Only as valued as their productivity.
That is a big part of it.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is “What do you do?” it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Add in the fact that men hitting that age now have basically never received any positive reaction for expressing any emotions or vulnerability and usually outright been mocked for doing so and it is no wonder they are are hard group to reach…
And they’re all totally socially isolated to boot. How the hell do you make friends as an adult?
And where do you even go? Civic centers, bowling alleys etc are dead. Moderate churches are disappearing. Car centric everything means if you have a disability or not much money you’re screwed.
As with most things, the hardest part is the first step: you have to find a community to join. It can be anything, but senior centers are greater resources for older people that they unfortunately don’t take enough advantage of. My parents found a seniors’ program at a local college and started taking classes with people their age, which created an entirely new friend group for them. You just have to find a group of people doing something you enjoy and the relationships will likely form without much effort after that, provided you don’t have crippling social anxiety or something else that makes social interaction difficult. Point is, once you get the ball rolling, momentum takes over; the hardest part is getting it (i.e. yourself) moving.
Left my country and the coldness (not just the weather) was such a huge part of it.
You need a group that’s small enough to allow for personal interaction, but large enough that there’s enough people that you’re more likely to find ones you click with. It’s easy enough to do online - a lot of people meet in games like MMOs and on social media sites. You already share a common interest, and if you click you can expand your friendship outside of that immediate context. Even within the context, you get friends and community.
Real world kinds of places can include things like a men’s choir or a community theater group if that’s your demographic. Those can lead to Saturday brunches and such. There’s also places like dog parks where you can hang out with other dog owners, and sports groups like bowling and ultimate that have various levels of serious vs fun. There’s also a lot of volunteering opportunities.
Some groups can be cliques that can make it harder to get into at first, and just like in dating you can’t let a negative experience turn you off from the whole scene.
I’ve seen a few people complain about the question “what do you do?” over the years, and I think it’s pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as “what is your job?”
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it’s not something I’m overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I’d never go back to work, it’s just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I’m working on, trips I’m planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn’t have to talk about work outside of work as much
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How people make money is often the most boring thing about them. A whole lot of the prestigious jobs that make big bucks that people like to brag about boil down to a whole lot of paperwork, emails, and phone calls, I don’t want to hear about that, that’s the kind of stuff I make any excuse I can to avoid thinking about.
If they’re making big bucks though, hopefully they’re doing something cool with it, they can tell me about their ski trips, or yacht trips to private islands or whatever rich people do these days, that’s what I want to hear about it. If the only thing they can come up with to say that they “do” is a job doing the boring shit I try to avoid, that’s their own fault. They’re free to judge me, I’m judging them right back, they’re wasting their lives.
And most of the time my current job is far more interesting than theirs anyway even if it’s not as prestigious.
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It sounds like you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of people if they are asking that question to judge you. I find most people ask that question as its a baseline question on getting to know someone, so hobbies would be a perfectly acceptable response
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do.
Yeah but what do you do for work doe?
911 dispatch
911 dispatch
That is pretty interesting!
Right? Don’t get me wrong, I have some cool stories, and I don’t blame people for being more interested in those than tales from my hiking trips or D&D game or hearing about my latest attempt at woodworking or whatever, but I’d rather talk about those.
Well, I’ll take a D&D story too if you don’t mind.
My current group is playing Schedules & Conflicts so, got an itch u noe?
r D&D game
Mix it up sometimes!
“HELP I’m being robbed!”
“Roll for initiative.”
That’s been one of the culture shifts I’ve noticed moving to the EU. People are a lot less likely to lead with that question here than in the US.
I’ve been saying “it’s private” for years.
I’ve always taken that question as a form of trying to find common interests. If you answered it with your hobbies, it would fulfill the same purpose which is getting conversation started.
If you asked me “well, how much do you make?” that would be way more pointed towards “productivity”.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is “What do you do?” it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Exactly. I stopped asking that question because I don’t wanna be asked that anymore. I ask other guys what their hobby(ies) is(are).
I still cant remember the last compliment I got that wasn’t about my work.
I like your username. This has figured it out.
Or your net worth if you’ve made enough for long enough, or made the good choice to be born to rich parents.
It’s as direct as “what do you do.” You can say “he’s worth eight figures” or similar.
I can partially speak to this from the inside so to speak. I’m not that old, but I had a heart attack and open heart surgery at the end of 2018 and complication after complication through all of 2019.
All of which puts me at greater risk for depression and suicide.
Just when I was medically cleared to go back to the office, we shut down for covid and I haven’t been back since.
I started looking for a support group for heart attack/open heart surgery survivors and it was far, far more difficult than I thought.
Plenty of support groups for other conditions, plenty of support groups that advertised as women only, I really couldn’t find anything that accepted men.
I didn’t need a “mens only” group, just someone who wouldn’t turn me away due to my gender.
I finally reached out to one of the women’s groups going “Look, I know I’m not your demo, but I hope you can direct me…”
They set me up with a national org, https://mendedhearts.org/ who had an unbranded chapter in my area and I got to talk to people in my situation, it helped, but it was not easy getting there.
There were other problems during lockdown, I became a victim of domestic violence, against which I was helpless due to my medical conditions.
Same problem. No real support for male victims of domestic violence either.
The police directed me to various mental health agencies, for both myself and my wife, but this was peak covid and NONE of them called us back. NONE. Not even a “sorry, we aren’t taking new patients”, they just completely ghosted us.
My wife finally found a therapist who would “see” her remotely, which was a condition of our staying married, and things did get better.
But after all that… it was really dumb luck. Other folks aren’t as lucky.
I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2017 and it’s shit.
The pain that comes with that is just phenomenal and there’s no good treatment for it either. :(
I’m in a good place now, but I take a lot of meds (some of which are literal poison) and a very expensive infusion. I have excellent insurance, but six years to get back to being able to move has been fun.
I hope you have great holidays this year and better things to come next one.
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Societies that have been created around the concept that your life is worth as much as the value you produce. People are deeply ingrained with the idea that if you aren’t part of the production line then you may as well die and get out the way for the next cog.
To this day, this mentality still benefits the higher up in those societies.
That’s not just an idea - its physical reality. You can’t get your physical needs met in old age if you didn’t win the lotto. Suicide is the retirement plan for most of us non-boomers.
They’re gonna be shocked when they see the generation without kids and with unstable retirement funds gets too old to care for themselves. Suicide rates are going to explode.
Also aside from retirement. I see…a lot of people with campers, “homeless” now. Parking their RVs on sides of roads, struggling cause they fell behind on everything HARD. The rates might go up earlier.
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“They” would be our overlords. The masters of the system into which we are born. The wealthy and powerful. And I suppose they will find out just how little in life they can handle without us workers.
Don’t worry, climate collapse of all ecosystems is our retirement in like 3 years or something like that
My dad died in his late 80s of Parkinson’s. For at least a decade before his diagnosis he’d tell me that everyday when he woke up, he’d lost another piece of himself. He went from an active man in his early to mid 70s–he rode his bike 25 miles a day and weight lifted–to a shadow of himself very quickly.
It was tough to watch, and so much tougher for him facing loss after loss of his abilities. He spoke several times of “releasing” himself, but ultimately decided not to do it.
We are living longer, but that isn’t always to our benefit.
Sorry for your loss. Your dad sounds like a good guy. I wish we all had a better and easier way to die with dignity and on our own terms.
Glad to see an article about suicide focused specifically on men for a change. I wish it went into more specific detail about the societal treatment of men and how it fuels their mental health issues, but some attention is better than nothing.
I’ve seen a lot of those lately. At least in Polish media it was a very popular topic recently. Of course still nothing is being done to address. Then again, what are you going to do? In the end it’s really men doing it to themselves. How are you going to change what men think about what ‘being a men’ means?
I’ll probably kill myself at that age too
Shit I’m 40 and regret not having done so.
do you want to hang out and suck each other’s dicks? I don’t even care anymore
Can I cum too?
yea of course bro
Lemon party detected.
Lmao. No, thank you, but I appreciate the offer.
See, you do still have the will to fight!
Damn that’s some therapy check mate shit yo
Going the drugs and Vegas route while be chased by 50 US marshals with fireworks shooting out of a stolen sports car in the desert. I Want the grand kids to think I was legendary and not a person stuck in a tomb of a body.
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Honestly, that’s probably the healthiest way for people in that profession to approach it.
Agreed, but it’s unfortunate, because I feel that clinical detachment can come across as insincerity in a therapeutic context. It can promote a feeling of cynicism.
What a waste if they don’t take someone horrible with them.
what the actual fuck is wrong with you
Yet America still wants to control the world.
I am not from the US but similar stories and stats exist for my own country.
If you think any country is handling this better, please tell us which one it is.
(and, of course, back it up with solid data…)
You should be ashamed of yourself, it’s an article about the horror that is suicide and you try and turn it into your personal beef with America. Shut the fuck up.
What the fuck are you talking about
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I would also probably off myself at this age, seeing all the fuck ups that my generation did Holy shit.
