14 ms·

The Legion Lonely

192 points by fern12 9y ago

aurelianito 9y ago
We need to begin to discuss the issues that affect men in greater proportion, like solitude and suicide. I applaud the existence of this article. Thanks for posting it.
- ams6110 9y ago
  The throngs of support for your position here speak volumes.
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    It's a touchy topic and I imagine people feel less comfortable discussing it than for example the latest Uber scandal.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  As a feminist, I think it's important to recognize that patriarchy hurts both men and women with its pigeonholed stereotypes. There are unfortunately people who try to hijack this to push their agenda that men's problems are more important than women's problems, which complicates things. But yes, in allowing women to be strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to be weak and to ask for help if they need it.
  - aoeuasdf1 9y ago
    Agreed, which is why I think patriarchy is a bad term for communicating with conservatives or people who aren't used to feminist discourse. I prefer "gender roles". reddit.com/r/Menslib is a good subreddit on these issues
    - fastball 9y ago
      Really, "patriarchy" as a term probably shouldn't be used at all if you want to have a serious discussion about Western culture.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    I'm baffled what people are finding offensive enough to downvote here. Did you see the words "feminist" and "patriarchy" and stop reading?
    - abstractbeliefs 9y ago
      I haven't voted in this article either way, but my take on why people might be downvoting you are twofold: 1) You've come into a thread that is specifically looking at men's problems, and made it about feminism and your own highly female-oriented viewpoints: "As a feminist", the (justifiable) fear that people make this out as "men's problems are more important than women's problems", "allowing women to be strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to be weak and to ask for help if they need it.". If people came into a thread about sexism in the work place and explained an opinion with similar words with flipped gender, they would be criticised. 2) For the worse, the terms you pick out yourself have been coopted by an unfortunate group who use them to push their own agenda, who go around with mugs marked "Male Tears", gleeful in the support of a minority of people abusing the term and the quiet tolerance of many more. They don't represent feminism or progressive values. But they do use the words most loudly, and that develops unfortunate connotations. Overall, your points may be valid, but your expression of them alienates the people this article is about and addresses.
      - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        Thanks for the response. What I was trying to convey is that I agree with Aurelianito. There does need to be attention paid to men's issues. I framed it the way I did because I think this is often portrayed as an anti-feminist argument, by people on both sides, and I disagree with them; I think it's important for feminists to care about men's issues, and it's important for feminists to say that precisely because of the people you mention in #2, to counterbalance them and demonstrate that they don't speak for all of us. But some people don't want to see a reasonable counterbalance. They see a word they don't like and downvote without reading; they actually get angry when others fail to live down to their stereotypes. Going in the other direction, I've seen liberal feminists get confused and angry when they meet a conservative who supports GLBT rights. It makes people uncomfortable when folks don't stay in their pigeonholes. It's frustrating.
  - home_boi 9y ago
    Patriarchy is a model whose name alone understandably offends and antagonizes an entire gender. It is clear that the people backing the model will not be effective in helping men because they are either ignorant about or do not care about the feelings of men. > There are unfortunately people who try to hijack this to push their agenda Hypocritically, you're using the topic to push your own agenda here. Which further shows how adopting the patriachy model will not help.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      Did you miss that I agreed with aurelianito? That I said, yes, absolutely, there needs to be attention paid to men's issues?
    - Lagged2Death 9y ago
      Patriarchy is a model whose name alone... Hearing the name doesn't make you an expert. The world isn't so systematic; history and context matter. There's quite a lot of study and learning to absorb if you're inclined, but this is a stunning demonstration of arrogance from ignorance, and I can't understand why anyone would want to demonstrate that. "Boi."
      - throwanem 9y ago
        You're right! History and context do matter. In this case, there's a lot of history and context around the form of argument from patriarchy in spaces where men are discussing the issues that affect us. Very little of that history or context suggests that entertaining such arguments, in such spaces, is at all helpful in finding effective ways to improve men's lives or ameliorate men's suffering. What you're doing is, though, very effective as a derailing tactic, although I have to say you're really going above and beyond with the contempt you add to it. What are you trying to accomplish, this way? What do you imagine that you're helping? What you've said here, and the way in which you've said it, does nothing to convince anyone that the conceptual schema you advocate has any genuine value - indeed, quite the opposite. Yet this nonetheless is what you chose to say, and how you chose to say it. Why?
- stonejolt 9y ago
  If you want to discuss and/or fight those issues, try to find your local mens rights group. they are well connected and can offer advice on those topics.
nebabyte 9y ago
I really wish for a news source that published articles on topics such as these that forewent the overwritten "few paragraphs on a quirky introduction, obligatory 'case study' anecdote referenced throughout, etc" article recipe and just stuck with the relevant statistics and a brief commentary for the author's thoughts on the topic. I suppose I should've been around for /.'s heyday, it seems like that was its thing.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Yeah, what surprises me is that it seems there are a substantial group of us that would consume such a product, but no one has really delivered. I think the market is ripe.
  - jackvalentine 9y ago
    Would you be interested in editing this essay down to the article you're proposing?
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      Not particularly, even though somehow even being asked caused a slight twinge of guilt in me. To be honest I didn't even read the article till after I made that comment, as I was mostly replying to the other commenter on a much more general subject than this particular article. It's a subject I've thought about quite a bit actually, so seeing the GP comment I replied on that basis. For example, I think the twitterization of information has been bad in the sense that it reduces information in it's deepness, I think part of the reason for the success of twitter is that in the modern age we have more and more things competing for our attention, and therefor less time to dedicate to various pursuits. Twitter answered this problem by placing a hard limit on characters... which reduced time needed to consume, but failed to provide mechanisms that provided good content, in favor of short content. The tldr being a better form that fills this niche, perhaps, would be the kind of thing that would assist those of us who value content quality but still don't want to spend too much time on something that is of unknown quality. Medium did something interesting in this regard by giving readers time to read estimates. They still lack quality indicators, as do most information outlets. Some of my ideas for solutions would be machine ratings of strength of logic, or argument-map generation. So I'm coming at the issue in a more abstract way. All that said, and despite my original no, I will give my version of the tldr. Loneliness is an issue that seems to disproportionately affect men, but it shouldn't be confused with social isolation. One can feel isolated and lonely despite social connectedness. For the most part it boils down to a lack of trust, and therefore intimacy in conversation and other actions which are failing to meet emotional needs of men. While most indicators show that a relationship such as marriage often meets the emotional needs through a partner, they also show that once in a relationship where emotional needs are met social isolation increases. Hope is not lost though, there are techniques that can be used, such as reframing or CBT, to help lonely people get out of that rut, and much of it will need to be not just singular but cultural. If you're lonely, just know you aren't the only one, and the situation can improve, and knowing others often feel the same way despite hiding it (like you hide yourself) is likely to be a threshold that can help you overcome the fear needed to make the positive moves needed to progress. Slightly off-topic, but I wonder how much the chilling-effect of the surveillance society has increased this loneliness due to lack of trust (perhaps of the medium and not of the person on the other end).
quickthrower2 9y ago
> bodies were stored in refrigerated meat-packing trucks. Wat? Wouldn't it be better to pump that refrigeration into said 49 degrees C appartments instead, where the alive but dying people are?
santoshalper 9y ago
Man, this one really hit close to home for me. There was a time a few years ago when I realized every friend I had in the world was a co-worker. When I left my job a few years back, I lost almost all of them. We'd try to stay close, but it never worked very well. Everyone, myself included was just too busy. The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely.
- foobarian 9y ago
  It seems like church/organized religion is a useful channel for connecting people outside work. I'm not a zealot or believer by any means but the times I tagged along to Catholic services I was impressed the most by the post-service socializing and general connectedness of the churchgoers.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I have noticed that too. Churchgoers have an instant network wherever they go. I am not a believer but that's a nice trait. I don't know of anything else that can be compared.
    - Godel_unicode 9y ago
      Pretty much any popular group activity fits that pattern. I play basketball and hack on Python, and both have been excellent ways to meet interesting people in new towns. It helps (with basketball at least) to be good, but mostly you just have to be a friendly person and go hang out at the gym/Meetup.
    - sulam 9y ago
      AA. Which is basically church. :)
  - darkmighty 9y ago
    I feel there's a really enormous market for this kind of non-religious gathering. And not centered in any particular activity either: when people lack religion they usually go for hobbies/sports, but that's an entirely different affair that doesn't necessarily relieve loneliness (especially if it is competitive, 1v1 or solo). Not everyone has the necessary skill for a hobby, the necessary funds, etc. What we really crave is a place for discussing ethics, morals and general life guidelines. Church has many interesting properties that have been abandoned (due to obsolescence of the content, but not the form!): you can be just a passive observer in Church. You're with other people, which generally act supportively in this environment, and you can just be there amongst others without speaking, only hearing both comforting and hopefully useful ethical guidelines. You're hearing that you're loved and that everyone should love eachother -- which is usually true in the first case, and generally accepted in the latter -- but sometimes a reminder is really due. Then if you have a problem you don't feel like sharing with anyone else, you have this guy, the priest, which has essentially a confidentiality agreement that you can safely tell him whatever. If you have a problem you can ask for guidance. The priest can usually pull some strings to get other churchgoers to assist you if necessary too (especially easy but important things like emotional support). What we have today as non-religious individuals are for the most part psychologists, which have many issues: -- You don't get the participation feel from joining a large group of people, and interacting with the ones you are interested in that group; -- They tend to view your problems as disorders, when sometimes all you need is the presence of a group of people for alleviating light emotional distress; -- They don't feel too confident giving advice, and they probably shouldn't, since they may not have experience with your situation (whereas some churchgoers might); and very important: -- They are expensive, while church is completely free. In a web jargon, psychologists don't scale very well. Suppose everybody went to see a psychologist, and each psychologist had 10 patients. Then at least 10% of the population needs to be psychologists. Instead you could get k -- a lot better than 1 -- mutual confidants by connecting with a k person subgroup out of a larger meeting. And when you can't find a suitable subgroup, you have a speaker giving general advice for a very large number of people. We need non-religious churches.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
I can't prioritize it now, but I predict a team of people who go around doing "social extraction"... Pulling people out of isolation into loving communities. Consensually of course. I just think everyone is inherently beautiful, even those who have gotten stuck in solitary loops, and lost the ability to connect. I see someone like that as unrealized value... Like a stunted tree growing in the shade, or in dry soil. There's plenty of sun and water for everyone. Well, metaphorically. In social connection, each person you add multiplies those life giving resources.
- blablabla123 9y ago
  I don't think that would really work. When you dive a lot into loneliness, you begin to create your own world with your own habits and not so usual interests. Been there myself, now having actually somehow connections to such communities, I realize how hard it is to find common ground, to actually integrate and eventually form friendships. The article suggests some points how to transform yourself, so connections form automatically. Of course you must have some day to day interaction with other people.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    > When you dive a lot into loneliness, you begin to create your own world with your own habits and not so usual interests. Not sure this generalizes.
    - drdeadringer 9y ago
      For what it's worth, I'm seeing it develop for myself at the moment.
- benologist 9y ago
  There's already "people walking" services for getting social time - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-people-walker-chuck-mccarthy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-...
Pamar 9y ago
For anyone interested in (or worried about) this I strongly suggest to read A Philosophy of Loneliness by Lars Svendsen. This book analyzes loneliness (and solitude, the more positive counterpart) to a great detail, and offers some constructive and positive suggestions on how to transform the former into the latter. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-of-loneliness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-of...
Aaargh20318 9y ago
It’s good that this issue is being addressed, but I wish there was an equal amount of attention for people like me with the opposite problem: too much social interaction and no way to escape it.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  I think the point is you can have lots of social interaction but still have superficial relationships and little support network. Not saying that's your situation of course.
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  Is this... a thing? Surely you can escape it by just not going?
  - ido 9y ago
    i assumed it's at work
    - Aaargh20318 9y ago
      It’s everywhere and all the time.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    I have to go to work to have an income, I have to go to a supermarket to get food. You can’t even order stuff online without getting a mailman at the door. I would be fine if I could limiti it to a couple of hours of human contact a month, but society forces me to have social interactions all day every day. It’s making me seriously depressed and super anxious.
    - throwanem 9y ago
bronz 9y ago
i know a thing or two about loneliness. there have been periods of my life during which, i am now sure, i experienced some of the deepest loneliness that a person might ever experience outside of being marooned on a small island. i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years. during that time i developed mental health problems and negative habits that, at the time, i did not realize were due to loneliness. this was compounded by super bad stress from other things in my life. i reached profoundly low states of mental well-being -- looking back i actually am astonished. there is no doubt in my mind that whatever i encounter later in terms of loneliness, it will never come close to that. after four years i met a girl and we lived together for another three years. the article hits the nail on the head about married couples -- having an so is the number one solution for loneliness. it turned my whole situation around and has left me off much better even though the relationship came to a sad end. if any of you guys are stuck being super lonely, i would recommend getting a girlfriend no matter the cost. also, i would recommend taking a complete multivitamin. something in those things makes my depression a lot better. good luck.
- throwanem 9y ago
  I can't really go along here. Sure, getting into a relationship with someone who's reasonably compatible with you will do a lot to ameliorate loneliness. But getting into a relationship "no matter the cost" is not a good way to find someone reasonably compatible with yourself, and being distracted from feeling lonely by the many other problems such a person can bring is not really the same as no longer feeling lonely. You just end up lonely and miserable.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  > i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years. As someone who craves solitude, how did you manage this ? I can't even go a day without seeing another human being, let alone 4 years. How do you get food, income, housing ?
  - tacostakohashi 9y ago
    I'm sure you can get a few tips from this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight
jnsaff2 9y ago
We have a small group of men, mostly ex colleagues from different IT contracts that kind of acts as like a support group doing simple things like going to a driving range or bouldering or beers in London. Drop me a line if you'd like to join sometime.
- sjtgraham 9y ago
  I have found great friendships at various contracting gigs. In fact most of my best friends are ex-colleagues. It's worked out really well to be honest.
lolc 9y ago
What I found most interesting was how the essay explores the different meanings of loneliness. I don't think of myself as a lonely person because I've been living with people all my life. It's hard to admit but I don't have anybody I'd consider a close friend. Saying this might hurt the people I'm close to, and sure it's all a matter of degree. But still I find myself trapped in the "no emotion" zone I've grown into. And getting out of this is hard, particularly when I must assume that the people around me have been similarly socialized.
- Thriptic 9y ago
  Start slow. Pick a friend you want to get to know better, share some light shared domain related concern or fear with them (work related, hobby related, etc), and see how it is received. If they are empathetic and supportive then you can open up more over time as you build trust. If they aren't serious or brush you off then you haven't really lost much social capital and you can move on to someone else.
avenoir 9y ago
This is basically me in a couple of decades. 8 months ago I moved out to Denver and made an uncomfortable realization - I haven't made friends since high school and I have no idea how to make friends. I tried Meetup and other random social gatherings without making any meaningful connections and then I just quit making any effort. I've since slipped into not caring and getting comfortable being alone most of the time here. The only social interaction I have is when I visit office once a few months (I work remote) or go back to my hometown. I used to hate it, now I enjoy it but it makes me wonder what will come of it when I'm much older. In the back of my mind I'm thinking I should quit my remote job (which I love) and find something local or move back. Thank God for the great outdoors and coffee shops in the meantime lol
- Pamar 9y ago
  May I offer a suggestion? Try enrolling in a martial arts course. You can surely find something that fits your own preferences in terms of "intensity" and it might get you in touch with people.
  - starbuxman 9y ago
    I totally agree with this. I enrolled in martial arts one year after moving to a new city, and they've become a great circle of friends. The camaraderie you build with martial arts folks is a special one.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    Similarly, a sports team or another group engaged in relatively challenging physical activities (such as hiking and backpacking, especially in CO this would be a lot of fun).
  - avenoir 9y ago
    I actually have a buddy who's into Tai Chi and also recommended this to me as a way to meet new people when i first came out here. This completely escaped me since. Thanks for the suggestion!
- gooseus 9y ago
whipoodle 9y ago
Yeah, it's sad. But I just find relations with people exhausting and disappointing. Romantic relationships and careers use you up, not build you up. They are about what other people can get from you and rarely the reverse. I think I prefer animals.
- fastball 9y ago
  I thought I was a sociopath but I think you've got me beat.
  - whipoodle 9y ago
    As a writer I enjoy very much says, you're not a sociopath, just a garden-variety narcissist.
mcguire 9y ago
"Perhaps you want to say that men just like it that way. Perhaps you want to say, like Geoffrey Grief, writing in Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships, “Men are more comfortable with shoulder-to-shoulder friendships while women prefer face-to-face friendships, which are more emotionally expressive.” Shoulder-to-shoulder meaning: engaging in a shared activity, like playing a game of pick-up basketball, as opposed to confiding face-to-face and being emotionally vulnerable. This may be true for some men, who, like some women, need less intimacy than others. But when asked, men say we wish we had more intimacy in our friendships with other men." Oh, the irony.
- throwanem 9y ago
  What irony?
  - mcguire 9y ago
    We just wrapped up another round of the "women in technology" discussions, where one of the primary arguments was, "they would prefer not to work here."
    - throwanem 9y ago
      So the argument here is what? That increasing the proportion of women in specific technical fields will have some beneficial effect on the ability of men to become emotionally intimate in their friendships with one another? That doesn't seem to me to follow, but I suspect I must be misgathering your point here in any case, not least because you've approached it in the vaguest of terms. Will you make plain what you're trying to say, so that it's possible to sustain a discussion around it instead of ending up talking past one another as I feel we're at risk of doing right now?
      - mcguire 9y ago
        Irony: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result." The parallel construction strikes me as amusing.
deleted 9y ago
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j7ake 9y ago
What about getting a dog?
blablabla123 9y ago
Read the book "Who to win friends and influence people". This is not only a sales bible but a book that shows how to actually connect with people. Kind of lengthy read but I can really recommend it.
- akoster 9y ago
  Great suggestion! Here a more about this great book by Dale Carnegie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...
- norswap 9y ago
  I read it, and it's full of platitudes. Useful platitudes, to be sure -- if the book is a revelation to the reader, the reader probably did well to pick it up. Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the kind of deeper - vulnerable - connections that are stressed in the article.
  - blablabla123 9y ago
    >Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the >kind of deeper - vulnerable - connections that are stressed >in the article. No probably not. That would be really surprising also. I can really imagine this guy who wrote it, an ancient American business man - he's surely not into that kind of stuff. Anyways, it's a start ;)
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dickler 9y ago
Loneliness is a problem AI will fix. 100s of personalities that can be virtual and in humanoid robot form.
- gaius 9y ago
  But why is loneliness a problem? Because evolution; being apart from the tribe was not a good survival strategy so we have developed an intuitive "feel bad when cut off" mechanism. Same with fear of ostracism; being cast out from the tribe was a death sentence. You can to a very limited extent "hack" it - why people carry around photos of loved ones in their wallets and look at them to trigger the recognition response - but a chatbot that could operate at that level would be indistinguishable from a sentient being in its own right, in which case why not make real friends with it?
  - matz1 9y ago
    Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don't behave like you expected or when you dont need them.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don't behave like you expected or when you dont need them. I don't think that knowing you can do this and successfully fooling your internal anti-loneliness mechanisms are compatible. You simply won't get the full range of emotional stimuli.
hamai 9y ago
The root epidemics is of people only focusing on themselves. Do voluntary jobs with sick and old people. Replacing your problems with other people's problems makes you think better.
- emerged 9y ago
  Yeah - I was just thinking "jeez all these people sure like talking about themselves" while scrolling through this thread. Self focus is a great way to push people away and a terrible way to be happy.
microcolonel 9y ago
I appreciate the attempt; but I feel like "boys don't cry enough" (sorry, I know this is oversimplified) is the wrong place to look. The reason why I think this is the case, is that loneliness has been increasing while it has become more socially acceptable for boys and men to be open about their emotions. I have never, in my life as a boy and (hopefully) now a man, been told unironically that boys and men shouldn't cry, or that I in particular shouldn't cry. I don't think it would have any effect on my behaviour. From my perspective it really must be something else. Anecdotally I am a very lonely person right now. For the last six months or so, I could be described as about a 32 on the UCLA scale. I am nonetheless a very emotionally open person. I address emotional problems honestly, it just seems that I can not address loneliness the same way. I think the activity that is required to build deep friendships, is to attempt to build many shallow ones, and see who sticks around. That has had the most success for me. I think the final bit of motivation for this is the research on health outcomes (though, granted, it could be a bit biased since unhealthy people are also more likely to be lonely). Also regarding “But to paraphrase University of Missouri researchers Barbara Bank and Suzanne Hansford, men have power, but are not well.”; I don't know what on earth they are talking about. What power do men have? Surely some men are powerful, and there are more powerful men than powerful women, but men as a whole are not powerful in any way I could recognize (in NA). Regarding “A man should never reveal worries to others.”, I think this is more a statement of strategic fact than an opinion. Nobody cares about men, especially not other men; so unless you have good reason to believe you will be helped rather than exploited, showing vulnerability to others is strategically suicidal. As for the “no homo” stuff, it is essential. If you can't tell whether somebody is trying to befriend you or seduce you , you can not be at ease; you can't tell if you're just being a good friend, or leading them on. This connects directly with the later mention of "A lot of men don’t cultivate emotional intimacy when they are not in partnership with a significant other.". When you are in a relationship, making friends becomes more straightforward, since more variables are known to both parties. Maybe I should go get coffee with Steven, we share a city after all.
Pamar 9y ago
Another related submission that includes also pointers to support groups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
while close friendships increase your longevity by up to 22 percent Any anyone find the reference for this in the linked study. The PDF[1] is quite long and my CTRL-F Fu is failing me. 1. http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-files/Documents/StudyOfAgeing%5B1%5D.pdf http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-files/Documents/StudyOf...
- detaro 9y ago
  It cites http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574 http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574 Quoting the abstract: Main results: After controlling for a range of demographic, health, and lifestyle variables, greater networks with friends were protective against mortality in the 10 year follow up period. The hazard ratio for participants in the highest tertile of friends networks compared with participants in the lowest group was 0.78 (95%CI 0.65 to 0.92) I assume that 0.78 is where the 100-78 = 22 % number comes from? (Although it doesn't really match the phrasing "increases your longevity by up to", it seems to be the closest?)
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Thank you!

192 points by fern12 9y ago

We need to begin to discuss the issues that affect men in greater proportion, like solitude and suicide. I applaud the existence of this article. Thanks for posting it.

ams6110 9y ago
The throngs of support for your position here speak volumes.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  It's a touchy topic and I imagine people feel less comfortable discussing it than for example the latest Uber scandal.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
As a feminist, I think it's important to recognize that patriarchy hurts both men and women with its pigeonholed stereotypes. There are unfortunately people who try to hijack this to push their agenda that men's problems are more important than women's problems, which complicates things. But yes, in allowing women to be strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to be weak and to ask for help if they need it.
- aoeuasdf1 9y ago
  Agreed, which is why I think patriarchy is a bad term for communicating with conservatives or people who aren't used to feminist discourse. I prefer "gender roles". reddit.com/r/Menslib is a good subreddit on these issues
  - fastball 9y ago
    Really, "patriarchy" as a term probably shouldn't be used at all if you want to have a serious discussion about Western culture.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  I'm baffled what people are finding offensive enough to downvote here. Did you see the words "feminist" and "patriarchy" and stop reading?
  - abstractbeliefs 9y ago
    I haven't voted in this article either way, but my take on why people might be downvoting you are twofold: 1) You've come into a thread that is specifically looking at men's problems, and made it about feminism and your own highly female-oriented viewpoints: "As a feminist", the (justifiable) fear that people make this out as "men's problems are more important than women's problems", "allowing women to be strong and independent, I think we also must allow men to be weak and to ask for help if they need it.". If people came into a thread about sexism in the work place and explained an opinion with similar words with flipped gender, they would be criticised. 2) For the worse, the terms you pick out yourself have been coopted by an unfortunate group who use them to push their own agenda, who go around with mugs marked "Male Tears", gleeful in the support of a minority of people abusing the term and the quiet tolerance of many more. They don't represent feminism or progressive values. But they do use the words most loudly, and that develops unfortunate connotations. Overall, your points may be valid, but your expression of them alienates the people this article is about and addresses.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      Thanks for the response. What I was trying to convey is that I agree with Aurelianito. There does need to be attention paid to men's issues. I framed it the way I did because I think this is often portrayed as an anti-feminist argument, by people on both sides, and I disagree with them; I think it's important for feminists to care about men's issues, and it's important for feminists to say that precisely because of the people you mention in #2, to counterbalance them and demonstrate that they don't speak for all of us. But some people don't want to see a reasonable counterbalance. They see a word they don't like and downvote without reading; they actually get angry when others fail to live down to their stereotypes. Going in the other direction, I've seen liberal feminists get confused and angry when they meet a conservative who supports GLBT rights. It makes people uncomfortable when folks don't stay in their pigeonholes. It's frustrating.
- home_boi 9y ago
  Patriarchy is a model whose name alone understandably offends and antagonizes an entire gender. It is clear that the people backing the model will not be effective in helping men because they are either ignorant about or do not care about the feelings of men. > There are unfortunately people who try to hijack this to push their agenda Hypocritically, you're using the topic to push your own agenda here. Which further shows how adopting the patriachy model will not help.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    Did you miss that I agreed with aurelianito? That I said, yes, absolutely, there needs to be attention paid to men's issues?
  - Lagged2Death 9y ago
    Patriarchy is a model whose name alone... Hearing the name doesn't make you an expert. The world isn't so systematic; history and context matter. There's quite a lot of study and learning to absorb if you're inclined, but this is a stunning demonstration of arrogance from ignorance, and I can't understand why anyone would want to demonstrate that. "Boi."
    - throwanem 9y ago
      You're right! History and context do matter. In this case, there's a lot of history and context around the form of argument from patriarchy in spaces where men are discussing the issues that affect us. Very little of that history or context suggests that entertaining such arguments, in such spaces, is at all helpful in finding effective ways to improve men's lives or ameliorate men's suffering. What you're doing is, though, very effective as a derailing tactic, although I have to say you're really going above and beyond with the contempt you add to it. What are you trying to accomplish, this way? What do you imagine that you're helping? What you've said here, and the way in which you've said it, does nothing to convince anyone that the conceptual schema you advocate has any genuine value - indeed, quite the opposite. Yet this nonetheless is what you chose to say, and how you chose to say it. Why?
stonejolt 9y ago
If you want to discuss and/or fight those issues, try to find your local mens rights group. they are well connected and can offer advice on those topics.

nebabyte 9y ago

I really wish for a news source that published articles on topics such as these that forewent the overwritten "few paragraphs on a quirky introduction, obligatory 'case study' anecdote referenced throughout, etc" article recipe and just stuck with the relevant statistics and a brief commentary for the author's thoughts on the topic. I suppose I should've been around for /.'s heyday, it seems like that was its thing.

arca_vorago 9y ago
Yeah, what surprises me is that it seems there are a substantial group of us that would consume such a product, but no one has really delivered. I think the market is ripe.
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  Would you be interested in editing this essay down to the article you're proposing?
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Not particularly, even though somehow even being asked caused a slight twinge of guilt in me. To be honest I didn't even read the article till after I made that comment, as I was mostly replying to the other commenter on a much more general subject than this particular article. It's a subject I've thought about quite a bit actually, so seeing the GP comment I replied on that basis. For example, I think the twitterization of information has been bad in the sense that it reduces information in it's deepness, I think part of the reason for the success of twitter is that in the modern age we have more and more things competing for our attention, and therefor less time to dedicate to various pursuits. Twitter answered this problem by placing a hard limit on characters... which reduced time needed to consume, but failed to provide mechanisms that provided good content, in favor of short content. The tldr being a better form that fills this niche, perhaps, would be the kind of thing that would assist those of us who value content quality but still don't want to spend too much time on something that is of unknown quality. Medium did something interesting in this regard by giving readers time to read estimates. They still lack quality indicators, as do most information outlets. Some of my ideas for solutions would be machine ratings of strength of logic, or argument-map generation. So I'm coming at the issue in a more abstract way. All that said, and despite my original no, I will give my version of the tldr. Loneliness is an issue that seems to disproportionately affect men, but it shouldn't be confused with social isolation. One can feel isolated and lonely despite social connectedness. For the most part it boils down to a lack of trust, and therefore intimacy in conversation and other actions which are failing to meet emotional needs of men. While most indicators show that a relationship such as marriage often meets the emotional needs through a partner, they also show that once in a relationship where emotional needs are met social isolation increases. Hope is not lost though, there are techniques that can be used, such as reframing or CBT, to help lonely people get out of that rut, and much of it will need to be not just singular but cultural. If you're lonely, just know you aren't the only one, and the situation can improve, and knowing others often feel the same way despite hiding it (like you hide yourself) is likely to be a threshold that can help you overcome the fear needed to make the positive moves needed to progress. Slightly off-topic, but I wonder how much the chilling-effect of the surveillance society has increased this loneliness due to lack of trust (perhaps of the medium and not of the person on the other end).

quickthrower2 9y ago

> bodies were stored in refrigerated meat-packing trucks. Wat? Wouldn't it be better to pump that refrigeration into said 49 degrees C appartments instead, where the alive but dying people are?

santoshalper 9y ago

Man, this one really hit close to home for me. There was a time a few years ago when I realized every friend I had in the world was a co-worker. When I left my job a few years back, I lost almost all of them. We'd try to stay close, but it never worked very well. Everyone, myself included was just too busy. The funny thing is I have a wife and four kids so I am never alone, but painfully lonely.

foobarian 9y ago
It seems like church/organized religion is a useful channel for connecting people outside work. I'm not a zealot or believer by any means but the times I tagged along to Catholic services I was impressed the most by the post-service socializing and general connectedness of the churchgoers.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I have noticed that too. Churchgoers have an instant network wherever they go. I am not a believer but that's a nice trait. I don't know of anything else that can be compared.
  - Godel_unicode 9y ago
    Pretty much any popular group activity fits that pattern. I play basketball and hack on Python, and both have been excellent ways to meet interesting people in new towns. It helps (with basketball at least) to be good, but mostly you just have to be a friendly person and go hang out at the gym/Meetup.
  - sulam 9y ago
    AA. Which is basically church. :)
- darkmighty 9y ago
  I feel there's a really enormous market for this kind of non-religious gathering. And not centered in any particular activity either: when people lack religion they usually go for hobbies/sports, but that's an entirely different affair that doesn't necessarily relieve loneliness (especially if it is competitive, 1v1 or solo). Not everyone has the necessary skill for a hobby, the necessary funds, etc. What we really crave is a place for discussing ethics, morals and general life guidelines. Church has many interesting properties that have been abandoned (due to obsolescence of the content, but not the form!): you can be just a passive observer in Church. You're with other people, which generally act supportively in this environment, and you can just be there amongst others without speaking, only hearing both comforting and hopefully useful ethical guidelines. You're hearing that you're loved and that everyone should love eachother -- which is usually true in the first case, and generally accepted in the latter -- but sometimes a reminder is really due. Then if you have a problem you don't feel like sharing with anyone else, you have this guy, the priest, which has essentially a confidentiality agreement that you can safely tell him whatever. If you have a problem you can ask for guidance. The priest can usually pull some strings to get other churchgoers to assist you if necessary too (especially easy but important things like emotional support). What we have today as non-religious individuals are for the most part psychologists, which have many issues: -- You don't get the participation feel from joining a large group of people, and interacting with the ones you are interested in that group; -- They tend to view your problems as disorders, when sometimes all you need is the presence of a group of people for alleviating light emotional distress; -- They don't feel too confident giving advice, and they probably shouldn't, since they may not have experience with your situation (whereas some churchgoers might); and very important: -- They are expensive, while church is completely free. In a web jargon, psychologists don't scale very well. Suppose everybody went to see a psychologist, and each psychologist had 10 patients. Then at least 10% of the population needs to be psychologists. Instead you could get k -- a lot better than 1 -- mutual confidants by connecting with a k person subgroup out of a larger meeting. And when you can't find a suitable subgroup, you have a speaker giving general advice for a very large number of people. We need non-religious churches.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

I can't prioritize it now, but I predict a team of people who go around doing "social extraction"... Pulling people out of isolation into loving communities. Consensually of course. I just think everyone is inherently beautiful, even those who have gotten stuck in solitary loops, and lost the ability to connect. I see someone like that as unrealized value... Like a stunted tree growing in the shade, or in dry soil. There's plenty of sun and water for everyone. Well, metaphorically. In social connection, each person you add multiplies those life giving resources.

blablabla123 9y ago
I don't think that would really work. When you dive a lot into loneliness, you begin to create your own world with your own habits and not so usual interests. Been there myself, now having actually somehow connections to such communities, I realize how hard it is to find common ground, to actually integrate and eventually form friendships. The article suggests some points how to transform yourself, so connections form automatically. Of course you must have some day to day interaction with other people.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > When you dive a lot into loneliness, you begin to create your own world with your own habits and not so usual interests. Not sure this generalizes.
  - drdeadringer 9y ago
    For what it's worth, I'm seeing it develop for myself at the moment.
benologist 9y ago
There's already "people walking" services for getting social time - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-people-walker-chuck-mccarthy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-...

Pamar 9y ago

For anyone interested in (or worried about) this I strongly suggest to read A Philosophy of Loneliness by Lars Svendsen. This book analyzes loneliness (and solitude, the more positive counterpart) to a great detail, and offers some constructive and positive suggestions on how to transform the former into the latter. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-of-loneliness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573708-a-philosophy-of...

Aaargh20318 9y ago

It’s good that this issue is being addressed, but I wish there was an equal amount of attention for people like me with the opposite problem: too much social interaction and no way to escape it.

quickthrower2 9y ago
I think the point is you can have lots of social interaction but still have superficial relationships and little support network. Not saying that's your situation of course.
jackvalentine 9y ago
Is this... a thing? Surely you can escape it by just not going?
- ido 9y ago
  i assumed it's at work
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    It’s everywhere and all the time.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  I have to go to work to have an income, I have to go to a supermarket to get food. You can’t even order stuff online without getting a mailman at the door. I would be fine if I could limiti it to a couple of hours of human contact a month, but society forces me to have social interactions all day every day. It’s making me seriously depressed and super anxious.
  - throwanem 9y ago

bronz 9y ago

i know a thing or two about loneliness. there have been periods of my life during which, i am now sure, i experienced some of the deepest loneliness that a person might ever experience outside of being marooned on a small island. i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years. during that time i developed mental health problems and negative habits that, at the time, i did not realize were due to loneliness. this was compounded by super bad stress from other things in my life. i reached profoundly low states of mental well-being -- looking back i actually am astonished. there is no doubt in my mind that whatever i encounter later in terms of loneliness, it will never come close to that. after four years i met a girl and we lived together for another three years. the article hits the nail on the head about married couples -- having an so is the number one solution for loneliness. it turned my whole situation around and has left me off much better even though the relationship came to a sad end. if any of you guys are stuck being super lonely, i would recommend getting a girlfriend no matter the cost. also, i would recommend taking a complete multivitamin. something in those things makes my depression a lot better. good luck.

throwanem 9y ago
I can't really go along here. Sure, getting into a relationship with someone who's reasonably compatible with you will do a lot to ameliorate loneliness. But getting into a relationship "no matter the cost" is not a good way to find someone reasonably compatible with yourself, and being distracted from feeling lonely by the many other problems such a person can bring is not really the same as no longer feeling lonely. You just end up lonely and miserable.
Aaargh20318 9y ago
> i guess i wont go into detail but i was completely alone for four years. As someone who craves solitude, how did you manage this ? I can't even go a day without seeing another human being, let alone 4 years. How do you get food, income, housing ?
- tacostakohashi 9y ago
  I'm sure you can get a few tips from this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight

jnsaff2 9y ago

We have a small group of men, mostly ex colleagues from different IT contracts that kind of acts as like a support group doing simple things like going to a driving range or bouldering or beers in London. Drop me a line if you'd like to join sometime.

sjtgraham 9y ago
I have found great friendships at various contracting gigs. In fact most of my best friends are ex-colleagues. It's worked out really well to be honest.

lolc 9y ago

What I found most interesting was how the essay explores the different meanings of loneliness. I don't think of myself as a lonely person because I've been living with people all my life. It's hard to admit but I don't have anybody I'd consider a close friend. Saying this might hurt the people I'm close to, and sure it's all a matter of degree. But still I find myself trapped in the "no emotion" zone I've grown into. And getting out of this is hard, particularly when I must assume that the people around me have been similarly socialized.

Thriptic 9y ago
Start slow. Pick a friend you want to get to know better, share some light shared domain related concern or fear with them (work related, hobby related, etc), and see how it is received. If they are empathetic and supportive then you can open up more over time as you build trust. If they aren't serious or brush you off then you haven't really lost much social capital and you can move on to someone else.

avenoir 9y ago

This is basically me in a couple of decades. 8 months ago I moved out to Denver and made an uncomfortable realization - I haven't made friends since high school and I have no idea how to make friends. I tried Meetup and other random social gatherings without making any meaningful connections and then I just quit making any effort. I've since slipped into not caring and getting comfortable being alone most of the time here. The only social interaction I have is when I visit office once a few months (I work remote) or go back to my hometown. I used to hate it, now I enjoy it but it makes me wonder what will come of it when I'm much older. In the back of my mind I'm thinking I should quit my remote job (which I love) and find something local or move back. Thank God for the great outdoors and coffee shops in the meantime lol

Pamar 9y ago
May I offer a suggestion? Try enrolling in a martial arts course. You can surely find something that fits your own preferences in terms of "intensity" and it might get you in touch with people.
- starbuxman 9y ago
  I totally agree with this. I enrolled in martial arts one year after moving to a new city, and they've become a great circle of friends. The camaraderie you build with martial arts folks is a special one.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  Similarly, a sports team or another group engaged in relatively challenging physical activities (such as hiking and backpacking, especially in CO this would be a lot of fun).
- avenoir 9y ago
  I actually have a buddy who's into Tai Chi and also recommended this to me as a way to meet new people when i first came out here. This completely escaped me since. Thanks for the suggestion!
gooseus 9y ago

whipoodle 9y ago

Yeah, it's sad. But I just find relations with people exhausting and disappointing. Romantic relationships and careers use you up, not build you up. They are about what other people can get from you and rarely the reverse. I think I prefer animals.

fastball 9y ago
I thought I was a sociopath but I think you've got me beat.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  As a writer I enjoy very much says, you're not a sociopath, just a garden-variety narcissist.

mcguire 9y ago

"Perhaps you want to say that men just like it that way. Perhaps you want to say, like Geoffrey Grief, writing in Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships, “Men are more comfortable with shoulder-to-shoulder friendships while women prefer face-to-face friendships, which are more emotionally expressive.” Shoulder-to-shoulder meaning: engaging in a shared activity, like playing a game of pick-up basketball, as opposed to confiding face-to-face and being emotionally vulnerable. This may be true for some men, who, like some women, need less intimacy than others. But when asked, men say we wish we had more intimacy in our friendships with other men." Oh, the irony.

throwanem 9y ago
What irony?
- mcguire 9y ago
  We just wrapped up another round of the "women in technology" discussions, where one of the primary arguments was, "they would prefer not to work here."
  - throwanem 9y ago
    So the argument here is what? That increasing the proportion of women in specific technical fields will have some beneficial effect on the ability of men to become emotionally intimate in their friendships with one another? That doesn't seem to me to follow, but I suspect I must be misgathering your point here in any case, not least because you've approached it in the vaguest of terms. Will you make plain what you're trying to say, so that it's possible to sustain a discussion around it instead of ending up talking past one another as I feel we're at risk of doing right now?
    - mcguire 9y ago
      Irony: "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result." The parallel construction strikes me as amusing.

deleted 9y ago

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j7ake 9y ago

What about getting a dog?

blablabla123 9y ago

Read the book "Who to win friends and influence people". This is not only a sales bible but a book that shows how to actually connect with people. Kind of lengthy read but I can really recommend it.

akoster 9y ago
Great suggestion! Here a more about this great book by Dale Carnegie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influ...
norswap 9y ago
I read it, and it's full of platitudes. Useful platitudes, to be sure -- if the book is a revelation to the reader, the reader probably did well to pick it up. Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the kind of deeper - vulnerable - connections that are stressed in the article.
- blablabla123 9y ago
  >Nevertheless, this is not the stuff that helps create the >kind of deeper - vulnerable - connections that are stressed >in the article. No probably not. That would be really surprising also. I can really imagine this guy who wrote it, an ancient American business man - he's surely not into that kind of stuff. Anyways, it's a start ;)

deleted 9y ago

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dickler 9y ago

Loneliness is a problem AI will fix. 100s of personalities that can be virtual and in humanoid robot form.

gaius 9y ago
But why is loneliness a problem? Because evolution; being apart from the tribe was not a good survival strategy so we have developed an intuitive "feel bad when cut off" mechanism. Same with fear of ostracism; being cast out from the tribe was a death sentence. You can to a very limited extent "hack" it - why people carry around photos of loved ones in their wallets and look at them to trigger the recognition response - but a chatbot that could operate at that level would be indistinguishable from a sentient being in its own right, in which case why not make real friends with it?
- matz1 9y ago
  Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don't behave like you expected or when you dont need them.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Because with bot you can just shut them down when they don't behave like you expected or when you dont need them. I don't think that knowing you can do this and successfully fooling your internal anti-loneliness mechanisms are compatible. You simply won't get the full range of emotional stimuli.

hamai 9y ago

The root epidemics is of people only focusing on themselves. Do voluntary jobs with sick and old people. Replacing your problems with other people's problems makes you think better.

emerged 9y ago
Yeah - I was just thinking "jeez all these people sure like talking about themselves" while scrolling through this thread. Self focus is a great way to push people away and a terrible way to be happy.

microcolonel 9y ago

I appreciate the attempt; but I feel like "boys don't cry enough" (sorry, I know this is oversimplified) is the wrong place to look. The reason why I think this is the case, is that loneliness has been increasing while it has become more socially acceptable for boys and men to be open about their emotions. I have never, in my life as a boy and (hopefully) now a man, been told unironically that boys and men shouldn't cry, or that I in particular shouldn't cry. I don't think it would have any effect on my behaviour. From my perspective it really must be something else. Anecdotally I am a very lonely person right now. For the last six months or so, I could be described as about a 32 on the UCLA scale. I am nonetheless a very emotionally open person. I address emotional problems honestly, it just seems that I can not address loneliness the same way. I think the activity that is required to build deep friendships, is to attempt to build many shallow ones, and see who sticks around. That has had the most success for me. I think the final bit of motivation for this is the research on health outcomes (though, granted, it could be a bit biased since unhealthy people are also more likely to be lonely). Also regarding “But to paraphrase University of Missouri researchers Barbara Bank and Suzanne Hansford, men have power, but are not well.”; I don't know what on earth they are talking about. What power do men have? Surely some men are powerful, and there are more powerful men than powerful women, but men as a whole are not powerful in any way I could recognize (in NA). Regarding “A man should never reveal worries to others.”, I think this is more a statement of strategic fact than an opinion. Nobody cares about men, especially not other men; so unless you have good reason to believe you will be helped rather than exploited, showing vulnerability to others is strategically suicidal. As for the “no homo” stuff, it is essential. If you can't tell whether somebody is trying to befriend you or seduce you , you can not be at ease; you can't tell if you're just being a good friend, or leading them on. This connects directly with the later mention of "A lot of men don’t cultivate emotional intimacy when they are not in partnership with a significant other.". When you are in a relationship, making friends becomes more straightforward, since more variables are known to both parties. Maybe I should go get coffee with Steven, we share a city after all.

Pamar 9y ago

Another related submission that includes also pointers to support groups: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002351

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

while close friendships increase your longevity by up to 22 percent Any anyone find the reference for this in the linked study. The PDF[1] is quite long and my CTRL-F Fu is failing me. 1. http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-files/Documents/StudyOfAgeing%5B1%5D.pdf http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/fcas-files/Documents/StudyOf...

detaro 9y ago
It cites http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574 http://jech.bmj.com/content/59/7/574 Quoting the abstract: Main results: After controlling for a range of demographic, health, and lifestyle variables, greater networks with friends were protective against mortality in the 10 year follow up period. The hazard ratio for participants in the highest tertile of friends networks compared with participants in the lowest group was 0.78 (95%CI 0.65 to 0.92) I assume that 0.78 is where the 100-78 = 22 % number comes from? (Although it doesn't really match the phrasing "increases your longevity by up to", it seems to be the closest?)
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  Thank you!