Comment by CaptainAsshat on 15/02/2025 at 18:10 UTC

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View submission: Men, Women and Social Connections - Roughly equal shares of U.S. men and women say they’re often lonely; women are more likely to reach out to a wider network for emotional support

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I think there's more to it. Men often provide solutions so they can find a fast but empathetic way to move on from venting personal problems. Discussing problems in general is not the type of friendship they want to receive or provide, not that they simply prefer talking about solutions to problems.

Personally, venting problems usually does very little for me emotionally, often requires unwarranted validation as part of venting's social expectations, and does not grow a bond between myself and friends. It just seems like free, and often un-nuanced therapy. For me, friend groups are primarily there for shared experiences and a sense of community.

As such, IMHO, the loss of third space sharable experiences in which men WANT to partake is at the heart of the loneliness epidemic, alongside the development of alternative at-home solo experiences like TV, internet and video games.

Women are often the other reason young men go to these third spaces, so promoting men-only spaces will significantly limit that pull further. From my experience, my gay male friends do not seem to have this large of a third space issue, and I think the fact that their men-only spaces contain their targets of romantic interest is a big part of that. Similarly, in my experience, married men show a rapid reduction in third space activities after marriage, and I suspect this is due to a similar issue: there aren't as many activities readily available these days that men all want to do together.

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There's nothing here!