It breaks my heart to see Western people living such lives. I love the West for so many reasons, but the social construction is a complete broken mess. Family and community is completely destroyed. People live and work only for themselves. The amount of loneliness and isolation is just mind blowing and unbearable. IMO, it's a selfish lifestyle. People who manage to make great success (due to a combination of lack, intelligence, hard work and sometimes just beauty) can live very good lives but the rest are doomed to live miserable, lonely lives and no gives a shit about them until they die. Very sad. I wish you happiness and fulfillment (whatever they are for you).

What are you contrasting the "West" with? As a person who lived most of his life in an Asian country with a very strong familial and social construct, I can say that there were no shortage of lonely, broken people there - we as a society just did a better job of hiding it. Perhaps the sense of failure and isolation may have slightly different causes, but that is not to say that Western society is somehow uniquely broken.

I would never say it's uniquely broken. Loneliness and isolation probably exist in every corner of the world. The thing is that the West gets almost everything done right IMHO. It's an amazing place to be. However, the connection and social part of it is not going anywhere. Families are one of the best constructs to build life-long fullfilling relationships, but everyone is giving up on them now. People are not getting married and are not having children, and if they do, it likely ends up in a divorce. As OP said, it's all hookup culture now. How many people will end up single and lonely after a certain age? Lots and lots and lots ... It's a serious epedimic.

I have to agree with the sibling commentator - the freedom to choose the level of engagement with family and society in the West is what drives many of us from the East to leave our homes. I also do not think the Eastern way is a good default for most people. It clearly works for lots of people, but it also comes at a great price for a lot of people. There are aspects of any traditional culture that can be stifling, especially if you don't happen to be at the top of your specific privilege pyramid. Rigid social hierarchy, lack of upward mobility, and discrimination are also deeply ingrained within traditional strong social constructs. Yes, the sense of belonging to the family & society is strong, but it's only a positive if your family values you - which isn't always a given. Yes, the Western social construct as it exists now is prone to certain weaknesses, but I don't think we can make value judgements on which is objectively better for most people. I have siblings who are very happy to remain in your homeland, and I have siblings who left - both would likely be unhappy if circumstances were reversed.

The divorce rates are in long term decline.

Eh, I don't think family ties are "completely destroyed" in the West, we're just not as into our family as some "Eastern" cultures (I'm thinking of India in particular) can be.

Remember, a lot of the "West" (at least my exposure to it, the USA) is a conglomeration of other cultures; we have many Eastern cultures here as well!

Many of my friends have large families that they're much more entangled with than I'd opt into with my own family.

I could not live with my mother again, though I love her very much. I imagine many Indian men would love to have that option, all else being equal, though realistically they simply don't.

The freedom to choose is nice, but a great many of us "Westerners" choose to stay close to our families. That's what freedom is; the ability to opt into culture, rather than be forced into it.

I am from North Africa, from a socio-economic background that's somehow the middle ground between the West and the East. I do agree with the concept of freedom of choice. I always thought about it in such terms. In the West, you have total freedom in whether to keep close to family or not, but it comes with the risk of isolation and loneliness. On the other hand, in the East, lonliness and isolation is pretty much gauranteed to never happen and there is always a large social network to fallback to when life gets hard, for emotional and material support. However, you need to first be loyal to the community and never leave them or disappoint them to be granted such a privelege, which contradicts the freedom of choice. IMHO, the West is better if you manage to succeed and build you own fullfilling social network, but if you fail, you're doomed to love a miserable lonely life. The East is a good default option for most people but it holds back people a bit.

> IMHO, the West is better if you manage to succeed and build you own fullfilling social network, but if you fail, you're doomed to love a miserable lonely life. The East is a good default option for most people but it holds back people a bit.

Very well put. But I also posit that it’s getting harder and harder to build a fulfilling social network in the west

As someone who moved from SE Asia awhile ago, agree 100%:

  - Parents can't wait to kick their kids out once they're college age
  - A societal sense of embarressment if you're *still* living with your parents
  - No night-time social options to speak of unless you want to drink/party (everything closes early - no midnight cafes or the like)
  - Macho and bully culture all the way through high school leading to polar extremes in kids' social circles
  - Everything has been financialized. There is no community to help out with _anything_. You have to pay for _everything_
  - Suburbia abound, both kids and parents can't walk anywhere – kids are trapped in their homes and parents become defacto Uber drivers
  - There's this weird sense of "keeping boundaries", making it hard to make friends with your neighbors etc
  - Domestic help (eg live-in maids) are very expensive relative to cost-of-living and relative to some Asian countries, and kindof culturally taboo – parents are expected to parent completely on their own

Some (not all) of these strike me as not applying to all of the West, but being very American.

"Hookup culture is de rigueur but it doesn't interest me."

That's media bullshit that people really like to believe. There is no shortage of people looking for relationships.

There is no shortage of people hoping and dreaming about relationships.

The number of people willing to move out of their comfort zone to make a good relationship possible - of any type - is much smaller.

That may be, but it has nothing to do with "hookup culture" which is just nonsense.

Hook up culture is made up of lots of woman and a few men.

The women are desperately searching for a relationship. The few men involved with hook up culture have too many options are unwilling to commit due to overwhelming supply.

There are two reasons for why it's like this. The first reason is dating apps. Dating apps make it very easy for women to be even more selective then they already are.

The second reason is technology. The rise of technology including tampons and birth control has allowed women to fight for additional rights and come onto equal standing with men. For most of human history women depended on men for financial well being and survival in general. This is no longer the case.

Thus when being in a LT relationship isn't a survival requirement, women upgrade their selectivity.

The experience for the majority of men really just ends up being a lack of matches. The experience for women is a lack of men willing to commit. And for a few men (you most likely) hooking up is just "comfortable."

I'm not making this up. There is very real data about this.

Perhaps you can share the data?

You forget that this cuts both ways. Men, too, no longer need a wife. No need to cook. No need to mend clothes. No need for heirs. So little patience for compromise. And focus on superficialities and short term benefits rather than team building.

men never needed this. The things you describe are luxuries that a man can do without. Men would like to have this but this is not something needed.

In the past women, NEEDED men to survive. For women it was a choice about survival. It was always men who went out to hunt for food, farm for food, make the money and build the house. All the technology, all the machinery, all the science you see around you today, most of it was built, designed and envisioned by men.

In general human civilization and societies functioned in a way where men and women worked together but make no doubt about it. For the majority of human history (99%) men did built and maintained the infrastructure for survival. Men worked in partnership with women for betterment and higher productivity; women however worked with men because they needed to survive. A woman without a man in the past had few options to support herself.

This is no longer the case, so we'll see how it plays out, but modern society is at odds with the biology millions of years of evolution has designed us for. Likely there will be a culling. A natural selection process where a huge portion of the genetic pool will fail to reproduce.

To be frank I think a lot of men will just end up being lonely and single until they're dead. Polygamy will become more and more normalized and women will have a lot more power over society and societal norms in general.

I don’t think that women in general give up on a relationship any faster or easier than men do. In fact, I would probably say that it’s men who give up first when things get tough. (It’s only that women notice problems sooner, while men often are still in denial and think all is fine.)

Saying that technology is the reason why relationships no longer work sounds like a big fat excuse to me. The facts are certainly true. But the conclusion is, in my opinion, a convenient tale to avoid responsibility.

> Hookup culture is de rigueur

I don't think that's generally true, especially if you're looking to date around your own age. Some in the age bracket may be averse to marriage, but not a relationship in general.

This line of thinking seems pretty prevalent but the way I see it, there's no such thing as carrying the relationship. If you're the one with the social need, the onus is on you to get that need filled. This generally means doing more work than others but it's not on behalf of them. It would be nice if other people filled our needs for us, but that's generally just wishful thinking.

:Not advice, but many questions and some sharing my experience:

Feel free to answer or not as you like.

> I'm old(er) mid-40's

I was in my early 40s when I found a lovely mate, married, and reproduced.

> Hookup culture is de rigueur

What makes you say that? What geographic region is that? Is that just the kids or those in your demographic?

> Where I'm at, there isn't a context to meet people

Are you in a place without personal ads?

> I do volunteering but that also doesn't go anywhere.

Is that volunteering at the same place or different ones? What kind of volunteering?

> I'd like to have a family and kids,

Do you want to make your own kids? Are you willing to be a step parent?

> but an inability to find and make friends precludes that.

That's not my experience. There's popular advice that one should marry one's friend. But in my experience one can just look for a marriage partner and leap frog that nonsense.

> The thought of getting old alone

Ah, so essentially human, thank you for sharing. I too have that at my core.

> If you have to constantly take the social initiative, then you're carrying the relationship.

I don't think that's true, and the article does talk about this a bit. Relationships are never actually 50/50. If you're expecting that, you're gonna have a bad time.

But really, think about outcomes more than trivial details: if you are the one who always has to be the one to reach out, but you end up having a good time when you talk or meet up with the person, then isn't that still a good outcome?

But ultimately everyone gets to make their own choice, of course. Would you rather have no friends or family, or would you rather have to put in more effort than the other person at some aspects of maintaining a friendship/relationship? Ideally it shouldn't be this stark dichotomy, but if it is, you gotta make your choice.

(Also, "no unsolicited advice please" is a weird thing to say when you're posting about a personal situation on a public forum. If you don't want to take this as advice, then take this as disagreement with what you're saying, and my expression of frustration that your choice seems to be "be alone and sad" when the alternative is "put in a little more effort than the other person".)

Apologies if this is in the category of unsolicited advice. I noticed that you had a submission describing a similar problem set in the work setting, so I am seeing a theme. It sounds like you are in a lonely place and are hoping for something better.

There's no magic to it but I can recommend some things that work very well for me.

First, do you have a curiosity about people? The folks you're working with, or folks at your volunteering events - do you strike up a conversation? Do you know where people are from, what their families are like, what their hobbies are, what they think and worry about? I don't mean to encourage you to engage in robotic small talk, but asking you whether these things are actually of interest to you? Wanting to know someone is the first step of a relationship.

Assuming you have the interest, ask whether you've done anything to learn these things? If you realize that there are 30 people you could have known these things about but don't - why not? Are you very shy? Do you think people will think you're rude? Do you not know how to chat? Answer this for yourself and seek resources on-line for how to close those gaps. I went from a shy mush-mouth to a pretty good shmoozer in a few years, it's possible.

If you decide that you actually don't have an interest in people (like, you genuinely don't care what anyone's life is like) then there's a strong disconnect between than and the desire to have a family/kids/friendship. If you have the ability to, seek some sort of talk therapy to explore this question. Chances are there's some "wound" that's blocking your ability to want to connect with people if this is the case.

Finally, you sound like someone who closes doors before they are even open. I suspect when you say "hookup culture..." what you are really saying is "I have a reason for why I am not on dating apps." When you say "people treat me like I am invisible" - you are writing off an entire town as not being interested in you, which gives you an excuse to not try to connect with them (yet, somehow they had all met each other - so it's probably your vibes - and that's in your control to change). If you really believe that your location is a problem that's preventing you from having relationships, then move. If you have a desire for family and kids and you think that's not possible in your location, why are you there? (and, if you are about to give yourself an excuse as to why that's impossible, pay attention to that too)

Solid "unsolicited" (odd thing to say) advice here, especially in the third paragraph. Another description for this I think is simply being genuine. Being genuinely interested in other people's lives, their families, and the stuff they like to do goes a long way and will tear the layers off people. In my experience, learning this combined with listening will have you quite possibly wanting less friends.

Some people are too, too risk averse. They subconsciously avoid, not just pain, but the possibility of discomfort. It's not just one or two actions - it's their filter that they see the world through.

Pain avoidance is often disguised as disinterest, but really it's just a cost function to minimize the possibility of feeling embarrassment, awkwardness, discomfort, heated discussion, or emotional distress. Sometimes this is personality related; other times, this is a result of an aggressive, hurtful, or manipulative upbringing.

I have a friend like this and he is very hard to be friends with. He hit this point where he was stuck in an unhappy life situation (have few good friends, can't find love, etc) but vehemently opposed anything slightly uncomfortable that will move him from his unhappy cage.

What's happening subconsciously is a deep seated trauma/fear freezing him in place. For my friend, he was bullied as a kid, and his parents also were emotionally angry and abusive. He grew up with the fear that out of nowhere, a seemingly trivial sentence or action could send him into a world of confusion and hurt.

Today, meeting new people and sharing emotions is a giant minefield to him. But most people just see him as stubborn, whiny, hard to socialize with and doesn't listen to advice.

But it's hard to be his friend not because of his awkward socials but because he complains about his distress so much but doesn't do anything about it... for years. As someone who wants to solve problems and make progress, it is very frustrating to see him move so slowly.

He is very, very slow to go out from his comfort zone, even just a little bit.

You obviously care about your friend, but I do not think you really understand his position.

For some people company is "nice to have", something like owning a sports car. Maintaining friendship costs energy and has real risks (being used, emotional blackmail...). And benefits for short, obese, bald guy are really not that great.

Our neighbor is in his 70s. No kids, no wife, no family. Spends his time watching crypto videos on YouTube and gardening in summer. He is polite and helpful, but we try to avoid getting into conversations with him because those end up becoming monologues of him telling us about the apocalypse.

Living alone today is easy. It’s also comfortable, because you save yourself all the drama and overhead of having to deal with another irrational human being. It’s also easy to feel superior for living this way, telling yourself that you are rejecting a sick society. The thing is, with nobody knowing you intimately and giving you feedback, you can end up being totally delusional and not ever realize it.

Also, an unsolicited book recommendation: Hesse, Steppenwolf. You may recognize yourself in it. I did.