Like, why is it so widespread, what causes it, what solutions are available, etc. I don’t really know how to ask this question so I hope I’m making sense

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    I do think the loneliness epidemic affects men more than women, and would argue it’s sexism harming men. On average, women are more likely to reach out, talk to people and family will check in on them if they are alone. Like, my husband (who is more outgoing than me and better at keeping up with friends) will call his mom or go up to see her, but leaves his dad alone unless he literally asks for something. Because men are taught it’s shameful to not be self sufficient, but women are taught to look for help if we need it.

    Obviously this is not a straight gender split but on average it still plays out that way.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 days ago

    I think that many of the approaches that tried to explain it are mostly dangerous.

    Like blaming it on gender norms, and toxic masculinity, the most common answer. Because plenty of men who do not comply to gender norms or toxic masculinity (or masculinity at all) still feel alone. And their experience get invalidated by this explanation.

    I think a more neutral approach is needed to explain it. Instead of trying to take some explanation that fits your political views and then try to push it as a solution to the problem, the problem should be investigated by itself, and once an explanation is reached accept it even if it does not fit your political mindset.

    One hint is that most people that feel alone lack a romatic relationship, the most common approach seems to be that “nah romatic relationships are not needed and we will not even consider them part of the problem”. When it’s pretty obviously that the lack of this kind of relationships is fundamental in male loneliness.

    • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Because plenty of men who do not comply to gender norms or toxic masculinity (or masculinity at all) still feel alone. And their experience get invalidated by this explanation.

      It sounds like you completely miss the application of the explanation itself. The phrase toxic masculinity describes the social norms and expectations that men act a certain way. Society imposes gender norms on people such that those who don’t comply are at the highest risk of being shunned or ostracized, and having trouble making social connections. And the social pressure may make men act in ways they wouldn’t otherwise, so that they grow up poorly equipped to be introspective and understand their own wants/desires/emotions/drives/motivations.

      Toxic masculinity tells men what they’re not allowed to be, and tells men what they must be. Both sides of that same coin are toxic to men, and by extension those that the men interact with.

      • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 days ago

        Feels more like an explanation looking for a question that otherwise. Explanation doesn’t seems to emerge from the problem, but from the solution.

        Again not talking about the main issue that every men that feel alone will tell you as the root of their problem:

        -Lack of a relationship.

        -Lack of friendships due other friends being invested in their relationships.

        I haven’t meet a man that accused male loneliness because “others expect me to act manly” or because “I don’t know what I want because toxic masculinity”. Toxic masculinity may cause anxiety, discomfort or things like that in not complying men, but I don’t see it causing lack of romantic relationships. The cause of the former must be other.

        The whole “men are wrong for wanting to be loved and they should be happy being alone” feels a little too much invalidating on people’s wants and desires.

        While sexism and male toxicity is bad I don’t see how ending that would improve in anything male loneliness as it’s solution does not address what’s making many males feel lonely.

        • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Again not talking about the main issue that every men that feel alone will tell you as the root of their problem:

          -Lack of a relationship.

          -Lack of friendships due other friends being invested in their relationships.

          Actually, your comment touches on something that is really interesting to me, and a major part of where you and I differ on what male loneliness means. You’ve elevated the romantic committed relationship with a woman as the primary means by which men are expected to derive social standing and stability, but I view it primarily as an issue of friendships, mainly friendships with other men. The loneliness problem, in my view, comes from men being unable to form strong relationships with other men, and a wife or girlfriend or whatever is secondary to that.

          Maybe it’s because I’ve always had stability in my friendships but didn’t have committed romantic relationships until my 30’s, but it seems like the problem of loneliness comes from not feeling like you have people in your corner (friends, family, even work colleagues), but I think focusing on sexual and romantic relationships is itself isolating and lonely, even for men who do get married. Now that I’m married I still spend plenty of time with my friends, married or single, based on the topic/activity/interest that ties us together.

          • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            13 days ago

            Toxic masculinity is definitely not a part of relationships falling apart.

            Anyone who had live through being in a group of single people through their youth and, as years pass, became the only one single on that group could probably confirm the experience. Friendships do not fall apart just because some male toxicity. It’s way simpler, it’s just that when two people do not have partners they can devote a lot of time and emotional energy to each other. When you are single a friend can easily be the most important person of your life. When you have a partner the amount of time and emotional energy that you have for friends is inferior, as you want to spend a great deal of that time and energy to your partner (as it’s natural). Then relationships became different. It’s not that it’s impossible to have “married friends”. But it’s certainly not the same as having a close single friend. And toxic masculinity does not take a part in any part of this process. The process is just a natural thing to happen on these situations.

            Yes, people can cope trying to make new friendships. But that’s just a way to cope. Same as filing your live with hobbies and social activities can help coping with the lack of a romantic partner. But it does not solve the base issue. It’s like taking antidepressants for a depression, it helps, but it’s no solution, and the lack of antidepressants was not the issue.

            Having a romantic relationship is important for many people. Denying that can be alienating, as you are denying personal experiences and personal feelings. I don’t think that solution is convincing people that their natural desires of being as loved as they see other people to be is just wrong and that they should live with even wanting that love (while they see plenty of other people enjoying that kind love).

            • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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              13 days ago

              That’s what I’m talking about, though. You see male friendships as a method of coping with a more fundamental problem relating to women, and I totally disagree, and argue that healthy male friendships are social connections worth developing and maintaining in their own right, whether you are or aren’t in a committed relationship with a woman. Even your framing of why male friendships fall apart involves women. It’s the centrality of women in your worldview that is preventing you from seeing how male friendships are a critical thing to have in addressing male loneliness.

              Put another way, married men need healthy male friendships, too. Putting all of that emotional labor into a single link with a woman is fragile and unreliable, and I’d argue inherently unhealthy. People need multiple social links and the resilience and support that comes from whole groups connected in a web, not just a bunch of isolated pairings.

              And to be clear, I’m not saying that friendships are a replacement for romantic and sexual relationships. I’m saying that social fluency, empathy, and thoughtfulness necessary for being able to maintain deep friendships are important skillsets for maintaining romantic relationships as well. The lack of romantic partners, then, isn’t the “base issue,” but is a symptom of the internal state of the person and how that person interacts with the world.

              So I maintain that your worldview switches cause and effect, at least compared to mine. And maybe I’m wrong, and I’m not trying to convince you that I’m right. I’m bringing all this up to share that the surprising part of this line of comments is that I was genuinely not expecting someone to treat romantic difficulties as a primary or fundamental cause of male loneliness. To show you that at least there are other people who view these issues very differently from you, and that there’s a broad diversity of thought on the topic.

              • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                13 days ago

                Fun fact. At no point in my comments you’ll see that I referred to “male friends” or “female friends”.

                Plenty of men had female friends that got away because they fell in love with some other man/woman. And I don’t think toxic masculinity would have any impact in a friendship between a woman and a non-toxic man. And those relationships also break apart anyway.

                It makes no difference the gender of the friends in my theory. And if course I don’t think that woman (or men) are, as a gender, the cause of male loneliness, or that women are to blame for anything, much less for also wanting to have a romantic relationship.

                The only gendered part of the issue, and the reason on why we call it “male loneliness” is that women seems to have an easier time achieving romantic relationships when they want to. While men tend to have a much harder time and their loneliness tends to be involuntary more often than not. (Again not that women, as a gender, is to blame for this situation).

                The thing is that you can be the best friend in the world, a partner will always come first for the other person. It’s not a matter of lack of empathy or any other"toxic male behavior" here. It’s just people having different priorities in life. And a problem with some people being no one’s priority. And I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about not being anyone number one priority in life, it’s just a plain sad fact that’s normal to make people sad about it.

                I’m not convinced that my theory is true. As this is an incredibly complex topic. I just think that the whole “male toxicity is to blame” is just an easy scape goat or political dogma. “Toxic masculinity and sexism is bad so it must be the cause of every gendered issue in society”, and then constructing the argument needed for that statement to maintain true. And while sexism it’s obviously bad, it does not need to be the source of any and all problems. Some problems, I think, have other sources.

  • Sonor@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    What i really want to see is how the rise of ai companions will affect all this. Nomi, replika, and the others are already doing good, and i forsee that it will keep growing as the technology improves, for better or for worse

    • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      They are not doing good. People are becoming dependent on chatbots produced by for-profit companies to get their fix of human socialisation. That’s absolutely awful, very unfortunate, and most assuredly unhealthy.

      • Sonor@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        What i meant by good was financially, not as “good for society”. Maybe i should have made that clear

          • Sonor@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            This is one thing i have wanted to point out. But it good to see how sensitive the whole issue is. That -10 downvote on the original comment tells me people are really sensitive to the whole phenomenon

  • untorquer@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Gender division and masculinity is trained into us from the second our genitals are identified be it sonogram or at birth. From the colors, toys, media, to early childhood social pressures were pushed into one of two molds. If a boy interacts with a girl it’s labelled as boyfriend girlfriend even if there’s no romantic intent (because why would children have that?). But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.

    When you’re emotionally isolated from yourself, and surrounded by others who are also emotionally isolated, you’re not motivated to be around them since they won’t fulfill your needs. Then, you realize you’re also not comfortable enough to bridge the divide to people who are in touch with their own emotions. So all this hard work and you’re only a few steps down the path to connection. Usually with little sense of where to go from there.

    When you finally get to the point of diving in and expressing emotionally outward, it’s easy to get wrapped with anxiety. You expect others to push you away, not because they will, most people respond well, but because you’re even less oriented and more vulnerable than ever. Though i would argue less fragile.

    Lots of other posts discussing things like whether other people in the age group are socially available, and lack of third spaces.

    • nifty@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.

      Except for children with autism, I’d say. My mom couldn’t get me to be girly or feminine while I was growing up, I just did what made sense, sometimes that was a girly or feminine thing and other times not.

      Maybe the patriarchy is an allistic people problem lol.

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    I know Jordan Peterson has a lot of followers. He says it’s the women’s fault men are lonely. He says men are their victim, pictures women as evil while men should be on top. This creates an even bigger isolation and creates sex offenders.

    In Japan and South Korea there are many men who are isolated because of videogames and it’s online culture. They have a relationship with a Nintendo character of AI on their phone (no joke).

    Because a lot of lonely men are on the internet, it’s not a correct representation of the real world. Doesn’t change the fact there are many non the less.

    Just because there are many different cultures accessable for anyone through the internet, it’s easier to isolate yourself in such a culture. Whether it’s on reddit, 4chan, through games, forums or other social media groups. But it keeps you off the streets, away from real socializing, learning to behave, how to talk to a girl, find a hobby which isn’t on your computer, meet real friends.

    • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      I know Jordan Peterson has a lot of followers. He says it’s the women’s fault men are lonely

      Peterson has a habit of saying things that might technically be true in isolation but will then disagree with you when you try and make a conclusion from it. In this case he has also said it’s men’s fault for not making women a good enough ‘offer’.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        He’s a racist, misogynist, narcicist, piece of shit who sexually objectified his own daughter (if not more than that)

        • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          piece of shit who sexually objectified his own daughter (if not more than that)

          Was aware of the rest but not this, what is this referring to?

  • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 days ago

    if men display feelings, they’re seen as bitches by men, and weak by women (exceptions exist, but generally speaking).

    basically, a piece of toxic masculinity….
    men are only allowed to display emotions of anger or mild happiness.
    i think this is a big reason why sports are so popular… it’s more about camaraderie than anything else.
    also why they like to get drunk and say “i love you man” and all that mushy stuff.

    in a nutshell: because they’re taught to be that way.

    • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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      13 days ago

      Ignore all that and be yourself, if you’re around people that treat you that poorly you should find yourself new friends

        • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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          12 days ago

          I used to struggle with this game of trying to be perceived the way I am “supposed to”. It’s when I gave up on that game that likeminded people just kinda noticed in everyday interactions.

          I’ve made a lot of friends since then, and I’ve got a lot less to worry about

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            12 days ago

            Faulty and even dangerous use of the phrase “supposed to.” It implies a pressure to conform to some standard of etiquette or game rule. “You’re supposed to keep your elbows off the table.” “You’re supposed to wait for the umpire to say ‘play ball’ before you pitch.”

            If I were teaching a shop class, and I were to hear one of my students say “you’re supposed to use a push stick when doing thin rips on a table saw,” I would say corrective action is necessary. While yes, using a push stick while performing thin rips is good practice, use of the phrase “supposed to” implies an attitude that it is the shop teacher’s pet peeve, and that the student will be free of that pointless ritual once out on the job.

            You use a push stick because a table saw is a device designed to tear the bodies of living things apart, and rapidly. If you touch the blade, your body will be torn apart, and rapidly. While performing a thin rip with your bare hands, your hands will pass very close to the blade, anything goes wrong, a kickback or similar calamity will hurt you in ways a doctor can’t fix. Push sticks are PPE, we use them so we don’t get injured, not because “it’s the rules.”

            • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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              12 days ago

              “supposed to” as in how some people and social groups except and push particular behaviours from certain individuals. As in women are “supposed to” be in the kitchen.

              it’s to present the stupid way some social groups and cultures work

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      13 days ago

      if men display feelings, they’re seen as bitches by men, and weak by women (exceptions exist, but generally speaking).

      I don’t care if “alpaha” males think I am a soyboy, but you ain’t keeping a partner if she got the “ick”

      And most women get the ick over random shit including something that they might perceive as unregulated emotions.

      • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 days ago

        i agree… i just don’t think that’s an inherent thing in women and it’s a symptom of a sick society…

        • Bacano@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Good point, it could very well be. Sadly, it’s really hard to tell why, and which women will respond with it. I’ve never heard a woman alluding to it irl, but I have seen them respond in both ways.

          The ick is huge. The only woman most men can open up to without playing russian roulette is their mother (assuming a healthy relationship).

  • Econgrad@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Men have been taught not to approach women in public unless it’s online in a dating app. Women have always been taught not to approach men.

    So no one is having relationships except for a very small portion of people who are disproportionately physically attractive.

    Pair that with the hypergamy that women are doing where they only chase men out of their league now for the most part and it makes things that used to be normal and taken for granted like getting married and having a family exceptional jewels that are hard to come by.

    • Pazu900@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      This isn’t true. This is what right wing loser podcasters claim to further the idea of women or libruls as the problem, and themselves as the solution. It’s a much deeper problem than that.

      If you actually spend time around women you’ll find that looks are a way lower priority for them than for men. You’ll find that they value things like being understanding, doing interesting things, being trustworthy, and for physical things as long as you’re hygienic and have a semblance of style they really don’t care much even if you’re heavier. And guess what? These are ALL things you can work on to improve yourself.

      Want to have more women like you? Work on yourself first. Women aren’t attracted to men who complain online about “I’m not allowed to go talk to them in public”

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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        13 days ago

        If you actually spend time around women you’ll find that looks are a way lower priority for them than for men. You’ll find that they value things like being understanding, doing interesting things, being trustworthy, and for physical things as long as you’re hygienic and have a semblance of style they really don’t care much even if you’re heavier.

        Oddly class and status is missing from this list… I wonder why

      • botterotter@lemm.ee
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        14 days ago

        At least in my experience, women tend to care about looks just about the exact same amount as men, that is to say some care almost exclusively about looks and some not at all, and everywhere in between, and at about the same rates from what I’ve seen. Anecdotal tho, and the general gist of what you said still applies, I’m just being pedantic lol

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      I was about to write this exact thing and you’re already getting downvotes for it. People refuse to except reality.

      There is an extremely large portion of men that are scared to put themselves out there because they are ostracized as creeps and fear the consequences of social shaming. “The worst she can say is no” is no longer true. The worst she can do is take a video of you while she publicly shames you for being a creep and trying to rape her.

      • Acamon@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        I think the reason for down votes is that the comment suggests that issues with dating are the reason for male loneliness, when most people in the thread would argue that believing that ‘a romantic partner is the only acceptable source of meaningful emotional connection available to men’ is a big part of male loneliness.

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Met my wife online during the pandemic.

        Dated a fair few women before her, meeting online and in real life.

        I’m not super attractive, and pretty awkward, but I always make the effort to be polite and actually listen instead of waiting to talk, you’d be amazed how far that actually gets you.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          13 days ago

          This is an anecdote, also having good social skills was always a clever way to make up for looks.

          Most people have not been properly socialized since childhood. They need to level up but it is one of them things kinda like being poor, you are starting behind and you need to work 2x to get to mid.

          • Zron@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            If you don’t have good looks, that’s one thing, you can’t really change that.

            But then if you don’t look good and you can’t try to hold a conversation, that’s your problem.

            Learn to speak, it’s not hard. go talk to people and gain some confidence. All this talk about poor socialization or being unattractive and creepy just demoralizes people that I’m sure could actually make friends and meet spouses if they didn’t preemptively pull themselves out of the situation before they gave themselves the chance

    • Lanthanae@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      14 days ago

      Interesting that you took this post to be entirely about romantic/sexual relationships, especially since a partner should not be solely responsible for assuaging your lonliness.

      Even if everyone had a partner/spouse male loneliness would still be a massive issue because men aren’t socialized in a way that equips them to have emotionally intimate platonic friendships. If my wife was my ONLY friend, I’d still be very lonely. Furthermore, even if I wasn’t in a relationship, I wouldn’t be lonely because of the friends I have.

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    14 days ago

    There are multiple reasons for this. First of all due to the fact that a lot of infrastructure is based around cars society actively looses places for people to meet and hang out(I think this effect even has a name, but I’m not sure). Lack of places to interact with other people, and therefore lack of social interactions, causes a rise in loneliness. Then theres the problem with how men are supposed to act. We get told, that we shouldn’t “ask out” women in every day life, since its now considered creepy. For me this causes a certain type of being not sure where and when it is OK to ask someone out leading to me not doing it since I don’t want to get labeled as a creep. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to blame women for the male loneliness epidemic and there devinetively are a lot of men beeig creeps and asking someone out in absolutely the wrong situations, but this is something that needs to be said to understand the male loneliness epidemic. This also causes dating to take place online. Now the problem is, that online dating fucking sucks. Dating apps are useless, as long as you don’t want to sell your kidney to them, since they want you to keep using it. If dating apps were somewhat usefull they’d be out pf buisness quite fast.

    • nwtreeoctopus@sh.itjust.works
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      14 days ago

      Referenced in a lower comment, but that loss of a meet and hangout place is often called a “third place,” as opposed to work or home. The show Cheers is a depiction of a third place in that it’s a place where “everybody knows your name” and the norm is staying and chatting, not spending a few bucks and running out.

      There are some interesting suppositions about how this loneliness became more and more endemic with the decline in bowling leagues. People, men in particular, just have fewer regular hangout activities and so get more and more lonely. Things like bowling leagues, lodges, and the corner bar all were meeting spots to socialize and they have declined or morphed over the years, losing their original social role.

      • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        This might be regional too. 3rd places in some cities are promoted as a social norm compared to others. More of a ‘night life’ where as some cities is like you have nothing much to do but go out in nature. I think those areas are a heavier struggle than others when it comes to socializing

        • nwtreeoctopus@sh.itjust.works
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          14 days ago

          There are still some out there, but so many businesses prioritize turnover to raise profits that it can be difficult to have a place to just hang out with friends.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      14 days ago

      There’s nothing inherently creepy of asking a woman on a date. Just ask them “would you like to go on a date sometime?”

      Its creepy if she says no and you keep asking or otherwise act creepy about it.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      14 days ago

      I was thinking the other day there’s probably a pretty straight line between Match group owning so many dating apps, men’s unhappiness, and violence.

      Like the apps create the illusion that you can meet someone and be happy, but their primary goal is to make money. They don’t try very hard to introduce you to good matches. They also haven’t solved the experience from the woman’s point of view. So men feel like they’re just shouting into the void, that people don’t like them, etc etc. Some of those people likely go on to become incels or do violence.

      This isn’t to say that violent men are not culpable. They are. They retain agency. But Match group (that’s tinder, okcupid, hinge, match, plenty of fish, and more) is making the problem worse.

      It’s like if there was a food shortage, and someone bought up all the grocery stores. Then they made all of them mazes and had half the cereal boxes empty.

      • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Interesting how you brought incels up here and how you think they are created from the apps.

        There’s a huge portion of users that reach for such an app that may think ‘intimate relationships =happiness’ that require therapy to address why they are unhappy (and how they do relationships) before they should try a relationship (regardless of app).

        While I don’t believe the apps are necessarily what is causing this problem (any user decides on their own whether they are ready to date regardless of mental and emotional capability prior to joining) It certainly doesn’t help the situation but makes the compound result much faster. EG: I’ve seen the ‘ghosting’ definition change a lot once dating apps came into play. It used to be when you have a legitimate relationship developed and one person nopes out of it without warning. It had a legitimate victim that’s left out of the cold when another person essentially wasted their time and had a very hefty amount of inconsideration. Now it’s used in a situation if a dude gave someone the jeeb vibes on first meet and got immediately blocked after the one date or even before it makes it to that point and then calls it ghosting. And before we go the route of “well how would he know if no one tells him his behaviour is weird” : dating isn’t a survey. victims of the creepy behaviour aren’t therapists and it’s not their job. They are just on there to date too. They just want to feel safe. Their job at most is themselves. It’s not to curate someone else to become dateable. Lots of unsafe topics about the dating apps on documentaries around so people aren’t going to take it on themselves to provide feedback such as “what you said was inappropriate” without that going sideways with aggression and feeling even more unsafe.

        If this is actually feeling like it’s happening a lot, I’d say: close the dating app, find a therapist, talk about why you’re feeling lonely as the problem might be more local than it what is going on the dating app. Cuz the one person whose job it is to give feedback on how you’re doing especially in situations of a relationship with others is a therapist.

        It’s like you say: the apps are there to make money. They aren’t there with legitimate concern for their users whether or not they are ready for going into the dating pool. But that said: it really isn’t on the dating apps to do all that either, that is a question the user should be taking on themselves before joining the app and expecting all the results. Sometimes it is on the user.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          14 days ago

          I don’t disagree with anything here, really. As we both said, some responsibility remains on the user.

          I do think Match is aggravating the situation. Men aren’t getting traction so they search for why. They find right wing MRA stuff saying that it’s women’s fault blah blah blah, but really part of why they’re not getting hits is because Match is hiding them unless you pay (and even then maybe).

          Part of why may also be they’re creeps or bad at dating. It is not wholly the apps’ fault. But I do think they’re making it harder for people to connect, and that can be the top of the funnel for far right ideas.

          And I do think a lot of people are on the apps when they aren’t really ready. People of all genders. But that’s a separate topic, probably.

          Anyway. Good talk. Amusingly , I’m heading out to meet someone from a dating app. Here’s hoping they don’t think I’m a creep!

    • SybilVane@lemmy.ca
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      14 days ago

      While I agree about third places, I think it’s interesting that you then focused on dating.

      Loneliness means lack of friendships and family ties as well. I think a lot of men are focused on dating, and even when they are in a relationship, they use that as their only source of socialization outside the workplace. A lot of the barriers that exist for one are true for the rest as well, it is hard to make friends nowadays as an adult! There are so many people that stop trying, and it isn’t surprising.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      13 days ago

      There ain’t never a shortage of dick!

      Society has always put premium on women due to biology. Yeah it results in some weird externalities for men. Women got their own bags though.

      • 31337@sh.itjust.works
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        13 days ago

        Lol. Bad joke. What I was getting at is people used to hang out at bars and drink more (alcohol use was worse). More generally, it’s a lack of third places and car-based city design. More, and more engaging in-home entertainment/Internet also probably plays a part. Though, it’s probably not a completely new phenomenon either, judging from art like Taxi Driver, Catcher In The Rye, etc. So, toxic or even plain masculinity likely makes it harder to make and keep close friends.

        I’d bet female loneliness is also rising in modern society as well, due to modern phenomenon. Humans didn’t evolve to live like we are. We used to mostly live in small, close-knit tribes.

  • Bacano@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Sex researchers Baumeister and Tice wrote about sexual economics.

    “A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange.”

    From an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense that women wouldn’t want a partner that can’t provide security for the couple when the woman would be vulnerable if pregnant/nursing.

    Young men in particular have fewer resources of value to offer than at any time in most people’s lives. To that point, it’s not like young women are dating any better, so even if they are willing to be the sole provider, most are unable to do so.

    With the traditional partnership which historically provided companionship out of the question, men are left yearning for female companionship.

    Another point the researchers make, is that men will always yearn, while women have a generally easier time abstaining until conditions are right.

  • Mammothmothman@lemmy.ca
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    14 days ago

    There is a lot of comments faulting society. But the individuals need to take personal accountability. Choosing to live online is what I see as the crux of this issue. This comes from personal experience of living online and being loney and miserable untill i started getting out and meeting people. This lonelyness “epedemic” is people not managing their screen time.

    • SoftTeeth@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Generally if there is a massive trend in society then only systemic changes will change that trend.

      Sure it would be nice if every incel worked out, microdosed mushrooms and became more selfless people, but that’s not something that will happen.

      One thing that would fix a lot of this would be the government better regulating dating apps, since that’s how the vast majority of people meet their partners now.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
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    14 days ago

    There’s a multitude of reasons, my personal favourite is that men are highly aggressive sexual creatures and the stigma against homosexuality is hindering our ability to form fulfilling relationships with our male peers.

    Just crack open a history book, looks like a lot of the masculine activities came with a considerable amount of gay sex. Like, it seems like the main draw of joining an army to go to war is that you can fuck a bunch of dudes the whole time you’re away on campaign.