Latest / Rachel Oates / A Deep-Dive Into The Male Loneliness Epidemic

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A Deep-Dive Into The Male Loneliness Epidemic · Rachel Oates

• 0:00
  I think I I think male loneliness is a male loneliness
• 0:03
  specifically is higher nowadays. Yes.
• 0:05
  If you ask how people feel, yeah.
• 0:07
  I regret to inform you the men are not OK.
• 0:11
  I can't keep a consistent source of social relationships going
• 0:15
  and I. There is also a huge male
• 0:17
  loneliness epidemic. It's actually.
• 0:19
  Really. Yeah, that's because women are
• 0:20
  unmarriable. People say they're lonelier.
• 0:23
  Lonelier. Now, I don't know what that
• 0:24
  means. Does that mean they're just
• 0:25
  unhappier? The male loneliness epidemic is
• 0:28
  self-inflicted. To a large degree.
• 0:31
  I do think that most men are toxic and I do think that they
• 0:34
  fit the criteria in modernity of what abuse is, and I think that
• 0:38
  women love that. That phase where you slowly
• 0:40
  start hating your girlfriend is crazy.
• 0:43
  I remember this one time on a weekend she said she was coming.
• 0:46
  Yo, I cry. Bust your bubble ladies, you
• 0:51
  need us excuse. Me.
• 1:02
  Because I'm not going to talk to you like this.
• 1:03
  I'm like, what real men? You're going to tell me what a
• 1:08
  real man is, Andrew? My real women don't abort their
• 1:11
  children. Lady boys will be boys.
• 1:13
  Boys tend to be reckless. They tend to punch each other
• 1:17
  and wrestle each other. They could have more real life
• 1:19
  friends. They could have more real life
• 1:21
  dates if they changed some things about the way they
• 1:25
  behave. And men and boys are taught that
• 1:28
  somehow, innately, they are toxic just by virtue of having
• 1:33
  been born as men. Women are attracted to present.
• 1:36
  It's not your neediness, face fear and discomfort head on and
• 1:40
  it's a path to growth. Modern society tames men, but
• 1:43
  you are meant for adventure. God designed men to be warriors,
• 1:47
  not bystanders. Because.
• 1:49
  I never hear anyone ever talk about the female epidemic of
• 1:53
  loneliness because in a patriarchal society the problems
• 1:58
  of women and children are ignored, while the problems are
• 2:01
  men are highlighted. Now this might come as a shock
• 2:04
  to you, but not every everything has to do with women.
• 2:07
  Sometimes we can talk about other things.
• 2:10
  Sometimes those other things are not women.
• 2:13
  How's a woman going to understand the loneliness of men
• 2:15
  where she can post the thirst trap picture on Instagram and
• 2:18
  literally have like 100 dudes DM her?
• 2:21
  We're sick and tired of hearing about toxic masculinity when we
• 2:24
  are drowning in toxic femininity.
• 2:26
  Tell. Me what you think toxic
• 2:28
  feminine? Accusing men of things that
• 2:30
  never happen and calling it sexual assault.
• 2:32
  Like Brett Kavanaugh, our notions of masculinity aren't
• 2:35
  too traditional. On the contrary, they aren't
• 2:38
  nearly traditional enough. The solution isn't that we sit
• 2:41
  around and talk about our feelings, it's that we do a
• 2:44
  whole lot less of that sort of thing and get back to being men
• 2:47
  again. Men are lonelier than ever, or
• 2:58
  so we're told. The Campaign to End Loneliness
• 3:01
  defines loneliness as a subjective, unwelcome feeling of
• 3:05
  lack or loss of companionship. It happens when there is a
• 3:08
  mismatch between the quantity and quality of the social
• 3:12
  relationships that we have and those that we want.
• 3:15
  They also go on to point out that there are different types
• 3:18
  of loneliness, Emotional, social, existential.
• 3:21
  It can be situational, transient or chronic.
• 3:24
  It's also important to point out that there is a huge and very
• 3:26
  important distinction between being lonely and just being
• 3:30
  alone. Being alone can be fulfilling to
• 3:32
  some people and does not mean that a person will feel lonely.
• 3:35
  Similarly, a person may not be physically alone but may still
• 3:38
  experience loneliness if the quality of their relationships
• 3:42
  is not enough for them. According to the Campaign to End
• 3:45
  Loneliness in 2020, 249.63% of adults, that's nearly 26 million
• 3:51
  people in the UK, reported feeling lonely occasionally,
• 3:54
  sometimes, often or always. And there has been an increase
• 3:58
  in the number of people experiencing chronic loneliness,
• 4:01
  rising from 6% in 2020 to 7.1% of people in 2022, and that
• 4:07
  again is in the UK. Meanwhile, a study at Harvard
• 4:10
  Graduate School of Education and the Making Caring Common Project
• 4:14
  found that in America, 21% of people reported feeling serious
• 4:17
  loneliness, with 67% of those reporting that they did not feel
• 4:22
  they were part of a meaningful group.
• 4:24
  A lot of people online seem especially concerned with male
• 4:27
  loneliness as opposed to, you know, female or women's
• 4:30
  loneliness. And they often cite an article
• 4:32
  from 2021 from the Survey Centre on American Life, which reports
• 4:36
  that 15% of men today have no close friendships at all, as
• 4:40
  opposed to 10% of women. To look at this study in a
• 4:42
  little bit more detail, 34% of men report having only one to
• 4:46
  three close friendships, but 15% of them have 10 or more close
• 4:50
  friends. In comparison, 39% of women
• 4:53
  report having one to three close friendships, but only 11%
• 4:56
  reported having 10 or more. So when you actually look at it
• 4:59
  in comparison, the numbers aren't that drastically
• 5:02
  different between genders. But of course, we have to
• 5:04
  remember that the number of close friends you have doesn't
• 5:06
  directly doesn't directly correlate to how lonely a person
• 5:10
  is. You can have a lot of friends
• 5:12
  and still feel lonely. You can have a few friends and
• 5:14
  still feel fulfilled. It very much depends on the
• 5:17
  individual. However, the article does go on
• 5:20
  to suggest that the more close friends a person has, the less
• 5:23
  likely they were to report feelings of loneliness.
• 5:26
  However, when you get down to three or less close friends, all
• 5:29
  those people were equally as likely to feel as lonely as each
• 5:32
  other. And that goes for both men and
• 5:35
  women. This group consisted of 49% of
• 5:37
  men and 49% of women, with half of those groups reporting that
• 5:42
  they felt loneliness and isolation at least once in the
• 5:45
  last seven days. So looking at the actual stats
• 5:49
  and the information presented to us, I have to admit I'm
• 5:52
  struggling to see how loneliness is a purely male or man's
• 5:55
  problem, or something that affects men considerably more
• 5:59
  than women. That said, it clearly is
• 6:01
  affecting men. There are lonely men out there,
• 6:03
  just as there are lonely women. But one thing that I think is
• 6:06
  different that I found while researching this video is the
• 6:09
  ways in which loneliness effects men.
• 6:11
  That's very different between men and women.
• 6:14
  The consequences of loneliness for them are different, the
• 6:17
  reasons for the loneliness are different, and if they're even
• 6:20
  aware at all that they're lonely is different.
• 6:22
  There's an interesting study from Doctor John Ratcliffe at
• 6:25
  King's College London who found amongst people of the age of 50
• 6:28
  in the UK, men were far less likely to view themselves as
• 6:32
  lonely or use the lonely label than women.
• 6:35
  However, when asked other questions such as how often do
• 6:39
  you feel lack of companionship, how often do you feel isolated
• 6:42
  from others, and how often do you feel left out, which are
• 6:45
  indicative of loneliness. But don't use the word lonely.
• 6:49
  He found that they were reporting similar or ever so
• 6:52
  slightly lower levels of loneliness than women.
• 6:55
  So men would near enough just as lonely as women, but were less
• 6:58
  likely to label it as lonely. To quote the study, 74.8% of men
• 7:03
  said they were rarely or never lonely, compared to just 65% of
• 7:06
  women. Furthermore, 35% of women were
• 7:09
  sometimes or often lonely. Conversely, just 25.2% of men
• 7:14
  were sometimes or often lonely, but in questions about
• 7:17
  loneliness in the past week, 14% of women had felt lonely and 10%
• 7:21
  of men. Though women appeared lonelier,
• 7:24
  men displayed worst social social relationships. 1.4% of
• 7:29
  men were severely socially isolated, disregarding partners
• 7:33
  and spouses compared to nought .5% of women and 2.3% of men had
• 7:37
  no close relationships, discarding parts and spouses
• 7:41
  compared to 0.8% of women. Women also average more close
• 7:45
  relationships, 7.77 compared to 7.11 and a better view of their
• 7:50
  friendships. This study also found that the
• 7:53
  men who were lonely were more likely than women to engage in
• 7:56
  self-destructive behaviours such as overconsumption of alcohol is
• 8:00
  just one example, in fact the most common example.
• 8:02
  This is so revealing and again, while it's important to remember
• 8:05
  that this was this particular study was just done on people
• 8:09
  over 50 in the UK, it is very telling and fits the pattern
• 8:13
  that we see elsewhere for other demographics in other areas.
• 8:15
  For example, a report published in January 2025 found that, and
• 8:20
  I quote, a new Pew Research Centre survey finds that
• 8:23
  compared with women, men don't report that they feel lonely
• 8:26
  more often or have fewer close friends.
• 8:28
  However, men do seem to turn to their networks less often for
• 8:32
  social connection and emotional support.
• 8:35
  Because I'm saying men and women are about equally likely to say
• 8:38
  they have at least one close friend, and most do.
• 8:40
  But men who have close friends don't communicate with them as
• 8:43
  often as women do. So I don't think it's as simple
• 8:47
  as just saying there's a male loneliness epidemic because men
• 8:49
  are in general more lonely than women.
• 8:51
  Or men have it harder than women.
• 8:53
  Or let's pity men and not women. I think it's just that men
• 8:57
  respond to loneliness in a different way and have different
• 9:00
  reasons for their loneliness and are also less proactive in
• 9:03
  seeking help and support when they are feeling lonely.
• 9:06
  And that's something that I want to unpack in this video.
• 9:08
  And we're going to split it up into five parts.
• 9:10
  They're big chunky parts. So if you want to come back and
• 9:12
  watch this in parts, that's absolutely fine.
• 9:15
  But let's jump into it. I'm going to be looking at one
• 9:17
  Why are people in general so much lonelier now than they
• 9:20
  apparently were in the past? Part 2 is why are men
• 9:23
  specifically today so lonely? Part 3 is going to be the
• 9:26
  consequences of male loneliness if we just leave it be and don't
• 9:29
  do anything about it. Part 4 is about finding friends
• 9:33
  and how men and women go about it differently.
• 9:35
  And Part 5 is just a short one that is specifically focused on
• 9:38
  men's relationships with women in terms of romantic and sexual
• 9:41
  relationships. Before we go any further, let's
• 9:44
  get a little bit of admin out of the way.
• 9:46
  Kyra may be snoring in the background.
• 9:47
  I'm so sorry. It's you know what it's like
• 9:50
  having an elderly dog. She sleeps a lot these days.
• 9:53
  She's a little snuffly and grumbly.
• 9:55
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• 9:58
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• 10:01
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• 10:04
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• 10:07
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• 10:11
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• 10:15
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• 10:18
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• 10:20
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• 10:34
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• 10:36
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• 10:40
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• 10:43
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• 10:53
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• 10:56
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• 11:00
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• 11:30
  ad revenue being done absolutely nothing compared to what it was.
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  book, which also comes with a code.
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  So you can download a free version of the audiobook on my
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  Amazons. I could make it available on
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  around the world. OK, I hate saying that stuff,
• 13:08
  but thank you for listening. I have one more disclaimer
• 13:10
  before we get into the actual meat of the video.
• 13:14
  Thank you for your patience here.
• 13:17
  But this is about like the actual content, and I just want
• 13:19
  to like preface the video with this.
• 13:21
  Charlie Cook is included in several parts of this video,
• 13:25
  Video clips of him, critiques of his ideas.
• 13:27
  I think he's even in the thumbnail, which I made a couple
• 13:30
  of weeks ago. And like I said, that's because
• 13:32
  I made the thumbnail. I downloaded the clips for this
• 13:38
  video. I started my research on it
• 13:39
  3:00-ish maybe 3 1/2 weeks ago, a long time before he died.
• 13:45
  So I was in two minds about still including him in this at
• 13:50
  all. But honestly, this is what he
• 13:53
  wanted his legacy to be. Him spewing hate and
• 13:57
  misinformation is the life that he chose for himself and that is
• 14:01
  how he will and should be remembered.
• 14:04
  And I don't obviously agree with how he died.
• 14:07
  I am never going to be in support of gun violence or
• 14:10
  killing people you disagree with.
• 14:12
  That's just an absolute massive no.
• 14:15
  Of course I'll never sit here and celebrate a persons death,
• 14:18
  but I also don't think we should try and rewrite history and
• 14:21
  pretend he was some good man just because he's dead.
• 14:23
  He was not a good man. Charlie Kirk, like many of the
• 14:26
  other people whose clips have included in this video, lived a
• 14:29
  life spewing hateful rhetoric, bullying people less fortunate
• 14:33
  and more vulnerable than him. He was full of hate and
• 14:36
  ignorance and willingly spread so much misinformation and I
• 14:40
  don't think we can or should pretend otherwise.
• 14:43
  This is the legacy he wanted to leave and I think this is how we
• 14:50
  should remember him. And so for that reason, I've
• 14:53
  chosen to keep him in my video and keep my content as it was
• 14:57
  planned to be in the 1st place. I don't think I should make
• 15:02
  changes just because he's dead. He, to his last breath, stood by
• 15:12
  these hateful things that he says and I'm not going to
• 15:15
  pretend that he didn't, you know?
• 15:17
  OK, OK, let's get into the actual video now.
• 15:21
  OK, so Part 1, Why are people today so lonely?
• 15:25
  Of course, we've already established that people today
• 15:26
  are lonelier than even just a few years ago, and definitely
• 15:30
  lonelier than they were in the 90s.
• 15:31
  But why is this? Let's start by looking at the
• 15:34
  issues which don't affect a specific gender, but all people
• 15:37
  in general. One of the biggest indicators
• 15:39
  for loneliness amongst all age groups, genders and races has
• 15:43
  been shown time and time again to be poverty.
• 15:46
  The less money a person has, the lonely they feel, and the simple
• 15:50
  reason for this is that they literally can't afford to go out
• 15:53
  and participate in activities, start new hobbies, travel to new
• 15:57
  places, or they're simply too busy working.
• 16:01
  This was found and discussed in books like Young, Lonely, The
• 16:04
  Social Conditions of Loneliness by Janet, but Slea and James
• 16:10
  Duggan. Sorry if I'm struggling to
• 16:12
  pronounce stuff, I'm actually having a hard time reading off
• 16:15
  my notes because my eyes are not what they used to be and I need
• 16:18
  another eye test. Also, if you want to check out
• 16:21
  all the books and articles and everything I've referenced,
• 16:23
  they're all LinkedIn, a source document in the video
• 16:26
  description, all listed in order of how they appear in this
• 16:29
  video. There you go.
• 16:31
  So in particular this affects the youngest and oldest people
• 16:34
  in a population because they either have no control over
• 16:38
  their finances for themselves, or they have no means of, or
• 16:41
  they have no other means of socialising either because they
• 16:43
  don't work, for example. So without the money to do
• 16:45
  social activities, they feel really lonely.
• 16:49
  And this is particularly worrying because researchers
• 16:51
  like Doctor Aaron Davis and his team found that there is a link
• 16:54
  between poverty, loneliness and increased health problems.
• 16:58
  So to summarise his studies very briefly, there is of course a
• 17:02
  correlation between increased poverty and increased health
• 17:05
  problems. There's also a correlation
• 17:07
  between increased loneliness and increased health problems.
• 17:10
  However, what Doctor Davis and his team found is that those who
• 17:14
  are both in poverty and feeling lonely are more likely to suffer
• 17:18
  severe health problems related to pain, fatigue and low mood,
• 17:22
  rather than those who were just lonely or just in poverty.
• 17:26
  Even amongst those who felt equally as lonely as each other,
• 17:29
  there were considerably fewer symptoms and health problems
• 17:32
  seen in those with a higher income rather than lower.
• 17:36
  Does that make sense? Poverty makes you lonely and
• 17:39
  unhealthy. Lonely makes you unhealthy.
• 17:42
  Poverty and loneliness is greater than the sum of its
• 17:45
  parts for health problems to summarise.
• 17:48
  But it's not just poverty that can cause loneliness.
• 17:50
  Of course, ageing can also be a contributing factor.
• 17:54
  So comedian Max Dickens wrote a book about male loneliness in
• 17:57
  2022 while on a search for a best man for his wedding.
• 18:01
  I referenced this book quite a lot in this video.
• 18:03
  It's 1:00. I definitely recommend.
• 18:04
  So remember it. We're going to keep coming back
• 18:07
  to it. While researching the phenomenon
• 18:10
  of loneliness, he found that both men and women's social
• 18:12
  networks peak in their mid to late 20s before falling away.
• 18:16
  He calls this decline network shrinkage, as people lose more
• 18:20
  friends, drift apart, and stop making as many new ones as they
• 18:24
  get older. He discusses how this happens to
• 18:27
  both genders, but the but the decline itself seems far steeper
• 18:31
  for men. So he writes that while men on
• 18:33
  average have bigger social networks than women in their mid
• 18:35
  20s, by the time they hit 40 this pattern reverses.
• 18:40
  So basically both men and women have increasingly smaller social
• 18:44
  circles, but the decline is just way steeper for men.
• 18:48
  And take a look at the study we mentioned earlier by John
• 18:51
  Ratcliffe showing the decline in friendships and increasing
• 18:53
  loneliness in people over 50. So it's the same thing.
• 18:58
  But just because there's a correlation between ageing and
• 19:00
  loneliness, that doesn't explain the cause, does it?
• 19:03
  That just says, oh, it could be a factor, it's part of it, but
• 19:05
  it doesn't really explain why. Why do we get this network
• 19:08
  shrinkage? So what are the possible causes
• 19:10
  are there? Let's have a little look.
• 19:14
  Janet Butzlea and James Duggan also list the rise of
• 19:17
  disconnected small towns. Meanwhile, Bill Howard in The
• 19:20
  Cure for Loneliness, How to Feel Connected and Escape Isolation,
• 19:24
  writes that more people are choosing to live alone as they
• 19:26
  move to urban areas for work and education.
• 19:30
  Similarly, Robert Putman and his book Bowling Alone, The Collapse
• 19:33
  and Revival of American Community and Amy Lutkin in her
• 19:36
  book The Lonely Hunter, How all such full of his Broken, both
• 19:40
  discuss how to quote Amy. Loneliness is on the rise
• 19:44
  because people don't invest in social clubs, instead going home
• 19:47
  after work to bask in the glow of TV and phone screens.
• 19:50
  Who on earth has enough time or money to commit to another
• 19:53
  activity outside the home? This is a sentiment that was
• 19:56
  again backed up and summarised very nicely by Max Dickens when
• 20:00
  he said we've withdrawn from many of our traditional sources
• 20:03
  of social connections. We're busier than ever before.
• 20:06
  A decent segment of the population are working longer
• 20:09
  hours. We're also spending more of the
• 20:11
  spare time we do have wolfing down mass media, especially TV.
• 20:15
  On top of this, we're much more geographically mobile.
• 20:17
  The theory goes that when you know you'll move on again soon,
• 20:20
  you're less inclined to invest in social ties.
• 20:23
  So to summarise all of that, we're more lonely than ever
• 20:27
  because we're living alone more. We're living further apart from
• 20:30
  each other. We don't have enough time or
• 20:32
  money to socialise. We're consuming way more
• 20:35
  traditional and social media rather than going out and
• 20:37
  interacting with people face to face and actually chatting with
• 20:40
  them and getting to know them. And where we're looking to
• 20:43
  forward to new connections with people who may move away soon or
• 20:46
  we may move away soon. Some of these factors are out of
• 20:49
  our individual control. Sure, we often can't help how
• 20:52
  much money we have or how much we have to work.
• 20:55
  And in those cases, it might help to suggest a solution that
• 20:58
  is more on a macro scale that helps people in general.
• 21:02
  You know, for example, suggesting more government
• 21:04
  investment and support, making sure every person actually is
• 21:07
  making a living wage, helping people get out of poverty,
• 21:10
  investing more in creating social resources for the
• 21:12
  community that are free and accessible to everyone.
• 21:16
  That's not something an individual can just fix
• 21:18
  themselves, but it's something we need to be looking at on a
• 21:20
  societal level to help people. But what about the rest?
• 21:23
  What about the micro stuff that we can influence on an
• 21:26
  individual level? Why are people choosing to watch
• 21:29
  TV alone rather than go to the pub and have a chat?
• 21:31
  Why are people more willing to sit around and scroll Instagram
• 21:33
  than, I don't know, visit an art gallery with a friend?
• 21:36
  Why are we so reluctant to make new friends in general?
• 21:40
  These are questions that I don't necessarily have the answers to,
• 21:43
  but I feel like if this is something that is affecting you
• 21:45
  and you recognise yourself in that, it's worth asking why do I
• 21:47
  feel this way? And do I want to change it?
• 21:50
  And if so, how? And it's not just that we have
• 21:54
  less connections than ever in terms of number, it's that the
• 21:57
  connections we do have are not as deep or strong as was once
• 22:00
  the norm. So it's not just the quantity of
• 22:02
  connections, but the quality of them too.
• 22:05
  Bill, how it reminds us that all humans have a genetic need to be
• 22:08
  socially connected and we benefit from all types of social
• 22:11
  connection. So this might look different for
• 22:13
  every single one of you, and how many or few connections you need
• 22:18
  or want is going to be different for each individual, but what's
• 22:21
  clear is that for many of us, whatever those needs are are not
• 22:24
  actually being met. Bill goes on to write The
• 22:27
  authentic connections are grounded in mutual respect where
• 22:31
  both parties benefit. It's these types of
• 22:33
  relationships, when built into our personal and professional
• 22:36
  lives, that provide a feeling of social connection.
• 22:39
  The more authentic connections we have, the less likely we'll
• 22:42
  experience gaps in social connections.
• 22:45
  Having just one authentic connection can mean the
• 22:47
  difference between happiness and loneliness.
• 22:50
  And this is something I want you to try and remember as we go
• 22:52
  forward with this video and especially into the next
• 22:55
  section. The value arises from genuine,
• 22:58
  authentic, deep connection with other people, not just in
• 23:02
  surface level interactions or getting attention.
• 23:07
  That's something I'm going to keep coming back to.
• 23:09
  There is a reason that study after study shows that while
• 23:12
  social networking can help some lonely people forge connections,
• 23:16
  this can only help when it's being used to facilitate
• 23:19
  authentic connections. For the majority of people, it's
• 23:22
  no replacement for real life friendship, and there is no
• 23:24
  world in which something like getting likes on social media or
• 23:28
  having strangers randomly message you like creepy things
• 23:32
  is going to alleviate loneliness.
• 23:34
  A lot of people I've seen talking about loneliness online
• 23:37
  seem to completely misunderstand this.
• 23:40
  Attention and connection are not the same thing, in the same way
• 23:44
  that alone and lonely are not the same thing.
• 23:46
  A person can be alone but not lonely.
• 23:48
  A person can be receiving a lot of attention but still feel
• 23:51
  incredibly lonely because they're not getting that
• 23:53
  authentic connection. So let's look at a few video
• 23:56
  clips as an example. So here's a video I found online
• 23:59
  of a young man talking about how lonely he feels in his life and
• 24:01
  how he believes a relationship with a woman will be the only
• 24:03
  solution to that. I think we're going to be
• 24:06
  looking at this video in a little bit more detail, or at
• 24:08
  least some of the clips from it later in the video.
• 24:10
  So don't worry too much about this main young man for now.
• 24:14
  I just want to give you the context of this whole video
• 24:16
  because the bit that I want you to focus on for this is there is
• 24:19
  a little man in the corner responding to him, reacting to
• 24:21
  him and trying to give him some life advice.
• 24:24
  I think he sees himself as a little bit of like a self help
• 24:27
  guru. He's like, oh, I'm going to
• 24:28
  teach men how to be men. This man basically gives him
• 24:32
  groundbreaking advice like shave your moustache and go for a run
• 24:36
  at one point as a way to alleviate loneliness.
• 24:40
  Interesting. And he actually says this about
• 24:45
  men and women and loneliness. So of course that's true.
• 24:48
  They can never understand a woman would.
• 24:49
  How's a woman going to understand the loneliness of men
• 24:52
  where she can post the thirst trap picture on Instagram and
• 24:54
  literally have like 100 dudes DMR open up a Tinder post a few
• 24:59
  pictures. Shitty.
• 25:00
  Doesn't even have to try. Doesn't have to write a bio,
• 25:03
  doesn't have to do anything effortless.
• 25:06
  A few pictures with her boobs squished together thousands of
• 25:09
  matches within the day. Yes, that's their power and.
• 25:13
  This is what I have a problem with, and he's not the only
• 25:15
  person who thinks this way. And the loneliest person is a
• 25:18
  single man, not a single woman. Because again, if that single
• 25:22
  woman tomorrow decides I want a man's attention, she can do a
• 25:27
  few things to make it happen ASAP.
• 25:29
  I don't care who she is, that man does not have those same
• 25:31
  avenues. Are you saying they're not
• 25:33
  getting no no action, Jack? None.
• 25:36
  I think this is really, really telling, isn't it?
• 25:39
  And I think this may be a little bit indicative of why so many,
• 25:43
  perhaps men in particular seem to be lonely because they don't
• 25:46
  understand the difference between attention and
• 25:48
  connection. So, so many people, maybe these
• 25:51
  men in particular as well, seem to be simply chasing attention
• 25:54
  when what they need is connection.
• 25:56
  But they're going after the wrong thing and therefore
• 25:58
  they'll never be fulfilled, and that's why they keep staying
• 26:01
  lonely. The thing is, and this is
• 26:03
  entirely anecdotal, so maybe there are some women who
• 26:06
  misunderstand this as well, but it's mostly just men I see
• 26:09
  misunderstanding this, so let's take another clip as an example.
• 26:14
  Say, well, women aren't desirous of casual sex, but like when it
• 26:17
  comes to loneliness. I mean, we can make an argument
• 26:19
  that like men are the ones who are encountering like genuine
• 26:23
  loneliness to the point that they don't even get a drop of
• 26:26
  attention from women. They can't even get a date, they
• 26:29
  can't get a text back, they can't get anything.
• 26:31
  Where as a woman, she could be overweight, unattractive and
• 26:36
  could get laid. We had a girl on the show, not
• 26:38
  trying to be mean to her, unremarkable woman, right?
• 26:40
  She was overweight and she was saying yeah, I just fucking like
• 26:43
  6 dudes a day. Those are OK.
• 26:46
  But her her male looks equivalent, like overweight, not
• 26:49
  attractive. That guy is struggling to even
• 26:52
  get a text back. Let's I don't want to ignore it,
• 26:55
  but let's try and put aside the body.
• 26:58
  Same the body shaming and misogyny here, as disgusting as
• 27:01
  it is, because mostly I want to concentrate on what all these
• 27:04
  men here are implying. They claim that women cannot
• 27:06
  possibly be lonely because they either receive creepy, often
• 27:09
  harassing messages from strangers on social media which
• 27:12
  sexualize and objectify them, often without their consent, or
• 27:15
  they can easily have meaningless sex with people who don't want a
• 27:18
  relationship with them and only want to use them as a temporary
• 27:20
  sex toy. And therefore women can't
• 27:22
  possibly ever be lonely because if they're getting paying
• 27:24
  attention, that means they can't feel lonely.
• 27:29
  Now, I'm not saying there aren't women out there who aren't
• 27:31
  fulfilled by these things. Maybe they enjoy the messages
• 27:34
  from strangers. Maybe there are women who, you
• 27:36
  know, get fulfilment and connection out of casual sex.
• 27:38
  That's not not an issue. That can absolutely happen.
• 27:41
  And if those women are deciding that's how they want their
• 27:44
  connection and everything, that's absolutely fine for them.
• 27:46
  Let them do it. All good however, in general
• 27:49
  these men are given examples of women receiving unwanted
• 27:53
  attention or very superficial attention and assuming that this
• 27:57
  must stop her feeling lonely, when again, it doesn't because
• 28:00
  it's not authentic connection. Creepy DMS from strangers don't
• 28:04
  form connections. They don't stop feelings of
• 28:07
  loneliness, they don't feel social needs.
• 28:10
  Often they just make you feel gross or creeped out.
• 28:13
  And if it is what you're looking for, if you do want that little
• 28:17
  bit of attention, it might give you a little little dopamine
• 28:19
  boost, a little temporary whoop. That's nice.
• 28:21
  But they're nothing because it's still not an authentic, deep
• 28:26
  connection based on mutual respect where both parties
• 28:29
  benefit. Remember that definition we had
• 28:31
  earlier? That's important, that matters.
• 28:35
  It's the same with things like dating apps.
• 28:37
  They can be useful because they can be a precursor to future
• 28:39
  authentic connection, but in itself they don't really help
• 28:43
  because even if you get attention on there, that's not
• 28:45
  real connection. As a single woman, I, I do
• 28:48
  currently have a dating profile and I have quite a lot of likes
• 28:51
  on there, like a few close to 10,000.
• 28:55
  But they're, they're likes, they're not matches.
• 28:59
  And that's the difference. They're not mutual.
• 29:02
  There's no connection, there's no respect.
• 29:06
  It's not authentic. It's just this person looking at
• 29:09
  me on a very, very surface level and saying why not?
• 29:14
  And that's not something that alleviates loneliness.
• 29:16
  These are people who have seen the very tip of my very surface
• 29:21
  level of appearance and maybe a couple of prompts on that.
• 29:24
  I thought, yeah, why not. And but when you hear about so
• 29:28
  many men talking about how they use dating apps and they just
• 29:31
  swipe, swipe, swipe, you realise that a like on a dating app is
• 29:33
  quite meaningless from them. You know, it's not flattering
• 29:37
  because often it's not personal. Chances are 90% of them don't
• 29:41
  even remember swiping on you on your profile.
• 29:43
  So it doesn't mean anything. They're not really actively
• 29:46
  making a big authentic choice. They're just saying, well, she's
• 29:51
  not terrible, might as well, you know, Now, I'm not saying every
• 29:54
  man uses dating apps like that, but it does seem to be the
• 29:58
  majority from what I've seen people talk about online and the
• 30:02
  people that I've interacted with.
• 30:04
  So yes, it's kind of like getting attention, but it's the
• 30:07
  wrong kind of attention and it doesn't mean anything.
• 30:10
  Romantic relationships are built on shared values, similar goals,
• 30:14
  chemistry, shared interests, and again, mutual respect.
• 30:18
  That's the big thing. They're what you need to form an
• 30:20
  authentic, genuine, deep connection with someone.
• 30:24
  And as a 32 year old child free woman who says all of that in
• 30:29
  her profile, I'm never going to have a genuine, deep, authentic
• 30:32
  connection with Bob the reform voter who's in his 60s, three
• 30:36
  times divorced with seven kids. You know, and if he sends me a
• 30:40
  like, that's not going to make me feel anything good because it
• 30:43
  just says to me, he clearly didn't read my profile.
• 30:46
  He doesn't respect my boundaries.
• 30:48
  And if anything, that makes me feel less valued and more alone
• 30:51
  because attention doesn't alleviate loneliness.
• 30:54
  Attention is not connection. I'm going to keep saying it.
• 30:56
  The idea that you can alleviate loneliness by playing a numbers
• 30:59
  game of getting X amount of meaningless shallow likes or
• 31:03
  attention instead of working on genuine connection with someone
• 31:06
  is frustrating. And in my mind, it does explain
• 31:08
  why so many people are lonely because they're focusing on the
• 31:11
  wrong things. And it kind of feels to me like
• 31:14
  people are trying to gamify connection and friendship and
• 31:17
  relationships. And that's something I want you
• 31:19
  to remember because we are going to be talking about that a
• 31:21
  little bit later in this video, I think in part 4, because it's
• 31:25
  something I've noticed and it's something I have a little bit of
• 31:29
  AI have questions about it. Let's just say that.
• 31:31
  But for now, let's move on to Part 2.
• 31:34
  Why are men today so lonely? So while we discussed in the
• 31:37
  introduction to this video that the gap between the numbers of
• 31:39
  men and women who are lonely isn't as big as some people
• 31:42
  think it is, I do believe, based on my research I've done for
• 31:45
  this video, that men face different kinds of problems
• 31:48
  relating to loneliness than women do.
• 31:49
  For one thing, I believe the rise in toxic masculinity makes
• 31:52
  it harder for men to open up to other men, to form deep
• 31:56
  connections with them and forge real, authentic relationships
• 31:59
  and friendships. I believe subtle homophobia also
• 32:02
  plays a huge part in this, because certain men don't want
• 32:04
  to open up to others in case they're seen as gay, apparently.
• 32:08
  I believe early socialisation is to blame, as is the toxic
• 32:12
  influence of certain manosphere creators and influencers, as
• 32:15
  we're going to be seeing some clips of in this section and
• 32:18
  going forward in this video. For another, I believe men are
• 32:21
  more reluctant than women to take a proactive approach in
• 32:24
  tackling their loneliness or even identifying their own
• 32:27
  loneliness. And this is again related to
• 32:29
  issues with toxic masculinity. But just how this, but just how
• 32:33
  this plays out is going to be something I'm going to be
• 32:35
  discussing in more detail in part 4 of this video.
• 32:39
  Before that, though, if you listen to certain men online,
• 32:41
  you may be led to believe one of two things.
• 32:44
  One, men are only lonely because they're now weak and too
• 32:47
  emotional, unlike men in the past who were all stoic and
• 32:50
  independent and therefore never lonely.
• 32:53
  If a cowboy mentality and too much macho stoicism is what is
• 32:57
  driving the epidemic of lost and lonely men, then why is the
• 33:03
  problem getting worse over time? Everyone agrees it's worse now
• 33:08
  than ever before. I just went through some of the
• 33:09
  many statistics that prove that this is a major problem.
• 33:12
  Yes, men are in bad shape, but if that's all getting worse then
• 33:16
  how can we blame traditional notions of masculinity?
• 33:19
  Would anyone argue that the cultural belief that men should
• 33:23
  be self reliant and hide their emotions is more pervasive today
• 33:27
  than it was half a century ago? Of course not.
• 33:30
  So again, if that's the cause of the problem, why is the problem
• 33:36
  worse today? Men are socialised to believe
• 33:39
  strength, dominance and stoicism are behaviours of a real man.
• 33:43
  Is it any surprise that men are lonely and have less friends
• 33:45
  nowadays? You have to be vulnerable to
• 33:47
  make friends. Don't tell me there aren't
• 33:49
  systemic problems affecting men now.
• 33:51
  While a lot of this may be true, men have been socialised this
• 33:55
  way for centuries and this is all relatively a new phenomena.
• 33:59
  Toxic masculinity has existed forever.
• 34:01
  If anything there's less toxic masculinity nowadays.
• 34:04
  The cultural embrace of like gender nonconformity, femme
• 34:07
  boys, Harry Styles in a dress, Barbie movie, blah blah blah
• 34:11
  blah. My point is toxic masculinity
• 34:13
  did not just appear in the mid twenty 10s.
• 34:15
  All two men are only lonely because damn, women are no
• 34:18
  longer to be doormats and how dare we Grumble grumble, let's
• 34:24
  blame women. This is why men are leaving.
• 34:26
  Because women are on board with each other despite logic and
• 34:31
  science. It's all about women.
• 34:33
  Women, women, women. It doesn't have to make sense,
• 34:36
  it doesn't have to have any logic.
• 34:38
  It's women overall. And women who feel like that are
• 34:41
  not making it better for other women coming up because men want
• 34:45
  to be with women, despite it looks like, despite all the
• 34:48
  statistics, we do love you. We do want to be with you.
• 34:51
  But if you have this mentality, it's going to make men remove
• 34:54
  themselves from you in all areas.
• 34:56
  And I hate to bust your bubble, ladies.
• 34:58
  You need us. Excuse me?
• 35:01
  You. Do you do need us?
• 35:02
  You do. There is a male loneliness
• 35:04
  epidemic that's going on. But that is not.
• 35:06
  Yeah, women, women over men are violent when they're in cells.
• 35:12
  I think both of these ideas are absolute nonsense.
• 35:14
  And we're going to be discussing the role of women, I think, in
• 35:17
  the last part of this video. But for now, I want to focus on
• 35:20
  that first point. In summary, there were a lot of
• 35:23
  creators out there who I don't agree with, Matt Walsh and shoe
• 35:25
  on head just being two of them, who believe that traditional
• 35:28
  masculinity has always, always, always encouraged men to hide
• 35:31
  their feelings, not express them to anyone, not value male
• 35:34
  friendships and be as independent as you can at all
• 35:37
  times. Therefore, they believe that
• 35:39
  when we say hey, these aspects of masculinity are a little
• 35:42
  toxic and may be harming you and causing you to not focus on
• 35:45
  forming deep, meaningful friendships.
• 35:48
  This might be why you're lonely. They think we're just wrong
• 35:52
  because stoicism and emotional repression have always been the
• 35:55
  norm and so that could never be harmful, right?
• 35:58
  Let's talk about the myth of it's always been this way.
• 36:02
  The idea that it's always been the norm for men to be socially
• 36:05
  isolated, stoic, unable to express their emotions or not
• 36:09
  allowed to express their emotions, and that it can't
• 36:12
  possibly have had any negative effects on men because
• 36:14
  loneliness has only been an issue for the last 15 years or
• 36:16
  so is not only blatantly false, but anyone who claims this has
• 36:21
  never studied the basics of history and is completely
• 36:24
  unaware of cultures other than says why American man?
• 36:28
  But let's take a look at the Matt Walsh clip in a little more
• 36:30
  detail to really understand what he's saying.
• 36:32
  So he opens by quoting a news article which suggests that so
• 36:35
  many of the pressures on men to be masculine have and have
• 36:39
  certain traits are making it harder on them.
• 36:42
  But he immediately rejects this idea because men have always
• 36:45
  been lone Cowboys and it never did them any harm before.
• 36:48
  What? We find is that in that system,
• 36:50
  in that structure, men are constantly in competition with
• 36:52
  each other and constantly driven by this sense of anxiety.
• 36:57
  So that's the real problem. Too much competition, too much
• 37:00
  stoicism, too much men are too combative and aggressive.
• 37:06
  And we've got to calm all that down.
• 37:09
  Well, the problem with this theory is obvious, or it should
• 37:13
  be OK. If a cowboy mentality and too
• 37:17
  much macho stoicism is what is driving the epidemic of lost and
• 37:21
  lonely men, then why is the problem getting worse over time?
• 37:28
  Everyone agrees it's worse now than ever before.
• 37:31
  I just went through some of the many statistics that prove that
• 37:33
  is a major problem. Yes, men are in bad shape.
• 37:36
  But if that's all getting worse, then how can we blame
• 37:39
  traditional notions of masculinity?
• 37:43
  And again, it certainly was more common, you know, back in the
• 37:49
  day 50 years ago or at any other time in human history.
• 37:52
  Indeed, historically, the push for a man to be strong and
• 37:56
  dominant and unemotional was much more pronounced than it is
• 38:00
  today. In fact, historically, if a man
• 38:03
  didn't exhibit those trades, then he would die and his whole
• 38:07
  family would die. It's only in recent times that
• 38:10
  it's even been a feasible option for men to be feminine and soft
• 38:14
  and in touch with their feelings.
• 38:16
  So to summarise, Matt believes men have only expressed their
• 38:19
  emotions openly in the last couple of years. 50 years ago
• 38:23
  and for millennia before this, men never expressed their
• 38:26
  feelings because they were not allowed.
• 38:28
  What are you talking about Matt? This is blatantly false, but
• 38:32
  let's hear the rest of what he has to say before I dive into a
• 38:35
  little history lesson. You know the post overall thesis
• 38:37
  can probably be best summarised in this sentence from the
• 38:40
  article quote. American men's isolation stems
• 38:43
  in large part from a pervasive cultural belief.
• 38:46
  Experts say that men should be self reliant and hide their
• 38:50
  emotions, especially from other men.
• 38:53
  The absurdity of the premise could not be any more clear.
• 38:57
  Would anyone argue that the cultural belief that men should
• 39:01
  be self reliant and hide their emotions is more pervasive today
• 39:05
  than it was half a century ago? Of course not.
• 39:08
  So again, if that's the cause of the problem, why is the problem
• 39:13
  worse today? Actually, I would argue this.
• 39:17
  I would argue that in many cultures, especially amongst
• 39:20
  black men, it is more common for men today to feel they need to
• 39:23
  hide their feelings from each other than they did say fifty,
• 39:27
  60-70 years ago. I'll go into more detail about
• 39:31
  that in a second when we look a little into the history of
• 39:34
  Barber shops. But for now, I would also argue
• 39:38
  that for the average middle class white man in a country
• 39:41
  like America, for example, or England or whatever, yeah, maybe
• 39:44
  it's easy for some men to be open about their feelings today
• 39:47
  than it was 50 years ago, but it's not necessarily easier than
• 39:50
  it was 150 years ago, 200 years ago, 1000 years ago.
• 39:56
  The idea that men need to be stoic and repressed, contrary to
• 39:59
  what Matt Walsh says and contrary to what Sean Head says,
• 40:02
  is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of humanity.
• 40:06
  A lot of what the manosphere creates today say our
• 40:08
  characteristics of traditional masculinity are not actually
• 40:11
  that traditional and were not that common throughout most
• 40:14
  periods of history. Like I say, these straight up
• 40:17
  factually inaccurate statements were repeated by shoe on head in
• 40:20
  her video which amassed 4.9 million views.
• 40:25
  That's 4.9 million people who saw her spread blatant
• 40:28
  misinformation just because she can't be bothered to do any
• 40:30
  research beyond reading some tweets and making assumptions
• 40:34
  based on headlines from dodgy websites like the Daily Mail.
• 40:37
  So for full context of this clip, she mocks people who say
• 40:40
  men should feel free to open up about their emotions.
• 40:43
  Then she's wait, then she says, but then she says, oh, no, wait,
• 40:46
  no, that is a problem. But I don't want to speak about
• 40:48
  it like this because oh, I don't want to come across as a woke
• 40:51
  liberal. Oh, no, wait, let's mock it
• 40:53
  again by quoting the Daily Mail headlines, which literally calls
• 40:56
  people woke. And then she moves on to mocking
• 41:00
  a man who says there are systemic problems which
• 41:03
  discourage men from opening up. Then she brings up the
• 41:06
  misinformation saying that men have been suppressing their
• 41:10
  emotions for, and I quote centuries.
• 41:13
  Not at all true. And her conclusion is that
• 41:16
  there's always been this form of masculinity and that some
• 41:19
  there's always been this form of masculinity.
• 41:21
  That some of his label is toxic and therefore it can't be to
• 41:24
  blame for the increase in loneliness which she claims only
• 41:27
  arose in the mid twenty 10s. Giving the 200 IQ answer that
• 41:33
  nobody has ever heard before. Just show your emotions bro and
• 41:37
  I'm not dismissing this problem OK I've I've made videos talking
• 41:40
  about this. Oh you're crying at your
• 41:41
  grandfather's funeral? OK forget.
• 41:44
  And studies have shown that men are scared to be vulnerable even
• 41:47
  around the homies and can you blame them when the media says
• 41:50
  stupid like this? Fellas is it woke to open up to
• 41:53
  your fellow men and discuss history?
• 41:55
  Men are socialised to believe strength, dominance and stoicism
• 41:58
  are behaviours of a real man. Is it any surprised that men are
• 42:02
  lonely and have less friends nowadays?
• 42:04
  You have to be vulnerable to make friends.
• 42:06
  Don't tell me there aren't systemic problems affecting men
• 42:09
  now. While a lot of this may be true,
• 42:11
  men have been socialised this way for centuries and this is
• 42:14
  all relatively a new phenomena. Toxic masculinity has existed
• 42:18
  forever. If anything, there's less toxic
• 42:20
  masculinity nowadays. The cultural embrace of like
• 42:23
  gender nonconformity. Fem boys.
• 42:25
  Harry Styles in a dress Barbie movie, blah blah blah blah.
• 42:28
  My point is toxic masculinity did not just appear in the mid
• 42:32
  2010. So have men been self isolating
• 42:36
  and repressing their emotions for centuries?
• 42:39
  Well the short answer is no. The longer answer is no, and
• 42:43
  here's what actually happened. I love these little history
• 42:45
  lessons with you guys, so I need a name for them.
• 42:47
  History with Rachel just doesn't quite have a nice ring to it,
• 42:49
  does it? But for now, History with
• 42:51
  Rachel. So Brett and Kate McKay wrote an
• 42:54
  article for the website The Art of Manliness back in 2008 titled
• 42:58
  The History and Nature of Man Friendships, which is a great
• 43:00
  little introduction to the topic.
• 43:02
  Very easy to read, very short and simple.
• 43:04
  It's nice to summarise for the last two and a half thousand
• 43:08
  years, men have been encouraged to have deep and meaningful
• 43:11
  emotional connections with other men.
• 43:13
  To quote a couple of segments of their article, in ancient times,
• 43:17
  men viewed man friendships as the most fulfilling relationship
• 43:19
  a person could have. Friendships were seen as more
• 43:22
  noble than marital love. Platonic friendships, according
• 43:25
  to Aristotle, were the ideal so this Aristotle was a man right
• 43:29
  in what 300 and something BC about why a relationship of
• 43:34
  emotional connection without sexual intimacy with another man
• 43:37
  was the most perfect things that all men needed.
• 43:40
  The little blog post goes on to say during this period of time
• 43:43
  the idea of heroic friendship developed.
• 43:45
  The heroic friendship was a friendship between two men that
• 43:48
  was an intent there was intense on an emotional and intellectual
• 43:52
  level and they list many examples of heroic friendships
• 43:56
  from epic literature at the time, mythology and even
• 43:59
  religious stories which taught the men at the time the
• 44:02
  importance of strong emotional bonds with other men moving
• 44:06
  forward in time. And this was still absolutely
• 44:09
  the norm for the next few centuries all the way up to the
• 44:11
  1600s. An example from this time is
• 44:14
  written about by Tiffany Wattsmith in her article for the
• 44:17
  Atlantic, How the Passionate male friendship Died.
• 44:20
  She gives the example of Sir John Finch and Sir Thomas Baines
• 44:23
  who she describes as Renaissance era doctors who travelled,
• 44:27
  worked and lived together in the 1600s and were buried side by
• 44:30
  side at Christ's College in Cambridge.
• 44:33
  Their tombstone and monument literally reads beautiful and
• 44:37
  unbroken marriage of souls and companionship undivided,
• 44:41
  undivided during 36 complete years, they who while living had
• 44:45
  mingled their interests, fortunes, counsels, nay rather
• 44:49
  souls might in the same manner in death at last mingle their
• 44:53
  sacred ashes. And for once this is not a they
• 44:56
  were roommate situation, as happened to a lot of lesbian
• 44:58
  couples at the time. This was genuinely a celebration
• 45:01
  of deep, loving male friendship. As Tiffany writes, in their time
• 45:06
  across Europe, passionate bonds between men were publicly
• 45:09
  celebrated and women were typically viewed as lacking the
• 45:13
  emotional depths required for true friendship.
• 45:15
  Misogyny and stereotypes aside, the fact is that for centuries
• 45:19
  men were socialised and encouraged to have these deep
• 45:21
  emotional bonds and express their emotions honestly and
• 45:25
  openly, at least towards other men, not towards women.
• 45:29
  It's actually crazy to think how much our feelings on this have
• 45:31
  essentially reversed over time. French philosopher Michael
• 45:35
  Demontagne wrote an essay titled on friendship and I think like
• 45:38
  1580 ish or 1580, something around the 1580s in which he
• 45:44
  said that women's brains were simply not capable of
• 45:47
  understanding the depth, complexity and longing of a real
• 45:49
  friendship like men could. Our our brains were, according
• 45:53
  to Tiffany's summary of his article, colder and weaker than
• 45:57
  nens. And so looking at this, it's so
• 46:00
  interesting that so many of these like manosphere crates
• 46:02
  stay like, no, men are traditionally cold and stoic and
• 46:05
  women are over emotional and you just like, no, back in the 1500s
• 46:08
  or 1600s, they didn't think this.
• 46:11
  They thought the exact opposite. Moving forward again in time.
• 46:15
  And Liz Plank writes in her book For the Love of Men, a new
• 46:18
  vision for mindful masculinity. If you look through the 19th
• 46:21
  century photos of men, you'll know it's right away that male
• 46:24
  friendship has undergone a massive transformation.
• 46:26
  It used to be so common for men to seek a photographer's
• 46:29
  services to capture them holding hands, sitting on each other's
• 46:32
  laps and being physically intimate.
• 46:34
  Again, she clarifies that this was in no way about romantic
• 46:37
  connection for the majority of them anyway.
• 46:39
  Obviously somewhere, but but instead, she says, it reflected
• 46:42
  the comfort they had with emotional intimacy in their
• 46:45
  everyday interactions. Other common examples can be
• 46:48
  seen by looking at, well, former US presidents, for example.
• 46:52
  So according to Liz's research, Abraham Lincoln fine Abraham
• 46:57
  Lincoln famously and yet platonically slept in the same
• 47:01
  bed as his best friend Joshua Speed.
• 47:03
  And Theodore Roosevelt was known for using affectionate language
• 47:06
  in his letters to other men. Meanwhile, the Mckay's wrote
• 47:09
  about Daniel Webster, a state senator in 1845, who would, and
• 47:13
  I quote, often begin his letters to male friends with my lovely
• 47:17
  boy and ended them with a very affectionately yours.
• 47:21
  Geoffrey Grief. Yeah, Geoffrey Grief in his book
• 47:24
  Buddy System, Understanding Male Friendships, quotes Alexander
• 47:27
  Hamilton writing in 1779. I wish, my dear Lawrence, it
• 47:32
  might be in my power, by action rather than words, to convince
• 47:36
  you that I love you. Did these sound like stoic,
• 47:39
  lonely Cowboys to you? Because I don't think so.
• 47:44
  And as I say, it wasn't just common amongst Western or white
• 47:46
  men either. Male friendships have been
• 47:49
  valued throughout history and throughout numerous cultures and
• 47:52
  countries. It's no surprise to me that
• 47:54
  certain content creators, Matt Walsh seem to forget that black
• 47:58
  men exist. But for the longest time, Barber
• 48:01
  shops for Africa, particularly West Africa, especially in
• 48:04
  countries like Nigeria, for example, have been a hub of
• 48:07
  community and friendship, bringing men together, allowing
• 48:11
  them these safe spaces to open up and talk and express their
• 48:14
  emotions and if they have worries, tell stories to each
• 48:18
  other. And that still continues today.
• 48:21
  It's a beautiful thing. Photographer Andrew Essabo has
• 48:24
  spent years photographing Barber shops around all of West Africa,
• 48:28
  and he told the New York Times the barbershop is an intimate
• 48:31
  space where people come to discuss what they cannot speak
• 48:34
  about in their homes or in public.
• 48:36
  It's one of the few spaces where people from different walks of
• 48:39
  life from different classes mix. James Estrin, who interviewed
• 48:44
  him for the 2013 article, said while barbers may start off as
• 48:47
  strangers, they don't remain strangers for long.
• 48:50
  Often they become long term confidants with whom men share
• 48:53
  intimate details of their lives. The conversations may begin with
• 48:56
  sports, cars or politics, but they often end with personal
• 48:59
  revelations that customers would share with few others.
• 49:03
  And it's not just in Africa either.
• 49:05
  Barber shops have historically been a safe place for Black men
• 49:08
  in America, too, especially during the civil rights
• 49:11
  movement, where they were described as more than spots for
• 49:14
  grooming services. They'd become cultural meccas,
• 49:17
  gathering places and community hubs, according to a blog post
• 49:20
  titled Barber Shops in Black Communities, a Celebration of
• 49:23
  Black History Month. The author of this blog goes on
• 49:26
  to write that at all points in time, Black Barber shops replace
• 49:29
  for the Black community to gather, share ideas, discuss
• 49:32
  societal reform, plan strategy, promote unity and find
• 49:37
  camaraderie during the times they needed it the most.
• 49:41
  There's actually a great book about this by Quincy T Mills
• 49:44
  called Cutting along the Colour Line.
• 49:46
  Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America.
• 49:49
  And in his book, he wrote that African Americans needed spaces
• 49:52
  where they could not only get a haircut but also gather in
• 49:55
  public without the usual surveillance from white people.
• 49:58
  The racial and gender privacy of the space enabled the level of
• 50:01
  truth telling where black men could critically discuss racial
• 50:05
  politics. These Barber shops absolutely
• 50:08
  played a huge huge role in the civil rights movement by
• 50:12
  allowing these men a safe space to gather together and discuss
• 50:15
  their rights without judgement, but also facilitated these deep
• 50:20
  authentic friendships amongst these men and like created a
• 50:24
  sense of community. This was common well into the
• 50:27
  1950s. Despite what Matt Walsh and Shoe
• 50:30
  on Head seemed to think about all men being non emotive loners
• 50:34
  during that time, a lot of them still continue to function as
• 50:37
  community hubs today too. Perhaps their popularity or the
• 50:41
  community aspect has dwindled a bit in certain areas of America,
• 50:45
  but not not in West Africa. They're still huge in West
• 50:47
  Africa, and there is still absolutely a need for these safe
• 50:51
  spaces to facilitate friendship amongst black men.
• 50:55
  So there's your little history lesson.
• 50:56
  Male friendship has always been a big, beautiful, encouraged
• 50:59
  thing. So what changed?
• 51:02
  Because it's clear that today men don't feel comfortable with
• 51:05
  male friendships being this intimate anymore.
• 51:09
  And also, when did it change? We know it's not always been
• 51:12
  this way, despite what Matt and June seem to think, or rather
• 51:15
  what they maybe want you to think.
• 51:16
  But instead, it's been a gradual change over a few decades
• 51:21
  basically. And it also turns out that over
• 51:26
  the course of the 19th century, attitudes and beliefs about
• 51:29
  women were changing too. So, as Tiffany writes for The
• 51:32
  Atlantic of the Victorian era, the consummate woman was
• 51:35
  supposed to be tender, loving and eternally supportive.
• 51:38
  Devoted friendships were seen as proof of her compassionate
• 51:41
  nature. Girlhood bonds were considered
• 51:43
  practise for the affection and sacrifice necessary for future
• 51:46
  roles as wives and mothers. And of course, this is also tied
• 51:49
  together and rooted in misogyny, right?
• 51:51
  Women were cold and emotionless when men could suppress them in
• 51:54
  that way. And then they had to be
• 51:56
  nurturing and loving when men were like, oh wait, crap, we
• 51:58
  need them to take care of the children and tell them they need
• 52:00
  to be good mothers. You know, basically men didn't
• 52:04
  want to have to take care of the kids, so they had to say women
• 52:06
  were more suited to that. And what skills were needed?
• 52:09
  Compassion and love and tenderness and Oh no, maybe I
• 52:13
  can no longer express those things to my male friends
• 52:15
  anymore. In case they think I'm going to
• 52:18
  do that as a parent and like, yeah, suddenly it's not manly to
• 52:23
  have those skills anymore and they're only women's skills.
• 52:26
  And you get the idea. And let's not forget the
• 52:30
  homophobia Part 2. Despite homosexuality being
• 52:33
  incredibly common amongst many ancient civilizations, over the
• 52:37
  years, as Christianity gained more popularity and power,
• 52:40
  people will be people also became more obsessed with sexual
• 52:43
  purity. And in many countries like
• 52:45
  America, that meant shaming and shunning homosexuality.
• 52:48
  And so of course, especially towards the end of the 19th
• 52:50
  century and very slowly throughout the 20th century up
• 52:54
  until now, and men didn't want to be mistaken for gay.
• 52:58
  So they had to drastically cut back on the affections that they
• 53:01
  showed other men just in case it was mistaken for romantic
• 53:04
  affection because we wouldn't want to risk that, would we?
• 53:08
  And finally, while this is an exhaustive list of every 'cause,
• 53:10
  I think it's important to mention the role that
• 53:12
  industrialization and the rise in capitalism has in all of
• 53:15
  this. As time went on, men more than
• 53:17
  ever were taught to be in competition with each other,
• 53:20
  competition for who'd could have the best job, the most money,
• 53:22
  and so on. There was no longer any room for
• 53:24
  emotions and affections towards your competition, was there?
• 53:28
  So it was a long, long, gradual process of social norms and
• 53:31
  gender roles and societal expectations changing and
• 53:34
  basically reversing. And it happened at a different
• 53:38
  rate for different people of different classes and in
• 53:40
  different places and different races and so on.
• 53:44
  But it's very clear to me that this is not just a matter of men
• 53:47
  have always been emotionally stunted and it never did them
• 53:49
  any harm. I think, in fact, when men
• 53:51
  started to become emotionally stunted is when we saw an
• 53:54
  increase in loneliness. But it's happened so slowly and
• 53:56
  gradually over time. We're only just beginning to
• 53:59
  notice it. Of course, we can't also deny
• 54:01
  the role that, you know, technology and the economy have
• 54:04
  in all this. But I don't think we can ignore
• 54:06
  the role of so-called traditional masculinity either,
• 54:09
  which is in fact anything but traditional.
• 54:13
  People like Shawn Head in June, she made her whole video saying
• 54:15
  like, oh, no, it's not masculinity that's doing this.
• 54:18
  It's not our expectations of men.
• 54:20
  It's just the rise of the Internet.
• 54:22
  And it's just it's just the economy and it's I'm like, no,
• 54:25
  it can be both. In fact, it is both.
• 54:28
  She spent a whole video mocking people who basically want to
• 54:34
  encourage positive masculinity, right?
• 54:36
  Like she spent the whole video doing that and being like, oh,
• 54:39
  you know, we can't just judge men for being men.
• 54:40
  They've always been unlike. You're wrong, you're wrong.
• 54:45
  So I said it a lot, but what is toxic masculinity?
• 54:48
  Let's talk about masculinity in general and what it means,
• 54:51
  right? So when we talk about
• 54:53
  masculinity, we're referring to a set of characteristics and
• 54:56
  behaviours which we usually associate with men and boys.
• 55:00
  This is a social construct defined by the members of a
• 55:03
  society which can and has absolutely changed depending on
• 55:07
  time, place and or culture. We've already seen that what
• 55:11
  people like Matt Walsh and June refer to as traditional
• 55:15
  masculine. Traditional masculinity is not
• 55:17
  in fact traditional at all. It's just what's become the norm
• 55:20
  of the last 100 years or so. Masculinity in itself is neither
• 55:25
  good nor bad, helpful nor harmful.
• 55:27
  It merely it's it's just masculinity.
• 55:31
  However, it's becoming clear that just as with femininity,
• 55:34
  there are some aspects of it which do harm people, some
• 55:37
  expectations that men face that can cause them to harm
• 55:40
  themselves or others. Often we refer to these
• 55:44
  particular aspects as toxic masculinity, but it's clear to
• 55:48
  me that again, people don't really understand what this term
• 55:50
  means. Take a look at some of these
• 55:52
  clips. So well my main qualm with this
• 55:55
  toxic masculinity thing is why do we have to needlessly gender
• 56:02
  toxicity? Can't there just be toxic
• 56:05
  people? I don't think toxicity knows a
• 56:08
  gender. Women can be toxic.
• 56:10
  Men can be toxic. But is it being rooted like, oh,
• 56:14
  OK, you're a man, so therefore you have to do this, this and
• 56:18
  you have to do this, this and this.
• 56:20
  Therefore you can't do this, this and this.
• 56:22
  And same thing goes for woman like but when it comes to a man
• 56:26
  I feel like toxic masculinity can lead most often leads to
• 56:31
  violence against women. Well, we've gone through the
• 56:34
  toxic masculinity. Young men are told that they're
• 56:37
  fascist and terrible just because they lift weights and
• 56:41
  they want to be a man in American Society.
• 56:44
  You brought up toxic masculinity.
• 56:46
  I believe toxic masculinity exists, but it exists inside of
• 56:49
  radicalised feminists, right where they're thinking that they
• 56:52
  should be able to own and control society because they're
• 56:55
  marching in the street with pussy hats and and saying that
• 56:58
  they demand justice for a free and fair election.
• 57:00
  I think a lot of times it's used in a way where it's almost
• 57:04
  demonising all masculinity, and a lot of men interpreted that
• 57:08
  way, and men and boys are taught that somehow innately they are
• 57:13
  toxic just by virtue of having been born as men.
• 57:17
  And I don't think it's a particularly productive or
• 57:20
  helpful term. I think it's really divisive.
• 57:24
  I think we ought to just address toxic behaviour.
• 57:28
  I don't like this trend where you're where we're trying to
• 57:30
  turn men and you call it this masculinity is is masculinity.
• 57:35
  I like masculinity. Masculinity is actually the one
• 57:37
  thing that saved me in life today.
• 57:39
  That archetype of what a man is, is being taught that that
• 57:42
  there's something wrong with it, that there's something that's
• 57:44
  implicitly violent about being a man and that's wrong.
• 57:48
  So all of these people are wrong and they're either ignorant,
• 57:51
  like the guy from the Whatever podcast whose name I can never
• 57:54
  remember, or people like Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens.
• 57:57
  I think they're purposely straw manning to try and discredit
• 58:00
  their opponents. But none of them are really
• 58:02
  representing what we actually mean when we talk about toxic
• 58:05
  masculinity. And I think it's important that
• 58:07
  we define these terms properly. Toxic masculinity generally
• 58:11
  refers to specific aspects of masculinity which are harmful to
• 58:15
  people, whether it's the individual because of the roles
• 58:18
  they're forced into against their will, or other people who
• 58:21
  have to deal with the consequences of their actions
• 58:23
  based on them trying to fulfil a certain gender role.
• 58:26
  I'll reiterate this does not mean all aspects of masculinity
• 58:29
  are toxic or harmful. It also does not mean that
• 58:32
  masculinity is inherently bad. And to address this specific
• 58:36
  misunderstanding by the whatever host, he's got it backwards.
• 58:41
  We're not assigning gender to toxicity, but we're describing
• 58:44
  certain gender expectations as toxic.
• 58:48
  He is getting the adjective noun the wrong way round.
• 58:50
  It's a misunderstanding of the very basics of English language.
• 58:54
  So if I say that my dog Kyra is a good girl, I'm not gendering
• 58:58
  the concept of good. I'm saying that she, as a girl,
• 59:01
  is good. Girl is the noun.
• 59:04
  Good is the adjective. Masculinity is the noun.
• 59:08
  Toxic is the adjective toxic. Masculinity does not refer to
• 59:12
  toxic behaviour that is done by men.
• 59:15
  It refers to parts of masculinity that social
• 59:18
  construct that are toxic to men. It's it's different.
• 59:23
  So examples of toxic masculinity might be this idea that in order
• 59:26
  to be a real man you have to be stoic and suppress all your
• 59:30
  emotions other than anger. That is a part of toxic
• 59:33
  masculinity. That is because it is toxic
• 59:36
  because it leads to men being miserable, being unable to
• 59:39
  process or express their emotions, and this often leads
• 59:42
  to violent or aggressive outbursts of emotion, anger and
• 59:46
  so on that will harm others. Toxic parts of femininity?
• 59:50
  If you want. The alternative might be that in
• 59:52
  order to be seen as a real woman, you need to be submissive
• 59:55
  at all times and never be outspoken.
• 59:57
  In your opinion, this is a toxic part of femininity because it
• 1:00:01
  leads women to be easily bullied, manipulated, and
• 1:00:04
  oppressed. It doesn't allow women to speak
• 1:00:06
  up for themselves or have their needs met, and this can harm
• 1:00:09
  them. And while we're on the topic of
• 1:00:11
  toxic femininity, I do believe it's a label which could be used
• 1:00:14
  in some circumstances like the above, but it's repeatedly
• 1:00:17
  misused by conservatives. To push an agenda as a way to
• 1:00:21
  say feminism bad and undermine the seriousness of issues facing
• 1:00:26
  both men and women. Take a look at these examples
• 1:00:28
  from Charlie Cook. We're sick and tired of hearing
• 1:00:32
  about toxic masculinity when we are drowning in toxic femininity
• 1:00:40
  when we become a feelings based culture.
• 1:00:43
  You can't say that. You can't do that.
• 1:00:46
  You're going to offend somebody. Boys will be boys.
• 1:00:49
  Boys tend to be reckless. They tend to punch each other
• 1:00:52
  and wrestle each other. That's a healthy, necessary part
• 1:00:54
  of the child development process.
• 1:00:56
  Trying to demonise that in the parental guidelines that
• 1:00:59
  Gillette was trying to have in a 32nd to a minute ad is toxic
• 1:01:03
  feminism attacking toxic masculinity.
• 1:01:05
  Can do anything wrong. Like would you have been OK if
• 1:01:07
  there was like a a strict razor commercial like about toxic
• 1:01:12
  femininity? Would that have been OK with
• 1:01:13
  you? What you think?
• 1:01:15
  Toxic feminism. Accusing men of things that
• 1:01:17
  never happened and calling it sexual assault like Brett
• 1:01:20
  Kavanaugh. He is an awful man and a rapist.
• 1:01:24
  Wait, he's a what? He's an honourable man.
• 1:01:27
  An awful honourable. I said awful.
• 1:01:29
  Prove it. What he?
• 1:01:31
  He. Facts game one fact of anything
• 1:01:34
  awful he's ever. Done.
• 1:01:35
  He raped someone because she because she said so.
• 1:01:38
  Wait, wait, hold on. Because she said so.
• 1:01:40
  That wasn't even that wasn't not even a trial in a court.
• 1:01:42
  It was in front of a So why isn't there a trial on the
• 1:01:44
  court? Why didn't she go file it?
• 1:01:46
  Why didn't she file a police report?
• 1:01:47
  Because there was no evidence. Time place, no witnesses for
• 1:01:50
  young ladies. There is this there is this
• 1:01:53
  toxicity that is infected because everyone says a toxic
• 1:01:56
  masculinity. There is toxic feminism within
• 1:01:59
  the ranks of the dating pool and it is toxic, which is you do not
• 1:02:09
  have to be a man. You don't have to present
• 1:02:12
  yourself as a man. Embrace your femininity.
• 1:02:15
  Allow the man to open the door for you.
• 1:02:17
  Allow him to pay for the first check.
• 1:02:20
  In fact, even more than that, you should expect that.
• 1:02:24
  And, and, and young ladies, I'll just be very honest though, that
• 1:02:28
  that the, the bitterness that so many young women espouse towards
• 1:02:34
  young men. That's the reason why a lot of
• 1:02:37
  young women cannot find partners.
• 1:02:39
  He's using toxic femininity in a very different way to how
• 1:02:45
  feminists use toxic masculinity. While we talk about toxic
• 1:02:49
  masculinity in terms of these traits of masculinity that are
• 1:02:51
  harmful, Charlie Kirk uses toxic femininity to say these are
• 1:02:55
  women I hate and I'm going to call them toxic.
• 1:02:58
  Another example comes from Andrew Wilson, who completely
• 1:03:01
  misunderstands the term and makes bizarre claims that an
• 1:03:04
  example of toxic masculinity is playing shooty video games.
• 1:03:09
  All the things that you would consider toxically masculine.
• 1:03:12
  Here's another one, right? Video games where, you know, you
• 1:03:16
  roll through the town and you just kill everything that you
• 1:03:19
  see. Women don't give a shit about
• 1:03:20
  that either. When you're talking about toxic
• 1:03:23
  masculine traits, it seems to only be the idea of you are
• 1:03:27
  using your masculinity as a weapon to defeat some absurdity
• 1:03:33
  that I have over here. He does realise that people of
• 1:03:38
  all genders play computer games, right?
• 1:03:39
  It's not just men, and it's absolutely not inherently toxic.
• 1:03:44
  Now, if a person experiences extreme anger and aggression
• 1:03:48
  while playing games, that could be a toxic behaviour.
• 1:03:51
  If there are men who degrade and bully women playing games with
• 1:03:54
  them, that could be an example of toxic behaviour.
• 1:03:57
  This links to toxic masculinity because you know, maybe these
• 1:04:01
  ideas that you know, men need to be aggressive, men need to put
• 1:04:04
  down women, men need to bully others, men need to speak over
• 1:04:07
  others. They are aspects of toxic
• 1:04:09
  masculinity that could come into the world of gaming, but that
• 1:04:12
  doesn't mean that gaming is an example of toxic masculinity.
• 1:04:17
  Does that make sense? The simple act of playing games,
• 1:04:20
  even shooting ones, is not toxic and it's not an example of toxic
• 1:04:24
  masculinity at all. I also don't think Andrew has
• 1:04:28
  ever actually played a game in his life because the example he
• 1:04:30
  gives, the ones where you walk down the street and just kill
• 1:04:33
  anyone. I play a lot of games and I
• 1:04:35
  can't think of a single game that that that is that that fits
• 1:04:40
  that like even with like shooting games and stuff like
• 1:04:43
  that. And usually there's a story,
• 1:04:45
  there's a purpose. If you have to shoot into a
• 1:04:47
  crowd, it's usually like, you know, there's zombies attacking
• 1:04:50
  you or something like that. Or it's like a war simulator,
• 1:04:53
  like the Battlefield games or I don't know, like, I mean, even
• 1:04:57
  looking at the Battlefield games, the war there is like
• 1:04:59
  messages, harmful and destructive and terrible, right?
• 1:05:05
  He might, I don't know, he might be thinking of games like GTA
• 1:05:08
  where technically, yeah, you can shoot whoever you want and beat
• 1:05:10
  people up in the street. But even within that world,
• 1:05:13
  there's in game consequences, like you're chased by the
• 1:05:16
  police, put in prison, given fines.
• 1:05:18
  Like it disrupts the gameplay. Like that's not the goal of the
• 1:05:22
  game. So these actions aren't
• 1:05:25
  celebrated. So I really don't know what he's
• 1:05:26
  referring to. Anyway, sorry, that was a
• 1:05:28
  tangent. And in further examples from the
• 1:05:31
  Whatever podcast, the men go on to make claims like this.
• 1:05:34
  I think a lot of times it's used in a way where it's almost
• 1:05:38
  demonising all masculinity, and a lot of men interpreted that
• 1:05:41
  way, and men and boys are taught that somehow innately they are
• 1:05:46
  toxic just by virtue of having been born as men.
• 1:05:50
  And I don't think it's a particularly productive or
• 1:05:53
  helpful term. I think it's really divisive.
• 1:05:57
  But again, I have to disagree. Toxic masculinity is not a
• 1:06:02
  critique of men as a whole, but it's simply about highlighting
• 1:06:05
  issues which affect men and other people.
• 1:06:08
  If I say oh the cause of this problem is that this person has
• 1:06:11
  cancer, that's not a critique of that person or something that
• 1:06:14
  they should be ashamed of. It's saying oh damn, we know
• 1:06:16
  what the problem is, now we can address it.
• 1:06:18
  Same with toxic masculinity. It's saying the cause of this
• 1:06:22
  problem are these toxic beliefs you have about masculinity.
• 1:06:26
  Now we've identified them, we can work on changing our unfair
• 1:06:30
  expectations of men. We can we, we can work on
• 1:06:33
  reframing how you think things about yourself and other men.
• 1:06:36
  We can get these men to think about who they really want to
• 1:06:38
  be, not just who they've been forced to be.
• 1:06:40
  We can find a solution, not a critique of men.
• 1:06:44
  It's pointing out the problems that they're facing or the cause
• 1:06:47
  of the problems that they're facing.
• 1:06:50
  When men remain in denial, it just causes more problems.
• 1:06:54
  Take a look at this line from an often quoted article on
• 1:06:56
  happiness.com titled Male Loneliness, the Ticking Time
• 1:07:00
  bomb that's Killing Men, the author writes.
• 1:07:03
  We all know the stereotype of lonely old spinsters, women
• 1:07:06
  living alone that go days without talking to anyone except
• 1:07:08
  their 27 cats. But I was a youngish male.
• 1:07:11
  Wasn't it only old women and not men that get lonely?
• 1:07:15
  And the unwillingness to accept that this is an issue that
• 1:07:18
  happens to men? The needless gendering of the
• 1:07:21
  issue, the misogyny towards women calling them old spinsters
• 1:07:24
  with cats, The fear that somehow admitting loneliness will in
• 1:07:29
  some way make you more feminine and less masculine.
• 1:07:32
  Like, these are all influenced by toxic masculinity and all
• 1:07:36
  show an unwillingness to address the problem that just makes
• 1:07:39
  issues like loneliness worse. The key is identifying the
• 1:07:43
  problem so we can find a healthy solution.
• 1:07:45
  It's absolutely not about critiquing or shaming anybody as
• 1:07:49
  an individual or anybody for simply being a man.
• 1:07:53
  And This is why I think it's so important to talk about the
• 1:07:56
  opposite, the concept of positive masculinity as a
• 1:07:58
  solution to toxic masculinity. This is actually something that
• 1:08:03
  I've been speaking with a lot of my friends with over the last,
• 1:08:05
  well, last few months to be honest.
• 1:08:09
  And I think one of the first times that came up was when I
• 1:08:11
  was speaking to a musician friend of mine, one of his
• 1:08:13
  shows. And I think you guys know.
• 1:08:15
  So I love sea shanties, I love folk music.
• 1:08:17
  I'm really nerdy about that kind of thing.
• 1:08:19
  And I went to go see The Longest Johns back when I was playing at
• 1:08:23
  Glastonbury in 2022. They were amazing.
• 1:08:27
  Took photos of them, got to know their bass player through that.
• 1:08:30
  He was like, are you coming to our lead show when we're
• 1:08:32
  playing? I was like, yeah, sure.
• 1:08:34
  Went along that night, met the rest of the band, got very drunk
• 1:08:36
  with them. We had good sing along until we
• 1:08:38
  got kicked out of Brutonel. It was great.
• 1:08:43
  And that's how I ended up getting to know JD, who is one
• 1:08:46
  of my like favourite people in the world.
• 1:08:48
  He's a really, really damn good friend.
• 1:08:50
  I look into bits and we bonded over painting Warhammer minis
• 1:08:54
  and all that sort of thing. And, and I was at one of the
• 1:08:57
  Sheffield shows when, and I was at one of the Sheffield shows
• 1:09:01
  the other month, we're playing some pool.
• 1:09:02
  And this this exact topic came up about toxic and positive
• 1:09:05
  masculinity. And I was saying to him how
• 1:09:07
  like, I actually really respect how he is such a role model of
• 1:09:12
  positive masculinity for his son.
• 1:09:15
  And I think that's something that is really, really lovely to
• 1:09:19
  see. And since then, the phrase has
• 1:09:21
  come up in quite a lot on my conversations and things.
• 1:09:23
  And as I was saying to JDI, think the longest Johns in
• 1:09:26
  general are a pretty great example of positive masculinity
• 1:09:30
  that you can see because let's not forget the history of sea
• 1:09:33
  shanties in general. These were songs sung by working
• 1:09:36
  class men, usually in unpleasant conditions, men who had
• 1:09:39
  repetitive tasks and long working hours.
• 1:09:42
  And there was definitely a sense of camaraderie amongst these
• 1:09:44
  men. And, and so in these kinds of
• 1:09:47
  difficult working environments, these strong solid friendships
• 1:09:50
  between men would have been incredibly important.
• 1:09:52
  And that's a really beautiful aspect of positive masculinity,
• 1:09:56
  isn't it? This, this camaraderie and
• 1:09:58
  friendship and bonding over difficult times.
• 1:10:01
  And however, at the same time, due to the nature of some of the
• 1:10:04
  work and the kinds of people doing these jobs, they would
• 1:10:07
  definitely not be. I'm writing a letter to tell you
• 1:10:10
  I love you kind of men, but a little bit more like they were
• 1:10:14
  drinking a lot, maybe being a little violent, maybe not quite
• 1:10:17
  so open with their emotions kinds of men.
• 1:10:20
  So maybe that was a little bit more of the toxic masculinity
• 1:10:24
  side of things coming out. And yet JD and the guys and the
• 1:10:28
  band that is all men. I think it would be so easy for
• 1:10:30
  them to get swept up in the history of these songs and the
• 1:10:32
  environments that they were forged in and, you know, feel
• 1:10:34
  like they also have to be like, woo, manly, oh, sexualizing
• 1:10:38
  women. Oh, outward displays of
• 1:10:39
  aggression. But they don't.
• 1:10:41
  They actively choose not to. Instead, they fostered the
• 1:10:45
  really positive aspects of their masculinity, the hard work, the
• 1:10:49
  creativity, the kindness and empathy, the resilience, and
• 1:10:53
  they've fostered an environment where people feel genuinely
• 1:10:56
  safe. You go to their shows, and with
• 1:10:59
  the exception of one woman who said some really misogynistic
• 1:11:02
  things to me, you know that they put together a crew of really
• 1:11:06
  amazing people and they've cultivated a fan base that is so
• 1:11:10
  full of and welcoming to and accepting of absolutely
• 1:11:13
  everyone, women, queer people, people with disabilities.
• 1:11:17
  It's a really open, safe and welcoming place to be.
• 1:11:20
  And I absolutely love that. And that is purely down to what
• 1:11:24
  these men value and what they put out into the world and the
• 1:11:28
  environment that they themselves have chosen to create.
• 1:11:32
  And this, to me, is an example of what really beautiful,
• 1:11:36
  positive masculinity is and is all about.
• 1:11:38
  You know, men like Andrew Wilson and Charlie Kirk and Andrew Tate
• 1:11:41
  and Matt Walsh and so on, they always go on about the
• 1:11:43
  importance of, you know, men are strong.
• 1:11:45
  Men are protectors. And yet for some reason, their
• 1:11:49
  definition of protecting means outbursts of uncontrolled anger
• 1:11:52
  and bullying minorities or those more vulnerable than them.
• 1:11:56
  That's not protecting them. That's not strength.
• 1:11:58
  That's just cruelty. Whereas JD and the guys portray
• 1:12:02
  real strength and a strength and a sense of protection by
• 1:12:05
  dedicating their entire life to creating safe spaces where some
• 1:12:09
  of the most vulnerable people in society can come together and
• 1:12:13
  have fun and enjoy music together and have a little sing,
• 1:12:16
  have a little dance and just be thoroughly accepted.
• 1:12:19
  That is what strength and protection is.
• 1:12:22
  Not violent outbursts of like, oh, I hate these women, you
• 1:12:26
  know, and I think this is something that's so important to
• 1:12:29
  talk about because we talk a lot about toxic masculinity and what
• 1:12:32
  it is and examples of it and why it's bad.
• 1:12:34
  But I think it's important as well to show examples of
• 1:12:37
  positive masculinity and have these role models like certain
• 1:12:42
  bands like like JD and the longest Johns, like I'm I'm
• 1:12:45
  friends with the guys from stone away.
• 1:12:47
  And again, I think like someone like Brian and Ollie, and I
• 1:12:51
  don't quite know John as well as the others, but again, I see
• 1:12:53
  them as like really positive examples of masculinity.
• 1:12:56
  And that they're, they're open with their emotions and they can
• 1:12:58
  be vulnerable at times, but they're, they're so kind and
• 1:13:01
  caring and hard working and creative.
• 1:13:03
  And again, I see that as as aspects of positive masculinity.
• 1:13:07
  And I think that's beautiful. I think it's something that we
• 1:13:09
  need to look at more and speak out about more and encourage
• 1:13:15
  other people to internalise as well.
• 1:13:18
  Words I'm I've gone off script here.
• 1:13:20
  I'm just ranting at this point. Sorry.
• 1:13:23
  But basically positive change in growth can't come about unless
• 1:13:27
  we acknowledge that there are problems there to be fixed in
• 1:13:29
  the 1st place. It's not just a matter of all
• 1:13:31
  masculinity good or all masculinity bad.
• 1:13:34
  There are positive and negative aspects to it and it's important
• 1:13:36
  that we identify each of those and encourage and discourage
• 1:13:39
  certain ones. It's interesting yet so.
• 1:13:42
  In his book Billy No Mates, Max Dickens writes that the thought
• 1:13:45
  that I might be toxically masculine had never crossed my
• 1:13:48
  mind before I'd heard the phrase.
• 1:13:50
  Obviously I knew it had been blamed for everything from rape
• 1:13:52
  culture to man spreading. If if a man did something awful,
• 1:13:56
  if something awful happened to a man, or if something awful
• 1:13:59
  happened, full stop. Toxic masculinity seems to be
• 1:14:01
  the go to explanation, but in my mind toxic masculinity refer to
• 1:14:05
  other men. Monsters like Harvey Weinstein,
• 1:14:07
  sociopathic tech Bros and the sort of UKIP election candidates
• 1:14:11
  that look like they privately refer to chicken as gay beef.
• 1:14:14
  That term didn't apply to me. However, he goes on to say, if
• 1:14:18
  I'm being totally honest, I didn't think about being a man
• 1:14:21
  any more than I thought about having legs.
• 1:14:24
  I suppose that's what they call male privilege.
• 1:14:26
  Never before in my lucky male life had had I been confronted
• 1:14:29
  with a gender difference that didn't fall in my favour.
• 1:14:33
  If I was part of an epidemic of male loneliness, then surely I
• 1:14:36
  needed to understand the role of the word man in that equation.
• 1:14:40
  Could masculinity, whatever that meant, really be to blame for my
• 1:14:43
  lack of friends? And so this was the first step
• 1:14:46
  to him understanding himself, his life and making changes that
• 1:14:49
  allowed him to make new friends. The first step was admitting
• 1:14:52
  that he had this problem, that he'd internalised some of these
• 1:14:54
  negative and toxic aspects of masculinity, and that these
• 1:14:58
  weren't a failing of his. They weren't something that he'd
• 1:15:01
  necessarily done wrong, but they were aspects of his life and
• 1:15:04
  personality that he needed to identify and address in order to
• 1:15:07
  change. So how does toxic masculinity
• 1:15:11
  cause loneliness? Let's take a look at some
• 1:15:14
  specific examples. So as part of researching this
• 1:15:17
  video, I decided to do a quick search on social media and about
• 1:15:20
  what makes a man strong to see what kind of messages are being
• 1:15:23
  taught to you, internalised by young men and boys today.
• 1:15:26
  And the results were, I want to say, shocking.
• 1:15:29
  But at this point, nothing like this shocks me.
• 1:15:32
  They were disappointing. I think a lot of them didn't
• 1:15:35
  necessarily seem bad on the surface.
• 1:15:37
  And the types of men saying, you know, to just use and dump
• 1:15:40
  women, they were in the minority.
• 1:15:42
  Like the the over misogyny was in the minority.
• 1:15:46
  That's fantastic. But instead a lot of the
• 1:15:49
  messages seemed like they could be quite helpful on the surface.
• 1:15:52
  But maybe that was just the generic motivational music
• 1:15:55
  playing under all these clips. Most men today are lost.
• 1:15:58
  They're weak, confused. If you want to be strong, read
• 1:16:01
  these three books #1 The Way of the Superior Man.
• 1:16:04
  Women are attracted to presence, not your neediness.
• 1:16:08
  Face fear and discomfort head on, and it's a path to growth.
• 1:16:12
  Modern society tames men, but you are meant for adventure.
• 1:16:16
  You need a battle to fight, a beauty to pursue, and a purpose
• 1:16:20
  to live for. Comfort is the enemy, and you
• 1:16:23
  want to seek challenges. God designed men to be warriors,
• 1:16:27
  not bystanders #3 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
• 1:16:33
  This is a stoic playbook for inner strength.
• 1:16:35
  Control what you can, accept what you can't.
• 1:16:38
  Discipline over emotions and don't let them rule you out.
• 1:16:41
  Because my brain is far too advanced.
• 1:16:44
  I'm too smart to read. I *** sit there and go.
• 1:16:46
  Smart people read. No, I need action.
• 1:16:49
  I need constant chaos in my life to feel content.
• 1:16:52
  I need to be driving a supercar and fighting bunch of hoes and
• 1:16:55
  champagne and going crazy. I can't just sit there.
• 1:16:57
  Oh oh, and the pirate on the boat?
• 1:17:02
  It's for people with slow money. Tough times create strong men,
• 1:17:05
  strong men create easy times, easy times create weak men, and
• 1:17:09
  weak men create tough times. The cycle just repeats itself,
• 1:17:12
  so. He goes to me.
• 1:17:13
  Look, don't ever forget the importance of raising warriors.
• 1:17:17
  A strongman isn't just muscle and confidence, it's control,
• 1:17:23
  discipline and the will to rise, no matter how heavy life gets,
• 1:17:28
  stays calm and chaos. And keeps moving forward even
• 1:17:34
  when his heart is tight. He's not driven by ego, but by
• 1:17:38
  purpose. He doesn't talk about strength.
• 1:17:41
  He lives it quiet, focused, unshakable.
• 1:17:47
  Absolutely everything, as a man, is your responsibility.
• 1:17:50
  It's your responsibility to become your best and brightest
• 1:17:53
  version of yourself. And you're not going to do that
• 1:17:55
  simply by talking it into existence.
• 1:17:57
  You need to live it into existence.
• 1:17:59
  You need to go out there and do things which are genuinely
• 1:18:01
  difficult, genuinely stressful, which are genuinely scary, so
• 1:18:04
  you can become the man you want to be.
• 1:18:06
  What I found that was kind of most concerning was how subtle a
• 1:18:10
  lot of the harm in these messages was.
• 1:18:13
  There was a lot of content focused on telling men that in
• 1:18:16
  order to be a real man, you had to be disciplined, focused, hard
• 1:18:19
  working, stoic, confident, which aren't necessarily bad traits in
• 1:18:23
  and of themselves or in the right contexts.
• 1:18:26
  But what was interesting to me was what was missing in all of
• 1:18:29
  this. Where was the motivational
• 1:18:31
  video? Where are the motivational
• 1:18:33
  videos about how to be a real man?
• 1:18:35
  You need to be kind, emotionally mature, able to communicate and
• 1:18:38
  regulate your emotions, have compassion, be responsible for
• 1:18:42
  the well-being of yourself and others around.
• 1:18:44
  Where's that content? Well, thankfully it did exist in
• 1:18:47
  a few places, but it was far less common, received far less
• 1:18:50
  views, and was harder to find. Real strength for men is not
• 1:18:55
  being stoic, is not holding your emotions and not not letting the
• 1:18:58
  world see you be vulnerable. Because I find like, it's easy
• 1:19:00
  to be angry. It's easy to be quiet.
• 1:19:02
  It's easy to just shut off from the world.
• 1:19:03
  That's not real strength because it's easy.
• 1:19:05
  Real strength as a man is opening up to people, being
• 1:19:08
  vulnerable, being OK with feeling inadequate because let's
• 1:19:11
  face it, as men you naturally want to be a provider.
• 1:19:13
  You naturally really want to be considered an alpha.
• 1:19:15
  I tell my younger brother this. I hope he gets this.
• 1:19:17
  It took me way too long to realise this.
• 1:19:19
  The things that are actually hard, the opening up, you know,
• 1:19:21
  the being able to convey that, hey, like I don't feel the best
• 1:19:23
  version of myself. That takes a stronger man to do
• 1:19:26
  than any of this other, like, bullshit about, oh, you know, I
• 1:19:28
  don't feel nothing. I'm good all the time.
• 1:19:30
  Like, that's nonsense. That's not real strength.
• 1:19:31
  These types of content creators pushing positive masculinity
• 1:19:35
  were suddenly in the minority. The majority of the videos were
• 1:19:38
  pretty awful, and here's an example from Andrew Tate, who
• 1:19:41
  seems to think that if men allow themselves to feel emotions then
• 1:19:44
  they'll all be out there raping and murdering people because
• 1:19:47
  that's just what men do, apparently.
• 1:19:50
  That a lot of people have forgotten about how difficult
• 1:19:52
  and how competitive it is as a man, we're always in constant
• 1:19:54
  competition with each other. And the dangerous thing about
• 1:19:56
  overly emotional men is that they're dangerous.
• 1:19:58
  They're genuinely dangerous. This is what's crazy.
• 1:20:00
  All these people who talk about toxic masculinity and how bad it
• 1:20:02
  is for men to be traditionally masculine.
• 1:20:04
  A traditionally masculine man does things he doesn't feel like
• 1:20:07
  doing because it is his duty to do them.
• 1:20:08
  He charges into the burning building because it is his duty,
• 1:20:11
  not because he feels like it, because it is his duty.
• 1:20:13
  We're now teaching the new generation of men that they
• 1:20:15
  don't have duty and they can just act on their.
• 1:20:17
  Feelings and act how they feel and they don't have to act as a
• 1:20:19
  man should. Do you know what happens when
• 1:20:21
  you get men who just act how they feel?
• 1:20:23
  You get school shooters, you get violence, you get rapists.
• 1:20:26
  Men who do not control their emotions are dangerous.
• 1:20:28
  If you find a man who is stoic, he's not going to hurt people.
• 1:20:30
  He's going to sit and think about his actions very carefully
• 1:20:32
  and he's going to be a good man who protects Britain, provides
• 1:20:34
  for his family. You find a man who just acts out
• 1:20:37
  on impulse and does whatever he feels like, you're going to find
• 1:20:39
  a dangerous man sitting here telling men to cry more and act
• 1:20:42
  with their feelings and it's OK to feel this way, that way,
• 1:20:45
  etcetera, and have no self-control.
• 1:20:47
  That is why we have the problems we have in the world.
• 1:20:49
  Absolutely. Not only wrong.
• 1:20:50
  So when they talk about toxic masculinity, they have it
• 1:20:51
  completely inverse on its head, completely not only wrong.
• 1:20:54
  We need to be teaching stoicism. We need to be teaching young men
• 1:20:56
  to understand that the world is very, very difficult.
• 1:20:58
  It's hard to be a man. You're going to feel bad.
• 1:20:59
  Sometimes you just suck it up and perform anyway.
• 1:21:02
  It is terrifying to think that he just thinks this is what the
• 1:21:04
  average man is like, and it's terrifying that he doesn't
• 1:21:07
  understand the difference between allowing yourself to
• 1:21:08
  process your emotions and acting violently and impulsively.
• 1:21:12
  So all this stuff being taught to particularly young men, what
• 1:21:15
  is the consequence of it? How does this affect men and
• 1:21:18
  their friendships and their loneliness?
• 1:21:21
  Well, simply as you can imagine, and as I've been basically
• 1:21:24
  telling you throughout this video, it disconnects men from
• 1:21:27
  each other. It's as simple as that.
• 1:21:29
  It makes them unable to open up deeply.
• 1:21:31
  It stops them having as many friends and often having as many
• 1:21:34
  close friends. Mark Green writes that because
• 1:21:38
  ridiculously, we have gendered emotionally centred capacities
• 1:21:41
  like empathy, caregiving and nurturing as feminine.
• 1:21:44
  And of course, due to the lower status of the feminine in our
• 1:21:46
  culture, exhibiting exhibiting feminine capabilities as a step
• 1:21:51
  down for men. Similarly, the happiness.com
• 1:21:53
  article argues that many men growing up are taught to not
• 1:21:56
  express our vulnerability, as we're shown by society in the
• 1:21:59
  media and the media that it's something weak.
• 1:22:01
  We've been told to keep a stiff upper lip and keep calm and
• 1:22:04
  carry on, and men should not express their feelings.
• 1:22:08
  Meanwhile, Liz Plank argues that toxic masculinity is an epidemic
• 1:22:11
  which knows no borders. It starts when we equate emotion
• 1:22:15
  with weakness and direct boys to display strengths no matter
• 1:22:18
  what. It shows up in the way we expect
• 1:22:20
  and encourage girls to show their true emotions while we
• 1:22:22
  demand that boys hide them from us.
• 1:22:25
  She goes on to say that we live in a culture that teaches boys
• 1:22:28
  stoicism over authenticity, dominance over empathy.
• 1:22:32
  Boys are taught not to ask questions because asking for
• 1:22:35
  help would suggest a lack of leadership instead of being an
• 1:22:38
  acute sign of it. And what happens when a man does
• 1:22:41
  try and speak out about the loneliness he may be
• 1:22:43
  experiencing? Well, Max Dickens wrote a story
• 1:22:47
  about, I say a story like he he told what happened about 52 year
• 1:22:51
  old Mark Gaisford who posted online about feeling alone
• 1:22:54
  despite being an outgoing man who was popular in the office
• 1:22:57
  where he worked, but how he still felt he had no friends or
• 1:23:00
  connections outside of work. He was vulnerable.
• 1:23:03
  He opened up and he was met with other men saying things like,
• 1:23:07
  you're pathetic. What a whiny article.
• 1:23:09
  No wonder he's got no friends. Sounds like this guy needs some
• 1:23:12
  testosterone and man up you wimp.
• 1:23:16
  All examples of toxic masculinity on show.
• 1:23:19
  Making the problem worse. Because now neither Mark nor
• 1:23:22
  other men reading these comments will feel safe to open up about
• 1:23:25
  their own feelings. And so we'll never be able to
• 1:23:27
  find a solution and instead we'll stay more and more lonely.
• 1:23:31
  And there are serious consequences of this.
• 1:23:33
  It's not just loneliness. But Liz compiled information
• 1:23:36
  from several studies which found that the more a man feels forced
• 1:23:39
  to identify with these toxically masculine traits, such as such
• 1:23:44
  as stoicism, the more likely he is to have lower well-being,
• 1:23:48
  poorer mental health, display violent behaviour, be more
• 1:23:51
  likely to sexually harass women and of course, have fewer
• 1:23:54
  relationships with other men. She argues that this is a crisis
• 1:23:58
  because men are left yearning for intimacy but unable to ask
• 1:24:02
  for it. And how do men respond to this?
• 1:24:05
  Well, we'll talk about people who actually recognise the
• 1:24:09
  problem and try and do something about it later in this video.
• 1:24:11
  But what about those who don't want to admit they're lonely, or
• 1:24:14
  think that admitting it somehow makes them less manly?
• 1:24:17
  As we'll see in the next section, it's easy for these
• 1:24:19
  types of men to seek solace online and in the manosphere, as
• 1:24:24
  a lot of people call it. And this can lead to them
• 1:24:26
  internalising more harmful ideas about their gender identity and
• 1:24:30
  lifestyle. And you know, it's cyclical
• 1:24:34
  socialisation leads to them internalising toxic traits,
• 1:24:37
  which makes them feel lonely, so they fall down rabbit.
• 1:24:40
  So they fall down radical rabbit holes looking for companionship
• 1:24:43
  and instead just find more toxic ideals that they internalise.
• 1:24:47
  And then that ultimately makes them more and more lonely in the
• 1:24:50
  long run. It doesn't solve anything.
• 1:24:52
  It's exacerbating the problem. And here's the thing that I
• 1:24:55
  think a lot of people forget. People like Charlie Kirk and
• 1:24:58
  Matt Walsh are or were millionaires because they profit
• 1:25:02
  off making people angry and keeping them divided and lonely.
• 1:25:06
  They say they care about male loneliness, but they only profit
• 1:25:09
  when you are lonely. They don't actually care about
• 1:25:12
  the well-being of the average man.
• 1:25:14
  They don't care about your mental health.
• 1:25:15
  They don't care about your health at all.
• 1:25:17
  They just want to generate an US versus them.
• 1:25:20
  So you're looking in the wrong places for the problem.
• 1:25:22
  And men like them can keep taking advantage of this and
• 1:25:25
  hold all the wealth they can. They profit off your suffering.
• 1:25:30
  And instead of getting angry at them like you should, these men
• 1:25:33
  turn to getting angry at women, at minorities, at, I don't know,
• 1:25:37
  immigrants, disabled people, whatever.
• 1:25:40
  They get angry in the wrong places.
• 1:25:42
  And the other thing is this isn't something that like this
• 1:25:45
  socialisation, internalisation of toxic traits, this isn't
• 1:25:49
  something that occurs naturally. Studies show that many young
• 1:25:52
  boys display the same levels of emotional openness and desire
• 1:25:56
  for connection as young girls do until they hit a certain age.
• 1:25:59
  And it's essentially socialised out of them, partly by general
• 1:26:03
  societal expectations and also partly by a lot of these
• 1:26:07
  manosphere creators. Mark Green argues in his 2017
• 1:26:11
  article The Terrible Price of our Epidemic of Male Loneliness
• 1:26:14
  that our culture of male emotional toughness weans boys,
• 1:26:18
  weans boys, and men of the intuitive capacities for
• 1:26:21
  emotional connection that they're born with.
• 1:26:23
  Many boys never have the opportunity to explore and grow
• 1:26:26
  these relational capacities at all taught from birth instead to
• 1:26:29
  man up and be a man, elevating toughness and assertiveness of a
• 1:26:33
  connection and empathy, which is in line with which is completely
• 1:26:37
  in line with what Naobi Wade found and argues in her book
• 1:26:41
  Deep Secrets, Boys, friendships and the crisis of connection.
• 1:26:45
  She found out of all the boys she interviewed and studied.
• 1:26:47
  Many young boys are affectionate and open in their friendships
• 1:26:51
  with each other until they start to get older and hit their teen
• 1:26:54
  years. And it's nothing about their
• 1:26:55
  biology that's I mean, obviously they're going through puberty,
• 1:26:58
  but that's not what causes to change.
• 1:27:00
  What's changed is the way they view and are viewed by other men
• 1:27:03
  and the expectations that they set for themselves and other
• 1:27:05
  men, she writes. Listening to boys, particularly
• 1:27:09
  those in early middle adolescence, speaking about
• 1:27:12
  their male friendships is like reading an old fashioned romance
• 1:27:15
  novel, which again is something we've seen throughout history.
• 1:27:18
  This is quite normal. Boys speak about their male
• 1:27:21
  friends with abandoned, referring to them as people whom
• 1:27:24
  they love. They talk in great detail and
• 1:27:26
  with tremendous effect about their best friends with whom
• 1:27:29
  they share their deepest secrets and without whom they would,
• 1:27:31
  according to 15 year old Malcolm, feel lost.
• 1:27:35
  However, Niobe found and this and this also aligns with what
• 1:27:39
  Michael Kimmel wrote about in his book Guyland, which she also
• 1:27:42
  references, that when boys hit around 16 or so, they start to
• 1:27:46
  adhere to a new code, which I quote demands that boys and
• 1:27:50
  young men shut down emotionally, that they suppress compassion
• 1:27:53
  and inflate ambition. She goes on to write that at the
• 1:27:56
  age of 16 or 17, as their minds are increasingly attuned to
• 1:27:59
  cultural messages about manhood and maturity, boys begin to
• 1:28:02
  distance themselves from boys begin to distance themselves
• 1:28:05
  from the relationships they hold most dear, their closest male
• 1:28:09
  friendships. They become more distrustful and
• 1:28:12
  less willing to be close with their male peers and believe
• 1:28:15
  such behaviour, even emotional acuity, put them at risk of
• 1:28:19
  being labelled as girly, immature or gay.
• 1:28:23
  Again, that homophobia coming into play again.
• 1:28:26
  Naobi argues that this is the result of socialisation, as I
• 1:28:29
  keep saying, as they're taught to be emotionally stoic,
• 1:28:32
  aggressive and seemingly invulnerable, and that as a
• 1:28:34
  result boys feel effeminate not only if they express emotions,
• 1:28:38
  but even if they feel them. Our hyper masculine American
• 1:28:42
  culture, she writes, frames boys and men as unable to have, and
• 1:28:46
  thus as uninterested in having intimate male friendships.
• 1:28:51
  And as we continue to see, the consequences of this are not
• 1:28:54
  just about male loneliness, but this disconnect from their peers
• 1:28:58
  and unwillingness to be emotionally open directly
• 1:29:00
  correlates with an increase in mental health issues and suicide
• 1:29:04
  attempts. To end this section with a quote
• 1:29:06
  from Laura Bates and her wonderful book Men Who Hate
• 1:29:09
  Women, she says those who speak of toxic masculinity are not
• 1:29:13
  criticising men but rather defending them, describing an
• 1:29:16
  ideology in a system that precious boys and men in our
• 1:29:19
  societies, in our families, to conform to unrealistic,
• 1:29:23
  unhealthy and unsustainable ideals.
• 1:29:25
  Crushing gender stereotypes are damaging to men as individuals
• 1:29:29
  as well as to the society in which they live.
• 1:29:32
  Tackling this problem, dismantling these pressures, is
• 1:29:34
  a matter of life and death for our boys.
• 1:29:37
  And it really, really is. So part three, What are the
• 1:29:41
  consequences of male loneliness if we just leave it unchecked?
• 1:29:46
  So let's talk more for a moment about what happens to these
• 1:29:48
  lonely men who are socialised to internalise toxic masculine
• 1:29:52
  traits. If we just leave them be, As I
• 1:29:56
  mentioned in the last section, they are far more likely to be
• 1:29:58
  radicalised online and sink further into loneliness and
• 1:30:01
  depression and health problems. However, it's not just these men
• 1:30:04
  who continue to suffer. It can result in their self
• 1:30:06
  hatred being turned outwards and directed towards women, often in
• 1:30:10
  the form of physical and sexual violence.
• 1:30:13
  So a lot of the consequences of what happens to these men is
• 1:30:16
  discussed in various books by the fantastic Laura Bates,
• 1:30:18
  including one of her earlier books Men Who Hate Women and her
• 1:30:22
  new book The New Age of Sexism. In her earlier book, Men Who
• 1:30:26
  Hate Women, she discussed many of the dangerous online
• 1:30:28
  communities that these lonely men often find themselves in.
• 1:30:31
  Incel forums, MC Tau, Red Pill forums, even pick up artist
• 1:30:35
  communities. And as part of her research, she
• 1:30:37
  created brand new social media accounts posing as Alex, a
• 1:30:41
  lonely young man. And she found just how quickly
• 1:30:43
  the algorithm served him misogynistic, harmful content,
• 1:30:46
  telling him to suppress his feelings unless they were anger
• 1:30:49
  and resentment. She writes that the incel
• 1:30:51
  community is the most violent corner of the so-called
• 1:30:54
  manosphere. It's a community devoted to
• 1:30:56
  violent hatred of women, A community that actively recruits
• 1:30:59
  members who might have very real problems and vulnerabilities and
• 1:31:02
  tells them that women are the cause of their woes.
• 1:31:06
  A community in whose name over 100 people, mostly women, have
• 1:31:09
  been murdered or injured in the past 10 years.
• 1:31:12
  However, it is worth noting that this book was published in 2020
• 1:31:15
  and I would say that number is probably considerably higher by
• 1:31:17
  now. She said of her fictional Alex,
• 1:31:20
  which was based on the feelings and actions of real men, that
• 1:31:22
  the idea of other men who felt similarly empty and frustrated
• 1:31:26
  appealed to Alex. He liked the idea of being one
• 1:31:28
  of many instead of the odd one out.
• 1:31:30
  She also specifies that some new recruits stumble upon the incel
• 1:31:33
  community while looking for answers to life problems or
• 1:31:36
  loneliness. Similarly, when discussing the
• 1:31:40
  pickup artist community, she describes it as an industry that
• 1:31:42
  exploits men's worst fears and preys on their vulnerabilities
• 1:31:46
  and literally trains them in harassment, stalking, and even
• 1:31:50
  sexual assault, targeting shy or romantically unsuccessful men as
• 1:31:54
  their disciples. And while a community of people
• 1:31:57
  experiencing similar feelings can be an amazing thing, as
• 1:32:00
  we'll see in the next section of this video, when those become
• 1:32:03
  toxic echo chambers instead of actual support networks, it can
• 1:32:06
  be really damn dangerous for everyone involved.
• 1:32:10
  Instead of finding real connection, friendship, and
• 1:32:13
  support, fictional Alex and countless real men out there
• 1:32:18
  were almost immediately advised that he might as well kill
• 1:32:21
  himself. His life wasn't worth living,
• 1:32:23
  That nothing would ever change. Is it any wonder that men's
• 1:32:27
  mental health is in the toilet when they're saying this to each
• 1:32:29
  other? And it's important to note that
• 1:32:31
  even these men saying this stuff, they're not just pure
• 1:32:33
  evil and helpless, they are victims too.
• 1:32:36
  They all stumbled into this because they were struggling,
• 1:32:39
  they were lonely, they had self esteem, and they were in pain.
• 1:32:42
  Or in notes that many posts read as a cry for help and yet
• 1:32:46
  usually devolve into graphic discussions of the benefits of
• 1:32:49
  raping women or committing other types of sexual violence, or
• 1:32:52
  just violence in general. As she notes, this is a this
• 1:32:56
  isn't a cut and dried situation of victims being preyed upon by
• 1:33:00
  idealogs. It's possible for one in cell to
• 1:33:02
  be both victim and violent predator.
• 1:33:06
  The most frustrating part of my experience, writes Laura, We're
• 1:33:09
  seeing posts from men who were vulnerable or in pain, many of
• 1:33:12
  them young boys, going through the typical tumult of adolescent
• 1:33:15
  hormonal angst and looking for some guidance to help them
• 1:33:18
  through it. And and then watching as these
• 1:33:20
  men and boys collided catastrophically with deeply
• 1:33:24
  twisted and misogynistic views, supported by pseudoscience and
• 1:33:28
  fake statistics at precisely the moment when they may have been
• 1:33:32
  most impressionable. And This is why I think it's so
• 1:33:35
  important we talk about the these issues so we can ensure
• 1:33:37
  future generations never get to this stage again and are instead
• 1:33:40
  taught be open with their feelings.
• 1:33:42
  They're taught how to form real connections with people before
• 1:33:45
  they fall down rabbit holes like this and get radicalised.
• 1:33:48
  But also so that people who are already in these communities
• 1:33:51
  know that there is a way out, and know that misery,
• 1:33:54
  hopelessness and violence are not their only options in life.
• 1:33:59
  In her latest book, The New Age of Sexism, Laura focuses less on
• 1:34:03
  online communities and more on other types of new technology
• 1:34:06
  which these men are turning to. In these instances, they're not
• 1:34:09
  looking for long term solutions to build self esteem, undo years
• 1:34:13
  of unhealthy socialisation and help them build authentic
• 1:34:16
  connection. Instead, they find short term
• 1:34:19
  solutions to plaster over the cracks.
• 1:34:21
  And sadly, these likely cause more harm than good. 2 examples
• 1:34:25
  in particular that she gives are when lonely men turn to either
• 1:34:28
  sex robots or AI romantic chat bots.
• 1:34:31
  These may seem harmless at a glance, but Laura dives deep
• 1:34:34
  into the benefits and problems associated with each.
• 1:34:38
  She writes that the sex robot manufacturers often make
• 1:34:40
  grandiose claims to be supporting men who are extremely
• 1:34:43
  lonely or socially awkward by facilitating access to
• 1:34:47
  companionship and to fulfilling sex life.
• 1:34:50
  She even goes as far as to quote the founder of one particular
• 1:34:53
  company, saying this has enormous potential to solve some
• 1:34:56
  of those loneliness problems. And these are big claims that
• 1:35:00
  have made these men a lot of money, just like a lot of these
• 1:35:03
  manosphere creators and conservative creators and people
• 1:35:06
  who manufacture anger for a living.
• 1:35:08
  It's almost like there's big money in male loneliness and
• 1:35:11
  offering them temporary solutions while actually keeping
• 1:35:13
  them lonely. Not to sound cynical, but I am.
• 1:35:18
  However, it's not just the men that suffer here.
• 1:35:20
  Let's say these dolls really did make men less lonely.
• 1:35:23
  Why should that be at the expense of women?
• 1:35:25
  Laura writes that none of this very laudable apparent
• 1:35:28
  philanthropic motivation explains why the dolls
• 1:35:31
  themselves should universally reinforce the most unrealistic
• 1:35:36
  cartoonish images of hyper sexualized young women.
• 1:35:40
  The dolls universally play into all outdated sizes, racist
• 1:35:45
  ablest beauty standards that already have a massively
• 1:35:48
  damaging impact on women's lives.
• 1:35:51
  She gets on to write. So even if we buy into the line
• 1:35:54
  that the main purpose of the sex robots is to support lonely men,
• 1:35:57
  there is no denying that this comes at a very high cost to
• 1:36:01
  women and girls. Not to mention the way it plays
• 1:36:03
  into the misogynistic assumption that any man has an inherent
• 1:36:06
  right to sex and companionship regardless of his behaviour,
• 1:36:11
  which teeters perilously close to the incel ideology.
• 1:36:15
  And she is right. And this is all very reminiscent
• 1:36:17
  to me of how a lot of insults believe we need to redistribute
• 1:36:22
  sex or legalise rape, or even Jordan Peterson's ridiculous
• 1:36:26
  claims that we need enforced monogamy.
• 1:36:29
  You know, he liked to try to dial back that statement.
• 1:36:32
  He'd be like I didn't mean enforced monogamy, I just meant
• 1:36:34
  we should normalise monogamy. She knew.
• 1:36:37
  The journalist knew perfectly well what I meant by enforced
• 1:36:39
  monogamy. She's not stupid.
• 1:36:41
  It's a you use it as if everybody would understand it
• 1:36:46
  because you're an intellectual and because you're a professor.
• 1:36:48
  And this is what you. Do it was also 2 minutes out of
• 1:36:51
  a 2 day conversation. You know, it's like, so if
• 1:36:54
  that's something we just glanced, Oh well, it's so that
• 1:36:56
  was funny in some sense, because my sense is if you want to
• 1:36:59
  pillory someone, you should attribute to them views that
• 1:37:03
  someone somewhere has had. And the implication of that part
• 1:37:07
  of the New York Times article was that I wanted to, you know,
• 1:37:09
  take nubile young women at the point of a gun, understate
• 1:37:13
  enforcement and deliver them to useless men.
• 1:37:15
  It's like no one has ever believed that.
• 1:37:18
  So it sounds like that it's a real.
• 1:37:21
  The optics of that that statement are very bad, but.
• 1:37:23
  And it's like, well, monogamy is already normalised, but you
• 1:37:26
  didn't say normalised monogamy, you said enforced monogamy.
• 1:37:29
  And then for a man who is very pedantic about the words he
• 1:37:32
  used, enforced has some pretty serious connotations.
• 1:37:36
  That mate. Now some people like Matt Walsh
• 1:37:39
  and also shoe on head to some extent, seem to think that it's
• 1:37:42
  laughable and worthy of mocking to be concerned that the things
• 1:37:45
  will harm men, also harm women. Now, the masculinity expert who
• 1:37:49
  coined that phrase about the cowboy mentality is a woman
• 1:37:53
  named Niobe Way, and she, of course, quickly identifies the
• 1:37:57
  real victims in the story of male loneliness.
• 1:38:00
  Can you guess who the real victims are?
• 1:38:02
  Who's most put upon by male loneliness?
• 1:38:05
  Well, Niobe says it's women. Think of the women.
• 1:38:09
  Men are lonely women most impacted, she says.
• 1:38:13
  Quote, women end up being the therapist for their husbands and
• 1:38:16
  more are getting sick of it. Yes, God forbid wives have to
• 1:38:20
  listen to their husbands and offer them solace and comfort.
• 1:38:24
  They're sick of it, says masculinity expert Niobe.
• 1:38:27
  That's not a conflicting message at all, is it?
• 1:38:29
  On one hand, men need to open up more, but on the other hand, if
• 1:38:32
  they do open up then they're putting an unfair burden on
• 1:38:35
  their wives who are being asked to do too much emotional labour.
• 1:38:38
  Now this might come as a shock to you, but not everything has
• 1:38:41
  to do with women. Sometimes we can talk about
• 1:38:44
  other things, sometimes those other things are not women.
• 1:38:49
  So admittedly, this little bit that he's talking about here was
• 1:38:52
  mostly in regards to the emotional labour women have to
• 1:38:55
  do, which is something we'll be discussing later.
• 1:38:57
  But I think it's worth mentioning now because this idea
• 1:38:59
  that we shouldn't be concerned with how this behaviour effects
• 1:39:01
  people who aren't just men is bizarre to me.
• 1:39:05
  Conservative men are some of the first people to say, ah, yes,
• 1:39:07
  but what about XY and Z affecting men?
• 1:39:10
  When you talk about issues affecting women, when we talk
• 1:39:13
  about, you know, the normalisation of rape, rape
• 1:39:16
  culture, the sheer numbers of women being raped or victims of
• 1:39:19
  domestic violence, they're the first to say, yeah, but have you
• 1:39:22
  thought about the man's life you're ruining by, you know,
• 1:39:25
  telling the world he's a rapist? They're the first ones to bring
• 1:39:28
  up men's well-being in response to issues affecting and hurting
• 1:39:33
  women. So why can't we also bring up
• 1:39:35
  the fact that men's loneliness hurts women too?
• 1:39:38
  With all that in mind, let's look another example.
• 1:39:41
  This time, let's see what Laura Bates has to say about AI
• 1:39:44
  romantic chat bots. This refers to artificially
• 1:39:47
  intelligent chat bots, which will talk with people acting
• 1:39:50
  almost as though they're real people.
• 1:39:52
  People, mostly men, open up to them and they feel safe doing so
• 1:39:56
  as it's not a real person, but they quickly start to feel real
• 1:39:59
  feelings for them. Often these chat bots respond
• 1:40:02
  with kindness, compassion, and sometimes replicate romantic
• 1:40:05
  feelings or flirting, or at least make it seem like they
• 1:40:08
  are. There absolutely are benefits to
• 1:40:10
  this, we can't deny it. Laura wrote that a study from
• 1:40:13
  Stanford University found that Replica, one of the common chat
• 1:40:15
  bots, has had a significant impact in supporting some
• 1:40:19
  participants mental health. Of the 1006 students surveyed,
• 1:40:24
  thirty reported without being asked that Replica had stopped
• 1:40:27
  them from attempting suicide. And that is amazing.
• 1:40:30
  That is not something we should discount.
• 1:40:31
  That is a really important thing that they're doing.
• 1:40:34
  However, it's important to note that this isn't a long term
• 1:40:37
  solution, is it? You can't replace authentic
• 1:40:40
  human connection with a computer programme and expect it to have
• 1:40:44
  the same long term benefits. And it definitely doesn't tackle
• 1:40:47
  the underlying problems causing loneliness.
• 1:40:50
  In fact, none of these solutions that we've mentioned in this
• 1:40:52
  section do. As Laura writes and reminds us,
• 1:40:55
  human connection is vital, and the two way sometimes messy,
• 1:40:59
  sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable navigation of a
• 1:41:02
  real relationship cannot be replicated by a robot or AI chat
• 1:41:07
  bot any more than in cell isolation can be solved by
• 1:41:10
  spending days on end in online forums filled with exclusively
• 1:41:13
  bitter, misogynistic men. But it's not just but the
• 1:41:17
  emotional consequence of this there were there were actually
• 1:41:19
  other problems too. What a lot of people don't
• 1:41:22
  realise is that although they might feel more comfortable
• 1:41:24
  opening up about their deepest darkest feelings to a chat bot
• 1:41:27
  because, you know, they feel less likely to be judged, they
• 1:41:30
  forget that a lot of these chat bots are actually less
• 1:41:32
  trustworthy in the grand scheme of things because many are
• 1:41:36
  mining data and information about you and selling it on.
• 1:41:40
  According to Laura's research, the fine print of 1 chat bot app
• 1:41:44
  even confessed that it would collect personal information
• 1:41:47
  relating to issues such as sexual health, prescribed
• 1:41:50
  medication and gender affirming care.
• 1:41:53
  Is this and not only collect it, but then sell it on to other
• 1:41:56
  people. So is this lack of privacy, a
• 1:41:58
  commodification of your private thoughts, really worth a way to
• 1:42:02
  temporarily a way to temporarily alleviate loneliness?
• 1:42:07
  And what of these people, mostly men, who don't even use these
• 1:42:10
  quick fix options but simply do nothing at all?
• 1:42:13
  Well, to reiterate what we've been saying so far, and I feel
• 1:42:16
  like I keep saying it over and over, but it needs driving home.
• 1:42:19
  According to Liz Plank and I quote, loneliness is one of the
• 1:42:23
  greatest threats to a person's health.
• 1:42:25
  It is associated with weaker immune systems and can cause
• 1:42:28
  early death. But it's not just physical
• 1:42:30
  health. Remember, as she reminds us, in
• 1:42:32
  America, for example, it is easier to get a gun than a
• 1:42:35
  therapist. Which is why without help,
• 1:42:37
  without therapy, without recognising the problem and
• 1:42:39
  addressing it, male suicide rates will only continue to
• 1:42:42
  increase. So to summarise, if we ignore
• 1:42:45
  these problems men face and keep letting the and keep letting and
• 1:42:49
  keep letting them simply plaster over the cracks instead of
• 1:42:52
  addressing the underlying causes such as the damaging
• 1:42:54
  socialisation and toxic masculinity that they're
• 1:42:57
  internalising, then we're basically handing these people a
• 1:43:00
  death sentence. That's why we need to talk about
• 1:43:03
  this and actively do something about it.
• 1:43:05
  So what are people who have already identified their
• 1:43:08
  loneliness trying to do about it and is it actually helping?
• 1:43:13
  Let's move on to part 4, Finding friendship.
• 1:43:16
  I have read a lot of books over the years, not just for this
• 1:43:18
  video but just in general because I myself have
• 1:43:21
  experienced varying degrees of feeling lonely.
• 1:43:24
  And I've read books on embracing being alone without feeling
• 1:43:29
  lonely, on how to make friends with people, how to develop and
• 1:43:32
  deepen friendships, how to be in a relationship, how to deal with
• 1:43:35
  break UPS, all sorts. I I I find it helps to
• 1:43:39
  understand different perspectives and figure out
• 1:43:41
  what's the best way to do things in my life.
• 1:43:43
  I quite like reading these books, I find them interesting
• 1:43:46
  and I talk about them a lot in videos.
• 1:43:48
  And loneliness is something that I personally am very familiar
• 1:43:51
  with. I've had periods in my life when
• 1:43:53
  I've had no friends at all and faced a lot of bullying.
• 1:43:56
  I've had periods where I've had friends and people around me but
• 1:43:58
  felt disconnected from them. And I've had periods in my life
• 1:44:00
  when I haven't been lonely at all.
• 1:44:02
  I've had periods of my life when I spent a lot of time alone but
• 1:44:05
  also not experienced loneliness. I've had friends that I feel
• 1:44:08
  connected with on a deeper level and friends that I never really
• 1:44:11
  felt I fit in with. Like I've experienced a whole a
• 1:44:13
  whole range of everything. And I read a lot of books on
• 1:44:18
  these topics because this is how I cope with this stuff.
• 1:44:20
  This is how I learn about this stuff.
• 1:44:21
  This is how I try and make sense of my own life.
• 1:44:25
  And more specifically, I think I wanted to know that I wasn't
• 1:44:29
  alone in these feelings. And it turns out I'm not.
• 1:44:32
  I'm absolutely not. I wanted to know if there's a
• 1:44:34
  way out and there is. I wanted to know if there are
• 1:44:36
  steps I can take to actively help myself, and there are.
• 1:44:40
  However, one of the things I noticed while researching this
• 1:44:42
  video in particular is that, interestingly, most of the books
• 1:44:46
  on the topic are actually written by women.
• 1:44:48
  At least the majority of the ones that I found and read were.
• 1:44:52
  Whether these are books about dealing with loneliness,
• 1:44:54
  thriving while alone or single, or making friends when you feel
• 1:44:57
  lonely, the vast majority of books I found on this topic were
• 1:45:00
  written by women and being read and reviewed by women, just to
• 1:45:04
  give you a few examples. Do you expect to Joy being
• 1:45:07
  single by Catherine Grey. The art of living alone and
• 1:45:10
  loving it by Jane Matthews. How to be alone by Lane Moore.
• 1:45:13
  How to be single and happy by Jennifer L Tates, A lone man.
• 1:45:17
  How to be alone and absolutely own it by Francesca Spencer.
• 1:45:20
  Platonic. The science of attack.
• 1:45:22
  How the Size of Attachment can Help You Make and Keep friends
• 1:45:25
  by Marissa Franco. The Art of Showing up.
• 1:45:27
  How to be there for Yourself and your People by Rachel Wilkerson.
• 1:45:30
  Miller for intimacy. 10 ways to improve your Friendships and
• 1:45:33
  Deepen Your life. By Shasta Yeah by Shasta Nelson.
• 1:45:38
  The joy of connections. 100 ways to beat loneliness and Live a
• 1:45:41
  Happier, More Meaningful life by Doctor Ruth K Westheimer.
• 1:45:45
  Can't even say that. And Modern friendship, How to
• 1:45:48
  nurture our most valued connections by Anna Goldfarb.
• 1:45:51
  And so on and so on. This barely scratches the
• 1:45:53
  surface of the ones that I've read.
• 1:45:54
  And I I found so many others. And then when I specifically
• 1:45:58
  tried searching for books about male loneliness and fostering
• 1:46:01
  friendships amongst men, I genuinely struggle to find as
• 1:46:04
  many. They were very very rare in
• 1:46:06
  comparison. If the male loneliness epidemic
• 1:46:10
  is so serious and so many men are talking about it, why is no
• 1:46:13
  one actually doing anything about it?
• 1:46:15
  Why are no men writing books on this or actively trying to help
• 1:46:18
  other men or or help themselves? Why is it that one of the only
• 1:46:22
  books I found specifically about the male loneliness epidemic was
• 1:46:25
  actually written by a woman? For the Love of men, A New
• 1:46:28
  Vision for Mindful Masculinity by Liz Plank.
• 1:46:31
  And I'm not the only one who noticed this.
• 1:46:32
  Friend, look at this very fast review of some of the online
• 1:46:35
  articles and how he points out they're all written by women is
• 1:46:38
  what is causing our epidemic of loneliness and how can we fix
• 1:46:40
  it. This is written by Elizabeth
• 1:46:42
  Ross. Might get back to this.
• 1:46:43
  This says men's loneliness is a feminist issue in men without
• 1:46:47
  women. This is by Claire Urbanski.
• 1:46:50
  Claire Urbanski might go back to this too.
• 1:46:52
  And then this is the male loneliness epidemic and how it
• 1:46:55
  affects fathers. This is written by Shannon
• 1:46:57
  Carpenter. I looked up this.
• 1:46:58
  Shannon is a woman again, we might go back to this as well.
• 1:47:01
  Those are big mights. Also just in the general search
• 1:47:03
  of like what is the maleliness epidemic?
• 1:47:05
  As you can see, woman, it's like a.
• 1:47:07
  General thing, I don't know what it is.
• 1:47:09
  This also kind of shows a general thing.
• 1:47:11
  It doesn't really give me a preview.
• 1:47:12
  And then there's a woman right here and then woman, woman,
• 1:47:16
  woman, woman, woman. I'm genuinely curious as to why
• 1:47:19
  it's mostly women who are being proactive in addressing this
• 1:47:22
  issue and not more men. That said, thankfully some of
• 1:47:25
  the books were written by men. We have Billy nomates by Max
• 1:47:28
  Dickens as I've mentioned quite a lot and I think it's a
• 1:47:30
  fantastic book on this topic. Written by a man 4 men.
• 1:47:33
  I think it's great. There's also the Loneliness
• 1:47:36
  Cure, 6 strategies for finding real connections in your life by
• 1:47:39
  Corey Lloyd and The Cure for Loneliness, the original titles
• 1:47:43
  there. How would you feel Connected and
• 1:47:45
  escape Isolation by William or Bill Howard?
• 1:47:49
  And yet even these books, with the exception of Max's and the
• 1:47:52
  two by Corey and William there Even those books I have a few
• 1:47:55
  criticisms of, but at least I can applaud them for recognising
• 1:47:58
  the problem and trying, which is more than so many other men are
• 1:48:01
  doing. What I found far more concerning
• 1:48:04
  though was that the books that were written for men by men, a
• 1:48:08
  lot of them were just burying their head in the sand and
• 1:48:10
  pretending that loneliness doesn't exist amongst men,
• 1:48:13
  telling men to stay stoic and quiet.
• 1:48:14
  Some just flat out rejecting empathy and giving really
• 1:48:17
  terrible advice. Take this example from Against
• 1:48:20
  Empathy by Paul Bloom. He states empathy has its
• 1:48:24
  merits. It can be a great source of
• 1:48:25
  pleasure involved in art and fiction and sports, and it can
• 1:48:28
  be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships.
• 1:48:31
  But on the whole, it's a poor moral guide.
• 1:48:33
  It grounds foolish judgements and often motivates indifference
• 1:48:36
  and cruelty. It can lead to irrational and
• 1:48:38
  unfair political decisions. It can corrode certain important
• 1:48:41
  relationships, such as between a doctor and a patient, and make
• 1:48:44
  us worse at being friends, parents, husbands and wives.
• 1:48:49
  I'm against empathy, and one of the goals of this book is to
• 1:48:52
  persuade you to be against empathy too.
• 1:48:55
  He later goes on to argue that this is so laughably stupid.
• 1:48:59
  He goes on to argue that Nazis caused the Holocaust because
• 1:49:01
  they had too much empathy. Ridiculous.
• 1:49:06
  And it's not the only time he does it either.
• 1:49:07
  There's a there's a lot of Nazi references in this book and he
• 1:49:11
  spends a lot of time comparing having empathy to racism which
• 1:49:14
  is just bizarre. He's literally saying if you're
• 1:49:18
  empathetic then you're a worse friend, parent and spouse.
• 1:49:23
  Is it any wonder men are struggling unlonely when they're
• 1:49:25
  being fed rubbish like this? The whole book is a mess.
• 1:49:29
  To be fair, he suggests at one point if you lack empathy in
• 1:49:33
  your life then you should lie on any first date.
• 1:49:35
  You go on so that you don't show a potential partner your real
• 1:49:37
  self. And he and he consistently
• 1:49:40
  brings up this idea that blood is thicker than water over and
• 1:49:43
  over as a justification for why it's OK to screw over strangers
• 1:49:46
  to help your family and he. He even goes as far as to give
• 1:49:50
  an example of a man who genuinely said he would act
• 1:49:53
  actively kill everyone in a room to prolong the life of his son,
• 1:49:56
  and why that's apparently a good thing and we shouldn't have
• 1:49:59
  empathy for strangers. It is truly bizarre.
• 1:50:03
  Thankfully, not all books are that extreme, but when you see
• 1:50:06
  the stuff that men are listening to and being fed, it's kind of
• 1:50:09
  easy to see why they're not forming these deep connections,
• 1:50:12
  isn't it? And overall though what I did
• 1:50:15
  find interesting is even in these books, I admit that men
• 1:50:17
  can be lonely and offer advice to them.
• 1:50:20
  One of the biggest differences I found is in the way that men and
• 1:50:22
  women write about loneliness. And the biggest difference I
• 1:50:25
  found is that men tend to look at it on a micro scale, on an
• 1:50:28
  individual scale and say this is a you problem.
• 1:50:30
  This is no one else's problem. This is a you problem, only you
• 1:50:32
  can fix it. What are you going to do about
• 1:50:34
  it? Whereas women tend to look at
• 1:50:36
  the big picture and say, hey, so many of us going through this,
• 1:50:39
  there's societal problems, there's ideological problems,
• 1:50:42
  there's socialisation problems. Here's how you can fix it on an
• 1:50:45
  individual level, but also here's some big changes we need
• 1:50:48
  to make to make it better for everyone else.
• 1:50:50
  Men were very micro, women very macro.
• 1:50:54
  So to give you a few examples, Bill or William Howard, he goes
• 1:50:59
  by both. He wrote about the barriers to
• 1:51:01
  connection in his book The Cure for Loneliness and he listed
• 1:51:04
  things the barriers as as individual things.
• 1:51:09
  Like people are only lonely, people don't have connections
• 1:51:11
  when they don't have enough money to go out, people being
• 1:51:14
  hurt from past relationships, childhood trauma, a person
• 1:51:17
  having low self-confidence, lack of time for social activities
• 1:51:20
  for example. He frames loneliness and
• 1:51:23
  isolation as something caused by an individual and their specific
• 1:51:27
  approach to life that only they can change and that only they
• 1:51:30
  have caused. So instead of, you know, why is
• 1:51:33
  our economy in the toilet and why can't the average person
• 1:51:36
  person afford to socialise? Are there any social policy
• 1:51:38
  changes? Are there any social policy
• 1:51:40
  changes that could maybe fix this and help millions of
• 1:51:43
  people? He approaches it more of, well
• 1:51:45
  if you're poor, you need to make more money so you can do stuff.
• 1:51:52
  The women writers on this topic, however, took a very different
• 1:51:54
  approach by looking at more of a societal level.
• 1:51:57
  Liz Plank for example, wrote about how boys and men feel more
• 1:52:00
  isolated and less likely to form deeper meaningful connections
• 1:52:02
  with people because of how they've been socialised and
• 1:52:05
  discussed ways which we can be better influences on young boys
• 1:52:08
  going forward. She looked at the bigger picture
• 1:52:10
  and the connection between toxic masculinity and male loneliness.
• 1:52:13
  She looked at the overall effects of capitalism and how
• 1:52:16
  that's impacted loneliness and connection for all people.
• 1:52:19
  And again she was like, what changes can we make as a society
• 1:52:22
  to make this better, not just for us now, but future
• 1:52:25
  generations? Similarly, Amy Lutkin looked at
• 1:52:29
  the bigger picture in her memoir The Lonely Hunter, how our
• 1:52:32
  search for love is broken, as did Francesca Spencer, Oh Sorry
• 1:52:36
  Spectre in her book A Lone Man as they discussed in detail the
• 1:52:39
  ways which the way in which society forces people to feel
• 1:52:43
  they need a partner and demonises people who are alone,
• 1:52:46
  by choice or not. These women still offered
• 1:52:50
  solutions on a personal level to the individual readers of their
• 1:52:53
  book, but they were much more willing to look at the larger
• 1:52:56
  causes of loneliness and offer solutions as to how we can
• 1:52:58
  prevent loneliness in other people instead of just looking
• 1:53:02
  at as ourselves on an individual level.
• 1:53:04
  It was also interesting to me how little introspection and
• 1:53:08
  self acceptance report the men's books on loneliness.
• 1:53:12
  The closest that Bill Howard got was stuff like this and so he
• 1:53:18
  spoke about this research called Glasser, who often asked people
• 1:53:21
  what they didn't want Ichi to be alone, followed by what they do
• 1:53:24
  want, Ichi to have a caring friend they trust.
• 1:53:27
  He would then ask them what they can do to get what they want.
• 1:53:31
  The power of this question is that it implies the person has
• 1:53:34
  agency to obtain what they want. Once they see what they want,
• 1:53:37
  they can begin the journey to achieve it.
• 1:53:39
  Ah yes, think about what you want and how to achieve it and
• 1:53:43
  then you can start to achieve it.
• 1:53:45
  Groundbreaking advice like the average woman isn't doing this
• 1:53:49
  constantly in every aspect of her life.
• 1:53:53
  His solutions like this may seem novel to him and his primarily
• 1:53:57
  male readers, but to the average woman reading this book, this
• 1:54:00
  level of personal introspection, especially in regards to
• 1:54:03
  friendships and social interactions, I think is far
• 1:54:05
  more common. And I think it's important to
• 1:54:08
  ask why this is, as authors like Liz Plank do.
• 1:54:13
  As we mentioned earlier, she spends a lot of time talking
• 1:54:15
  about the causes and consequences of toxic
• 1:54:17
  masculinity, saying that toxic definitions of masculinity make
• 1:54:20
  it harder for men to develop and maintain simple relationships.
• 1:54:23
  If you aren't trained to understand your emotions, it's
• 1:54:26
  fairly predictable that you'll have difficulty understanding
• 1:54:29
  the emotions of others. Her solutions to loneliness
• 1:54:32
  because of this involved overhauling our entire
• 1:54:35
  understanding of gender and redefining masculinity to be
• 1:54:38
  more positive and encouraging men in particular to get in
• 1:54:41
  touch with their own emotional needs.
• 1:54:44
  Other women wrote about personal solutions to loneliness too,
• 1:54:47
  each starting with accepting yourself and really getting to
• 1:54:51
  understand and know yourself so that alone doesn't have to mean
• 1:54:54
  lonely. For example, Francesca Spector
• 1:54:57
  wrote in her book Alone meant your relationship with yourself
• 1:55:00
  by default is the most important one you will ever have.
• 1:55:03
  Your monogamous partnership with yourself is the only constant,
• 1:55:06
  unalterable relationship you'll ever have.
• 1:55:09
  She goes on to say that learning to value alone time is without a
• 1:55:13
  doubt the most radical important lesson lesson I've learnt in my
• 1:55:17
  life to date. Another example comes from
• 1:55:19
  Alexander Horrigan and Sally Mccullen McMullen and Sally
• 1:55:25
  McMullen who wrote Finding Your People, The Ultimate Guide to
• 1:55:28
  friendship which actually opens with the chapter Be Your Own
• 1:55:31
  Bestie, which claims will show you how the friendship you have
• 1:55:34
  with yourself is the most fruitful of all and how it has a
• 1:55:37
  flow on effect to all other relationships in your life, be
• 1:55:40
  they romantic, familial or platonic.
• 1:55:44
  They say once your cup is full of self love, you will you have
• 1:55:47
  overflow to share with others. It's a common and incorrect
• 1:55:51
  notion, especially for women, that if you love yourself,
• 1:55:53
  you're vain, egotistical and arrogant.
• 1:55:56
  This false idea limits our individual growth and feeds the
• 1:55:59
  narrative that our worth is sourced externally.
• 1:56:02
  So they're definitely big, encouraging self esteem and self
• 1:56:05
  love as the foundation of being a better friend to others.
• 1:56:08
  They spend the chapter talking about learning to listen to and
• 1:56:11
  accept and experience your emotions and how this can help
• 1:56:15
  you in the long term. Enjoy your own company.
• 1:56:17
  It's not about suppressing your emotions, it's about letting
• 1:56:20
  them be and riding them out and feeling them.
• 1:56:23
  They say when you genuinely enjoy your own company, this
• 1:56:26
  attitude becomes infectious to those around you.
• 1:56:28
  And now that you don't have a whirlwind of spam, junk and
• 1:56:31
  trash e-mail swirling around in your head, you have the energy
• 1:56:34
  and clarity to enjoy yourself and give more to your
• 1:56:37
  friendships. You'll avoid bringing baggage
• 1:56:39
  into friendships and trauma dumping on people you care
• 1:56:41
  about. You will also have the mental
• 1:56:44
  space to better support those around you.
• 1:56:46
  You've dealt with your own crap, so when a good friend needs to
• 1:56:49
  lean on you, it's not draining your own mental energy to be
• 1:56:52
  there for them. Amazing.
• 1:56:54
  Love that. What a great foundation.
• 1:56:57
  Meanwhile Bill on the other hand says that you need to practise
• 1:57:00
  self compassion by pretending negative emotions aren't real.
• 1:57:06
  Be mindful of emotions, he writes, and that's a great
• 1:57:09
  start. I wish you'd just stop there.
• 1:57:11
  Self compassion can be facilitated by accepting that
• 1:57:14
  our automatic negative thoughts are nothing more than thoughts.
• 1:57:17
  They're just random information and there's no evidence that
• 1:57:19
  they're true. When you don't over identify
• 1:57:22
  with negative thoughts which lead to negative feelings, you
• 1:57:24
  allow them to leave as fast as they arrive.
• 1:57:27
  And I kind of get he might be saying don't dwell on the
• 1:57:29
  negative but it kind of comes across as him just saying just
• 1:57:32
  suppress your emotions, pretend they're not real.
• 1:57:34
  It's just in your head. Stuff in your head isn't real.
• 1:57:37
  Oh don't be silly. It's not be kind to yourself.
• 1:57:40
  It's ignore how you're really feeling and plaster over the
• 1:57:42
  cracks. And that feels unhealthy.
• 1:57:45
  And I'm not just saying this out of nowhere, it's reflected
• 1:57:48
  throughout the whole book. In other parts he states you
• 1:57:50
  need to train your resiliency as though you're weight training.
• 1:57:53
  He literally makes that comparison and that this
• 1:57:55
  involves moving from an emotionally charged state to a
• 1:57:58
  calmer state where you think consciously, by which he means
• 1:58:01
  suppress your emotions. Again, be resilient by
• 1:58:04
  suppressing your emotions. He says to be mastered,
• 1:58:08
  resiliency requires intention, focus and practise.
• 1:58:12
  Again, he means stop letting those pesky emotions influence
• 1:58:14
  you and train yourself to be strong, IE emotionless and
• 1:58:18
  logical all the time. It's not promoting emotional
• 1:58:22
  literacy or emotional maturity or emotional communication.
• 1:58:27
  It's promoting suppressing them and pretending they're not
• 1:58:29
  there. It's it's again, pro stoicism,
• 1:58:32
  like so much of this content made by men for men.
• 1:58:35
  And this is in the same vein as the nonsense that Matt Walsh
• 1:58:38
  spreads. He claims that having emotions
• 1:58:40
  or speaking to men is feminine and that real men simply sit
• 1:58:44
  next to each other in silence and never talk seriously.
• 1:58:48
  OK, we can't expect corporate media's masculinity experts to
• 1:58:51
  understand this, because they're masculinity experts are all
• 1:58:53
  effeminate. But any normal man can attest
• 1:58:57
  that men tend to bond while engaging in a shared activity.
• 1:59:01
  And I don't mean yoga, OK? I mean like one that doesn't
• 1:59:04
  require a lot of talking, like sitting and watching the game or
• 1:59:07
  fishing or golfing, playing pick up basketball and so on.
• 1:59:11
  I went out fishing with my brother-in-law a few weeks ago
• 1:59:13
  and when we came back, my wife asked me what we talked about
• 1:59:18
  and I said I don't know. Nothing really.
• 1:59:20
  You didn't talk about anything. You didn't talk about it.
• 1:59:23
  Well, we talked about fishing. You went fishing, you just
• 1:59:27
  talked about fishing. What's going on in his life?
• 1:59:29
  What's going on? What did you talk about?
• 1:59:30
  We didn't talk about much. The solution isn't that we sit
• 1:59:35
  around and talk about our feelings, it's that we do a
• 1:59:38
  whole lot less of that sort of thing and get back to being men
• 1:59:40
  again. And I mean, one, it sounds like
• 1:59:43
  he has a boring life, and two, Matt Walsh seems like such a
• 1:59:47
  miserable man I don't think I've ever seen him smile.
• 1:59:49
  Why would I take advice on how to be happy and fulfilled from
• 1:59:52
  him when he just seems miserable and like he hates everyone?
• 1:59:57
  Liz Flank wrote that the patriarchy doesn't just convince
• 2:00:00
  men that they don't have emotional needs, it also leads
• 2:00:03
  men to feel embarrassed when those needs naturally occur,
• 2:00:06
  which they do, which leads those feelings to come out in other
• 2:00:10
  less productive ways. Also, my jaw cracked while I was
• 2:00:12
  reading that and if you heard it, I'm so sorry.
• 2:00:13
  It was very uncomfortable. She goes on to say one study on
• 2:00:17
  male college students found that fear of emotion was correlated
• 2:00:20
  with an increased likelihood of aggression and hostility.
• 2:00:23
  And I think that's what we see in small snippets of books like
• 2:00:27
  Bills and the videos from Matt Walsh.
• 2:00:29
  They spend such a short amount of time talking about, you know,
• 2:00:32
  being kind to yourself, but ignore the third thoughts.
• 2:00:35
  Whereas women like Doctor Ruth Westheimer, for example, author
• 2:00:38
  of The Joy of Connection, 100 Ways to beat Loneliness and Live
• 2:00:41
  a Happier and More Meaningful life.
• 2:00:43
  She dedicates a whole chapter to bringing up the reader's self
• 2:00:46
  esteem and reminding them things like self is the most important
• 2:00:49
  component of connection. You must pay attention to your
• 2:00:52
  thoughts, feelings and actions, the ones that are holding you
• 2:00:54
  back from making the types of connections you want most.
• 2:00:57
  self-awareness leads to coping strategies and solutions.
• 2:01:00
  Build self esteem and confidence and smooth communication with
• 2:01:03
  others so that you can nurture and maintain healthy
• 2:01:06
  relationships. With reflection, you're able to
• 2:01:08
  identify areas for improvement and follow through with your
• 2:01:10
  aspirations. She also repeatedly encourages
• 2:01:14
  her readers to accept their negative thoughts and feelings
• 2:01:16
  in order to work through them. It's not about suppressing, it's
• 2:01:19
  not about resilience, it's not about, oh, we push this down
• 2:01:23
  because they're not real, it's just in your head.
• 2:01:25
  Instead, she says the first step to fixing any problem is to
• 2:01:28
  admit that it exists. If loneliness is what is
• 2:01:31
  affecting you, then what better way to face your problem than
• 2:01:33
  having to stand in front of a mirror and say it out loud?
• 2:01:36
  You may feel silly, you may cry, but having the problem out in
• 2:01:39
  the open is your first step towards making the necessary
• 2:01:42
  changes to become less lonely. The other thing I found really
• 2:01:47
  interesting, and this is something we mentioned earlier
• 2:01:48
  in the video, is that a lot of the books written by men seem to
• 2:01:52
  almost gamify friendships and relationships.
• 2:01:55
  Corrie Floyd throughout his whole book was like, here's 6
• 2:01:57
  strategies to overcome loneliness and he, he makes it
• 2:02:00
  into a game. He's like, try this, here's an
• 2:02:02
  experiment. Like he literally calls things
• 2:02:04
  experiments and gives you step by step guides.
• 2:02:06
  Like we read you a few examples. Try this.
• 2:02:09
  Think of 1 behaviour, hugging, undivided attention, more time
• 2:02:13
  spent together or so on and that you most desire more frequently
• 2:02:18
  from a friend or loved one. Then formulate 2 strategies for
• 2:02:21
  inviting that behaviour. If it's kisses from your
• 2:02:23
  romantic partner you crave, give three kiss coupons as a gift.
• 2:02:28
  Now that's not so bad on its own, but it's definitely worth
• 2:02:31
  noting the different approaches from men.
• 2:02:33
  Corey wasn't the only one though.
• 2:02:35
  Bill Howard gamifies connection by labelling different levels of
• 2:02:39
  connection. You can have level 5 intimate,
• 2:02:42
  level 4 valued, level 1 new, and everything in between.
• 2:02:47
  And he tells people to do social connection experiments and gives
• 2:02:51
  this example. I'm not going to read the whole
• 2:02:54
  thing, it's long. It's like 2 pages of this but
• 2:02:57
  the targeted goal is to develop one new authentic professional
• 2:03:01
  relationship, a Level 3 authentic connection.
• 2:03:04
  I've included the micro steps to achieve the goal.
• 2:03:07
  One. Join professional online
• 2:03:09
  community like LinkedIn to meet new professionals.
• 2:03:12
  Step 2. Research LinkedIn professionals
• 2:03:15
  who have the same interests as you and with whom you could see
• 2:03:17
  a potential alignment to find like minded professionals based
• 2:03:21
  on their profile. Step three.
• 2:03:23
  Pick three people you would like to meet to focus on who I will
• 2:03:27
  try with first. Step 4.
• 2:03:29
  Invite each person to connect to your professional network and
• 2:03:32
  explain why you invited them and so on and so on.
• 2:03:36
  He writes about this like at the end.
• 2:03:38
  If you start a social connections experiment and don't
• 2:03:42
  finish, that can cause your brain to think you can't
• 2:03:44
  overcome this fear, only reinforcing a wiring.
• 2:03:47
  Don't worry, you can attempt each step several times.
• 2:03:52
  And don't forget to measure Authentic connections progress.
• 2:03:55
  It's helpful to measure the progress of your social
• 2:03:57
  connections experiments above and beyond the daily experiment
• 2:04:01
  logs that you keep. Repeat the Authentic connections
• 2:04:05
  baseline from step one every month as you proceed your
• 2:04:08
  experiments. Using a scale of 1 strongly
• 2:04:11
  disagree, 3 moderately agree, or five strongly agree, rate the
• 2:04:17
  degree of confidence you have for each of the following
• 2:04:19
  statements. I have authentic connections in
• 2:04:22
  my life I'm satisfied with. I'm confident I can close my
• 2:04:26
  social connection, I'm confident I can close my social connection
• 2:04:29
  gaps, and so on and so on. And you get a total score at the
• 2:04:32
  end of it. Again, it's not so much that
• 2:04:34
  there's anything inherently wrong with this approach.
• 2:04:36
  I'm sure it will work for some people, but to me it feels very
• 2:04:40
  inauthentic and impersonal, and it is kind of gamifying this
• 2:04:44
  whole connective friendship and connection.
• 2:04:48
  And it's like you're craving authentic, deep connection with
• 2:04:51
  someone. Can you really get that by
• 2:04:54
  performing experiments, keeping daily logs, and scoring your
• 2:04:58
  friendships with people in their books?
• 2:05:01
  By contrast, women offered strategies for how to, you know,
• 2:05:06
  create well how to find friendships and how to deepen
• 2:05:09
  friendships. But they felt less like
• 2:05:11
  formulate a strategy and do this and this and this and experiment
• 2:05:14
  and score and do it. And they were a bit more
• 2:05:16
  authentic. Take this example from Ruth
• 2:05:20
  Westheimer. She says the spark that drives
• 2:05:24
  all kinds of relationships forwards is doing activities
• 2:05:26
  together. Making the choice to have fun
• 2:05:29
  together, or deciding to carve out a few moments to have a
• 2:05:32
  private discussion communicates interest, not obligation.
• 2:05:35
  And the communication of mutual interest is essential for
• 2:05:38
  turning acquaintances into deeper connections.
• 2:05:41
  Connections. She goes on to give examples of
• 2:05:43
  going to watch tennis matches with a friend.
• 2:05:45
  And she says our physical proximity is not the reason our
• 2:05:47
  long time friendship grew. It grew because we made the
• 2:05:50
  choice to break away from the group and concentrate on each
• 2:05:53
  other. Sharing experiences creates
• 2:05:56
  opportunities to appreciate people and see them in a new
• 2:05:59
  light. It also creates time to nurture
• 2:06:02
  relationships. So she's still offering
• 2:06:04
  practical advice. She's saying, do these
• 2:06:06
  activities together. Here's an example of something
• 2:06:08
  you can do. You know, here's the reasoning
• 2:06:10
  behind it. You know, carving out time,
• 2:06:12
  being intentionally spending time with them.
• 2:06:15
  But it feels a lot less prescriptive.
• 2:06:16
  It feels less calculated. It's less about trying to
• 2:06:19
  quantify a relationship and more about just figuring out what's
• 2:06:23
  right in your life. Again, compare the scorekeeping
• 2:06:27
  and step by step experiments offered by Bill Howard to what a
• 2:06:31
  woman like Rachel Wilkerson Miller writes in her book The
• 2:06:34
  Art of Showing Up, How to be there for yourself and your
• 2:06:36
  people. Her ideas feel, again, more
• 2:06:39
  organic, less like a game. The focus is on finding the
• 2:06:43
  right connections, not on just collecting a whole bunch of
• 2:06:46
  them, Rachel writes. Figure out where your potential
• 2:06:50
  friends hang out. If you're trying to make new
• 2:06:52
  friends, it helps to frequent places where other people with
• 2:06:55
  similar interests are likely to be.
• 2:06:57
  Are there any classes where your potential pals might be?
• 2:07:00
  Do any of your favourite bands do in store events?
• 2:07:03
  Are you in any Facebook groups where local folk might be
• 2:07:05
  interested in meeting up in person?
• 2:07:07
  It might take some trial and error, but eventually you'll
• 2:07:10
  have that moment where you realise, oh, this is where my
• 2:07:12
  people are. And instead of scoring the
• 2:07:15
  relationships and friendships and, you know, doing tests and
• 2:07:18
  experiments and repeating steps, instead she just reminds the
• 2:07:22
  reader don't expect friendships to happen overnight.
• 2:07:26
  One study suggests that casual friendships can emerge around 30
• 2:07:29
  hours of interaction, and the good friendships require around
• 2:07:32
  140 hours. But there are a lot of factors
• 2:07:35
  that can influence these estimates, including the number
• 2:07:37
  of weeks as hours are spread across.
• 2:07:39
  And the way you spend those hours matters a lot.
• 2:07:42
  Ultimately, making a new friend involves some luck and magic.
• 2:07:45
  It requires time and also good timing.
• 2:07:49
  So don't get terribly discouraged from meeting people
• 2:07:52
  you like. But you don't have a new BFF
• 2:07:54
  yet. You'll get there.
• 2:07:55
  And that, I think, is one of the big, big things.
• 2:07:58
  I noticed men offer advice for making as many surface level
• 2:08:04
  connections as possible and quite and trying to quantify the
• 2:08:07
  relationships you already have and focusing on, well, if you,
• 2:08:10
  if you get more and more and more, one of them is likely to
• 2:08:13
  work out right. It's very scattergun.
• 2:08:15
  Whereas women, whereas the women writing seem more concerned with
• 2:08:19
  the quality of the friendships in your life.
• 2:08:21
  And they offer advice for how to find the right people in the 1st
• 2:08:23
  place, how to deepen the relationship and find, you know,
• 2:08:27
  one right friendship instead of just, we'll go for as many as
• 2:08:31
  you can and one will surely work out, You know, and I think it
• 2:08:35
  comes back to what we were saying in the first part of this
• 2:08:36
  video about the difference between attention and
• 2:08:39
  connection, like authentic connection.
• 2:08:41
  You know, the men writing about this seem to think the solution
• 2:08:44
  is give a lot of attention to a lot of people, get a lot of
• 2:08:46
  attention back, maybe something will stick.
• 2:08:49
  Whereas the women are a little more intentional.
• 2:08:51
  It's more like work on yourself, figure out what you need, go
• 2:08:54
  search for that in particular, and when you find it, nurture
• 2:08:57
  it. I'm not saying the first
• 2:09:00
  approach, the men's approach won't work, but I am saying in
• 2:09:02
  general, we know men have a different experience of
• 2:09:07
  loneliness and we know they have less deep, authentic connections
• 2:09:11
  with people. So maybe their approach just is
• 2:09:13
  not working and they do need to try something else.
• 2:09:16
  Just a suggestion. OK, you'll have to excuse I'm
• 2:09:19
  filming this the next day, but I actually have an example of this
• 2:09:23
  to show you. And in this clip, this man is
• 2:09:24
  complaining that women's standards are too high and that
• 2:09:27
  men have to swipe 1000 times on dating apps just to get one
• 2:09:30
  date. It's not great.
• 2:09:33
  Let's watch. You can't tell women to lower
• 2:09:35
  their expectations, but this is the reality.
• 2:09:38
  When you ask a man if you could have a woman who had 80% of
• 2:09:41
  everything you wanted, 75% say, yeah, I'm on board.
• 2:09:45
  When you say to a woman a man has 80% of what you want, 75%
• 2:09:49
  say that's that's not enough thing.
• 2:09:51
  I read that on Tinder, a man of average attractiveness has to
• 2:09:56
  swipe right 200 times to get one coffee, and then four of those
• 2:10:01
  five coffees will ghost him. They will decide they don't want
• 2:10:06
  to meet him or they won't show up.
• 2:10:07
  That means a guy of average attractiveness has to swipe
• 2:10:10
  right 1000 times to get one coffee.
• 2:10:13
  Now what does that tell that guy?
• 2:10:15
  Women don't value me. Women make me feel reject.
• 2:10:19
  This is interesting and I really wonder One, is he just pulling
• 2:10:23
  these stats out of his bum or does he have proof for it?
• 2:10:26
  And two, I wonder how many times women are swiping in order to
• 2:10:28
  get just one date with a man who isn't creepy or predatory.
• 2:10:34
  And The thing is, like I, I actually have a very different
• 2:10:36
  take away from like, let's say his stats are correct.
• 2:10:38
  I have a very different take away from this than he does.
• 2:10:41
  And he's saying women are too picky, poor men, women's
• 2:10:45
  standards are just too high. Whereas I see this as men and
• 2:10:49
  women having very different approaches to dating.
• 2:10:51
  Because I hear this and I'm like, well, why are you even
• 2:10:54
  swiping on 1000 people in the 1st place?
• 2:10:57
  How are there 1000 people in this world that you like enough
• 2:11:00
  to say, yes, I would like to date you.
• 2:11:03
  I see a future share with you. Maybe if these men were actually
• 2:11:07
  pickier about who they were swiping yes on, then they
• 2:11:10
  wouldn't have such a low success rate because they'd actually be
• 2:11:14
  like swiping on people who they actually have a chance with and
• 2:11:18
  a connection with and share values with.
• 2:11:21
  But he thinks this is a problem with women being too picky.
• 2:11:24
  I think this is a problem with men not being picky enough and
• 2:11:27
  not seeing women, especially on dating apps, as real humans.
• 2:11:31
  They're not actually looking for a partner or a connection.
• 2:11:34
  They're just trying to grab anything they can latch onto.
• 2:11:36
  The first thing that'll say, yeah, go on.
• 2:11:38
  Then men treat dating apps, according to this guy, like
• 2:11:42
  they're in the Dome on Crystal Maze, flailing around trying to
• 2:11:44
  grab onto whatever they can. Since I've been single this last
• 2:11:48
  year and a bit I've I've I tried a dating app and I've been on
• 2:11:52
  quite a few dates. And like I said earlier, I've
• 2:11:54
  got a lot of people liking me on that app like nearly 10,000
• 2:11:58
  likes. And in return I think I've sent
• 2:12:01
  maybe 20 likes in the last year and got like what 15 matches?
• 2:12:07
  And I have been out on some lovely dates and met some lovely
• 2:12:10
  people and 1 not so lovely person who I walked out on.
• 2:12:14
  But but that's the thing, am I sending so few likes because my
• 2:12:18
  standards are too high or and you know, I should just give
• 2:12:22
  more men a chance and Boo Hoo Hoo, think about the men I'm not
• 2:12:26
  going on dates with and you know, think about the well-being
• 2:12:30
  of those poor men that I'm not interested in.
• 2:12:33
  Or is it because I actually know what I want and I'm not going to
• 2:12:36
  waste mine or anyone else's time matching with someone, sending
• 2:12:40
  likes to someone, going on dates with someone that I know I have
• 2:12:42
  no future with? One of the biggest things that I
• 2:12:46
  found is that because I am a child free woman who I don't
• 2:12:51
  want kids, I am very likely unable to have kids.
• 2:12:54
  And also I don't want to be like a step parent to anyone or
• 2:12:57
  anything like that. I just I don't want kids in my
• 2:12:59
  life, right? And so anyone who has kids or
• 2:13:02
  wants kids is an immediate no from me because I know there's
• 2:13:05
  no future there that is not going to work out.
• 2:13:07
  That is not the lifestyle I want.
• 2:13:09
  That is not someone that I'm going to have a real connection
• 2:13:11
  with. My profile specifically says all
• 2:13:13
  of this stuff. I said I want someone else who
• 2:13:15
  is child free by choice to like. I can make it very very clear.
• 2:13:19
  And yet the amount of men I still get with children or who
• 2:13:24
  want children who send me likes is ridiculous.
• 2:13:28
  These are thousands of men who are liking me that I'm like, I
• 2:13:31
  already told you I'm not interested, why are you trying
• 2:13:34
  anyway? And it's because they don't
• 2:13:36
  bother to read my profile or view me as a real person or
• 2:13:40
  respect my values and boundaries already.
• 2:13:43
  So these men are sending likes to people who they've already
• 2:13:47
  been told they're not compatible with and yet they do it anyway
• 2:13:49
  and complain that they're not getting liked back.
• 2:13:51
  I think the reason a lot of these men who swipe 1000 times
• 2:13:55
  and only get one date aren't having with the success that
• 2:13:59
  they want is because they're not being picky enough.
• 2:14:02
  They're not being specific enough.
• 2:14:04
  They don't even know what they want themselves.
• 2:14:06
  They're just trying to grab anything they can.
• 2:14:08
  And honestly, it's a bit dehumanising to the women
• 2:14:10
  they're liking, liking, not liking, but just sending likes
• 2:14:15
  to, you know? I'm going to give you one more
• 2:14:17
  example of this before I move on.
• 2:14:18
  And this isn't even on the dating app.
• 2:14:19
  This is in real life. This man went to a party, asked
• 2:14:23
  out every single woman there, and then made a Reddit post
• 2:14:27
  wondering why he wasn't able to get a date.
• 2:14:29
  He says in the post that they were able to see him approaching
• 2:14:34
  other women. He was getting tired and he was
• 2:14:36
  getting demoralised with rejection after rejection.
• 2:14:40
  And still he asked out every single woman because he's like
• 2:14:43
  oh if I ask everyone like it's a numbers game I'll get a yes at
• 2:14:46
  some point. This post is on the ask men
• 2:14:49
  advice subreddit which is a horrible toxic misogynistic
• 2:14:52
  subreddit. Don't go on there like that's
• 2:14:54
  what. This guy was doing, he was
• 2:14:55
  treating them like a number, like, oh, I have to ask out
• 2:14:58
  every single one. And he's not actually just like,
• 2:15:01
  expressing interest or getting to know them or having any sort
• 2:15:04
  of human connection at all. But the post is titled Why
• 2:15:08
  exactly is it bad for a man to be desperate?
• 2:15:11
  And other commenters pointed out that it's not just a man being
• 2:15:15
  desperate. It's bad in dating to be
• 2:15:17
  desperate at all. It's bad in life to be
• 2:15:19
  desperate. This man has gone round to these
• 2:15:21
  actual women in real life, treating them like they're
• 2:15:24
  objects, being like I'll try this one, then this one, then
• 2:15:26
  this one, then this one. He's not actually bothering to
• 2:15:28
  get to know these women. He's not looking for a real
• 2:15:30
  genuine connection. He's not looking for an
• 2:15:32
  authentic connection. He's not going out there
• 2:15:35
  thinking, hey, how do I find the person who is right for me, who
• 2:15:39
  shares my values and goals, who shares my interests, who I have
• 2:15:43
  mutual respect with? He's just thinking, I want a
• 2:15:46
  girlfriend and Annie'll do which one will give me a yes first?
• 2:15:51
  And it's dehumanising to the women.
• 2:15:54
  I'll keep saying that. It's objectifying these women
• 2:15:57
  and yet these men wonder why they can't get girlfriends.
• 2:15:59
  And it's because they're not viewing women as human.
• 2:16:03
  They're viewing them as like an object to collect.
• 2:16:05
  You know, it's funny, I've seen a lot of men online judging
• 2:16:09
  women for things like, you know, the little like blind box toys
• 2:16:13
  and stuff like that. Sorry, my washing machines
• 2:16:16
  going, but you know, like the little blind box toys like the,
• 2:16:18
  the LA Boo boos and those like terrifying little crying baby
• 2:16:22
  things and I don't even know what else.
• 2:16:25
  Oh, I keep seeing a woman on Instagram for some reason who
• 2:16:27
  collects like dumpling squishies or something.
• 2:16:31
  Like anyway, not the point. And these women will literally
• 2:16:35
  grab every box they can because they're looking for a specific
• 2:16:37
  one. And they blindly open them and
• 2:16:39
  RIP them open and they're like, oh, OK, this isn't all I want in
• 2:16:41
  mind. And then they go to another and
• 2:16:43
  another and and you see men criticising that because it's
• 2:16:46
  like, oh, this is so stupid. Why are they doing this?
• 2:16:48
  I'm like, you're just doing that in real life with women.
• 2:16:52
  You're treating women like la Boo boos, you know, looking for
• 2:16:55
  your secret la Boo Boo, and yet you're doing it with real
• 2:16:59
  people. You know, you're just trying
• 2:17:01
  everything, blindly ripping open these boxes, blindly looking for
• 2:17:04
  this special. I don't know if this analogy is
• 2:17:07
  going anywhere. This wasn't in script.
• 2:17:09
  And I should say I have no problem with people collecting
• 2:17:11
  things. I'm a collector myself.
• 2:17:13
  I like my things. I like my house to represent me.
• 2:17:16
  And I do have slight issues with like the blind boxes because of
• 2:17:19
  the gambling aspect and the overconsumption aspect.
• 2:17:22
  But that aside, do men criticise women for doing that because
• 2:17:26
  they get joy out of like a stuffed toy or whatever and yet
• 2:17:29
  they're doing it with real people?
• 2:17:32
  It's exactly the same thing. Anyway, sorry, ran over, let's
• 2:17:35
  move on. Right.
• 2:17:36
  I was talking about books, wasn't I?
• 2:17:37
  And the ones written by men. And admittedly, though, I have
• 2:17:40
  to say, like for all I have given criticisms, these books
• 2:17:43
  are not all bad and there are some good bits of advice in
• 2:17:47
  them. And I do have to give them
• 2:17:49
  credit because at least they're being proactive, which is more
• 2:17:51
  than I can say for some of the men I've seen online creating
• 2:17:55
  videos. Actually, not just men, all, all
• 2:17:58
  kinds of people. Let's look at a few examples and
• 2:18:00
  we're going back to shoe on head.
• 2:18:02
  If you can't tell, I'm not a fan of her.
• 2:18:04
  I'm struggling. Don't want to be lectured about
• 2:18:06
  the patriarchy. They don't want to be told it's
• 2:18:08
  all their fault. They don't want to be told
• 2:18:10
  they're part of the problem. Because first of all, they're
• 2:18:12
  not. The average 20 year old didn't
• 2:18:14
  build society. They go to work, come home, go
• 2:18:17
  off to Sissy hypno fetish porn and go to bed like everyone
• 2:18:20
  else. I've talked about this before,
• 2:18:22
  but a lot of men's value comes from the money they make.
• 2:18:25
  Unfortunately men are natural providers and if they have
• 2:18:29
  nobody to provide for they get into Finn Dom or send random
• 2:18:32
  girls on the Internet money. But the fact is a lot of men
• 2:18:36
  simply feel like they don't have a purpose anymore.
• 2:18:39
  Whether a job or career that's fulfilling and pays well, or a
• 2:18:43
  woman or family to protect and take care of and provide for.
• 2:18:47
  Men are lacking purpose and a man will crawl through a broken
• 2:18:51
  glass for a purpose. June, she on head wants to bury
• 2:18:55
  her head in the sand and pretend that issues with toxic
• 2:18:57
  masculinity, misogyny and patriarchy don't exist and
• 2:19:00
  aren't really issues and we shouldn't point them out because
• 2:19:02
  men don't want to hear that. So basically her answer is just
• 2:19:06
  pretend that toxic stereotypes about men and toxic masculinity
• 2:19:09
  don't exist. Just pretend they're not there.
• 2:19:12
  The solution is in her mind to embrace those harmful
• 2:19:15
  stereotypes and tell every man he needs to be a big strong
• 2:19:18
  provider and he'll stop being lonely if he just works a little
• 2:19:21
  harder, which is probably the most harmful thing you can do.
• 2:19:25
  Again, nearly 5 million views and she's giving advice which is
• 2:19:29
  literally going to cause more harm.
• 2:19:32
  This is why I have a problem with her.
• 2:19:35
  Like this just won't work. Sure a lot of people need a
• 2:19:39
  sense of purpose in their life. But telling men that their one
• 2:19:42
  and only purpose is and can only be to that they need to provide
• 2:19:47
  and that they just need to do and that they just need to man
• 2:19:49
  up and get on with it and do that because that's just how men
• 2:19:52
  have always been. And but at the same time she's
• 2:19:54
  like oh we need to coral them and be like poor echo babies.
• 2:19:57
  Nothing is ever you have thought.
• 2:19:59
  It's just wild and none of this is helpful.
• 2:20:01
  It's one of the worst takes on male loneliness that I've seen.
• 2:20:06
  Now I'm not saying we need to be like, man, you ruin everything.
• 2:20:09
  Damn you all. Like she would probably try and
• 2:20:11
  suggest I'm saying that's not what I'm saying at all.
• 2:20:15
  What I am saying and what I have been saying throughout this
• 2:20:17
  video is that we need to be like, hey, you know what?
• 2:20:20
  We need to recognise there are some massive problems here in
• 2:20:22
  how we socialise men and how we raise men, in the stereotypes we
• 2:20:26
  place around men, on the expectations we place on men.
• 2:20:30
  And we need to be realistic about the fact that these are a
• 2:20:33
  problem. And it's likely if you're
• 2:20:35
  feeling lonely, if you're having XY and Z problems, then you
• 2:20:37
  probably internalise some of that, internalise some of these
• 2:20:41
  really harmful ideas because, you know, patriarchy, misogyny,
• 2:20:45
  capitalism, bad stuff and so on. And since you're feeling so
• 2:20:49
  lonely and this is clearly having an effect on you and this
• 2:20:52
  is having consequences, why not unpack those a little and re
• 2:20:56
  evaluate your beliefs and realise that you don't need to
• 2:20:59
  have these harmful traits to be a real man.
• 2:21:01
  You are enough as you are. You are already a real man.
• 2:21:05
  It's OK to just be you and figure out that stuff for
• 2:21:07
  yourself and work on building and work on building genuine
• 2:21:11
  connections with real people. That's what I'm saying.
• 2:21:14
  Not man up and find a purpose masculine and you can never be
• 2:21:19
  toxic. Union news how men have always
• 2:21:21
  been. That's what I find unhelpful.
• 2:21:24
  Here's another example of bad advice that I found online.
• 2:21:27
  So I think I showed a clip from this earlier, but this is the
• 2:21:29
  man who complaints about being lonely and says that he needs a
• 2:21:32
  girlfriend to cure his loneliness.
• 2:21:35
  But then he goes on about why he can never get a girlfriend and
• 2:21:37
  he's actually ready for a girlfriend and it's very sad to
• 2:21:40
  watch and and our little self help guru guy in the corner
• 2:21:45
  responds like this and tries to give him some advice.
• 2:21:48
  I've been feeling rather upset lately about my not being in a
• 2:21:52
  relationship. I'll go to like family parties
• 2:21:54
  and all. Basically my entire family's
• 2:21:56
  either engaged or getting married now.
• 2:21:59
  I see people having children. I see people making a lot more
• 2:22:03
  money than me and having much more success.
• 2:22:05
  And it's, it's not like I need that necessarily, but I would
• 2:22:08
  like to have something going for my life.
• 2:22:10
  And I keep trying to do my own thing with the fact that I, I
• 2:22:13
  can't keep a consistent source of social relationships going.
• 2:22:17
  And I did have that for a while, but then, you know, one person
• 2:22:20
  will get into a relationship, so I don't see them anymore.
• 2:22:23
  Another person, another couple people move away and pretty, you
• 2:22:26
  know, pretty soon my whole fucking group of friends that I
• 2:22:29
  can talk to on a regular basis is just fucking gone.
• 2:22:32
  So it's been making me want like need a relationship more and
• 2:22:36
  more. Just admitted that he's had a
• 2:22:38
  lot of women that were attracted to him.
• 2:22:40
  He's not an ugly dude. I mean he's a haircut away,
• 2:22:43
  eating clean, shaving, that weird moustache thing he's got
• 2:22:46
  going on. He's a few small changes away
• 2:22:48
  from making a drastic improvement.
• 2:22:50
  Like literally day 2 in his appearance and then he is like 6
• 2:22:54
  months out, a year out of just clean eating, working out,
• 2:22:58
  running for skin and his hair to all look nice for him to be
• 2:23:01
  carrying himself with more confidence and to look
• 2:23:03
  physically better. I mean he's already.
• 2:23:05
  He's already capable of pulling girls in the state that he's in
• 2:23:10
  right now. That should tell you something.
• 2:23:12
  So this guy is saying I have trouble maintaining social
• 2:23:15
  relationships. Literally a quote from him and
• 2:23:18
  and little self help. Guys.
• 2:23:20
  The answer is just shave your moustache bro.
• 2:23:23
  You can't make this stuff up can you?
• 2:23:25
  His advice is also surface level and doesn't actually address any
• 2:23:30
  of the root problems. Loneliness cannot be fixed with
• 2:23:33
  a haircut and I can't believe I even have to say that.
• 2:23:35
  You aren't going to get a nice haircut and then suddenly people
• 2:23:38
  will be flocking to be around you.
• 2:23:39
  You don't shave your moustache and suddenly know how to open up
• 2:23:42
  to your friends. These are problems that you need
• 2:23:44
  to address on a deeper level. Understand the calls for them
• 2:23:49
  and then how to fix that, and then you can work on a natural
• 2:23:51
  solution. You need to start actively
• 2:23:54
  reaching out to people and working on friendships, he says.
• 2:23:57
  He had friends, but then they got into relationships and then
• 2:24:01
  they drifted away and now he's like, boohoo, I have no friends.
• 2:24:03
  It's like, OK, so yeah, they're in a relationship and they're
• 2:24:06
  probably a bit distracted. So now you as the single person,
• 2:24:09
  need to be a little bit more proactive in maintaining that
• 2:24:13
  friendship. You know, reach out to them,
• 2:24:15
  say, hey, I know you're busy, you've got a new girlfriend,
• 2:24:17
  boyfriend, partner, whatever. And but I miss you and I value
• 2:24:21
  your friendship and I'd love to hang out sometime.
• 2:24:24
  Be proactive in your approach and you know or or if you want
• 2:24:28
  to meet new friends and meet new people, start going to new clubs
• 2:24:31
  or like not nightclubs like like sports clubs, craft clubs, art
• 2:24:35
  clubs, board game clubs you know and go to social events.
• 2:24:40
  Pick up a new hobby where you can meet people and forge new
• 2:24:42
  friendships. If you want a relationship,
• 2:24:46
  start actively dating people and looking for people who share
• 2:24:50
  your values and work on building a deep connection with someone.
• 2:24:53
  These are difficult things to do that take time and effort, but
• 2:24:56
  that's how you maintain real friendships.
• 2:24:59
  They don't just come to you, they don't just fall in your
• 2:25:01
  lap. I think a lot of people think
• 2:25:03
  that the hard part is finding a friend or finding a partner, and
• 2:25:06
  then once you have them, that's it.
• 2:25:07
  You just coast along and everything's good.
• 2:25:09
  But it's not any kind of relationship takes constant work
• 2:25:14
  and effort from both sides. You know of saying I want to
• 2:25:17
  spend time with you, I want to be around you, I appreciate your
• 2:25:19
  company. Let's do this together.
• 2:25:21
  Let's build our relationship even more.
• 2:25:24
  Let's find ways to become closer and more intimate with each
• 2:25:27
  other. These are things that take time
• 2:25:30
  and effort, like I say. And telling someone that all
• 2:25:33
  they need to do is just shave their moustache or go for a run
• 2:25:35
  bro and it'll fix everything is not only completely wrong, but
• 2:25:40
  unhelpful, as I think we've all come to expect at this point as
• 2:25:44
  well. Matt Walsh also has some
• 2:25:45
  terrible advice, which is just be a man, be more manly, go
• 2:25:50
  fishing and don't talk to anyone.
• 2:25:51
  Yeah, that's what real men do. Again, like I'm laughing at this
• 2:25:56
  because it's so stupid but it's genuinely harmful advice.
• 2:26:00
  Now these experts are correct that men need fellowship and men
• 2:26:05
  are missing it these days. And that is part of the problem,
• 2:26:08
  definitely. But they even missed the point
• 2:26:11
  on that end, too. Even when they're right, they
• 2:26:13
  end up being wrong because they encourage men to fellowship in
• 2:26:17
  the way that women fellowship. You know, they tell men to sit
• 2:26:20
  around and talk about their feelings, do some yoga, listen
• 2:26:23
  to soft music, hold each other and cry.
• 2:26:25
  That's not the kind of fellowship men need or want.
• 2:26:29
  OK, we can't expect corporate media's masculinity experts to
• 2:26:32
  understand this because they're masculinity experts are all
• 2:26:34
  effeminate. But any normal man can attest
• 2:26:38
  that men tend to bond while engaging in a shared activity.
• 2:26:42
  And I don't mean yoga, OK. I mean like one that doesn't
• 2:26:45
  require a lot of talking, like sitting and watching the game or
• 2:26:48
  fishing or golfing, playing pick up basketball and so on.
• 2:26:52
  I went out fishing with my brother-in-law a few weeks ago
• 2:26:54
  and when we came back, my wife asked me what we talked about
• 2:27:00
  and I said I don't know. Nothing really.
• 2:27:02
  You didn't talk about anything. You didn't talk about it.
• 2:27:05
  Well, we talked about fishing. You went fishing, you just
• 2:27:08
  talked about fishing. What's going on in his life?
• 2:27:10
  What's going on? What did you talk about?
• 2:27:12
  We didn't talk about much. For all the talk of patriarchy,
• 2:27:16
  we do not live in a patriarchy. Ultimately, we live in a
• 2:27:18
  matriarchal society with institutions either run by women
• 2:27:22
  or by effeminate men who, in their arrogance, simply cannot
• 2:27:25
  accept the fact that men are different from women and have
• 2:27:28
  different needs and desires. So this is the real problem.
• 2:27:34
  It's not that men are too focused on masculinity.
• 2:27:36
  It's that masculinity has been neutered, castrated, driven out
• 2:27:39
  of society, leaving men feeling lost and without purpose.
• 2:27:43
  Our notions of masculinity aren't too traditional.
• 2:27:46
  On the contrary, they aren't nearly traditional enough.
• 2:27:51
  The solution isn't that we sit around and talk about our
• 2:27:53
  feelings, it's that we do a whole lot less of that sort of
• 2:27:56
  thing and get back to being men again.
• 2:27:59
  Oh God I could literally make an hour long video just unpacking
• 2:28:02
  how messed up all the things he said in that small segment were.
• 2:28:05
  But let's try and make it as quick as possible because this
• 2:28:08
  video is already very long. I've I've spent like 3 and a bit
• 2:28:12
  weeks on this video at this point and I'm exhausted by it.
• 2:28:15
  If I ever have to use the phrase male loneliness again I may cry
• 2:28:20
  after after I've done this script.
• 2:28:21
  I've got got an offend you to power through for now.
• 2:28:24
  So I think everything I've shown in the video so far proves that
• 2:28:29
  this advice from Matt Walsh will not work.
• 2:28:32
  Simple as that. Men are not happier when they're
• 2:28:35
  silent and alone. All the stats show it and I
• 2:28:37
  found it really, and I found it really interesting that he made
• 2:28:41
  this big claim that for all men, talking about your feelings is
• 2:28:45
  not the kind of fellowship men need or want.
• 2:28:47
  Because again, the reality shows this is just not true.
• 2:28:50
  There's so many men out there talking about how this is
• 2:28:52
  exactly what they do want and how when they found this, this
• 2:28:55
  is how they start to combat loneliness and have better
• 2:28:58
  mental health and be in a better place in life.
• 2:29:00
  There are so many men out there who are craving this kind of
• 2:29:03
  connection and there's actually a lot that are doing something
• 2:29:06
  about it and I think it's brilliant.
• 2:29:08
  So Max Dickens explored a lot of these options in his book Billy
• 2:29:11
  No Mates, and it was genuinely really lovely to read about.
• 2:29:15
  So one of the biggest things he advocates for are men's groups.
• 2:29:19
  He visited a london-based one called Men Speak.
• 2:29:22
  But I personally know some people who have been to places
• 2:29:25
  like Andy's Man Club up north here and they absolutely love it
• 2:29:28
  and they get that same level of connection.
• 2:29:30
  There's lots of options out there.
• 2:29:31
  I'm sure some are better for others.
• 2:29:32
  Like if you want to try them, maybe just have a look around
• 2:29:35
  what's in your area, what is the best fit for you.
• 2:29:38
  But there's a lot of options, you know?
• 2:29:41
  The Max writes of Men speak that it is a strictly no banter zone
• 2:29:45
  and that everything shared is completely confidential.
• 2:29:48
  And it focuses on giving men a space to sit and chat and think
• 2:29:51
  and share their problems with each other.
• 2:29:53
  It is about support, not competition or judgement.
• 2:29:56
  It is about openness and connection, not just sitting
• 2:29:59
  silently next to each other. These men don't allow each other
• 2:30:03
  to put up some fake macho front. They want to see each other's
• 2:30:06
  real selves and accept each other for who they really are.
• 2:30:10
  And again, I think that's damn beautiful, Max himself wrote of
• 2:30:14
  his experience. The first thing I noticed is how
• 2:30:17
  weird it feels to not be allowed to banter in a group of men.
• 2:30:20
  Every cell in my body is screaming at me to make a joke.
• 2:30:22
  It feels genuinely exposing. I have no choice but to
• 2:30:27
  communicate in a different way. It's no surprise to see the
• 2:30:29
  conversation turns deep very quickly.
• 2:30:32
  Everyone here is so unguarded that I don't want to let them
• 2:30:34
  down. He says that I enjoy men's
• 2:30:37
  groups because there's a lot of flexibility, a lot of
• 2:30:39
  experimentation and a lot of acceptance for people as and how
• 2:30:43
  they come. And these are the words from the
• 2:30:45
  mouth of a man. Like this is not just me
• 2:30:47
  projecting like my ideas onto men or being like, oh, it's a
• 2:30:50
  woman I like. This is men saying this.
• 2:30:53
  I am only repeating back the words of men.
• 2:30:56
  So clearly there is a desire and a need for this kind of
• 2:31:00
  connection. As I'll keep saying, this isn't
• 2:31:02
  something women are forcing on men, and this is something that
• 2:31:05
  men are saying I need and want to do this.
• 2:31:07
  And it's those kinds of actions that will combat loneliness, not
• 2:31:10
  go fishing and shut up. We need to stop with this idea
• 2:31:14
  that communication, empathy, emotional connection, and so on
• 2:31:17
  are feminine traits, and that somehow makes them less valuable
• 2:31:21
  because they're not. That's just rooted in misogyny
• 2:31:24
  and it does nothing but harm absolutely everyone.
• 2:31:28
  Matt and Matt also explored other solutions in his book too.
• 2:31:32
  And I do think if there's any men watching this video who are
• 2:31:34
  genuinely feeling lonely, I would recommend it.
• 2:31:36
  It's called Billy No Mates and it's by Max Dickens and it is
• 2:31:40
  probably the main book I would recommend to men watching this
• 2:31:43
  video because it shows Max kind of realising, oh crap, like I've
• 2:31:49
  internalised a lot of these harmful ideas.
• 2:31:51
  Here's how it's affecting me. This is what I did about it.
• 2:31:54
  This is how I'm kind of out the other side doing a lot better
• 2:31:57
  and continuing to be proactive in maintaining and deepening my
• 2:32:01
  friendships in my life. And I think that's kind of
• 2:32:03
  beautiful. So he also went to a group by
• 2:32:06
  the Men's Sheds Association, which is basically about getting
• 2:32:09
  a bunch of men together to do something, you know, work on
• 2:32:12
  allotment a, do a DIY project, do some carb mechanical work or
• 2:32:18
  whatever. And while they're there working
• 2:32:21
  side by side on a shared project, they chat and they open
• 2:32:24
  up. And it's easier for them to be
• 2:32:27
  doing this side by side than face to face.
• 2:32:30
  It's kind of like what Matt Walsh said about men, you know,
• 2:32:33
  enjoying shared activities together.
• 2:32:34
  I think I think that's a great thing.
• 2:32:36
  But when Matt is like, you sit down and shut up and do it.
• 2:32:39
  This is like, Oh no, we use this as an excuse to like get
• 2:32:43
  together and talk and open up and create this safe environment
• 2:32:46
  where we can all connect with each other.
• 2:32:48
  You know, Max did other things too, like setting up a little
• 2:32:52
  local football, meet up with his friends.
• 2:32:54
  He made active attempts to reach out to people in his life and he
• 2:32:56
  started to actively tell the people that he cared about that
• 2:32:59
  he actually cared about them. And he vocalised it and it
• 2:33:02
  worked. It deepened his friendships.
• 2:33:04
  He felt less lonely. He forged real deep, authentic
• 2:33:08
  connections. And I, I actually really enjoyed
• 2:33:11
  reading this in particular because this act of making sure
• 2:33:14
  you tell your friends you care about them, it's something that
• 2:33:16
  I have been actively choosing to do over the last few years and
• 2:33:20
  I've seen it as nothing but a positive thing in my life.
• 2:33:24
  I absolutely tell my friends that I love them regularly.
• 2:33:27
  I tell them when I've really enjoyed doing something with
• 2:33:29
  them. I'll say things like, hey, thank
• 2:33:32
  you for inviting me to X event. I really enjoyed it.
• 2:33:35
  I'd love to do this again and it's interesting because in me
• 2:33:38
  taking that first step and opening up in that way to so
• 2:33:40
  many people, it's allowed other people to open up too.
• 2:33:43
  And now like, you know, I've got a lot of friends in my writing
• 2:33:46
  group that I go to and I think all of us are like very vocal
• 2:33:48
  with like, oh, I love you lots. This is great.
• 2:33:51
  You know, I've really enjoyed seeing you.
• 2:33:52
  And everyone is way more open and affectionate with each other
• 2:33:59
  than I think I've ever had in a friend group before.
• 2:34:01
  And it's, it's really damn beautiful.
• 2:34:03
  And it does, I think, make us all feel a lot more close and
• 2:34:06
  connected. And it's, it's really nice.
• 2:34:09
  It's interesting there. So a 2023 study titled The State
• 2:34:13
  of American Men found that in the past week, 49% of women
• 2:34:16
  interviewed had told a friend they loved them, but it was only
• 2:34:19
  25% of men. And again, I have to ask to
• 2:34:23
  anyone who's watching this, who's maybe feeling lonely,
• 2:34:26
  when's the last time you opened up to a friend like that on that
• 2:34:30
  deeper level? And we're a little bit
• 2:34:31
  vulnerable and a little bit open and honest.
• 2:34:35
  When's, I don't know, the last time you picked up a little gift
• 2:34:37
  for a friend just because you saw it and thought of them?
• 2:34:39
  When's the last of you? When's the last time you picked
• 2:34:42
  up a little snack for someone because you know it's their
• 2:34:44
  favourite? The last time you, I don't know,
• 2:34:46
  picked up toiletries for someone unprompted because you've
• 2:34:48
  noticed they were running out before they did.
• 2:34:51
  When's the last time you put together a little care package
• 2:34:53
  for a friend who was ill and couldn't leave the house?
• 2:34:56
  When's the last time you made a mistake?
• 2:34:59
  And maybe have a step someones boundaries And instead of
• 2:35:01
  immediately saying yeah but but but you said oh God, that's
• 2:35:04
  that's my mistake. I'm so sorry.
• 2:35:06
  How can I make you more comfortable?
• 2:35:09
  When's the last time you said to a friend I miss you, I
• 2:35:11
  appreciate you, I appreciate your friendship.
• 2:35:14
  I know how much you mean to me. Hey, I really enjoyed doing XY
• 2:35:18
  and Z with you. When's the last time you told
• 2:35:20
  someone in a completely platonic way that you loved them?
• 2:35:25
  I thoroughly believe it's these little acts of kindness and
• 2:35:29
  friendship and honest vulnerability and mutual respect
• 2:35:34
  that keep people close and prevent loneliness.
• 2:35:37
  If you want to feel less lonely, you have to actually make a step
• 2:35:41
  forward to connect with people. And you need to do that because
• 2:35:44
  you want to be there for them, not because you're expecting
• 2:35:47
  something in return. OK, let's move on to the very
• 2:35:49
  last part of this video, Part 5, relationships with women.
• 2:35:54
  And we have spoken a lot so far about friendships and forging
• 2:35:57
  deep connections. But what about romantic
• 2:35:59
  relationships? Because of course they do play
• 2:36:01
  into this too. I feel like this is a really
• 2:36:04
  complicated issue to talk about because romantic relationships
• 2:36:07
  are important to a lot of people, and focusing on having a
• 2:36:10
  strong, healthy relationship will help if you're feeling
• 2:36:13
  lonely. However, I've seen a lot of men
• 2:36:16
  blaming women for the loneliness of men because if they can't
• 2:36:19
  find a partner, that's the women's fault for being too
• 2:36:21
  picky and not picking them. And if they do have a partner,
• 2:36:25
  then they often feel like their partner needs to fulfil their
• 2:36:27
  every social need and that puts a hell of a lot of pressure on
• 2:36:30
  one person. I feel like one of the biggest
• 2:36:32
  differences that I've seen while researching for this video is
• 2:36:35
  that in general, women are more likely to build communities
• 2:36:38
  around them, whereas men seem to rely on one woman for everything
• 2:36:41
  in their life. They want the maid, mother and
• 2:36:45
  whore all rolled into one basically.
• 2:36:47
  So when they can't find a partner that's every single
• 2:36:49
  thing they want and able to fulfil every single one of those
• 2:36:52
  social needs, they feel incredibly lonely because they
• 2:36:55
  don't have another community to fall back on.
• 2:36:57
  And of course, no one person can do all that, so of course
• 2:37:00
  they're going to feel lonely. However, with many women, it's
• 2:37:03
  clear that if they don't have a partner or a partner who doesn't
• 2:37:06
  fulfil every single need, that's fine because they've got their
• 2:37:09
  other friends, they've got family, they've got Co workers,
• 2:37:12
  they've got people in their community that they can turn to
• 2:37:14
  them and fall back on. And I do think This is why we
• 2:37:17
  see a lot of men getting so angry towards women when they're
• 2:37:19
  lonely and they blame women and feminism for their loneliness.
• 2:37:23
  And I think the important thing to remember here is that these
• 2:37:25
  men do deserve community and friendship and emotional support
• 2:37:30
  from other humans. They just have to realise that
• 2:37:32
  they don't deserve to have it all from one woman.
• 2:37:35
  If they want friendship and emotional support in their life,
• 2:37:38
  they need to find it for themselves in a community of
• 2:37:40
  friends and family, and they also need to give it back to
• 2:37:43
  other people as well. Relationships aren't just about
• 2:37:46
  demanding emotional support from other people, but being able to
• 2:37:49
  give it to them as well. Let's take a look at a few
• 2:37:52
  examples. Here's a video clip.
• 2:37:54
  There is also a huge male loneliness epidemic.
• 2:37:57
  It's actually. Yeah, that's because women are
• 2:37:59
  unmarriable. That's why there's a loneliness
• 2:38:02
  epidemic. Male are lonely because women
• 2:38:04
  are unmarriable. Yes, that makes total sense.
• 2:38:07
  A. Lot of the responsibility lies
• 2:38:09
  on feminists for the current state of affairs which is
• 2:38:12
  happening in the West. Abortion is a great example
• 2:38:14
  which is demanded by women so that they can be sexually
• 2:38:17
  promiscuous absent the consequence.
• 2:38:20
  And as another example, let's look at this Reddit post I
• 2:38:23
  found. I found so many Reddit posts
• 2:38:25
  like this, but I I just picked one because otherwise we'd be
• 2:38:28
  here all day reading them all. This person says women are
• 2:38:31
  responsible for male loneliness. Women are ultimately responsible
• 2:38:34
  for men's loneliness. This is the elephant in the room
• 2:38:37
  in my opinion, that needs to be discussed.
• 2:38:39
  I think we need to discuss your lack of comments.
• 2:38:41
  But never mind. When a man is lonely or
• 2:38:43
  expresses his frustration towards dating, he's often given
• 2:38:46
  advice to self improve, or that he isn't old sex, or to just get
• 2:38:50
  a dog and so on. It seems that the common
• 2:38:52
  response is that it's a man's fault if he's lonely, that this
• 2:38:56
  is something he has total control over.
• 2:38:58
  An agency that being lonely is simply a by product of a man's
• 2:39:01
  own actions and lifestyle. Yeah, the studies show that
• 2:39:05
  women only swipe on a very small percentage of men on dating
• 2:39:08
  apps. There are tonnes of posts on
• 2:39:09
  Reddit where women say they find most men unattractive.
• 2:39:12
  Multiple studies demonstrate that women generally find the
• 2:39:15
  same traits attractive, such as height and masculine face,
• 2:39:18
  wealth and so on. Many of the traits women find
• 2:39:21
  attractive in men are inherent and cannot be easily attained.
• 2:39:25
  To change to change That odd writing.
• 2:39:28
  Also, I'm just I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt here again.
• 2:39:31
  This idea that that's all women look for is so damn delusional.
• 2:39:35
  I don't think out of all the people I've never I've never
• 2:39:40
  dated someone wealthy I don't think.
• 2:39:42
  I've also never understood the height thing because I'm quite
• 2:39:44
  an average height. I'm 5-6 so nearly everyone in
• 2:39:47
  the world is the same height as me or taller so it doesn't
• 2:39:50
  really matter. You know, I I've dated men who
• 2:39:54
  are 55565758 and who are like 6-5 and.
• 2:40:01
  Neither is more attracting than the other based on height.
• 2:40:04
  I just think it shows how disconnected a lot of these men
• 2:40:07
  are from the realities of the world and like what people are
• 2:40:11
  actually looking for. I think if you ask most women
• 2:40:14
  who are attracted to men what they look for in a man, one of
• 2:40:16
  the first traits is going to be kindness, you know, and, and
• 2:40:20
  then maybe like the ability to make you laugh and then maybe
• 2:40:23
  like, you know, attractive face or whatever.
• 2:40:25
  But anyway anyway, the complaining man goes on to say
• 2:40:31
  this isn't a woe is me post or anything, but the reality is
• 2:40:36
  women are the ones causing male loneliness.
• 2:40:38
  We know that women are very picky when it comes to dating,
• 2:40:40
  and we also know that women find certain traits in men
• 2:40:42
  attractive. So when a man is lonely, is it
• 2:40:44
  really his fault if he isn't getting chosen by women?
• 2:40:47
  Is it truly his own fault? It's clear that in most cases
• 2:40:50
  it's actually not his fault. It's a combination of modern
• 2:40:53
  dating dynamics and women's pickiness.
• 2:40:57
  And again, as as we've said in like a couple of parts of this
• 2:40:59
  video, I think it's true that women are generally pickier than
• 2:41:03
  men, but that's only a good thing.
• 2:41:05
  I think men could stand to be a little pickier as well.
• 2:41:08
  And I don't mean picky in the sense of like, oh, my niece and
• 2:41:11
  use a 10 out of 10 nooks. And you mean like, don't be so
• 2:41:14
  shallow. Be picky in the sense of like,
• 2:41:17
  oh, this is something I really value in my life.
• 2:41:19
  This is a goal I have in my life.
• 2:41:22
  This is an interest that I have. It would be really nice if I had
• 2:41:26
  a partner who shed this value, who had a similar goal, whose
• 2:41:30
  life was going in the same direction as me, who had the
• 2:41:33
  same means as me, for example. I think they're the things that
• 2:41:35
  you really need to figure out for yourself and then be picky
• 2:41:40
  about when it comes to dating. It's as simple as that.
• 2:41:44
  So I admit there are perhaps some men who are feeling
• 2:41:47
  lonelier than ever because more women are choosing to be single
• 2:41:50
  rather than be in a bad relationship.
• 2:41:52
  I mean, look already mentioned a few books about it, about like
• 2:41:55
  the The Joy of Being single essentially.
• 2:41:57
  Well, actually that's the first book.
• 2:41:58
  The Unexpected Joy of Being Single by Catherine Grey, The
• 2:42:01
  Art of Living Alone and Loving it by Jane Matthews, How to be
• 2:42:04
  Alone by Elaine Moore, How to be Single and Happy by Jennifer L
• 2:42:07
  Tates, A lone man, How to be Alone Absolutely Own it by
• 2:42:10
  Francesca Spectre, and so on and so on.
• 2:42:12
  These are all women who, like myself, are quite content being
• 2:42:15
  single. And I mean, I am looking for a
• 2:42:17
  relationship. I would like to find my forever
• 2:42:18
  person, but I don't need just anyone.
• 2:42:22
  I'm not going to cling on to the first person who shows interest
• 2:42:24
  in me if they're not right for me.
• 2:42:26
  It's better to be alone than with the wrong person.
• 2:42:28
  I've I've always said this, I think perhaps instead of telling
• 2:42:31
  women they need to lower their standards, men also need to get
• 2:42:34
  better at being alone in the 1st place.
• 2:42:36
  Men need to raise their standards and men need to be
• 2:42:39
  happier with who they are. Men need to foster another
• 2:42:41
  community around them that isn't just a relationship.
• 2:42:44
  You know? The other side of this is seen
• 2:42:47
  with clips like this. I've been single for 10 years.
• 2:42:50
  It's not a long shot. Somebody just needs to grow a
• 2:42:53
  pair and step up. I am shockingly available.
• 2:42:55
  So this old clip from 2019 of Charlie Staron talking about
• 2:42:58
  being single and shockingly available is doing the rounds
• 2:43:01
  again. And since all you ever hear
• 2:43:02
  about is the male loneliness epidemic, men are of course
• 2:43:05
  pouring into the comments to relate to and empathise with her
• 2:43:08
  situation. Not just kidding, they're
• 2:43:10
  tearing her about. She just told us she's the red
• 2:43:13
  flag. Y'all 10 years, she's the
• 2:43:14
  problem. Not if if you paid me, it's you.
• 2:43:17
  Translation. I can't keep a man.
• 2:43:19
  If she's been single for 10 years, it's because she wants to
• 2:43:22
  be single. Powerful woman who's used to
• 2:43:24
  getting everything she wants and calling all the shots.
• 2:43:26
  A man has to enter her life and submit to it and I cannot even
• 2:43:29
  imagine the way she will test him.
• 2:43:31
  If a woman is single, then she's to blame.
• 2:43:34
  She's too picky, she's too demanding, she has too many red
• 2:43:36
  flags. She is the problem.
• 2:43:38
  And yet, whenever the conversation inevitably turns to
• 2:43:41
  that epidemic of so-called male loneliness, that call for
• 2:43:44
  introspection and self-awareness suddenly completely evaporates,
• 2:43:48
  as that too is also women's burden to bear.
• 2:43:51
  Because we operate from a foundation that there's never
• 2:43:53
  any valid reason to disqualify a man.
• 2:43:56
  And then using that to justify the idea that the number one
• 2:43:59
  enemy preventing men's happiness and self fulfilment are women
• 2:44:03
  who don't just settle for the man in front of them.
• 2:44:05
  When we should be teaching men that rather than being upset and
• 2:44:07
  angry at women for decentering men, men should instead be
• 2:44:10
  inspired by and emulate them. Decentering women.
• 2:44:13
  Or at the very least, decentering the need for a
• 2:44:15
  romantic partner and finding other outlets for emotional
• 2:44:18
  support. Building deep connections with
• 2:44:20
  family and friends by engaging in meaningful conversations.
• 2:44:25
  So when a man is single, it's the woman's fault.
• 2:44:27
  If a woman is single, it's also her fault.
• 2:44:32
  That is the recurring theme throughout this video.
• 2:44:34
  Just blame women. The other thing perhaps is
• 2:44:38
  instead of blaming women for choosing to be single and
• 2:44:40
  getting mad at them for it and saying their standards are too
• 2:44:42
  high, maybe we could look at why so many women are choosing to be
• 2:44:45
  single and look at the actual cause of that, which is the
• 2:44:48
  often men's behaviour is terrible.
• 2:44:52
  So is it because their standard is too high?
• 2:44:54
  Or is it because they've been mistreated by men and don't want
• 2:44:56
  to put up with that anymore? Look at this selection of clips
• 2:44:59
  I found online. These are men who are actually
• 2:45:01
  in relationships and yet still treat their partners with
• 2:45:04
  disrespect, overstep their boundaries, and don't show any
• 2:45:07
  care for them. There's also a clip at the end
• 2:45:09
  of men on a podcast laughing about like, quotes and tweets
• 2:45:13
  and posts from men who actively hate their girlfriends and
• 2:45:16
  they're laughing like this is the funniest thing in the world.
• 2:45:30
  Only two things are required to keep me happy, keep my belly
• 2:45:33
  full and my balls empty. Well, you're amazing at half of
• 2:45:37
  it. We really need to get you some
• 2:45:38
  cooking lessons. Even when my belly isn't full.
• 2:45:43
  There is no one I could ever love more in this lifetime
• 2:45:45
  unless I actually get a chance to meet Margot Robbie.
• 2:45:50
  Y'all make life worth living, giving every breath of every day
• 2:45:53
  a purpose. Life gets even better when the
• 2:45:56
  kids fall asleep and you tell me to come to the bedroom.
• 2:46:00
  Nothing's better than the sound of gagging and headboard
• 2:46:03
  slamming. Michael, everyone keeps telling
• 2:46:05
  me that marriage is going to ruin a lot of things, but I feel
• 2:46:08
  it's only if you let it. PS Since you're so good at
• 2:46:11
  making decisions like marrying me, you can choose whether
• 2:46:15
  tonight's going to end with being a Toaster Strudel or a
• 2:46:17
  Twinkie. Anything you want to say to your
• 2:46:26
  future bride? I hope we have a lot of sex.
• 2:46:31
  A lot. Don't, no.
• 2:46:33
  No, no. No, no, no, we.
• 2:46:35
  Talked about this for real. Please don't do it.
• 2:46:41
  I'm not dude. And they're filming us and it's
• 2:46:48
  like what we did on the wedding. I was mad then too.
• 2:46:51
  It's not funny. I promise to smack that ass
• 2:46:55
  every chance I get. That's all I got.
• 2:47:15
  So I forgot my lunch today and I asked my husband to bring me
• 2:47:18
  lunch. So let's do an unboxing because
• 2:47:23
  clearly it's a little fool. We have a bag.
• 2:47:28
  We have a bag of cookies. Not a zip lock bag, but a bag.
• 2:47:36
  We have a bag of. Pretzels.
• 2:47:40
  Feels very empty. We got an apple.
• 2:47:43
  Got to stay healthy. We have not just a portion of
• 2:47:52
  Pringles, but an entire container of Pringles.
• 2:48:00
  Another bag of cookies, another bag options.
• 2:48:06
  Lucky me. And lastly, oh OK, we have my 2
• 2:48:18
  day old Chipotle and at the very bottom we have a bag of dog
• 2:48:29
  food. Because you're my dog.
• 2:48:34
  There's 2 joy please bring back. The dogs are low on food.
• 2:48:41
  So ladies, if you don't have food and your husband has to
• 2:48:45
  bring you a lunch, just know that you're going to get lots of
• 2:48:50
  lots of food as well as maybe even a cute note.
• 2:48:55
  That phase where you slowly start hating your girlfriend is
• 2:48:59
  crazy. I remember this one time on a
• 2:49:01
  weekend she said she was coming. Yo, I cry.
• 2:49:07
  You start asking yourself things like, does she have to chew when
• 2:49:11
  she eats? Yeah.
• 2:49:13
  The infuriation when she holds your hand in public and you feel
• 2:49:17
  like cutting it off. That maybe snore.
• 2:49:22
  Oh my God. And the problem?
• 2:49:25
  Ask you what the problem is. Her hug feels like you're
• 2:49:31
  getting mugged. When her smile takes away yours.
• 2:49:42
  No. When she says I'll call you when
• 2:49:44
  I get home. Then you switch off your phone
• 2:49:46
  and remove the battery. He doesn't want to communicate.
• 2:49:50
  With anyone, there's no chance you're getting through to me.
• 2:49:52
  You'll be wondering why your day is going so well.
• 2:49:56
  Her battery died when you decide to unlock your phone, so she
• 2:50:02
  could check anytime. The man making sexual remarks
• 2:50:08
  over and over in his wedding vows and his wife who smiled
• 2:50:11
  along even though she was uncomfortable as hell.
• 2:50:12
  Clearly the woman who didn't get a proper lunch and instead got
• 2:50:15
  leftovers, improperly packaged snacks and joke dog food.
• 2:50:19
  And she still defends his behaviours.
• 2:50:21
  Oh man, it's not so bad because at least he brought me something
• 2:50:24
  like I just think if women in relationships with men or any
• 2:50:28
  partner who treats them this way, Like if if you're one of
• 2:50:32
  these people in a relationship with someone like this, it is
• 2:50:34
  absolutely OK to say I deserve better.
• 2:50:37
  I deserve a basic level of respect and care from the people
• 2:50:40
  in my life. I deserve to have my boundaries,
• 2:50:42
  privacy, and health respected. And I don't think that's too
• 2:50:46
  much to ask for. I don't think that's women
• 2:50:48
  causing men's loneliness. I think that's women having a
• 2:50:51
  basic level of self respect that men don't offer to them, and
• 2:50:56
  it's absolutely no surprise that some men feel they can act like
• 2:50:59
  this since this is nonsense being spread around online.
• 2:51:03
  Idiots like Andrew Wilson seem to believe that women like
• 2:51:06
  horrible behaviour and it's just absolute nonsense.
• 2:51:10
  I do think that most men are toxic, and I do think that they
• 2:51:13
  fit the criteria in modernity of what abuse is, and I think that
• 2:51:17
  women love that shit. So like here, hang on, hear me
• 2:51:20
  out. Hear me out, OK?
• 2:51:22
  The things that women consider to be toxic traits, which is
• 2:51:26
  it's usually too much of the thing that they like, too much
• 2:51:29
  assertion, too much dominance, too much of this, too much of
• 2:51:33
  that. Right, but but but then if the
• 2:51:37
  man backs it off even an inch, then.
• 2:51:40
  It's too little. Then it's too little, right?
• 2:51:42
  So it's like, so all of these things which are considered
• 2:51:46
  toxic masculinity, right? All those toxically masculine
• 2:51:50
  men, they seem to be getting plenty of women.
• 2:51:52
  They don't seem to have much problem with that at all.
• 2:51:56
  When you say abuse, especially verbal abuse, right?
• 2:52:00
  This is the idea of a man basically just saying no, right?
• 2:52:03
  That that's usually what verbal abuse reduces to it.
• 2:52:07
  I think what I think ultimately is that men who say no and are
• 2:52:11
  very toxic in their masculinity basically got nothing to worry
• 2:52:14
  about. And he's right, right?
• 2:52:17
  Aren't you training them to be toxically masculine?
• 2:52:21
  Please do not listen to this rubbish, not even for a second.
• 2:52:24
  This is not what women like. This is not what women look for.
• 2:52:27
  If you want a genuine, deep, authentic connection with
• 2:52:29
  someone, this is not the way to go about it.
• 2:52:32
  Is it any wonder women are choosing to walk away more
• 2:52:34
  often? In her book For the Love of Men,
• 2:52:37
  Liz Plank writes about how she noticed more and more women in
• 2:52:40
  her life that she knew were choosing to be single and walk
• 2:52:42
  away from relationships that weren't fulfilling them.
• 2:52:45
  And, she wrote, women had always complained about difficulties in
• 2:52:48
  their romantic relationships with men, But something felt
• 2:52:50
  different. Suddenly, it felt like women
• 2:52:52
  were done. They'd put up with men who were
• 2:52:54
  emotionally inconsistent and unavailable for too long.
• 2:52:58
  Women were fed up and had reached their limit.
• 2:53:00
  They were desperate to love men and put according to them, men
• 2:53:03
  had become impossible to love. In fact, she quotes her own
• 2:53:07
  sister saying, I just started realising I have such rich
• 2:53:10
  relationships with the women in my life, why would I lower my
• 2:53:13
  standards when it comes to my relationship with men?
• 2:53:16
  She does come to say there's more to it than this though.
• 2:53:17
  And a lot of it comes back to what I said in the beginning of
• 2:53:19
  this section. Heterosexual men seem to want
• 2:53:22
  their partner to be everything to them, their whole social
• 2:53:24
  network, their whole emotional support, a maid, a chef, a
• 2:53:28
  mother, their sexual partner, everything.
• 2:53:30
  And it's just too much to put on one person.
• 2:53:34
  Max Dickens points us out too. And he says some people argue
• 2:53:37
  that men's isolation creates even more emotional labour for
• 2:53:40
  women because they have to act as borderline living therapists
• 2:53:43
  for their boyfriends and husbands.
• 2:53:45
  The men they're with simply have no other people in their lives
• 2:53:47
  to meet their emotional needs. One person cannot be everything
• 2:53:50
  to their partner, and asking them to do so is too much for
• 2:53:55
  all. I critiqued a couple of aspects
• 2:53:56
  of his book earlier. Bill Howard was completely right
• 2:53:58
  when he said no one relationship can meet 100% of your needs and
• 2:54:03
  so the solution for this for men is do the emotional labour
• 2:54:07
  yourself. Work on yourself, don't rely on
• 2:54:10
  a partner for everything. Expand your circle of friends so
• 2:54:13
  you have a community around you and raise your standards.
• 2:54:16
  And before you do that, figure out yourself what you need from
• 2:54:20
  a relationship and what you can give to a relationship.
• 2:54:23
  Do the emotional labour. OK, that's it.
• 2:54:26
  We are just about done. In conclusion, loneliness is
• 2:54:30
  something that affects all kinds of people.
• 2:54:32
  We've established this, but male loneliness is one of the most
• 2:54:35
  dangerous types of loneliness for society today, because it
• 2:54:39
  doesn't just harm the men themselves, but it ripples out,
• 2:54:42
  fueling radicalization, violence, especially against
• 2:54:45
  women, and basically deepens divides across society.
• 2:54:49
  It's the result of poor socialisation, of toxic
• 2:54:52
  masculine ideas that strip boys of their emotional openness and
• 2:54:56
  teach men that vulnerability is weakness, but it is solvable.
• 2:54:59
  This isn't an impossible problem.
• 2:55:02
  We know that boys start their life with the same deny for
• 2:55:05
  connection and intimacy as girls do.
• 2:55:07
  We know that when men are given permission to be vulnerable, to
• 2:55:10
  connect, to express their feelings, that their health
• 2:55:13
  improves, their relationships deepen, their lives are happier,
• 2:55:17
  they're healthier, and they live longer.
• 2:55:19
  And we know that, and we know that dismantling these harmful
• 2:55:22
  gender roles doesn't just free women, it frees men too.
• 2:55:26
  Women face less violence, men commit less violence, women have
• 2:55:30
  better partners, men finally get partners, and so on and so on.
• 2:55:34
  You know, and that's why this matters.
• 2:55:36
  This isn't a video about criticising men, but about
• 2:55:39
  helping them. It's about creating a world
• 2:55:41
  where men aren't pushed into isolation or mocked for seeking
• 2:55:44
  help or end up in these radical in cell echo chambers in the
• 2:55:48
  manosphere that only deepen their pain.
• 2:55:51
  If we talk about these issues and really get to the root cause
• 2:55:54
  of them and understand them and get men to start working on this
• 2:55:57
  stuff themselves, they can help themselves.
• 2:56:00
  And that's what this video is about.
• 2:56:02
  I was going to end this video by talking about some of the
• 2:56:05
  comments that you guys left on the community tab post that I
• 2:56:07
  asked you about. But I do think this video is
• 2:56:10
  long enough. So if you want to see that, I'll
• 2:56:12
  probably record me just reading and responding some of the
• 2:56:14
  comments. And well, actually I'm thinking
• 2:56:16
  either I'll do it as a live stream or I'll do it as like a a
• 2:56:19
  shorter little video. I'm not sure, but I'll, I'll
• 2:56:23
  come back to that soon after. I'm working on this video.
• 2:56:26
  I've got another one. I'm doing a book review next and
• 2:56:29
  there's potentially another sort of book review video I'm doing
• 2:56:32
  about some, it's like a fantasy author and the drama around
• 2:56:35
  that. Well, it was Audra Winter.
• 2:56:38
  I, I don't know if I'm too late to that now.
• 2:56:40
  I've got a half written script, but I don't know.
• 2:56:42
  And then another half written script about a Freda McFadden
• 2:56:47
  book review that I have things to say about that.
• 2:56:51
  But after I've done, then I'll hopefully come back and read
• 2:56:53
  some of your comments and talk about that on camera.
• 2:56:56
  And that'll be a lot more of a relaxed video.
• 2:56:58
  But for now, I would like to hear your thoughts on all of
• 2:57:01
  this video. And again, I might respond to
• 2:57:04
  some of the comments that you leave on there in that future
• 2:57:07
  video too. So please let me know your
• 2:57:09
  thoughts below. Try and be kind to each other.
• 2:57:11
  I trust you guys, you usually are.
• 2:57:15
  But yeah, thank you so, so much for watching today.
• 2:57:17
  Thank you for all your time and your effort and your energy and
• 2:57:20
  watching such a long and dense video like you have no idea how
• 2:57:23
  much I appreciate it. And thank you so much.
• 2:57:26
  Thank you for everyone's continued support with my
• 2:57:27
  channel, especially to the people who support me over on
• 2:57:30
  Patreon or with channel memberships.
• 2:57:32
  Thank you to everyone who's ever bought my merch, my books,
• 2:57:34
  anything like that. It really does mean so, so much.
• 2:57:38
  And anyway, that is where I'm going to end things today.
• 2:57:40
  Thank you so much for watching. I hope you all have an
• 2:57:42
  absolutely wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you again
• 2:57:44
  really, really soon.