Clancy, Josh (2023) - Male loneliness
by KS84 · 24 things on NewTwos
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- Male loneliness is a significant issue that many men face, characterized by struggles in expressing deep feelings and forming meaningful connections. Research indicates that men often find it challenging to open up about their loneliness, leading to feelings of isolation and depression. Factors contributing to male loneliness include societal expectations, changes in relationships, moving away from friends and family, breakup, unemployment, and the death of loved ones.
- Loneliness also feels a lot like depression, though the two are not the same. One study by the University of California, San Francisco, found that the majority of those who report feeling lonely are not clinically depressed, though there are overlaps.
- Loneliness isn’t gendered, but men in particular tend to struggle to express deep feelings and form meaningful connections.
- Many of us find it easier to talk about football or politics than to admit to suffering from a low sex drive or feeling undervalued at work.
- This is why some men flock obsessively to secular evangelists such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, who fill the fraternal vacuum with rigorous examinations of the male psyche and spread their gospel through podcasts and YouTube.
- A 2017 study at the University of Oxford showed that men bond better through face-to-face contact and activities, whereas women find it much easier to hold onto an emotional connection through phone conversations.
- According to a study in the journal Plos One, male friendships are more likely to flourish in groups, whereas women favour one-to-one interactions
- What determined whether [friendships] survived with girls was whether they made the effort to talk more to each other on the phone,’ said Robin Dunbar, who led the Oxford study. ‘What held up [male] friendships was doing stuff together – going to a football match, going to the pub for a drink, playing five-a-side. They had to make the effort. It was a very striking sex difference.’
- Sounds like this may be one of the fundamental reasons for male loneliness. It’s harder to connect in a group.
- Making male friends becomes more difficult with age.
- Many men are far more reliant on their partners for emotional support than they’d like to admit
- Some of the causes of modern loneliness relate to the extent to which we have strayed from our tribal, evolutionary roots.
- In a study of adults aged between 19 and 32, those who reported spending more than two hours a day on social media were twice as likely to describe feeling ‘left out’ or isolated.
- One of the biggest hurdles to building modern friendships is time, an increasingly rare commodity.
- A recent study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships estimated that, on average, it takes about 90 hours of time with someone before you consider them a real friend, and 200 to become ‘close’.
- The fact that Jordan Peterson and many like him have become so popular is a sign that men are yearning for an emotional and profound conversation.
- The Evryman Project, founded by Dan Doty, a film-maker and nature guide who observed in his work that men were desperate to find a way to reconnect with each other.
- Books on loneliness
- Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City
- Sebastian Junger’s Tribe
- Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle
- Further reading
- Why Men Are Turning to Porn as a Mental Health Coping Strategy