"As a man, I have lots of people in my life who love me, but they consistently fail to take notice of my emotional needs."

Although every man's circles are different, your experience is highly common. I'm going to intentionally dramatize a little to get the point across efficiently.

Men effectively live in an emotional desert. Showing emotion, vulnerability or dependency is discouraged, dismissed or even ridiculed. Men lack a support system. They're often the last buck and there's nothing or nobody to back them up.

This is why to many men, their relation with their mother is holy. It's often the only source of genuine unconditional love and a safe place to be vulnerable. Of course, you can't even have that, this too is to be ridiculed, hence the many "your mum" jokes.

When men get sick, they're ridiculed for being such a baby. Here too a rare sign of vulnerability expressed is to be laughed at.

Men are judged by utility. Society doesn't care about men's needs or problems. They are willingly sacrificed in war, work, homeless on the streets, and in suicide without this even being a topic of mainstream interest.

The handful of reasonable feminists spotting how this complete indifference is a problem are shouted down by their radical counterparts, that have seized the movement. Not only is there no mainstream culture to care about men, it's openly hostile to men in general.

If I were to post my little lecture on a social network, I'd be piled on with: "oh you poor man, you have it sooooo bad lmao!!!"

Anyway, I know none of this helps, but I just wanted to share that your experience in many ways is the experience of many if not most men. And I think you analyzed the situation very well with the "deer in the headlights" remark.

> I sent my SO a long string of text messages about a problem that I was having, including one of them that said "I feel like garbage."

Is it possible you buried the lede? I'm a fellow sender of long strings of text messages. I've found that not everyone appreciates my potentially sprawling/parallel communication style. They don't always have the time or capacity to pick through all my words and respond thoughtfully to each point.

I used to take it personally, until I realized I was just being overwhelming. Now, if one thing in particular matters to me, I focus on communicating that one thing. I leave the rest on the back burner for more casual conversation.

You mentioned that you're not sure about how to improve the one-sided empathy situation with your SO. So I thought it might be helpful to share some pertinent info that I've come across on HN in the past. I feel that the article and comment discussion on the "Intentionally making close friends" post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33774353) may offer some actionable advice. Also, see the authors other post specifically on "debugging others" (https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/30-debugging-others).

My own advice is to be direct with your SO about your needs / expectations not being met. I went through the same thing with my SO. We went to couples therapy for many years with no improvement, until eventually they realized it was serious enough of a problem to lead to the end of the relationship, prompting them to put in the necessary effort to change. Another poster mentioned Gottman "bids for attention" which is spot on as well. Both partners in the relationship need to show up for each other to provide emotional support. Some people are simply more used to receiving support and don't know how / aren't used to providing it. It should be made clear that this is unacceptable and needs to change, but also that you are willing to give it time and work with your SO to help them gradually improve their empathetic capacity so that they can be a better partner to you (and better person in general) and keep your relationship healthy.

I think it's also important to note that balance is key. You need to be mindful not to overload the other person's empathetic capacity by venting so much that they never have a chance to vent to you or to relax / recharge. If your SO is dealing with a lot of emotional distress themselves, they simply won't have bandwidth for you. We can never be perfect emotional support for each other, because each person deals with their own emotional distress / stressful events which temporarily limits their available empathetic capacity.

I have gone through literally this exact same scenario. I'll send my partner texts during the day and they'll ignore them even through their lunch/breaks, or skim them and miss something important. I get to the point sometimes where I have to stop texting them, even about unrelated topics or important updates, because I know the number of texts will build up too much and when they see it they won't read any of them. As is common, my partner is dependent on me. I am her rock and the breadwinner for our family. She doesn't provide enough emotional support, I have to constantly hold back my emotional needs. Maybe she is emotionally underdeveloped. Like hell, I have to remind her to say caring things to me, and even then sometimes they don't know what to say even with a prompt. I'm curious how many of these other things you relate to or you have in common with me.

I'm also curious, does your partner have ADHD?

> it seemed like they just sort of skimmed them and they didn't notice that one in particular. I didn't mention it; I just let it go.

I sometimes wonder if I feel more lonely when I "let it go" aka suppress how I'm feeling. I imagine if it were me, I may have felt annoyed or sad or confused that they didn't see the "I feel like garbage" part and didn't reply to it, and when I"m feeling courageous, sometimes I'll say that to them. I think I've noticed that when people have that deer in the headlights look, I can slowly start to suppress more and more things about how I'm feeling and then sometimes feel stuck, wanting to go deeper and also trying to respect that they may already feel overwhelmed.

I don't know if there's an answer in any of what I wrote above, just wanted to share how I can struggle with this as well.

It's a shitty situation, and it seems all too common for men.

The usual knee jerk response is to blame the men for being unable to communicate effectively.

I think the sad truth is that not everyone is cared about equally, and sometimes it is everyone else's fault.

But it isn't like you can get mad about it. That is just going to push people away and make them bitter toward you.

It's very hard to deal with unactionable bad news. You need to be in a good place yourself, because this will bring you down with no obvious means of relief. Then you need to be free from all distractions and commitments to figure out how to respond, either by doing something or even just the kind of active listening that requires concentration and emotional commitment.

If you ask for something specific and especially something your partner will not totally hate doing, you will make it easier for them to be there for you. "Can you make me my favorite comfort food for dinner tonight?"

One way we can help people help us is to give them an ask - "I feel like garbage. Can you deal with dinner?" or "I feel like garbage. Do you have time to chat with me?"

People need scripts and many people struggle to provide active support to someone they view as supportive. Giving them a script can help.

You might need to surround yourself with more compassionate people, if you truly feel that no one is willing to consider your emotional wants and needs.

I wonder if this is related to "bids for attention" in a way (see https://www.gottman.com/blog/turn-toward-instead-of-away/) - you reaching out to your partner hoping for acknowledgement and not getting any response

I feel you. I am separated right now and sometimes I want desperately to be back in a relationship -- forgetting that even within a relationship it's no guarantee to not be lonely. Hope everything is okay with you. I just try to be stoical about everything and be not fight the negative emotions but learn to live with them. It helps.

How are they doing? Perhaps they have stuff going on that you don’t see?

A SO is just like you and the hard part is being able to share and open up. Because sometimes it isn’t right in a relationship and you can feel even lonelier.

I can relate (as a man) and can say it was only when I started hanging around other dudes who would relentlessly mock each other that my feelings improved.

>> You need to find people who are capable of understanding you

This is spot on. I made a comment independently which made a similar point. Also, people who are too memetic (who tend to want what other people want) tend to lack self-understanding.

Such people tend to feel uncomfortable when they hang around other people who understand themselves because it makes them question their own motives and realize that their desires were never their own to begin with.

They are not capable of figuring out the meaning of their own life so they keep trying to borrow it from others around them and the futility of this makes them feel lonely. They can never find someone who can fill that void but they can't stop looking for them.

In my case, humor is effective way to know if others understand u or not. You make humor (that you find it's a humor), but not all others understand it a humor.

Is sexuality the only conflicting thing we can think of nowadays? I can think of at least 10 things people might freak out about me, without even getting to thinking about what sexuality I may have.

In general I agree with the premise of "You need to find people who are capable of understanding you".

It's actually a combination of that and your feeling about yourself. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'll just call it once you're in balance with yourself, i.e. in an okay(maybe not perfect or ideal) mental state, and you have some sort of pillar you can lean on(your beliefs, your understanding of the world, etc.), then its no longer about your desire to get others to accept you, but rather putting yourself in an environment where you feel okay.

I'd add that nothing with sufficient complexity can be adequately described in a simple words, let alone explained in a concise yet simple manner.

You may go up in abstraction to make it concise, but this risks either oversimplifying to the point that all nuance is lost and you feel alone, or requiring that the other person shares sufficiently overlapping definitions. They may probe further to build said abstractions, but this requires a time investment, and as you said, the capacity to relate to some extend.

I believe that a person who understands themselves well is bound to have a rich inner world and abstractions that adequately describe them while feeling very natural but because we are all humans with our own subjective experiences, finding people with similar abstractions - and experiences - such that we can relate to each other is difficult.

You guys discuss your sexuality with your friends? This seems weird, I don't think keeping some things private means one is lonely. Of course, at some point my friends will meet my spouse, which is broaches upon the topic. But in this context, it's clear that they are not potential targets of my sexuality, so there is no tension introduced. Also, once I have a significant other, I am no longer that lonely and I am open about my sexuality with at least one person.

I agree with most of what you said; however, I believe that once you really understand yourself you also:

1. Understand others, therefore can describe them in a way suited to their way of thinking. This is probably controversial assumption but I believe people are unconstrained, everyone can understand everything, it may just require more time. If you believe people are constrained, or just don't want to spend time on them—find people who are capable of understanding you right away. By being honest about yourself you will attract like-minded people. The process of "explaining yourself" obligates you to approach new people (not only your current closest) and explain them your existence. If you feel understood only by your closest friends, then you are not good at expressing yourself.

2. become less self-concerned. You no longer seek validation and significance—you are fine with being normal. You no longer need someone who will make you less lonely, someone who will fix your flaws. You no longer focus on yourself (you know this guy good enough), rather, you pay all the attention to others, you become emphatic, which connects with others, and thus you become less lonely.

3. You can honesty communicate your needs, fears, desires, emotions. They are part of you, and hence it's your responsibility to explain them to others. Don't expect people to read your mind. Don't run away using abstractions, give concrete examples. If you believe in small lies for a greater good, then you are not communicating yourself. If you consider breaking up with your SO, talk about it with him/her, not your friends. If your boss annoys you, tell him which actions annoys you. It requires a lot of courage therefore little people do so, but not doing it results in loneliness. You have a choice.

When you connect with another human who sees you, life becomes full of color.

I think a lot of our societal issues stem from not being able to connect authentically.

Making someone feel seen and heard is a skill…if one doesn’t have that in their family or friendship group then that is a real shame. I believe that nuance was missed in your analogy.

I don’t know. I believe that language shapes reality.

For example, I decided I wanted to let go of latent homophobia by dropping a word from my vocabulary that was seen as fairly harmless by sis males when I was growing up. After consciously avoiding it and choosing not to say it, even in my mind, for a while, it truly left my pallet of words for expression. I do think that had a perceivable (to me) effect on my attitude and thinking.

How many esoteric words have you learned in life that helped you to better describe a situation? I look up any word I don’t know (in something of an OCD way). I’ve had many “aha“ moments where learning a word gave me a slightly greater ability to understand the world, hence “shaping” my view of it. It’s not exact, but I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the value in thinking about words and decisions on how to think about things.

Indeed, even my most empathetic, patient friends will struggle to care about a topic entirely unrelated to them for long. You do have to make an effort to find people who can relate to you in some dimension. That's why hobbies are a common suggesting for making friends, you immediately have common ground.

Thank you for your comment. My goal was to be as succinct as possible and cover most of the cases of “casual” feeling of loneliness.

Although I still believe that self-understanding and communication are fundaments, other people are also important factor in this equation.

I wrote complementary points in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34497083

One can be known and loved by others, but lonely, marooned & castaway on an island. Alone by definition is just "all one" - no others, which is not #1. One would be better off consulting a dictionary before going on a definition tangent.

The definition comes from Alfred Adler, more precisely the book “The courage to be disliked”.

  Consider being dropped into another nation where they speak a language you have no knowledge of. Without shared language and culture, you can't hope to be understood.

  Doesn't mean you can't be surrounded by helpful, caring people (friends?), though, which is why this argument is completely flawed

Upon considering the scenario you described, my first thoughts were on how lonely an experience that would be. Also, helpful and caring people that don't understand what's wrong can't provide very effective support.