july 22 mle

I make fun of the MaLe LoNeLiNeSs EpIdEmIc for the obvious reasons, all of which revolve around it being a self-caused/created problem that's wildly easy to solve unless you are a self-pitying dummy who can't muster up the resolve to give a single solitary fuck about other people without an ulterior motive. Sidebar: this Reddit post about the MaLe LoNeLiNeSs EpIdEmIc articulates things better than I can in this moment. That said, loneliness is definitely an issue in our culture. It's actually one of our culture's main exports. Loneliness, isolation, lack of community —— call it what you want, it's all different shades of the same colour. And while I can't talk about why people en masse are lonely, I can offer a very specific kind of advice. I'm 48. Most of my friends are between ~35 and ~55. Outliers exist, of course —— my friend/son R is 28 and my friend/mentor J is 59 —— but for the most part, 35-55 seems about right. Over the course of the last 10-15 years, most of the friends I've…