Why Are Men So Lonely?
/When I was in grad school, I would often see a sight on campus that would stop me in my tracks: guys my age walking around holding hands as friends. I’d seen guys hold hands before, as partners, but never platonically. The guys in question were from Nepal, studying abroad here in America, and they explained to me that they simply didn’t have the same hang-ups as me and all of my male friends did - this was what friends did. It was stunning to see, and I was beyond jealous of them for being able to connect like that. I still am.
As a male therapist who specializes in working with teens and twenty-somethings, I’ve had a lot of isolated young men turn up seeking help for a malaise that they can’t quite name. In trying to better understand what’s going on, I’ll ask them to simply describe how they feel. More often than not, their replies are some variation of this: “I feel unfulfilled, unsatisfied, totally unsure of what I’m supposed to be doing, and I don’t know how to figure it out.” A lot of unknowns, and heavy ones. It reminds me of the kinds of fears and worries I always wanted to talk to my friends about in high school, but never did.
According to a 2023 “State of American Men” study by Equimundo.org, “65% of men aged 18 to 23 say that ‘no one really knows me.’” The study goes on: just under half of all men in that age group meet criteria for depressive symptoms, and about half report having had suicidal thoughts in the previous two weeks before being interviewed. The numbers are very clear: young men are troubled, and they’re not talking to anyone about those troubles.
Loneliness is tricky in two ways. The first way is how it rarely shows its face as the heart of the matter. My suspicion is that my clients’ complaints aren’t the real issue, because those kinds of complaints are smart things to be worrying about at their age. I’m not saying they’re easy to manage, but they’re not inappropriate for that developmental phase. It strikes me that being unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and at a loss for what to do about it is a normal human reaction to ending one developmental phase and starting another. This is to say that I don’t think those feelings would be an issue, if my clients could process them healthily, let’s say by talking to trusted people about them. But they are an issue, which suggests they can’t be talked about.
The second tricky thing about loneliness is how it hits you hardest in a crowd. When I felt these ways in high school, college, and grad school, I had plenty of friends. I’m funny and impulsive, a great party guest; having people around was never the issue, connecting with them was. And for my clients it's usually the same: there are plenty of people they could talk to, if only they had the courage. They’re often surrounded by friends and drowning in disconnection at the same time. With the rise of cell phones, texting, internet, and cooperative gaming, they have more opportunities than ever to connect. The problem is they don’t know how.
When I’m working with these lonely clients I’m always asking them about their relationships. My ultimate goal in this is to figure out who they can develop trust in, so that they will have someone to go to with these very understandable questions they have about their futures. Developing trust isn’t easy, but it’s never impossible (just ask the stray cat on my block who finally let me pet him after three years of daily feedings on my porch). Signs to look out for in a trustworthy person are if they are honest, if they keep their word on commitments, if they are kind, and if they seem to have a moral core to their decision making.
Once a client has identified a person they think will be trustworthy, I recommend they lead the way through small acts of vulnerability. Each vulnerable act is a chance to see how their friend reacts, and decide from there to continue on the vulnerable path or to try with someone else. One strong sign that they have the right person in mind is when that person uses this as a chance to be vulnerable as well. Essentially, trust is a skill that you develop in tandem with a person of your choosing. And once you’ve developed it, you can both open up about what’s really going on.
Now, none of this seems so groundbreaking, so it begs the question why people aren’t doing it. In the above-cited study, 40% of the men interviewed say they “...trust one or more ‘men’s rights,’ ‘anti-feminist,’ or pro-violence voices from the manosphere.” This question demands further investigation, but to me there’s a strong implication that progressive values like vulnerability and openness are being strongly questioned among young men, in a way that often have been, and it’s isolating them. For the same reason that I can yearn for the kind of male friendship that allows for holding hands but never realize it, today’s young men can be desperate for someone to talk to and never say a word.