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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   21011 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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I read a lot about the male loneliness crisis, or think pieces on why men are dropping out of the dating pool and I can’t help but draw nebulous connections with these experiences.

I always found this weird, as mathematically for every lonely man there has to be one lonely woman and vice versa. There are some confounders, like that women can have one night stands or situationships. Or that men can pay for prostitutes as a substitute for one night stands. Or that there is more lonely women especially in higher age due to them living longer than men. In any case for each man that lays his head alone in his bedroom, there is a woman somewhere doing the same. It is intrinsically linked phenomenon and it does not make sense to talk about it separately.

Maybe one thing that is different is that in general men who are alone are more aware of it not being ideal situation and they talk more of despair. Even MGTOW community talks about loneliness as preferable to other types of suffering, not as something that is preferable to fulfilling relationship. While on the other side when people are talking about lonely women it is more linked with some sort of empowerment and other positive vibes.

I always found this weird, as mathematically for every lonely man there has to be one lonely woman and vice versa

I assume when people are talking about male loneliness they mean a lack of friends, not necessarily a lack of romantic engagement. Nobody thinks of the widowed church lady who spends all day drinking tea with her friends and looking after her grandchildren as lonely.

"Already old and has grandchildren" is quite the goalpost movement. When I think of the modal "lonely male" it's not someone who already has grandchildren, it's someone who never had children yet, or estranged from them in a divorce.

Having friends - even close ones - is a different experience from having a girlfriend/fiancé/wife you come home to every evening.

There's also the other side of this equation, when some friends get married(and have children) and the rest don't. Even worse if they move away. You're still friends, you still talk alot, but circumstances change when you can only see each other face to face once or twice a year.

Partly I think female friendship is closer, more emotional and less contingent than male friendship. Partly of course grandchildren are family and that makes a big difference compared to tfwngf incelish guys.

Male friendship can be as close, but my impression has always been that male friendship is abandoned for a romantic relationship in a way that female friendship isn’t always.

Sure, but then this cuts both ways. In that sense MGTOw man who regularly goes to pub with his colleagues or who plays D&D with his friends or who organizes grill party for his nieces and nephews or who volunteers for summer camps for children is not lonely either.

Of course this can explain only part of the problem, loneliness is something deeper no matter how women or men try to rationalize it. And maybe in current culture lionizing single powerful women it may be easier for women to do that. The word "incel" has much more shame and negative connotation in it compared to femcel. A lonely childless widow may have more social status than lonely childless widower. Nevertheless in some fundamental way they are still lonely.

I think the biggest difference is male aggression toward women is usually physical while female aggression towards men is usually social, most notably attempted social ostracization. Women attack men's social bonds in ways that men don't attack women's, thus leading to this asymmetry.

There's also the fact that women are better about maintaining relationships, planning group outings, etc., so that she usually "gets" most of their mutual friends in the break up (Managing the social calendar is traditionally the woman's domain in a relationship). Most of them were probably her friends first anyway, since she was more likely to maintain a large group of friends after leaving school.

Because men tend to have fewer close friends and recieve less emotional support in general than women, break ups also tend to be more traumatic. It makes sense men associate being single with loneliness more than women. If you're a stereotypical man who has oursourced the work of maintaining his social life to his wife for a decade, single life is going to be a lot more lonely for you than for her.

Part of me thinks there should be such a thing as social/emotional alimony. Shared friendships are essentially a valuable and unrecognized marital asset, regardless of who "earned" them.

If you're a stereotypical man who has outsourced the work of maintaining his social life to his wife for a decade

I love how we frame women controlling their partners' social lives as a burden while when men do it to their partners it is framed as abuse.

Sure, but then this cuts both ways. In that sense MGTOw man who regularly goes to pub with his colleagues or who plays D&D with his friends or who organizes grill party for his nieces and nephews or who volunteers for summer camps for children is not lonely either.

Sure, I don’t think this guy is necessarily lonely, unless he does really want a romantic relationship in which case he might be. But there are plenty of widowed older men who have similar large social circles, even if it’s less common than for widowed women.

Yes, that is why I was talking about general attitude. In general men may view loneliness as more problematic, for instance according to Pew research 57% of 18-34 men compared to 45% of women want a family. That is why I previously mentioned that men are more likely to see loneliness as a bad thing and approach it from despair, while women may view loneliness as an empowerment and something they want.

I think this goes hand in hand with general trend where men have more societal expectations put on them when it comes to traditional gender roles - strive for high status, provide for and protect your family and your community especially women and children. While for women the gender roles were targets of more attacks, to the extent where some traditional gender duties like motherhood were dropped completely. To even talk about having children as duty for women is viewed as misogyny.

This also informs how the topic is handled - incels are universally reviled as failures of their own character, while femcels are victims of society in general and men in particular at best. But this may also change in the future and men will be more comfortable also dropping the societal expectations - like 40 year old guys just working part time and playing video games completely reneging on social pressure on their behavior, similarly how it is with women now. However I would not see it as cure for loneliness, just more acceptance of shitty situation.

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