The increased social isolation in our society is producing men and women who are incapable of socializing with others, especially socializing with other genders.
This is what happens when conservatives phrase every interaction children hve as sexual.
“Sex offenders are kidnapping our children!”
Now parents get CPS called on them for letting their kids be alone in public. And we forget the entire point of this scare was to attempt to make “pedophile” synonymous with “lgbtq” because we were still forcing many homosexuals to register as sex offenders.
No more getting your bikes and riding around with your friends after school. The Goonies’ parents would loose parental rights in 2025.
“The woke degenerate mob wants to make your children sympathetic to other degenerates, through comprehensive sex/gender education.”
Now teachers can’t mention the existence of lgbtq people without getting fired on the spot. They can’t teach about slavery anymore either.
Of course none of this religious, genital obsessed rhetoric helps children. It’s always been about attacking minorities while clutching pearls.
The result has been each progressive generation is less socialized, despite the world becoming a much safer place over time for children to freely move and interact in public.
Conservative ideologies produce regressive policy, and religion maintains voters for conservative ideologies.
We need to reverse this
IDK about everyone else but most of my friends vanished when they got married and started having kids. They never had time to do anything away from their kids and hanging with a bunch of children around didn’t appeal to those of us without them eventually I was the last one standing with no family obligations. I have since found another friend group that are mostly on various spectrums that make it unlikely they’ll be getting married/kids though.
A society where having kids is a social death sentence is one where people will choose to go without
It’s certainly one of the reasons I don’t want them. Can’t do a lot of the things I enjoy with kids around and the stuff you can do gets worse with children constantly interrupting.
Because, since 2011 or so, you never actually unplug from anyone.
Traditional male social structures, groups, and third places have eroded.
Nowadays there are men‘s groups, which I can highly recommend to join or make one yourself.
What also works is being part of a local volunteer organization like volunteer fire brigade. Or like outdoors sports and such. Being part of a music band, orchestra, or choir is another great thing.
Anecdotal but I’ve lost multiple social groups to breakups even though I was the one being abused in the majority of my relationships
To counterbalance the “woe is me” (which is a perfectly valid life experience, and I do not mean to diminish it). I am posting so that people with no life experience do not think the “woe is me” is the only experience.
Decent adult straight men exist. We are just busy with family, careers and volunteering. One will not meet us in a bar as we, collectively, don’t have time for that. Volunteer for a cause one supports, and one will meet people one likes more.
As an aside, do men have the same issues as women in meeting “good” men? And is our collective taste in men rubbish? Is it something “we” are all watching on TV?
Edit: Really great article by the way. It is long with lots of examples and personal stories from men around the USA.
Historically, men will come together only when there is a cause, otherwise they prefer the stoic life. The quiet man is not struggling to make friends. There are lonely men however. Those are the ones we need to notice and assist.
As a straight man, every straight man I’ve ever been friends with has eventually simply made me so tired to be around them.
Like, times are hard. But then we just collectively… have unmet needs, and so many of us deal so badly with them. It just seems like straight men inevitably make it everyone else’s problem.
I have heard the same old thing so many times-- to have a friend, be a friend. Reach out. Listen, be empathetic, blah blah blah. And I wind up hanging out with some douchebag thinking to myself why am I in the same room with this fucking guy. Before I know it he’s drunk or desperate for a long, long hug from being so touch starved, or he lets his guard down and casually says some slur. I don’t have the patience to be friends with straight men. I don’t have the patience to start to try.
You gotta meet some other straight men, maybe younger. But for your own sake don’t settle on this way of thinking.
This is a really unhealthy worldview to carry around about cis men.
it’s nice you all found well balanced queer people to befriend but keep in mind we also may not be as mentally put together as you perceive. i say this as a gay dude with lots of issues.
There’s a lot of people out there with mental health issues. Poor mental health doesn’t discriminate and doesn’t really target a single group. What’s important to myself is that people are aware of their own health, honest about it and make an effort to deal with it in their own way.
I tend to find queer people to be a lot more open and accepting of others and their differences in general. Especially in comparison to the straight people who I’ve been around in my personal experiences.
Also, I have Autism and ADHD. I’ve stumbled through life and the people who I’ve felt the closest connections with also had differenly wired brains. The queer people I have met accept me just as I am.
I know I’d have more friends who identified as straight if they learned how to love themselves and care for their overall health. I can also say that about practically any other group of people as well.
However I can appreciate the uphill struggle to love a queer self in a straight dominated world. That’s a steep hill to climb and most people are doing it with very little support. It’s easy to see how some people just can’t mentally handle it.
This has also been my experience. Then again, I always had problems dealing with mainstream straight guys, even as a kid. Growing up with untreated AuADHD and being a massive nerd really didn’t make things easy. As an adult, it’s been really hard to find friends in my own gender/orientation as nearly every one of them that I come across seems to let the mask slip a bit and say or do something very problematic.
So, I decided to drop that cohort and start intentionally socializing with people in more LGBTQ-heavy spaces. It’s done wonders for the social anxiety that I developed over years of doing little but work too much. Now I’ve got some budding friendships with people from all across the LGBTQ+ rainbow and people encouraging me to be emotional vulnerabile (in a healthy way). It’s pretty fucking fantastic.
I guess the lesson to learn from this is that straight guys should go to therapy to deal with their problems (and learn more about their emotions) and seek friendship with LGBTQ+ people (and look out for and stand up for them, when they need it).
What spaces would that be? I’m in the same boat, undiagnosed AuDHD for most of my life until very recently, have always been the odd one out, mostly interested in nerd stuff, little energy to deal with people… I’d love to get in touch with LGBTQ folks but have no idea where to start (yeah sure, there are a lot of places online, but I’d prefer actual face-to-face activities)
I live near a large city so my options are quite open. I was able to find queer events within that city quite easily. Eventbrite.com has pages and pages of events available for me.
I went to a few that focused on meeting queer people. Halloween parties, board game nights, trivia. You may also find events under neurodiverse labels as well. There would definitely be some overlap with the queer community there too.
I chose a therapist that worked with queer people and people who have alternative lifestyles. She was the one who made that suggestion to me and that was probably the most helpful thing she had done for me.
Hopefully you have some luck, I imagine it would be difficult to find queer communities in less populates areas.
The city I’m living in is not that small, fortunately, so there probably are some options that I just don’t know of yet.
Was it hard for you to get into groups? My social anxiety kicks in just thinking about meeting new people, though that likely stems from past experiences with NT folk
I have pretty bad social anxiety but I also am able to let my adhd do the driving. I’ve travelled and live abroad in foreign places but to my friends and family back home I’m nearly non-verbal. All that to say I feel like I live a very hypocritical life.
I behave differently based on the situation. My first queer social meet up was a bit strange. It was 95% women and I felt completely out of place. I ended up just talking to a guy for most of the night and as I was leaving, ended up meeting a bunch of other people. One of them happened to be going to the same concert as me the following week. We exchanged numbers and now her and I are super close friends.
I generally arrive to these events with an open mind and a genuine smile and that’s enough for people to come talk to me. It can feel very intimidating at first but even getting out there at all is a huge step in the right direction. If you don’t meet people the first time, there will always be another event. Becoming a regular face also helps other people coming to introduce themselves to you.
I’m awful for going up and introducing myself to others so I look for ways to be more inviting for people to come talk to me. It’s not as direct but I’ve found some wonderful people that way. Whatever works is good enough for me :)
I also find many men to be extremely exhausting. I basically lost all my male friends since 2020. The majority of them just refused to look inwards to address their mental health. The few who did make efforts to work on their mental health still managed to say some wildy fucked up things that made me stop trying to stay connected.
Nearly all of them are trapped in a cycle of complaining about the same mistakes they continue to make. There’s no going forward. I no longer have the energy to stay around that mindset.
Since then I’ve turned to the queer community and I’ve begun meeting genuine people who I feel comfortable being around. The connection I feel with them has been deep and has happened so quickly. It’s a feeling that has been completely absent with any male friends I’ve had in the past.
It would be nice to teach any lonely guy to not be so afraid of anything or anyone that is different. Sadly they wouldn’t want to listen. It’s simply too easy to spread blame and continue to complain.
I guess we’re kinda forced to do some self reflecting, at the cost of being mentally fucked up from being hunted for sport by right wingers
From my experience, it’s hard to help others if I can’t help myself first. After doing some intense self reflection, it’s helped me to understand the type of solidarity I need to look out for in the future.
At the very least, I can be more mentally prepared to take future opportunities that rise up. Although deep down I feel that I’m going to have to a lot more to defend the vulnerable and those that I deeply care about.
If more people were willing to fight through the pain and discomfort of self reflection, solidarity against the powerful few wouldn’t seem like such an intimidating mountain. But that’s just what I believe.
Some people have struggled all their lives. Room mates makes making friends easier but you also trade off with having potential asshole roommates.
