Like, why is it so widespread, what causes it, what solutions are available, etc. I don’t really know how to ask this question so I hope I’m making sense
I do think the loneliness epidemic affects men more than women, and would argue it’s sexism harming men. On average, women are more likely to reach out, talk to people and family will check in on them if they are alone. Like, my husband (who is more outgoing than me and better at keeping up with friends) will call his mom or go up to see her, but leaves his dad alone unless he literally asks for something. Because men are taught it’s shameful to not be self sufficient, but women are taught to look for help if we need it.
Obviously this is not a straight gender split but on average it still plays out that way.
Patriarchy hurts everyone
I don’t even think it’s an exclusively male thing. It’s just getting harder and harder to meet people and mingle. Men are just feeling it harder and sooner.
It’s harder to meet people now. I think part of it is:
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That people used to be bored. You would make entertainment where you could find it, and two bored people can rapidly get entertained. Now you have a phone that makes you not bored, and de-incentivizes face to face interaction.
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There used to be more places where people interacted. Masons, elk lodge, unions, they would often serve alcohol at events, for dirt cheap. They were known as third places, somewhere other than work and home. One thing I hear from a lot of smokers is that the smoking areas are where people hang out to talk, and they do. It’s where conversations happen at a club. It gives you something to do when you’re not talking, a reason to stand somewhere close to people, and a perfect excuse to jump into a conversation. It’s kinda infuriating that it also shaves two minutes off your life -_-.
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People have less time. Younger generations are working multiple jobs, gigs with unpredictable hours, often times having commutes of an hour which turns a 9 to 5 into an 8 to 6, and spending all their vacation hours on the shit that has to be done on a weekday like the DMV or the like. How are you supposed to make a friend when schedules differ so much that a spreadsheet is required to make it work?
IDK; my partner has met ppl that have become very close friends at their workplace. I’ve become more and more isolated as I’ve worked as an adult, to the point where I have zero close friends.
I hope to fix that this year though; I’ll be trying to get my handgun and rifle instructor cert so I can work with the Pink Pistols and Operation Blazing Sword, and connect with my local SRA chapter. E.g., try to do something good in my community, and also meet people.
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Get out where? If you have no friends where do you go? Some bar where you stand around awkwardly by yourself while everyone else came with friends?
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Okay I’ll just get over crippling social anxiety. Great advice. Thanks.
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Yes, if this is an issue you have: you should start taking steps to address it!
There are a number of online services to get you started, or see a therapist for personalized help from a professional. Mental health issues are real, but can be addressed with the right treatments. They won’t likely go away on their own, you’ll need to find the right strategies that work for you and then put in the effort & time to address it.
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Toxic gender norms hurt everyone.
I think this is exacerbated by certain people online who want to capitalize on the issue and scapegoat others (see the manosphere and how they talk about feminism) instead of actually addressing the problem
Edit: a little plug for https://lemmy.ca/c/mensliberation
Could not agree more feminism is just human rights by another name and human rights is not achieved by anyone till every gender , race , sexual orientation, religion or lack of, ability or disability are equal.
You dont have to agree even. That’s just the definition of feminism.
That word is egalitarianism. Ftfy.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/egalitarianism
Feminism is egalitarianism just as Black Lives Matter is egalitarianism.
Both recognize disparities for a specific marginalized group, and work to establish egalitarianism.
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I don’t know about the others but for me it’s because I’m shy as fuck and kind of insecure.
Sending hugs. We’ve got your back. 😁
Thank you!
The topic is multifacedted and I cant pretend to understand it fully, but to speak of some aspects as I understand them
There is a large gap between societal and cultural expectations of men, and the financial and realities for everone at the moment.
One part of societal expectations of men is that they expected to be independent, capable of getting and holding a job that pays well enough to buy a car, own a house, etc. The current reality is that many men are in debt after a university degree, have a hard time finding a job because 99% of applications get rejected outright, and get paid significantly less accounting for inflation and costs compared to their predecessors. It is impossible for the average person to afford a house on the typical wages these days without already having a significant other or by pooling resources. This has led to a large number of people who live at home and have less money to spend on things like going out.
I say this as someone who is fairly well off given my job and field, I get paid ~2x what some of my friends do and I could not afford a house within a 2hr drive of my workplace. I live at home with my parents and it fucking sucks.
Another aspect of bad cultural expectations is that men are expected to be cold unfeeling lone wolf types, and the idea that any sort of male bonding is “gay” which has caused people to spend less time doing things with friends. Men end up with smaller social circles and with less friends. With increasing costs and long working hours, they end up with little time to actually hang out together.
An additional aspect of the failure of cultural expectations to adjust the need to place blame. Blame has fallen on the individual man for being, among other things, lazy good for nothings, who are weak, ugly, etc.
If we look at the US, they have been abandoned by the left, both by the democrats (e.g. economy is fine, must be your fault), by the feminists (told to be vulnerable but called weak for being vulnerable, shunned at every instance because “sounds like a you problem” and “figure it out yourself”) and by their own parents who had an easier time.
This is part of why the manosphere became so popular. Men have been told for so long that they were the problem, many of them still just boys, whereas right wing pundits like jordan peterson, andrew tate, joe rogan, etc gave them targets to redirect blame. An excuse for “actually, its not my fault I cant find a date, its the woman’s fault,” etc. Note that this is not my personal belief. It also gives them a sense of community and people talk to that actually listen and make them feel heard and justified in their struggles.
The blame game has caused us to ignore several important systematic factors. The rise of individualism, stagnant wages relative to inflation and costs, and growing wealth inequality, as well as the erosion of community and mens safety nets are all major factors which have decreased mens mental health and increased male loneliness.
Male loneliness is likely partially due to the same reason we are all here; this online outlet for social endorphins is why you were not building up a deficit over the last week and felt the motivation to finally call that person you were thinking about this whole time. That person was a passing thought, and the endorphins hit you might have received is ultimately less than you got from the austere but consistent dose you get from social engagement online.
The only problem is that you are not creating a meaningful personal social network in real life. When you really need such a network in practice, you face the reality of no one to turn to, or less depth and meaning to such connections. Real people are also complex and you must face the reality that no one fits your echo chamber bubble like a place like this. If you act like a down vote or stupid hot take comes across here to people in the real world… you find yourself back here with less options in the future.
This is so true. We are living in the novel “Brave New World”
People online can be fun and can’t hurt you
Don’t get disabled and have a place like this as your only outlet to connect with other humans. Anonymous and mob like negativity, especially from misunderstandings, can be hurtful when sharing some part of yourself or the only time you’ve said anything to anyone in a day or more from within a prison of loneliness you cannot escape.
Ah, I guess I’ll need to tell my teenage friend who never made it to adulthood after feeling trapped and ruined when an older man started an online relationship that isolated her from her family to… fucking grow a pair or something?
Healthy mature people can exist online in a positive manner. Not everyone is an adult and not every adult is mature. The internet can be a dangerous place and it’s unhelpful to try and dismiss that.
Valid. Fair point.
Male loneliness is as much a symptom of the “suck it up” toxic masculinity that pervades your comment as it is the content of your comment.
Men are taught to be stoic, to rely only on themselves, to suck it up and get on with it, and for some, they’re trying desperately to conform to something that seems frighteningly easy for others. They’re expending all their energy on that unnatural - for them - attempt to conform rather than being able to simply exist as they might otherwise be.
Your instinct might be to attack me for pointing this out. That’s toxicity at play. Look at yourself.
But I haven’t made my main point yet. It’s this same toxicity and trying to “be a man” that turns men into the monsters that women fear, and so it becomes a vicious cycle of negativity breeding loneliness and on and on.
My advice would be “Do better. And if you can’t do better, do your best. And whatever you do, minimise harm.”
I choose to abstract and never attack anyone, while you insult, and make assumptions about my disposition going as far as assigning them an ideology and framework that seems repugnant and baseless to me. I see and feel lots of projection and bias, but if causing a disabled person in social isolation harm makes you feel better, I’m glad you had a better day. The comments seem so randomly unrelated it feels like you are possibly a misinformation agent of some sort.
Yeah I agree that response was uncalled-for.
I’m genuinely confused how my advice to minimise harm has itself caused harm. And sometimes, someone’s “best” isn’t much at all. That’d be me most days.
I should probably have put a conditional on “Look at yourself” to tie it in with the “might” in the lead sentence, though, that’s on me.
if men display feelings, they’re seen as bitches by men, and weak by women (exceptions exist, but generally speaking).
basically, a piece of toxic masculinity….
men are only allowed to display emotions of anger or mild happiness.
i think this is a big reason why sports are so popular… it’s more about camaraderie than anything else.
also why they like to get drunk and say “i love you man” and all that mushy stuff.in a nutshell: because they’re taught to be that way.
Ignore all that and be yourself, if you’re around people that treat you that poorly you should find yourself new friends
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I used to struggle with this game of trying to be perceived the way I am “supposed to”. It’s when I gave up on that game that likeminded people just kinda noticed in everyday interactions.
I’ve made a lot of friends since then, and I’ve got a lot less to worry about
Faulty and even dangerous use of the phrase “supposed to.” It implies a pressure to conform to some standard of etiquette or game rule. “You’re supposed to keep your elbows off the table.” “You’re supposed to wait for the umpire to say ‘play ball’ before you pitch.”
If I were teaching a shop class, and I were to hear one of my students say “you’re supposed to use a push stick when doing thin rips on a table saw,” I would say corrective action is necessary. While yes, using a push stick while performing thin rips is good practice, use of the phrase “supposed to” implies an attitude that it is the shop teacher’s pet peeve, and that the student will be free of that pointless ritual once out on the job.
You use a push stick because a table saw is a device designed to tear the bodies of living things apart, and rapidly. If you touch the blade, your body will be torn apart, and rapidly. While performing a thin rip with your bare hands, your hands will pass very close to the blade, anything goes wrong, a kickback or similar calamity will hurt you in ways a doctor can’t fix. Push sticks are PPE, we use them so we don’t get injured, not because “it’s the rules.”
“supposed to” as in how some people and social groups except and push particular behaviours from certain individuals. As in women are “supposed to” be in the kitchen.
it’s to present the stupid way some social groups and cultures work
Yeah we don’t do that anymore. We don’t “supposed to.”
Some people have learned better, and not all cultures are as bad with this. But unfortunately, the majority of people is still stuck with the social pressure to be or behave in certain ways that are simply not benefitting anyone
if men display feelings, they’re seen as bitches by men, and weak by women (exceptions exist, but generally speaking).
I don’t care if “alpaha” males think I am a soyboy, but you ain’t keeping a partner if she got the “ick”
And most women get the ick over random shit including something that they might perceive as unregulated emotions.
i agree… i just don’t think that’s an inherent thing in women and it’s a symptom of a sick society…
Good point, it could very well be. Sadly, it’s really hard to tell why, and which women will respond with it. I’ve never heard a woman alluding to it irl, but I have seen them respond in both ways.
The ick is huge. The only woman most men can open up to without playing russian roulette is their mother (assuming a healthy relationship).
Here’s a theory. I’m sure it has lots of holes in it.
Male loneliness has always been a thing. In cultures where it isn’t/wasn’t, there was a strong family relationship and older men modelling how to relate to others.
To hide from loneliness, men were able to join clubs, hang out at pubs, volunteer, or bury themselves in work.
In fact, those same pastimes are still available today.
What’s changed is that it is now socially OK to talk about loneliness (at least in online forums like this), so more people are aware it’s an issue.
In fact, those same pastimes are still available today.
That is glossing over a lot of context, a big one being that club membership is down (that’s a big point of Bowling Alone). I would not be surprised if many clubs relocated or shut down due to low membership, especially after raising membership fees. Or y’know that they were already a middleclass thing, thus canaries.
Pubs are also going to rely on prices, but the most social ones likely are accessible by free public transit or are located in a walkable/mixed-use area (particularly cities designed before+not-bulldozed-for cars).
I don’t think this is about awareness, especially when most people have less friends and less (or no) social engagement.
The entire country is designed to physically isolate people into shiti suburban houses.
Only solution is to quit being poor and live in specific major cities that didn’t get ruined by shiti car lobbies 🤡
I think you have something here. I grew up in the country where people had to actively seek out activities and relationships, including with people they may not otherwise choose to be around. In the city/burbs, I actively chose to travel by foot/transit/someone else’s vehicle, even though it would have been easier to drive everywhere (I mean, sidewalks that just… vanish halfway to a destination? No transit east-west on major arteries? City planners obviously are prioritizing vehicle traffic).
But as a result, I’ve never felt isolated AND have the skills to connect with others who aren’t like me. It’s those skills that seem to have been going away as people hide themselves in their social media bubbles and behind their steering wheels. The same opportunities for socialization are still there, but they take more effort than people are used to making because there’s easier alternatives available than there used to be.
I think you may have missed the point I was making though— clubs and other pastimes didn’t make people less lonely; they only distracted people from their loneliness. Today the same distractions can be found via social media, so instead of all those other activities, people just need a phone.
But the anonymizing nature of social media means people feel more free to discuss their loneliness when they do self-reflect.
Traditional masculinity dictates that men don’t share their feelings (with the exception of anger and aggression because that’s not a feeling that’s just being manly). Sadness, despair, loneliness, depression all will be commonly bottled up and left untreated which leads to deep-seated feelings of isolation. The cure has to be a change in social norms, including decoupling the ideas of being socially vulnerable with being feminine.
This is a gross generalization of the issue but it definitely describes my experience with it.
It always felt like between the ages of 12 - 18 (basically while you were in middle-/highschool) you need to get some sort of “seal of approval” from the other sex as a prove that you are relationship material. If you didn’t get that you’ll always be seen as somebody to stay away from.
I’ve heard a lot of times that those young relationships are completely inconsequential, but I think it’s those lack of consequences that serve best as a social teaching tool on how to recognize and have an actual meaningful relationship when you’re older.
And I feel like this experience is exactly what a lot of men and women are struggling to get. They have trouble finding partners and if they do they are not good partners themselves. Which is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy, you are deemed bad relationship material so you’ll become bad relationship material.
I recognized this about myself. At my age the only people left are either young divorcees, people with small children or people that are like me - single for a good reason. There will be expectations towards me that I’m neither aware of nor will probably be able to fulfill. Dating well below my age range is neither something I can pull off nor something that I am comfortable with. So I’m forever stuck in this weird limbo of wanting a relationship but knowing that whoever will be my first partner will probably not have a great time with me.
I think this is also the root of a lot of toxic behavior. People turn to sources of knowledge to at least get some idea about what an relationship is about. But all they find is the Cosmopolitans and the Andrew Tate’s who prey upon peoples’ loneliness and desperation for profit. I understand that nobody wants to be a teacher, I understand that nobody wants to throw away years of their life so that the next person will maybe have a better time with your partner.
Ali Wong had a good joke about this in her special with something along the lines off not wanting a divorce because then she’d have to teach the next guy how to please her. Taylor Tomilison also had one about wanting to call her ex during sex just so he could explain to the next guy how he did it for her. I know those are just jokes, but it think there is a bit of truth in them.
I’m just autistic\BAD and indecisive and had a romantic trauma at school and my environment (mom) is not mentally well at all (right now it’s not worse than hoarding and forgetting everything, but it was).
However, with my looks it’s somehow enough for me to just be kinda clean and shaved and in a public place for very pleasant young women (and I suppose much kinder than that girl from school) to try to talk to me with possible romantic perspective (which I usually realize after the conversation ends).
Except it just doesn’t work, either I don’t understand them, or I’m petrified and don’t know what to do or say, or I postpone interpreting the conversation to somewhere late, or I’m ashamed of the mess where I live and showing my life to that person if it goes somewhere.
So - sometimes it’s just about never having the courage to go forward. Not about other people discarding you.
EDIT: ah, also about BAD - in the mania phase one might slowly build up background dreams about some women one knows, and when trying to make a decision in regards to the woman they are really communicating with, to feel ashamed both before everyone touched by those dreams and before that woman ; I guess some people are fine with that, some even have open relationships, but this is not a common thing.
I know the feeling too well of not having a place to invite somebody to. But I always told myself that if it ever came down to it, I hopefully could convince the two halfbrained adults that call themselves my parents to behave for a few hours. But in the end it didn’t really matter because it never came down to it anyway.
A long while ago there was a post by a distressed young woman who struggled to enter relationships. I really connected with what she said but of course had no answer for her either. But what I’ve noticed is that all comments completely missed the point of the question.
I used a casino as a metaphor for dating which I think applies pretty well. Dating is essentialy that - no matter how much effort you put in, nothing is ever guaranteed or given, it all essentially comes down to luck.
What the vast majority of people hear when somebody is asking for dating advice is that they play the game but lack any success. They then give you advice on how to play your cards right, how to increase your chances, how to cut you losses, etc. But they don’t understand it’s not about how to win the table, but how to get into the casino in the first place. Not what to I tell the dealer at the table, but what do I tell the bouncer at the door?
It’s not about the rejection I’m facing, its about the fact that my mere approach is seen as an insult. It’s the audacity to ask to be included in something that is considered a normal part of life for others.
There’s a disorder, I forgot what it’s called but it makes people feel especially uneasy around psychopaths, even if the psychopaths themselves are extremely good at hiding their psychopathy. Basically those people can pick up on queues nobody else, not even the psychopaths themselves are aware of. This is essential how I and many others feel, like there’s something about us that we are unaware of but everybody else picks up on that tells them to keep their distance. Something that is outside of our control. We could have every trait that would make anybody other than us attractive, yet we would still end up being alone because at some point nature pointed her finger at us at said “Yes, but not you”.
It’s not about the rejection I’m facing, its about the fact that my mere approach is seen as an insult. It’s the audacity to ask to be included in something that is considered a normal part of life for others.
Perhaps you are approaching wrong people.
There’s one rule I’ve learned (but haven’t internalized, still a virgin and all that) from my aunts and just today had it reinforced by my therapist.
Do what you want. If you really like a girl you are talking to, offer her to do something. Start small, no “let’s have a date”, just offer something interesting to you that may be interesting to her. To have tea in some pleasant place. To walk in a park. Be honest, if she asks if it’s romantic. Apologize if she dislikes it. Might even be honest that you don’t know anything about relationships. I mean, what do you fear more, shame from saying it or to remain lonely till grave? And that conversation doesn’t define all your further life (most likely).
At least that’s my plan the next time somebody tries to talk to me with a smile. Mostly happens at summer, so there’s time to find all fossilized sandwiches behind furniture and repair all broken closet doors. In theory, in fact some of these are broken for many years.
like there’s something about us that we are unaware of but everybody else picks up on that tells them to keep their distance
Are you sure you don’t have ASD?..
On the other side - I have ASD and, surprisingly, ASD is not the main thing preventing me.
I have found one funny thing - when I cut explicit materials a bit, say, less pr0n and such, and cut stimulants (sugar, caffeine) and eat more meat and dairy, people seem to like me more. But this is not a firm law.
It would make sense, though, that when you are healthier and have fewer outlets for certain kinds of energy, you are physically more attractive in ways hard to notice.
I understand that nobody wants to be a teacher,
Well actually that’s not true. There’s a lot of people who are willing to put up with younger people/inexperienced people, but these people have difficulty too because of … reasons.
At my age the only people left are either young divorcees, people with small children or people that are like me - single for a good reason.
How old are you?
I don’t want to tie any personal information to my lemmy account but let’s say I’m still in YouTubes biggest advertisment age bracket.
A quick search says you’re 55-64. I bet you can get old divorcees at that age too.
Is that by dollars spent or just population size?
By CPV, did you mean most populous.
Its 25-34.
Gender division and masculinity is trained into us from the second our genitals are identified be it sonogram or at birth. From the colors, toys, media, to early childhood social pressures were pushed into one of two molds. If a boy interacts with a girl it’s labelled as boyfriend girlfriend even if there’s no romantic intent (because why would children have that?). But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.
When you’re emotionally isolated from yourself, and surrounded by others who are also emotionally isolated, you’re not motivated to be around them since they won’t fulfill your needs. Then, you realize you’re also not comfortable enough to bridge the divide to people who are in touch with their own emotions. So all this hard work and you’re only a few steps down the path to connection. Usually with little sense of where to go from there.
When you finally get to the point of diving in and expressing emotionally outward, it’s easy to get wrapped with anxiety. You expect others to push you away, not because they will, most people respond well, but because you’re even less oriented and more vulnerable than ever. Though i would argue less fragile.
Lots of other posts discussing things like whether other people in the age group are socially available, and lack of third spaces.
But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.
Except for children with autism, I’d say. My mom couldn’t get me to be girly or feminine while I was growing up, I just did what made sense, sometimes that was a girly or feminine thing and other times not.
Maybe the patriarchy is an allistic people problem lol.
Male loneliness has probably always been a thing. Lonely men were expected to work difficult jobs, or fight in wars for kings, or just kill themselves.
Some women would have experienced similar issues, along with probably greater rates of sexual abuse, etc.
I think there have always been quite a few people with shit lives throughout history; it’s just that society doesn’t want to acknowledge these people. People who are doing fine in life want to pretend that life is fair, when actually it isn’t.
For decades it has been ingrained in men that they are to be held to a very specific standard. Men don’t cry, men are strong, men have to take care of everyone else, stop your whining, I’ll give you something to cry about, be the alpha male, that’s “gay”, strength, weakness, and so on.
My father, and grandfather, both grew up with a code of silence. Feelings weren’t talked about, but relayed through their wives; except anger. That was given directly through corporal punishment (hand or belt).
I was always “emotional” growing up. I cried “like a baby” over “nothing”. No one ever came to check on me, or console me, during any of my “fits”. In fact, there were times I was ridiculed for it (sometimes by family members).
When I was 19 my grandmother died. I was really close with her; she was the only one who ever came to my aid and defended me. It tore me up so bad I could barely talk without breaking down. I was told multiple times that I shouldn’t be so upset, and that I was overreacting (by my family). Everything came to a head when all at once my cousins, aunts, uncles, and even brother yelled at me because I was being selfish and unreasonable, and insensitive to my grandfather because “he just lost his wife”.
Oh, and apologies are for “pussies”.
Anyway, it’s not really about me. I wanted to paint a picture for you as to why I’m lonely. Do with that what you will.
There are multiple reasons for this. First of all due to the fact that a lot of infrastructure is based around cars society actively looses places for people to meet and hang out(I think this effect even has a name, but I’m not sure). Lack of places to interact with other people, and therefore lack of social interactions, causes a rise in loneliness. Then theres the problem with how men are supposed to act. We get told, that we shouldn’t “ask out” women in every day life, since its now considered creepy. For me this causes a certain type of being not sure where and when it is OK to ask someone out leading to me not doing it since I don’t want to get labeled as a creep. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to blame women for the male loneliness epidemic and there devinetively are a lot of men beeig creeps and asking someone out in absolutely the wrong situations, but this is something that needs to be said to understand the male loneliness epidemic. This also causes dating to take place online. Now the problem is, that online dating fucking sucks. Dating apps are useless, as long as you don’t want to sell your kidney to them, since they want you to keep using it. If dating apps were somewhat usefull they’d be out pf buisness quite fast.
While I agree about third places, I think it’s interesting that you then focused on dating.
Loneliness means lack of friendships and family ties as well. I think a lot of men are focused on dating, and even when they are in a relationship, they use that as their only source of socialization outside the workplace. A lot of the barriers that exist for one are true for the rest as well, it is hard to make friends nowadays as an adult! There are so many people that stop trying, and it isn’t surprising.
I sort of misinterpreted the Question OP asked.
A lot of people did, and I think that’s really interesting! There’s a lot of focus, even commercialization, around dating for men. So much is geared towards how to get a (romantic) relationship, and I think a lot of people’s self worth is tied to it. And chances are, if you’re feeling that, someone else you know is feeling it too!
I encourage everyone here to reach out to a friend today and see how they’re doing. I’m not going to pretend that’s going to solve the loneliness issue. That’s clearly systemic. But reaching out is something most of us can do.
I was thinking the other day there’s probably a pretty straight line between Match group owning so many dating apps, men’s unhappiness, and violence.
Like the apps create the illusion that you can meet someone and be happy, but their primary goal is to make money. They don’t try very hard to introduce you to good matches. They also haven’t solved the experience from the woman’s point of view. So men feel like they’re just shouting into the void, that people don’t like them, etc etc. Some of those people likely go on to become incels or do violence.
This isn’t to say that violent men are not culpable. They are. They retain agency. But Match group (that’s tinder, okcupid, hinge, match, plenty of fish, and more) is making the problem worse.
It’s like if there was a food shortage, and someone bought up all the grocery stores. Then they made all of them mazes and had half the cereal boxes empty.
Interesting how you brought incels up here and how you think they are created from the apps.
There’s a huge portion of users that reach for such an app that may think ‘intimate relationships =happiness’ that require therapy to address why they are unhappy (and how they do relationships) before they should try a relationship (regardless of app).
While I don’t believe the apps are necessarily what is causing this problem (any user decides on their own whether they are ready to date regardless of mental and emotional capability prior to joining) It certainly doesn’t help the situation but makes the compound result much faster. EG: I’ve seen the ‘ghosting’ definition change a lot once dating apps came into play. It used to be when you have a legitimate relationship developed and one person nopes out of it without warning. It had a legitimate victim that’s left out of the cold when another person essentially wasted their time and had a very hefty amount of inconsideration. Now it’s used in a situation if a dude gave someone the jeeb vibes on first meet and got immediately blocked after the one date or even before it makes it to that point and then calls it ghosting. And before we go the route of “well how would he know if no one tells him his behaviour is weird” : dating isn’t a survey. victims of the creepy behaviour aren’t therapists and it’s not their job. They are just on there to date too. They just want to feel safe. Their job at most is themselves. It’s not to curate someone else to become dateable. Lots of unsafe topics about the dating apps on documentaries around so people aren’t going to take it on themselves to provide feedback such as “what you said was inappropriate” without that going sideways with aggression and feeling even more unsafe.
If this is actually feeling like it’s happening a lot, I’d say: close the dating app, find a therapist, talk about why you’re feeling lonely as the problem might be more local than it what is going on the dating app. Cuz the one person whose job it is to give feedback on how you’re doing especially in situations of a relationship with others is a therapist.
It’s like you say: the apps are there to make money. They aren’t there with legitimate concern for their users whether or not they are ready for going into the dating pool. But that said: it really isn’t on the dating apps to do all that either, that is a question the user should be taking on themselves before joining the app and expecting all the results. Sometimes it is on the user.
I don’t disagree with anything here, really. As we both said, some responsibility remains on the user.
I do think Match is aggravating the situation. Men aren’t getting traction so they search for why. They find right wing MRA stuff saying that it’s women’s fault blah blah blah, but really part of why they’re not getting hits is because Match is hiding them unless you pay (and even then maybe).
Part of why may also be they’re creeps or bad at dating. It is not wholly the apps’ fault. But I do think they’re making it harder for people to connect, and that can be the top of the funnel for far right ideas.
And I do think a lot of people are on the apps when they aren’t really ready. People of all genders. But that’s a separate topic, probably.
Anyway. Good talk. Amusingly , I’m heading out to meet someone from a dating app. Here’s hoping they don’t think I’m a creep!
Referenced in a lower comment, but that loss of a meet and hangout place is often called a “third place,” as opposed to work or home. The show Cheers is a depiction of a third place in that it’s a place where “everybody knows your name” and the norm is staying and chatting, not spending a few bucks and running out.
There are some interesting suppositions about how this loneliness became more and more endemic with the decline in bowling leagues. People, men in particular, just have fewer regular hangout activities and so get more and more lonely. Things like bowling leagues, lodges, and the corner bar all were meeting spots to socialize and they have declined or morphed over the years, losing their original social role.
This might be regional too. 3rd places in some cities are promoted as a social norm compared to others. More of a ‘night life’ where as some cities is like you have nothing much to do but go out in nature. I think those areas are a heavier struggle than others when it comes to socializing
There are still some out there, but so many businesses prioritize turnover to raise profits that it can be difficult to have a place to just hang out with friends.
There’s nothing inherently creepy of asking a woman on a date. Just ask them “would you like to go on a date sometime?”
Its creepy if she says no and you keep asking or otherwise act creepy about it.
There are more relationships you can have than a girlfriend
This is a video about it, which I think takes a very sobering approach to it. Her humor tends to be very dark, but if you look at the comment section, she seems to be hitting it head on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQv8VuLpKN4
Now for solutions, I don’t know anyone who talks about it beyond the basics of “listen to men” and “give them a healthier and less judgy space to develop social skills”. But that’s probably because this is such a complex issue and there seems to be no simple solution.
Man I had to scroll far down for this. I know her appearance and character is a bit hard to take seriously but she makes great points in this video.
