5 ms·

If you count "having few male friends with whom you often spend personal time" as lonely, then I am definitely lonely. If you consider lonely to mean "feeling o

If you count "having few male friends with whom you often spend personal time" as lonely, then I am definitely lonely. If you consider lonely to mean "feeling of a hole or gap in your personal/social life", then no. I am not lonely, whatsoever. Different people need different amounts and types of social interaction in their lives. Where I'm at in my life, I'm very comfortable, happy, and content. Closing in on 40 with my wife and recently-adult child, and with the rest of my family (who I rarely see, as many are out of state). I have a small handful of male friends in other states that I see once or twice a year. Otherwise, I've mostly fallen out of touch with male friends, and that doesn't bother me. And that's me/personally ~ I'm not suggesting that this should or should not be acceptable to others. Just saying: The threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (as the article states), not lack of male friends per-se. I fit the description of the men in the article, but I am not lonely now. Perhaps, in a few years, I will realize that my priorities change, that I am lonely then, and I will resent my 30s self for allowing so few male friendships to grow and flourish.

throwaway789738 4y ago
> Just saying: The threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (as the article states), not lack of male friends per-se. I fit the description of the men in the article, but I am not lonely now. Perhaps, in a few years, I will realize that my priorities change, that I am lonely then, and I will resent my 30s self for allowing so few male friendships to grow and flourish. I was like that, as well, and am roughly at the same point in life - I turned 40 this year, and was happy with my life with my wife and daughter. I would also have told you I had “a few” male friends I talked to “a few times a year”. Things changed for me, rather abruptly at the start of the year, when my wife decided she was capital-U-unhappy, and that the best way to deal with that was start a relationship with another man. In addition to the swirl of emotions I had to deal with, suddenly and unexpectedly, I quickly found out that I really didn’t have any close friends left, and had basically nobody to talk to about what I was going through. And, that I had nobody to blame but myself for at least that part of the situation I found myself in. My point is not that my situation is typical, or that anything like what I described will happen to you (or anyone else reading this,) but that I found out just how important friendships were when I needed them, and didn’t have them. So, I’ve spent the last few months treating my lack of social interaction like the emergency it is, and I strongly encourage others to do the same. Hopefully, it will just make a person’s life more fulfilling. At the margins, it might keep you sane in a very difficult situation.
- lancesells 4y ago
  I'm sorry for what you're going through. If you can afford it try paying a therapist to talk to. Just saying things out loud to another human can make a big difference.
  - throwaway789738 4y ago
    Thank you. I am seeing a therapist, and am in a men’s therapy group, and started going to a men’s workout group that explicitly exists to foster friendship amongst men. Talking to a therapist helped immensely, in being able to express my thoughts out loud and a) have another person acknowledge that my feelings were valid and b) walk a line between giving me honest feedback about things I needed to change and take responsibility for[0] while not make excuses for my wife’s behavior. That said, my experience was that talking to a therapist was not an immediate thing — I had to find one, and they’re all pretty busy these days — and by the time I needed to talk to someone, I was a suicidal mess and I really needed to talk to someone. I ended up calling my mom, which was honestly pretty humiliating, but that’s what I had to work with. If I had done a better job maintaining my friendships, I think I would have felt able to talk to one of them. It just didn’t seem right to call up someone I didn’t talk to regularly and dump all of my problems on them. 0 — for reasons that would take some time to fully explain, I don’t feel like leaving my relationship is something I can do. In short, I had a fairly traumatic childhood and can’t stomach the thought of not being around to protect my daughter on a daily basis. My therapist made me acknowledge that I am making a choice here, and am not a bystander in my decision to stay.
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  If only you left your country to find that there are probably lots of great girls world wide that would appreciate you.
  - cultofmetatron 4y ago
    This so much. get out of the country, women are far more appreciative of good men when you leave the western bubble.
decafninja 4y ago
My wife and I are each others' best friends. We both have other friends, but we rarely have time to see them. We're also not too interested in meeting new people, because we feel we could be doing a far better job maintaining friendships we already have. Compounding this is that many of our friends are at different life stages. We both know many "older" singles - people our age (late 30s/early 40s) and they find it awkward to hang out with us, at least too frequently. Likewise we know many couples with kids, and hanging out with them is mutually awkward (we are childless). One of my best friends from childhood is single, and one of hers is also single. We'd love for them to get together but so far we're not seeing the signs.

throwaway789738 4y ago

> Just saying: The threat facing middle-age men is loneliness (as the article states), not lack of male friends per-se. I fit the description of the men in the article, but I am not lonely now. Perhaps, in a few years, I will realize that my priorities change, that I am lonely then, and I will resent my 30s self for allowing so few male friendships to grow and flourish. I was like that, as well, and am roughly at the same point in life - I turned 40 this year, and was happy with my life with my wife and daughter. I would also have told you I had “a few” male friends I talked to “a few times a year”. Things changed for me, rather abruptly at the start of the year, when my wife decided she was capital-U-unhappy, and that the best way to deal with that was start a relationship with another man. In addition to the swirl of emotions I had to deal with, suddenly and unexpectedly, I quickly found out that I really didn’t have any close friends left, and had basically nobody to talk to about what I was going through. And, that I had nobody to blame but myself for at least that part of the situation I found myself in. My point is not that my situation is typical, or that anything like what I described will happen to you (or anyone else reading this,) but that I found out just how important friendships were when I needed them, and didn’t have them. So, I’ve spent the last few months treating my lack of social interaction like the emergency it is, and I strongly encourage others to do the same. Hopefully, it will just make a person’s life more fulfilling. At the margins, it might keep you sane in a very difficult situation.

lancesells 4y ago
I'm sorry for what you're going through. If you can afford it try paying a therapist to talk to. Just saying things out loud to another human can make a big difference.
- throwaway789738 4y ago
  Thank you. I am seeing a therapist, and am in a men’s therapy group, and started going to a men’s workout group that explicitly exists to foster friendship amongst men. Talking to a therapist helped immensely, in being able to express my thoughts out loud and a) have another person acknowledge that my feelings were valid and b) walk a line between giving me honest feedback about things I needed to change and take responsibility for[0] while not make excuses for my wife’s behavior. That said, my experience was that talking to a therapist was not an immediate thing — I had to find one, and they’re all pretty busy these days — and by the time I needed to talk to someone, I was a suicidal mess and I really needed to talk to someone. I ended up calling my mom, which was honestly pretty humiliating, but that’s what I had to work with. If I had done a better job maintaining my friendships, I think I would have felt able to talk to one of them. It just didn’t seem right to call up someone I didn’t talk to regularly and dump all of my problems on them. 0 — for reasons that would take some time to fully explain, I don’t feel like leaving my relationship is something I can do. In short, I had a fairly traumatic childhood and can’t stomach the thought of not being around to protect my daughter on a daily basis. My therapist made me acknowledge that I am making a choice here, and am not a bystander in my decision to stay.
hungryforcodes 4y ago
If only you left your country to find that there are probably lots of great girls world wide that would appreciate you.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  This so much. get out of the country, women are far more appreciative of good men when you leave the western bubble.

decafninja 4y ago

My wife and I are each others' best friends. We both have other friends, but we rarely have time to see them. We're also not too interested in meeting new people, because we feel we could be doing a far better job maintaining friendships we already have. Compounding this is that many of our friends are at different life stages. We both know many "older" singles - people our age (late 30s/early 40s) and they find it awkward to hang out with us, at least too frequently. Likewise we know many couples with kids, and hanging out with them is mutually awkward (we are childless). One of my best friends from childhood is single, and one of hers is also single. We'd love for them to get together but so far we're not seeing the signs.