There is a lot of solid scholarship questioning the label "male loneliness epidemic," but not because scholars are stupid enough to equate having sex with an absence of loneliness.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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what these statistics hide is that they dont examine QUALITY OF LIFE , NUMBERR OF RELATIONSHIPS, TYPES OOF RELATIONSHIPS, and THE INSANE RATES OF DEATHS OF DESPAIR AMONGSTT MIDDLE AGED AND SENIOR MEN
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10721027/ for this study of Korean middle aged men and women it was found thatt those who met more often wiith theiir friends had higher reported levels of life satisfation . YES for men AND women (and ya ya those who reported being married ALSO had higher reportrd levels of life satisfaction too BUT it sshould be noted that wifdowed people reported even higher levels of life satisfaction than all other adults who were included in the study and currently lived alone)
About 70-80% of all deaths worldwide from 'Deaths Of Despair' (so that includes deatha from eatting a terrible diet without exercising and dying from a cardiovascular disease, deaths from drunk driving, deaths from deliberate suicide , deaths frrom accidental drug overdoses, deaths from alcohol poisoning, deaths from fatty liver diseases ) were deaths of men per a year since we've started measurinng it. And very much middle aged men.
Also havent some studies come out showing that people have reported having less friends or rsther less people that they talk to and confide in per a weeek or even per a month than ever before?
Your spouse is supposed to be one of your friends , ya I gett that. But if you rely on only your spouse as your only friend ? Youre gonna get into A LOOOT of trouble if they eventually divorce from you.
thx for the reply but i think your kkeyboard might be shaking. mignt want tc get it checked byy a mechanic?
Why are we conflating emotional intimacy and sex? They aren't the same thing. The fact that men are often taught that they are the same thing is part of why there is a loneliness epidemic.
EXACTLY.
what these statistics hide is that they dont examine QUALITY OF LIFE , NUMBERR OF RELATIONSHIPS, TYPES OOF RELATIONSHIPS, and THE INSANE RATES OF DEATHS OF DESPAIR AMONGSTT MIDDLE AGED AND SENIOR MEN
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10721027/ for this study of Korean middle aged men and women it was found thatt those who met more often wiith theiir friends had higher reported levels of life satisfation . YES for men AND women (and ya ya those who reported being married ALSO had higher reportrd levels of life satisfaction too BUT it sshould be noted that wifdowed people reported even higher levels of life satisfaction than all other adults who were included in the study and currently lived alone)
About 70-80% of all deaths worldwide from 'Deaths Of Despair' (so that includes deatha from eatting a terrible diet without exercising and dying from a cardiovascular disease, deaths from drunk driving, deaths from deliberate suicide , deaths frrom accidental drug overdoses, deaths from alcohol poisoning, deaths from fatty liver diseases ) were deaths of men per a year since we've started measurinng it. And very much middle aged men.
Also havent some studies come out showing that people have reported having less friends or rsther less people that they talk to and confide in per a weeek or even per a month than ever before?
Your spouse is supposed to be one of your friends , ya I gett that. But if you rely on only your spouse as your only friend ? Youre gonna get into A LOOOT of trouble if they eventually divorce from you.
You also gotta pre-emptively accept the possibility that youll NEVER meet friends or a partner who wants to be associated with you despite your best efforts. It is a possibility and there is nothing wrong with you if that happens to you and youre a kind, quiet , peaceful person. It is what it is
Human-Human relationships are sort of an 'It Is Whatt It Is Type Of Affair' these days. You can do everything kindly and to your best efforts to meet other like-minded people ....and everyone can still not want to be your friend or lover. You can be worst than Adolph Shiter or Suharto and be surrounded with a million admirers and fake friends. It is what it is.
'Sadly it is what it is BUT At least you tried ' is how I see it nowadays. 🤷🏿♂️
Best of wishes to you and everyone else who is lonely out here. Best of wishes on the journey comrade.🫂🫡
Be 2025
...years old?! Not happenin bud
You can have sex and be a totally toxic bastard that people don't want to be around once they get to know you. You could have sex frequently but still be deeply lonely.
Agreed. It's dangerous to conflate emotional intimacy and sex - they aren't the same thing and pretending they are is part of what got us into this mess imo.
The phasing is as a sudden historically unique crisis, not the generic sense of ennui common to adulthood throughout history.
I can show you black and white French films from the 1960s complaining about the same Male Loneliness
Those statistics seem to be AI hallucination.
Also, if you have one sexual intercourse encounter per year, you're not lonely? AND you could be pounding every week and still be lonely because the chemistry is not there, the love is vapid. People can just wank or pound for sexual release, but it doesn't solve loneliness. Hell, people are lonely in a household of 6 people. Why? Because everybody is doing their own thing, ambivalent of each other. Thus, they can be lonely.
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There is a capitalist alienation epidemic.
'Everything circles back to capitalism' is really a meme because it's true.
I do think people living under capitalism sometimes forget the human condition exists beyond the economic condition.
More free time, less economic precarity, better health, better education, a place to call home. All of that is great. But you still need to go out and meet people.
Socialism won't make you touch grass.
Socialism will make it WAAAAY easier rto touch grass and to 'touch' o ther people (to deal with your touch starvation) and even to touch people's hearts cause youll work less than half of the hours you do right now. The 40 hour work week is to kept to keep you tired ,unimaginative, disconnected from your neighbours, yoyr community, and even disconnected from your family. We have no need to work 40 hoirs a week to keep society running. We have a lot oof things that can take care of most o f the labour we do nowadays OR a lot of the 40 hour work week jobs are just bullshit jobs like stockbrokimg or being trappped in an office wasting time.
And also in a socialistic society, the human condition is placed at the centre of everythinng that is planned or done. If the people in a socialistic society collectively agree and their research and researchers also collectively agree through theor data that there is a 'loneliness epidemic AND that the loneliness epidemiic is worsening the human condition of the people'? The poeple of that socialistic society will collectively put in the work to permanently change society so that there will probably never be another loneliness epidemic whilst fixing the current loneliness epidemic.
THATS how socialism will work for problems like these.
As if married men or men who have had sex at least once can't be lonely. "You got your dick wet 20 years ago, what's the problem?!"
Dudes don't have friends. That's the epidemic.
Dudes don’t have friends.
I've got plenty of dude friends. And they've got friends of their own.
Clubs are full of dudes. Rec leagues are full of dudes. Schools are full of dudes. Bunch of dudes on my street hang out regularly We're all hanging out and making friends with one another.
It's real, it's happening.
But theres still a sizeable pprtion of men dying from deaths of despair ESPECIALLY in middle age. Why is that?
Have you ever stopped to ask these specific men why they have such shit quality of life that theyd rather kill themselves with food and substances? It probanly has somethjng to do with the fact that they havve so few friends and now that their spouse is divorcored from them or dead they have NOBODY to conmect with cause making friends as a middle aged man or a middle aged single dad is excruciatingly hard.
What you see in clubs and school or on the street isnt super relevant if the data that we are observing shows us something else!
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First of all: that is not how it works
Second of all: the loneliness epidemic is not just happening to men, it is happening to everybody.
Third of all: loneliness can happen to anyone, even people who appear to have it all. It is not just the extreme stereotype of the hermit who barely speaks to a living soul for two years, that is valid in feeling lonely. Sometimes it's the people who seem to have a big network of friends who are the loneliest because all their friendships are superficial and the person may struggle to commit to others and be vulnerable. Other people become distractions from a deep hurt and selfloathing, they don't know how to address. No one is ever let in because it's too scary and risky to show weakness. But you have 50 friends and is everybody's pal, so you can't be lonely, right?
And then there's the more mundane type of loneliness, that happens to a lot of people in the first world when they enter the workforce and/or start a family. It can become terribly lonely when you don't have the time and energy to nurture friendships and community because you work all the time and in the current day and age, social activity takes place on screens. People hang out on social media where they share pics and political views instead of meeting up for a beer or a lemonade to chat like our parents' generations did.
I have seen countless posts from 30somethings over the past decade, who ask about how to make friends at their age because they feel so lonely and all their old friends live far away. These are men and women. Some of them are parents of newborns others are single career people who have been grinding and suddenly realized they have neglected their social life.
Everybody is lonely in this day and age. I have felt lonely for years because i had to grind at work and didnt have time for recrrational activities. I have plenty of friends, good family and a lovely boyfriend and I was still lonely because I had to work all the time. Doesn't help that all my friends and family live far away so most of our interactions are on screens and not in the flesh. And if there is anything I think the modern first world human being is undervaluing and neglecting, it's physical closeness and irl community. The screens have replaced that despite being the shittiest substitute for physical touch imaginable.
To me, there is nothing that can calm every cell in my body like a hug from someone i love and whom I know loves me back. It is irreplacable.
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