Human beings are social creatures, yet there is a noticeable difference between how women and men engage with friendship and emotional intimacy. Across cultures, women consistently demonstrate stronger social ties, richer networks of support, and more emotionally fulfilling friendships. In contrast, men are often more socially isolated, with many struggling to form and maintain close friendships, especially as they age. This disparity reveals both deep-rooted cultural conditioning and unaddressed emotional needs among men.
Women tend to be more socially skilled, not because of innate biological differences alone, but largely due to how they are raised. From a young age, girls are encouraged to nurture relationships and value emotional closeness. As adults, this translates into friendships that are often more intimate, communicative, and mutually supportive. Women also tend to prioritize connection and community over competition, making it easier for them to sustain long-term bonds.
By contrast, men are often socialized to value independence and emotional restraint. Vulnerability is lameley seen as weakness, and emotional expression—particularly toward other men is discouraged. As a result, many men rely heavily on their romantic partners for emotional support, leaving them particularly vulnerable to loneliness if those relationships struggle or end. Since we'll just come out and say it, women are better socially than men, it's such that women typically excel at relationship based professions, such as nursing. While men, who play with toys, become mechanics, or drivers, or engineers, or software developers so they can sit by themselves alone.
We've spoken numerous times in the past about how women are more heart, and men are more mind. The ability to reach out to a friend, to open up, and say, "hey man we should get together" is a heart based activity, and is thus more feminine. And the manly alpha macho con bro will often say or think, "I don't need to reach out, I'm good alone".
The “brolone” — this curious term, this symptomatic poetry of our time, names a phenomenon not merely of male loneliness, but of existential drift, a psycho-cultural pathology hidden behind memes and muscle mass, keyboard warrioring in toxic forums, or behind podcast posturing and gym-bro gospel. It is, in its essence, the wail of the wounded masculine psyche adrift in the postmodern echo chamber.
Now let’s understand this not as an attack, but as a diagnosis. The “brolone,” as we perceive it, is the man who has been stripped of myth, of elderhood, of authentic initiation into the mystery of what it means to be a man among beings. He wanders a landscape devoid of soul, surrounded by pixelated idols of success — Lambos, OnlyFans, testosterone boosters, crypto stacks — and beneath this glittering emptiness is an ocean of unmet sorrow. A child’s hunger for meaning dressed up in the Kevlar of performance.
This becomes especially clear in adulthood. As careers, family responsibilities, and geographic moves increase, many men find it difficult to maintain friendships. Women, form tight-knit, emotionally supportive circles. They vent. They hug. They send thoughtful texts and plan wine nights. Thus often continuing to invest in relationships through regular contact and emotional sharing, men may drift apart from friends due to neglect or discomfort with emotional intimacy. Over time, this leads to isolation, depression, and a quiet crisis of disconnectedness that affects health and well-being. Thus, if you look at the stats of mostmen, as they age, they spend more and more time alone. And then into middle age and their golden years, if they're still married, their wives tell their friends, of which they have more, that my husband has no friends.
This isn’t new, mind you. The crisis of the masculine has been unfolding for decades, centuries even, since the sacred rites of passage were replaced by heavily departmentalized Capitalism, external individualism, Americanized rural areas and suburbs both stupidly built primarily around the automobile - with usually single individuals in their separate boxes, not to mention other things such as diplomas, paychecks, and war. Layered now with the digital acceleration of anti-social media and algorithmic isolation, it has reached a fever pitch, because one can easily spend all of their free time, which the Oligarchs want you to have as little time as possible because they work you to the bone, in front of screens. And that's not to mention the drug of mass multiplayer gaming. This is a global problem but is most amplified in countries which have the most grueling work schedules. So it's bad in the US, and it's even worse in Japan for example.
Relationships, making them and maintaining them, is work. And many men, often tired from their slave jobs, are not as willing to put in the work as women are. And this is something that men need to accept as their fault. Speaking personally, we have buddies we've known from growing up, who we see on occasion, but some of whom we might personally see only once or twice a year now, and that's only because of our spouses being friends. The women maintain those relationships. Our old school mates are stoked to see us when they do, but at the same time are unwilling to put the work in themselves. A lot of friendships are actually quite fragile, and are always a two way street. So it goes without saying that when you do reach out to a friend, to get together socially, and they don't do the same nearly as often, or not at all, well then after just 2 or 3 "I've called him, it's his turn to call me's" the relationship pauses, and then before you know it, it's been six months or two years and you don't really have a continuing friendship anymore. We think anyone listening to this has experienced such.
Another one is neighbors. If you have crappy, disrespectful, or psycho neighbors, that sucks. If you have nice cool neighbors, into your 30's and 40's, maybe with kids similar ages, then amazing. But even with them, both my wife and I, who have a quite decent network of people we know, are constantly amazed by how few neighbors reciprocate invitations. We know handfuls of kids who always want playdates together, and then the dad's are like "no we cant" or "I got something else to do" or they say, “We should catch up soon.” But they really mean “never.” Yet in reality, building friendships with others in your neighborhood who have kids around your child's age can be priceless. The dads who don't put the work in, even via building relationships on behalf of their children, some of us other dads who are social and do put the work in, replace the unsocial dads last names with - brolone. There goes Nick Bronlne. Who I know this weekend is sitting on the couch by himself watching Netflix or the game. While his daughter also is alone and less happy because of it.
The male psyche, once tied to land, tribe, and cosmology, is now drifting in a matrix of mirrors reflecting only the self. And it is lonely. Not just lonely for connection — though surely it is — but lonely for purpose, for depth, for a place in the grand story. The “brolone” chugs his protein and benches his weight, not because he is strong, but because he lacks mental strength and is terrified of being nothing at all. And as we'll surely get more into in this series, often adheres to dark red-pill ideology not because it enlightens, but because it offers a structure in a void of hollowness. It is, in other words, a poor substitute for the Mystery. Because without myth, without any sort of numinous anchor of a living Earth and a living spirit, the male mind loops itself into absurdity. And so he becomes the caricature — retreating into digital harems and manosphere priests. He seeks transcendence through domination because he has not figured out that true strength is in building real community. Not via a dark imperial hate church, although praise to any more open minded system, religious or secular, which brings community together.
Which by the way will result in a longer and more healthy life. As one of the primary ingredients of blue zones — places like Okinawa (Japan), Ikaria (Greece), and Sardinia (Italy) which are regions in the world where people are claimed to have exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 100, is continuing rich social interactions, all through their lives. As a somewhat professional, somewhat hobby documentary filmmaker, our closest agescent hobby is a form of documentary photography - street photography. And we'll never forget this shot we took in an early morning walk in Barcelona, of about 30 old grey haired dudes, standing around a fountain. Who would obviously all meet up regularly at this location, easily walkable to in their 15 minute city, to drink their coffee and socialize. And one of the main things we think of when looking back at the picture, of them laughing and chuckling, is these guys are going to live a long time. Way more than the lonely old timer we spoke of earlier who has no friends and just hangs out in his garage. Okinawan elders for example belong to moai — lifelong social groups that offer emotional and practical support. They literally have built-in best friends for life. Meanwhile, the average American man over 50 has fewer close friendships than ever before. Many have… zero.
So the solution, if one dare propose it, is not ridicule, nor another prescription of norms. It is encouraging men to put work into relationships. So reach out to your old friends. Even if it's awkward. and or Make new ones. As men’s tendency to spend too much time alone is not simply a personality trait—it’s a cultural failure to teach emotional intelligence, empathy, and the value of sustained connection. Loneliness is not a weakness; it’s a signal, a social and spiritual hunger that needs addressing. To bridge the gap, society must do more to encourage emotional education for boys, challenge harmful regressive gender stupidity, and create spaces where men can safely cultivate friendship, vulnerability, and trust. In doing so, we not only improve men’s lives—we strengthen the social fabric of all.
And beyond even that, there must be a cultural reckoning, a renaissance of the masculine as steward, as visionary, as lover of life. Not as the CEO or the influencer, with initiation rites that do not involve hazing or humiliation but maturely and sophisticatedly say: “You are more than your cock and your cash. You are a carrier of dreams, a sculptor of meaning, a mirror of the infinite.” Until then, the “brolone” shall roam aimlessly — looking for brothers in the gym and finding only echoes. Looking for God in alpha advice and finding only hunger. And so, with compassion, we must call him in — not to tame him, but to wake him. Not to shame him, but to show him: the journey inward is the way outward. Which will externally then result in better co-masculine communal connections.
