Young men who get stuck doing nothing...

[Bunny890]

My younger brother is living at home with my parents and I know several other young men who also get 'stuck' at home - endlessly online, alienate friends, not able to even look for employment or engage with healthcare. I realise that there is a mental health element to this, but I can't help but feel frustrated - Mu

Thank you.

I think increasingly they're living online in a virtual world becoming detached from reality. Without their pc/phone and Internet they're lost. Why go out and make proper friends and have a real life when you can have a virtual life doing whatever you want with no effort or consequences.

getting the sense that this thread has come to the attention of the manosphere.

A sensitive bunch

It's actually one of the more nuanced threads I've seen on this, often it's all just a load of slagging off.

Back to the thread, what do people think, if we didn't have as much of a "virtual" world of gaming and social media would some of these people try harder to build real social lives? Or is it the other way round and they'd still have the problem of social rejection and would just withdraw to different things?

I'm leaning towards the latter a bit but I imagine the former has exacerbated things a lot.

I think you'd still have people avoiding real life but it would manifest differently.

A PP mentioned the lack of Saturday jobs for teens. It’s because these jobs are are now taken by fully grown adults who are happy to live 15 to a house. Hence wages can stay low.
Same thing happened with fast food jobs in the US with people from south of the border.

So parents need to find other, constructive ways to occupy their teens instead of falling into gaming.

It happens to both sexes, how equal the split is debatable but it’s not a problem exclusively for men.
Women who don’t want to do anything with their lives often find men to support them so it’s less visible. It’s much more obvious when a man withdraws from society as they often still live with parents.

I think the mental pressures and stimulation in society has changed so much over a generation or two and imo lots of parenting and schooling, in part, doesn’t equip children with the emotional tools they need in life.

In my experience a personality trait more commonly found in boys is to completely throw in the towel when they fail, or when they are afraid of failing and this manifests in them retreating.

How can anyone say the equivalent is a sahm? I don’t know any sahm that sit infront of the tv all day or are gaming, usually they’re doing the childcare and housework cooking etc so the man can go to work uninterrupted and not fork out nursery fees.
I haven’t come across any female equivalents as sahm.
Now I would love to see these male slobs do the equivalent labour but they can’t even bring themselves to leave their rooms nevermind raise kids or cook for someone else.
Just because a woman doesn’t want to do paid employment doesn’t mean she’s doing fuck all to contribute in other ways.
The true equivalent is a woman who is behaving the same way, stuck in her room not helping with anything around the house etc.

I agree - it's pure misogyny to say that being a SAHM is the equivalent.

If a SAHM was gaming all day, neglecting to feed or care for her children, refusing to engage with the world, and expecting to be waited on by those around her, that might be a fair comparison. But I've never met a SAHM like that.

I'm 63 and was rather like that as a teenager- no friends . My main interests were boxing and films - I later made the possible mistake of political activism.

Yes I don't think being a SAHM is in any way equivalent. But I'm pretty sure no one has suggested that.

@WhatNoRaisins as pp have pointed out, these men had other hobbies before the internet. As someone who has been involved in wargaming, roleplaying games and comics for nearly 4 decades, this is where many of them used to hang out. I also imagine model railway making was similar.
I don't want to stereotype all gamers, as actually they've always been welcoming of the neurodivergent, and at least it got (many of) these guys out of the house, to play with others, but there were always solitary parts of the hobby such as painting, reading & writing scenarios & rules, so someone could have a fulfilling life without ever interacting with 'mainstream' society.

A pp said: "Women who don’t want to do anything with their lives often find men to support them so it’s less visible."

Women who are being supported financially by men usually have children. I can't think of a single couple I've come across where the woman is just a 'kept woman' with no children to look after.

That's what I suspected. I did some gaming during my time, not the kind that kept me up all hours though, also read a lot and did some crafting.

My biggest regret is that I didn't focus more time on the crafting and less on attempts at socialising that really weren't working for me.

Oh, I see. I agree that's not a good comparison. Having children is clearly not the same as gaming in your room and getting a free laundry service.

Even simply being a kept woman isn't the same. If you're looking after the house etc you're still fulfilling a role, even if it's a very disempowering one. It's not nothing.

In contrast the young women I'm thinking of simply finished school and ... stopped. The two I know at the moment ... they just sort of pootle along while mother tries to arrange training courses them. I expect something will happen eventually.

No gaming involved for the person I know.

He reads second hand books, watches old videos, smokes a lot of pot, sleeps a lot, goes for long walks.

Disgusting post. Reminds me of all the posts on uni forums about women being afraid they won't be able to get coveted internships or find jobs in FAANG only to be bombarded with 'at least you can do only fans', or women complaining about how they are underpaid and undervalued at their job and told that they should just quit and go do only fans instead.

But I guess all women are now potential sex workers.

My partners younger brother is 31 and has never had a job, lives at home with their mum and hides behind a big beard, glasses and a beanie hat. I think he has left the house twice in 3 years. He is dirty smelly and scruffy. He gets money from somewhere but doesn't have to look for a job. Wtf is wrong with him? It must be mental health.

Also to add he is a big gamer, smokes and drinks and eats lots of takeaways.

I don't agree that young women all run off with some man to support them when they act like the boy in this example. Often, young women are at home with their parents. It is just that most of them help out around the house and are less apt to be talked about negatively in the family. If they are the oldest at home, they often also become free babysitters. Not saying they don't act lazy and play around, just a lot less since women are generally just raised to help out more.

Just said it's an option, not that they should at all.The papers are always full of stories of a woman that quit her job for Only Fans and is now a millionaire or earning thousands a week or whatever and paid for her own home.

That just makes young men check out more as they haven't got that to fall back on if they were inclined.

Yes, young women usually are a lot more domesticated and useful.

How would you feel if it was offered as an option to young women when they queue up at the job centre? How do you think it makes women feel when they don't take up doing porn as their 'option'? Doing only fans is not a 'fall back' ffs.

Regarding those stories in the papers, the average only fans content creator doesn't make enough to survive. Woefully naive take.

Friend’s son was exactly in this awful downward spiral. Him aged 31, much support from family. Degree etc. Retired to bedroom. She lost patience and kicked him out to a luckily placed aunt abroad. He found himself. Taught EFL. And then met his now wife. Sometimes hard decisions need to be made but with some planning and luck

I'm sure that the "papers always being full of that" is dependent on which papers you read. Not all newspapers are reliable sources.