Community is always the solution
Men are tricked into thinking that we don’t need other people, beside maybe a partner and kids. And it's killing us.
The thoughts that shot through my mind were familiar. What prompted them was seeing an empty New Orleans street corner bathed in unnatural light from some cookie-cutter, soulless bank or corporate headquarters. Just like I’d seen many times before on nighttime walks in Washington, D.C., New York, and other cities. A lonely hollowness just like I’d felt before too.
I was in town for a therapist conference and excited about receiving my full, independent therapist license sometime in the coming weeks. (I’ve since received it and am now a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC)!) I’d taken a walk alone and was reflecting on five years of school and work and thousands of hours of therapy with clients.
The thoughts were: This is it? All that work and nothing’s really changed? All that and I’m still lonely?
I’d thought these things before. After playing a big show in my college rock band. After landing my “dream job” at a progressive political nonprofit. After speaking on Capitol Hill. After writing and appearing in a Bernie Sanders video with over 2.5 million views.
But this time felt different. I was truly out of other ideas. There was no fantasy to turn to next. No bigger mountain in the distance to climb. I was just a therapist with my own solo private practice. I’d made it. I had to be content with that. Even though it only lasted a second, the loneliness was deeper and darker than I’d ever felt before. It scared me a little, how hopeless it all seemed.
It really feels like I’ve arrived professionally.
Sure, I can keep growing as a therapist and help my clients even more. I can write better. Maybe I can write a book one day. I can also make more money (since going back to school and being a therapist under supervision definitely took a hit on my wallet).
But I really do feel like I’m on top of the career mountain in some kind of way. Or it’s more like I’ve climbed to the summit of a mountain I myself created. I’ve won at my own game.
And yet there’s that loneliness I know so well. That emptiness. That seemingly unquenchable desire for more connection. That yearning in my heart that’s been there as far back as I can remember.
I’m telling you about this because I think it fits the whole point of this newsletter. I think so-called “traditional masculinity” is to blame here.
It’s still raw, and I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m in the thick of it as I write this. But I feel like I was setup. The stories I was told as a boy tricked me into thinking that if I just worked hard and got the right job, just had the right career, just got famous, just made a ton of money, I’d be happy.
“Traditional masculinity,” we’re told, is about providing and protecting. If we just do that well, we’re supposed to feel good, purposeful, complete. Then why am I still sometimes so lonely, empty, alienated? I’m married and have the career I want. What gives?
Write and organizer
gave us a glimpse of the answer in his recent (really awesome) post about his relationship with his daughter:“I’ve spent a good percentage of my life pretty alienated, but not because my voice was never heard. Quite the opposite, actually. Alienation is another word for isolation, and isolation is what happens when you get to live your life outside of community accountability. The opposite of alienation is a relationship. The opposite of alienation is noticing who is made small when your energy fills a room. The opposite of alienation is giving a crap not merely about what you can get out of a space, but how you impact others in it.”
The answer is I’m still lacking community.
Men—especially those of us in hyper-individualized U.S. culture—are tricked into thinking that we don’t need other people, beside maybe a partner and kids. That we can elude accountability and create our own mountain to climb. That we can tell our jokes and say what’s on our mind and do what we really want to do without worrying about its impact on others.
Bucks was writing about his 8-year-old daughter’s experience at school. How he’s surprised that instead of direct misogyny, what impacts her the most is:
, author of BOYMOM, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, writes, “Boys are socialized to see themselves as the hero on his journey, and the main character in any story, and to see everyone else, and especially women, as side characters or narrative foils.”“adapt[ing herself] to whatever space exists after the boys have claimed everything they need, be it time, energy, or attention. [She has to make] do with the remainder. There are girls in her class who need more as well, who yell or shout or cry. But the louder refrain is about the boys, both individually and as a collective. They define the space, she adapts to it.”
And sure, there’s privilege for boys and men in that. So many other people don’t even have a chance to create their own mountain. So many others have to silence their true selves because more powerful people (often men) get to take up most of the space, get most of the attention. And some boys and men get silenced too, because their gay or trans or Black or Latino or poor or working class.
But, as Bucks writes, there’s alienation in it too. Not because our voices aren’t allowed or heard or centered. But because when we get to stand alone at the top of the mountain we’ve created, it can get lonely. Very lonely.
We’re missing out on a fundamental experience of being a human being. We’re lacking the life-giving energy of human connection. We’re disconnected from anything larger than ourselves, so we end up puffing out our chests even more (or running to the next fantasy, “dream job,” fast car, relationship, whatever to distract us) because deep inside we actually feel really, really small.
How we convince more men that there’s value in being held accountable by a community is another question.
It’s not so obvious that being part of something bigger than ourselves is worthwhile, even life-saving. I’m lucky enough to be a part of many communities. An organization of therapists that regularly holds me accountable. A men’s group I’ve been meeting with for years. A therapy group I’ve been meeting with just as long. But it’s still hard to lean in and take on responsibility. And I still feel lonely sometimes, like that night in New Orleans.
This all reminds me of something a friend told me a couple days before my wedding. She’s actually my partner’s friend, but we’ve become closer since then. She’d been complaining about having to compromise on things she wanted for her wedding with her mother, aunts, and other family members. It pissed her off and made her resentful. I told her I could relate. “But,” she said, “isn’t that what being in community is?”
Now, a question for the comments below (or email me at jeremy@mohler.coach): What communities do you feel held accountable by?
(P.S. If you become a paid subscriber for $5/month, you’ll get my weekly Friday Q&A posts with tips for a healthier, more fulfilling relationship, plus the warm feeling of supporting my writing!)
Like you, I've got many communities. My family (parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, etc.), my marriage, friend groups, hobby groups. They all hold me accountable in different ways. I think that's why we seem to need many communities.
I think part of what's tricky about traditional masculinity is that it seems to give men access to community, in the form of ruling a nuclear family. But that's a lie, really, because if one is trying to rule over something, one cannot also be a part of it. That's what I've seen my husband struggle with as he works to dismantle his own indoctrination. And that one community isn't enough, although that's the story for everyone, really.
It sounds from your story like you are part of several communities, but you still get lonely. I think that can be normal, and also wonder if it happens when you forget or can't see that you belong to those people? I sense that that's what men are taught: fo deliberately not see that they are already in communities and only need to learn to open themselves to feel that connection.
This also brings to mind Richard Rohr’s second half of life and Kegan’s stages of adult development- one theory I’m developing as I watch my friends enter middle age is that those of us who have had a harder time succeeding under the metrics of the socialized stage are rejecting those definitions earlier and authoring our own. The neurodivergent moms are getting there faster than the neurotypical moms and all of us are getting there faster than the dads, in part because we are breaking sooner. And, of course, because when we do break we can and do turn to our communities to look for others who are living a different way. I’m sure there are other reasons for it, but it seems like the paths out of the socialized achievement treadmill are either you break, have a genuine crisis, or you reach what you thought was the peak and feel the hollowness you describe. The last one seems to be the slowest path of the three.