male loneliness epidemic

29/6/25

don’t take my word for anything, take this post with a grain of salt. concepts i introduce may be presented as shallow or generalized so i apologize

if you’ve been online at all recently you might have heard of a certain ‘male loneliness epidemic’, which is a phenomenon where young men are statistically more lonely than the previous generations specifically in western countries. this is part of a larger loneliness epidemic affecting everyone.

background

i think it is a problem, but in the context of dating i think one of the reasons is because of women’s ability to choose for themselves. see in the past women were treated as subservient to men in most cultures, but with the rise of feminism and a call to end male dominance they’ve, at least in the west, been given more freedom than in any other time period which is closer to gender equality than ever before

women historically got courted by men and for the most part didn't have much of a say, combine that with the fact that wealth and stability mattered more than looks in, say the 19th century than the 21st and they’re seen and basically were more tools than people

not every man was wealthy but even among peasantry families wed off their daughters because it was less about love and more about image and stability and this freedom for women kind of exposed how the way some men found value. this former societal norm also didn’t force men to self-reflect (unlike prolonged loneliness) or change in any meaningful way by themselves.

cause

of course i’m not saying wealth is not a preference today but dating culture with equality for women allows them to pick their own partner and puts the focus more on love, and without the need to marry into wealth or being forced into something men don’t have it as easy as they used to and actually need to provide something of value besides money

incels

people like incels (involuntarily celibates) see this and when they fail to get a girl because of their looks, personality or otherwise blame it on girls instead of pointing the finger towards themselves while using justifications like ‘society is unfair towards ugly men’ or something

thing is society IS unfair to 'ugly' men and women both in different ways but (my take) undesirable women have been sort of outcasts for way longer than men and thus some have better ways of coping or dealing with it. because gender equality is somewhat recent, i’d be willing to say that ugly women are better equipped (i.e. friendships, finding a worth beyond romance) than ugly men to deal with rejection or exclusion

i think, for incels or lonely men, the best way to get a woman is to stop focusing on trying to get one. if you work on yourself, physically and mentally for your own gain (therapy, building social skills, empathy), i’d reckon you’ll be happier than if you blame women for your problems and refuse to better yourself.

of course, working out or whatever to get a girl is fine i guess but just put your own needs first and that rejection is fine because otherwise you’ll be stuck in a cycle of hate, rejection can cause victim mentality or frustration and frustration can turn into misogyny which in turn can cause rejection

note: women’s inequality =/= male loneliness epidemic, womens struggle and subservience is centuries old. the fact that women are closer to being equal is a good thing. male loneliness is in my opinion a byproduct of that.