7 ms·

Number of 'lonely, single' men is on the rise, says psychologist

29 points by harambae 4y ago

88840-8855 4y ago
'And while you don’t actually need to be in a relationship to be happy, men typically are happier and healthier when partnered.' And this is the key takeaway for me. Nobody has the "right" to get a partner, hence, it is critical to learn to be alone, not only for guys, but also for old people.
superchroma 4y ago
The comments section in this article is predictably brutal.
- businessman0001 4y ago
  Truth can be brutal. Sometimes taking it head on shows wisdom.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    I'm not sure a shitfight between some angry men shouting about how women are too promiscuous, other angry men shouting about how women are too uptight and angry people shouting about how men need to improve in 12 different ways is truth or wisdom.
    - businessman0001 4y ago
      The problem of reading those comments is, everyone defends with their feelings, doesn't necessarily means they are angry or whatever. It's definitely not ideal for a lot of people, including myself. You can be angry at anything, doesn't mean it changes the outcome to your desired intent, infact it can be worse, in case of incels, the more angrier they get the more they get ostracized. Sure, the most intolerant minority and the most vocal minority pushes the change. This is how the feminist movement started and that gave way to women being liberated. They focused their energies/anger into the right direction. Promiscuity is something of a completely different topic. The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice. And this is the state of affairs we are dealing with. That's why women say they want a "high quality" man. Do what you want with that information, it's certainly not an easy thing to digest for a lot of men, because they themselves would not put themselves in the "high quality" man box.
      - tsol 4y ago
        >The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice This is an absolutely insane statement. No, most women have men they love such as fathers, sons, brothers, and even husbands. Not to mention many important jobs are still dominated by men as women aren't interested. For example dangerous and disgusting professions like plumbing, underwater welding, physical laborers, loggers, firefighters, soldiers.
        businessman0001 4y ago
        I was thinking exactly about this comment, or a variant of this comment. I do agree, but the thing here is that, we are now in a setting where individualism has been able to replace every single person. In an atomized society everyone is replaceable. I'll give you an example which is very real, in Japan you can rent a person, say you want affection of a father(because your real father was emotionally absent), and brother etc. You can experience them. Although in the west, it is not done due to many reasons, but it makes sense to have these paid services where a person who is a complete stranger can pretend to be your father or brother. The rest of the professions are meant for hire anyway. I think the only relationship which seems to be unconditional love is between mother and sons, because women obviously like their children more. What I meant by men are not needed, is that men are not needed for protection(the state protects you with Police, and Armed forces), for finance(no need for husband's salary or dad's inheritance dangled like a carrot in front of you) when you can find a job through education, the law protects you legally in many ways, the society now is pro-women than it ever was and that's a good thing. Men are not explicitly needed by women anymore because the system set up civilization now makes men being implicit supporters and protectors of women. And it's completely good, because they are no longer in the shackles of men wanting to be protected. They can be themselves and choose men they feel like it. Maybe this is the harsh truth many men don't want to acknowledge or feel uneasy when they look at the facts and figures and these articles blindly say men need to somehow figure out to be not lonely and single. What if I'm a shy person or a depressed person or a lazy person or simply an ugly person? Some attributes are immutable and they become a part of one's personality and outlook and from this point, it makes sense why people recommend therapy to cope with the idea that you need to accept who you but still put out the best parts of you and hopefully those best part guide you to become a more rounded person, even if you don't end up being a well rounded person, you will find yourself surrounded by people who accept you and at least that will make you feel well rounded.
djohnston 4y ago
Is this particularly a western problem?
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  I don't think so, you hear the same thing happening in Asia as well.
  - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    It makes me think it's a socioeconomic issue. or, from a different perspective, we're experiencing a population cap, as experienced through cost of living increases. Starting a family is a luxury not everybody can afford.
    - dqft 4y ago
      High quality people may make that choice/distinction, but millions of mediocre childhoods are facilitated through handouts and their requirements without any forethought by those involved. Really a failure of culture imo.
- pageandrew 4y ago
  Is this a problem in southern / Eastern Europe or just Western Europe, USA, and Asia?
  - honkdaddy 4y ago
    Anecdotal, but I can personally say much less so in Serbia than in Canada, USA, or UK.
- Tsukiortu 4y ago
  Not entirely, but a lot of the eastern problems stem from being almost literally being worked to death and not having time to date due to the culture. Such as Japan, you're expected to essentially give your life body and soul to the company you work for. They also don't express themselves as much as us in their languages and have a massive decline in annual birthrates as a result of both and more. Similar, but the specifics are different in my opinion.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
byteduck 4y ago
Maybe reading the original Psychology Today article would be better than this Daily Mail piece... Either way, it doesn't consist of much substance. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions/202208/the-rise-lonely-single-men https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions...
- fsociety 4y ago
  Agreed - the papers it references contradict the article. For example the paper concludes that loneliness is experienced nearly equally across all demographics.
westmeal 4y ago
No one will care until those lonely single men are filled with rage and take it out on society.
- lampshades 4y ago
  They’ve been doing that for a decade now. But you’re right, it’ll only get worse before it gets better.
- kwere 4y ago
  thats PATRIARCHY, real and rude. some intellectuals will think that patriarchy has arised from top-down institutions, but a bottomup approach is more realistic: a lot of angry, rebellious young men with nothing to lose were appeased by constituted power for minimal social order (marry,reproduce so you will be less rebellious). with the progress of society certain appeasments were no longer possible, and certain social conditions either. this is a primal way to share dissens and ask for things, not cool with our society but the appeasment that should be offered should be mental health care to "unradicalize" and some kind societal integration. understand the game to understand the player or you want to tell them to bootstrap themselves?
newaccount2021 4y ago
commandlinefan 4y ago
Shouldn't the number of lonely, single women also be simultaneously on the rise? Or the number of women dating women? If the men aren't dating, then either the women aren't either, or they're dating each other.
- lampshades 4y ago
  I think it’s a situation of, women can always find someone to hook up with because they’re a woman. A lot of men out there are truly lonely because they’re never even chosen. At least that’s what I gather from friends that are struggling with the app-centric dating landscape.
  - dado3212 4y ago
    - blueprint 4y ago
      Sorry I can't hear you. You're not 6'3" and jacked with solid self-worth and sufficiently secure familial models and a lack of major trust issues. :) Kidding, but.. Human society isnt static. It can also be affected by a thousand cuts. The cuts in this case would be untruth. So many false things have become proliferous while people have forgotten ancient meanings of some of the most basic yet important terms like love. It's no wonder people are wandering around and blundering. We need a simple teaching to guide us. Humans got rather arrogant in the last 80 years. Don't forget that the word incel means involuntary celibate. It does not posit a mechanism or cause or blame necessarily. I would say some of the greatest philosophers, and thus perhaps some of the truest men in our history, were incels too. It was not because they misunderstood reality. They lived lonely lives due to being sincere when others couldn't match their level. Even Buddha begged people. He wandered countries looking for someone who wanted to stay near him and to learn. He wouldnt have had to be on the move otherwise. Scholars have rewritten this blatantly with their own subconscious projections in "records" that he was surrounded by hundreds of learners or that his begging was somehow an opportunity for the lay people to accumulate virtue by supporting the work of the Buddha through supporting his life. (Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen, made it rightly clear to the emperor of China that supporting Buddhism does not implicitly build virtue and as a result of being ejected from other places Bodhidharma got to stare at a cave wall for years while we "revere" him today.) What if the alms means something else as well: that Buddha was wandering and begging for people who actually wanted to know. Shakyamuni had a wife but the discoveries he made also meant he had to take a virtually entirely platonic role much like that of a modern therapist but to the entire world. Personally I think he knew the tradeoff he was making and was trying to make a point for the future of humanity that even that is what humanity is really like. The real story of humanity is us discarding the sincere people who think highly of us. This is actually a very great teaching. Perhaps the greatest one he could have left for us. Even though it looks similar to a grudge, and though it is easy for monks to use as a story to cover a personal grudge, in Buddha's case it was an act of love. But I would still probably categorize him as an incel bc it's clear he would rather not have had to leave his family and to open his mouth and live in alienation only to die in a "park" by the road. it was a sacrifice he made because people have limitations and he had a job to do.
stuckinhell 4y ago
I have an alternate take. 1/4 women are on mental health meds as well. - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-use_n_1098023 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-u... - https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-middle-aged-women-are-on-antidepressants-11648906393 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-middle-aged-women-a... I think the modern world is alienating and isolating. We compare ourselves to each to other constantly and treat each other as commodities. The destruction of the family and various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.
- tsol 4y ago
  >various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people. The difference between the modern world and the world of yesterday is that we're the ones they aren't religious. I would argue it's the opposite-- religion limits you and forces you to be with your community. You have to meet them every week and sit with them, you are obligated to attend their weddings and funerals. The church was historically the center of life in the western world. It's the fact that that doesn't exist anymore, and there is no replacement. The church was a place the lonely could go to find friends, the odd and awkward could go to find purpose, the sick could go to find helpers. I'm not even Christian, but the role it played in yesterday's world was huge. It's because we don't bother to replace these institutions with modern equivalents that people have these problems
  - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    For the motivated, these communities still exist - but without the sermon. Volunteer groups, sports, hobby groups, hiking meetups, dance classes, or the nearest bar. YMMV
    - tsol 4y ago
      This is somewhat true but it only works for some. The issue is that it requires motivation, whereas the church did not. I think a lot of the bitterness in modern society is from the people in that gap, the people aren't able to motivate themselves perhaps due to depression or circumstances. The other issue with that is it does require some level of social skills. Someone highly autistic, for example, would likely have a hard time meeting people by dancing. There needs to be somewhere for these people to connect with the rest of society
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
I think there has always been "lonely, single" men (and women) just that social media, the internet, dating apps - amplifies everything. I think this article is itself evidence of this. Of course DM know exactly what they're doing.
honkdaddy 4y ago
If I were a lonely, single man, I'd probably feel as if the author was making a bit of a cruel joke at my expense when they chose a picture of a tall, fit, and handsome white dude as their idea of what a lonely and single man probably looks like. Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo.
- businessman0001 4y ago
  > Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo. There is a lot of untruth in this statement and I will tell you why, because I was literally living this lifestyle. I'm not saying I still continue to accept these ideologies. The problem with these people is there is a huge gap in the wants vs have within men nowadays, i.e., they want something, but do not put in the effort. If things were easy, then would it make any sense? You wouldn't value what you have. There's a sense of lack of values, morals and humanity within these communities and they perpetuate all the bad ideas. Instead of repeating the grief cycle and trying to break out of it, they continue to wallow in this grief cycle. There's actually a diagnosis which is called prolonged grief disorder. While pain is good for growth, grieving without a closure and trying to continue it without the presence of personal morals, values and humanity is dangerous. Humility is extremely important, and people nowadays don't seem to have it.
  - adammarples 4y ago
    How does any of this refute the fact that they are mostly not hotties?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

29 points by harambae 4y ago

'And while you don’t actually need to be in a relationship to be happy, men typically are happier and healthier when partnered.' And this is the key takeaway for me. Nobody has the "right" to get a partner, hence, it is critical to learn to be alone, not only for guys, but also for old people.

superchroma 4y ago

The comments section in this article is predictably brutal.

businessman0001 4y ago
Truth can be brutal. Sometimes taking it head on shows wisdom.
- superchroma 4y ago
  I'm not sure a shitfight between some angry men shouting about how women are too promiscuous, other angry men shouting about how women are too uptight and angry people shouting about how men need to improve in 12 different ways is truth or wisdom.
  - businessman0001 4y ago
    The problem of reading those comments is, everyone defends with their feelings, doesn't necessarily means they are angry or whatever. It's definitely not ideal for a lot of people, including myself. You can be angry at anything, doesn't mean it changes the outcome to your desired intent, infact it can be worse, in case of incels, the more angrier they get the more they get ostracized. Sure, the most intolerant minority and the most vocal minority pushes the change. This is how the feminist movement started and that gave way to women being liberated. They focused their energies/anger into the right direction. Promiscuity is something of a completely different topic. The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice. And this is the state of affairs we are dealing with. That's why women say they want a "high quality" man. Do what you want with that information, it's certainly not an easy thing to digest for a lot of men, because they themselves would not put themselves in the "high quality" man box.
    - tsol 4y ago
      >The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice This is an absolutely insane statement. No, most women have men they love such as fathers, sons, brothers, and even husbands. Not to mention many important jobs are still dominated by men as women aren't interested. For example dangerous and disgusting professions like plumbing, underwater welding, physical laborers, loggers, firefighters, soldiers.
      - businessman0001 4y ago
        I was thinking exactly about this comment, or a variant of this comment. I do agree, but the thing here is that, we are now in a setting where individualism has been able to replace every single person. In an atomized society everyone is replaceable. I'll give you an example which is very real, in Japan you can rent a person, say you want affection of a father(because your real father was emotionally absent), and brother etc. You can experience them. Although in the west, it is not done due to many reasons, but it makes sense to have these paid services where a person who is a complete stranger can pretend to be your father or brother. The rest of the professions are meant for hire anyway. I think the only relationship which seems to be unconditional love is between mother and sons, because women obviously like their children more. What I meant by men are not needed, is that men are not needed for protection(the state protects you with Police, and Armed forces), for finance(no need for husband's salary or dad's inheritance dangled like a carrot in front of you) when you can find a job through education, the law protects you legally in many ways, the society now is pro-women than it ever was and that's a good thing. Men are not explicitly needed by women anymore because the system set up civilization now makes men being implicit supporters and protectors of women. And it's completely good, because they are no longer in the shackles of men wanting to be protected. They can be themselves and choose men they feel like it. Maybe this is the harsh truth many men don't want to acknowledge or feel uneasy when they look at the facts and figures and these articles blindly say men need to somehow figure out to be not lonely and single. What if I'm a shy person or a depressed person or a lazy person or simply an ugly person? Some attributes are immutable and they become a part of one's personality and outlook and from this point, it makes sense why people recommend therapy to cope with the idea that you need to accept who you but still put out the best parts of you and hopefully those best part guide you to become a more rounded person, even if you don't end up being a well rounded person, you will find yourself surrounded by people who accept you and at least that will make you feel well rounded.

djohnston 4y ago

Is this particularly a western problem?

stuckinhell 4y ago
I don't think so, you hear the same thing happening in Asia as well.
- swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  It makes me think it's a socioeconomic issue. or, from a different perspective, we're experiencing a population cap, as experienced through cost of living increases. Starting a family is a luxury not everybody can afford.
  - dqft 4y ago
    High quality people may make that choice/distinction, but millions of mediocre childhoods are facilitated through handouts and their requirements without any forethought by those involved. Really a failure of culture imo.
pageandrew 4y ago
Is this a problem in southern / Eastern Europe or just Western Europe, USA, and Asia?
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  Anecdotal, but I can personally say much less so in Serbia than in Canada, USA, or UK.
Tsukiortu 4y ago
Not entirely, but a lot of the eastern problems stem from being almost literally being worked to death and not having time to date due to the culture. Such as Japan, you're expected to essentially give your life body and soul to the company you work for. They also don't express themselves as much as us in their languages and have a massive decline in annual birthrates as a result of both and more. Similar, but the specifics are different in my opinion.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

byteduck 4y ago

Maybe reading the original Psychology Today article would be better than this Daily Mail piece... Either way, it doesn't consist of much substance. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions/202208/the-rise-lonely-single-men https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions...

fsociety 4y ago
Agreed - the papers it references contradict the article. For example the paper concludes that loneliness is experienced nearly equally across all demographics.

westmeal 4y ago

No one will care until those lonely single men are filled with rage and take it out on society.

lampshades 4y ago
They’ve been doing that for a decade now. But you’re right, it’ll only get worse before it gets better.
kwere 4y ago
thats PATRIARCHY, real and rude. some intellectuals will think that patriarchy has arised from top-down institutions, but a bottomup approach is more realistic: a lot of angry, rebellious young men with nothing to lose were appeased by constituted power for minimal social order (marry,reproduce so you will be less rebellious). with the progress of society certain appeasments were no longer possible, and certain social conditions either. this is a primal way to share dissens and ask for things, not cool with our society but the appeasment that should be offered should be mental health care to "unradicalize" and some kind societal integration. understand the game to understand the player or you want to tell them to bootstrap themselves?

newaccount2021 4y ago

commandlinefan 4y ago

Shouldn't the number of lonely, single women also be simultaneously on the rise? Or the number of women dating women? If the men aren't dating, then either the women aren't either, or they're dating each other.

lampshades 4y ago
I think it’s a situation of, women can always find someone to hook up with because they’re a woman. A lot of men out there are truly lonely because they’re never even chosen. At least that’s what I gather from friends that are struggling with the app-centric dating landscape.
- dado3212 4y ago
  - blueprint 4y ago
    Sorry I can't hear you. You're not 6'3" and jacked with solid self-worth and sufficiently secure familial models and a lack of major trust issues. :) Kidding, but.. Human society isnt static. It can also be affected by a thousand cuts. The cuts in this case would be untruth. So many false things have become proliferous while people have forgotten ancient meanings of some of the most basic yet important terms like love. It's no wonder people are wandering around and blundering. We need a simple teaching to guide us. Humans got rather arrogant in the last 80 years. Don't forget that the word incel means involuntary celibate. It does not posit a mechanism or cause or blame necessarily. I would say some of the greatest philosophers, and thus perhaps some of the truest men in our history, were incels too. It was not because they misunderstood reality. They lived lonely lives due to being sincere when others couldn't match their level. Even Buddha begged people. He wandered countries looking for someone who wanted to stay near him and to learn. He wouldnt have had to be on the move otherwise. Scholars have rewritten this blatantly with their own subconscious projections in "records" that he was surrounded by hundreds of learners or that his begging was somehow an opportunity for the lay people to accumulate virtue by supporting the work of the Buddha through supporting his life. (Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen, made it rightly clear to the emperor of China that supporting Buddhism does not implicitly build virtue and as a result of being ejected from other places Bodhidharma got to stare at a cave wall for years while we "revere" him today.) What if the alms means something else as well: that Buddha was wandering and begging for people who actually wanted to know. Shakyamuni had a wife but the discoveries he made also meant he had to take a virtually entirely platonic role much like that of a modern therapist but to the entire world. Personally I think he knew the tradeoff he was making and was trying to make a point for the future of humanity that even that is what humanity is really like. The real story of humanity is us discarding the sincere people who think highly of us. This is actually a very great teaching. Perhaps the greatest one he could have left for us. Even though it looks similar to a grudge, and though it is easy for monks to use as a story to cover a personal grudge, in Buddha's case it was an act of love. But I would still probably categorize him as an incel bc it's clear he would rather not have had to leave his family and to open his mouth and live in alienation only to die in a "park" by the road. it was a sacrifice he made because people have limitations and he had a job to do.

stuckinhell 4y ago

I have an alternate take. 1/4 women are on mental health meds as well. - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-use_n_1098023 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-u... - https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-middle-aged-women-are-on-antidepressants-11648906393 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-many-middle-aged-women-a... I think the modern world is alienating and isolating. We compare ourselves to each to other constantly and treat each other as commodities. The destruction of the family and various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.

tsol 4y ago
>various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people. The difference between the modern world and the world of yesterday is that we're the ones they aren't religious. I would argue it's the opposite-- religion limits you and forces you to be with your community. You have to meet them every week and sit with them, you are obligated to attend their weddings and funerals. The church was historically the center of life in the western world. It's the fact that that doesn't exist anymore, and there is no replacement. The church was a place the lonely could go to find friends, the odd and awkward could go to find purpose, the sick could go to find helpers. I'm not even Christian, but the role it played in yesterday's world was huge. It's because we don't bother to replace these institutions with modern equivalents that people have these problems
- swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
  For the motivated, these communities still exist - but without the sermon. Volunteer groups, sports, hobby groups, hiking meetups, dance classes, or the nearest bar. YMMV
  - tsol 4y ago
    This is somewhat true but it only works for some. The issue is that it requires motivation, whereas the church did not. I think a lot of the bitterness in modern society is from the people in that gap, the people aren't able to motivate themselves perhaps due to depression or circumstances. The other issue with that is it does require some level of social skills. Someone highly autistic, for example, would likely have a hard time meeting people by dancing. There needs to be somewhere for these people to connect with the rest of society

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

I think there has always been "lonely, single" men (and women) just that social media, the internet, dating apps - amplifies everything. I think this article is itself evidence of this. Of course DM know exactly what they're doing.

honkdaddy 4y ago

If I were a lonely, single man, I'd probably feel as if the author was making a bit of a cruel joke at my expense when they chose a picture of a tall, fit, and handsome white dude as their idea of what a lonely and single man probably looks like. Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo.

businessman0001 4y ago
> Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo. There is a lot of untruth in this statement and I will tell you why, because I was literally living this lifestyle. I'm not saying I still continue to accept these ideologies. The problem with these people is there is a huge gap in the wants vs have within men nowadays, i.e., they want something, but do not put in the effort. If things were easy, then would it make any sense? You wouldn't value what you have. There's a sense of lack of values, morals and humanity within these communities and they perpetuate all the bad ideas. Instead of repeating the grief cycle and trying to break out of it, they continue to wallow in this grief cycle. There's actually a diagnosis which is called prolonged grief disorder. While pain is good for growth, grieving without a closure and trying to continue it without the presence of personal morals, values and humanity is dangerous. Humility is extremely important, and people nowadays don't seem to have it.
- adammarples 4y ago
  How does any of this refute the fact that they are mostly not hotties?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]