons, because women obviously like their children more.
What I meant by men are not needed, is that men are not needed for protection(the state protects you with Police, and Armed forces), for finance(no need for husband's salary or dad's inheritance dangled like a carrot in front of you) when you can find a job through education, the law protects you legally in many ways, the society now is pro-women than it ever was and that's a good thing.
Men are not explicitly needed by women anymore because the system set up civilization now makes men being implicit supporters and protectors of women. And it's completely good, because they are no longer in the shackles of men wanting to be protected. They can be themselves and choose men they feel like it.
Maybe this is the harsh truth many men don't want to acknowledge or feel uneasy when they look at the facts and figures and these articles blindly say men need to somehow figure out to be not lonely and single. What if I'm a shy person or a depressed person or a lazy person or simply an ugly person? Some attributes are immutable and they become a part of one's personality and outlook and from this point, it makes sense why people recommend therapy to cope with the idea that you need to accept who you but still put out the best parts of you and hopefully those best part guide you to become a more rounded person, even if you don't end up being a well rounded person, you will find yourself surrounded by people who accept you and at least that will make you feel well rounded.
But on the other hand in the end of Grease when Sandy sings "You better shape up, cause I need a man, and my heart is set on you." I don't think she has finance and protection in mind, exactly.
I think she's looking for happiness when she says she needs a man.