Is the Male Loneliness Epidemic Just for Wealthy White Men?

mandevil 21 points 2 comments March 25, 2026
link.springer.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (2 comments)

mandevil

Study of self reported emotional closeness with best friend (from a 2002 questionaire of a 1997 longitudinal study) found no difference between black men and black women, and a small gap for Hispanics, no economic differences for white women, and a large gap for wealthy white men, who seem to be an outlier demographic group, in this variable at least. It's not a really strong data set (the survey is all of people born between 1980-1984, surveyed in 2002, and they threw out AAPI responses because there were only a few of them) but it suggests that male loneliness might be an artifact of a culture common among the American economic elite.

nchmy

The study is nearly 30 years old... How does this carry any relevance to today? Moreover, it doesn't pass the sniff test. It's entirely possible that rich men are lonely too, but I have to figure that groups like incels etc are overrepresented by poorer men.

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