Do Gay Men Enjoy Middle Age More?

PeterRS · 2025-08-24T04:48:47Z

The question is inspired by an article in today's Guardian/Observer newspaper. First its idea of "middle age" is the 35-49 yo bracket as defined in a recent USA survey. Leaving aside the gay community, in 2021 it found that 15% of heterosexual men do not have any male "close friends". Those who said they enjoyed close male friendships with ten or more men stated the number had dropped from 33% in 1990 to 13% in 2021.

As the article claims -

"Creating better infrastructure for heterosexual male socialisation is a public health necessity, given that the isolation and loneliness reported in the wake of shrinking friendship networks has dire health implications. You can trust studies that repeatedly demonstrate that 'those who experience social deficits, including isolation, loneliness, and poor-quality relationships, are more likely to die earlier, regardless of the cause of death', or you can remember how mad we all went during Covid lockdowns and just imagine that being the rest of your life."

It then goes on to claim that studies in Australia from 2020 show a similar pattern -

“men who reported lacking close friends or relatives were around twice as likely to have thought about suicide in the past 12 months. Other local studies exposed the loneliest age group of Australian men was middle aged (35-49 years), who were 'three times more likely to feel high-level loneliness than men aged over 65'”.

It then states that these trends are relatively new. It adds -

"it’s becoming more of a problem: a shocking 25% of US boys and men aged 15 to 35 reported 'feeling lonely for a lot of the previous day' as per a recent Gallup poll."

Some blame the advent of technology, but this does not explain why the phenomenon is not apparent in women and gay men. A variety of reasons are suggested, one being -

"that an intersecting number of cultural changes are meeting new variations of old gender roles in a particularly destructive way, and with fewer social points of connection to bulwark men against them."

Two issues not discussed. 1) Could the reason be that more and more men enjoy closer relations with their wives and families?

2) The possibility, however remote, of some in the western world becoming more similar to Japan where large numbers of younger men (mostly in the 15-39 age group) are quite literally withdrawing from all forms of social life. Reasons abound for this behaviour - feelings of inadequacy, shame, depression, anxiety, a profound sense of apathy and lack of motivation. Look more deeply and the rigid heirarchy of the Japanese education system and intense work ethic come into play. These hikikomori are not confined to men although there are considerably more men than women. The characteristic is they lock themselves in their rooms, only opening doors when their mothers leave their meals outside. This has become an increasingly worrying tend in Japan since 1990. It is estimated that there are now between 500,000 and 1 milion Japanese hikikomori.

Perhaps they should all consider trying a gay lifestyle where men interact with other men of almost all ages!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/23/middle-aged-men-are-among-societys-loneliest-people-what-does-that-say-about-the-patriarchy