The introverted soul and why so many men in our society find themselves alone later in life
Published in Ellemeno
3 days ago (Medium.com)
Iwon’t pretend that I’m remotely normal or even a fair representation of the male persuasion, but I do believe I have a better insight into the male condition than most. You see, I have no close friends, and this is so tediously common that I believe I can speak with a great deal of honesty, compassion, and clarity for my fellow brothers in arms — at least a significant subsection of them.
I’m certain there are plenty of perfectly happy men out there with lots of close friends and a wide-ranging medley of work associates, family members, and casual acquaintances that they enjoy palling around with on the regular. We call these people extroverts, and for the most part, they’ve never met a stranger. They are loud, proud, out, and about. They are the life of the party and represent the majority.
Roughly two-thirds of the population, at least in Western cultures, are extroverted, so the majority of people see the world that way. They get charged up by hanging out with others and are exhilarated by the noise and confusion. The other third, the introverted third, sees the world through an entirely different lens.
According to the research, introverted women are an even smaller minority than men, and while that doesn’t make the world any easier for those poor souls, our culture certainly seems to. The expectations of society on men and women are very different, but culturally, men have traditionally been expected to be more extroverted and women more introverted. The reality is the opposite, and that disconnect makes it even harder for the men who do not fantasize about being in the center of it all.
Yes, yes, we can hear you. You don’t have to shout. We know. No one wants to listen to men whine about how hard it is to be a man. Not today. Not ever. We get it. Maybe try and be patient, while I attempt to make my point.
Most adults reduce their circle of friends significantly over time. They get married, raise a family, and pursue a career. It’s not intentional. It just sort of happens. You are preoccupied, and by the time you have a chance to look up, everyone has moved on. Tack on the geographic isolation of most people in the suburbs, and we become further and further removed from neighbors, friends, and family.
This happens naturally for all adults, no matter their gender, but women not only seem to hold onto their relationships longer than men, but they appear capable of making new ones even later in life with less trouble. I don’t have any specific scientific evidence to support my claims or perceptions, but this has been my experience. Since I have no experience being a woman, I will focus on why I think men are like this.
I was as social as any other kid in the 1970s, even though I was perfectly capable of spending time by myself. We moved around a lot in those days, and then I attended a private Mennonite school outside of my local school district, so I never had what you might call a large, consistent group of friends. But I always had friends and people to hang out with.
Nearly all my friends were from school or church, and there’s only so much quality time you can spend with someone while you’re in the process of studying or praying. Only so much free time. I suppose this, in and of itself, might put me outside the confines of a normal upbringing, but I doubt it.
When my little brother Jason was about seven or eight, I had taken him somewhere where I knew a lot of people, and he asked me how this could be so. I explained that I knew everyone and left it at that. I didn’t think any more about it until a few weeks later when I came upon Jason and a group of young neighbors.
“Todd,” he said. “Tell them. You know everybody, right?”
“Of course, I don’t know everyone,” I said, immediately realizing my mistake when I saw his crestfallen face. I had told him what I thought was a meaningless lie, and he had repeated it with pride. I apologized and told them that I’d been joking but that I did, in fact, know quite a lot of people.
I’ve always known a lot of people, but few that I ever really spent any time with. In fact, for all my wife’s teasing over the phrase, I’ve always had a best friend. It’s just that the names constantly changed with my position, geography, and age. Sam, Jonathon, Randy, Greg, Jamie, Mark, and Bob. Three of the seven are lost to me. I have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. Two of them shuffled off their mortal coils far too early. That leaves two, one whom I just sort of lost touch with and another who the last time we saw each other was at our fathers’ funerals a few weeks apart. The cheese stands alone.
I moved from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore in the late 90s. I met a woman on vacation and a year later married her and her three children. I’ve been here for 27 years but never really became a part of the community. I didn’t grow up here. Didn’t go to school here. I didn’t work here. If it weren’t for social media or a local magazine, I published for a bit, no one in the county would have even known my name.
I used to golf and surf, which added to the people in my circle, but I have long since given up attempts to drive the ball or paddle out. I had a surfing buddy that I used to spend a lot of time with, cutting firewood and drinking copious amounts of rum, not necessarily at the same time, but often enough. Then our kids grew up and married, the grandchildren came soon after, and there was less time to goof off.
I have known many people casually, but don’t spend time with any of them. There are the ones I see occasionally and communicate more often than the others, but for the most part, my work and family take up all my time. My interests have also gotten smaller until my only hobbies are solitary ones. I don’t even take pictures anymore, one of my lifelong passions, because portraits and fashion are what I was passionate about, and even that became too much trouble. I got tired of chasing flaky models and dealing with a studio.
You might be thinking that all I’ve done is told you about myself and not why that is a reasonable reflection of the American man. You might be right, but I’ll bet that most men near my age will find it rings true for them as well. Our fathers weren’t taught to express emotions outside of pride and rage.
They didn’t talk to us about their hopes and dreams, let alone their fears and worries. Expressing pain meant showing weakness, and they had been whipped into doing neither. So they kept it all inside, and most of us really didn’t know them at all.
We didn’t talk to our friends that way either. We watched sports or read comic books and discussed the heroes we found there. Courage. Fearlessness. Power. Intelligence. One day, we realized our heroes didn’t really exist, at least not as we thought. They weren’t real. They were all just ordinary men, flawed, broken, and human. Like our fathers.
Occasionally, I’ll get in my cups and do a bit of drunk dialing, but I never remember the conservations and couldn’t even guarantee that I was passably coherent. I guess it’s my way of trying to connect, but it’s not very effective. The following day, I simply hope they forgot I called and that I didn’t say anything too inappropriate. It rarely occurs to me to try to do it sober. That ought to tell you something. Better to stick to things I can edit.
So I write essays about the nonsense in my head and chat online with people I don’t really know but who often think they know me. The problem with writing personal essays is that readers believe that encapsulates who you are, but it’s only the part I choose to reveal. The part I feel safe exposing about myself. It’s little more than my own carefully crafted mythology based on a questionable memory, baseless self-confidence, and a bit of learned skill.
I don’t even like dealing with the comments, which I mostly appreciate, but never know how to respond to. The more complimentary they are, the less I have to say. It’s not ego, quite the opposite. It’s embarrassment. If they disagree and want to argue, I find that illogical. If I didn’t convince you with 2,500 words that I really thought hard about, what am I going to accomplish in the comments section? I try to be friendly and kind, polite and courteous, but I have a hard time finding the middle ground between thank you and fuck you.
The last piece of the puzzle, at least for me, is that as I’ve aged, I’ve begun to atrophy in how much bullshit I’m willing to put up with. I’m less patient. I’m more selfish. I know what I think and what I want, and it’s rarely spending my precious time doing anything I don’t want to. I believe this is a product of watching my time run out and not wishing to waste it on things I don’t feel passionate about.
When I first met my wife, she had three young children to support and told me straight up, “If you’re not in it for the long haul, walk away. I don’t have any time to fool around.” I might have walked away and had a completely different life, but I never would have known this one. I chose to stay, and it’s been more good than bad, which, by my calculations, is a profitable investment.
I’ve rarely been lonely, and I’m never bored. The only thing I sometimes miss is someone to commiserate with outside of my family, but really, how often did I really reach out when I had it? So I have to ask myself, what’s all the fuss?
I suppose the downside is that I have become a committee of one, and that may or may not be the best-case scenario when it comes to making decisions. The great thing about writing is that I can trot out my wacky ideas on a daily basis and get a reaction without ever having to show up to your house on a Saturday to help you build a deck or move your shit. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good reason.
Never mind.
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Written by David Todd McCarty
·Editor for Ellemeno
A cranky romantic searching for hope and humor. I tell stories. Most of them are true. I’m not at all interested in your outrage, but I do feel your pain.