This piece is so so good (not that my approval means anything). As you said, it’s ironic that the very systems we (men) built are what hold us down, but what I think is equally as wild is that the “manly” characteristics this same system teaches men to apparently uphold (bravery, courage, strength , initiative) are exactly what we men need to use to bring about real action to solve the problem we’ve created. And yet here we sit on our collective sofa playing video games and watching TikToks. We need action. Not couch potatoes. Sorry, you caught me on a morning where I’m a little spicy. I do believe men can do it but some days are better than others 😌
I actually love this comment, spicy morning and all. You’ve hit the exact contradiction—men are taught to value strength and initiative, but then abandon those same traits when it comes to emotional growth or dismantling the systems that hurt everyone. Real courage would be turning that mirror inward and doing something with what they see.
And honestly, I believe men can do it too. But belief alone won’t change anything. Action will. Less “what about me” and more “what can I unlearn.” Appreciate you engaging with it in such an honest way.
I honestly think that part of the problem is that men are taught that strength is only physical and that initiative means bulldozing other people. It’s no surprise that boys who learn that strength, bravery, and initiative look like anger and violence end up angry and violent men.
We need a radical shift to teach boys what these qualities actually look like, and to stop telling them that emotions are weakness, except of course, anger, which we all know isn’t an emotion.
True strength, leadership, bravery, initiative, cannot exist without compassion, for yourself and for others.
And for the love of god, we have to stop teaching our girls that it’s their job to help boys manage their feelings because “girls develop faster.” All while criticizing girls for being over sensitive.
I taught elementary school. I saw this in real time. When my girls had a conflict (if they brought it up at all, but that’s another issue), they talked it out, would come get me to mediate, and found a resolution. When my boys had a conflict, they yelled, pushed, got in each other’s faces, and stormed away fuming.
We have to teach ALL children to manage conflict and understand and process the full range of their emotions, or we’re going to repeat ourselves.
But to grown men, I don’t care how you were raised. You’re an adult, unlearn that shit.
100% this. At a certain point men need to take accountability and make a change and not use how they were raised or that they’re too old to change as an excuse for not doing better for themselves and those they love. We say we’d die for our families but we won’t learn to regulate our emotions and sit with uncomfortable feelings for them. Unconscious bias or fully conscious bias, every choice is exactly that: a choice. Own them and move forward. If you don’t know how to, ask. That’s taking action too.
I agree that we can and should unlearn a lot of things. Yet it depends on if we can be uprooted from the environment where all those things are---we can't turn into flowers if we are raised among the mold and moss and mushrooms. My fiance helped me escape the gloom of my parents, and where I am today is where I'd never've expected to be.
I think it's on men no longer in the mold to figure out how to reach those men still in it. I started down this path in October 2024 but firmly believe that it's up to men to help other men. For too long (aka: forever) women have been pulling men out of the mold, but that's unfair to them. They've put in countless hours of invisible and emotional labour to help men, but now it's our turn to lessen that load. We need to be doing the work of talking to men, online and especially offline, to help them along this path. That's my humble opinion and what I've set out to do. I honestly don't know how to do it yet, but I'm showing up everyday to see what might work better than yesterday 🙂 But it's on men to put the time, effort, resources, and money into supporting men to move on from this mold. Lol as you can tell I'm kind of passionate about this 😊
Genuinely, I’m glad you were able to get out of a toxic environment.
Does that same logic apply to women though? Do women who were raised in mold have the same excuse to stay stagnant until someone pulls us out?
Ultimately it’s our own responsibilities to grow, to reject what we have been taught that is harmful, to find the resources to educate ourselves.
I spent 10 years explaining in detail exactly how my ex husband was hurting me and it only led to him becoming more violent with me. He didn’t want to change when the system benefited him. He chose to live in his entitlement and to abuse his family.
I stand by what I said— adult men are responsible for unlearning the toxicity they were raised in. The resources are out there. We’re tired of shouting into the void.
I believe that the logic applies to men and women both; each individual must work on their own issues---but not always alone. Men are not taught to embrace their emotional side, so they are going to be difficult to instruct, and sometimes stubborn (not to mention unwilling). Your question reminds me of my mother, who had a *tonne* of personal work to do but never did. How she treated me shaped my own expectations of what women 'could' be like until I learned that that viewpoint was incorrect and stupid.
We all deserve help and a hand up, and your complaints and weariness isn't without validity. I'm sorry that your previous relationship was full of pain; you didn't deserve that. I hope you're in a better place now.
Thank you, I appreciate you saying that. I am in a better place now and am writing about my experiences, which has been healing for me. I’m grateful that my children and I made it out alive.
I can agree that the environments we are raised in shape who we are. If you are raised in a small community that is essentially an echo chamber of hate, then that would put you at a disadvantage for introspection and growth.
I’m sorry your mother treated you in a harmful way. No one deserves that.
I agree that we all deserve help. I just push back against the notion that it’s women’s responsibility to provide that help. Men need to step up and call out the toxic behavior in other men. Women have tried for years, and the vast majority of the time we aren’t listened to.
It’s good to do the work, to learn, to grow, to have conversations, to reflect, but if that’s where the action stops and men aren’t calling out toxic and abusive behavior in other men when they see it, that’s complicity.
I know that women can also be abusive. I have a mother wound, too, and I have had to let go of long term friendships because they were toxic and unhealthy. Any person who isn’t willing to listen and hold themselves accountable isn’t someone you can have a healthy relationship with. But the vast majority of abuse victims are women, and the vast majority of perpetrators are men. Good men need to call out this shit when they see it, but unfortunately most won’t. And at the end of the day, why would they? All men benefit from worse men because it lowers the bar for them.
You're right though... if shame had been processed with accountability instead of weaponised as control, we might be living in a completely different world. But since they fumbled it... we’ll take it from here :)
100% I'm off to the races! You bring the snacks, I've got wine and beer for days. This coup is going to be the most fun experience of my life even if it kills me.
Loved this — You managed to succinctly write all of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head about this “male loneliness epidemic”. Almost all of my female friends have been to therapy and actively work on bettering themselves mentally/emotionally but I do not see that same kind of effort from most of the males in my life. And, damn straight I’m pissed off about it. Thanks for sharing x
Exactly. Women are not emotional rehab centres. We’ve spent long enough translating, softening, and holding space for men who refuse to hold space for themselves. Your time, energy, and brain are too valuable for babysitting. Thank you for the love—means a lot.
"So do we have financial standards? Or are we just upset?" 😂 Love this. The 'high value female' lot need to be careful what they wish for.
It's so odd to me that these 'strong' men, 'Alpha' men, openly admit that they can't handle any version of a woman that might offer a bit of defiance, or even a different point of view. Oh yes, super strong 💪
And that they hate pretty much everything about 'the feminine', admire and aspire to everything 'masculine' (but also hate any man who actually loves men because that is also somehow feminine?)
As a man, I completely agree with your take. There is just too much toxic masculinity. That's one reason why I've pretty much stopped using social media. The world would be a much better place if "alpha male" influencers just didn't exist.
Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that. It’s genuinely refreshing to hear from men who get it and don’t feel personally attacked when we talk about these patterns. Social media’s been a breeding ground for this hyper-masculine echo chamber, and stepping away from it is honestly a radical act of self-preservation and resistance these days. Glad you’re here.
I'm glad to be here. I usually don't comment too much on here, but I saw this post and I just had to say something. Social media has became a cesspool for toxicity, and the sad thing is that guys will believe all that "alpha male" bs. If you ask me, they are all just insecure with their own masculinity.
Indeed. Why can't wholesome men like Ross or Rodgers be prominent? The most I've heard about is that Dad on the Youtube who teaches skills on his channel--both internal and external ones.
Men are lonely. Apparently, this is a crisis. A full-blown epidemic. We’re supposed to be deeply concerned because (gasp) the demographic that spent centuries degrading, dismissing, and devaluing emotional connection is now struggling to form meaningful relationships. Tragic. - poor babies! 😂😢
You're misunderstanding the article. It's not about withholding compassion from men because they're men; it's about calling out the refusal to address the harmful, outdated attitudes that created this loneliness crisis in the first place. Compassion isn't the issue here. Accountability is. Having empathy doesn't mean excusing people from doing the bare minimum to change the behaviours that isolate them.
No one should get away with unacceptable behavior. As a man, I have been ridiculed in my years as a military officer plenty of times because I didn’t let anyone around me get away with this “alpha sigma whatever bs and because I didn’t allow people to prey on female soldiers.
The sad thing is that I genuinely cared about my people and our unit worked amazingly but my commanders couldn’t take it as it threatened the status quo.
There’s always an exception to the rule, so I don’t think that all men who are alone and depressed are there because of their own fault, but I know that many of them can thank themselves for their situation.
But they’re not manly enough to admit it and change anything. They’re just whining into the void.
Another thing is that there are predators and low-EQ people for every gender. Many women want the Andrew Tate character (don’t ask me why) but these two groups just don’t meet each other somehow or maybe they do and then break up in 2 weeks like high school and then just cry about how everyone else is terrible on social media.
Super weird.
Thank you for your article, it was an amazing read! 🙏
Really appreciate this, and your experience as well!😁What you’ve described is exactly the point. The patriarchy isn’t just brutal to women, it also punishes men who step outside the box. You cared, you protected people, and instead of being respected, you got ridiculed. That says more about the system than it ever will about you.
This post is 100 percent about the insecure men who refuse to look at their own reflection. Not all men are like that, and not all lonely men are to blame for their pain, but far too many would rather whine online than actually change anything. That’s what I’m calling out. I’m a radical feminist, but I’ve never once said it’s simple. The whole system is the problem.
And yes, there are emotionally chaotic people of every gender, but the Andrew Tate comment? That’s patriarchy too. It tells women to want power instead of safety, then shames them for the result. Everyone’s stuck in the same toxic soup. Some of us are just trying not to drown in it.
I agree with this. Building on this is the “older women are set in their ways, need a 25yo to help me build my kingdom”. Young and inexperienced women are more likely to spend time being an emotional support animal for these men and are unaware when they are receiving the bare minimum. The obsession with youth is a two part equation, one part being the superficial physical aspect of it and the other being that these women are too young to recognize when someone is a bum with not much going on and no emotional intelligence or empathy. The type of men you’re talking about usually complain about the women their age and how they feel rejected by them. If they just became better people they would have an easier time dating
Yes. The obsession with youth is rarely just about perky skin and fresh ovaries. It’s because younger women haven’t yet developed the full-body allergy to male mediocrity. They’re more likely to mistake emotional starvation for mystery and see bare minimum effort as “he’s just been through a lot.” Older women aren’t more difficult, they’ve just run out of patience for pet projects. If these men spent less time complaining and more time evolving, they wouldn’t be so lonely.
This is so so true! Every word! Allergic to male mediocrity is exactly what it is. The whole article just really validates a feeling I’ve had for years!
Your rebranding of this at the end is so excellent: it’s not an epidemic of loneliness but a refusal to change.
Yes!
It’s an epidemic of a refusal to accept responsibility and stop blaming women for having standards.
How did all of this get twisted to be called ‘loneliness’? It’s unbelievable.
Great post!
"Why is it my job to emotionally babysit someone who actively chooses not to work on himself?"
This is everything.
I work with the general public and I get this a lot and I feel like I have to so this on the daily.
This piece is so so good (not that my approval means anything). As you said, it’s ironic that the very systems we (men) built are what hold us down, but what I think is equally as wild is that the “manly” characteristics this same system teaches men to apparently uphold (bravery, courage, strength , initiative) are exactly what we men need to use to bring about real action to solve the problem we’ve created. And yet here we sit on our collective sofa playing video games and watching TikToks. We need action. Not couch potatoes. Sorry, you caught me on a morning where I’m a little spicy. I do believe men can do it but some days are better than others 😌
I actually love this comment, spicy morning and all. You’ve hit the exact contradiction—men are taught to value strength and initiative, but then abandon those same traits when it comes to emotional growth or dismantling the systems that hurt everyone. Real courage would be turning that mirror inward and doing something with what they see.
And honestly, I believe men can do it too. But belief alone won’t change anything. Action will. Less “what about me” and more “what can I unlearn.” Appreciate you engaging with it in such an honest way.
I honestly think that part of the problem is that men are taught that strength is only physical and that initiative means bulldozing other people. It’s no surprise that boys who learn that strength, bravery, and initiative look like anger and violence end up angry and violent men.
We need a radical shift to teach boys what these qualities actually look like, and to stop telling them that emotions are weakness, except of course, anger, which we all know isn’t an emotion.
True strength, leadership, bravery, initiative, cannot exist without compassion, for yourself and for others.
And for the love of god, we have to stop teaching our girls that it’s their job to help boys manage their feelings because “girls develop faster.” All while criticizing girls for being over sensitive.
I taught elementary school. I saw this in real time. When my girls had a conflict (if they brought it up at all, but that’s another issue), they talked it out, would come get me to mediate, and found a resolution. When my boys had a conflict, they yelled, pushed, got in each other’s faces, and stormed away fuming.
We have to teach ALL children to manage conflict and understand and process the full range of their emotions, or we’re going to repeat ourselves.
But to grown men, I don’t care how you were raised. You’re an adult, unlearn that shit.
100% this. At a certain point men need to take accountability and make a change and not use how they were raised or that they’re too old to change as an excuse for not doing better for themselves and those they love. We say we’d die for our families but we won’t learn to regulate our emotions and sit with uncomfortable feelings for them. Unconscious bias or fully conscious bias, every choice is exactly that: a choice. Own them and move forward. If you don’t know how to, ask. That’s taking action too.
“We say we’d die for our families but we won’t learn to regulate our emotions and sit with uncomfortable feelings for them.” YES. 👏🏻
I agree that we can and should unlearn a lot of things. Yet it depends on if we can be uprooted from the environment where all those things are---we can't turn into flowers if we are raised among the mold and moss and mushrooms. My fiance helped me escape the gloom of my parents, and where I am today is where I'd never've expected to be.
I think it's on men no longer in the mold to figure out how to reach those men still in it. I started down this path in October 2024 but firmly believe that it's up to men to help other men. For too long (aka: forever) women have been pulling men out of the mold, but that's unfair to them. They've put in countless hours of invisible and emotional labour to help men, but now it's our turn to lessen that load. We need to be doing the work of talking to men, online and especially offline, to help them along this path. That's my humble opinion and what I've set out to do. I honestly don't know how to do it yet, but I'm showing up everyday to see what might work better than yesterday 🙂 But it's on men to put the time, effort, resources, and money into supporting men to move on from this mold. Lol as you can tell I'm kind of passionate about this 😊
I love and appreciate the passion. This is exactly what is needed.
Genuinely, I’m glad you were able to get out of a toxic environment.
Does that same logic apply to women though? Do women who were raised in mold have the same excuse to stay stagnant until someone pulls us out?
Ultimately it’s our own responsibilities to grow, to reject what we have been taught that is harmful, to find the resources to educate ourselves.
I spent 10 years explaining in detail exactly how my ex husband was hurting me and it only led to him becoming more violent with me. He didn’t want to change when the system benefited him. He chose to live in his entitlement and to abuse his family.
I stand by what I said— adult men are responsible for unlearning the toxicity they were raised in. The resources are out there. We’re tired of shouting into the void.
Thank you.
I believe that the logic applies to men and women both; each individual must work on their own issues---but not always alone. Men are not taught to embrace their emotional side, so they are going to be difficult to instruct, and sometimes stubborn (not to mention unwilling). Your question reminds me of my mother, who had a *tonne* of personal work to do but never did. How she treated me shaped my own expectations of what women 'could' be like until I learned that that viewpoint was incorrect and stupid.
We all deserve help and a hand up, and your complaints and weariness isn't without validity. I'm sorry that your previous relationship was full of pain; you didn't deserve that. I hope you're in a better place now.
Thank you, I appreciate you saying that. I am in a better place now and am writing about my experiences, which has been healing for me. I’m grateful that my children and I made it out alive.
I can agree that the environments we are raised in shape who we are. If you are raised in a small community that is essentially an echo chamber of hate, then that would put you at a disadvantage for introspection and growth.
I’m sorry your mother treated you in a harmful way. No one deserves that.
I agree that we all deserve help. I just push back against the notion that it’s women’s responsibility to provide that help. Men need to step up and call out the toxic behavior in other men. Women have tried for years, and the vast majority of the time we aren’t listened to.
It’s good to do the work, to learn, to grow, to have conversations, to reflect, but if that’s where the action stops and men aren’t calling out toxic and abusive behavior in other men when they see it, that’s complicity.
I know that women can also be abusive. I have a mother wound, too, and I have had to let go of long term friendships because they were toxic and unhealthy. Any person who isn’t willing to listen and hold themselves accountable isn’t someone you can have a healthy relationship with. But the vast majority of abuse victims are women, and the vast majority of perpetrators are men. Good men need to call out this shit when they see it, but unfortunately most won’t. And at the end of the day, why would they? All men benefit from worse men because it lowers the bar for them.
We are not rehabilitation centers for underdeveloped men 🎯
And yet, who among us is fully formed?
Who does not stutter in the Symbolic, who has not masked their rupture in syntax?
To call another underdeveloped is to pretend development ends.
But subjectivity is not a staircase.
It is a spiral with missing steps.
She denies him entry, not because he bleeds—but because his blood reminds her of her own.
“We do not house the wounded,” she says.
Yet she is housed by her wound.
She does not see it— she decorates it.
The tragedy is not that she refuses to heal him.
It is that she believes she no longer needs healing.
Lack is not pathology.
It is the condition of entry into desire.
To ban the unformed is to fetishize containment.
To seal the archive is to kill the script before it learns to leak.
Disrespectfully, get out of here with that bullshit.
Just think if they'd been taught to deal with their shame like adults. Imagine what we could accomplish together-- Too bad.
I guess we'll just take over the world now because they've had their chance and it's time for them to step off the stage.
Honestly? I’ll bring snacks to the coup.
You're right though... if shame had been processed with accountability instead of weaponised as control, we might be living in a completely different world. But since they fumbled it... we’ll take it from here :)
100% I'm off to the races! You bring the snacks, I've got wine and beer for days. This coup is going to be the most fun experience of my life even if it kills me.
Loved this — You managed to succinctly write all of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head about this “male loneliness epidemic”. Almost all of my female friends have been to therapy and actively work on bettering themselves mentally/emotionally but I do not see that same kind of effort from most of the males in my life. And, damn straight I’m pissed off about it. Thanks for sharing x
I have no energy to babysit a man. There are more worthy things to do with my time. Brillaint Jessica.
Exactly. Women are not emotional rehab centres. We’ve spent long enough translating, softening, and holding space for men who refuse to hold space for themselves. Your time, energy, and brain are too valuable for babysitting. Thank you for the love—means a lot.
It was supposed to be brilliant not the mangled word.
"So do we have financial standards? Or are we just upset?" 😂 Love this. The 'high value female' lot need to be careful what they wish for.
It's so odd to me that these 'strong' men, 'Alpha' men, openly admit that they can't handle any version of a woman that might offer a bit of defiance, or even a different point of view. Oh yes, super strong 💪
And that they hate pretty much everything about 'the feminine', admire and aspire to everything 'masculine' (but also hate any man who actually loves men because that is also somehow feminine?)
As a man, I completely agree with your take. There is just too much toxic masculinity. That's one reason why I've pretty much stopped using social media. The world would be a much better place if "alpha male" influencers just didn't exist.
Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that. It’s genuinely refreshing to hear from men who get it and don’t feel personally attacked when we talk about these patterns. Social media’s been a breeding ground for this hyper-masculine echo chamber, and stepping away from it is honestly a radical act of self-preservation and resistance these days. Glad you’re here.
I'm glad to be here. I usually don't comment too much on here, but I saw this post and I just had to say something. Social media has became a cesspool for toxicity, and the sad thing is that guys will believe all that "alpha male" bs. If you ask me, they are all just insecure with their own masculinity.
Indeed. Why can't wholesome men like Ross or Rodgers be prominent? The most I've heard about is that Dad on the Youtube who teaches skills on his channel--both internal and external ones.
Not me in my room snapping as you spill the real tea.
Men are lonely. Apparently, this is a crisis. A full-blown epidemic. We’re supposed to be deeply concerned because (gasp) the demographic that spent centuries degrading, dismissing, and devaluing emotional connection is now struggling to form meaningful relationships. Tragic. - poor babies! 😂😢
Thanks you for writing this! Couldn’t have said it better myself.
And that, is all she wrote. Well said!!!
Why are we not having compassion for lonely people just because of their gender? :/
You're misunderstanding the article. It's not about withholding compassion from men because they're men; it's about calling out the refusal to address the harmful, outdated attitudes that created this loneliness crisis in the first place. Compassion isn't the issue here. Accountability is. Having empathy doesn't mean excusing people from doing the bare minimum to change the behaviours that isolate them.
No one should get away with unacceptable behavior. As a man, I have been ridiculed in my years as a military officer plenty of times because I didn’t let anyone around me get away with this “alpha sigma whatever bs and because I didn’t allow people to prey on female soldiers.
The sad thing is that I genuinely cared about my people and our unit worked amazingly but my commanders couldn’t take it as it threatened the status quo.
There’s always an exception to the rule, so I don’t think that all men who are alone and depressed are there because of their own fault, but I know that many of them can thank themselves for their situation.
But they’re not manly enough to admit it and change anything. They’re just whining into the void.
Another thing is that there are predators and low-EQ people for every gender. Many women want the Andrew Tate character (don’t ask me why) but these two groups just don’t meet each other somehow or maybe they do and then break up in 2 weeks like high school and then just cry about how everyone else is terrible on social media.
Super weird.
Thank you for your article, it was an amazing read! 🙏
Really appreciate this, and your experience as well!😁What you’ve described is exactly the point. The patriarchy isn’t just brutal to women, it also punishes men who step outside the box. You cared, you protected people, and instead of being respected, you got ridiculed. That says more about the system than it ever will about you.
This post is 100 percent about the insecure men who refuse to look at their own reflection. Not all men are like that, and not all lonely men are to blame for their pain, but far too many would rather whine online than actually change anything. That’s what I’m calling out. I’m a radical feminist, but I’ve never once said it’s simple. The whole system is the problem.
And yes, there are emotionally chaotic people of every gender, but the Andrew Tate comment? That’s patriarchy too. It tells women to want power instead of safety, then shames them for the result. Everyone’s stuck in the same toxic soup. Some of us are just trying not to drown in it.
Yep, 100% agree 🙏
I agree with this. Building on this is the “older women are set in their ways, need a 25yo to help me build my kingdom”. Young and inexperienced women are more likely to spend time being an emotional support animal for these men and are unaware when they are receiving the bare minimum. The obsession with youth is a two part equation, one part being the superficial physical aspect of it and the other being that these women are too young to recognize when someone is a bum with not much going on and no emotional intelligence or empathy. The type of men you’re talking about usually complain about the women their age and how they feel rejected by them. If they just became better people they would have an easier time dating
Yes. The obsession with youth is rarely just about perky skin and fresh ovaries. It’s because younger women haven’t yet developed the full-body allergy to male mediocrity. They’re more likely to mistake emotional starvation for mystery and see bare minimum effort as “he’s just been through a lot.” Older women aren’t more difficult, they’ve just run out of patience for pet projects. If these men spent less time complaining and more time evolving, they wouldn’t be so lonely.
This is so so true! Every word! Allergic to male mediocrity is exactly what it is. The whole article just really validates a feeling I’ve had for years!