The Life of Lonely Men
Trophy Wives, Childhood Trauma, and the Plight of Masculinity in the Technological Age.
I was in my early twenties when I realized men suffer for their desires. I grew up with a guy who married a girl he dreamed about. She was blonde, beautiful, educated, and spoke in a soft sultry voice. She was the epitome of princess with her perfect nails and impeccably placed makeup, with a small Toto-style dog at her hip. He was absolutely in love with her. A year into their marriage, she left him lonely, feeling inadequate, and abandoned. Eventually he married a woman that was her exact opposite — a strong, naturally beautiful brunette who is authentically herself and who loves him unconditionally.
The reality is many men want a fantasy girl. She signifies a figure of femininity that he idealizes. She could have been a model in a men’s magazine, a popular girl at school he couldn’t have, an emotionally distant female figure from his past, or an idea of what a woman should look and act like. All of these beliefs are unrealistic and headed towards disaster. With the introduction of OnlyFans and Instagram models who show men the hyper-made-up version of a woman, the crisis of the ever-increasing lonely man persists. Men no longer want to love a whole woman with all her emotions and complexities, they want an ideal version of a princess they once met in a schoolyard or on their social media feed.
Men and women are multi-faceted individuals. We are not one-size-fits-all. We all have baggage and childhood trauma to certain degrees that we need to heal. We risk falling victim to unrealistic expectations when we seek the unattainable. I don’t care if a man has a six-pack and a six-figure salary or a woman has breasts you want to bury your face into and a million-dollar face, no one is perfect, and the more unrealistic people appear, the chances of engaging in a genuine relationship with them is slim to none if you are only focusing on the physical or the fantasy. You will spend your life pining for someone who doesn’t exist or married to a girl half your age who can’t hold a stimulating conversation or meet you at your level. Some guys might be okay with a woman who is vanilla inside and out, but I guarantee two things: She won’t be enough for you, and you will harbor resentment, or you will be a perpetual man-child who will never mature into a man with integrity.
On another note, I don’t want you to think I am picking on men, I am simply choosing to focus on men because they are the ones who struggle the most with loneliness if they fail to find a satisfying relationship. Women are lonely too, but they have access to more avenues of emotional connection than men do. Women place more value on female friendships and family connections. They have more freedom to choose when they are single and are less stressed on average when they live alone or with pets, children, or a roommate. Men need women, period. If they didn’t need women, they wouldn’t pursue them. Women don’t need men unless they can’t support themselves or want to have sex regularly. Women want to be with a man they can trust and share their life with. There is a difference. Also, a lot of women could honestly care less about sex. They want emotional connection and relationship. Sex is just a means to get closer to a man emotionally.
Men seek physical closeness and a family to provide for and support, without these things in tandem, they are lost boys circling a void. Men need a purpose in life, and they need something to consistently work towards. A monogamous, intimate relationship that challenges them to grow is the only avenue for men to realize their potential. A family is impossible without a woman’s love and trust, or a partner of their choosing that they can rely on, especially when life is challenging. If you spend time prioritizing superficial attraction to an ideal mate, you cannot build a foundation for long-term commitment to someone who is going to hold you when times are tough or when you screw up. You will spend your life on a perpetual first date with multiple women who will never satisfy you. What you want is a ride or die not a princess or prince who looks pretty but can’t handle your human.
In school, I was cautious about the guys that looked good physically but displayed deeply insecure behavior. I could point this out simply by observing their level of arrogance and ignorance. These were the guys who flirted easily but couldn’t hold a conversation. They were the guys that would run at the first sign of a real female challenge that they couldn’t control. They all dated the same type of girl, yet they secretly all wanted someone different, someone more like their mother, sister, or the confident girl they feared would expose their vulnerabilities. Choosing the trophy girl was a way for them to fit in with the guys and avoid being bullied. The alpha in the group, who was a gamma in disguise, set the tone for the ideal girl. He was usually a guy who felt inadequate, harbored deep insecurities, and likely had a complicated home life where he was constantly questioning his worth. I knew guys like this, and I grew up with guys like this. Some of them were my friends and guys who I loved as friends when we were young kids in our neighborhood.
I understand what creates the lonely boy searching for the perfect woman to satisfy his insatiable ego. He was the boy who used to punch me in the arm when we were seven because I challenged his perceptions. He was the boy who feared facing what needed to be healed. I’ll tell you a hard truth about the majority of these guys: They married women who used to scare them, trophy wives who never quite satisfy them and are secretly miserable, or they are married to women who are not worthy of them. The guys who married the right women did the work to heal or were guys who developed their character when they were boys and were often rejected by the ideal girls in school; essentially, they were nerds, outcasts, and friend-zone guys who never thought they would get a date with a pretty girl. Who’s laughing now? I know a guy I went to school with that was completely awkward and unattractive. No girl would look at him twice in any romantic way. He was also smart and had a great sense of humor. The girls liked him for something deeper than his appearance, even if they wouldn’t date him. Where is he now? He is good-looking and successful and has a stunning, intelligent, and supportive wife who gave him two beautiful girls. The cool guys from school are likely wondering how that happened.
Develop your character and you will attract the right woman for long-term connection, even if you have short-term setbacks while you are working on your self-development. Value women, all women, and understand that we are all human. Women are not mannequins to be discarded at the first sign of emotional intelligence. If a woman’s feelings are making you want to fight or fly, that’s a call for personal growth. She is challenging your perceptions. Will you punch her in the arm and run away or walk through the fire and allow yourself to be loved the way you need to be loved?
Healing must come first. How do we address this growing epidemic of lonely men who feel inadequate? Several factors have determined this fate — social media expectations, an inverted reality due to exposure to a digital form of human life, unhealed childhood trauma, and the perpetual narrative of toxic masculinity. I will also include the effects of female-centric childcare, as this is deeply affecting boys’ self-worth.
As an early childhood educator, I have a specific interest in the emotional and psychological well-being of young boys. What I see in daycares and preschools is the institutional suppression of masculinity in male children. I try to counteract these effects by allowing boys to be boys, despite the institutionalized rhetoric and feminist doctrine. I guide them through appropriate socialization techniques that preserve and honor their masculine energy. We don’t talk things to death and analyze our feelings, we face conflict and problem-solve through direct and simple communication, accountability, and corrective actions. I allow them to be physical with each other within safe boundaries and encourage play with their male peers that is collaborative and task-centered. Boys don’t learn through emotional resilience exercises that force them to reflect through abstract concepts. They learn by engaging in action-based problem-solving and developing emotional connections to their physical environment. Now there are exceptions. Not all boys are made the same. I adjust my approach with boys who have more feminine inclinations but essentially maintain the same foundational guidance. We don’t want boys to be girls. We want them to comfortably sit in their innate masculinity. Fundamentally boys need respect and space to explore. They need to be reassured that their expressions of masculinity are valued and accepted.
Physical activity is an innate instinct for boys. They make sense of life by being physical. Many daycares and preschools hinder boys’ self-development by trying to control their physical expression, leading to the suppression of their feelings and adversely affecting their ability to work through problems. This can come in the form of expecting boys to sit still at a desk, refrain from any physical contact with their peers, and approaching their behavioral challenges through female-centered emotional guidance. There is a reason there is a higher rate of boys diagnosed with ADHD than girls. Boys need to run, wrestle, connect with nature, and work through problems in tangible ways. Again, there are exceptions, but those boys don’t struggle with discussing their feelings and finding a good woman when they become men. They are the boys who need help navigating their more aggressive and physically charged male peers.
Social media and our exposure to short clips of people’s lives have convinced us that we are inferior to others. We project our insecurities onto those who appear to have perfect lives and perfect bodies. The reality is, it’s smoke and mirrors. It’s easy to take an appealing photo of yourself standing at the right angle or pick and choose what we share about our lives. I’m transparent about my life, but there are private things I don’t share because it’s no one’s business or it doesn’t apply to what I’m sharing, and I filter my videos and photos for the best lighting as much as possible.
The Instagram models and OnlyFans girls are there to create a fantasy for entertainment, but they have also inadvertently changed the standard for what an attractive woman looks like. Both women and men are competing with an ideal that is impossible to live up to in the context of a genuine relationship, hence the popularity of Botox clinics and gym memberships; even plastic surgery is becoming more frequent. We can make all the physical changes we like but our mental and emotional health cannot be fixed through physical transformation unless we understand the benefits of exercising our bodies at a spiritual level.
Men have more access to sex and physically gratifying, albeit temporary, relationships nowadays. All they have to do is become an OnlyFans patron or seduce a woman into trusting them for a quick fix. But in the long run, this leaves women feeling used and men feeling empty and sometimes struggling with feelings of shame. No one benefits from promiscuous sex unless it leads to a fulfilling monogamous relationship in the end. I am not against a one-night stand, especially when men are younger. I think being with different women teaches men about sex and what they want, but they must be mindful of how they are engaging in those intimate connections so that both parties feel respected. Women bring value to a man’s experience, even if it’s a brief encounter. Men also bring value to a woman’s experience if they honor her trust in them.
Communication and transparency are key, even if you risk conflict or judgment. It’s better to be clear about what you need and allow the other person the dignity to process it than to remain silent or aloof. Women don’t get silence or ghosting. They think you’re an emotionally inept manchild and they will warn their girlfriends about you if you have mutual friends. Believe me when I say, that most confident and worthy women aren’t crying over you, they’re placing you on a red flag list and moving on. If she truly cares and possesses enough humility and self-awareness, she feels sorry for you. The caveat is, a man’s inability to treat a woman with dignity will leak into their relationship with the woman they do want in the long term. If you can’t treat one woman right, you won’t treat any woman right, even if you are madly in love with her. Men don’t heal for women; they heal for themselves. Women are simply mirrors that show men who they are and who they could be.
Men carry burdens that are unique to the modern age. Life is costly, women are more independent both emotionally and financially, and the very foundation of masculinity is being attacked from every angle. Loneliness and helplessness are side effects of an evolving societal structure fraught with information overload, endless global conflict, and government corruption. The narrative is that men’s strong leadership and drive to protect their families and communities is toxic and has no place within modern social structures. Men are told to shut up, soften up, and do as they are told by an overarching power structure bent on eliminating masculinity from the equation to gain more control. Men have been essentially groomed over the last few decades to be docile and complacent giving way to further female independence and downgrading functional heterosexual, monogamous relationships. Modern men have been alienated from their masculine instincts and subjugated by an increasingly feminized world that treats them like pariahs. How can a man have a healthy, connected relationship with a woman if he can’t even come to terms with his masculinity?
Women might be more self-reliant, but our instincts haven’t changed. We want masculine men who lead and protect. We want confident men who manage their emotions and communicate effectively. We want men we can trust who keep us safe. The reason women are staying single longer is because boys are not growing up until well into their forties and women would rather not have to teach a boy to be a man. Again, there are exceptions. What is the solution? Boys must be initiated into manhood by male role models that reflect healthy masculinity. The rise of male coaches, an increasing interest in martial arts, and men’s groups are key to healing boys so they can become confident, resilient, and emotionally intelligent men. It’s a default for many men to isolate with around-the-clock distractions via the Internet. Men must find ways of connecting with other men to counteract the negative effects of technology. All it takes is seeking out one tangible hobby that can be shared in the company of other men.
Childhood trauma can affect how a man perceives relationships and women. Children of divorce or severe family dysfunction often end up wary of trusting the longevity of a relationship or cling to the wrong woman to replace the lack of affection they received from their parents. It is statistically proven that boys have a greater chance of being emotionally damaged by family dysfunction because they internalize their feelings. Without an outlet for emotional expression, men will project their weaknesses onto others in the form of arrogance, dissociative behaviors, narcissism, or resentment. A man’s first instinct when he is unable to cope is to lash out emotionally in the form of aggression. It is integral for a man to recalibrate his emotional state for his overall well-being. A man must connect with his physical environment productively and purposefully to heal. A woman’s place in a man’s life is to open the door to empathy, intuition, and inner peace.
Men and women create a full circle of unity that can only be realized through a genuine connection in the human heart. Without the feminine, men succumb to soul-destroying desires. Without the masculine, women are vulnerable to slavery and exploitation. Once women are destroyed, whole communities cease to exist. Love ceases to exist. We must balance the yin and yang or our society descends into chaos.
S. Angell is a published poet, writer, philosopher, and video blogger. She explores various topics, including love, life, death, history, and society from a philosophical perspective. You can find her on Instagram @rainydaypoetess
