Your loneliness is not my problem
The Discourse(TM) has been full of male loneliness. Young male loneliness, to be precise. If we’re defining “young” as the advertising demographic of ages 18-34, which is an advertiser’s Precious Precious, the concern seems to be that without corrective action, these lonely young men will be susceptible to Tate-ism and Trump-ism and god only knows what else.
The primary focus of The Discourse(TM) is where that corrective action is supposed to come from, and the massive, MASSIVE, planet-sized implication is that it needs to come from women. Because clearly if men could help themselves out of this loneliness, they would have already.
Nope.
Before I go any further with this I want to emphasize that I have several very dear male friends who have become widowed within the last few years, who are puzzling out how to rebuild their lives without their most beloved companion – and, it must be said, without necessarily glomming onto the next woman who rides past them on the escalator and slapping that woman into the wife-shaped hole that remains in their lives. That in itself speaks volumes to me – because of course in these exceptional cases, there is no wife-shaped hole. There is the loss of a best friend, a much-desired lover, an ally in the trenches of Getting Shit Done In Life.
However. These men are the vast exception. Men are much more likely than women to remarry after a divorce; they are even more likely to marry after the death of their spouse. In general, the statistics point to a longstanding trend – that straight men will hustle from one relationship to the next, rarely pausing to ask themselves if that’s what they really want or need. A relationship-less man is…well, in the undying words of Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Still universally acknowledged. And the fortune doesn’t even have to be all that good.
The solution to male loneliness does not lie with women. It lies with the men themselves. (At which point, a lot of women will say, “Therefore not my problem.” I agree. It’s not our problem. We have other problems, and those problems are caused by men, whether they’re lonely or not.)
Remember when you were little and would complain of being bored, and your parents would say, “that’s because you’re boring”? A bit heartless, but true. As a person who has been single for going on six years now, I can attest that if you’re lonely, it’s because you’re not occupying yourself. If you’re lonely, it’s because you feel that doing fun things alone is somehow flawed. The enemy of the bored and lonely is the word “should.” It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to. This is the way it should be. I deserve better. I deserve more. Some myths:
I shouldn’t have to eat alone in a restaurant; that makes me a loser. No, it makes you look like a person who likes food and downtime. And you don’t have to share food, or order not-what-you-want because your date is ordering what you want, and you don’t have to tussle over dessert or wine or coffee or anything else – you get to do what you want. Extra points if you bring a book. (No, not that book. Try this one.)
I shouldn’t have to go to movies by myself; I look like someone who can’t get someone to come with them. Good lord, why would you not want to see movies alone? No dickering over which movie to see – see the one you want! No chaos around refreshments – get what you want, or nothing! No waiting for people to come out of the bathroom afterwards. Utter cinematic freedom.
I should be able to come home to a clean house and a hot meal. Exactly 0 people are stopping you. In this day and age, there are cleaning services, laundry services, a plethora of prepared foods at the supermarket that take 2 minutes to heat up – or you could invest a little time in prepping meals and thinking strategically about how you’re going to clean up after yourself like a responsible adult so you have a welcoming home at the end of the day. You can do it without indentured servitude!
I deserve company. You are your own company. Get to liking yourself. Get to enjoying spending time with your brain. Read, draw, play music, write, do puzzles, work out, take walks, enjoy your own thoughts. In drastic circumstances, get a pet.
I deserve unconditional love. Definitely get a dog.
All of which to say, this ridiculousness around male loneliness – the coddling, the desire for a nanny-wife, the faux helplessness – is not a woman’s problem. Women are not here as scaffolding for men’s egos. We’re our own people.
We are not accessories to a larger (male) life – our own lives are large and fun and tragic and amazing and boring and eminently, eminently human. We’re not ornamental, or part of some structural support to a greater male being. We have our own careers, our own priorities, our own cares and worries.
And if these supposedly lonely males are not going to assuage their loneliness in helping, they need to get out of the fucking way. In the meantime, I’ve already devoted too many words to suggestions. Life is short. We’re not your kickstands, young men. Time to grow up.
New Virago 
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