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

wave3.social

381–390 of 728 posts

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

#381

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It isn't a question of grace, or of motivation. If you understood the problem you purport to seek to solve, you wouldn't need telling that a doomed attempt to recreate an unrecreateable social and personal milieu isn't going to do that, and it will probably fail pretty quickly absent an unsustainable burn rate, as people discover that what's bringing them apart - as their family and professional responsibilities mult…

Lol. I'm sure they'll be gutted you won't be joining. I know plenty of single guys who'd like this sort of club. This definitely emphasises the importance of the filter event...

Oh, I have better ways to spend my time than hanging out with men in their early 30s. It isn't an easy time and I was glad to see the back of it.

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

#382

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Elephant's weigh more like 11,000lbs. I think you mean Gorilla? Speaking of Gorillas, have you ever read the book Chimpanzee Politics? Crazy how at the end the other two chimps break into the one chimps cage and literally rip his nuts off. Crazy huh? Oh wait... I'm doing that thing again, aren't I?

It's a very small elephant, like the opposite of a jumbo shrimp.

This is the humor I’m looking for in a men’s club!

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

#383
post #166

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.

A billion dollar company started with this idea. Schultz envisioned Starbucks as a “third place” between home and work, fostering community and connection. https://mulcahyconsultants.com/2023/12/14/howard-schultz-and...

In the U.K. there were lots of their places before American style capitalism invaded. Coffee houses predate America as a whole - on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

#384

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> is this a concern for many men? It's never crossed my mind or been a problem for anyone I've known Yes, I talk to an older guy, probably mid-50s, at my gym. He completely stopped helping women at the gym or even giving advise. To my knowledge, no one ever accused him of anything, but he acknowledge that he absolutely have no experience talking to or otherwise interacting with younger women. He is terrified of doing…

> he absolutely have no experience talking to or otherwise interacting with younger women. A sad fact of life, but at 50, most men aren't attractive to women 10 years younger than them, and it becomes pretty awkward and socially unacceptable to do anything that could be interpreted as flirting. Now I don't know about the situation in gyms in the US, maybe the situation is extreme there. But generally speaking, I don'…

> I don't find it particularly sad if people mind their own business in the gym.

But that is part of the whole loneliness issue isn't it. I can certainly understand people wanting to just do their workout, but it's one less source of interaction between people. We don't talk to be people at the supermarket, we don't talk to people waiting for the bus, we'd rather listen to a podcast during our workout, than talk to the guy sitting on the next bench.

Very anecdotally: I'm fairly introvert, but have issues not talking, so I'll fairly regularly talk to random people. Some people will clearly prefer to be left alone, but frequently people smile and light up and start talking about all sorts of random stuff.

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

#385
post #79

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There's the Mechanics Institute Library in San Francisco. I used to be a member. If you want to see people sitting around in wing-backed chairs, half asleep, that's the place to go. It's quite a good library, too.

You're not supposed to talk in a library, so it's explicitly not a social space.

Of course you are. The stereotype of the librarian saying “which” is decades out of date.

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

#387

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I realize that it is silly to tell non-believers to go to church to fix their problems but it’s funny how often people talk about place or group or organization that seems to be missing in society that was fulfilled by houses of worship in the past.

That's true, but pretty much every religion beyond certain size focuses on growth and power at all costs, and treats the social function as a sidequest. I hate religion exactly because I see what it does to people's brains. Parents abandon their children "because priest told me to do so".

Same with any business. Fewer people seem devoted to a specific business though.

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

#388
post #273

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[flagged]

> If you lose the ability to be a normal person whenever That depends on what "normal" is, and I don't think you or I get to define it. I mostly hang out in mixed-gender groups, but I absolutely have seen the difference in vibe others in this thread have noted, when I'm hanging out with a group of just other men. Especially when compared to a mixed group that has both single men and single women. > men are putting th…

[flagged]

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

#390

This idea appears every once in awhile, as it’s obviously a major issue in modern life. The interesting thing though is how the solution is always location-agnostic. By that I mean it’s never really about a specific cafe or restaurant or soccer field, it’s always an app or service that organizes people to show up in various places. I bring this up because if you look at places that had lively social activities a few…

Not always, but this is the Internet, and Hacker News : if you freaking love hammers, everything starts to look like a nail.
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