Loneliness in Men: Disconnection from True Self

Have you seen the ‘Man Park’ comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live?

A young woman has grown tired of her boyfriend’s his over-reliance on her for social connection. She brings him to a “man park,” a fenced-off enclosure where, after several awkward attempts, he finally begins to talk with other men.

Some viewers didn’t care for the canine comparison. However, the sketch went viral online because it touched on an uncomfortable and unspoken truth: North American men are lonely.

Quiet Desperation

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” wrote American writer Henry David Thoreau.

Current research shows that Thoreau’s words apply as well today as they did when he wrote them more than 150 years ago.

A 2021 survey of 1,450 men conducted by HeadsUpGuys in British Columbia, Canada revealed that 55% of men felt lonely. Half of them said that they worked to hide that fact from others. 50% of respondents reported never asking for help.

A U.S. study showed that where in 1990, 55% of men reported having at least six close friends, today only about 27% do.

The reason?

Defence Against Vulnerability

North American women are, on the whole, more inclined to acknowledge difficult feelings like loneliness. They value the process of naming and getting to know those feelings - especially in each other’s company. As a result they become better equipped to understand those feelings and the critical messages they bear.

In contrast, most North American men work hard to avoid talking about difficult feelings. They will happily talk about sports teams, politics, business or the weather. But male gender socialization requires men to refrain from acknowledging or expressing difficult emotions. Admitting fear, weakness or vulnerability of any kind to another man is an invitation to shame and ridicule. “In Western culture,” says Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis, “powerlessness in any of its forms is worse than annihilation.”

The result? When difficult feelings come up, as they invariably do, many men go into a form of hiding. They numb themselves to the discomfort they feel by filling their days with work and with diversions and distractions of every kind. Meanwhile, their true needs - for community, for belonging, for connection - go unmet.

That is, until one day the soul (or the ‘psyche’ in Greek) begins to speak up. It protests at how far a man has strayed from who he really is and what he really wants by withdrawing energy from the (often adaptive, provisional) life he has so painstakingly built. Unconcerned with what the neighbours will think, it arranges for what is false in a man’s life to come crashing down so that something genuine and life-giving can be born in its place.

The Path Home: Reconnecting with Self

Know this: There is a quiet voice within each of us — psyche, the Greeks called it — that simply knows, deep down, what is good, what is right and what is true for us. My work with my male clients is to help them hear that voice. Learning to hear it — and then follow its guidance — after so many years of wilfully ignoring it is the task of a lifetime. But those who pursue it are rewarded with the kind of self-knowledge that frees them to live, love and be who they truly are.

Make an appointment to begin your journey with me today.