There is an epidemic of isolation gripping the United States, health experts say, with the resulting loneliness disproportionately impacting men and leading to concrete health issues.
What gets me is that it feels like whenever you try to express, in person or online, there are a lot of people looming to say “Well I feel fine and I have friends I can talk to, so it’s actually not that you’re a man that is the problem here. You should work on yourself instead of blaming others.”
Because the idea that your success and well-being might in some part be down to luck is too big a pill to swallow for some people. Folks love to flaunt success despite the disadvantages they faced, but are so quick to reject that they had any advantages. In this case maybe not everyone wants to be just like you (not you you but them you lol). Maybe they don’t want your friends and your lifestyle, or somehow don’t have as much access to those, but they still want a halfway decent support system.
It also utterly lacks the required vector for it to actually be, you know, useful to the recipient.
There are billions of ways that you can “work on yourself”, with only a minuscule subset actually having any benefit whatsoever. And that beneficial cohort changes radically from person to person.
What gets me is that it feels like whenever you try to express, in person or online, there are a lot of people looming to say “Well I feel fine and I have friends I can talk to, so it’s actually not that you’re a man that is the problem here. You should work on yourself instead of blaming others.”
We are so quick to tell someone how to be, instead of just fucking listening to them.
Because the idea that your success and well-being might in some part be down to luck is too big a pill to swallow for some people. Folks love to flaunt success despite the disadvantages they faced, but are so quick to reject that they had any advantages. In this case maybe not everyone wants to be just like you (not you you but them you lol). Maybe they don’t want your friends and your lifestyle, or somehow don’t have as much access to those, but they still want a halfway decent support system.
The phrase “work on yourself” needs to die. It’s a dismissal pretending to be advice.
It also utterly lacks the required vector for it to actually be, you know, useful to the recipient.
There are billions of ways that you can “work on yourself”, with only a minuscule subset actually having any benefit whatsoever. And that beneficial cohort changes radically from person to person.