Modernity is a lonely place. Men are particularly lonely. Often, they don’t know it. (I know I didn’t.)
Isolation induces loneliness. Socializing reduces isolation. Loneliness is not isolation. As the cliche goes, You can be utterly alone in a crowded room. Even one packed with friends.
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Loneliness is an something deeper. An unmet need to be seen. *And*, to be mutually attached. You can force people to see you. (Or, at least, masks of you.) But, you can’t coerce attachment. (Or, at least, genuine attachment.)
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Genuine attachment is a real need. It’s what’s missing in loneliness. But, there are different kinds of attachment. Different relationships. Brotherhood is one. But, most men don’t lack this. (My twenties felt like a band of brothers.)
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Intimacy is one manifestation of attachment. People need intimacy. Heterosexual men need intimacy with women. That’s not the same thing as sex.
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Sex is like a supernormal stimuli for intimacy. The brain easily confuses the two. Like sugar, it’s intensely satisfying. ...briefly. But, it obliterates loneliness. ...briefly.
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Stimulus — RELEASE. Stimulus — Release. Stimulus — release. Meaningless sex is a hell of a drug. But, it’s not meaningless to the lonely. Le petite mort is BIG LIFE. The highest social interaction. It fills you with saccharine connection. Conflated with attachment.
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Dependence grows. Self medication increases. But, repeat partnering is hard. It comes with expectations. (That rarely get negotiated sincerely.)
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Most young men can’t relate to women. They never learned how to. They *are* isolated, group wise. Gendered cliques. Partitioned beliefs.
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The mismatch collides with the conflation. Unfamiliarity manifests as distance. It shatters the illusion of closeness. Of Attachment. Of Intimacy.
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So, men seek new partners. Which is costly, time-wise. And endless stream of bars. Missed encounters. Frustrated desires. Latent cirrhosis.
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Men can reduce that cost. That’s what the PUA stuff is. Cost reduction. Weaponized, faux-attachment. An executed exploit. Mutual loneliness as an attack vector.
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The hack also increases rewards. Bragging rights. But these aren’t orthogonal to attachment. They inhibit it. Persistent, repulsive toxicity. The PUA cost reduction is expensive AF.
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Harm compounds. Unrecognized loneliness persists. Unacknowledged needs go unmet. Gendered isolation is reinforced. For some, this all transmutes into animosity. Misogyny.
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Assuming this, what can you do? Recognize the self-medication. Acknowledge the loneliness. Decide to fix the problem. Not alleviate the symptoms. Learn about women. ...from women.
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Don’t use that as an exploit. A means of sexual infiltration. Stolen access. And, don’t use it to find a partner. (The male "feminist" approach.) You need to find a basis first. A way to navigate. A cognitive and emotional compass. Both for your sake, and women's.
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I’m writing this with the benefit of time. Cheap hindsight. To be honest, I was lucky. I had a lot of close women friends. Real inter-gender intimacy. I had a decent basis. Disused in some contexts, but functional. I recently realized lots of my friends didn’t.
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That’s why I’m writing this. I'm trying to cope with my alienation from them. They curdled as people. Development, arrested. Some former brothers resemble stunted children. Their confusion metastasized. It generated general social deterrence. All manner of connections dissolved.
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You want to avoid that. Mid-thirties bodies. Teenage maturity. It’s a bad combination. A recipe for perpetual loneliness. An accidental, self-imposed exile.
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End of conversation
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