Only as valued as their productivity.
That is a big part of it.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is “What do you do?” it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Add in the fact that men hitting that age now have basically never received any positive reaction for expressing any emotions or vulnerability and usually outright been mocked for doing so and it is no wonder they are are hard group to reach…
And they’re all totally socially isolated to boot. How the hell do you make friends as an adult?
And where do you even go? Civic centers, bowling alleys etc are dead. Moderate churches are disappearing. Car centric everything means if you have a disability or not much money you’re screwed.
As with most things, the hardest part is the first step: you have to find a community to join. It can be anything, but senior centers are greater resources for older people that they unfortunately don’t take enough advantage of. My parents found a seniors’ program at a local college and started taking classes with people their age, which created an entirely new friend group for them. You just have to find a group of people doing something you enjoy and the relationships will likely form without much effort after that, provided you don’t have crippling social anxiety or something else that makes social interaction difficult. Point is, once you get the ball rolling, momentum takes over; the hardest part is getting it (i.e. yourself) moving.
Left my country and the coldness (not just the weather) was such a huge part of it.
You need a group that’s small enough to allow for personal interaction, but large enough that there’s enough people that you’re more likely to find ones you click with. It’s easy enough to do online - a lot of people meet in games like MMOs and on social media sites. You already share a common interest, and if you click you can expand your friendship outside of that immediate context. Even within the context, you get friends and community.
Real world kinds of places can include things like a men’s choir or a community theater group if that’s your demographic. Those can lead to Saturday brunches and such. There’s also places like dog parks where you can hang out with other dog owners, and sports groups like bowling and ultimate that have various levels of serious vs fun. There’s also a lot of volunteering opportunities.
Some groups can be cliques that can make it harder to get into at first, and just like in dating you can’t let a negative experience turn you off from the whole scene.
I’ve seen a few people complain about the question “what do you do?” over the years, and I think it’s pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as “what is your job?”
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it’s not something I’m overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I’d never go back to work, it’s just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I’m working on, trips I’m planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn’t have to talk about work outside of work as much
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How people make money is often the most boring thing about them. A whole lot of the prestigious jobs that make big bucks that people like to brag about boil down to a whole lot of paperwork, emails, and phone calls, I don’t want to hear about that, that’s the kind of stuff I make any excuse I can to avoid thinking about.
If they’re making big bucks though, hopefully they’re doing something cool with it, they can tell me about their ski trips, or yacht trips to private islands or whatever rich people do these days, that’s what I want to hear about it. If the only thing they can come up with to say that they “do” is a job doing the boring shit I try to avoid, that’s their own fault. They’re free to judge me, I’m judging them right back, they’re wasting their lives.
And most of the time my current job is far more interesting than theirs anyway even if it’s not as prestigious.
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It sounds like you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of people if they are asking that question to judge you. I find most people ask that question as its a baseline question on getting to know someone, so hobbies would be a perfectly acceptable response
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I’d really rather talk about the other things I do.
Yeah but what do you do for work doe?
911 dispatch
911 dispatch
That is pretty interesting!
Right? Don’t get me wrong, I have some cool stories, and I don’t blame people for being more interested in those than tales from my hiking trips or D&D game or hearing about my latest attempt at woodworking or whatever, but I’d rather talk about those.
r D&D game
Mix it up sometimes!
“HELP I’m being robbed!”
“Roll for initiative.”Well, I’ll take a D&D story too if you don’t mind.
My current group is playing Schedules & Conflicts so, got an itch u noe?
That’s been one of the culture shifts I’ve noticed moving to the EU. People are a lot less likely to lead with that question here than in the US.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is “What do you do?” it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Exactly. I stopped asking that question because I don’t wanna be asked that anymore. I ask other guys what their hobby(ies) is(are).
I’ve been saying “it’s private” for years.
I’ve always taken that question as a form of trying to find common interests. If you answered it with your hobbies, it would fulfill the same purpose which is getting conversation started.
If you asked me “well, how much do you make?” that would be way more pointed towards “productivity”.
I still cant remember the last compliment I got that wasn’t about my work.
I like your username. This has figured it out.
Or your net worth if you’ve made enough for long enough, or made the good choice to be born to rich parents.
It’s as direct as “what do you do.” You can say “he’s worth eight figures” or similar.
Societies that have been created around the concept that your life is worth as much as the value you produce. People are deeply ingrained with the idea that if you aren’t part of the production line then you may as well die and get out the way for the next cog.
To this day, this mentality still benefits the higher up in those societies.
That’s not just an idea - its physical reality. You can’t get your physical needs met in old age if you didn’t win the lotto. Suicide is the retirement plan for most of us non-boomers.
They’re gonna be shocked when they see the generation without kids and with unstable retirement funds gets too old to care for themselves. Suicide rates are going to explode.
Also aside from retirement. I see…a lot of people with campers, “homeless” now. Parking their RVs on sides of roads, struggling cause they fell behind on everything HARD. The rates might go up earlier.
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“They” would be our overlords. The masters of the system into which we are born. The wealthy and powerful. And I suppose they will find out just how little in life they can handle without us workers.
Don’t worry, climate collapse of all ecosystems is our retirement in like 3 years or something like that
Somewhat related, but I learned today that Phil Shea who worked as the prop master on the office, died by suicide earlier this week, he was 62. He had a family and friends who loved him, but clearly wasn’t speaking to anyone about what was really going on in his head. Older guys tend to be more closed up about speaking up
Cuz society mocks and looks down upon men who open up and talk. There’s very little room for error being a man.
Every time I’ve opened up it’s been ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. I just stopped.
Thankfully I have a spouse I can open up to 100% with and will make me feel heard and supported. When I’m at a boiling point, she’s good at helping me to ease up. If it wasn’t for her though, my mental health would be in the gutter.
Yeah I know the feeling.
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As an old guy (well old enough) I understand the sentiment. We are the providers, the protectors, the ones that aren’t supposed to show weaknesses or vulnerabilities. As an older gen x’er we weren’t taught how to talk about our feelings. It can be tough for sure.
For those who don’t know, this is the other end of the toxic masculinity spectrum - the cultural idea that there is a certain way men are supposed to act, and we’re perceived as weak or effeminate if we don’t. We don’t allow (or aren’t allowed to) ourselves to express our emotions in a healthy way, so we bottle them up until the stress either kills us, or we kill ourselves.
Phil Shea
Oh shit actually a name I’ve heard that means something to me. That’s no fun news :(
Watching my Dad decline in his later years was really tough, the man I had known my entire life just fell apart month by month, week by week until he was just a shell of a person. I don’t know when it happened, but the person I had known my whole life had already died before his body died later on. Seeing what I saw over the course of years as he declined, I would’ve completely understood if he had committed suicide well before. It would’ve been shocking and hard to take, but if he realized what was happening, felt himself slipping away, I wonder if he hadn’t at least considered it. He retired a year before he died at 63 and never really got to enjoy his retirement.
The capitalists tortured your father out of your father month by month, week by week, until only a shell, no longer productive, was cut loose to die as it was no longer useful to them.
That is what the capitalists do to us while they live large and pat themselves on the back for it.
Are you deadass using suicide as a stage to spew agitprop? You should feel ashamed of yourself, this is beyond ghoulish.
Ah yes, never “the time” to talk about this work camp of a supposed society, especially when the suffering of its victims is brought up.
I’m ghoulish to cope with the absurdity of what we are coerced into doing to ourselves. Others cope by pretending there’s nothing wrong, even that they love propagating this exploitation/value maximization trap.
I’m not using this person’s father as an agitprop. That would imply I have reasonable hope for change for the better in our times. There is not. Too far captured, too far propagandized. That said, one thing I won’t let them have is my silent, obedient consent as they toss their dead capital batteries without a thought after spending most of their very real lives in service to running up their ego scores that have no meaningful impact on their already gluttonous lifestyles. If that makes me the bastard in your eyes, so be it, I’m a bastard if it makes you happy. I’m the bad guy.
So say we all.
Twist and turn and justify it to yourself all day, you’re opportunistically shilling your ideology unasked in a thread about suicide, and it’s revolting.
I find it more disgusting that you’re using the tragedy to try to silence any talk about improving things. Or acting like political ideology is just some hobby or niche interest rather than something that has a significant impact on us all and can drive some to suicide.
Ok. If it makes you happy, I’m an unmasked, opportunistically revolting shill too.
It’s also true.
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It’s been studied. Books have been written about alienation and isolation in capitalism.
Hear, hear.
Saw this happen to my both my grandfathers, one died around 60 and the other around 80. Even the 60yo one, watching the mental decline was heartbreaking. Being left with literally nothing, losing your memories while you lose control of other parts of your body, these men were long gone long before they passed. Nothing in this world scares me like aging with dimentia does. You literally lose the person, sometimes completely, before they even die and you gotta sit there and be strong for them knowing that the slow desent will come for you too, and thats only if you’re lucky enough to get that old. It’s just not fair for anyone and there’s scarcely any dignity in death.
that is not normal old age stuff mate that sounds like cancer
I feel myself heading this way. So much of my identity is wrapped up in what I can do and service I can provide. When my body fails, and it’s starting to slow down even now, what will my identity be?
All I can suggest is to start decoupling your identity from your productivity or what you think you are expected to do. Figure out what really matters to you, and what you would regret doing or not doing when you’re elderly.
I’ve gone through a bunch of crap in the past few years, and part of getting back to normal life has been letting go of things that don’t really matter to me (anxiety doesn’t always make this easy, of course) and figuring out what matters most and how I can best enjoy this weird temporary thing we call life.
It will be what you make it. In retirement, my great aunt and uncle ran the ethnic dance scene for their city and volunteered. Even in a wheelchair you can teach and give your time to causes you find worthy!
jesus at 63?? uhm that is not Normal old age man unless your 80 and that was in 45 or some such
I’m sorry for your loss friend, the hardest thing in my life is watching my loved ones slip away before they’re gone.
My dad died in his late 80s of Parkinson’s. For at least a decade before his diagnosis he’d tell me that everyday when he woke up, he’d lost another piece of himself. He went from an active man in his early to mid 70s–he rode his bike 25 miles a day and weight lifted–to a shadow of himself very quickly.
It was tough to watch, and so much tougher for him facing loss after loss of his abilities. He spoke several times of “releasing” himself, but ultimately decided not to do it.
We are living longer, but that isn’t always to our benefit.
Sorry for your loss. Your dad sounds like a good guy. I wish we all had a better and easier way to die with dignity and on our own terms.
I’ll probably kill myself at that age too
Shit I’m 40 and regret not having done so.
do you want to hang out and suck each other’s dicks? I don’t even care anymore
Can I cum too?
yea of course bro
Lemon party detected.
Lmao. No, thank you, but I appreciate the offer.
See, you do still have the will to fight!
Damn that’s some therapy check mate shit yo
Going the drugs and Vegas route while be chased by 50 US marshals with fireworks shooting out of a stolen sports car in the desert. I Want the grand kids to think I was legendary and not a person stuck in a tomb of a body.
Glad to see an article about suicide focused specifically on men for a change. I wish it went into more specific detail about the societal treatment of men and how it fuels their mental health issues, but some attention is better than nothing.
I’ve seen a lot of those lately. At least in Polish media it was a very popular topic recently. Of course still nothing is being done to address. Then again, what are you going to do? In the end it’s really men doing it to themselves. How are you going to change what men think about what ‘being a men’ means?
I’ve thought about it plenty in the last few years. The only things really stopping me is the idea of hurting my still-living mother, and my kids.
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Honestly, that’s probably the healthiest way for people in that profession to approach it.
Agreed, but it’s unfortunate, because I feel that clinical detachment can come across as insincerity in a therapeutic context. It can promote a feeling of cynicism.
I can partially speak to this from the inside so to speak. I’m not that old, but I had a heart attack and open heart surgery at the end of 2018 and complication after complication through all of 2019.
All of which puts me at greater risk for depression and suicide.
Just when I was medically cleared to go back to the office, we shut down for covid and I haven’t been back since.
I started looking for a support group for heart attack/open heart surgery survivors and it was far, far more difficult than I thought.
Plenty of support groups for other conditions, plenty of support groups that advertised as women only, I really couldn’t find anything that accepted men.
I didn’t need a “mens only” group, just someone who wouldn’t turn me away due to my gender.
I finally reached out to one of the women’s groups going “Look, I know I’m not your demo, but I hope you can direct me…”
They set me up with a national org, https://mendedhearts.org/ who had an unbranded chapter in my area and I got to talk to people in my situation, it helped, but it was not easy getting there.
There were other problems during lockdown, I became a victim of domestic violence, against which I was helpless due to my medical conditions.
Same problem. No real support for male victims of domestic violence either.
The police directed me to various mental health agencies, for both myself and my wife, but this was peak covid and NONE of them called us back. NONE. Not even a “sorry, we aren’t taking new patients”, they just completely ghosted us.
My wife finally found a therapist who would “see” her remotely, which was a condition of our staying married, and things did get better.
But after all that… it was really dumb luck. Other folks aren’t as lucky.
I would also probably off myself at this age, seeing all the fuck ups that my generation did Holy shit.
What a waste if they don’t take someone horrible with them.
Yet America still wants to control the world.
I am not from the US but similar stories and stats exist for my own country.
If you think any country is handling this better, please tell us which one it is.
(and, of course, back it up with solid data…)
You should be ashamed of yourself, it’s an article about the horror that is suicide and you try and turn it into your personal beef with America. Shut the fuck up.
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What the fuck are you talking about
