There’s a few factors working together to cause it. There’s really two main ones: pressure to have sex and romantic connection, and an inability to be able to make those connections.

There’s tons and tons of pressure out there about being in a relationship and having sex. In modern day, a good example is Andrew Tate and the like, directly linking your self worth to having sex. Back when I was a male teenager during the days of rage comics and advice animals, it was memes about the friend zone. The core idea is the same, being alone is something to be ashamed and upset about. Being rejected is something that reflects badly upon you as a person. Young men are constantly being bombarded with messaging about how being a man revolves around sex and romance, and lacking these things makes you less of a man. In addition, so much media portrays sex both as this amazing thing on a pedestal and as something that’s not just commonplace but as something that everyone’s expected to be doing.

So young men are believing that everyone except them are all in relationships and/or fucking all the time, and believing that them not doing those things makes worth less as a human being.

The other problem is actually making romantic or otherwise meaningful connections. So much more socializing is online these days, and there are a lot fewer women on the internet than men. It’s difficult to make organic connections with single women online, as random social media is by far mostly male and more direct closer friend groups tend to be made of single men and people in relationships (this is very arbitrary and circumstancial, it’s just what I’ve noticed). So, your odds of finding a single and compatible friend of a friend of a friend online aren’t great, and dating apps are complete trash for pretty much anything other than gay hookups. So, there’s not really a way for many young men to find romantic partners. Straight up hookups are easier, especially if your standards aren’t too high, but it’s an area a lot of young men aren’t socially comfortable with because it’s not something they’ve done a lot of, which makes everything much harder.

In the end, if there wasn’t so much pressure to be dating and having sex, then the difficulty of doing so in the modern day wouldn’t matter so much.

Personally, I’ve basically only had sex with men, because it’s so much more straightforward and the dating pool isn’t crazy lopsided. Though that’s at an end now too, because I’ve transitioned too much to be appealing to gay men anymore and haven’t transitioned nearly enough to be appealing to straight men or gay women.

I do think the loneliness epidemic affects men more than women, and would argue it’s sexism harming men. On average, women are more likely to reach out, talk to people and family will check in on them if they are alone. Like, my husband (who is more outgoing than me and better at keeping up with friends) will call his mom or go up to see her, but leaves his dad alone unless he literally asks for something. Because men are taught it’s shameful to not be self sufficient, but women are taught to look for help if we need it.

Obviously this is not a straight gender split but on average it still plays out that way.

Toxic gender norms hurt everyone.

I think this is exacerbated by certain people online who want to capitalize on the issue and scapegoat others (see the manosphere and how they talk about feminism) instead of actually addressing the problem

Edit: a little plug for https://lemmy.ca/c/mensliberation

I don’t even think it’s an exclusively male thing. It’s just getting harder and harder to meet people and mingle. Men are just feeling it harder and sooner.

It’s harder to meet people now. I think part of it is:

1. That people used to be bored. You would make entertainment where you could find it, and two bored people can rapidly get entertained. Now you have a phone that makes you not bored, and de-incentivizes face to face interaction.

2. There used to be more places where people interacted. Masons, elk lodge, unions, they would often serve alcohol at events, for dirt cheap. They were known as third places, somewhere other than work and home. One thing I hear from a lot of smokers is that the smoking areas are where people hang out to talk, and they do. It’s where conversations happen at a club. It gives you something to do when you’re not talking, a reason to stand somewhere close to people, and a perfect excuse to jump into a conversation. It’s kinda infuriating that it also shaves two minutes off your life -_-.

3. People have less time. Younger generations are working multiple jobs, gigs with unpredictable hours, often times having commutes of an hour which turns a 9 to 5 into an 8 to 6, and spending all their vacation hours on the shit that has to be done on a weekday like the DMV or the like. How are you supposed to make a friend when schedules differ so much that a spreadsheet is required to make it work?

I don’t know about the others but for me it’s because I’m shy as fuck and kind of insecure.

Male loneliness is likely partially due to the same reason we are all here; this online outlet for social endorphins is why you were not building up a deficit over the last week and felt the motivation to finally call that person you were thinking about this whole time. That person was a passing thought, and the endorphins hit you might have received is ultimately less than you got from the austere but consistent dose you get from social engagement online.

The only problem is that you are not creating a meaningful personal social network in real life. When you really need such a network in practice, you face the reality of no one to turn to, or less depth and meaning to such connections. Real people are also complex and you must face the reality that no one fits your echo chamber bubble like a place like this. If you act like a down vote or stupid hot take comes across here to people in the real world… you find yourself back here with less options in the future.

Gender division and masculinity is trained into us from the second our genitals are identified be it sonogram or at birth. From the colors, toys, media, to early childhood social pressures were pushed into one of two molds. If a boy interacts with a girl it’s labelled as boyfriend girlfriend even if there’s no romantic intent (because why would children have that?). But the point is that masculinity [and femininity] is programmed throughout the core development of the brain. Unless there’s a motivation to question it that developed neuron architecture only gets reinforced. By the time you’re able to question it you’re so set in the concrete it takes years or decades of struggle to unlearn the worst traits. When you unlearn them it’s a threat to people who haven’t had to question it.

When you’re emotionally isolated from yourself, and surrounded by others who are also emotionally isolated, you’re not motivated to be around them since they won’t fulfill your needs. Then, you realize you’re also not comfortable enough to bridge the divide to people who are in touch with their own emotions. So all this hard work and you’re only a few steps down the path to connection. Usually with little sense of where to go from there.

When you finally get to the point of diving in and expressing emotionally outward, it’s easy to get wrapped with anxiety. You expect others to push you away, not because they will, most people respond well, but because you’re even less oriented and more vulnerable than ever. Though i would argue less fragile.

Lots of other posts discussing things like whether other people in the age group are socially available, and lack of third spaces.

I’m not sure how useful the term “male loneliness” is. There’s a crisis of loneliness in every sex and gender, it’s a side effect of capitalism.

EDIT: spelling error.

For decades it has been ingrained in men that they are to be held to a very specific standard. Men don’t cry, men are strong, men have to take care of everyone else, stop your whining, I’ll give you something to cry about, be the alpha male, that’s “gay”, strength, weakness, and so on.

My father, and grandfather, both grew up with a code of silence. Feelings weren’t talked about, but relayed through their wives; except anger. That was given directly through corporal punishment (hand or belt).

I was always “emotional” growing up. I cried “like a baby” over “nothing”. No one ever came to check on me, or console me, during any of my “fits”. In fact, there were times I was ridiculed for it (sometimes by family members).

When I was 19 my grandmother died. I was really close with her; she was the only one who ever came to my aid and defended me. It tore me up so bad I could barely talk without breaking down. I was told multiple times that I shouldn’t be so upset, and that I was overreacting (by my family). Everything came to a head when all at once my cousins, aunts, uncles, and even brother yelled at me because I was being selfish and unreasonable, and insensitive to my grandfather because “he just lost his wife”.

Oh, and apologies are for “pussies”.

Anyway, it’s not really about me. I wanted to paint a picture for you as to why I’m lonely. Do with that what you will.

It always felt like between the ages of 12 - 18 (basically while you were in middle-/highschool) you need to get some sort of “seal of approval” from the other sex as a prove that you are relationship material. If you didn’t get that you’ll always be seen as somebody to stay away from.

I’ve heard a lot of times that those young relationships are completely inconsequential, but I think it’s those lack of consequences that serve best as a social teaching tool on how to recognize and have an actual meaningful relationship when you’re older.

And I feel like this experience is exactly what a lot of men and women are struggling to get. They have trouble finding partners and if they do they are not good partners themselves. Which is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy, you are deemed bad relationship material so you’ll become bad relationship material.

I recognized this about myself. At my age the only people left are either young divorcees, people with small children or people that are like me - single for a good reason. There will be expectations towards me that I’m neither aware of nor will probably be able to fulfill. Dating well below my age range is neither something I can pull off nor something that I am comfortable with. So I’m forever stuck in this weird limbo of wanting a relationship but knowing that whoever will be my first partner will probably not have a great time with me.

I think this is also the root of a lot of toxic behavior. People turn to sources of knowledge to at least get some idea about what an relationship is about. But all they find is the Cosmopolitans and the Andrew Tate’s who prey upon peoples’ loneliness and desperation for profit. I understand that nobody wants to be a teacher, I understand that nobody wants to throw away years of their life so that the next person will maybe have a better time with your partner.

Ali Wong had a good joke about this in her special with something along the lines off not wanting a divorce because then she’d have to teach the next guy how to please her. Taylor Tomilison also had one about wanting to call her ex during sex just so he could explain to the next guy how he did it for her. I know those are just jokes, but it think there is a bit of truth in them.

This is a video about it, which I think takes a very sobering approach to it. Her humor tends to be very dark, but if you look at the comment section, she seems to be hitting it head on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQv8VuLpKN4

Now for solutions, I don’t know anyone who talks about it beyond the basics of “listen to men” and “give them a healthier and less judgy space to develop social skills”. But that’s probably because this is such a complex issue and there seems to be no simple solution.

Sex researchers Baumeister and Tice wrote about sexual economics.

“A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange.”

From an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense that women wouldn’t want a partner that can’t provide security for the couple when the woman would be vulnerable if pregnant/nursing.

Young men in particular have fewer resources of value to offer than at any time in most people’s lives. To that point, it’s not like young women are dating any better, so even if they are willing to be the sole provider, most are unable to do so.

With the traditional partnership which historically provided companionship out of the question, men are left yearning for female companionship.

Another point the researchers make, is that men will always yearn, while women have a generally easier time abstaining until conditions are right.

One thing that helps loneliness is communities, especially those that meet IRL. I believe there has been a significant decline in club membership and social groups in the past decades. I think there are several factors behind this, including financial stress (and the resulting scarcity of free time).

One action that people can take is to join communities and participate in them! Even just online groups with similar interests if not IRL groups can help to make friends and feel connected. HTH

Society died but people kept having children anyway.

As is echoed a lot in this entire post of replies: therapy isn’t really mentioned here. And that might be a key when it comes to male mental and emotional health.