The Art of Manliness - The Hidden Tragedy of Male Loneliness

00:00:00.000 I'm Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.060 Many men prioritize the pursuit of status, power, and autonomy, which can have its advantages

00:00:15.020 in moving them towards financial security and up society's ladder.

00:00:18.180 But as my guest lays out in his book, Lonely at the Top, The High Cost of Men's Success,

00:00:22.180 a focus on work over relationships can also come with significant, even tragic costs.

00:00:26.260 His name is Thomas Joyner, and he's a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology, and

00:00:30.200 an investigator with the Military Suicide Research Consortium.

00:00:33.240 Thomas and I begin our conversation with his work around suicide, why men are more likely

00:00:36.840 to die by suicide at a rate four times higher than women, and how loneliness is a primary

00:00:41.080 factor in what drives men to take their own lives.

00:00:43.440 From there, we talk about the problem of male loneliness in general, and how it can begin

00:00:46.640 in a man's 30s and get worse as he advances through middle age.

00:00:49.780 We unpack the difference between subjective and objective loneliness, and how you can feel

00:00:53.420 alone in a crowd, as well as be something Thomas calls alone but oblivious.

00:00:57.480 We discuss how everyone is quote-unquote spoiled by relationships in their youth, and why men

00:01:01.400 struggle more than women to learn to take the initiative in this regard later in life.

00:01:05.020 We enter a discussion with why therapy isn't the right solution for many men who struggle

00:01:08.620 with depression and loneliness, and how equally effective solutions can be found in simply

00:01:12.280 making more of an effort to balance a focus on work and family with socializing and reaching

00:01:16.420 out to others, and particularly, Thomas argues, in reconnecting with your friends from high

00:01:20.220 school and college.

00:01:21.040 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash lonely.

00:01:31.980 Thomas Joyner, welcome to the show.

00:01:34.000 Thank you for having me.

00:01:35.040 Glad to be with you.

00:01:36.120 So you are a psychologist who is an expert on suicide, a leading expert on suicide.

00:01:43.220 I'm curious, what led you down the path of exploring why people want to die by suicide, and then

00:01:53.120 also helping people who have suicidal thoughts?

00:01:56.720 I guess I'd point to two main drivers of that.

00:02:00.760 One is an intellectual driver.

00:02:03.420 I think it's a fascinating question, how it is that a creature wired for self-interest

00:02:11.340 and self-preservation, most of whom go to great lengths to enhance themselves and take

00:02:19.800 care of themselves.

00:02:20.400 How can a creature like that come to the point of self-destruction?

00:02:24.060 I think that's a very profound question, not just about suicidal behavior, but about human

00:02:30.060 nature.

00:02:31.280 So intellectually, I think it's profound and fascinating and a window on human nature.

00:02:36.500 As I was starting to delve into it, a personal tragedy occurred, namely the death of my father

00:02:41.360 by suicide.

00:02:43.260 And so it quickly, of course, needless to say, became very personal, very urgent.

00:02:49.100 And it's largely through, well, both windows, I think, that I've turned to, and part of my

00:02:54.160 work is helping people out of suicidal crises.

00:02:57.120 I know from my dad's experience, the misery and the agony, certainly for the person going

00:03:04.840 through the crisis, but also for the family members.

00:03:07.940 And the family members, if they're bereaved like we were, the pain is intense.

00:03:13.480 And so any help, any alleviation of that kind of misery and suffering, I think, is to the

00:03:20.340 greater human good.

00:03:21.280 So we're going to talk about a book that you wrote called Lonely at the Top, which is sort

00:03:27.600 of an out, sort of a, it's related to your work in suicide.

00:03:32.700 It's about male loneliness.

00:03:34.680 But before we do, can we talk about, you have this theory, I think it's called the interpersonal

00:03:38.920 theory of suicide.

00:03:41.320 Because I think it'll kind of explain like why you think loneliness plays a key role in

00:03:46.200 suicide.

00:03:46.560 Can you walk us through your theory of suicide and sort of lay a groundwork for what we'll

00:03:51.420 be talking about here today?

00:03:53.520 It starts with one distinction that ends up being kind of an organizing distinction between

00:03:59.740 desire for suicide, you know, just having ideas about suicide, thoughts about suicide, that

00:04:05.300 kind of thing.

00:04:06.560 That's a fairly common experience in the general population.

00:04:10.300 But what's not common at all is taking those thoughts and desires and putting them into

00:04:15.800 action.

00:04:16.800 It's certainly very rare for people to put those kind of thoughts into lethal action.

00:04:21.680 Thinking about suicide, fairly common, actually dying by suicide, pretty rare.

00:04:29.540 And that asymmetry always impressed me.

00:04:32.860 And it just occurred to me over the years that there must be a variable that explains why

00:04:37.640 it is that most people don't progress to action, certainly not lethal action, but some people

00:04:45.280 do.

00:04:46.340 And so that distinction between desire for suicide and then the ability or the capability

00:04:50.400 to enact it, viewing those as separate processes, I think was very fruitful.

00:04:56.940 Within those two domains of desire and capability, we've gotten a little more specific.

00:05:01.700 Desire, we think, is made up of two main variables or states of mind.

00:05:09.020 One having to do with the idea that you're hopelessly cut off and hopelessly alienated from

00:05:14.560 others.

00:05:15.260 And a second one having to do with the thought that you're a burden on society, loved ones,

00:05:21.660 family.

00:05:22.680 You might even view yourself as a burden on yourself in the sense that carrying on is just

00:05:27.920 too much.

00:05:28.460 And so in those two states of alienation, loneliness, and burdensomeness come together, we think that's

00:05:35.480 what produces desire.

00:05:37.920 And then capability is made up of things like fearlessness, fearlessness specifically of physical

00:05:45.540 matters, things like injury, pain, death itself.

00:05:51.500 Fearlessness of those things we think is a major driver of capability, along with things like

00:05:57.760 pain tolerance and familiarity and knowledge having to do with suicidal means.

00:06:03.380 For instance, if you don't know anything about firearms, if you don't know the first thing

00:06:09.100 about how to load one or shoot one, well, then it's pretty unlikely that you die by that

00:06:13.440 method.

00:06:14.080 So practical capability is that.

00:06:17.680 When all those things come together in the same individual, that's when we predict that

00:06:23.280 these disastrous tragedies happen.

00:06:26.560 So along that desire component sounds like a big part of the desire is you feel it's a

00:06:33.520 social alienation, it's a social problem, a part of it, a big part of it.

00:06:37.620 Indeed.

00:06:38.320 I mean, we've named the theory the interpersonal theory because so much of it is social or

00:06:45.080 interpersonal.

00:06:45.680 So much of human nature is social and interpersonal, so most definitely.

00:06:51.880 Well, so this leads us to the lonely at the top.

00:06:53.440 And one of the things you highlight in the book is that while men are seen as living at

00:06:58.340 the top of the social totem pole in terms of enjoying money, status, they also are at

00:07:05.020 the top of the totem pole when it comes to the share of death by suicide.

00:07:10.100 Can you highlight, what are the recent statistics that show the gender breakdown on suicide?

00:07:16.280 Well, death by suicide is very male-linked.

00:07:19.920 That's really clear.

00:07:21.160 The United States is a pretty representative example of the world in general.

00:07:26.400 In the U.S., for every one woman who dies by suicide, as many as four men do.

00:07:33.780 That's very skewed towards male-linked mortality or lethality.

00:07:39.740 That's just for starters.

00:07:41.720 Men do tend to be less social than women.

00:07:44.220 They tend to be less or more lonely.

00:07:48.020 And that does seem to be on, you know, sort of in the cards from early on in the sense

00:07:54.060 that even six-month-old baby boys and baby girls tend to relate to social things differently

00:08:02.160 already at that stage.

00:08:03.680 So these have early roots.

00:08:05.400 But then over the course of development, certainly into middle adulthood and older adulthood,

00:08:12.860 I think on average, these are just average trends, of course.

00:08:16.360 There are exceptions to the rules.

00:08:18.160 But these are general trends or rules.

00:08:21.020 On average, men become a lot lonelier than women do. 1.00

00:08:24.340 Women are better at sustaining, cultivating relationships over the course of the lifespan. 1.00

00:08:31.200 And men are not.

00:08:32.720 And when you're 20 or 30, that's not maybe such a big deal.

00:08:39.860 You know, maybe relationships are sort of provided to you by college or school or work or what have you.

00:08:45.140 But in the 30s and 40s and 50s and beyond, cultivation and nurturance of these relationships is key.

00:08:54.000 And men, by and large, aren't great at that.

00:08:58.820 And it's very much to their detriment.

00:09:00.460 Well, that's probably, you know, that idea that as you get older, you know, I mean, people have seen those articles that there's been this uptick in the number of men in America who are dying by suicide.

00:09:10.620 And you're like, well, you know, they're probably in their 20s or 30s.

00:09:13.060 But no, it's like they're in their 50s or 60s.

00:09:15.920 Right.

00:09:17.240 Suicide is very linear with regard to age.

00:09:19.940 I mean, generally speaking, it's linear in that the older you get, the more at risk you get.

00:09:26.580 But it certainly occurs in young people, teenagers, people in their 20s, and that's noteworthy.

00:09:33.020 And it's tragic.

00:09:34.640 And also, it's on the increase in those age groups.

00:09:38.480 But nevertheless, the trend still holds that the older you are, the more vulnerable you are.

00:09:43.760 Obviously, that's true of a lot of things having to do with health.

00:09:47.400 It's definitely true with regard to suicide, too.

00:09:49.840 Well, so let's, this idea, you know, your idea, the interpersonal theory of suicide, the desire to want to die by suicide is a sense of alienation, social alienation, or loneliness.

00:10:02.060 And so this kind of segue nicely to what we're going to talk about today, about male loneliness.

00:10:06.680 What, how do you define, like, in your work, how do you, what is loneliness?

00:10:11.340 Like, how would you define it?

00:10:12.460 I mean, I think there are at least two facets that can be useful to draw out, although they're very related to one another.

00:10:20.080 And it has to do with the difference between an interior experience, you know, what somebody feels like inside, versus, you know, what you might call an exterior experience, or what things are, you know, what things are like objectively.

00:10:33.000 In other words, there could be a person, for instance, who objectively, in terms of their exterior experience, they have a lot of connections, or they have family members around, they have friends, etc.

00:10:45.760 But on the inside, on the interior, they feel desperately alienated and lonely nonetheless.

00:10:52.980 The idea, I guess I'd put it, is that having people around is no guarantee to prevent loneliness.

00:10:59.680 It helps, certainly, but it's no guarantee.

00:11:03.680 So I think that distinction between subjective and objective experiences of how peopled one's experiences are, I think that's a useful distinction.

00:11:14.060 And it solves some mysteries, because you can talk to families of bereaved people who are bereaved by suicide, and they'll often say things like, but we were there for him on that very day.

00:11:24.940 How could he have felt lonely?

00:11:26.340 And the answer, I'm afraid, is that there's a difference between what's going on on the exterior and what's going on in the interior.

00:11:34.540 On the interior, I think people in that situation feel desperately lonely, no matter how many people are around.

00:11:42.200 Well, I think in the book, you call that whenever you're surrounded by people, family, friends, but you still feel lonely.

00:11:47.800 You call that alone in a crowd.

00:11:49.520 Right.

00:11:50.220 Right.

00:11:50.480 Yeah, and I think it's a phenomenon that most people immediately recognize.

00:11:58.200 It's happened to most, if not all of us, that there can be people around.

00:12:03.440 There can be people who really seem together in something.

00:12:07.140 Maybe it's their belief in a religion or in a political idea, and you don't feel it, and it can be very lonely, even though you're objectively, obviously not lonely in a literal sense, because there's a crowd around you.

00:12:23.260 You can still be quite lonely despite that.

00:12:26.460 Why do you think that happens?

00:12:27.340 Why do you think you can be surrounded by people, yet still subjectively feel lonely?

00:12:32.060 When you talk to people, what do you think is going on there?

00:12:33.960 It's a deep question, actually.

00:12:37.620 I mean, I don't know the answer to that, if anyone really does, to the depths of the question.

00:12:43.740 I mean, the main thing that occurs to me is that that interior world, it's certainly influenced by the exterior world, but it's got many other internal influences.

00:12:54.800 You know, when things go awry internally, like if somebody's in the midst of a major depressive episode, that illness can be so powerful that it just unpeoples the interior world, even if the exterior world is full of love and care.

00:13:12.140 It's a very puzzling paradox, but the illnesses, like major depressive disorder, can be so powerful that they unpeoples the interior world, even of a very peopled person's experience.

00:13:28.480 So that's one type of loneliness where, objectively, you're not lonely because there's people around you, but you feel lonely subjectively, the interior.

00:13:38.600 But you also talk there's another type of loneliness, and you call this alone but oblivious.

00:13:43.180 So these are, and this happens oftentimes with men, men who, they don't have a lot of people around them, no friends, hardly any other social contacts outside maybe their wife and their kids.

00:13:52.920 And they don't feel, and they don't feel, so objectively, they look lonely, but they don't feel lonely.

00:13:58.380 That's right, and that can be dangerous because it can surprise usually men, anyone, a person, but usually men.

00:14:07.380 It can surprise them because their obliviousness can lift in their late 50s, 60s, or 70s.

00:14:15.260 But by then, a lot of the architecture or the machinery that's needed to initiate and cultivate and sustain relationships, a lot of that is just atrophied.

00:14:29.900 And so people are left at a pretty tragic dilemma of now recognizing how alone one feels and being unable or feeling unable to do much about it.

00:14:46.600 That can especially be the case if someone has invested most of their adulthood, not in relationships, but into work.

00:14:55.500 I would be the last to counsel against investment and work.

00:15:01.020 I think it's crucial and key, but it can be overdone, and if it's overdone to the exclusion of relationships, once that work starts to end or recede, people can be left in a very painful dilemma, stuck in a very painful dilemma.

00:15:18.880 A lot of men are stuck that way, and then what's left is their spouse, and then if something happens to her or if there's a separation, divorce, that's a very precarious situation.

00:15:32.660 And it pertains to both sexes, but a little bit more so than men overall.

00:15:37.200 So it sounds like this alone but oblivious.

00:15:39.400 So subjectively, you don't feel lonely, but objectively, you are.

00:15:44.360 You might not have any problems, but whenever they become a problem, they become a problem really fast.

00:15:49.120 You kind of delay the problem, and then it just hits you really hard.

00:15:52.520 You suddenly realize, oh boy, I am really lonely, and this is a problem.

00:15:57.460 Yeah, it's a brittle state because the reality is that the person's relationships are atrophying around them,

00:16:04.400 as is the ability to initiate those relationships in the first place.

00:16:08.500 And then it's sustainable for a while, even decades, via connection to work or to a main relationship like that with a spouse.

00:16:19.920 But I guess the point that I was trying to drive at in that book, at least one of them,

00:16:24.780 is that to have one connection or even two, to say work and to a spouse, it's like being in space.

00:16:33.900 And if you've just got one connection and a brittle one at that to the spaceship, if you're on a space walk, that's precarious.

00:16:41.540 You need backup.

00:16:42.920 You need redundancy.

00:16:44.100 And that's one thing that women are much better at on average than men. 0.99

00:16:49.780 They have that redundancy.

00:16:50.960 They work on building up that redundancy in their connections to life via relationships with family and friends and work, too, and their spouse, too.

00:17:01.100 That multiple connection just builds in safeguards and redundancies that can be lifesaving when one of the initial connection frays.

00:17:11.860 Well, short of contributing to the desire to want to die by suicide, this isolation, this alienation, this feeling of loneliness, what other bad effects does loneliness have on men?

00:17:24.520 It has some of the most profound health effects of anything on men and women, too.

00:17:32.520 There are studies documenting that the effects of loneliness on physical health and on mortality, those effects for loneliness are even stronger than what they are for things like smoking or obesity

00:17:47.100 or other plainly medical or biologically relevant threats.

00:17:53.840 The idea that I take away from that is that loneliness is a biological threat, too, and at least as powerful as something like smoking in terms of rendering people at risk for physical health problems and psychological problems, too, for sure.

00:18:08.380 So, I mean, I think one of the arguments that I made in that book and that many others have made, too, is that the toxic effects, that the physical, biological toxic effects of loneliness are underestimated.

00:18:22.480 They're at least as strong as something like smoking daily, regular, you know, pack a day smoking.

00:18:28.560 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:18:30.300 And now back to the show.

00:18:34.300 So, I think we've all read articles, you know, in the past, I would say, decade where you'd see things like increasing loneliness in America.

00:18:42.600 Do you know when they do these studies on loneliness, are they talking about that subjective feeling of loneliness or are they talking about that objective loneliness?

00:18:51.200 I think they're probably talking about both.

00:18:53.660 And I think the point does apply pretty well to both.

00:18:57.300 And that stands to reason, I think, because these two things are correlated with one another.

00:19:02.640 I mean, one of my points is that they're not perfectly correlated with one another.

00:19:06.300 And so, people can feel alone in a crowd or alone but oblivious.

00:19:11.220 But mostly people who are lonely know it and feel it and are by themselves.

00:19:16.360 That's mostly what happens.

00:19:18.580 And so, I think those studies are probably with regard to both.

00:19:21.400 Many of the measures in the loneliness area, especially the brief ones that can be easily administered to hundreds of thousands of people, they tend to focus a little more on subjective loneliness.

00:19:36.320 You know, how felt and experienced aloneness than they do on objective.

00:19:42.240 But I think they're probably targeting both.

00:19:45.920 And what's your take?

00:19:46.560 What do you think is causing the increase of loneliness in America and other Western countries?

00:19:52.440 Yeah, it's a complicated question.

00:19:55.140 I mean, I'm not really one to castigate something like social media use.

00:20:00.700 I have colleagues who do and others who don't.

00:20:05.200 That's actually an interesting subject of controversy.

00:20:09.400 But I just see it as a two-edged kind of thing.

00:20:12.820 Social media, that is, where I think it can be alienating.

00:20:16.480 And I think it can pull people into screens and away from actual relationships, including relationships, by the way, with the world around,

00:20:26.540 like nature and exercise and sunlight and things like that.

00:20:31.700 But on the other hand, I think it can be good.

00:20:33.580 I think it can bring people together, social media.

00:20:35.840 I think it really does connect people socially.

00:20:39.160 So I just think it's a little bit of a draw in terms of its negative and positive consequences.

00:20:47.880 That may be a small contributor to increases in loneliness.

00:20:51.900 You can make kind of the same argument about technology in general.

00:20:55.580 It's that it's got a lot to it that's positive and even connecting, but it can be alienating.

00:21:02.900 I think that's probably part of it.

00:21:05.880 In the United States, the opiate epidemic is relevant.

00:21:11.340 I think that lifestyle alienates people.

00:21:15.180 I think we have a culture in the U.S. of rugged individualism.

00:21:21.400 And I think there's a whole lot to admire about that.

00:21:23.840 And I think there's a dark side.

00:21:26.980 And that dark side is always there.

00:21:29.720 And it kind of ebbs and flows depending on what's going on with the rest of the culture.

00:21:35.440 So those are some of my thoughts about it.

00:21:36.980 Economic factors are certainly relevant.

00:21:39.040 But those have gone up and down.

00:21:41.080 I don't see those as a clear driver.

00:21:45.020 Fragmentation processes of communities, neighborhoods, families.

00:21:53.020 That's certainly a relevant factor, too.

00:21:56.080 So yeah, complex.

00:21:56.960 A lot of factors going on here.

00:21:58.300 But in the book, you highlight a few theories or ideas of what you think is contributing to male loneliness.

00:22:04.100 Particularly that loneliness that happens to men when they get to their 50s or 60s, where we see that increase in death by suicide because they get so lonely.

00:22:13.940 And the first idea you have is that male loneliness is caused by men being spoiled when it comes to relationships.

00:22:20.660 What do you mean by that?

00:22:23.460 I think the way that society is structured, and rightly so, actually, is that young people, in general, tend to be spoiled about relationships. 0.56

00:22:34.740 In the sense that you can be passive as a young child, an infant, certainly.

00:22:42.600 But as a very young child and then into adolescence, you can be pretty passive, and yet opportunities for relationships happen anyway.

00:22:54.660 They're just kind of provided for you via family reaching out and being very active, via school and related groups of people.

00:23:04.740 Just being there for kids.

00:23:07.220 Obviously, there are some kids who are exceptions, but generally speaking, that's true.

00:23:12.440 And then in adolescence, whether it's a workforce or something like a university setting or college setting or community college setting, same processes.

00:23:25.340 And then that sort of serving up of relationships starts to go away, on average, into the 20s and 30s.

00:23:33.020 And it's at that point that an active stance towards really reaching out for new relationships and reaching back to sustain old relationships, that becomes crucial.

00:23:46.680 And I just think men more than women are spoiled out of doing that.

00:23:50.940 And they can cruise on it and coast on it for a while, but often it catches up with them in time.

00:23:57.500 And in time, it ends up often being in the 60s and 70s.

00:24:01.900 All right.

00:24:02.020 So men are spoiled.

00:24:03.500 So everyone's spoiled.

00:24:04.420 Men and women are equally spoiled.

00:24:06.300 So I think you make this point.

00:24:07.200 If you look at kids, young kids, like they're seven or eight or nine, boys and girls, they have the same number of friends, basically.

00:24:13.660 Both of them are great because they're in school, they've got their friends at school, they've got sports.

00:24:18.920 But if you ask those same boys and girls when they're 60 or 70, how many friends you have, there's a disparity.

00:24:25.240 The women are going to have more friends, but the men aren't going to have as many friends because they stopped taking – well, they took relationships for granted.

00:24:34.440 Like they just thought they just happened, but they reached a certain point in their life where you had to actually be active about your friendships.

00:24:39.640 Exactly, and making new ones.

00:24:42.900 I mean, I think being active about relationships can take at least two forms.

00:24:48.280 And one is being sort of open and even eager for new relationships, new friendships.

00:24:55.520 And that requires effort.

00:24:58.600 And, for instance, on a university campus, the way that the incentive structure is these days, in most U.S. universities at any rate,

00:25:07.680 one is encouraged to drill down into sub-sub-specialties.

00:25:13.200 And so you're not incentivized to relate to people on other quarters of the campus.

00:25:19.260 You know, I'm in a department of psychology.

00:25:20.880 We're not incentivized to show up to functions of the departments of English or religion or biology or physics.

00:25:28.260 I've done that.

00:25:29.320 I've taken active steps to do that.

00:25:32.060 And it's been very rewarding because intellectually, you occasionally pick up a new idea, but socially, you're just introduced to a whole new group of people,

00:25:42.680 people who are really a delight, whom you'd never have met if you just stayed on autopilot and did the passive thing.

00:25:50.000 So that's one aspect of being open to friendships is openness to new relationships.

00:25:57.020 But arguably more important is the reaching back to rekindle or to maintain relationships that were really important back in the day.

00:26:08.540 I think there's a special power to the friendships that are forged in the age, between the ages of, say, 10 and 20.

00:26:20.460 And a lot of people can think of people who were really important to them back then.

00:26:25.540 I mean, crucially important to them back then, whom they haven't reached out to in decades, years at least, sometimes decades.

00:26:34.720 And it's not that hard to just pick up a phone, especially these days with the Internet, and reconnect with those people.

00:26:42.620 And the other thing I can say from personal experience is when you do that, I guess some people fear that it'll be awkward.

00:26:49.960 It won't be the same like it was.

00:26:52.580 It'll just be a waste of time.

00:26:55.300 My experience has been completely contrary, where sometimes over the course of 30 years, with no contact over 30 years, immediately one just clicks back into that same rhythm, that same familiarity, that same comfort.

00:27:12.400 I think there's a special power to friendships like that.

00:27:14.920 So that's the other form of relationship maintenance, I guess, would be the word that I think is arguably even more important than being open to new relationships.

00:27:26.300 I actually had that experience of reconnecting with an old friend a few weeks ago.

00:27:30.280 Out of the blue, my old college roommate texted me, and he's like, is this Brett's phone number still?

00:27:36.200 And I said, oh, hey, it's great to hear from you.

00:27:38.640 And he's like, let's talk.

00:27:39.520 We got on the phone, and we talked for about 45 minutes.

00:27:42.440 And I felt great for a few days after that, just having that conversation and reconnecting with him.

00:27:47.260 And I hadn't talked to him in like 15, 20 years.

00:27:50.280 I mean, it's been a long time.

00:27:51.940 It's remarkable.

00:27:52.660 Well, I've had it many times myself, similar experiences.

00:27:58.120 Also, I've just made a real point.

00:28:00.060 This is not for everybody, of course, but I've just made a real point of showing up to high school and college reunions.

00:28:07.160 And that's where you really see it is, you know, there are people there who you haven't seen in 20 years, 25 years, 20 and 30 years.

00:28:17.440 I've just been amazed at how it doesn't matter.

00:28:20.180 You just pick up that same easy rhythm and rapport, just like when you were 15.

00:28:26.440 It's just, it's very pleasant and fun.

00:28:30.460 And it does make, it does improve your mood.

00:28:34.740 And then if you do that serially and maintain that across the different relationships, I think it maintains mood.

00:28:43.400 You said it maintained your mood for that one example for days.

00:28:46.800 But I think if you do this serially, you start to multiply that and it becomes, you know, it maintains mood for weeks and months and years.

00:28:55.640 So I heartily recommend it.

00:28:58.240 I can't think of one example where I've reached out and it backfired.

00:29:02.840 I mean, I guess these days things are fraught with politics and such, but I would counsel putting all that aside and just focusing on the friendship and the comfort and the easy rhythm and familiarity of the friendship back in the day and trusting that at least some of that will revive if you just take the effort to reach out.

00:29:24.540 Well, one of the reasons you hypothesize that women tend to be better than men at maintaining relationships in adulthood is that men, if you're speaking in generalities, tend to take a more instrumental approach to the relationships.

00:29:36.460 I mean, I think that's fair.

00:29:38.040 And it's also fair to continually emphasize that they're, you know, that generalizations are, you know, always subject to criticism.

00:29:48.400 I mean, that, that, that, that's fair, but the data also, what's also fair is to face the objective data.

00:29:54.620 And they're very clear that, yeah, these are, these are true trends where men tend to be more like that than, than women to their benefit sometimes.

00:30:06.800 I mean, being instrumental pays off, can pay off, uh, and I actually encourage it.

00:30:13.440 I think it's a good thing.

00:30:14.600 I just don't think it's a good thing in extreme excess to the, to the degree that you neglect other things like the relational aspect of humans.

00:30:24.900 You know, that, that's, that's dangerous and that, that's going to catch up with, with, with you sooner or later in my view.

00:30:31.260 Yeah, that instrumental approach to life, you know, that's what allows men to, you know, get a good job, you know, buy a home, you know, establish themselves, right?

00:30:40.580 You have to like, you're just thinking about what you got to do to, to get those things.

00:30:44.500 And those are all good things.

00:30:45.400 But I think the case you made is that you have to temper that.

00:30:48.440 You can't just make your whole pursuit in life, money and status and work.

00:30:52.740 Because if you do, you're going to end up, you know, alone in the, you know, have that alone in the crowd or the alone, but oblivious thing going on.

00:31:00.180 That's right.

00:31:00.740 And, you know, moreover, if you, if you do overdo it with the instrumental kind of approach in the best case, you'll be, you know, financially successful or professionally successful and lonely, but that's the, that's the best case.

00:31:20.020 And that's, and that's kind of rare.

00:31:21.820 I mean, overall, especially if you're talking about very, very high levels of achievement or of wealth.

00:31:27.520 What's a little more common is for it not to work out on the instrumental side and you're lonely there too.

00:31:33.400 That's a, that's a witch's brew.

00:31:35.220 That that's, that's disastrous for, for health in the last half of life.

00:31:40.340 Men are just making that bet more than women and it's, it's, it's a risky bet and there's no need for it, especially when our natures are such that it's just natural to relate to one another.

00:31:51.880 It's, it's an unsafe, risky, unnecessary bet in my view.

00:31:58.720 And, and men make it more, more frequently than women.

00:32:01.400 Women make it too, but men, men definitely make it more frequently.

00:32:04.380 Yeah, I was thinking about that idea of instrumentality coming at the expense of relations, you know, we're coming up on Christmas, made me think of Scrooge, Ebenezer Scrooge.

00:32:12.980 And he's like the epitome of that, right?

00:32:14.420 Like he just focused on money, money, money.

00:32:17.760 And then, you know, he sees the, his future self and like, no one comes to his funeral and people are just stealing the bed curtains from his bed.

00:32:26.220 Right.

00:32:27.240 And he had no friends at the end.

00:32:29.220 And he, of course he changes himself at the end.

00:32:31.140 He realizes, oh, relationships are important too.

00:32:33.520 So, yeah, that's a good, that's a good image or good sort of symbol of these processes.

00:32:40.640 Cause that, yeah, that's, that's right.

00:32:43.680 The other thing that I might add here is that it can seem a little bit Pollyannish or, or cliched or naive maybe to say, don't worry about work or, you know, achievement or money.

00:32:56.360 Don't worry about that relationships or everything.

00:32:58.920 That's not really what I'm saying though.

00:33:00.540 What I'm saying is go ahead and work 10 hours a day and, and keep that up.

00:33:05.940 But as you do that, you can weave in relationships.

00:33:09.960 I mean, you can work a 10 hour day and then go home and text your best friend from college or high school.

00:33:17.680 That takes like one minute, if that.

00:33:19.820 So, you know, I'm just talking about little doses of this at a minimum.

00:33:25.400 It's not hard to do.

00:33:26.340 It's not naive or cliched or Pollyannish.

00:33:29.340 It's balanced.

00:33:30.760 And that's kind of what I'm going for is, is I think things get out of balance for some people who end up in crisis or even in the disastrous situation of suicide death.

00:33:41.920 Very out of balance.

00:33:43.900 And to get that balance back is not all that hard.

00:33:46.180 It's not, doesn't have to be 50, 50.

00:33:47.780 It just can't be a hundred zero.

00:33:49.880 Well, another type of loneliness or cause of loneliness that can happen to some men is men who they make their focus, you know, money and status, climb the corporate ladder, and they find themselves at the top of the ladder of the pile, the pyramid.

00:34:04.200 And you think, oh man, you look at these people, man, that guy's got it all.

00:34:08.000 It's got people surrounding him.

00:34:09.700 They want to like people, men want to be him.

00:34:11.400 Women want to be with him. 1.00

00:34:12.560 But you ask, like, how are you feeling?

00:34:15.160 He's like, man, I feel terrible.

00:34:16.400 I'm completely lonely.

00:34:17.240 Like what, what, what's going on?

00:34:18.720 I mean, have you counseled people like, you know, CEOs or anything like that where they've, they're at the pinnacle of success, but they just feel completely miserable because they're incredibly lonely?

00:34:28.700 Most definitely.

00:34:29.500 And, you know, I think one of the things that feeds into that is, is that when you get to those levels of achievement, you know, in terms of, you know, whatever it may be, creative endeavors or professional achievement or wealth or whatever, you start to elevate yourself out of social circles.

00:34:50.600 And there, there are people who, who just don't think they can relate to you because of, you know, you're, you're, you're just elevated beyond that.

00:34:58.520 That's a danger, I think, of a very high achievement, but that there's a remedy for that.

00:35:04.200 You know, one is, is signaling to people that, you know, despite the fact of the achievement or the fact of the wealth, it's just not true.

00:35:10.820 It's just not true of, of who you are.

00:35:13.200 I think you can signal that in your demeanor and comportment.

00:35:16.820 But, but I also think that that's yet another reason to reach back to the friends in college, because they knew you back then when you weren't, whatever, a CEO or a great artist or any of that.

00:35:29.180 They knew you when you were just some guy.

00:35:31.380 And I think that there's great value in that, underestimated value.

00:35:35.800 I haven't studied it rigorously, but in talking with my own social circles,

00:35:39.580 I've been impressed by how, how few of the people that I know remain in contact with their best friend from when they were 15, for example.

00:35:51.380 Pretty common not to be in contact with that person.

00:35:54.920 The idea, I guess, being that you've grown apart or grown out of that, I suppose that can happen.

00:36:00.800 But I've seen it too many times where, despite differences, despite growing in different directions, there's still that easy, familiar, knowing, understanding, rapport that just kicks right back in.

00:36:15.440 And it's, I think it can be vital to, to thriving and flourishing.

00:36:20.100 So we've talked some, some reasons why, what causes male loneliness.

00:36:25.540 Men are spoiled.

00:36:26.680 And by spoiled, I mean, they just, they take relationships for granted.

00:36:29.360 Right.

00:36:29.500 They don't learn how to actively foster or maintain relationships until it's too late.

00:36:36.000 Or they, they get distracted with, you know, good things like work and, and money and, and status.

00:36:43.260 Like those things are, can, can be good, but like, they just, they focus on that only at the detriment of the relationships.

00:36:48.500 So when men, when, once they, they start experiencing that emotional loneliness, subjective feeling of loneliness, in your research, how do men typically cope with loneliness?

00:37:00.480 I mean, imagine, you know, women probably reach out to people. 1.00

00:37:03.340 What do men tend to do? 1.00

00:37:05.680 It depends on, I mean, there's a, a healthy reaction and the unhealthy reaction.

00:37:11.260 And unfortunately, men tend towards the unhealthy reactions of turning to alternative sources of seeming support or seeming connection.

00:37:21.860 Things like alcohol, alcohol and drug abuse.

00:37:26.660 Things like sexual contact, absent real relationships or sexual contact that damage existing relationships.

00:37:37.320 And any number of other kind of distractions, that's kind of how I view all those things is, as, as distractions from what really is our lifeblood.

00:37:47.800 And that's true relationships with, with people who are part of us, family, friends, friends from back in the day.

00:37:56.540 And so that's an unhealthy move in response to this growing awareness of, of loneliness.

00:38:03.500 A good way to use loneliness is just like you use physical pain.

00:38:08.260 Physical pain is a signal.

00:38:10.440 Hey, something's wrong.

00:38:12.100 Something doesn't matter with my knee or my hip or, or whatever the case might be.

00:38:17.640 And you can take that signal of knee pain or hip pain and try to drink it away, or you can go to the doctor and get it fixed.

00:38:24.060 And with loneliness, that signal, same thing.

00:38:27.780 You can try to drink it away or what have you, or you can turn to the effort.

00:38:33.940 It's not that hard of an effort, but it's an effort to build new relationships and sustain or rekindle old ones.

00:38:40.920 So I would use it like a pain signal of, hey, this things are going wrong and I got to write them.

00:38:45.800 And, and there's a, there's a way to write them and it's not that hard.

00:38:49.520 And that's the better choice.

00:38:50.940 The other choices just have, you know, too many risks to them and they, they lead to ruin pretty regularly.

00:39:00.340 So, yeah, I mean, it's not that hard.

00:39:01.920 I think you mentioned this in the book, oftentimes a response to male loneliness, we think about, well, you just need to get these guys into therapy and they'll start talking about their emotions and opening up and that will solve it.

00:39:13.400 And you, you're kind of dubious about that solution.

00:39:16.900 Why so?

00:39:17.300 So, you're right.

00:39:18.480 I am skeptical of that.

00:39:20.080 And it's interesting because I am a therapist and I am a psychologist and, and that's kind of the stuff that we do.

00:39:27.280 And I don't have disrespect for it at all.

00:39:30.860 I mean, it actually works really well if the person is ready to take it.

00:39:36.980 And if they're ready for it, it works great.

00:39:39.660 That kind of stuff.

00:39:41.300 That's a problem though, because not everyone is motivated to do it.

00:39:44.900 It doesn't fit everyone.

00:39:46.760 And men, I think can be, you know, on average, a pretty bad fit for traditional forms of psychotherapy.

00:39:54.060 And so, I think we need to be creative to engage and, you know, just, just kind of small behavioral fixes along the lines of what we, what we've been discussing, I think, are at least as powerful as traditional, as trying to convince men to stick with traditional psychotherapy.

00:40:12.780 I just, that's not for everybody.

00:40:15.400 And I, unlike most psychologists, I think, think that's completely obvious as to why that's not for everybody.

00:40:21.760 And, and I guess, unlike most psychologists, I'm not just willing to throw my hands up and say, well, we'll just focus on the ones who are interested in what we do.

00:40:31.760 I don't think that's good enough because it leaves out a whole segment of the population who, who do need help and who we can help with our research and with our work and our clinical techniques.

00:40:44.340 We've just got to be thoughtful about adapting them culturally, so to speak, to the culture or to the mindset of different subgroups, in this case, men.

00:40:54.460 So, what are some things, and we've talked about a few, like things that people who are feeling lonely, they can do, like just reach out, connect to an old friend.

00:41:01.440 But what are some other things that men can do to start reducing loneliness and investing in relationships more that don't involve having to go to therapy if that's not something they want to do or feel comfortable with?

00:41:12.640 Right.

00:41:12.960 I mean, the easiest place to start is just, and we do this within the clinic that I direct here in, in Tallahassee, Florida, we, we bargain, we, we make simple bargains with patients that they'll just show up to a gathering of some sort, a gathering that they had not planned to show up to, but they, they bargain that they now will.

00:41:38.760 That's all they have to start with is all they got to do is show up.

00:41:42.320 It could be anything, any gathering, it can be at a, whatever, a classroom or museum or something else on campus or some sort of sporting event or, or a community organizing event, religious event, political, it doesn't matter.

00:41:54.440 Just as long as there are, just as long as there are people that are together.

00:41:57.380 The idea being that there is a natural human tendency to reach out and socialize.

00:42:04.800 And if you put a particular human with other humans in a group, sooner or later, that natural tendency is going to spark.

00:42:13.340 However, if you isolate that human from other ones, it won't spark.

00:42:18.620 So a simple idea is to at least get exposure to other people, you know, so that the chance that that natural tendency will spark, you know, is enhanced.

00:42:28.900 If people will agree just to do those kinds of things on a regular basis, that alone goes a long way.

00:42:35.780 It doesn't immediately cure something like a major depressive disorder or suicidal crisis.

00:42:41.780 But what it does start to do is turn the tide over the course of time and repetition to where, you know, a bad major depressive episode, for example, has become less bad, less severe.

00:42:54.200 A suicidal crisis has gone from potentially lethal down to, you know, still quite distressed, but now non-lethal.

00:43:04.200 That's a huge distinction.

00:43:05.940 So I would start there with just the idea of the basic idea and the simple idea of showing up.

00:43:12.960 How do you do that?

00:43:13.860 I mean, we're still in the pandemic here where now a lot of communities are starting to clamp down with stay-at-home orders and things.

00:43:20.880 How do you do that during a pandemic?

00:43:24.340 Yeah, I mean, the fix there is the same fix that we most all of us have seen with regard to work and meetings and things like that.

00:43:32.060 And it's got to be at a distance or remote or virtual.

00:43:37.080 You know, in my own view, that's just not the same, quite the same dose as in-person gatherings.

00:43:45.020 But that's where we are for the foreseeable, you know, X number of months.

00:43:49.920 Until then, you take what is available and it would be, you know, virtual kinds of analogs of the showing up.

00:43:58.500 But I've shown up myself to colloquia, seminars and the like around the campus on FSU.

00:44:05.680 But it's been from my home via Zoom and similar kinds of technologies.

00:44:10.940 You know, it's a peopled experience, but it's not quite the same, but it's better than nothing.

00:44:16.400 And, you know, I've also done some distanced sort of socializing, you know, small groups outside, sitting, you know, six or seven feet apart, that kind of thing.

00:44:28.820 You know, we're coping, you know, temporarily.

00:44:32.040 But the same principles apply of showing up and reaching out a little bit.

00:44:37.220 Again, it doesn't have to be that big of an effort, but just the start of showing up and getting those natural kind of processes of connections sparked.

00:44:47.340 I think that's, it's a starting point.

00:44:50.680 Let's put it that way.

00:44:51.640 At any rate, at least an initial step.

00:44:54.120 Yeah, we got this membership program called The Strenuous Life, and members can get together in their geographic areas for meetups.

00:45:02.160 And it's been interesting to see what people do during the pandemic.

00:45:05.020 They've done some virtual stuff, but like an activity, like just doing stuff outside in nature, where you, you know, it's relatively COVID safe.

00:45:13.240 You can social distance, you're outside.

00:45:14.940 Like, so rucking, so, you know, basically hiking with a backpack.

00:45:17.980 That's been a popular activity.

00:45:19.540 Or just doing stuff, and I think you even write this in your book, nature can be sort of a part of the process of alleviating or combating loneliness in men.

00:45:29.520 I mean, absolutely.

00:45:30.480 I'm very, very drawn to ancestral evolutionary explanations of why our nature is what it is.

00:45:39.200 Human nature has these features because of our evolutionary ancestral past.

00:45:43.760 And one was small group, deep dependence for survival itself, dependence on each other.

00:45:53.040 Another was our close, you know, intuitive, regular, daily relationship with nature.

00:46:00.020 You know, with plants, with trees, with animals, with all elements of nature, with water, swimming in water, fishing in it, boating in it, all of these things.

00:46:09.880 And in a modern technological world, those things can recede, and I don't think that's in our natures.

00:46:17.300 Technology, I'm not an anti-technology kind of person, on the contrary, if anything.

00:46:22.560 But, again, it's a similar theme of everything in moderation.

00:46:27.680 And technology in moderation, the neglect of nature needs to be moderated, too.

00:46:32.440 It's essential to who we were, and therefore, I think, essential to who we are.

00:46:38.020 Well, Tom, this has been a great conversation.

00:46:40.660 Where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:46:42.220 Is there some place people can go?

00:46:44.160 Probably the main site would be via the Department of Psychology at Florida State University.

00:46:50.880 If you just Google my name and FSU, I think that'll get you immediately there.

00:46:58.400 The books I've written on topics like loneliness, explaining why people died by suicide, things like that, are available, too, at all the usual places, Amazon, etc.

00:47:11.740 Fantastic.

00:47:12.200 Well, Thomas Joyner, thanks for your time.

00:47:13.300 It's been a pleasure.

00:47:14.880 My pleasure.

00:47:15.700 Thank you for having me.

00:47:17.420 My guest today was Thomas Joyner.

00:47:18.900 He's the author of the book Lonely at the Top.

00:47:20.780 It's available on Amazon.com.

00:47:22.100 Check out our show notes at aom.is slash lonely.

00:47:24.560 We can find links to resources.

00:47:26.020 We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:47:27.240 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

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00:48:12.620 but put what you've heard into action.

00:48:14.400 And at the end, thank you for joining us.

00:48:26.420 Thank you.

00:48:35.460 Bye.

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The Art of Manliness - December 21, 2020

The Hidden Tragedy of Male Loneliness

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