I think the modern world is alienating and isolating. We compare ourselves to each to other constantly and treat each other as commodities. The destruction of the family and various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.
>various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.
The difference between the modern world and the world of yesterday is that we're the ones they aren't religious. I would argue it's the opposite-- religion limits you and forces you to be with your community. You have to meet them every week and sit with them, you are obligated to attend their weddings and funerals. The church was historically the center of life in the western world. It's the fact that that doesn't exist anymore, and there is no replacement. The church was a place the lonely could go to find friends, the odd and awkward could go to find purpose, the sick could go to find helpers. I'm not even Christian, but the role it played in yesterday's world was huge. It's because we don't bother to replace these institutions with modern equivalents that people have these problems
There are replacements, you just have to seek them out.
For instance, Men’s Shed, “a dedicated, friendly and welcoming meeting place where men come together and undertake a variety of mutually agreed activities.” They often perform charitable work and if you need social or emotional support, they’ll listen and help. They fulfill the roles you feel are only available from churches.
This is somewhat true but it only works for some. The issue is that it requires motivation, whereas the church did not. I think a lot of the bitterness in modern society is from the people in that gap, the people aren't able to motivate themselves perhaps due to depression or circumstances. The other issue with that is it does require some level of social skills. Someone highly autistic, for example, would likely have a hard time meeting people by dancing. There needs to be somewhere for these people to connect with the rest of society
While I agree that 'requires motivation' is a thing, and likely more of an issue than others, I must add that location may many times be a bigger thing for many people / places.
Being close to a hip city and having no trouble traveling, I did find motivation (for actually going, doing the scheduling, etc) to be a thing - and there are sometimes many layers to that thing.
As I encouraged others to do meetup dot com and find groups to hang with - I found that people do indeed have to muster up the motivation - but also location can be an challenge / obstacle.
I also think meetup has changed with less options, partially for pandemic but also they went pay to play for listing groups I think?
Looking forward to more decentralized group listings and virtual water coolers in the future, maybe web rings coming back to help with that.
Also been planning to open more real world 'third place' options hopefully - scouting locations and sketching ideas anyhow.
The church is failing to evolve: it still stubbornly expects a blind faith in questionable dogmas, revolving mostly around feelings and emotions, while the masses on average are living by rational thinking today. The church needs to update their dogmas, make them rational, more appealing to the thinking crowd, or become irrelevant by the end of the century.
There hasn’t been destruction of the family. People don’t have the ability to start families because they can’t afford the burden. People can’t start families because the adoption agencies are run by religious organizations who are fraught with child trafficking.
Religion might offer belonging on a small scale, but for the most part it’s used to make “us vs. them” arguments and divide us. Christians, (70/30 protestant/catholic) for example, invaded Poland in the 1940s, and wiped out what would have been ancestors of cousins I can never meet because they were atheist, Jewish, or otherwise.
The issue has to do with social media and tailored content. The more people use these tools, the features train on people’s clicks and send them down rabbit holes, and nobody is on the same page anymore. People don’t know how to distinguish the truth from fiction- in fact, media outlets HAVE become a dogmatic religion in itself.
There shouldn’t be some onus on people getting forced to be married or have kids, either. Plenty of people have family in a great group of friends. It is the people who isolate, especially men and women, who are told to behave in ways that are probably not who they are at their core, that end up being susceptible to the stuff you posted. I hope you are not lonely, but I assume from your comment that may be the case. Please stop frustrating yourself and enter relationships with whoever’s nearby, you don’t even have to share the same views.
I appreciate the comment but I don't much like the personal comments.
I'm married with a husband and two kids. I make an extra effort to stay connected, but many people don't and maybe can't.
My brother committed suicide because of loneliness and depression. So when I read articles about women and men being lonely and on tons of mental health meds, I think something went wrong in our society and I have a personal connection to this.
Most people WANT to be in families, and have relationships. Humans are social creatures. A world with out religion doesn't seem to be keeping the promises of a better life. Religion filled a void for many people, and I don't think medication can replace it.
I'm not sure what the path forward is, but I think the first step is admitting we have a major problem in our culture.
The transition from family and religion to more modern social organization might be painful.
But I say, good riddance. People should group together based on common interests, hobbies and activism, not circumstance and superstition.
To have a truly democratic society, we need people to engage with the broader human community beyond their families and churches. We need to think bigger than that.
Agreed - the papers it references contradict the article. For example the paper concludes that loneliness is experienced nearly equally across all demographics.
If I were a lonely, single man, I'd probably feel as if the author was making a bit of a cruel joke at my expense when they chose a picture of a tall, fit, and handsome white dude as their idea of what a lonely and single man probably looks like.
Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo.
> Spend any amount of time in the communities where lonely and single men congregate and you'll see by and large they look nothing like the guy in the photo.
There is a lot of untruth in this statement and I will tell you why, because I was literally living this lifestyle. I'm not saying I still continue to accept these ideologies. The problem with these people is there is a huge gap in the wants vs have within men nowadays, i.e., they want something, but do not put in the effort. If things were easy, then would it make any sense? You wouldn't value what you have.
There's a sense of lack of values, morals and humanity within these communities and they perpetuate all the bad ideas.
Instead of repeating the grief cycle and trying to break out of it, they continue to wallow in this grief cycle. There's actually a diagnosis which is called prolonged grief disorder.
While pain is good for growth, grieving without a closure and trying to continue it without the presence of personal morals, values and humanity is dangerous. Humility is extremely important, and people nowadays don't seem to have it.
thats PATRIARCHY, real and rude. some intellectuals will think that patriarchy has arised from top-down institutions, but a bottomup approach is more realistic: a lot of angry, rebellious young men with nothing to lose were appeased by constituted power for minimal social order (marry,reproduce so you will be less rebellious).
with the progress of society certain appeasments were no longer possible, and certain social conditions either. this is a primal way to share dissens and ask for things, not cool with our society but the appeasment that should be offered should be mental health care to "unradicalize" and some kind societal integration. understand the game to understand the player or you want to tell them to bootstrap themselves?
'And while you don’t actually need to be in a relationship to be happy, men typically are happier and healthier when partnered.'
And this is the key takeaway for me. Nobody has the "right" to get a partner, hence, it is critical to learn to be alone, not only for guys, but also for old people.
Shouldn't the number of lonely, single women also be simultaneously on the rise? Or the number of women dating women? If the men aren't dating, then either the women aren't either, or they're dating each other.
I think it’s a situation of, women can always find someone to hook up with because they’re a woman. A lot of men out there are truly lonely because they’re never even chosen. At least that’s what I gather from friends that are struggling with the app-centric dating landscape.
> At least that’s what I gather from friends that are struggling with the app-centric dating landscape.
There's the real problem. Most of the women I know who use apps hate them, too. The incentive structure around dating apps is terrible, and from what I can tell, it's deepening the already ridiculous polarization of gender. Men and women alike reduce eachother to the worst stereotypes, and their dating preferences get twisted into cynicism and materialism contrary to previously-held moral stances.
If you think the problem is that women have it easy, I've gotta question if you have friends that are women. The problem is the loss of Third Places, which creates a market that dating apps monopolize.
Not OOP, but to me the problem isn't that women have it easy. That's a short sighted take by people that don't understand. Women just have more opportunity for physical contact. Obviously this doesn't satisfy the need for emotional intimacy. But to men who haven't had physical or emotional intimacy in a long time, it's easy to think they have it good because at least they can find someone to lie to them and say they care about them for one night. Part of the problem is these slight differences make it hard to empathize with each other
The apps really destroyed online dating. I used to meet people on OKCupid... until they made it more Tinder-like. You can't even search or browse these days.
Craigslist Personals was also fun. Until it got taken down.
The late 90's through early 2000's internet was way better for meeting people online.
> The late 90's through early 2000's internet was way better for meeting people online.
Right? I made quite a few friends and even a couple of romantic partners on forums and BBSs. For what it's worth, I've seen this happen (tactfully!) on facebook (before they decided that they needed to be a dating site too -_-), through mutual friends and special-interest groups. But, that specifically doesn't work for straight people who are locked into gender-isolated bubbles.
could that be selection bias? a lot less of niche people today on big apps, and more casual(superficial) mainstream "scene"? like in those time people were selfselecting on certain traits and really motivated on soulmate search?
(european POV, internet became mainstream in 2010s with social networks)
Understanding that women have more "power" in dating apps isn't being an incel. You're only an incel when you choose to respond to current dynamics by hating women, blaming them for things, refusing to take responsibility for your side of the coin, and lashing out.
The people behind OKCupid were very open that women were having a much more successful time on dating apps. At least, until they were bought by tinder.
Reality is that the majority of men in dating apps get passed over while the majority of women in dating apps find dates but dislike them. I don't know how to fix the situation. You can't convince women to sign up for these apps without giving them a safe and self controlled environment, and when given the option they seem to pick roughly the same "top" 20% or so of men and then be unhappy with the resulting dates. I do not suggest they would be happier with the other 80% of men, we have our own issues too, we just don't get to go on dates. I personally found love through Bumble, so maybe the extra limits/self selection for that is the trick.
Yes, I do agree that it's territory of "incel" but you are isolating incel-ness with the alienation from the lonely people, there is definitely an intersection and it's huge.
The loneliness crisis is definitely a superset of the incel subset, but they can be independently treated because incels could be psychologically unwell.
The past two years increased the number of people pushed into this loneliness crisis well, and sadly it is not good for anyone.
But the main topic here is talking about men, so it is legitimate to talk about the "incel" problem. And definitely the writings are there, lonely angry men are both a danger to themselves and society.
Even if the remove the "incel-ness" of the "incels", you still have lonely men who could join the large superset of loneliness sufferers. And the economy is another factor in the equation why there is this crisis.
But a large group of men are definitely lonely, that's for sure.
single rates have increased regardless of gender, but at a faster pace for men; In 1990, a woman was more likely to be single than a man, now a man is more likely to be single than a woman
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-...
It doesn't speak to loneliness, but according to this Pew report, there is a substantial gap in single-ness by gender in the 18-29 group [1]. 32% of women versus 51% of men. Women in that cohort are slightly more likely to not be looking, but it's close (6% more women are not looking than men).
I think single-ness has increased for both genders, but not at the same rate, and I have no idea what causes that. I can think of a few things that might cause it, but it would require extraordinarily fast demographic shifts that seem unlikely. I.e. it could be increases in polyamorous or LGBTQ women, or differences in birth rates or immigration by gender, but those have historically been small demographics. They would have to grow by something like an order of magnitude to have an effect this large.
It's weird. If anyone has seen any actual studies on how that effect happens, I'd be curious to read them, because it doesn't really make sense to me.
Sorry I can't hear you. You're not 6'3" and jacked with solid self-worth and sufficiently secure familial models and a lack of major trust issues. :) Kidding, but..
Human society isnt static. It can also be affected by a thousand cuts. The cuts in this case would be untruth. So many false things have become proliferous while people have forgotten ancient meanings of some of the most basic yet important terms like love. It's no wonder people are wandering around and blundering. We need a simple teaching to guide us. Humans got rather arrogant in the last 80 years.
Don't forget that the word incel means involuntary celibate. It does not posit a mechanism or cause or blame necessarily. I would say some of the greatest philosophers, and thus perhaps some of the truest men in our history, were incels too. It was not because they misunderstood reality. They lived lonely lives due to being sincere when others couldn't match their level. Even Buddha begged people. He wandered countries looking for someone who wanted to stay near him and to learn. He wouldnt have had to be on the move otherwise. Scholars have rewritten this blatantly with their own subconscious projections in "records" that he was surrounded by hundreds of learners or that his begging was somehow an opportunity for the lay people to accumulate virtue by supporting the work of the Buddha through supporting his life. (Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen, made it rightly clear to the emperor of China that supporting Buddhism does not implicitly build virtue and as a result of being ejected from other places Bodhidharma got to stare at a cave wall for years while we "revere" him today.) What if the alms means something else as well: that Buddha was wandering and begging for people who actually wanted to know. Shakyamuni had a wife but the discoveries he made also meant he had to take a virtually entirely platonic role much like that of a modern therapist but to the entire world. Personally I think he knew the tradeoff he was making and was trying to make a point for the future of humanity that even that is what humanity is really like. The real story of humanity is us discarding the sincere people who think highly of us. This is actually a very great teaching. Perhaps the greatest one he could have left for us. Even though it looks similar to a grudge, and though it is easy for monks to use as a story to cover a personal grudge, in Buddha's case it was an act of love. But I would still probably categorize him as an incel bc it's clear he would rather not have had to leave his family and to open his mouth and live in alienation only to die in a "park" by the road. it was a sacrifice he made because people have limitations and he had a job to do.
The number of lonely, single women could be on the rise, but you are conflating loneliness with "lacking a romantic partner."
Loneliness was measured with the following 4 questions:
"Do you feel a lack of companionship?
Do you feel left out?
Do you feel isolated from others?
Do you feel in tune with people around you?"
Certainly many if not all of those needs could be met without a romantic partner. So it doesn't necessarily follow that the numbers must be the same between heterosexual men and women.
It's not 1:1 pairing between men and women. It's more like 1:0 for the undesired and 1:10 for the highly desired. Those 10 do it for a chance of a 1:1 relationship.
Not entirely, but a lot of the eastern problems stem from being almost literally being worked to death and not having time to date due to the culture. Such as Japan, you're expected to essentially give your life body and soul to the company you work for. They also don't express themselves as much as us in their languages and have a massive decline in annual birthrates as a result of both and more. Similar, but the specifics are different in my opinion.
or, from a different perspective, we're experiencing a population cap, as experienced through cost of living increases. Starting a family is a luxury not everybody can afford.
High quality people may make that choice/distinction, but millions of mediocre childhoods are facilitated through handouts and their requirements without any forethought by those involved.
I'm not sure a shitfight between some angry men shouting about how women are too promiscuous, other angry men shouting about how women are too uptight and angry people shouting about how men need to improve in 12 different ways is truth or wisdom.
The problem of reading those comments is, everyone defends with their feelings, doesn't necessarily means they are angry or whatever. It's definitely not ideal for a lot of people, including myself. You can be angry at anything, doesn't mean it changes the outcome to your desired intent, infact it can be worse, in case of incels, the more angrier they get the more they get ostracized.
Sure, the most intolerant minority and the most vocal minority pushes the change. This is how the feminist movement started and that gave way to women being liberated. They focused their energies/anger into the right direction.
Promiscuity is something of a completely different topic.
The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice. And this is the state of affairs we are dealing with. That's why women say they want a "high quality" man. Do what you want with that information, it's certainly not an easy thing to digest for a lot of men, because they themselves would not put themselves in the "high quality" man box.
>The truth is women don't need men anymore. Men can be dead tomorrow collectively and women will not even notice
This is an absolutely insane statement. No, most women have men they love such as fathers, sons, brothers, and even husbands. Not to mention many important jobs are still dominated by men as women aren't interested. For example dangerous and disgusting professions like plumbing, underwater welding, physical laborers, loggers, firefighters, soldiers.
I was thinking exactly about this comment, or a variant of this comment.
I do agree, but the thing here is that, we are now in a setting where individualism has been able to replace every single person. In an atomized society everyone is replaceable.
I'll give you an example which is very real, in Japan you can rent a person, say you want affection of a father(because your real father was emotionally absent), and brother etc. You can experience them. Although in the west, it is not done due to many reasons, but it makes sense to have these paid services where a person who is a complete stranger can pretend to be your father or brother.
The rest of the professions are meant for hire anyway.
I think the only relationship which seems to be unconditional love is between mother and sons, because women obviously like their children more.
What I meant by men are not needed, is that men are not needed for protection(the state protects you with Police, and Armed forces), for finance(no need for husband's salary or dad's inheritance dangled like a carrot in front of you) when you can find a job through education, the law protects you legally in many ways, the society now is pro-women than it ever was and that's a good thing.
Men are not explicitly needed by women anymore because the system set up civilization now makes men being implicit supporters and protectors of women. And it's completely good, because they are no longer in the shackles of men wanting to be protected. They can be themselves and choose men they feel like it.
Maybe this is the harsh truth many men don't want to acknowledge or feel uneasy when they look at the facts and figures and these articles blindly say men need to somehow figure out to be not lonely and single. What if I'm a shy person or a depressed person or a lazy person or simply an ugly person? Some attributes are immutable and they become a part of one's personality and outlook and from this point, it makes sense why people recommend therapy to cope with the idea that you need to accept who you but still put out the best parts of you and hopefully those best part guide you to become a more rounded person, even if you don't end up being a well rounded person, you will find yourself surrounded by people who accept you and at least that will make you feel well rounded.
Sure we don't live in Jane Austin times when a woman needs to marry because she can't inherit property and has limited economic choices.
But on the other hand in the end of Grease when Sandy sings "You better shape up, cause I need a man, and my heart is set on you." I don't think she has finance and protection in mind, exactly.
I think she's looking for happiness when she says she needs a man.
I think the modern world is alienating and isolating. We compare ourselves to each to other constantly and treat each other as commodities. The destruction of the family and various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people.