There's a disgusting inversion going on right now where people try to justify incel behavior by saying men are lonely. This makes people feel bad about pushing back on this, because it sounds like you're a callous person that doesn't care about the very real pain of loneliness?
No. This is a nonsense trap.
Women get lonely. Black people get lonely. Loneliness is a real problem.
But loneliness is not justification for *checks notes* becoming a literal nazi and electing a racist dictator.
1/N
Loneliness, combined with an extreme sense of entitlement, leads people to believe that they should be able to be terrible people, and yet somehow not lonely. It doesn't work that way.
And a lot of that loneliness is self-imposed!
White US toxic masculinity is a prison where you are your own warden. There are all these silly rules that keep white men in the US lonely and unhappy. Like seriously, we have news anchors telling men not to enjoy ice cream because that's not "manly?" Really?
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@sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke
Why a "loneliness epidemic" only for men?
Anecdotally, though, it seems true. I see a lot of women walking alone these days (even without dogs!) and they seem pretty happy about it
It could be historical discrimination leveling out
Men seem lonely because they used to be able to force women to marry them
Women seem happy because they’re finally allowed to be alone
The answer (as noted) is for men to get over themselves
@sidereal @peterbutler @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke It surprises me to see someone praising dating apps in this context; I find them horribly alienating. I'm also reflecting today on how different people's feelings about sexuality and relationships can be, and it does seem like some people thrive on them.
By and large, I do think there's been a methodical elimination of public social life. Part of it is the deliberate elimination or privatization of any public spaces, including virtual spaces.
@foolishowl @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke
I think the internet/smartphones is part of it
I don’t know if that's true, but it *feels* like there are far less people out and about because they’re inside on their phones or computers
The loss of non-commercial public spaces has been happening for decades, but this “loneliness epidemic" definitely feels like a Web3.0 era thing
I also find Internet relationships to have an "uncanny valley” effect — not quite the same as IRL friendships
@peterbutler @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke I feel like what I sometimes have heard called "nerd culture" used to thrive on the Internet. It had problematic aspects -- a lot of misogyny in particular -- but I felt that we could communicate in text in a way we couldn't so easily in person. For me at least, autism likely had a lot to do with it.
Early MMOs, for instance, had a significant social aspect to them, that I feel was rationalized away in favor of efficient gameplay.
@sidereal @peterbutler @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke I had a lot of trouble dating in my youth, back in the 80s and early 90s, and think a lot of my problem was that I got loneliness all mixed up with a ridiculous type of status anxiety. Yes, I got lonely, but I was also deeply afraid that I was a loser for not having a girlfriend, and the quest for a relationship was really partly a quest to level up in guy culture.
The resulting desperation can be really unattractive. Also, if your real audience is not the women themselves but other men, you create obstacles for yourself: that girlfriend had better be really impressive! You get picky in ways that are being externally imposed, nothing to do with who might be a good fit for you.
I didn't have any success until I learned to relax and stop worrying that somebody might be keeping score.
I suspect this is the fundamental problem a lot of these dudes are having.
@sidereal @peterbutler @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke You'll notice that a lot of "manosphere"/"PUA"/"MRA" stuff is about these weird grading and scoring systems: they're obsessed with things like facial symmetry and waist-to-hip ratios, all these "objective" measurements of women but also of themselves.
And that stuff is also a classic element of racist/fascist eugenic thinking. So the latter comes naturally once you're deep in the pit.
@jayalane @sidereal @peterbutler @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke I think pop culture of 40 years ago was actually MORE toxic than today's when it came to this stuff; you had comedies aimed at teenagers going on about the age after which boys were basically ruined if they hadn't gotten laid, that kind of thing.
But what there wasn't was the online culture devoted to telling guys who were anxious about this stuff that it was women's fault for rejecting them. They were more on their own, which might have felt worse but didn't actively lead them to these very dark places.
@mattmcirvin @jayalane @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke
That sounds right to me. Rape culture and misogyny were far more prevalent in popular movies, etc, but there wasn’t the same online echo chamber reflecting and reinforcing it 24/7/365
@peterbutler @jayalane @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke Because it was a pop-culture fad the movies and TV shows spent a lot of time playing up the importance of the jock/nerd distinction, and the older I get the more meaningless I think that is.
It led to the infamous "I'm a nice guy" phenomenon, where straight guys who still had a lot of terrible ideas about women thought of themselves as virtuous because they theoretically valued intelligence and weren't quarterback date-rapists. But that's a hell of a low bar.
@fifilamoura @peterbutler @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke
I gotta ask: why is “treat people like people” so hard for “boys” to understand? Is this a cis binary thing I’m not getting?
(Or am I missing something: Do cis girls *want* special gendered treatment?)
@MxVerda @fifilamoura @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke
I was a reactionary conservative when I was 13 or 14. It’s a dumb age
Not racially — I wasn’t raised with (explicit) White supremacy — but I did grow up with ingrained sexism
For me it was pure chauvinism/male supremacy. Men are tougher, stronger, and smarter, and women are supporters
I eventually grew up
>> Do cis girls *want* special gendered treatment?
Many do, i.e women should be put on pedestals,, e.g. beauty pageants
@peterbutler @sidereal @Ashedryden @mekkaokereke I haven't dug into it *too* deeply but the Surgeon General's "loneliness epidemic" reports suggest that women are better at being single than men are. A "lonely" woman develops friendships and community, whereas lonely men do not. What men do instead is what makes the phenomenon alarming.
It's a description of the symptoms of a social epidemic with dire consequences. I haven't seen an official policy solution suggested.
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