eochaid

eochaid , 10 months ago

As a married cis man moving towards his 40s, I can only confirm from my perspective that the male-to-male friendship experience seems broken.

First of all, in college I learned about the performative nature of gender and that gave me the tools I needed to push back against social pressure. I wear what’s comfortable, I try to be considate towards others, I talk about emotions, and I do what sounds fun without a care about whether it makes me “feminine” or “gay”. I feel that pushing against gender performance expectations has made me a better and fulfilled person.

But male-male friendships are still really hard, and I don’t get it. I’ve lost all of mine, for various reasons. Some of us got busy with careers, families, or whatever other reason. I’ve reached out now, multiple times, over the last few years, to old male friends and coworkers that I worked with for 5+ years.

The conversation starts with a list of accomplishments. I congratulate them, so glad they’re doing well. We’re both pretty happy in careers too.

I ask how they’re doing, what do they do for fun, you still with that same girl? Fine. Same old. Uh huh.

I suggest that maybe we should do something sometime. Play disc golf. Play some games. Hang out. Meet somewhere. Bring your kids if you want, I’d love to meet them…and at this point they get distant and eventually ghost me.

After a few instances of this, I started to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Maybe they didn’t like me. Maybe I said something wrong. But there was one other instance. A woman I worked with for like 9 months. I called her once to ask for a job reference. And we ended up talking for an hour about our lives, our SOs, life goals etc. Before I could ask, she ended up suggesting that hang out and bring our SOs.

The only male friends I have right now are the male SOs of female friends or my wife’s girl friends.

Some of the most fulfilling friend groups we’ve had since were groups with LGBT and NB folks. And I think that’s because, even though gender performance is absolutely an important thing in these groups, there’s less pressure for us, a cis couple, to “perform” in a certain way. Our conversations are more real and liberated. It’s less anxious and competitive. But at the same time, those friendships eventually end because I don’t they can really connect with us - like, we’re still outsiders and so there’s a bit of a block. I understand, but it sucks.

Because we try to connect with cis men, or even couples, in our area, we either get standoffishness or competitions. Like, we’re getting evaluated for our performance of gender / society / life expectations. My wife and I have careers, no kids, and we’re fine, but we’re also trying to explore who we are outside that. And new cis friendships at our age seems to be less about connecting and doing fun things and more about bragging about accomplishments or complaining about the lack of them over coffee.

And its so hard to find any cis men that are just fucking chill and maybe tired of all the anxiety and social pressure around masculinity and just willing to be a person rather than a “man”.

eochaid , 10 months ago

Friend. Compatriot. Denizen of the internet. Thank you for reaching out, for telling me your story. But yours is an example of one of the many attitudes in men that frustrate me to no end and keep us all lonely.

You are not lonely because of your problems. Instead, you’re allowing your problems to excuse your lonliness.

Listen to yourself, “folks like me are just destined to be forever alone”. No you’re not. If everyone who said that on the internet decided to get together, we’d have conventions that rival comic con. It’s not impossible, you can overcome it, and you deserve to have a social life.

I get it. It’s hard. I’ve been there. I am also an introvert that suffers from social anxiety disorder. It takes a monumental effort and a lot of mental gymnastics for me to put myself in social situations. But I force myself into uncomfortable situations because I know it is good for me.

So enough berating you. What do you do?

In regards to finding a partner, my best advice is to work on yourself first. Women typically don’t care that much about physical appearance but they also don’t want to dive into a depressive spiral. A codependent man is an unattractive man. Work on the things you don’t like about yourself. And once you are happier and a little more sure of yourself, love will come naturally.

My best advice is to get a therapist. I’m fucking serious. Because when you are working on yourself, no matter how mentally healthy you are, you will get yourself in ruts that block any progress. And a therapist has the tools to get you out of it. But also because you can tell them your goal (have a social life) and your blocks (introvert, etc.) and then they can help you craft a plan. They’re like a personal trainer for your brain.

“A therapist is expensive” - not necessarily. Talk to your primary care doctor. Tell them you’d like to talk to a therapist. They will give you a referral and your insurance will cover part of it, guaranteed. If it’s still too expensive, use a service like Betterhelp. They’re not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Regardless, get a THERAPIST not a psychologist. A psychologist can prescribe drugs and you don’t need that until your therapist suggests it.

But most men won’t take that advice no matter what I say. So the only other advice I can offer is to do the work. Look for local events or get togethers in your area. Look for sub to Lemmy / Reddit groups dedicated to your town or area. Look for Discord groups local to your region. Look for book clubs or crafting groups. And look beyond your typical interests. You never know, you might find a new hobby and new friends.

Then, go to events / get togethers. Force yourself to talk to people. Be uncomfortable. Truly. It’ll suck at first but people will respond if you engage - remember that people are there because they want to meet people. Awkwardness is totally okay.

Regardless, every time you’re tempted to say “folks like me are destined to be forever alone” replace that with “I have decided to be forever alone.” Come on man, you can do it. I believe you can. You deserve a social life.

eochaid , 11 months ago

My dad is a former neon electrical worker and refuses to let me own anything other than Dewalt.