Loneliness, masculinity, and the responsibility we’re avoiding
I think we have a generation of men who are deeply lonely, and I don’t think we’re being honest enough about that. Maybe these men sit in generations we’d call Millennials or Gen X, or maybe it’s broader than that. What I do know is that when I talk about loneliness, I’m not just talking about men who are isolated or visibly struggling. I’m talking about men who don’t really know where they belong anymore, or how they’re supposed to relate to themselves, to other men, or to the world around them as things keep changing.
One of the things I’m seeing now that genuinely scares me is the way some men respond online to conversations about feminism and masculinity. The comments under posts by women are often aggressive, dismissive, or outright disgusting, and they’re coming from men. I don’t think that happens in a vacuum. The ways men were taught to behave are now being challenged, and in many cases that’s necessary. But those behaviours were also the ways men were raised to survive, and we haven’t really dealt with what happens when you pull those structures away without replacing them with anything else.
As we dismantle harmful versions of masculinity, we haven’t built enough new ways for men to connect, relate, or feel grounded. That gap leaves a lot of men feeling stuck, silent, and disconnected. I honestly believe that’s why we’re still seeing groups of men online behaving in harmful, misogynistic, and toxic ways. It’s not an excuse, but it is part of the explanation.
For a long time, men have connected in very similar ways, particularly here in Australia. Pubs, clubs, sport, work. In my experience, those spaces rarely challenged behaviour, and they certainly weren’t safe places to talk about feelings, vulnerability, or anything that might be labelled as feminine. You weren’t encouraged to show that you cared. You weren’t encouraged to speak up to protect someone else’s rights unless it was done in a combative or performative way. We don’t really talk about how men were taught to fear other men, or how bravado and toughness became survival strategies. That version of toughness is failing, and we’re watching it fail in real time.
Right now, rather than only continuing to tear down these power structures — which still needs to happen — I want us to also start asking what we’re building in their place. What does becoming better actually look like for men? A lot of men I listen to sound genuinely open when they talk about emotions, relationships, care, and vulnerability, but they still frame those things as feminine, as if they don’t fully belong to them. That tells me there’s still a lot of work to do.
So I think we’re at a point where we have to hold two things at once. We need to keep challenging harmful behaviour. We need to keep calling violence against women what it is, instead of hiding it behind softened language. But at the same time, we need to start thinking seriously about what pathways exist for men to grow. What spaces, platforms, programs, or conversations actually help men become more connected, more accountable, and more emotionally capable?
As a First Nations person, I learned a long time ago that if you want to fix a First Nations problem, you have a responsibility to step into it. One of my favourite sayings is that you can’t just step up — you have to step in. I think the same applies here. Men can’t sit on the sidelines of this conversation. We have to be willing to do the work ourselves.
What I’m grappling with at the moment is how we even begin to address what feels like a loneliness epidemic among men. I don’t think we have all the answers. But I do know we can’t keep avoiding the conversation. We can’t live in a world where women continue to die at the hands of men through domestic violence and pretend that this is someone else’s issue. And we can’t shy away from uncomfortable truths just because we’re on professional platforms like LinkedIn or public platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
To the men who have taken the time to read this, I genuinely appreciate you. I’m not asking you to feel attacked, or to believe something is being taken away from you. I’m trying to lean into this myself, and I don’t have all the words yet. Maybe you do. But what I do know is that we need to be better, and the only way that happens is if we’re willing to start the conversation and stay in it.
That’s all I’m trying to do here.
Further Reading
If you want to sit with this more deeply, these have shaped my thinking:
The Will to Change – bell hooks
Of Boys and Men – Richard Reeves
The Men and the Boys – R. W. Connell
Daring Greatly – Brené Brown
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
Beyond Blue and Movember research on men’s mental health and connection
