One in four men have no mates. Here’s why that stat terrifies me #656

One in four men have no mates. That’s not just sad — it’s dangerous.

In this episode, Lachie sits down to unpack why male loneliness is skyrocketing. From data shared by the Australian Men’s Health Forum to stories from the coaching trenches, this conversation dives deep into what’s really driving isolation among modern men.

You’ll learn:

• How being socially lazy erodes mateship
• Why neglecting yourself kills connection
• The danger of thinking you “don’t need help”

This one cuts through the surface-level talk. It’s about responsibility, awareness, and taking the first step back toward brotherhood.

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Chapters

• 1:01 Why Male Loneliness Is Surging
• 1:46 Defining Mateship and Its Stakes
• 3:04 Craving Value, Visibility, and Voice
• 4:48 Reason One: Socially Lazy Habits
• 7:50 Events vs Simple Catch-ups
• 11:35 When Partners Run Your Social Life
• 13:48 Reason Two: Neglecting Ourselves
• 17:42 Reclaiming Time and Priorities
• 19:54 Reason Three: “I Don’t Need Anyone”
• 21:30 Coaching Invite and Subscribe CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Why is male loneliness skyrocketing? I stumbled across this stat last week and it blew my mind and I wrote it down here. But one in four men have no mates. I couldn't believe it, so I had to go fact check. I went on to the Australian Men's Health Forum and just saw more data around this. And that prompted me to want to go down a rabbit hole where I have watched a number of YouTube videos, I've read a number of articles, and I've started thinking about this within my own life and where this puts me and how this could impact myself, but also people like you, you know, the men who want to feel valued, want to feel seen, want to feel heard. I am going to share in this episode three reasons why I believe male loneliness is skyrocketing. And I want to share why I think it's important that you as an individual, you as a man who is sitting there, really starts to prioritize your relationship, much like you would with your health, much like you do with your career and your finances, and much like you do with your uh health. I'm sorry, your family. Because there are stats proving that relationship breakdown, not having a close circle of mates is negatively impacting your health, not only mentally but physically. As I've been diving down the rabbit hole, you know, we see lots of influencers and men out there who are pulling men into negative spaces. And what I mean by that is groups of men who have values that aren't beneficial to society. And you are probably listening to this and you might be thinking, yeah, I know some. And to me, when I think about like what is causing me to be lonely, what is mateship? To me, mateship is those men who care about me, they're the ones who check in on me, who make the effort, they challenge me, they hold me to a higher standard, and I do believe I can lean on them in the challenging times, but I'm also creating some epic memories with them along the way, you know, those mates where you're just like, that's who I want to tell about this. You may not have that. And if you don't, then this episode is for you, and you may have that. This episode will still be for you because you need to be mindful of these things, okay? Because you can observe life, and you may have male sons, guys that you went to school with, friends in your life now who you are seeing getting pulled into another direction, one that from the outside looking in, you're like, that's not good, that's not healthy. How do I help them? And the reality in the most simple form that I've thought about is it's just we're seeking all of us, myself included, to feel valued, to feel seen, and to feel heard. And so many of us don't have that. And what happens when you aren't feeling valued, when you aren't feeling seen, and when you aren't feeling heard, it doesn't change the fact that it's still something that you create, uh you crave. And so when we crave something, we will find a way to get that. And you it's we see people falling into all kinds of groups that maybe aren't aligned with who they are as a person, they aren't what you value. When I was younger, it was what I was doing when I was partying a lot. Like I would wake up on a Monday morning or a Sunday morning going, Oh, what have I done? It's like I just don't like doing this. But I kept doing it because in the moment I felt valued, I felt felt seen, and I felt heard, and I didn't feel lonely, I felt a part of something bigger than myself. So three things, let's dive into it. The first one, socially lazy. Yes, us men, majority of us are socially lazy. When I was reading this, I was having light bulb moments go off in my own mind where I'm thinking, that is me. I didn't see that as an issue until I heard what I'm about to share with you. We're socially lazy in the fact that when you get in a relationship, when you get into a career, when you start a family, when life gets all consuming, we sacrifice our social relationships because friendship is difficult. But as a man, we adopt this responsibility that we need to protect and we need to provide, and that is a completely different conversation. But that means we don't ever learn to develop the friendship and we don't invest in the friendship. So to me, like anything, if you're going to the gym to get a result and to sustain good health, you have to go consistently. It's not about doing full days of training, it's about doing your 30 minutes to an hour every single day, or I do every single day to get the result. And when you get to your ideal body or your ideal strength, you don't stop. You keep investing in it so that you can maintain it. The same goes for a relationship, like a mateship. When you're at school, and this is what they say in the data that I read, that the best times to make friends, the best times to get mates is going through school, secondary school, college because you're forced together. There's a lot of social outings. After that, it becomes more challenging. But it does not mean it's not as important, it's probably more important because we need that social connection, but we're dealing with so many, so much resistance to it. And men, we love to catch up at events, unlike women, and this is once again a generalization, which you maybe listen to this and you go, that's not me, that's okay. But for most men, we want to catch up at an event. That's like how we socialize. We go to the game, we go to the pub to watch the game, we go on a camping trip or whatever it may be. And the great thing about that is we can make those happen. The challenge with that is there is a lot more resistance to making that happen than if we were just to say, and I would just to say to you, hey, I want to go, do you want to go catch up? Let's go grab a coffee. For no other intent than I just want to find out what's going on in your life. How are you going? How's your family? How's your career? What are you excited about? What are you struggling with? Very rarely do we do that. Even I notice it in my own life. I'm like, oh, do you want to go for a run together? Do you want to come on a hike? Should we go for a camping trip? And while there's the intent there, it's also once again a lot harder because when you're thinking about let's go on a camping trip, I need to get time off work. Can I be away from my family? Can I afford it? We're putting all these roadblocks or little hurdles in place that get in the way, and sometimes it doesn't happen. You may have noticed that, and you may be going, Oh man, that's so true. And I I was as I was writing about this, I'm like, man, I do that all the time. And therefore, a catch-up that could have just happened at a coffee shop then gets pushed a couple of months, and then there's months between seeing my mates, and that's where friendship becomes difficult, or we make it more difficult than it needs to be. So, what are some things you could do? And I want to ask you a question. If you didn't make the effort, how many of your mates would be around? I have a number of mates on my phone in my favorites, I don't have my phone on me, in my favorites, that I'll aim to call every week or every two weeks. And I do that because I went through a period where I did feel extremely lonely. And I realized that I needed to start investing time. I needed to start just calling and checking in what's going on, even if it's for three minutes, doesn't matter. But I wanted to start making that effort and then going for coffees, and I drive to Toowumba, which is essentially two hours from where I am, just to see my mates, because that's important to me. So what are you gonna do if you feel like you're being socially lazy, like I have been, to turn things around there? What can you do? Another example of this is if you're in a long-term relationship or in any relationship, eventually, because we're trying to provide, we're trying to look after the family, we sacrifice and outsource our social events. It might be your wife or your partner who starts going, hey, this weekend we're doing this, or next weekend we're doing this, or we're gonna go for coffee with this. And all of a sudden, your social calendar is designed by your partner, and that's not a bad thing. Well, actually, it is because you're still being social, but we see it all the time when relationships break down, that the wife or the partner will keep the relationships and you'll now be on the outer and you've got no one. And we don't have those skills. And I might make a separate video if you'd like it, just comment in the comments below. And just a quick side note as you're listening to this, if you have thoughts, insights, opinions, perspectives, drop them in the comments. Like I'd love to hear from you guys because I want this is a conversation that's bigger than me. It's it's for all of us men out there. But as we start getting our relationships outsourced, uh we lose the ability to build those relationships, right? Friendship is difficult, it's something that requires repetition, it's something that requires you building a relationship with yourself, which is what I want to go on to for point two. But point one there is that we're socially lazy. I'm going to the footy this afternoon to watch the grand final, and I already caught myself this morning being like, oh, it's on at 6:30 tonight, I've got to work early in the morning. Maybe I can just text my mate. It's a hour, actually, I'm gonna just watch it from home. And that's what I want to do. That's in here, this is what my mind's telling me to do. But because, and I think this this episode has come at the perfect time, that's me being socially lazy. I'm prioritizing work over my friendships. Why do we always prioritize everything else over ourselves, our friendships, and the things that matter most? Because when it's all said and done, I don't want to tell my work about things. I want to tell my friends about things. When I want to go on holidays, I don't want to go on holidays with my work, I want to go on holidays with my friends. And that requires investing in that. So I want you to think about that. And that last question that I'll repeat now is if you didn't make the effort, how many of your mates would be around? Are they making effort? Because if they're not, you could just have a conversation with them and be honest, just say, hey, Lockie, and pretend you're talking to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, or maybe don't start with correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like this rel this mateship or friendship is one way at the moment. I'm always making the phone calls, I'm always organizing the catch-ups. I'm worried that if I didn't do that, that we wouldn't speak. I just wanted to know what you thought about this, and then you can try and understand where they're coming from or what they think, and they might be like, oh no, no, I would. I'd reach out for sure, and maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. But that's a conversation, and that's what friendship's about. You've got to have tough conversations, you've got to challenge each other, you've got to grow together. Now, point number two, neglecting ourselves. We do this so easy. When I have men do the seven domain scorecard, which you can find in the link below, the man that can scorecard, we look at the domains of life from your health to your mindset to your relationships to your finances, etc. And quite often there's parts of ourselves that we are neglecting. And if you can't be working towards being the best version of yourself, how can you give your best to others? And once again, we've got this belief, right? Like we have to be the man or what is a man, and then there's this contrast of being a man versus being a friend, and the pressures that I adopted and that I experienced, and I'd love to hear from you, is I need to protect and I need to provide at all costs. I need to make sure my wife and family always have food on the table. I need to make sure that they feel safe and I need to be achieving. I need to be earning more money, I need to be getting more status, I need to be getting more recognition. And as a result of that, when I'm faced with a decision, let's use the example of this afternoon between I have to work tomorrow and I want to go to the football tonight. Nine times out of ten, or probably ten times out of ten, I'd choose work. Because that to me is being a man or what I thought. But now I'm starting to challenge that, and I'm really, really, really excited to continue chatting with you all, reading more, watching more around this, and starting to reshape how I show up, looking at my calendar, learning what to say no to, and reprioritizing those things. Because if we only provide for others, you know, giving yourself to your family and your wife and your friends and your colleagues and you neglect yourself, how can you ever learn to be a great mate? How can you ever feel like you're valued, seen, and heard? Because if you aren't valuing yourself, if you aren't seeing yourself, and if you aren't hearing yourself, it's going to be very hard for you to communicate that with the world outside you. When people say, What's wrong? What will you answer if you haven't slowed down enough to know? When people say, What are you excited about? How will you know if you haven't slowed down enough to answer that? This is why it's so important not to neglect yourself. But it is one of the reasons why male loneliness is skyrocketing, is because we don't know who we are at our core anymore. We used to have an idea, but now we're just going through the motion and protecting and providing in whatever way that looks like for you. And we feel so disconnected. Yes, you may be winning on paper, but on the inside you feel unfulfilled. You may be in what looks like a loving marriage, but you're asking yourself, like, how long can I keep doing this for? Because something's missing. And the only way you're gonna get clear on this is you have to come back to yourself. You have to make time to prioritize yourself. And there was one study I was reading where they're like, men need two days a week, like two days, but two catch-ups a week with their mates. Just like we say, you know, you need X amount of minutes exercising for good physical health, we need something for good social health. If you, you know, if I'm working with men, we do a time audit, we go, where's your time being spent? Because that can help us see what you're prioritizing. And I would ask you the same thing. If you look at your calendar, and if you're not using one, start using one. But if you go, okay, I'm not missing time here, all I see is work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. No, you can then go, okay, I'm gonna schedule a phone call, I'm gonna schedule a catch-up, or I'm gonna schedule a walk or just a coffee, whatever it is, start making time because male loneliness is killing more men than we realized. One other stat was that men with no friends, it's just as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Now I haven't had a chuff on a dairy for a number of years, but if I had to punch 15 darries in one day, wouldn't be feeling good, I wouldn't be able to run and have the adventures and all of the things that I love about having good health. So think about that. Stop neglecting yourself. And if you want help and support with that, one at the moment I'm taking on two more clients, but next year I'm working on putting together a new program, and that would I want people's feedback because I don't want to just build what I think, I want to build something that is going to provide value to a lot of people. So the more you connect with me, whether it's on in the comments below or on social media, and just ask questions, share your opinions, your thoughts, your insights. It will then help me create something in the new year that can help you become the man that can. Now, thirdly, so firstly was we're socially lazy, secondly, we neglect ourselves, and thirdly, you don't need anything from others. It's just like we do it ourselves. And the challenge with that is when we don't feel like we need anything from others, we start isolating ourselves. Right? I don't need support with that, I don't need to ask for help. Every time we're doing that, we're pushing people away from our lives. Think when you were younger at school, we're all wanting to be seen, valued, and heard, and we've got heaps of friends, heaps of associates, heaps of people we go to school with, and we know as we get older, that circle shrinks because we start realizing I don't need that. I don't need to be challenged by that person, I don't need to be around that person, and we build our core group, but then also we start realizing I don't need that. My wife can do everything, even though they can't, and we shouldn't put pressure on them to do so. And just like we can't be everything to one person, one person can't be everything to us. So when you think about that, you need to go, okay, well, I don't need uh maybe I don't need that conversation, maybe I don't need that social outing. What is the ripple effect of that though? If you stop making the effort to have those social outings, if you stop asking for support or guidance or mentorship, you're shrinking your circle because people stop start sorry, stop thinking to themselves, Lockie doesn't need help or Lockie never stops, never comes anywhere, so why would I invite him? And then when I wake up one day and I go, Man, I feel lonely. Where is everyone? And because we haven't been flexing that social muscle, how do I engage with people? How do I build rapport? How do I have fun? Who am I? We don't know how to then build friends after that as well. So there's multiple different videos we could build off the back of this and talk about and have discussions. But there are three reasons why I feel male loneliness is skyrocketing. And you may be feeling lonely as you watch this, right? You may not feel like you're valued, seen, or heard. But I do believe that if you don't start prioritizing yourself, it's going to feel very challenging for you to ever be valued, seen, or heard because you don't value yourself, you don't see yourself, and you don't hear yourself. So, how can you then communicate with the world around you? Secondly, stop being socially lazy. Make the effort, go the extra mile to catch up with mates. And if you find that there's too much time between the catch-ups, just remove the friction. And what I mean by that is remove the all the boxes that you have to tick to make something happen. So, for example, camping, a lot of moving parts. Just go, can we do a coffee? And if you can't do that because you live far away or work's busy, you either got to ask yourself, what is the most important thing to prioritize, or you just go, let's just do a phone call and like both grab a coffee and go for a walk. And I've got one of my best mates, Etienne, lives in France, and we catch up at least once a month, or maybe not once a month now, but regularly enough, and we'll always FaceTime each other and find out what's going on. But the friction otherwise is I one of us has got to fly to the other country and cost money, time away from family, all of those things. So it's not as achievable as frequently as it is picking up the phone. I'd love to hear from you guys. Drop it in the comments, send me messages on socials around why you think male loneliness is skyrocketing. One in four men does not have a friend. That is a dangerous place to live. Not only because when we feel lonely, where there's a high chance we will take our life, but also we will seek out a way to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. And when you're on those online chat rooms that a lot of men are finding themselves in, that's not a good place to be. So let's get part of the conversation. I'd love to hear from you. My name is Lawrence Stewart, I'm a men's life coach, and I specialize in helping you gain strength so that you can lead better in your life. If you'd like to ever do some work for with me, no for me, with me, make sure you reach out on whatever platform, head to the manletcamproject.com, and I look forward to helping you change. But most importantly, if you got value from this, make sure you hit subscribe because when you subscribe, it lets the algorithms know that people are getting value from this. Have a great week. I look forward to chatting with you soon.