Do you feel lonely?

[Anonymous]

Is the male loneliness epidemic real? Or are many women lonely as well and better at coping?

yes

no

results/other

[BCRanger10]

Personally? No.

I will say though that everything you hear about male loneliness - fear and anxiety about the prospect of not finding a better job, getting married, owning a house, having friends, and in general feeling like your life isn't going anywhere and worse, that it won't - I'd felt all of it. So yes, I do believe it's real. I do believe that men are greatly affected by it.

Now, you will have no disagreement with me if you were to say, for example, that getting drunk, doing drugs, playing video games until 3 in the morning, watching porn, and masturbating are terrible ways for men to handle sadness, loneliness, and generally feeling unfulfilled. I freely grant and wholeheartedly agree with that...

HOWEVER...

Neither is feeling more comfortable crying in public or being more open about going to therapy and being on antidepressants. And likewise, neither are any of the following...

• Having meltdowns on social media when elections or legislations don't go their way.
• Reading books like 50 Shades of Grey and (I'm not making this up) Morning Glory Milk Farms, a riveting tale about debt-saddled and presumably blue-haired liberal arts majors having sex with dragon-goat vampires or some sh*t.
• Having a "boyfriend pillow"
• Stealing men's lunches to get their names and contact information.
• Paying $4,000 to swing sticks around and re-enact the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Emq8p9DLO2M

• Joining an app to shame guys who rejected them.
• Being a teacher and having sex with 13-year-old students.
• Posting TikToks about wanting to divorce their perfect husbands after ten years and three kids so they can go "find out who [they are]".

Women are "better at coping"? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

[Chazmatazz269]

It’s real. Women are permitted more coping mechanisms without negative consequences. So most women deal with it better. Additionally, however incomplete the intimacy of sexual flings might be, it’s better than nothing. Desperate women can have one night stands to feel something. It’s not only accepted, it’s encouraged and celebrated. The kind of men who need one night stands cannot get them as easily as women can, and they’re shamed for resorting to escorts and prostitutes.
Men aren’t permitted to express loneliness, weakness or desperation of any kind without severe consequences. It’s still risky for many of us to try and rely on close male friends and relatives for confidences and intimacy. It seems like the younger generations of men are getting better at it than us old farts. But there are still too many people, young and old, men and women, who judge young men far more harshly than they do women, for literally the exact same behavior.
We have no hope of changing things for the better until that changes.
As with all things that predominantly affect men, nobody is concerned with fixing it.

[Flower7]

I feel like men have always been that way. They are more needy than women and less able to be alone. The “epidemic” is nothing new.

[Cormac995]

It's always been a problem yes but if you look at the statistics it's through the roof in recent years compared to boomers and back.

[Anonymous]

Nope. I might be single, but I'm far from lonely.

My guess is the "male lonliness epedemic" as you call it is as real as the female lonliness epidemic. But anytime a woman gets down enough, she can walk into any bar, put her heels up on the counter, and announce she's open for business and get at least one taker. So this might be the only real difference as that wouldn't work for a guy.😆

Guys are just fine. Any guy that calls himself lonely doesn't have a lonliness problem. He has a self worth problem. A guy by definition is very self sufficient.👍

[Zylos]

Women have it easier, because it is more socially acceptable for them to seek support from others. So apart from their friends, they also often get special treatment from their parents, schools, employers, and the state. They also are inherently of use to society, because no society can reproduce without plenty of women.

Men are mainly of use as labor and and cannon fodder.

[Cormac995]

there's a reason that on boats it's woman and children first. It's because men are perceived as battle fodder and expendable.

[The-Stud]

Men who feel lonely have the opportunity to flip things around if they try. That is a male privilege.
But for women , after a certain age , you cannot have the things which makes you attractive to the opposite gender in the dating pool. Those things are lost with time and won't come back.

[Kaneki05]

Of course, it exists and I live it

[vj0090]

Sometimes yes... but we all have rough days

[MemeSupreme]

i got no clue lol