What in your honest opinion are the reasons for today’s men’s loneliness, low self esteem , negative self image? And how can they work and improve on it?

14 comments

1. Video games, social media and porn. The solution is simple yet hard. Get off and go outside.

2. Women have the same standards

   But it got harder to meet those standards

3. In general, women had a paradigm shift in which they redefined the type of relationships they want and how they would like to be in these relationships and most men were ill equipped to meet these new standards. On top of that, from a male perspective the average women got worst meeting the average man’s standards. So even for the men who meet the elevated standards women have set, a lot of the time it feels like it isn’t even worth it.

   And to make it worst, there are more distractions for men then ever, so it’s easy to get caught up in the meta verse when real life seems grim. Irl girls seem distant and not worth it? Watching an e-girl is good enough…right?

   Realistically the only way to fix this is for men to find self worth outside of relationships. Men place so much value and ego on getting pussy. They need to chase higher callings.

4. Young boys aren’t taught or given room to express and deal with emotions, especially things that are considered feminine or weak. This builds a lack early on where men aren’t given the skills to process emotionally.

5. The short answer is that nobody really cares and the general perception is that women still automatically have everything worse in all cases and that men should just ‘get over it’.

   Male issues are consistently and repeatedly underestimated, especially in areas where men are primarily affected but also in cases where men are in a minority – e.g., One in three abuse victims are men but male abuse shelters don’t receive a third of the funding, and the general population thinks the ratio is a lot lower (I’ve had several people guess in the past and the most common answer is ‘one in a thousand’).

   Far more young men (20s-30s) are single than young women too (same age bracket), common dating advice is rubbish and men are still overwhelmingly expected to be the ‘pursuer’ who strives to impress possible partners while women can generally get away with just sitting back and waiting for offers to come in.

6. This is a contributor, but far from the only reason.

   Rich world economies have largely shifted from requiring brute strength manual labor that required little prior training to now needing highly developed skills, whether in manual or office-based labor.

   For those that have adapted to this transition, the rewards have been massive. But we largely didn’t prepare the type of men who would previously have gone straight from high school to factory work for the change, and we’re still not doing a very good job. Hence, the economic outlook for these men, who previously would have taken pride as being the primary bread-winners in the household, has declined precipitously. And along with that, their chances for fulfilling relationships, their self-esteem, physical and mental health have all declined. Instead of gradually taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, they’ve been left in a sort of perpetual adolescence with few prospects for progression.

   I think certain parts of Europe that have a strong tradition of apprenticeship have navigated this change better than the US, mainly because they always placed a higher emphasis on skilled productive labor.

7. There are many reasons, but to keep it different from others:

   Men don’t need to struggle/overcome situations today like they had to in previous generations.

   Everything is easy and comfortable for many of us.

   This isn’t a bad thing (in fact it’s a great opportunity without the fear or survival), it just means we need to shift with the times to find things to challenge ourselves and grow from.

   It’s so easy to bitch about women and how no one cares about men, and I’m not saying it’s not entirely true. But it’s harder to seek things to learn, to experience, and to BECOME better. It’s harder to blame oneself for the lack of growth and over coming our shitty character.

   Loneliness? you got a whole mother fucking internet to connect with others.

   You got boys and other men out there who want to play sports, or be part of teams, or part of a community.

   Low self esteem, negative self image? how about fucking get good at things, stop flaming others, stop being a closet racist/sexist. Work on becoming a good person.

   MEN/boys…. support each other. Why are you picking fights with one another at school? Why are you going online playing games and talking shit to random strangers?

   For the most part, we do this to ourselves.

8. Social media and app-based dating.

9. aside from the social influences, there are also biological ones

   exposure to chemicals like phthalates, BPA and parabens.. even naturally occuring ones in soy and hops

   they increase estrogen and/or decrease testosterone, leading to depression, low libido, obesity etc

   Andrew Jay calls them estrogenics

10. I think some of it is actually just more honesty. For example, single men who don’t like being single being honest about it (of course some single men do like being single). Another way that today is more honest is that people seem less likely to stay in unhappy relationships. You can feel lonely in a bad relationship but you probably won’t express it openly.

    But has there been an actual increase in loneliness in men? I think so. I can think of one big reason. Men have always had to do the approaching. While men in the past were of course nervous and awkward in many cases like today, I think the difference was the men of the past thought it obvious that they would have to approach if they wanted success with women, and I think society was more rigid, so it was more obvious when and where and how those approaches should happen or should not happen. Has there been an increase in women approaching? I think so, but it is still a very small fraction of women who will actually do that. And both quality and quantity of success will be much smaller than if you as the man are willing to approach. Same with dating apps too, I think. So if you are an average man, you will get very little or nothing if you depend on apps or on waiting to be approached.

    Basically, what people are being taught as kids and what is actually going on are different things. And people are being misled.

11. Capitalism. You can make more money from unhappy and lonely people. So in it’s interest to have more lonely and unhappy people. But still keep them on leash, teasing that if they buy this good or that service then they maybe find something good. Money don’t smell.

12. The internet and porn.

13. They spend too much time online, listening to the opinions of ignorant, opinionated women and weak, insecure men. It makes them think they live in a world that doesn’t actually exist.

14. We stopped going to Church/Temple/etc and didn’t replace that community with anything else.