Dear Jo,
I’m 35 and a few months ago I broke up with my girlfriend of ten years. It was something we both wanted to happen. The thing is: she seems to be handling it a lot better than me. She’s out all the time with her friends doing fun stuff (if Instagram is anything to go by, anyway), while I’m just watching Netflix in my pants and flicking through Tinder. I’m lonely af, tbh with you. What gives? Why are girls so much better at this stuff? And what can I do about it?
Thanks in advance,
Anon
Hey Anon,
You may be lonely, but you are not alone. Last year the Jo Cox Commission released figures showing how millions of men in the UK are experiencing loneliness, describing it as a “silent epidemic”. Over 35% of men who responded said they felt lonely at least once a week and 11% stated they felt lonely every day, with these feelings peaking in the mid-thirties - AKA, the time where once solid friendships tend to give way to work commitments, moving elsewhere and starting families. The end of a relationship is disorientating for anyone, but for men especially - and I am pointing at you Anon - finding themselves cut off from a partner they may have relied on for emotional support more than they realised can be a nasty surprise.
So why do women find it easier to avoid loneliness you ask? They don’t. At all. Forging the kind of intense, coven-like friendships groups that seem to terrify men is not in any way light work. You may envy the catharsis gained from spilling our guts out to our friends so freely, but it is all done on the condition of acute reciprocity and at least a dozen “ARE YOU OKAY?” WhatsApps a day. It also means that when a friendship goes sour, it knocks the wind out of you as much, if not more, than any romantic split.
But when female friendships are good, they are great - epic even. Yes, there are the usual topics of conversation (shoes, menstruation, your sexual prowess), but they also can buoy us through grief, illness, heartbreak, trauma and the many other shades of shit life serves up. So: if you're unsure of how you'd hide a dead body for your closest friends and don't regularly think about hugging them till their eyeball capillaries burst then, Sir, you are missing out. Even the seismic shift of #MeToo can be attributed to women’s propensity for implicitly supporting and listening to each other at our most vulnerable.
That said, there is obviously less stigma around women talking about their feelings. Where women are positively maximalist with their emotions, in contrast, men make stoicism look like an art form. Not wanting to confide in friends about how you're feeling, not wanting to go to that prostate exam, not wanting to ask for directions when you are clearly lost and speeding 80mph the wrong way has, up until recent times, been painted as a quirk of masculinity rather than something that’s actually pretty messed up.
So how do you change this for yourself? I’m sure you’ve already spent hours Googling articles that tell you to join your local jujitsu club or take a pottery class. But before you go down the panic-hobby route, consider that by far the best way of getting yourself out of this hole may well be getting back in touch with old acquaintances. People drift apart for many, mostly innocuous, reasons, so unless you ran over their dog or something, odds are getting back in touch with them will be welcome. The odds are good - literally. Please refer to paragraph one and the millions of men who are feeling exactly the same as you.
When you’re ready to turn Netflix off and put some trousers on, remember that nurturing friendships doesn’t have to mean high-octane nights out or five-a-side football or dipping each other's balls in pints (this is what men do together, right?). In fact, you may find these are exactly the kind of social situations where you feel the most lonely. While 'bonding activities' can be fun and seem to be the foundation for a staggering amount of male friendships, they can be an unnecessary distraction when what you really need is just someone to talk to.
Instead, try something as small as letting your pals know that you’re thinking of them. Tell them you're proud of their new job, send them some music or an article you think they’ll enjoy and make a point of checking in on them when they have a rough patch. It's what we do, and it works.
Oh: and get off your ex’s Instagram page, ffs.
