[suneilp]

A gender breakdown for both single and married would also be useful. For marriages there should also be another dimension based on the health of the marriage.

Recent literature suggests that men are lonelier than women which incites my curiosity on gender differences in this topic. I've been theorizing that if true, those men who fall further below the envelope of social interaction end up having greater difficulty in developing and maintaining relationships as they age.

[ronnier]

Most women I know have a hoard of men waiting to take them out and entertain them. On the other side, most men I know struggle to get a single woman to go out with (or men for that matter as friends).

Men are in such compitition now that they have deep distrust of other men and won't let them into their circle.

[soulnothing]

It's funny I just got back from a Meetup mixer. I'm in Seattle too, coming from the east coast. It feels like another country at times.

But all the meetups I've been to there is a gender imbalance. Either a number of men to women or vice versa. The latter being the most common. Tonight I was watching as 8 guys were trying to talk to one woman.

[DenisM]

Depends on the location, I suppose. Are you in Seattle?

[ronnier]

Yes. Seems like the entire west coast is similar. Also, there are few places where women outnumber men. And if you look under 40 the ratio is even more skewed towards many more men than women. I think this impacts men's mental health as they are unable to build a relationship of any sort. Men commit more crime, go to college less, commit suicide more, are heavier drug users, and so on. I wonder how the male/female ratio plays into that.

[gaius]

Well, there is the societal expectation that in order to "grow up" a man must stop spending time with his friends and/or on his hobbies and "settle down". There is no such expectation/pressure on women.

[pavel_lishin]

There is a lot of pressure on women to have children, though, and having kids drastically changes how, when, and with whom you socialize.

To elaborate, in case you don't have kids: for the first several months, you're likely exhausted and don't even want to socialize. If you do, you're still limited due to time - young children just sleep and eat, and you're bound to their schedule. If you're exclusively breastfeeding, you can't drive an hour out to see a two hour movie with your friends, because your kiddo's feed is going to fall within that timespan.

Once they get older, you can go out again, but you're not going to necessarily be doing the same things you wanted to earlier. Being woken up hungover by a screaming baby at 5am is terrible, so you're going to cut down your social drinking. Going camping on the weekend is more difficult, too - you're leaving your partner in the lurch. Spur of the moment plans are difficult, too - you're still tied to your kid's schedule, and there are places where it is difficult to take a small child. ("You wanna go rock climbing?" "Yes, but...")

[orbat]

"There is no such expectation/pressure on women" is a bit of a blanket statement, and I highly doubt it's true; see e.g. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11406568/Why-wo....

We all, regardless of gender, face different types of pressures from outside. Women are often seen (and mystified) through motherhood, and men through stoic toiling. Women are supposed to be the emotional ones, and men hard and logical and impervious to emotions. You see it all the time in various forums when people comment on a sad article, with the "I'm not crying, I'm cutting onions schtick." A lot of this comes down to old gender roles born out of a confusing soup of evolution, Abrahamic social norms, and history. It's not just the men facing social pressures, it's everybody in the society.

[ionised]

> Well, there is the societal expectation that in order to "grow up" a man must stop spending time with his friends and/or on his hobbies and "settle down".

I'm not sure I've ever encountered that expectation. I'm in my 30's and have four or five close friends I spend regular time with and a load of other 'mates' that I see every now and then.

[dajohnson89]

If you have any sources on men being lonelier, please share here and I'd be very grateful

[sien]

Here is one source:

http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/assets/documents/hi...

Basically men tend to have fewer friends than women and depend more on their spouses for this.

[ionised]

My experience seems to be the opposite. I have friends and see them regularly and my partner ignores hers for the most part.