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Most young men live in quiet desperation, is it possible to resolve this?
Same thing regarding a growing number of women too but men don't have the same support structure as women do. But this discussion isn't really about that -in a world where everything is connected and everyone's looking to solve a problem how do we solve loneliness?
There are apps like meetup but how effective are they? especially once your in your late 20s/early 30s it becomes exponentially harder on average to make lifelong bonds.
- mrguyorama 4y agoWhy do you think women have a better support structure than men?
- dumbaccount123 4y agoI don't want to get into that, I maybe labelled as something I am not. But its just personal experience and that's all I can say.
- NI30GGERDAY 4y ago[dead]
- jnsguitars 4y agoBesides the obvious, joining some group that interests you in your local area in order to meet new people, I'd also suggest checking out some discord channels where you can meet / chat / video chat with people. They really took off over the past couple of years, and there are quite a range to choose from. https://disboard.org/ https://disboard.org/ is a good index of them.
- marcus0x62 4y agoNot OP, but it might be because when you ask men and women about their social/support networks, men as a group report having a worse support network. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/health/men-friendships-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/health/men-friendships-wellne... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7488709/One-five-men-no-friends-loneliness-epidemic-leaves-thousands-living-isolation.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7488709/One-five-me... https://medium.com/the-weekend-reader/why-dont-men-have-friends-anymore-28636add4c18 https://medium.com/the-weekend-reader/why-dont-men-have-frie...
- orblivion 4y agohttps://i.redd.it/lt7xl43joni61.jpg https://i.redd.it/lt7xl43joni61.jpg Not that this is entirely my experience, but somewhat. But I'm a more "sensitive" guy and a lot of my friendships form accordingly. I'm probably not usual.
- korroziya 4y agoIf you think women don't have WAY more resources than men in society, be it for their social health or otherwise, I have to question your ability to observe evidence.
- superdeeda 4y agoWhat resources, for example? Genuinely curious. Social health, like access to psychologists or what?
- orwin 4y agoNot GP: better/closer friends, no stigma about going to psychologists, and showing emotions is still seen as "unmanly" (which I used to great success to weed out partners early, as I tear up easily in movies and any date giving me too much shit for it I can safely discard)
- orblivion 4y ago"If you don't see this thing that's TOTALLY OBVIOUS to me, I don't know what to tell you." - Don't forget confirmation bias etc on your side. Different things are obvious to different people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- marcus0x62 4y agoThere are groups trying to address this for men. F3[0] is a nominally exercise-focused group for men that is setup to encourage building social bonds. https://f3nation.com/ https://f3nation.com/ 0 - F3 stands for “Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith”. The “faith” part doesn’t specify/require any particular religion, or that attendees observe any religion at all.
- mixedCase 4y agoI have never felt true loneliness, but as a single scoped suggestion, I've always felt in good company in my teenage years playing MMORPGs in a tight-knit guild, and now in adulthood playing TTRPGs with local groups (not that there's an age limit to MMORPGs but I haven't found one that resonates with me for a while). For an even more extroverted person in a bigger city than where I live I'd imagine improv is in the same spectrum further to the side of "having fun by goofing off".
- superdeeda 4y ago> Same thing regarding a growing number of women too but men don't have the same support structure as women do. I’m a woman and I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about here. Regardless, I’ve struggled with intense social anxiety and loneliness since about 13. The only long-term ”solutions” I’ve found that help have been: having a partner, good relationships with my family and joining a club (in my case, a football club) that has recurring sessions weekly. Obviously, the latter is something that’s more easy to “engineer” than the first two. So my only advice is to find or start a club or interest group that regularly meets. I’ve found that groups on Meetup often don’t have the same group if people attending. So rather search for local sports groups or community groups where you’ll meet some of the same people week after week and be able to build relationships with them over time.
- dumbaccount123 4y agoI understand, apologies for offending. Its not as black and white as I made it out in the OP. The kind of loneliness I'm referring to is were you're completely alone and you don't have a partner, when you can go two months sitting indoors and have 0 texts on your phone. Obviously this is a complex subject so theres nothing I can really expand on without stating bias.
- superdeeda 4y agoWhy are you sitting indoors?
- dumbaccount123 4y agoIts not me and I'm not sitting in doors but there are people who are so alone that no one would notice their absence. Actually quite a large problem in certain parts of Asia.
- the_only_law 4y agoBecause pointlessly sitting around on my couch is nicer than pointlessly sitting around in some loud venue or outside with god awful weather. I blame Covid personally. Before Covid there was stuff going on that could motivate me to go do stuff, but not so much the last years or two. Even going out to bars feels tedious now.
- korroziya 4y ago[flagged]
- smoldesu 4y agoPerhaps the problem is that all secular thinking is bad, and teaching young men and women to blindly follow is always a bad idea, even with good role models. If you don't learn to think for yourself and contextualize what you see/hear, you've got pretty bad odds at being a good adult. And that's just a problem on both sides of the aisle. It will probably continue to dominate modern politics, until improving democracy becomes more profitable than making people argue passionately.
- the_only_law 4y ago> Perhaps the problem is that all secular thinking is bad > and teaching young men and women to blindly follow is always a bad idea Uh huh? Sounds like you’d have no problem with blind following as long as it aligns with your beliefs.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoYou're just invoking the intolerance paradox. Also, you're logic is not sound. There is no evidence that the second claim came from blindly following beliefs.
- the_only_law 4y agoWhat the hell are you even trying to say. I never once claimed that there’s evidence that “teaching young men and women to blindly follow is always a bad idea” came from blindly following beliefs. That doesn’t even make ducking sense? Are you good? You seem a bit out of it. If you’re going to reply, at least make it comprehensible. Also tolerance was not even in my mind when I wrote that so take your blind copy/paste buzzwords back to Reddit.
- superdeeda 4y agoWhat are these so-called male-bashing cartoons, films, etc.? Are any of the Marvel or DC series male-bashing, for example? Avatar? James Bond? Video games like Fortnite?
- temende 4y agoSome version of this question pops up every month or so, and I personally don't get the sense that people/society views this as a collective problem, but rather a problem for individual men to figure out on their own.
- honkler 4y ago[flagged]
- cominb 4y agoWhat is this inceldom gobbledegook, come on man, this is a very unrealistic way to look at the world.
- honkler 4y agowhat is unrealistic about it? Maybe you should put your idea to refute mine. Just saying something is unrealistic doesn't make it so.
- xiphias2 4y agoIt's just basic biology actually: females are the selectors in the animal kingdom, and most men are not selected for. Why would females risk having pregnacy if they wouldn't have some genetical advantage in return?
- anigbrowl 4y agoGo back to /pol/, even /g/ thinks this is cringe.
- honkler 4y agoI didn't know Mr. /g/ had a representative on this site. Thanks for letting me know what he thinks of my comment.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thensome 4y agoI used to do meetup and there were some groups i really enjoyed, and I did find some friends that i began spending time with outside the group. Aside from that, it seems like a lot of social activities marketed as being "for men" are based on exercising with other men and drinking alcohol with other men, which really limits people who aren't aware of less marketed activities. I personally found a lot of enjoyment in swing and ballroom dance bc the level of exercise is less strenuous, there's more variety of people to talk to, there's generally no alcohol, and they typically have a structured intro time for beginners before an event.
- NI30GGERDAY 4y ago[dead]
- lsy 4y agoI don't think this is an "external solution" thing. Some random gender-neutral ideas for becoming more interesting to others and being more interested in them: - Read widely, both fiction and nonfiction. Become interested in and even familiar with experiences outside your own comfort zone. - Work on empathy and tolerance. Be ready to hear and even validate things you don't fully agree with, whether it's politically or epistemologically. Learn to respect others and see them as people with full life experiences, rather than merely as potential partners or friends to enhance your life experience. - Get life experience that is interesting. Note that this doesn't mean traveling widely or having an "interesting" job. In fact sometimes those things make you seem boring and are anyways often inaccessible. There are more accessible things to do, like volunteering with people who have different experiences than you, working on a local cause that is important to you, or learning to make art that represents your feelings. - Make yourself go outside. The world is outside. Learn about the history of your local area and visit the important places in it. - Pay a little bit of attention to things like hygiene, grooming, clothes. You don't have to go crazy, just shower thoroughly every day, get regular haircuts, and wear clothes that roughly match your age. - As others have mentioned, find somewhere with a stable group of people and show up consistently. - Get therapy, even if you think you don't need it. Most people need it. - Avoid toxic X. Masculinity, femininity, whatever. Being lonely can make you feel like you need a rubric to follow. Don't buy it. Don't even take what I'm saying above as a rubric. Ultimately the goal isn't to find an app that matches you with the perfect person or group of people, but to become someone who is interesting to and interested in more people overall. I empathize with the fact that people are sometimes hard to like, but almost everyone has something to recommend them if you are willing to listen, and so do you if you're willing to explore and expand yourself and share that with others.
- yucky 4y agoI think these are all great suggestions for anybody, but it misses the point doesn't it? There is a reason these affect men more than women, why? And how do we fix that?
- dwaltrip 4y agoLook into men’s work / men’s groups. I’ve just started exploring this space and it isn’t perfect but I’ve found it quite helpful. There is something special going on in this space. Some groups: * Mankind project * Sacred Sons
- theshrike79 4y agoI've found friends online since the 90's; IRC first and now Discord. There are people who I know pretty well, but still have no idea where they live and what their real name is. Couldn't pick them out of a lineup if my life depended on it.