this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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Besides the stupidity of this post, you guys do realize that male loneliness is, in part, just how we organize as primates, right?
I am a moderately liberal guy, and I cannot get any girls. I'm shorter than average and socially awkward. I've managed to get a few dates from dating apps but none of them went anywhere because I'm so awkward in person.
Every time I see this meme format I'm a little frustrated and sad.
A long time ago, Cosmo did a bunch of studies on dating app users. It published a bunch of their results and people have been miscounting it ever since to serve their assumptions.
On dating apps, when one woman matches with one man, 90% of women match with 10% of men. This is largely a result of the app populations, which were and are mostly men. Unless you're okay with your girl dating ~9 men at once, dating apps will only match a small percentage of men, because that's how maths works.
When asked to judge dating app profile pictures (no other profile information), women judged men's pictures lower than men judged women's. This is as much a factor of the profile pictures we choose as anything else. In addition, men's match preferences had a strong relationship with their attraction ranks. Whereas for women the relationship was weaker, and the content of the profile was a larger deciding factor. But people hear about the judging profile photos thing and go 'women are more critical of appearance than men are -> women are shallow'.
When asked 'what age are [men/women] most atteactive', women tended to answer close to their own age (with a drop off around 50). Most men said 20-25. But most men saying still typically matched close to their own age. Much like the women with profile pictures, they were trying to answer a direct question with what they believed was a critical, scientific, 'objective' answer, rather than reflecting their own dating preferences. But now women fear (or believe) that any men will not find them attractive as they age.
There's a lot of interesting things in those findings, if you acknowledge it is specifically measuring dating app users, had nuanced findings, and was not scientifically robust in the first place. It's broad conclusions DO NOT apply to the population as a whole.
And I ache a little each time I see its conclusions reduced and misused to justify misanthropy. Much like the myth of 'the alpha wolf', it's misinformation that refuses to die.
Dating apps are social cancer
Make friends with women, jumping straight to “romance” with zero friendship is like running a relationship on insane difficulty
Dating apps are quite horrible, but I would have never met my girlfriend without them. We are both very shy and agree that even if we had met by chance, nobody would have ever made a move.
None of my women friends are romantically interesting to me and I'm not the kind of person who meets a lot of new people. I'm very happy with my small circle of friends and neither my job nor my hobbies expose me to new people.
A dating app helped me to work around that. I was very lucky though and the first person I met with turned out to be the perfect match for me.
Women also use dating apps for their own reasons, too. While its true there are a lot of socially inept men on them, I'm uncomfortable with your phrasing. It seems to be blaming men (and not women) for the apps' existence.
Dating apps are mostly a reflection of a society with poor options for socialising organically. They're trying to get people connected in a world that makes organic meeting places increasingly expensive or rare, or work hours that are particularly long and limit our energy and free time.
The world is also increasingly hostile to the 'cold approach'. Dating apps are environments where men know they are allowed to interact with women, snd both can easily disengage from bad matches.That's especially crucial for the more gentle men that don't want to make women uncomfortable in the first place, since they would likely never cold approach, or feel uncomfortable admitting interest to their friends and acquaintances.
That last paragraph speaks true to me. I'm not the kind of person to make a move. But with online dating, there is always romantic context.
"I've been seeing this person from the dating app for a few weeks now and I'm really attracted, we always have a great time, maybe I should ask if they'd like to kiss" is a lot easier than initiating intimacy without that context.
I don't agree with this. They are a stream-lined method to meet other people who are interested in making new contacts without going out of their comfort zone. I also may be biased since I met my s/o on Bumble but we are 6 years in and this is the healthiest most loving relationship I've ever been in. I know my experience is most likely the exception rather than the norm YMMV
Also I don't know how going on a few dates with someone is "jumping right to romance"
Great breakdown, thanks
Thank you for this break down. It makes a lot more sense than the stat alone.
I'm always super hesitant to comment on stuff like this because I don't want to be lumped in with the fascists but I'm going to break that rule just this once. When people hear "Male Loneliness Epidemic", it means different things to different people. It appears to me as most left leaning people hear, "I don't have a woman that caters to me and my needs". For myself it means, "I don't have a Support System of friends and family to lean on." A partner would be great but I would get far greater satisfaction in gaining a group of friends or a sense of belonging. Paired with likely Autism and ADHD, things aren't super rad for me on any aspect of life. That's all my own stuff to deal with though.
The takeaway is I hope anyone reading this is doing okay, regardless of gender. I may not get the struggles of your life, but I hope you are overcoming them.
When you tell most men their problem is they don’t have any friends not that they don’t have a girlfriend they take that very personally and reject the idea
I think there is a general loneliness epidemic, but it’s particularly acute with men who were never pressured or given the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to build and maintain a community around them.
Like the systems and environments that used to facilitate this no longer exist, and it is left to individuals to do it them selves, something impossible without those skills. Those institutions and systems that used to facilitate community building have been pivoted to profit or dismantled if they couldn’t generate profit or if they were actively undermining the profitability of something else.
Yeah, that was my interpretation as well, although I've heard the alternative usage too. Also, same situation for me. I've got a very few people that I'm friendly with, but no close friends. Hope it gets better for you, man.
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