All his life, Shea Mandli had a clear vision for his future. A wife who would see him through the ups and downs of life. Six, maybe seven, kids to whom he would pass on life lessons. So far, things haven’t panned out.
He’s single — and has been for about three years after ending a six-month relationship. He’s disillusioned both by online dating and how tough it can feel to approach women IRL. “No longer the ‘no’ is the worst thing that could happen,” says Mandli, a 31-year-old living in Minneapolis. “It’s almost like a humiliation tactic if you want to introduce yourself.”
The gulf between Mandli’s goals and his reality has affected his well-being. He’s lonely, he says; he yearns for intimacy. When he looks at all the couples gathered around the table at Friendsgiving, he wonders what it would be like to have someone to experience it all with. At times, he wonders if he’ll ever meet someone. “I feel a void,” Mandli says. “I feel lonely that I don’t have a companion. Sometimes that may give me a tougher exterior, because I don’t want to project into the world that I’m lonely.”
Mandli is among a growing cohort of young — often straight — unpartnered men who wish they weren’t. According to Pew Research Center, 63 percent of men under 30 are single, compared to 34 percent of women. Half of these men are searching for a committed relationship or casual dates, compared to 35 percent of single women. Bucking against stereotypes painting single women as desperate for romantic partnership and men as content eternal bachelors reticent to be tied down, recent research has shown that single women are overall more satisfied with their lives compared to single men. Another study from Germany found that men were less likely to initiate a breakup, were less satisfied with being single, and wanted a partner more than women. Partnered gay men, according to a Chinese study, had better mental health than those who were single. Other research has found unpartnered gay men associate being single with loneliness.
Much has been made of the plight of young men recently: They’re falling behind women in education, employment, independence, social connection. Could the lack of romance in their lives — and their yearning for it — be the key to understanding their dissatisfaction? Or are they unlucky in love because they lack the tools to build a happy life with meaningful connections in myriad ways? It turns out rigid norms around masculinity may have a self-fulfilling effect, both contributing to unhappiness with being single while making it more difficult to find a partner, too.
How men become emotional castaways
Being single is hardly a bad thing in and of itself — plenty of people happily choose to live unpartnered. But many men see a romantic relationship as their primary emotional outlet, which makes lacking one particularly unmooring. In his years of working with men in therapy, Fredric E. Rabinowitz, a psychology professor at the University of Redlands, has noted “a lot of guys tend to put all their emotional eggs in one basket,” meaning they expect their partner to be their social be-all end-all: one person with whom they confide in, problem-solve, joke around, have sex, do chores.
This is mostly because, as boys, they’ve been taught that talking about their emotions in most contexts is weak or unmasculine. “What they learn to do is just keep it inside,” Rabinowitz says. To fill the emotional void, men seek a romantic partner, the one person with whom society permits men to be totally vulnerable.
A tendency to bottle up emotions has implications for both romantic and platonic relationships. When adolescent boys learn the tenets of manhood — strength, stoicity, independence — intimate friendship can seem at odds with these ideals. Thus, platonic relationships may become more surface level, focusing on shared activities over heartfelt connection.
Moreover, men who never learned to speak about their emotions, a core element of romance, may also find it difficult to date, says Ronald Levant, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Akron. “Emotional intimacy requires that you be open about how you’re feeling,” he says, “and if men can’t do that, they’re not going to be able to form relationships.” Men can easily become emotional castaways, struggling to open up with friends and potential romantic partners.
A lack of social support has myriad negative effects, regardless of gender: higher risk of mortality, depression, poor sleep quality, weakened immunity, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Having a network of people to rely on has been found to strengthen a person’s coping abilities and quality of life, even while stressed. Among single gay men, social support from friends and family contributed to higher well-being.
It’s also true that for men, having just one person in your corner — your romantic partner — does appear to be transformative, contributing to overall health and happiness. Married men have better mental and physical health than unwed ones, perhaps due to the fact that in heterosexual relationships, their wives might undertake the bulk of the housework and remind them to go to the doctor. “A man in a relationship may have someone say, ‘Do you really want to have that third beer? Haven’t you had enough?’ Or ‘Shouldn’t you have more vegetables with your meals, rather than just pork chops?’” says Levant, the author of The Problem with Men: Insights on Overcoming a Traumatic Childhood From a World-Renowned Psychologist.
Given the obvious pros, men may feel like they have a lot to gain by partnering up. According to as-of-yet unpublished findings from Elaine Hoan, a researcher at the University of Toronto, simply expecting that a relationship will bring you happiness may be enough to make it true. Hoan and her colleagues found that when singles who believed romantic relationships will improve their lives actually pair off, they are indeed happier. “It doesn’t seem like it’s backfiring,” Hoan says, “where you want it so badly and then you get it and it’s not what you want it to be.”
For so long, Reuben Woodall was constantly reminded of what he was missing out on when he was single. Not only did he feel like romantic relationships were “put on a pedestal” in culture and media, but heterosexual depictions of “ideal” love only made him feel like queer love was unattainable. “Gay relationships are often seen as short-lived, lustful encounters rather than meaningful endeavors,” Woodall, a 29-year-old who lives in Bristol, UK, says in an email, “so pursuing a romantic relationship could feel hopeless.”
At times, Woodall was empowered by singleness, other times, resentful and despondent, thinking that he’d be alone forever. During the three years he was single, Woodall focused on improving his life by pursuing hobbies “rather than wallowing in the pain of singleness,” he says. Now in a new relationship, his outlook has transformed. “My problems feel smaller,” he says, “knowing I have someone to hold, confide in, and encounter life alongside means a blanket of comfort has fallen over every experience. Romance is inherently exciting and that permeates through everything.”
Masculine ideals shape relationships
Beyond the benefits relationships confer, another reason some men may struggle with perpetual singledom: traditional views of masculinity about what a man could and should be. Having a partner aligns with this heteromasculine archetype — that men should be sexually active, have a romantic relationship, and head up a family — and is seen as a status symbol for men, especially if their partner is conventionally attractive, according to Hoan.
Not being able to embody this archetype might conjure up feelings of self-consciousness, internalized homophobia, and shame, says Hoan.
In his experience, Rabinowitz, the men’s therapist, has found single guys tend to blame themselves for their circumstances. “It’s like, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why aren’t I attracting women? I’m not sure I know how to be in a relationship that works,’” he says.
Research supports the idea that men feel deficient without a partner. They attribute self-consciousness as one of the top reasons for their singleness, along with poor flirting skills, bad looks, and shyness. “As a woman, I was really surprised by that, because I don’t think that that’s why women are not interested in you,” Hoan says. “Single men seem to be missing the point when it comes to what it is that women are looking for and I think they’re going the opposite way, honing in on the Andrew Tate-like mindset, or the inceldom, and doubling down on grasping onto these straws of masculinity when they feel like women are just rejecting me because I’m bad at this thing.”
When men feel like they have very little to offer a romantic partner, they might start to shift the blame away from themselves to the very object of their desires. Nowhere else is this more apparent than the manosphere — hyper-masculine corners of the internet, home to the likes of influencers like Tate and Jordan Peterson, focused on misogyny and outdated sexist stereotypes of relationships. For these followers, women are weak and selfish and must be dominated in relationships. A recent survey from consumer research firm GWI found Gen Z men were almost three times as likely to prioritize dominance as a personality trait, compared to boomers. This, of course, is anathema to many young women — prospective partners — who are only becoming more socially progressive.
A new model of masculinity
Male disillusionment is a tightly wound knot composed of the pressure to adhere to traditional masculine ideals, socialization, and media narratives that perpetuate these stereotypes. There’s also just the universal human longing for companionship and connection. Instead of denying their feelings and need for intimate connections, men could embrace friendship and camaraderie and make attempts to be vulnerable with a diverse array of people. Not only would men feel more emotionally fulfilled, but they’d be better practiced in opening up to potential romantic partners, says Rabinowitz. They’d also probably be happier.
Shedding the rigid structures of masculinity requires bucking against socialization. It means, for men, giving yourself permission to be sad, to yearn, to be disappointed, to deeply feel without shame, Rabinowitz says. It also means taking responsibility for how their actions might contribute to their situation. Instead of blaming women for rejecting them, they could better pinpoint where they went wrong: not showing curiosity for their date or being misaligned on values. “What I find is that once guys start feeling comfortable with themselves, they attract partners, they attract dates, they attract people to them,” Rabinowitz says. “My philosophy has been, get to know yourself really well, so you know your strengths and weaknesses, and you know the different parts of yourself.”
To help them untangle this knot of masculinity, Rabinowitz hopes men can integrate different qualities from various aspects of masculinity to forge a new framework. Rather than feel like they must be a strong and domineering head of the family or relinquish masculinity entirely, can men adopt qualities that blend strength with openness? What kind of partner might this kind of man attract?
“That includes being open and vulnerable and compassionate, but also being strong and having strong values, and working hard and pressing through problems, and taking responsibility,” Rabinowitz says. “It’s not one or the other.”
In his lowest moments, Mike, a 32-year-old who lives in Portland, looked to the manosphere for advice. Constantly preoccupied with his singleness, Mike, who declined to share his last name in order to speak about his love life, felt depressed most of the time and Tate and Peterson’s masculine, vaguely self-improving messaging appealed to him. “You got to be a man. Just worry about money, getting rich,” Mike says, “and then from that point on, you can pick all the girls you want.”
But as Mike made an effort to foster social connections through a local badminton league, he realized very few women cared about how much money he made. Being a good friend, an upbeat, socially engaged person, is what will attract a partner. His value doesn’t come from his height, or his salary, his looks, or the car he drives, he says. “My value is more based off of how I make other people feel,” Mike says. “Do I make them feel happy? Do they like being around me?”
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