Male Pattern Loneliness: Why Lonely Men (and all of us) Have A Problem
I worry that I might be too late and the world already knows about loneliness. The “loneliness epidemic” is a popular term on the internet so it must be well-known, right? However, it also still feels incredibly urgent. No matter how much we seem to know, loneliness continues to plague our everyday experiences. We see and feel it at our places of work, sitting at restaurant tables, on the news, and in the mirror. Worse yet, is that we often don’t see it at all. We perceive it as an experience of one – something we go through alone, isolated from the world of extroverted motivational speakers and social media fame. Such a perception is false.
The truth is that we are not alone in feeling alone. A surge of articles has shown us just how prevalent the problem is. A 2015 study in the UK found just over half of men reported having two or fewer friends they could discuss impactful life events with and one in eight people overall said they had no such friends. For those of us in the stage of life that often centers on careers, marriages, and starting families it gets worse. Perhaps being together is the defining feature of feeling alone. Where we run into issues though is when we realize just how good we have become at hiding it. Outwardly, loneliness might describe one person you know. You think of your friend who constantly talks about finding someone to marry. Maybe your uncle who spends his days at home watching TV and doesn’t care to join family events. Your cousin twice removed? That guy just hates everyone and would rather be a hermit. Inwardly, loneliness is probably something you’ve felt and someone very close to you is sitting in it right now.
Ok, so men are lonely. What’s the big deal?
We have everything we need right at home and in the palm of our hand. We think “I can be entertained in a million different ways sitting on my couch. I don’t need to get out with friends anymore, I’ll just FaceTime them and hang out here. Matter of fact, I’m not lonely, I have thousands of people who love me and the pictures of Todo I post every hour.”
We’re not wrong, but we’re not right. This is an incomplete picture of what loneliness is. Physical isolation is a small, and probably rare, form of loneliness but our most common visual. Instead, picture yourself in a room full of people ready for a formal gathering. Suits, ties, dresses, heels walk the marble floors. Staff roams with choices of bad tasting but fancy looking food. There you are, right in the thick of it. You made it, you’re in, you matter. But as you look down you see shorts, a torn t-shirt from your high school team, and no shoes at all. The staff walks past you with an eye-roll and tries to find security to get you out. That conversation you hear, it’s in a language you don’t speak or understand. How are you feeling? You’re in, you made it, but you’re lonely. Alone in your experience that no one can understand. (someone will say, “I wouldn’t care about impressing people so I’d be proud to not be in a suit and still be confident.” Cool. You’re awesome. But be humble to get the point and move one).
I remember this feeling well when my dad suddenly passed away when I was in my early 20’s. I had friends who I trusted and had my back through it. But while I mourned, they went out. I cried at home and they laughed at dinner. My world stopped but everyone else kept moving. In my grief, I felt lonely because no one understood.
I think this kind of loneliness is normal. We all have experiences that make us feel alone and those around us, try as they might, just can’t sneak through the cracks to enter it with us. Brene Brown brilliantly talked about empathy as “jumping in the hole” with someone and getting into their experience.
The real danger sets in when this feeling of loneliness persists even after we opened the entrance to our experience, peeked outside, shouted for people to “jump in”, and no one came. When we crawled back into our experience and it became our new normal. This seemingly hopeless type of loneliness is dangerous. It destroys our health as much as being obese or smoking cigarettes for fifteen years. Feeling lonely increases the risk of premature death by 50%. It can rob us of our creative capacity as we find the balance between solitude and isolation. It steals from our families as we struggle to engage.
Men face this loneliness at alarming rates. That is not to say only men feel it. They don’t. But male loneliness, at least in part, is my story to tell. Anxiety has rattled me from a young age often brought on by thinking that my experience is so unique that no one can “jump in”. I have seen important men in my life destroyed emotionally and even physically from a lack of real friendship and bonding with other people. This is a social problem but it is also my problem. And your problem.
Here we are. A problem has shown itself to us. What do we do? I argue that we can’t sit by. Articles are great and studies are incredibly helpful. I love research and have done my own in graduate school but we can’t stop there. We can’t accept loneliness among men as an inconvenient reality of our modern society. Instead, we fight back with purpose and meaning. We fight back with friendship and accountability. We fight back with the weapons of physical activity, overcoming challenges, and being strong enough to be vulnerable. We fight back with love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence.
So What’s Next Then?
Next week I’ll be giving more detail about the Brothers LIFE Council as a solution for the epidemic of male loneliness. Others are already doing great work in this space but there is room for more. Josh Glancy wrote in Men’s Health last May,
“For me, the lesson of my own experience of loneliness is that we need to put close friendships at the centre of our life plans – to work towards them strategically, wholeheartedly and relentlessly, in the same way, one might work towards a marriage or a career.”
I resonate deeply with his ideas and you probably can too. Just look at your 2020 resolutions. Any of them have to do with friends or connections? The Brothers LIFE Council is my hope to give space at the center of our lives to these relationships and make our lives all the better for it.
Question of the Week
Do you notice loneliness around you? Can you start to soften your eyes to it in your own life and the men around you?
Featured Image Credit to harutmovsisyan via Pixabay