A Radical Plan to Solve Men’s Loneliness

Men are desperately lonely today and everyone knows it. The fact that most studies show that men and women are equally lonely does not adequately address the unique qualities of men’s loneliness. We have seen that men’s perception of loneliness and their lack of social resources is the real problem, making the experience of loneliness much more challenging for men than for women.

It seems ironic that in our heavily mediated, hyperconnected world, anyone can possibly feel lonely. The fact is that in modern life, we ourselves and everyone we know become mediated through the numerous communication channels that engulf our experiences. The messaging is so overwhelming, so intrusive, that real flesh-and-blood people become mere reflections in a hall of mirrors.

Two major social issues challenge the notion that loneliness is somehow a psychological matter, that individual behavior is to blame. Forty years ago, American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch explained in his book The Minimal Self (1984), that sociological issues are the true culprits: that growing narcissism, bloated individualism, and self-obsession explain people’s disconnectedness and the erosion of communal bonds. The other major social issue is a product of these trends: the stunning growth of digital media and direct-to-consumer media platforms.

The rise of perceived loneliness since the 1990s precisely aligns with the rise of digital media, cell phones, electronic messaging, and of course social media. We should not be surprised that so many of us spend so much time on these devices and platforms that we really do not have time for real friends. Let’s take that one step further: many of us have forgotten how to be human.

These devices, media and types of content are all commercial enterprises in which we are commodities. All are competing for our attention so fiercely that most of us become addicted to one or more of them, and find ourselves disconnecting from real people, folks in the neighborhood or down at the bowling alley. Of course the industry will deny this.

“Oh man, the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it.”
— Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now (1979)

Deceptive Nostalgia for the Way Things Were

If you remember the American War in Vietnam as lived experience, then you are at retirement age today, and perhaps with your wisdom you can see through the facade of nostalgia that is yet another product of commercialization. In short, nostalgia is deceptive and misleading marketing.

In the debates around loneliness, and to some extent even in the research, there is an assumption that life was better back when we were less lonely and more engaged with community life. My father worked his butt off through the 1950s and 60s building a small family business. Did he have more male friends? Aside from the mechanics working at his automotive shop, I do not recall male friends other than members of our extended family.

But he never seemed lonely, at least not from my young person’s point of view. Driven, sociable, introverted, peaceful, but never lonely.

Foundational Trauma and Self-Addiction

A broad consensus is arising today that people are becoming self-obsessed, or as some critics define it, self-addicted. This is especially problematic among men for whom friendship dynamics have always been highly restricted and dysfunctional. This set of factors have led men to become socially isolated and thoroughly lacking in friend building skills. Of course there are many exceptions, in our present moment in particular, millennial men seem to have evaded this pattern.

Lately I’ve been trying something new. In my long walks around my neighborhood, whenever I see a man walking, I stop, introduce myself, and chat for a bit. In every instance so far, men seemed pleased with these little chats. When I see them again, we wave or perhaps stop to chat again. This is radical behavior in my suburban community!

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering — and it’s all over much too soon.” — Woody Allen

Let’s not forget that most men spend their entire lives recovering from the foundational trauma experienced as children when peers, parents and other authority figures relentlessly attempt to convince them to be more manly, to fight back, to dominate women, and whether for sorrow or joy, never, ever cry. A common scare tactic is to accuse boys of acting “gay,” as if their lives would suddenly end if they were in fact gay.

Boys were abused to the point of becoming terrified to express any emotion other than anger and aggression. We should not be surprised that “globally, almost one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their life. This violence is often perpetrated by current or former intimate partners,” according to UN Women.

So men are taught from a young age to become self-obsessed individuals, to dominate women, and to easily become angry and violent. Later, long after the damage has been done, these men spend the rest of their lives in recovery.

“Too much self-centered attitude results in isolation. Isolation produces loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering.” — Dalai Lama

A Radical Plan: Embracing Solitude

Male identity has been further distorted by popular media, the problematic aspects in particular heightened to unrealistic proportions. Loneliness has been exaggerated as an integral feature of 21st century life. Men have suffered most intensely, since they were already conditioned to sustain “man-up” restrictions and embrace loner individualism.

In short, we must cleanse our minds of media distortions and understand that we live in lonely times. It is not that people have become more lonely, although this is often how we perceive our situations. I believe that people are simply coping as best they can, working their way through loneliness and isolation, with no obvious solution in sight.

Skeptical of the loneliness studies, Tom Whipple, Science Editor for The Times remarked:

“Cheer up Britain, we aren’t experiencing a loneliness epidemic after all. On the contrary, it turns out we have always been this miserable.”

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Between the doom scrollers emphasizing the psychological failures of modern life, and the deniers who suggest we should all just buck-up and get on with things, there is a middle way.

It’s simple really. We need to replace loneliness and isolation with solitude.

B. Simone, a comedian and podcaster, recently offered this brilliant explanation of the difference between social isolation and the middle way of solitude. Here are word-salad versions:

Isolation: no choice, forced, social rejection, fear of intimacy, feels like punishment, fearful of new relationships, fearful of what others will think, frozen state, paralyzed. Negative thoughts, dark thoughts. Over-eating, eating your emotions.

Solitude: mentally stable, happy, fearless, intentional alone time, restorative, empowering, spiritual growth, feels like a gift, only a few best friends, being productive, does not depend on relationships to fill voids.

To be clear, solitude is a form of self-love and self-care. Just like we rest our bodies, we also need to rest our minds. In solitude, we don’t need much, we are not dependent on others for our happiness, we don’t need relationships, or romance. We notice energy levels rising, we get more sleep, and we do not procrastinate. Most importantly, we avoid codependency and entanglement with the community.

Solitude is not easy, and new practitioners may experience loneliness at first. But we need to stick it out, it is a choice and we need to honor our choices. It requires or invites self-control and discipline, and when the time is right, we will feel the call of relationships and community. But now restored by solitude, we are much more inclined to seek out healthy relationships and avoid self-defeating and self-depleting ones.

Ava Phoenix in a recent Medium essay describes the experience like this:

“You can be surrounded by many or just one and still feel fucking lonely. Loneliness is isolation from the self. It is being disconnected from yourself. The [important] step is simply noticing. Notice when you feel lonely. Notice when you do something, if it is driven by your loneliness. It means you are saying, ‘dear loneliness, I know you are here. And I am also here with you.’”

For men, this means embracing solitude as the middle way. Taking the time you need to recover, to heal your wounds, to engage in restorative practices. The first step, as Ms. Phoenix points out, is to acknowledge your loneliness and welcome it into your heart. Rejecting it will only expand the loneliness.

“Self-addiction” is the term proposed by Buddhist teacher Valerie Mason-John. They suggest that most of us have accumulated habitual behaviors that are cyclical and that define our most externalized personalities. These habitual behaviors are deeply negative and deeply damaging to the world. We become polarized, clinging, compulsive, and hedonistic; and we compulsively engage in the same behavior that we know from past experience has brought about deeply negative, even painful, consequences.

In their book First Aid Kit for the Mind: Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behaviors, Mason-John suggests that strong habitual behaviors develop from childhood traumas, especially attachment issues, which are carried into adulthood. They propose that there is a “window of tolerance” within which a person functions in everyday life, and in which they manage their emotions and reactions. But for many people, this is just a surface-level coping strategy from which habitual behaviors erupt from time to time.

Freedom from this habitual behavior pattern is available in recovery from self-addiction.

“When we become aware of a trigger being activated, we can spot the red flag and respond in a way that does not reflect the early traumas. Freedom is understanding our triggers and learning alternatives to the automatic trauma-based responses. This is the ‘middle way.’”

For some men, periods of solitude may involve a meditation practice, for others walks in the woods, a weekend camping trip alone, reading a novel you discover at the local library, and disconnecting from habitual media. The key is to remove yourself from routine circumstances in such a way that, with practice, the “removal pattern” becomes normalized and available through the option of solitude.

For those of us who have practiced meditation on a regular basis, men in particular often find it a very soothing experience. Meditation is a form of solitary experience you may have at any time. Even when practicing in a group, we embrace solitude as our most peaceful internal experience.

Let’s review. Loneliness is not about “us,” and certainly not about men exclusively. It is a characteristic of life in our time. We need to cope with loneliness such that it no longer feels like a threat. Habitual behaviors have been fine-tuned by electronic media, especially social media, and are designed to keep users distracted and disconnected from the self.

Replacing the fog of loneliness with decisive solitude, we re-engage the self on our own terms, we learn deeply and truly who we are as individual men, and for the first time we gaze upon our true potential, and perhaps make decisions that will last a lifetime.

Vic Caldarola is the founder and lead facilitator of the Shine a Light Men’s Project, a men’s mindfulness discussion program, and a member of the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies.

If you enjoyed this essay, and would like to see more like it, please show your support by buying the author a cup of joe.