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Wow, you know that certainly made ME think and also made me flash back to the face my wife pulled when I remarked how my lack of friends doesn't bother me.

Perhaps it should.

I'm an immigrant too, although no language issues, so I have lots of friends in my home country and not many here, a lot of those were expats or work connected and the rest are via my wife and her work - she didn't grow up around here either but is American.

I'd hate to go down that road you talked about and I've seen people do so. We've not been able to have kids either so don't have that path of getting out of our bubble.

Food for thought indeed.

Inverted for me, I have more friends than my partner (via tech meetups and chess club), she's a home bod by nature and only really seems to like going out with me.

I've suggested a few times (gently) that she take her work mates up on their offer of going for a meal (I gather one of the women at work is in a similar boat), I'm introverted by nature so I only socialize in settings where there is a distraction (tech and chess as mentioned) but it's enough social life for me.

I don't really need anyone to bare my soul too, I've always handled that stuff myself.

I'm glad it made someone think :)

This is one of my fastest upvoted comments ever. I think it struck a chord. There's no way of knowing whether it was men or women upvoting, but I have a feeling I'm not the only who has had these thoughts.

I upvoted and while I’m a woman I don’t feel the same at all. I just thought it was an interesting point of view that certainly explains a few behaviors (although not my grumpy dad’s!)

my guess is a fair amount of the upvotes were from men. deep down i think men do realize that we have gaps in our coping skills, but don't fully understand the cause.

fully understand the cause.

The cause is that “society” expects that to “grow up” a man must give up his hobbies and his friends and “settle down” (provide for a family as sole purpose in life).

Someone will say “that’s how the patriarchy harms men too!” But I don’t think I believe that; I don’t think men say “hey bro, we should totally just give up all that cool stuff we do, for no reason”.

A good chunk of us probably have a dad or some other relative that is like that

> Once they get into a stable relationship they seem to think that there's no need for a social life beyond their girlfriend

Or is it that they seek a stable relationship because their social life was already starting to dwindle? And they fall back to letting their partner manage their social life because they simply wouldn't have one at all without that help.

I see it a lot in people I know. They didn't care one bit about having a stable relationship. That is until their friends started becoming busier in life, maybe some moved away for other commitments, and they started to feel lonelier and wanted someone who was going to be there for them.

All this becomes a vicious cycle as each time someone feels the group of friends is no longer able to satisfy their needs and they seek a partner, the group is fragmented even further, making it even more difficult to provide what the group needs. Eventually you reach the point where there isn't a group anymore.

While I don't know if I speak for many men, in my experience the best male friendships are comprised of multiple people. If you don't have that group, it is difficult to have the best kind of male friendship. That is not to say one-on-one friendships are bad or impossible, but it's just not quite the same.

I'm not being snarky, but the converse is that I tend to see a lot of women over-relying on their girlfriends and groups of acquaintances for emotional support and their social life. The concern is this has a big impact on some couples relationships for the worse.

I think that women tend to be better at creating and maintaining relationships (I'm not necessarily talking about romantic relationships here).

I also think that women tend to get more emotional support from their relationships. Men don't really get this (at least explicitly) from their friends. They do get it from their intimate partners. For a lot of men, their partner is the only person they ever 'open up to'.

In general, I think there are strong cultural (and possibly even biological) reasons for the different approach to and amount of emphasis men and women put on socialising. In some circumstances, being a bit of a social recluse can be advantageous (e.g. extreme dedication to particular pursuits such as a career), but in total I think that men as a group suffer for this tendency. They are much more likely to end up alone and lonely in later life (discounting the fact that women live longer). I think this probably plays a large part in the high suicide rates amongst older men.

I think that something that could be done to address this issue - and something that would benefit both men and women in a variety of ways - would be to focus on removing cultural and financial barriers that keep men away from their families and in the workplace. For example, we shouldn't talk about maternity or paternity leave, but instead parental leave. The financial security of families should not be seen as a man's responsibility, but a shared responsibility (this goes back to the seemingly intractable issue of the relationship between financial status and attractiveness of men). These are really ingrained cultural attitudes but we can chip away at them.

Focussing on some of these sorts of issues would be good for men's mental health and a much more productive means of levelling the earnings gap between men and women than focussing almost exclusively on sexist discrimination in the workplace - a red herring in many (but certainly not all) cases. As most people are aware, a significant part of the earnings gap is down to the responsibilities women take on outside of the workplace, such as caring for children and elderly relatives or supporting the local school. We should be looking at what it is that is holding men back from participating more fully in their community. I think by not doing this, many men are missing out on one of the fundamental aspects of being human.

> Are you male? I don't want to assume. But as a woman this is something that really concerns me about the guys I and my friends date. I see my father doing the same thing. Once they get into a stable relationship they seem to think that there's no need for a social life beyond their girlfriend, coworkers, and maybe one or two very close old friends... but those old friends tend to drift away.

Sounds like me!

I don't want more than a couple of good friends. Anything more than that isn't friends, it's acquaintances with delusions of grandeur. That ends up leaving most of the pushing for socialization on my wife's plate, because ... I don't.

That said, I find that women maintaining the social relationships is a bit more stereotype than truth. I know more than a few women that are also pretty shit at it, and they're doubly embarrassed because they don't feel like they're fulfilling their gender role.

Your comment is super important, I don't think everyone who read it realizes how elusive its warning is.

I'm young and already excuse myself by saying that I don't mind having just one or two close friends. But this is how it starts: we tend to think we can handle being mostly friendless, and yet, as we age, it seems that many of us can't.

Not sure what the solution is, but you've definitely underscored a big problem that I've (till now) underestimated. And I'm sure others have too.

I kind of identify with your father. I am in my 40's and about to retire from the military. I do not have any "friends" that are not part of work even though I work with them every day. I don't know if I was ever liberal when I was younger but I have gone more right-wing so to speak. Although I have cut almost all news and TV. I mostly read the headlines and that is about it because just about everything is B.S. and nothing is going to change anyway. I might even be suffering from some kind of ptsd or social anxiety or something, who knows. Just the thought of going out shopping or driving around makes me not want to even leave the house. Oh, and I like guns to. But guns are part of my job.

I hope you think about it. You don't have to change your whole life. Just making a small change to be a little more social will probably help. Like, super, super small.

> I mostly read the headlines and that is about it because just about everything is B.S. and nothing is going to change anyway.

Feeling like that is a strong sign that your emotional resources are close to being overwhelmed. If you're a vet, hopefully you have access to counselling services. I hope you try going at least once or twice. Most people can use a few sessions of counselling, even if they're totally healthy.

I’ll be alright. I’m about to make a pretty big change retiring and all. It will either go really good or really bad.

Off topic but I will say that it is almost criminal how many drugs that the military gives you for problems. Went in for sleep issues and came out with about 8 different meds.

Worst case I’ll just move to Alaska and become a mountain man like Jeremiah Johnson. Just kidding...sort of.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

- HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 1854

I am male but I don’t actually over emotionally depend on my wife, I am just a loner (I lost my interest in friends before I met my wife). My preference for time with my wife is about 30 minutes a day and my daughter about 2 hours a day. I’ll happily spend more than that but my preference would be a book or software project. The problem is that I won’t have a good support network in my old age though.

I fit into your group of males in a stable relationship with no friends beyond that. But I'm an introspective sort of person and I find it more interesting to interact with random strangers on the Internet than I ever would with a friend who I already knew everything about. I'd probably run out of anything to say to any particular person after a while that isn't repetitive.

That doesn't mean I'm going to get sucked into to some kind of tribe like a political party or a religion. Or maybe it's just as accurate to say I already got sucked into a scientific outlook and scepticism at a young age and now find it impossible to escape.

I agree with everything you wrote except that you seem to be implying this is a male thing, when it is equally common for a woman to drop her friends once she is in a stable relationship and to become dependent on her partner for all social interaction (the suddenly codependent girlfriend is something almost all men experience at some point when dating). Later in life it sometimes manifests as an obsession with ones children at the expense of everything else. Suddenly all conversations are about the kids, etc. The phenomenon definitely applies equally to men and women.

It is not at all equally common, it is a known health risk for men that they are likely to have less social support than women, and it is one of the contributors to the very elevated mortality risk of becoming a widower compared to becoming a widow. Here’s a reference to a few older studies if you like - https://books.google.com/books?id=J3-78PdF83kC&pg=PA201&lpg=...

Social support and codependency are two different things. A codependent person will transfer their dependency to someone else. I was pointing out that codependent women drop their female friends just like some married men do.

There's an old saying: "A conservative under 30 has no heart. A liberal over 30 has no brain."

People age, and that includes their personalities.

It's not a great saying, and it is a myth that people naturally become conservative as they age.

It's not a myth. It's a fact. Younger people are more naive and idealistic. Older people are more skeptical and conservative.

I meant politically.

The idea that people naturally veer to the right of the political spectrum as they age is a myth.

Tell that to auto insurance companies

Interesting perspective. For some it's a lot of effort to maintain social relationships and life is so busy, free time is precious and spent relaxing.

Did your mum take a break from paid work for raising you? I think this is a large (not sole) contributor to the effect (certainly in the past) - that women would often be raising children at home and naturally fall in to socialising amongst each other through their shared situation. Men, then will often focus on work to make up for not being at home, and to ensure a good household income -- which can lead to being too tired to socialise, which quickly leads to losing friends.

Would be interesting to see some stats to see if this narrative hypothesis is born out; do married/monogamously partnered men who become sole breadwinner lose more friends than those in other situations.

You just made me take a long look at my current trajectory. Very thought provoking. Indeed, I can see a distinct split in the people in my life who are in group A (closed off, social life is family dependent) and those in group B.

What precisely bothers you? That he changed his politics or that he's lost his friends? I'm not sure these are that related. I moved when I married and though I see fewer friends now and have fewer locally, those I would have here are far closer to the political spectrum you don't seem to like, as it is the case for many city dwellers who move out to the burbs for more space and cheaper housing.

Neither of those. It's the emotional burden that he imposes on my mom, making her manage his emotions because he has no other outlet.

In your father's case it might be because he has no other emotional outlet. But as a male with a decent social life I still don't feel comfortable making my friends an emotional outlet. I'd rather not talk to them about things that are frustrating me or making me feel stressed. So my significant other still gets the brunt of that.

In fact most of my male friends also don't get too deep in discussing their feelings. So it might not just be a lack of friendship, but a deeper problem which is men having a hard time discussing their emotions with others.

There is talking about being angry primary with wife and then there is not talking much except seemingly random outburst of anger or other unpleasantness. I think that parent talked about the latter, when you are annoying and mean without talking about why, but expect other people to be nice to you because you feel bad.

> I think that parent talked about the latter, when you are annoying and mean without talking about why, but expect other people to be nice to you because you feel bad.

Correct. My dad is not angry with my mom or any particular person. He just gets cranky and grumpy if my mom doesn't socialize him.

My suggested antidote is involvement in civic groups. Neighborhood associations, block watch/civilian patrols, volunteer fire dept., Lion's club, Rotary club, Library board, school board, etc. These are very productive channels for adult male socializing, because they provide a healthy pretense to satisfy the masculine desire to be useful and important to the community, without ostensibly showing the need social bonds which many men might feel shows weakness.

What emotions, though? He just sounds like an angry person. I am sure dealing with that is a burden on your mom, but an angry person is going to be a burden no matter how many friends they have.

Few people are simply angry. There’s usually some strong emotional attachment to something. All emotions have a root cause. Having a way to process and ultimately let go of such negative attachments is crucial to overcoming things like chronic anger. Therapy/meds are valid options.

That’s a pretty sad view on humanity isn’t it? When they get angry throw them in the garbage?

I never suggested they be thrown in the garbage. I was just saying that dealing with an angry person is a burden.

TBH seem like your mother is doing same to you, they are adults and you should not worry about these things as their child

I would like to do activities and meet new people and have social life, but what will you choose - spending time with your kids or social life? I can't go for beer or travel or whatever while holding hand of toddler.

But people without children really have no excuse.

edit: to make things even worse if i go somewhere by myself with child, all i see are groups/cults of mothers discussing parenting stuff, it's very rare to see men, they are too busy working and it's very unlikely to make non romantic female friend

I don't know where you live, but in my town it's very common to bring children to have a beer. The local brewery even has complimentary diapers in the mens bathroom. I count myself lucky to have that as an option, but even if I didn't I would see if friends wanted to go down to the waterfront to have a beer and let my kiddo run around happy as can be.

Travel is certainly more difficult than it used to be, but I've found that the types of trips I used to turn my nose up at (all-inclusive resort-ish) are appealing in a completely new way. We can put the toddler down to bed, set up a baby monitor, and go down and enjoy ourselves like we're actually adults, often meeting new folks.

i think it's completely unheard in many European countries, you have family restaurants but that's not place to hang out with other and man looking after children it's still very rare

Great comment, I think that needed saying.

I don't doubt the gender asymmetry that you imply; do you care to speculate about why it exists among middle-aged people?

Society gives adults little time to themselves. Most of your adult, waking hours are at work. But it’s imperative to keep some distance between work and personal life. So a large majority of your adult life is blocked out from genuine social connections.

Our days and hours are very scarce resources...almost all taken from us. I think the Spanish accommodated this by decreasing their daily work hours. If the US did that the US would employ more people, more meaningfully, and benefit from increased social “health”.

I barely hang out with friends anymore; I do see it as a problem, but the punchline of the article rings true to me (first night both men are available is in 3 months).

For a while I would make friends with people in their early 20s, as that was the age group that would be randomly free after my kids were in bed. I'm approaching 40 now though and am not sure how socially acceptable this still is...

This like the opposite of my experience.

I'm male and in a long term stable relationship and my true friends are just as important to me as they ever were. They are like family to me.

On the flip side my girlfriend has decided she suddenly no longer has much interest in hanging out with her friends, which is concerning. I have solitary hobbies I enjoy, and I can't fill the gap that her friends have left.

I don't think that's gender related, though I don't have data to confirm this, only an anecdote. In my relationship it's the other way round - I'm usually the one responsible for organizing dinner with friends, nights out, trips etc. and my girlfriend can happily spend weeks at home without going out.

This is obviously a concern, but I think personality has a lot to do with it.

I haven't made new 'friends' because I just don't want more of a social life. I am a pretty strong introvert; I am loud and friendly and boisterous, but spending time with people tires me out.

During the week, I get up at 6am, spend time with my daughter while I get her ready for daycare. Then, I go to work, where I am talking and laughing and having fun with coworkers all day while I work. Then, I come home, picking up my daughter on the way home. We go for a walk, she tells me all sorts of stuff, and then I make dinner while my wife watches her. We eat, get our daughter to bed, and by then it is around 8pm or so. At this point I am tired, and just want to relax, maybe read or watch TV a bit, chat with my wife, and go to sleep. There is no way I would have the energy or time to socialize on weeknights; I am all socialed out from work. The few times we do have plans during the week, I dread it because I know how tired and unsocial I am going to feel.

On the weekends, I am spending time with my daughter and wife. In the morning, I will make us breakfast and we will either play outside or go for a hike. We then take her home for a nap, and we do chores around the house. I always feel like there is not enough time on the weekend to get everything done.

I have a few close friends who live far away; we all play video games together once a week. I chat with my family, and between my nieces and nephews on both sides, there are a lot of video chats to have.

How is this a bad thing? Why do I NEED more friends than what I have? I am not sure what more 'emotional support' I need; I am a super happy person, always optimistic, and my wife is there for me when I need her (which isn't super often). I also can talk to my parents and sister if I needed more emotional support, or my two close friends if they weren't around.

I don't think your dad's issue is lack of relationships, he just sounds like he is an angry person. Is he retired? Being retired is a WHOLE different dynamic.

In fact, the biggest thing I feel I am lacking is ALONE time to work on hobbies. Before I got married and had a kid, I had all sorts of fun hobbies I did; I built airplanes and helicopters, I built robots, programmed games for fun. I like building and designing stuff, alone in my workshop, but I don't have enough time now to do it very often. This is a fine sacrifice to make, because I love my family and want to spend time with them, but it isn't like I am sitting somewhere lonely.

I am curious, however, if there is something you think I am missing by not having more friends. I certainly can't see it, because the idea of having more friends that I have to visit and see just makes me feel tired even thinking about it.

That sounds like a really nice life honestly, and it sounds like if you need any emotional support you get it from your family or your few close friends. Some people need more than that, whether they realize it or not, though.

I can't say what you need, I don't know you. Maybe you could ask your wife if she thinks you need more friends? If she says something like "eh? Why?" then you're probably fine. But if you get a long pause and then, "Well, it wouldn't hurt..." then maybe you should ask her more questions.

I’d suggest you’re doing fine as you are. But I would also suggest making the time to talk to a therapist once a quarter or year, at least. Just so you’re not tempted to rely on your daughter or wife for emotional support that would be easier handled by a friend or therapist. Outside viewpoints help infinitely more than very close associations for many sorts of issues.

Thank you for this comment! Gives me a lot to think about. Bookmarked.

Funny enough, I'm male and I could say the same things about my wife. I'm the one with friends and she's lost contact with everyone...

Lots of supportive replies to this post, but I'm going to take a different tack - I think you may have pretty badly mis-diagnosed what's going on there.

Firstly, getting more conservative as you get older is normal. And having fewer friends as you get older is normal. There are even jokes about it. You are trying to link the changes in your fathers politics to not having many friends, but you haven't argued why there's a causation vs just being a correlation.

I strongly suspect from your wording that this is because you can't accept that your fathers new politics might have any substance to it. You certainly don't sound like you try to understand why he's angry: you described him as changing from "open minded" (good, positive, liberal) to "recites stuff he heard on TV" (bad, closed minded, conservative). Maybe he feels angry because when he tries to explain how he sees the world and what concerns him, his daughter dismisses him and looks down on him? That'd make any parent kind of upset.

Secondly, you seem to be implying that men over-rely on women for emotional support. Perhaps that's been your experience. As a man, in every relationship I've ever been in, the woman has heavily relied on me for emotional support. This is especially true when in a stable relationship. If anything, girlfriends seem to cause more emotional needs than they solve - a non-trivial amount of emotional support needs that come my way seem to boil down to dramas or blowups between girlfriends.

Finally, I'm not sure men see "no need for a social life" once they get in a relationship. That's a very odd belief. One sad reality is that once a man gets in a stable relationship, women tend to make it hard to sustain relationships with anyone else, whether men or women. This is a pattern I've seen over and over again. I don't think it's really planned or deliberate but it happens. The first to go are obviously any female friends. Many women can't handle their man having close female friends especially if they're single or might become so. But it's pretty common for women to disapprove of male friends too, or to get upset if the man spends too much time out drinking with his buddies instead of spending it with her. The inevitable result is that the man has to pick: friends or girlfriend.

Anyway. If you really want to rebuild your relationship with your father, I suggest a two pronged approach:

1) LISTEN to him when he talks about politics and even engage with him. Don't attack him or make it clear that you feel your own politics are morally and intellectually superior. Ask him why he feels guns are so important, try to see the world from his perspective. If he's always talking about things he heard on TV that implies those are the things that vex and concern him the most. You don't have to agree, but if he feels you're at least trying and can make peace with that, it'll help.

2) Stop trying to find explanations for the way he's changing, especially dubious correlation/causation mixups that boil down to sexist generalisations. People do change as they get older. Moreover the world changes, and young people who have a less fixed identity are often more willing to bend to fit whatever way the wind seems to be blowing. If someone's personality or beliefs don't change with time, that can look to a younger person as if the person's personality has changed when from their perspective it's actually the world that's changing and they stayed the same i.e. what you see as "open mindedness" is in reality just a willingness to accept whatever odd new modern idea comes along, even ideas that seem self-evidently nonsensical to your father.

Sounds like you have a great dad. How about you take him to gun range to bond and get to know people

Is it possible to have a discussion about anything without someone bringing politics to it?

> He's my dad and I love him, but needless to say, when I see my partners going down the same path, it freaks me out.

Your dad is your partner?

> It seems impossible to have normal, non-political conversations with him anymore, he just doesn't have any knowledge or interest that doesn't come from TV.

And here you are doing the same thing. How about not making everything political? Things are toxic as it is. Do you need to bring toxic politics to HN?