this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Silly men just need to understand that saying "I'm lonely" and "women belong in the kitchen" are equivalent. So don't you dare ever talk or reach out if you're lonely.
It's a real shame that male loneliness is so quickly dismissed because it would be a great starting point to begin talking about how traditional male friendships tend to keep each other at a distance, and maybe come up with ways to bridge the gap so existing friendships can become deeper.
Instead it feels like the conversation just gets to this point where we all collectively shrug and say, "shame" and never really talk about it more than this.
Maybe, just maybe... men don't have deep friendships because "empathy is gay"?
I mean yeah. To start with, casual homophobic phrase: "{blank} is gay" is a very common, very quick social check on behavior; it's saying to be careful of being too effeminate, or too lame, uncool.
I think for children, they first use the phrase more to mean "lame", it's edgy for them and therefore interesting because it's as close to cursing as they can get without cursing. I think that by the time they grow old enough to understand that the phrase can be homophobic, it's likely that the phrase "don't be gay" has already been repeated enough that it creates an unconscious tension to still try to "not be gay", even if the phrase isn't used anymore because "that would be gay."
I think confronting children's fear of appearing "lame" would go a long way in promoting men's willingness to discover how to have deeper bonds with each other, even if it could be awkward at first.
edit: wording
In my career, I have had a lot of contacts with Saudi Arabian men. I’ve sometimes been a bit jealous of the ease and familiarity of their male-male friendships in that culture.
They generally have no qualms about just hanging an arm over a friends shoulder and just keeping it there for a protracted side-hug, seemingly without a thought.
Sure, there are other aspects of the culture that give me pause, but the easy familiarity is something that I think is beautiful.