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I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

wave3.social

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Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#531

Post by robotguy »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #25
Telemakhos wrote: post #16

Sometimes I wish we could have "gentlemen's clubs" of the sort that existed in Victorian Britain (not the US strip club version), third-spaces where one could go to read or converse or play cards with other men or even have a meal or a drink. Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.

Hacker spaces are sort of like that, it seems to me.

I am very sad that my local hackerspace seems to eschew any of the social aspects and focuses (at least outwardly from what I can see) solely on entrepreneurship.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#532

Post by renewiltord »

alpaca128 wrote: post #358
renewiltord wrote: post #215

Is this really a problem? I get the feeling that the male loneliness epidemic is more described by people about others than themselves. For my part, the world doesn't seem that way at all. I have many friends who live close by and who are a part of my life. We play basketball and poker and board games together. We go to nearby bars occasionally and to each others' homes regularly. We lift together though I haven't be…

It's great that you have a good social life, but calling this problem illusory based on just your anecdotal experience is just denying reality when you look at statistics: > 52% of Americans report feeling lonely while 47% report their relationships with others are not meaningful > 55% of London residents say they feel lonely > Social isolation is a problem in Europe: 18% of its citizens, the equivalent of 75 million…

These all have the smell of “50% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck” type nonsense and there are sufficient counter findings that I don’t think there’s any good evidence here https://news.gallup.com/poll/470888/americans-largely-satisf...

I think I’m likely correct. This is a manufactured crisis like seed oils, or ADHD and autism diagnoses. Nothing is actually getting worse.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#533

Post by zug_zug »

UncleMeat wrote: post #529
zug_zug wrote: post #38

I like the idea, on principle, any attempt to build community should be supported. I'm may not be the target audience if this is recently post-college, but the thing that strikes me is these activities feel a bit performatively male. I guess my hot-take is there are certain things that people genuinely love (e.g. improv, dnd, video games, rock-climbing) perception be damned, and there are certain things that people d…

I assure you that people really do love these things. The idea that men truly love video games but are actually just experiencing shared psychosis when playing or watching sports is wild to me.

No playing sports for sure is fun and normally authentic behavior. Especially if it's not a particularly "cool" sport (e.g. pickleball). Though of course you definitely do find those people who make "Playing a sport" their personality and spend a ton of money on all the clothes and equipment and never seem to actually be out there doing it, especially if it's a "status" sport like polo/golf.

I don't mean to present this as entirely black-and-white. But also if you think that the interest in poker in college-aged-boys spiking after Casino Royale is a coincidence I think you're kidding yourself.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#534

Post by cjohnson318 »

yesfitz wrote: post #508
cjohnson318 wrote: post #240

I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that most men are too insecure to engage with each other meaningfully. This causes them to appear overly competitive, or uninterested. How many times have you spoken to another man that can't stop trying to one-up you, or cannot be bothered to ask you a single question? That's the majority of my interactions with other men.

Is there a common thread between the men you describe beyond their gender? I haven't experienced what you described since I was socializing with programmers and scientists on the East Coast. Now most of the men I socialize with are artists (at least part time) and IT generalists in the Midwest.

That's difficult to say. Right now, my cohort is mainly other dads at my kids school, so we're all busy and kind of tired. I want to make friends, but it's hard to find people that are (1) available and (2) friendly. Full disclosure, I have insecurities too: I've got zero interest in trying to make friends in a group where I feel like I'll be judged or looked down upon for whatever. I still socialize, and I've learned a lot about socialization from my wife, but yeah, I realize that I've got a chip on my shoulder also.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#535

Post by zug_zug »

lovich wrote: post #55
zug_zug wrote: post #38

I like the idea, on principle, any attempt to build community should be supported. I'm may not be the target audience if this is recently post-college, but the thing that strikes me is these activities feel a bit performatively male. I guess my hot-take is there are certain things that people genuinely love (e.g. improv, dnd, video games, rock-climbing) perception be damned, and there are certain things that people d…

> I guess my hot-take is there are certain things that people genuinely love (e.g. improv, dnd, video games, rock-climbing) perception be damned, and there are certain things that people do because they are socially acceptable stereotypes for males: drink craft beer, whiskey, poker, grilling, sports? And that it's about 20x easier to make real friends from the former than the latter. Brah that's just your experience.…

> conspiracy theory

?

We all live in this interconnected thing called a "culture." Maybe you've heard of it. It affects what we all do it at all times, the clothes we wear, what we value, who we strive to be, and where we spend most of our money.

In fact, some people would even give up their lives if the cultural pressure told them to. I bet most people are so heavily subjected to the pressures of cultures that they wouldn't violate harmless cultural norms for $1,000 a day (e.g. crossdressing).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#536

Post by mock-possum »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

I do think that the kind of people that complain about the male loneliness epidemic are the kind of people who would struggle with those issues-

The only way to establish relationships is to be real - so of course if you believe you can’t be real, that’ll be a problem.

Relationships kick off and grow and solidify via socializing - so of course if you’ve let your social skills atrophy and believe you have no chance to practice and improve them, that’ll be a problem.

Your third point sounds like it’s really just a combination of your first two points, discomfort with being open and honest with others, and discomfort with intentionally socializing with strangers. Of course if you avoid those things to spare yourself the discomfort, you’re also avoiding the opportunity to make friends.

The rest of it (testosterone? Co-ed?) sounds like bullshit to me.

What I hear you being concerned about is: people don’t see the value in leaving their comfort zone in order to pursue what they want. Those fears you mention about not being real, and not knowing how to socialize, and not being around others, and being forced to go to schools for women (??) just sound like irrational fears to me. None of that stuff will kill you.

If being a man is anything, then surely, being a man is facing those kinds of situations and saying “this makes me uncomfortable but it has to be done, I am afraid but I will do it anyway.”

For me, that is the male loneliness epidemic, if such a thing even exists - it’s the unwillingness of some men to face their fears and do what needs to be done to make a connection with another human being.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#537

Post by aaronbaugher »

SoftTalker wrote: post #122
ecshafer wrote: post #13

I think this is a good idea but I think to get it really going good you need to have a social club. The old ethnic, religious an society social clubs all had a common factor of a club house. You could go to the American Legion, or Elks, or Masons, or Knights of columbus or Polish club or whatever at any time when you were a member you had old timers hanging out and doing things regularly. Youe event schedule will als…

> American Legion, or Elks, or Masons, or Knights of columbus ... Those all still exist, right? Or did they die off with the WWII generation?

They still exist where I am, and are desperate for members, because their memberships tend to have an average age probably over 60. Some new blood could really invigorate them, but they have trouble finding any.

I sometimes wonder how my grandparents' generation, who were generally hard-working farmers and tradesmen, and who raised large families relative to today, found the time to maintain all those groups along with their churches. Different priorities, I guess, and that was not only before the Internet, but before TV really took over.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#538

Post by nathan_compton »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

Don't get me wrong, I hate religion and everything, but America is still basically totally controlled by religious people and in many situations being non-religious is the weird thing. I can't imagine anyone would be feel stigmatized by religious belief in this country.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#539

Post by LargeWu »

piltdownman wrote: post #340
barry-cotter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because men and women are different and have mixed and single sex spaces have radically different norms and interaction styles. Given that all respectable mixed institutions default to female interaction styles this is profoundly alienating for men. If one has never spent any time in all male spaces or has and thinks that men are defective women, like the average male therapist or counsellor this may not be obvious.

Spot on. This is immediately evident at Primary School level, whereby normative female behaviour for that age is seen as the ideal. As psychologist Michael Thompson puts it “Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools. Boys are treated like defective girls". In the US by the 8th grade, 48 percent of girls receive a mix of A and B grades compared to 31 percent of boys. More tellingly, Boys account for 71 percent of…

Have you ever seen teenage boys? A lot of them are basically quasi-feral owing to the newly elevated levels of testosterone unleashed on their brains which are still a long way from being fully baked.

I don't know that "girls" remains the gold standard so much as girls are more able to conform to broader behavioral expectations. This is not to say teenage girls are immune from hormonal-driven behavior issues, but it manifests in different ways. I have a 13-yo daughter and let me tell you it's no walk in the park. But it's absolutely not a surprise to me that boys account for the majority of problematic behavior.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#540

Post by _zaey »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #476
_zaey wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear that’s your experience. I’m staying with my parents this week and I visited the local bouldering gym alone on Wednesday and last night. On Wednesday I met someone called Nelly, and hung out with them for the session. Yesterday I bumped into Nelly with their friends Maddie and Kate and climbed with them. I’m leaving on Sunday so I gave one of them my number and they messaged me to say it was great fun cl…

You don't need to go to the bouldering gym to make small talk hoping it becomes more than that. You can make small talk everywhere like libraries, cafes, bars, meet-ups, concerts, stand-ups, etc. places where the main activity is talking, not exercising. And if sports is your jam, team sports are better for socializing than solitary sports like bouldering, because you are forced to work together and build connections…

I suppose it’s very different here in the UK then
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