On Loneliness

Aw Jeez, Not This Shit Again

Thus I am occasionally annoyed when I hear about a male friendship recession, and not merely because the use of “recession” shows that capitalism and economists’ jargon find their way into everything.

I am just a bit weary of being told that I am not good enough for a panoply of reasons. Being told that I don’t have enough friends and that this is problematic is just more of the same old bullshit.

Where are men supposed to make friends after they’re done with school, anyway? At work? To Hell with that. If I can only have a social life at work, then I’d rather not have one at all.

I know better than to try to date at work, so why in Baal’s holy name would I try to make friends there? People are there to do a job and get paid. They don’t give a single little fucking shit about you unless you make their jobs harder.

Unless your workplace is unionized and your job isn’t inherently precarious due to at-will employment, there is no psychological safety to be had at work. Your coworkers aren’t your friends under such conditions. They’re your competition.

It’s bad enough that my access to healthcare depends on my job without having to deal with losing my friends under at-will employment. The only valid workplace community is a labor union.

But Aren’t Loners Dangerous?

I’ve been hearing my whole life that loners are dangerous. That we might be serial killers or stochastic terrorists. Maybe some male loners are like that. But, you know what? Those guys are assholes, and an obnoxious minority. Most guys don’t ask to be friendless, but in our society men are still things and things do not have friends.

You can bet your ass that loneliness is profitable, though. Happy, content people don’t spend as much money trying to distract themselves from the emptiness in their lives. Nor do they work as long or as hard for an illusory sense of purpose in an otherwise meaningless life.

Most male loners aren’t going to murder sex workers or show up at a Chuck-E-Cheese with an AR-15 and shoot the place up. Most lonely men are sad, rather than angry, and they keep it to themselves because they know from experience that nobody gives a damn about them. Unlike me, they are too dutiful and too well-indoctrinated to let Satan into their hearts, realize they’ve gotten a raw deal from life, and get angry about it.

After all, Rule 1 of Manhood is that your feelings don’t matter to anybody but you. Rule 2 is that your feelings should’t matter to you, either.

If this displeases you, you’re welcome. You don’t get to subject generations of boys to endemic emotional neglect, teaching them to bury their emotions so that they can work, fight, or fuck even if their hearts aren’t in it, and then call the consequences “toxic masculinity”. Maybe try giving men roses while they can still smell them, instead of waiting until their funerals?

This Is Why Men Need Feminism?

It seems to be mainly women complaining that men have no friends, just as it seems to be mainly women policing masculinity. It seems to me a more subtle way of dismissing men as trash. However, if men are trash women helped make them that way. It’s not like our fathers, uncles, grandfathers, etc. had much of a hand in raising us. They were too busy working. Why do you think “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin still gets airplay on FM radio stations playing dad rock? Blame capitalism for that, not patriarchy.

By the time boys become men, they are the veterans of a thousand psychic wars. [1] You blame us for our silence, and say it’s time we changed and grew. But the war is still going on, and you might well be the enemy if you — whether subtly or blatantly — police masculinity for the benefit of capital. To be more explicit: if you are a woman demanding of men that they conform to traditional gender roles for your benefit or convenience, you are part of the problem and a hypocrite besides if you claim to be a feminist. 2

You don’t get to police my masculinity. It is my property to do with as I will. Does this fact offend you? Offer it unto your God in private prayer. I am not here to please you. Please yourself, if you can, but for everybody else’s sake do it in private and wash your hands afterward.

But People Are Social Animals

I understand on an intellectual level the importance of friendships and social connections. Emotionally, however, I rebel against the notion of making friends. Making friends requires being a friend. Being a friend is work. I think I do enough work already.

My reluctance to do the work of being a friend means I will most likely remain friendless. I accept that. I knew, even as a child, that loneliness is the price of freedom.

I likewise rebel against the notion of needing other people, or that it is unnatural for people to be solitary. Tell me that I need people, and that there is something wrong with me if I don’t feel that need, and you merely give me something else to defy. Thanks for the fuel.

I’m Not Broken; The World Just Wasn’t Made For Me

I’m not convinced there is anything wrong with me because being sociable and having friends is work I don’t care to do. I merely live in a culture where extroversion is prized, introversion is treated with a particularly noxious version of pity and contempt, and people are expected to have lots of friends despite living in a system that makes friendship incredibly difficult to create, let alone sustain. I’m doing the best I can to live in a suicidal society, but don’t expect me to be “well-adjusted” to a psychotic world.

The question is whether you can be content to have me be friendly toward you without me actually being your friend. Is a cordial acquaintance with me sufficient for you? That’s something you must decide for yourself.

In the meantime, I’m over here doing my own thing. I’ve got my wife and cats, and I live in a library. I’ve made for myself the life I wanted. I’m generally content, even if I’m not happy. [3] If it’s not the life you think I should have, then begone and be damned. [4]