Now, we all know of course that men aren’t allowed to show emotion, (there was a brief period growing up where it seems women were looking for sensitive men, but that was over well before I began dating.) Anyway, Chiefly among the emotions a man is not supposed to express is loneliness.
It doesn’t matter if a man has been single since 2006, or that the last woman to kiss him was a Chinese Karaoke hostess, a man simply can’t admit that that he is so fucking lonely that sometimes (just sometimes) he wants to cry.
Everyone knows that only weird losers are lonely, and if someone says that they are lonely then they are probably a weird loser.
A few years ago, “a friend” of mine, tried to have a heart to heart with a mutual friend of ours, about how he was pretty lonely, and it was getting to him. There after “my friend’s” desperate loneliness was a punchline. Something to be joked about and tossed back in his face. So, you see, I know that this is something that we guys can’t talk about.
Maybe you've have a girlfriend if you weren't such a huge pussy!
There are a couple of terrible pieces of advice that everyone will give you if you do admit to being lonely.
1. You’ll find love when you stop looking.
Ugh, that is such bullshit, please, really just stop. When you’ve been alone for a long time, the last thing you want to hear is to just be passive and hope that a relationship falls in your lap. And no taking some time to focus on my life isn’t going to help either, I’ve focused on work for the past five years, I’m not going to meet a women that fits me, making coffees or busing tables.
2. Have fun just spending time with freinds.
Maybe I need some new friends then. All my roommates have Girlfriends and playing third, fifth, or seventh wheel, gets old pretty fast. Even then, Hanging out with friends does little when you’re fucking touch starved because you never get extended contact with another human being, and touch is the primary way you feel love. And no, just getting a hug from your bros everyone in a while isn’t going to cut it. I want someone to make out with dammit!
P.s. this post is about some other sad bastard, totally not myself.
This makes my heart ache, because it used to be me. Loneliness is a very particular kind of hell, and it travels with you wherever you go. It consumes happiness and joy and leaves despair in its wake.
I want to say so much more to “your friend.” More than that, I’d like to offer a hug – but that’s one thing that doesn’t transmit through the internet.
Hugs and hitting don’t go through the internet, it’s its greatest flaw. I’ll pass the comfort onto “my friend” though.
yes, this. i (a woman) are usually lucky enough – or maybe rather choose my social environment in a way – to have friends with benefits who can deal with a lot of bodycontact and touch. not because we are in a relationship, but because we are close friends and we know each other also on a physical level very well. what i still don’t understand: MOST men run away from it. and don’t think, people with a little bit of empathy don’t recognise a fellow touch deprived soul. so why running away? because it might end up in a friendship and not in a relationship? *shakes head* (and just to set things right: that does by far not necessarily mean sex. that means snuggling up with a close friend on the couch to watch a movie, for example. and yes, that’s not the same as a relationship but it helps a lot against this terrible loneliness.) spread the love 😉
You know, for me it’s very difficult to separate extended touch from affection, and while I want it a great deal, I’m not sure how much I’m comfortable with if there isn’t a relationship there.
“And no taking some time to focus on my life isn’t going to help either, I’ve focused on work for the past five years, I’m not going to meet a women that fits me, making coffees or busing tables.”
Work isn’t ‘life’. When people say that they mean, ‘get out and do stuff you enjoy’, because when you are out learning to windsurf, or trawling a bookshop, or some other thing you are interested in, that’s when you meet that cutie who eyes you up over the parapet.
Kinksters, well, we have a whole other issue with doing that, and if you aren’t interested in ‘the community’, your options are seriously limited.
“I want someone to make out with dammit!”
*sigh* Me too! I’m sorry that neither of us have that at the moment. What can I tell ya, I flew half way across the world to git some, and I still got nothin’! Pffftt!
I wish I could help *warm hug*.
Ferns
“Work isn’t ‘life’”
Excellent point, in fact it’s like the opposite of life, I’d much rather be windsurfing in a bookstore.
Oooh, Ferns hug.
I didn’t even have to use my sad puppy-dog eyes. You know, I’ve got a lot of unresolved sexual tension as well. *tries, with limited success not to smile, like a cheeky bugger*
*laugh* Cheeky buggar!
Ferns
Ok, here is my attempt to be helpful.
Have you considered a massage? Not like a freaky “happy ending” massage, but a real one, like, with a trained massage therapist.
The ONLY reason I bring this up is that as a military spouse there have been times in my life when separation resulted in a real dearth of physical touch and while chicks can get away with a little more asexual contact, and a greeting hug can be awesome, that really just isn’t quite the same. However, when I ended up getting a couple massages I found it really quite… soothing, and not just to my muscles.
30-60 minutes of skin to skin contact with someone trying to make me feel good turned out to be exactly what I need. I made this discovery a while back and since then I have seen a massage therapist repeatedly, sometimes because my muscles needed it but sometimes just because I needed…a massage (decoded- I needed someone in skin to skin contact, for quite a while, on purpose).
It’s totally not the same, and I do know that. I am just sharing something that worked for me until what I really wanted was available.
Interesting link on the matter:
http://www.hugthemonkey.com/2008/07/finally-massage-increases-oxytocin.html
I might have to give that a look, see what health insurance covers. While it totally isn’t the same, a good deep tissue massage can count towards getting my masochistic jollies as well.
I appreciate this is a bit weird coming from a total stranger, but, * virtual hug*. I think a lot more people have been intensely lonely at some point in their life than would ever admit to it. I know I’ve had times like that. Like you say, there’s almost a stigma about being lonely.
May I suggest that your friend might try talking to his female friends about it? Or if he doesn’t have any, cultivate some? Easier said than done, I know. It’s a terrible gender stereotype but women are on average much better at touchy-feely lonely stuff.
DD’s massage idea is a must-do.
Female friends, I seem to recall having those at some point, long ago. I don’t know whether that would help of simply compound frustration onto the loneliness.
Peroxide, have you read Blue Like Jazz? The guy in that book spent a lot of time deprived of human contact and started hallucinating. It’s a religious book, but I got a lot out of it just as a human journey type of book. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, probably read it.
When I was really heartsick over the woman, the one I seem to always bring up in blog comments, here at yours and also at Ferns’s blog, my cravings for her touch were out of control. Totally separate from my sexual desire for her (which was also pretty out of control). Don’t spose that helps, any. Remember they did those studies with monkeys where they met all the baby monkey’s needs minus the contact with another monkey, and the monkeys went catatonic. Wow, I’m really not helping.
I never finished Blue like Jazz, the friend I borrowed it from needed it back. I can’t say I remember it too clearly, I might give it a second look since I’ve always meant to finish it.
I totally get the touch being it’s own separate overwhelming need, from sex which is also an overwhelming need, being without the either one is difficult, not getting either is straight up impossible to handle.
I’ve been lonely, very lonely.
I don’t think I’ve cried over it in a very long time (I’m not as lonely now anyway), but I have, in the fairly recent past, still wanted too.
It takes courage to blog as you do, ya know.
I’ve sometimes been so lonely I’ve wanted to cry, but it’s been quite awhile. I know I’ve actually done a bit of it in the past.
Anyway, it takes courage to blog like you do.
Sorry, those got held up in moderation. Honestly, I’ve felt like crying once or twice in the past say, nine, months, can’t bring myself to let go though, I haven’t actually cried in years.
I am kinda interested in having a scene bring me to tears, just to let it all out, but that’s another story.