You've been doing this for the whole time, and then you've been in the mood.
No, not at all. I'm so sorry, my taste base. You're all right, right? Yes, exactly. I'm so sorry that I'm just a part of the studio. I'm just a part of the studio or a part of the studio. I'm sorry, I'm not so sorry.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. With what? What's the point? Mama, how do you feel the great love of you? Hmm, what? What?
And so creamy. Hey, how can a Papa creamy be? Nutella. It's Nutella from Mama already. Nutella is Nutella.
My loneliness is killing me. So you think the male loneliness epidemic is due to capitalism. Yes, there is an economy for this.
This is probably the first generation of men forced to navigate the type of self-hate
and body dysmorphia that we've previously only ever demanded of women. That's not good for men. It's not good for women. It's not good for anyone. It's not good for children. It's not good for dogs.
It's not good for cats. Instead of gaming, how about pottery? Instead of a pornography, how about gardening?
“Let us know in the comments if you want to see us go undercover as a lonely man.”
You can't progress on a problem and try to move towards a solution unless you name the problem and then you discuss it and then you put it out there in the world. There are no silver bullets but there are still the linings. And what I mean by that is that there are no quick fixes. It's like I'm proud of us for tackling what is actually like a pretty complex topic.
I'm as confess, I still believe, still believe. I'm Sherry, I'm Jean, and where the Tiger Sisters. We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast bringing late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Hey guys, we really need to talk about the male loneliness epidemic.
Is it actually an epidemic? I mean I'm pretty sure it is.
This is the first of a series that we're doing where we're doing kind of this like cultural
investigation episode where we talk about this cultural touch point and we really get into it with lots of facts and figures but also a real life male correspondent coming your way. Yes, and so today in this episode we're going to be doing three things. Number one, we're going to examine the rise in loneliness across the board. Number two, we're going to hone in specifically on cultural touch points that explore
male loneliness in the most recent years. And number three, the thing that I'm most excited for, we're going to sit down with a real life man. My friend Ron Busby is going to share some of his experiences and thoughts on this topic.
“By the end to wrap it all up, we're going to have some key takeaways that our things”
that people can do both men and women to address male loneliness so that we can all live in a happier and more connected world together. Today's episode is presented by SoFi, the all-in-one finance app that helps you bank, borrow, and invest your money in one place. Okay, so what are we really talking about today?
So let's start with facts and figures. In 2023, Equimundo released a study that showed that the majority of men from Gen Z to Elder Millennials agreed with the statement no one really knows me. That actually kind of breaks my heart? It's like Loki's so sad.
It's really sad. Not a single person. Okay, well, this next stat is even sadder. The research from the Survey Center on American Life found that 15% of men claim that they have no close friends.
Should we actually be worried about this? Yeah, I mean, I understand why people are calling it epidemic.
“So can you please help us to find what an epidemic actually means?”
Yes, okay, so according to Oxford, an epidemic is a rapid spread of disease affecting a large number of people in a community or region, far exceeding what's normally expected.
So it's basically somewhere between an outbreak and a pandemic.
I think this is actually the main thesis of this entire episode, which is how something that's called the male loneliness epidemic is something that has become everyone's problem in society. I'm excited to leave this episode on a very positive note because, like, throughout you're going to notice, there are some pretty bleaks statistics, but there are really good outcomes
if we work together on this, and I'm not saying we're going to solve male loneliness in the next, like, 30 minutes to an hour, but I think as long as, like, we're having more of a discussion on it, we're able to break it down for people, so that it's more understandable. It's not something that we should be afraid of, but it's something that we should just
continue to have more conversation around. Exactly, and the first way you can address a problem or first way to solve a problem is to name it and address it, which is what we're going to do today. I think first, let's break down the concept of loneliness, and even the idea of male loneliness, like, why is that such a term in culture today?
And do men experience loneliness in a way that's different than the way women experience it? Yeah, it's really interesting that it's marketed this way, because isn't everyone lonely? There's just, like, a loneliness epidemic in general, because before it was reported by the CDC
coming out of the pandemic, that in 2023, there was just, like, rising levels of loneliness
Across the board.
Yeah, I mean, I am, I experience that.
“I must say, I think a lot of people were really lonely during the pandemic, and that's”
why people were like drinking so much wine. I think another thing that happened during the pandemic is that everyone got used to being so, like, online, and remember, like, the online happy hours they would have after work, like a Zoom call at, like, 4 p.m. on a Friday, and you're like, "Please, let me leave." I don't want to leave.
Look, as I cannot show, I can't show my face on the screen anymore. Well, I don't even want to look at a screen anymore, so yeah, but so there've been a lot of studies on that now. So there's this 2024 study from Harvard that showed that 73% of people say loneliness is because of technology.
Yeah, I think there's also this concept of, like, social snacking where, like, you are on your phone all the time. You're scrolling through things. You might feel like you're watching people's stories, and you're like, "Oh, I kind of know them, but you're not actually interacting with them in real life."
But I'm like, "Oh, I know everything about what they're doing day to day." It's like, weird, parasocial thing that happens now on social media, right? Yeah, you're not actually getting any real life synchronous connection with people where you're, like, exchanging energy and atoms, and, like, you know, resolving humanliness. Quality time?
Yeah. Yeah, there is no quality time on social media with another person I feel like.
“Yeah, so I think that's why it's called, like, social snacking.”
It's like, you're just getting these little nipples or, like, niblets of social interactions throughout the day, but it doesn't actually add up to a full meal.
Like, you're never actually going to be full from it.
Yikes. And to top it all off, the economists had an article come out in 2025 that highlighted declining marriage rates due to a gap in higher education and economic independence, especially among women and digital life, replacing physical life. Yeah, this is a great sort of precursor to our next episode where we're going to talk
about this whole entire concept of how women are now choosing to be single because they don't want to marry down. Yeah, so check out our galantines day episode coming next week, not too much away. Not where we talk more about this. Yeah.
So I think, like, all these stats are helpful to sort of set the stage, but also I want people to know that, like, you don't have to feel depressed about it, right? Like, I think we're doing the right thing here, we're doing the work. Yeah, we're doing the work and actually naming it. And once we name it and we talk about it, then we can actually, you know, work to solve
it. So I think, like, another person who's done a really good job of bringing it to light is actually Scott Galaway. Yeah, he recently had a conversation, I think it was in December of last year with Oprah. And it was super eye-opening because they talk about the rising levels of loneliness, disconnection,
and emotional suppression. Reality is, men need relationships much more than women. The statistics are pretty stark if you walk into a morgue and there's five people died by suicide for men. I'm in marketing.
We used to think that it was sex itself. And the algorithms found something that sells even more in terms of gluing you to a screen. And that is rage. I mean, I don't necessarily agree with everything Scott Galaway says, but I think it's important to have a man, especially a man that, like, other men are looking up to.
That's not part of the manosphere and we'll get into that. But like, they see another man being vulnerable and talking about this. And I think that's also making a step in the right direction.
“I think a really important thing that Scott Galaway called out in his episode was the fact”
that for men in society, especially Western society, the most socially acceptable form of expressing dissatisfaction or unhappiness is anger. Yeah. That kind of perpetuates in a lot of different ways. Well, I think it's just like men can feel complex emotions, but the way that it's
outwardly expressed is through anger. Sadness, loneliness, like, these other emotions, you know, there's many more of them, but they all kind of funnel in to like, oh, like Hulk smash. And that's exactly why male loneliness is a public problem. It's like, that's why it's actually a public health problem.
That's why it's everyone's problem because the way that men sort of metabolize loneliness, metabolize dissatisfaction, metabolize depression is outward anger. As opposed to, I think, the way that women are socialized and the way that we've grown up our entire lives is to sort of like, push it down, not make other people uncomfortable when we're uncomfortable.
Right?
Like, we're always reading the room.
We're always being like, is everyone else okay? Like, we are trained to like sit on our emotions and more of a private issue. Yes. It's a private issue. I think that is the main difference is private versus public expressions.
Yeah, it's interesting because like this problem, it's like very circular because I think men are taught not to show a multitude of emotions by society. They're like, look, it's looked down upon and because of that, they're like bottling everything up and then it explodes into anger. It's just like this reinforcing loop.
That's not good for men.
It's not good for women.
It's not good for anyone.
It's not good for children. It's not good for dogs. It's not good for cats. It's bad for everyone. It's bad for all around.
“It's like a reinforced thing in society too because I think a lot of men are facing their”
emotions by bottling it up whereas like women in society have other women to lean on. It's like the male loneliness. They're lonely because they can't talk to anyone about their feelings because then once they do, they become vulnerable and they open up and that's not accepted. So it's like women have, I mean, cry alone when they're sad or depressed in private.
Right. Right in bathrooms together, except bathrooms or like they have a stronger friend group that they can rely on and you know, vent with in like a healthy way. There's this 2025 article in the American Institute for Boys and Men founded by Richard Reeves where they found that many men are with drawing instead of trying harder and trying
to actually engage in society. So what they're doing is they're going on less states, they're having less sex. They are spending more time on solitary activities so that's gaming. That's streaming. That's watching pornography.
That's creating online communities that are harmful, harmful and not so savory. I mean, instead of gaming, have a pottery instead of pornography, how about gardening? What about being one with the earth and, you know, sewing some seeds? Oh, my God, in the actual physical garden. She wants you to go and touch grass or touch clay.
Yes.
Basically, she's like touch one of two things.
Grass or clay. V1 with the earth. She thinks a small amount of meloonliness. Like by the way. Did I?
She thinks she solved it. Did I go on a hike? Get a dog.
“I think these are, these are like legitimate suggestions.”
These are just all things that Sherry enjoys doing. Right. Like go for a swim in the morning. Go for a morning swim in like a cold pool, seek therapy or a biggest nerve. Yeah.
I think all these things are really good. Get a massage. What if we do the opposite? What if in in service of investigative journalism, we do all these things. True.
What if we? Yeah. Yeah. And then I recommend them to all the men out there who are. No.
I'm saying what if we stream? We game. We watch more than I can be. No. I think I'd be sad if I did all those things like exclusively.
You know what I mean? Well, yeah. I mean that's what this study found. Yeah. So it's not good.
But you could prove it by trying it. No. Thank you. Pass.
“Let us know in the comments if you want to see us go undercover as a lonely man.”
If you were a real journalist, you would do it. If that were real investigative journalists. That's true. I am not a real investigative journalist. I challenge you.
Okay. Well, one more thing I think is very interesting is that obviously we've brought a ton of stats and studies and research into it. But even the concept of loneliness itself is very internal and it's all very self-reported. So we're still relying on men even recognizing that they're lonely, which I suspect.
It's still heavily under-reported because that's not something you want to admit to yourself. Yeah. Even I'm not a man. I'm a woman. But in times when I've been lonely, you don't want to admit it.
It's sad. It makes you even more lonely to admit that you're lonely. It's like right. It's so lonely. Wait, that's like the saddest thing ever to be like I'm lonely.
Well, I actually a couple of months ago, like in 2025, remember I had like a lonely face. And then I had, like, this was a real thing where I then I felt bad because she was living with me. I'm like, why are you lonely? We're hanging out all the time.
Well, it wasn't, it's not like you're, it's your fault. I do something I was feeling internally. No. But I felt bad too. Oh.
You're such an empath. You don't need to be a problem. But I think the thing that I was dealing with was that like, there's a difference between feeling lonely and just being alone. You can be alone without being lonely for sure.
It was just something that like towards the end of last year. I felt like I was hanging out with my sister for work, my like one really good friend and LA and then my boyfriend and I was just like, where are my other friend? Like I was just so concentrated on like those three relationships that I felt, I felt lonely. Because I think I'm used to it like just being around a lot of people all the time.
Yeah. But I was like hyper focused on just like work stuff so that consumed a lot of my life. Yeah. And so it's balancing loneliness versus alone with a heart around it. Yeah.
I mean, I think actually you are really, really good at being alone in a healthy way.
So like you're one of the first people that I knew that was going to see movies by yourself
because you thought it was fun. Yeah. This was like groundbreaking. It was like groundbreaking to me. Wait, guys.
The first time ever this year in 2026. She went to the movie theater by herself by myself and it was so fun. Can we do a breaking news banner and some like news, music, breaking news, what
Been going to the movies alone by herself for the first time?
Yeah. I mean, you were out of town. You were skiing.
“So I was like, I guess I'll go by myself.”
I actually feel like this is like a pretty new phenomenon, just like in culture, like taking yourself out. Because I see it on TikTok, like girls like, oh my god, like this is a huge milestone and it is. I've just been doing it for a couple of years.
She read it so low. I'm so low. I'm a big Jason DiRolo. Jason DiRolo.
The second season solo did her the song with playing in my head.
Really? It was fun. You can like bring a book, bring a candle and then just enjoy you time, get whatever you want. You don't have to compromise. Like we're not sharing apps.
All these apps are for me. So get whatever you want. It's like really refreshing solo, dollo. Solo, dollo. So I guess you're not lonely anymore anymore.
But back to this idea of lonely men. So have you ever been affected by lonely men? Yeah. So in my early 20s, I dated the sky and very early on. I realized that he didn't have many close guy friends or girlfriends for that matter.
Also, I guess he didn't really have that many friends period.
But very interestingly, I introduced him to my group of guy friends, my group of friends
and the guys that he met. It was uncomfortable and my guy friends later told me that it was just really weird because there's the guy I was dating had like an alpha energy. He couldn't really connect with my guy friends. He was trying to like one up them or kind of put them down.
It just wasn't like a fit for personality which is weird because I like the guy I was dating and I also like my guy friends. So I thought they would be able to get along. So it was very odd that there was this like macho energy, machismo, machismo energy. Yeah.
So I don't know. I've like seen it up close that like he didn't really have that many friends and wasn't able to form that connection. And like did you see some of these other symptoms like you felt like you had to be the one to, I don't know, like initiate conversations about like how are you feeling?
Like you seem like you had a bad day like he was definitely avoidant and I was definitely anxious in my early 20s. So anxious plus avoided is not a good combo for two people to be dating in your early 20s when we're still developing our prefrontal cortex, but also he was like very repressed. Like I think he went inward a lot.
“There was a lot of gaming and a lot of streaming in which that's what was gonna ask.”
Interestingly enough. I didn't actually put that together until like we're kind of talking about it. But he did game a bit and like have I think a lot of his internal stuff going on. Well thank you for sharing. I think that's really interesting to have like your account of your experience of
it. And I also think it is the perfect time to bring on an our male course funded. A real life man. A real life man. My friend Ron Busby and we'll get into the conversation with Ron right after this
break. So you know how every year I have a new year's resolution around finances. Oh, I have one two for twenty twenty six, new year new opportunity to get our money right. And part of that is having a bank that isn't just a place to park our cash, but something that actually works for us.
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started for just 10 dollars a month. Go to sofa dot com slash tiger plus that's sofa dot com slash tiger plus. And now back to our show we're really excited because this is our male course Sponent
section of the podcast first ever.
First ever and we'd like to welcome Ron Busby who is my friend from college and also the co-founder and head of product of buy black which is a company that helps and empowers black owned businesses and business owners. Thank you all so much for having me really appreciate it. Yay.
Welcome to the diagnosis just podcast. Yes. Happy to be here. What's happening? Say long time listening to first-time callers.
There we go.
“You ready to dive into the male loneliness epidemic?”
Yes. You know I'm looking forward to unpacking this and I think entering the inner recesses of the male mind. What could possibly be going on there. So Ron, are you lonely?
Starting off like that. Yeah. The real question is when you hear the phrase like male loneliness as we've been talking about in this episode, what parts resonate with your own lived experience and what parts feel overstated or misunderstood?
Yeah. I think that in many ways, yes, I think we all naturally feel some degree of loneliness. I think it's really important to own that and not pathologize it as something so unique and
Only exclusive to men to your question around, you know, what does it mean or...
about that?
For me, at least, when we talk about male loneliness, what I'm more interested in is the
idea of like male alienation.
“And when we talk about it from that idea, I think we're able to better point to who and”
what are actually creating and facilitating that kind of reality, that to me is way more dangerous and pernicious, but it's actually more emblematic of what is at the stakes for men today. Yeah, you mean like self alienation, male self alienation? Funny enough, I think it's more about what society and our economy and what our educational
system are doing to men and ultimately how that sort of creates these ripple effects. And if we are able to have a modicum, a bit of like earnest empathy, then we actually may be able to step outside of this idea of like, oh, it's a male problem or it's men's problem rather than actually like we have a social media infrastructure that has actually benefiting from us being on our phones rather outside with each other.
And that actually then sort of doubles down into all these other realities that we're experiencing. Yeah, I think it's a pretty bold take for you to say that society is kind of causing the sort of male alienation crisis when we live in a patriarchy.
I think the reality is that right patriarchy impacts men and what as well.
And so the idea that men aren't victims is exactly what allows us to create this binary. Right, this conversation is currently very heteronordative, but like the idea that men aren't also at risk of some sort of violence by the systems that they've also created, it robs them of the agency and robs them of the capacity to be empathetic individuals in this.
“And so I think that's also what's really important.”
Yeah, that's an interesting nuance, but I find it quite frustrating slash like, I don't know, like my head is on fire in the sense that like women have been, um, I don't know, like, I don't even want to say victims, but like the patriarchy has been inflicted onto them. And like for the first time in society, like in social times, I feel like men are
feeling like the patriarchy being inflicted onto them and being like much more vocal about
it because of the male loneliness epidemic. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's no doubt about it. Men are particularly lonely, but you know, I think there was this beauty that came out in 2025 that said that 15% of women feel lonely all or some of the time, but 16% of men feel lonely all or most of the time. And I think what's important is actually realizing that we are all experiencing loneliness. And the reality
is it just happens to be at least in my perspective is that it's just more dangerous when men are lonely. Okay, so Ron, what I'm hearing is that there is a rising loneliness epidemic across the field for both men and women and perhaps it is more visible for men, but let's dive into the definitions here. I know one thing that we've seen is that the UN actually put together
a glossary of terms that are sort of in the male loneliness-manosphere world. So we don't have to go by the UN definition, but I would love to hear from you. What are some sort of
“key terms that are in this sort of ecosystem and like how do you define them?”
Yeah, I think one of them is probably like manosphere, right? I think part of come up and I think manosphere is this conglomeration of media websites, places that men most often digitally are talking about all these things as it relates to their own views and their own skews around the economy, around diversity, around politics and around dating. And so those things end up having I think often times a very like productized element, right? So a podcast in between the
ad break is going to sell you the carnivore diet or is going to sell you the blue choose and the pills for erectile dysfunction or is going to tell you that what you really need to do is take more testosterone. And so the idea that actually there is an infrastructure that both pirates and profiteers can participate in that push this kind of element is really what fuels an economy of the manosphere. I'm like so terrified of that because it becomes this like
really scary echo chamber where it's like it's the manosphere and like the ad that you're seeing the guests the voices when you say diversity I'm like thinking my head I'm like diversity of what like a what guests are they having like literally height or like beard or no beard. I think that's about right I mean and the I think recognizing that there is a language that we are maybe not a part of as much and when I say we I probably am more adjacent to it than most just by virtue of gender
but like knowing that there are worlds that you just can't access and because of that you actually may not understand or appreciate how insular it does sort of create a spiral effect downward sometimes.
I think nowadays too like the manosphere and outside of the manosphere like e...
algorithm. So when you are a part of the manosphere you just go deeper and deeper into that hole or like you know whatever you're into you just are in that vertical and like what you're watching is not what other people are watching. You were even added as you know I was having a conversation with my 10 year old cousin and we were joking about what chads were and what giga chads were and what looks maxing was. That's going to this. You know the idea that he gets it almost in an ambient way.
He understands what this is. He made it necessarily by end of this he's not necessarily looking to nag women but like he understands at some level what the language is and so knowing that that actually means that he is more primed to be able to both negotiate and navigate what other men are talking about is concerning. I know we kind of have pointed at this but the idea that inseal culture has just sort of really become a layer on top of the way that we talk about all of
this. I want to say it's even like 4B is the language when you talk about like you know women in terms of this but the idea that I'm not familiar with 4B this is like Korean movement where women are saying that they are not going to have children because they want to opt out of basically the patriarchy
“and like the expectations put on them. So I think the idea that inseal culture as it particularly”
is relevant to men but like the fact that me and a 10 year old 20 years apart can be connected to some degree in our conversations about muting and you know mocking is really it almost feels like a foreign language when I'm right next to his mother and she's trying to understand like what part of the world is he on and it's like well like maybe we need to get off of video games or maybe we need
to not be I don't know streaming on Twitch and I think the reality is that there are a lot of people
who are actually doing a great job of meeting people where they are, meeting them in the mediums that there are in and to actually demand maybe a different perspective to some degree letting those men and letting those spaces only operate and exist for a certain type of politics and idea can only allow a defester as well. Okay so I agree with your concept but when you set it I definitely bristled because I was like okay like why do we have to do this just because men are having
these sort of like dangerous conversations in these spaces like why do we have to go into these spaces and insert ourselves because it's never happened for women right like in society it's not like when women are sad and depressed or lonely there's no there hasn't been an effort to do the same thing to like enter women spaces and like help women that way not that you know I know you don't represent all men but you are a male correspondent and you did propose that as a solution and so I
would say this I don't think that this is the responsibility of and I put this like air quotes of women to solve exclusively or even in any majority way right I'm not necessarily looking
and pointing a finger and saying you know what the problem is you're not on Twitch right now live
“you know talking to the boys that's not I'm not demanding that I think what I'm more”
so saying is that it's going to any real progress is going to really require a deeply inclusive strategy on how we actually push this agenda forward and I think that there it's a much easier to be austere and say hey you know we don't want to practice a politics of purity hey this is the way that it gets done anything that's not in that is actually not worthy of my time and the reality is these conversations are happening and so whether it's me or my friends or whatnot we owe it
to ourselves to actually extend an olive branch and bring those men in because we know that you know male loneliness right men are three times three or four times we're likely to quit suicide right
so the reality is the mass violence the the shootings the the people who are
most at risk of the downstream impacts of loneliness can't afford for me to be like I was like
“it's not my problem it's it's not where I personally want to be I think that's really important in”
that regard and then just to put a point on it would you say that the prevailing cultural force like is the manosphere is that the majority and we're just like so stuck in our ivory towers that we have no concept of it I absolutely don't think that the manosphere is some sort of dark horse in all of our politics that somehow is operating at some cabal level that is you know the the the new aluminum of like the way that we exist what I do
think is that we probably are not doing enough to really own and accept how important it is to bring men into progressive agendas also around before you mentioned some vocab words and I kind of want to get into some definitions you said Chad giga Chad muting mugging like what is the overall definition for a Chad a Chad is this internet term for a generic alpha male or a
Or a dominant man they are oftentimes I guess like an effortlessly formidable...
I think put as this archetype an archetype of what oftentimes in sell men are trying to compete against
and so they kind of have this almost seemingly easy way of existing through life and it almost robs these guys that they're calling Chads of the ability to be you know broken or upset or you know insecure and because they are not a lot empathy because they should be easily able to kind of operate and move through life it creates these dynamic of this men versus this man yeah and so for Chad like can we talk a little bit more about like some of the repercussions like
the when we talk about like the physicality and how now there's like a level of expectation
“that like men have to look a certain way like what is what is that all about I think what's super”
interesting is thinking about how meme culture has also helped sort of articulate what we visually assume these men are supposed to be you know I'm thinking about super jacks no strip like the jaw is extremely chiseled like it's funny to think how easy we've kind of created these visual markers of a certain type of man as like what we all aspire to I think that's the reason why all the boys are going to turkey to get the hairlines you know I think that's the reason why there is literally
gum that you can buy that will help you build your jawline to have it more defined like the amount of men who are now doing something called pinning pinning is the increase or just the use of steroids and a box steroid usage is up among men because they want to look more yoke they want
to look more brawly they want to look more ackey like this okay the last one I've never heard
ackey is definitely a New York term for like strong maybe I want to be ackey hey as we all should aspire to you know little little defined it's not a bad thing look I mean I'll leave in point to the fact that we have something called the enhanced games right the fact that there is now going to be an Olympics where people do steroids and Las Vegas really yes this is a thing right and you know you can you if you break a world record you can get like something like 250 thousand
and a million dollars in certain events but I don't love that because doing long doing steroids has long term like side effects and health effects and that's not good for anyone I mean you're speaking to the choir here I'm right I'm like what but the fact that some of our biggest venture capitalist are absolutely funding this exercise and it's part of this to me is exactly why this is not just a feel good cultural exercise it is deeply economic it is deeply political and it
cannot be dissociated from the fact that there was an absolute agenda around what masculinity and manhood should look like I mean one thing I'll say though is is masculinity masculinity and
manhood and the expectations of that in society just now like finally barely getting to catch up
with the expectations of femininity and womanhood because like you're saying like oh steroids are bad for you well duh but you know it's bad for you like getting your nails done and getting gel nails every day of your life from the age of fourth grade spraying your hair with hair spray like using perfume like all of those are what all of those are poisonous and women do it every single day
“what I will say is I think the what I'm always cautious of is like pointing a finger it's pretty”
pretty to that women right I like I think that there are specific beauty standards that women don't have the luxury of being able to opt out of yeah I think what you know like the thesis I probably have on this is that this is probably the first generation of men forced to navigate the type of self hate and body dysmorphia that we've previously only ever demanded of women yeah and so with that I think you kind of get all of these like sad senses of like what I'm
supposed to look like and who I'm supposed to be and in that you are sold all of these products in between the commercial break about what you should be doing and how it should look definitely be you know a certain type of man welcome to my life since I was eight years old yeah I mean not to say I know it's like you know you don't want to invite other people into your like
“misery but I don't know like you're upset am I I think you should be I think that's that's”
the beauty right like if we are angry we might do something about it okay right like I think that anger is he she doing shit what are you doing to help them out loneliness epidemic I don't know I'm waiting for Ron to give my yeah but I think anger is a useful necessary driving force of change if we are not angry about them as we should be I don't think that we feel nearly as motivated to actually go about fixing it I think it's really sad I guess I just feel I feel empathy
like I think it's really sad that like anyone that like women have been going through this for like such a long time and it's really sad that like men it's now much much more public and I kind of am glad that it is because then we I hope we can address it as a whole is like my my thing I just
Have empathy and like I don't think women should feel bad about how they look...
should feel about about how they look and we're kind of at like a reckoning where it's like yeah
now like men are I guess victims of the patriarchy and it's much more visible men have always been
victims of it right that it's not as though it is new and so if we really own the fact that like this is an ongoing struggle that everyone from you know a Judith Butler or a Nikki Giovanni I've been talking about like there are books out the Wazoo about this it's just that I think men are having the ability to spread bad ideas a lot faster and so you know it's it's things are moving
“at the speed of a click and so or clip and so I think that you know it's really important that”
the ways and the tools we have to exit and back that meet them in those different mediums okay well this might be a bit of a hot take but I think that one could argue that this evolution
of the expectations that are now placed on men in terms of like looks maxing and improving their
looks and being jacked and stuff maybe that's actually a sign of society progressing because now there's like more equal expectations of men as there are of women historically I maybe I'd be concerned about that to some degree because I don't know that that's necessarily one I don't know if that's progress I'll say it that way okay um I don't know that my dream is that women feel pressured to optimize and it satisfies everything about their lives
nor do I want that for men yeah but I don't think that's ever gonna go away like it's been you know
“maybe but I think that you know if if we do it right right if we really are pushing or something maybe”
the point is like how do we actually push towards a kind of acceptance of like graceful aging right how do we accept people who operate without makeup how do we put a kind of appreciation of like the simplicity and the like quality of who you are as you are in its most physical and honest sense I agree with you that in an ideal world nobody has the expectation of wearing makeup everyone can show up as they are feel beautiful feel confident contribute to society with their unique gifts
et cetera however I do not think that that is a reality that will happen for women in our lifetime or even in another lifetime beyond this I don't think that expectation of women having to wear makeup for example is going to go away and I only think it's the fact that now that these expectations are placed on men that is the actual the only possible teeny teeny tiny hope speck of a hope of of us being able to move to a society that is like I guess you go
how like post looks dinner like yeah it's only because men now feel that same pain like a fraction of a percent that society can maybe shift well that's kind of what they say it's like if men had
“periods then we would all have pads and tampons would be free but I think what I would say”
from that I think is there is this idea maybe that what we really should aspire to is a kind of spectrum of gender performance one where the boys can wear makeup and paint their nails and that be just as good to show up that way and you know my grandma doesn't have to wear or feel she's wear heels to come to walk outside to show to an event and that is the thing that I think that if we get there where both sides of that spectrum are both equal and valid and beautiful I think that
that's the world that I believe we can reach in this lifetime or at least I think it's one worth fighting for in this lifetime I don't believe that my kids should be the only people or my grandkids should be like people let get to bed if it's from that. Not grandma. I think you are a very uniquely progressive individual in my mind which is why we're friends. Yeah that's true I mean if we had a world full of runs the world would be better place that would be incredible but I am very
curious like what is your take on kind of this entire conversation but applied to like dating for example and do you think like your take is similar to your guy friends or like you know the the ecosystem of men. I think it is hard out here I am in the streets and let's put his hand
all up on on the streets. His dams are open. Always please shoot shots. So I think it is hard out here
right like the research would say that for every woman on any of these dating platforms the hinges the tenders the bundles whatever they're two men so it's that two for one right so knowing that in that way I think this is exactly what fits into this kind of logic around red pilling or black pilling I isn't even worth trying to go out there and date is because I think that you might say that there's an algorithmic approach to this if a platform a dating app says the only
Way that you're really going to get seen is if you just pay like 30 bucks a m...
show you to more people they have no incentive for you to leave because next month it's not $30
and so I absolutely feel as though there is one big conspiracy out there that is absolutely benefiting from people being unhappy on satisfied and unconnected or disconnected from intimacy because then you don't get to play these really silly games around finding partnership and connection so you think the mail loan loneliness epidemic is due to capitalism yes there is an economy for this and so there is no way to not look at the balance sheets of some of the largest
companies on earth that ask hey how convenient is it that I'm a little less happy and that you are the ones telling me happiness okay so let's let's move into the solution space okay not all that all like the
doom and gloom yeah I think it's interesting because we gave it the context and now we can talk
about like so now what like what can we do what can women do what can men do and what can society do as a whole to move us forward out of the space that we're not happy about I think that from maybe what men can do most immediately I will offer some things that feel very hand-wavy but I do think are actually honest ways to appraise gender which is I think we probably as men need to do a better job of like reading feminist literature right like I think that I know that sounds like the
most obvious thing but like reading that obvious I'm happy about that but like reading feminist theory and and just getting some baseline understanding of what the imagination for a world where
women are equal and where women are actually not the objects of sex but simply are
“people who are building community and building progress with you is probably the best thing that”
we could just start with is just opening up your you know view in your lens on that is there like a starter text you might recommend I will recommend some things in the notes because like you know it's like it's that a lot we'll have a kit for you we kit all the men I love that maybe like we can all we'll take a look but like books and blogs and like yeah think about um we talked a little like like volunteering and I think that it is a really useful way to think about how you as
a man might be able to volunteer in certain ways and participate like how you how can you leverage some of the physiological elements of manhood to volunteer I will give some example for me I remember during the pandemic I took all of my PTO and on Fridays at one o'clock I would take off and go work at a food bank because during the pandemic if you remember no one was going into these spaces because you were afraid of being near like a homeless person that's been all time outside and so
the idea that I could use my body and lift heavy bags up and down walking upstairs or breaking down boxes because that's physically something that I had but I also I was alone because when I went home there wasn't anyone to you know have dinner with or there wasn't anyone that was going to be on the other side of that table but it was a way for me to feel deeply connected to my
“community and be a service I think that finding service is a way to find purpose and when I think”
a lot of men are often lacking is a sense of purpose and that is a way to actually really connect to a sense of man is manliness and manhood to that so maybe it's like men who are part of the male loneliness epidemic feel purposeless and they need to find a service or a way to dedicate their time and energy to but should be very very intentional and careful about what that service is and if it actually is of service to our community and progressing the good
of the world I think that these men in a lot of ways are right for exploitation and so if we embrace that then we will enter into that with a lot more care and a lot more capacity to say hey you know what you can be a victim and so it's actually important for me to intervene in that potential victimization. I don't think they love hearing that though like I'm like hey come volunteer with me on Saturdays for reading for kids reading to young elementary school kids this is a
a cause worth investing in and finding purpose in. Yeah I mean and what's again maybe it is
“in trying to find ways that are particularly quote unquote manly. I think that group therapy is a”
great opportunity to escape the loneliness. I mean the boys are spending time having AI girlfriends where they are talking to the system that is sympathetic by nature right and so being able to say look let's actually go out and commiserate together for a moment and maybe not as a way to pile on women but to really access this in a way that is really community based I think what you all are doing is a form of group therapy right with between sisters but hopefully also with
An audience and so I think that there's something that we all have a responsi...
to open up our doors and our minds to these ideas of where we can do better. Yeah I love that
and so what can women or society be doing specifically to help out. Women are perfect and again his Instagram handle is. What can we do? I think that women can challenge their partners to have a more diverse emotional portfolio. Oh so I think that where yeah and I think that's something that exists independent of whether or not that relationship survives. The idea that men oftentimes are really leaning on women to help them actually
feel a sense of connection and feel a sense of purpose is both disappointing and also it is a kind of doom loop and it's own right because if it doesn't work out or if you're not available
“I think that that's a really important to go to and say like hey like my responsibility is to”
build a challenge you and to let you know that you have the capacity for this thing to be a very
interconnected person. In that way I think it's also where women can safely it's always the
optimal thing is to be able to create friendships with men and to be visible about the fact that there's a lot of utility in non-sexual, non-performative relationships that give men the space and the opportunity to understand what women are thinking and why their lives and why their experiences are just as hard as the guys on the other side who oftentimes feel as though they're dealing with something completely in silence. I think like bringing it back to the beginning of
the episode and kind of why we decided to tackle this topic is that our thesis is that you know the male loneliness epidemic is not just a problem for men right it's a problem for women it's
“problem for all societies something that we can all contribute to in a positive way. So I think like”
should we order some of your takeaways from this episode? Yeah I think Ronin in speaking with you and hearing more about your points I've gained a new maybe appreciation or empathy for the men who are kind of like brought into who are maybe opting in but also kind of victim of this situation and I think as we talked about before like empathy is not a finite resource. I think in order to make progress on this problem like we have to feel deep empathy and I think it's actually
really sad like the stats we read in the beginning of like male loneliness, men feeling disconnected, men feeling like they don't have like a close person in their life like that's actually deeply, deeply sad and it's not like I'm wishing that upon anyone like I don't think women should feel that loneliness I don't think men should feel that loneliness so I think it is empathy learning to have that empathy so we can make progress. Yeah I mean one thing I'm proud of like
us for doing is even just having this conversation right it's like that's the idea of you can't progress on a problem and try to move towards a solution unless you name the problem and then you discuss it and then you put it out there in the world so like I'm proud of us for tackling what
is actually like a pretty complex topic to talk through and again we have never done this before
so we are really in my mind we're like really putting ourselves out there in a big way and like I've never done this before so like we would love to know what you guys think right like the reason we're doing this is because we want to invite dialogue we want to hear what you guys are thinking and your reactions do you like degree do you disagree yeah yeah I mean there are a lot of thoughts that we put out there yeah and I guess how I'll finish up on saying that like I loved your
suggestion run about like what we can do about this male loneliness epidemic for me like building deeper relationships with the men in my life and just talking more about this like are you
“lonely like how is it going in the dating world like I think oftentimes men are not invited to have”
those conversations and can feel like it's a very like insular problem they don't have anyone else to tell like are they going through therapy is it stigmatized like I'm thinking about the male friendships I have in my life that are platonic and I want to invite more of those conversations because I think they are open to talking about it and making sure that they feel like there is a place to speak on it I hope that people maybe after leaving this field less shame about these ideas
and these moments of loneliness that it is both a reality and that it is also something that can be navigated and like move through that it is you know something that is not a permanent fixture of life is not immutable you can absolutely extend and exist beyond that I think the
Thing that I would love it also like kind of leave people with is just the id...
no silver bullets but they're all silver linings and what I mean by that is that there are no
“quick fixes there is no singular one thing that can be sold to you today or tomorrow or in between”
the ad break and in knowing that you might be willing to invest in more structural solutions
that if we escape the idea of alienation or loneliness and talk about it as alienation we are more willing to actually think about and own the process of progress and how we all get to play a part
“of that well thank you I mean I think we should just leave it at that also thank you Ron thank you”
so much this is incredible and thank you guys tiger fam for tuning in we'll see you next time bye
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