Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

My path to doing this was to encourage interest based communication, in a way that would allow them to take it offline. How? Well to make it interest + geography, i.e. horology nerds in Cumbria, cyclists in London, petrol heads in Cornwall, audiophiles in Suffolk.

By binding together an interest, and a geography, it naturally encourages trade, showing off, having a beer... and coming together. But not in a way that ever was to "cure loneliness" (which few people admit to feeling, and frankly most people find lonely people unattractive people from the perspective of wishing to hang out with someone like that).

By providing a space to share a passion, the forums brought people together.

I had to make our own software to achieve this, i.e. a forum with events built-in by default, etc. But it worked.

Except I couldn't get it funded beyond the crowd-funded angel round :shrug . But still, 250k monthly users, hundreds of marriages, tens of thousands of friendships, and still people meeting weekly for beer and chatting with others.

And like all love, when the lust is gone what remains is something special... these forums are evolving now, from the original interests, into just a group of friends for life.

If I were lonely today, I would say... identify a hobby or interest you could get into, start looking for entry things to dive in, and then look for groups on MeetUp, or forums online, that will help you find other people.

I see people on HN all the time saying that they have better friends far away via social media than they have in their own neighborhoods and offices. It's popular inside the tech bubble to believe that digital communication is as good or better than real communication, but it isn't.

That's a lesson one of my family members is learning right now, and the rest of us by proxy.

She was walking to work one day and got run over by a car. Living in a different state, 1,300 miles from her family, she didn't bother making new friends because she could still communicate digitally with the people already in her online relationship cloud.

But where are they in her time of need? When she needs actual friends, not social media friends? None of her Facebook "friends" are going to go to her apartment and bring clean underwear and toiletries to her in the hospital. None of her Twitter followers are going to move her car so she doesn't accumulate tickets over the next six months when the street sweepers and snow plows come. None of her Instagram people are coming to see her, to comfort her, to see how she's doing and just talk to her during visiting hours.

When she regained the use of one hand, she started looking at social media again, and realized it is all so hollow. Talk, platitudes, and shameless self-promotion does not make a real relationship.

When she comes out of this, I hope she realizes the value of real human-to-human connections. But because she's as addicted to social media as the companies want her to be, I believe she will relapse into the void of fake friendships once again.

The good news is you don’t need a sparkling wit or anything, you just have to show up.

Once people get married and have kids, all of that falls away, and so do the 'friends'. You don't hook up with new people, because either they want partners to ride shotgun with them while hunting for a mate, or they are set up too. What's left are people you have a real connection with, usually people you were friends with since you were kids, and those few family members you can stand being around. For many, that is a small to non-existing group. What's left is your wife and kids, and honestly? The best company there is, IMHO. And I am not worried about what I will do when the kids leave and my wife divorces me, silly me.

A couple years ago my wife asked for a divorce (we are still married but separated). It was very much a wake up call that I was very dependent upon her emotionally and I had neglected my other friendships. I did two things. I invested myself in some old friends from high school and college, but as none of them are living in my city, I realized that I really needed to invest in new friends.

Several friends that I did have were runners, and they suggested that I join one or two local running clubs which I did. I wasn't and am still not a "runner", but now I have so many friends I don't know what to do with myself. I am I'm as happy as I've ever been in terms of having friends with whom to socialize. There are presumably clubs like that in every city. Obviously would help to be a runner, but like I said, I am not. I run for social reasons not because I enjoy it.

Another interesting thing with socializing in middle-age is that 4/5 of my friends now are women. I think that's because women make better friends. They are more outgoing. They are more emotionally aware. They're more willing to invest in friendships. I think guy friendships are harder because of social expectations of of what a male friendship is - especially if like me you don't enjoy drinking or spectator sports.

Being a stereotypically "manly" man would prevent me in particular from expressing some of the things that make me feel the least lonely, from simple things like cooking and being proud of having made some simple art or handicraft, to hugging friends when I feel down, or being able to vent frustration, fear and other negative feelings in a non-violent way. And I'm not even marginalized by any means. Straight white European tech bro, really. In essence, if I felt bound to any common stereotype of "Man: as seen on TV" I'd be barred from having meaningful connections with those I call friends.

I'm one of those men with no close friends. Or any friends, for what it's worth. I've had a few people in my life that I had very good friendships at a time, but all of them now live very far and we don't maintain any contact.

I'm married and my wife covers all my emotional needs. While I realize how dysfunctional such state of affairs is, I just can't bring myself to approach new people. Every time I'm in even remotely social situation, all I wanna do is to go home and be alone most of the time. Even when I do find people with similar interests, I never pursue the connection and follow up. I do realize that total lack of social exposure makes me a dull, boring person and forming connections will become even more difficult as time goes by.

I don't know how to get out of this.

Point being, church participation rates are much lower for men (ironically so, when men are out in men-filled bars looking for female companionship). I believe men leave (or don't try) churches thinking there was/is nothing for them, and then struggle with isolation and lack of respect.

Of course, churches themselves have a lot of work to do to actually incorporate these realities into their teaching and culture. It's more common for churches to treat men as extra flawed or lazy instead of unaware of these problems.

I learned social and emotional skills, which took years of social and emotional work. It didn't cost time or money, but since I was used to intellectual learning, I often felt hopeless, confused, and other emotions I'd never felt from learning. Most things I tried didn't work, but some did and I kept at it.

After a few years I found myself saying how nearly all my relationships after that work were better than nearly any relationship before -- with friends, family, girlfriends, coworkers.

I've concluded that the problem wasn't my work situation or social structures, but that no one taught me social and emotional skills of self-awareness and relationships. In the past, we learned them through things like sports, arts, free play, and other performance-based activities -- the things schools increasingly cut in favor of things amenable to standardized tests. I don't mean art history or art appreciation, but creating and expressing yourself where others will judge your painting, recital, stage performance, etc and you learn to handle it. Nor do I mean sports where adults control everything, but challenging yourself to improve, recovering from loss and failure, etc.

My publisher framed my book Leadership Step by Step https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/... as a business book, since it will probably sell more that way, but it's the book version of the course I teach at NYU to develop these skills. My point is anyone can learn social and emotional skills. When you do, relationships improve and increase in number when you want. People who do the exercises consistently tell me they thought they couldn't learn these things, especially not in a classroom. I felt that way when I learned them. I wish I'd learned them as a child, but it's never too late to learn them.

In all seriousness... I hear this all the time in the rooms... loneliness is a killer. What's crazy is I have a sponsee, who specifically wanted to get sober cause the loneliness was driving him insane. Any reason to get sober and stay is a good reason in my book.

We get together and mostly do activities, like play games or watch movies or go out to eat, and we will help each other out if someone needs it, but I don't really feel too comfortable opening up to them emotionally (well, nothing super personal at least).

I don't really feel lonely, and can talk about most things with my spouse, but I miss having alternate opinions on things.

I especially miss when I had like 20 people on instant messenger that I could have private conversations with on any given evening like I did 20 years ago, because it seems like no one does that anymore, at least not my age. Or at least it seems harder for me to find those people, at least.

Facebook Messenger has the problem where everyone is always online but you can't tell if they're online because they want to chat or online because they're checking their news feed.

Work is the easy one - it’s easy to say “I’m done working today because I want to spend more time with my family”. It’s not so easy to say “I’m done with family time today because I want to spend more time with my friends”. I’m conditioned to feel selfish at such thoughts.

For men who are recognizing that social isolation is a long term risk in their lives and want to do something about it, I heartily recommend looking into these organizations. They're a mixed bag, like anything, but a bunch of guys who can hold anything together for decades should make anyone's list of options to investigate.

Rather than urge men, would it not make more sense to urge charities and hobby organizations to do out reach programs towards getting more men to join? It is what IT sector and the education system has been doing lately in order to increase minority numbers.

I’ve moved around a lot since college, and have had to build a social network from scratch a few times with varying degrees of success.

While the advice to join a social activity centered around a shared interest is solid, it’s not sufficient by itself for making friends. Bridging the gap between hanging out for a given activity to hanging out more generally to being actual friends with someone is hard.

Make one friend that is just down to show up. With at least one friend that you can consistently count on to show up, you can start inviting other potential friends to things and build out your social circle. You have to be open to rejection and to a bit of awkwardness that comes with two semi strangers hanging out. But with one anchor friend it becomes so much easier to make more and it’s the one piece of advice I wish I’d come across sooner.

Women who express feelings of loneliness tend to have more human connections than men expressing similar feelings.

Women claiming to have good friendships still do not indicate high levels of trust like men reporting that they have good friendships.

I wonder why though?

It’s like men are either destined to be lone wolves or a tight knit squad.

I've almost completely cut off any realtime communication and my current lifestyle seems like a luxury which I had been missing earlier. This has helped me to focus on things which I would like to do.

This comes to a point with a family because you have so little extra time that you're very careful to use it wisely. To spend the hours hanging out and getting to know 10 strangers well enough that 1 may become a close friend is just a hard trade-off to make.

As another comment said, it makes one feel selfish. Especially, when that was time you could have spent with your wife and kids. It's hard.

The other thing I think we humans really end up dealing with is being alone. As you age, you simply have fewer and fewer friends. They die. You have less to offer to younger folks and are less mobile to get out. If anything, I think perfecting the ability to make friends would be handy. But I think in doing so, those friends would likely not be "deep" relationships...which gets back again to time.

The relationship I have with my family I feel is much higher quality than I had with my friends.

Friends (like family) can be hard work, maintaining friendships takes time and effort and I'm not willing to put in that effort, and I'm cool with that.

I think it is too simplistic to say having no close friends is good or bad, it depends on your outlook.

Living in a big city quickly became something I didn't see value in after my social life made this kind of shift. I also stopped drinking and stopping seeing much value in "signaling" wealth / success to others. "going out" with people I work with is simply unprofessional and weird (not because I don't drink) and frankly I'm confused why my generation actively tries to facilitate these kinds of overlapping "friendships".

I completely understand when friends of mine tell me they're just too tired or don't have the energy to hang out. I do find it offensive when their reason is "my girlfriend / wife said I have to do this" etc.

So you just be contempt by not having any friends and being busy with work and kids.

Trust me having kids is not all they make it. Insomnia leads to fatigue which leads to loneliness and depression. It hits eventually.

so you can count me as one of those 18% guys. it's just stupid not take into consideration other factors, it's very different for single and/or childless people and for married folks with children, I would like to see difference in statistics for these two groups

my present socialization is just reddit, Twitter and some other mother in playground I like to hang out

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume...

18% of men, 12% of women; 18/30 is... 60%? huh?

I know there are some hobbies that force you into a social situation but most hobbies seem a consumer of time in a reasonably solitary way and thus would further reduce any opportunity to socialise in the scarce hours when one is not working, asleep or traveling to work.

I can explain what moved me away from every friend I've had. Mostly life, and maybe a bit of lazyness from my part...

What I say is: hold on to yours. It's really hard to make friends after a certain age.

In the past 100 years, as people have moved to the city, and as knowledge has diversified, there's this implicit promise that the city will allow you to find others with your interests. In the earlier years, say at University, this holds true. Young people who don't have many other commitments and are supposed to be there anyway, are able to find their own "tribe". At this time, travel time isn't an issue. As people start having to go to work, and travel time is now utilised for breadwinning, there's not as much time and energy slack left over for maintaining in person relationships. Then having children exacerbates this.

So, now you don't talk to your neighbours because people do not group their housing arrangements around their interests, but around market pressures.

So with sprawl, now everyone has to commute to see their friends. People also have to commute to go about their daily business such as grocery shopping. This means that you can't just "swing by" someone else's house, because they might not be there and you've wasted your time. So we ring ahead. This information sharing to be time efficient became an anxiety of "am I bothering X", which now means those calls don't happen as often either. Now everything has to be scheduled, and anyone who can't fit it in is screwed.

There's also one more keyword which I think isn't mentioned here enough. Career. I have felt guilty at times for doing my utmost to maintain my one free night a week to meet our friends meetup schedule. We shouldn't feel this. The pressure for careers and work cuts too often cuts out the final bit of capacity we have left to maintain even some relationships.

So in summary, people who have common interests are spread out by market forces, increasing commute times, forcing scheduling of time together, and that possibility is then snuffed out by the pressures of needing and income or looking after children.

Rehomogenisation of interests is unlikely to happen, and probably shouldn't. Children aren't going away. So that means the two points to address are: Urban sprawl and career pressures. There needs to be more government oversight that is not completely undermined by corporate interests (I'm sure most large corporations would be more than happy if your work mates were the only human contact you had). That government oversight needs to strengthen the regulations around building of decent apartment complexes, not cash cows, because we want people to live in them, not rush out to the edges of suburbia because they can only afford either a garbage apartment or to move out to the suburban edge. Career pressures are best addressed by increasing people's job mobility. People who are anxious about losing their job do not have mobility. If someones workplace is unreasonable about their time, they're going to frequently be unable to schedule things with friends.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+lo...

Have fun conversing about a headline...

I have no friends that I'm not also in a romantic relationship with, and I wouldn't call myself lonely at all outside of a rare fleeting feeling here and there.

Women have friends, with all the emotional baggage that entails.