Male Mental Health: Unique Struggles Faced by Men

“In doubt, blame men” – Anonymous

Please note that the following blog post on male mental health is written for men, by a man. It is written to account for several conversations I had with clients who considered their struggles to be “normal” or even somehow their own fault, not really understanding that in some way, the card deck of life is stacked against us, and that to overcome these challenges we first need to understand them.

I understand that some women may also want to read about male mental health, but please note that for the most part, I’ll be addressing the male public and its unique problems, so sometimes women may not be able to understand or sympathize with the following points.

Furthermore, this blog post is by no means extensive, as to truly address all male mental health issues would take an entire book. Still, I do want to start off with three stories that were funny in a depressing way that will exemplify what some men have to deal with in their lives.

A Male Drama Called Life

The first story starts with a group of people who created a well-edited Tinder profile for a handsome guy, who ultimately got 20 likes on this profile, which resulted in virtually nothing else worth mentioning. Then they created a Tinder profile for a woman, using pictures only of a floor, not adding any other pictures or text, getting 200 likes on that account, and even being able to set some dates.

The second story was about a woman (does anyone remember her name?) who, tired of issues like patriarchy and wage disparity among women, decided to change her gender to male. She went on a few dates with other women, believing that as a former woman she would excel in conversation, be a great lover, and connect with women in a way that no other man could. However, she soon encountered the same problems men often complain about, such as women not making an effort to pay for the bill (being there for a free meal), looking down on men for being men, and regularly ghosting her. After living as a man for several years, she became depressed. She changed her gender back to female, admitting that she was much happier as a woman, developing empathy for men and their unique life and mental health struggles.

Lastly, there was a story of a former woman, a transvestite man who took testosterone supplements, as men are said to have it 10-15 times more in their system compared to women, and he was shocked to see a flood of pornographic images flooding his brain on a regular basis. He became ashamed of where his mind took him, which is something men are often shamed for, while for us men, it is our normal day-to-day life.

Online Dating

For some reason, I still have a Tinder account (which I deleted after writing this blog post), but it is something that never worked for me, despite giving it many tries. As such, at first, I thought the problem was just me as a person, and my images and text, which I tried to improve on several occasions. I even tried to pay for the app, which was ultimately a waste of my time, energy, and money, creating more problems for my mental health than actually achieving something positive, such as finding my life partner or a few dates worth noting.

After all, I didn’t match with many people, or at least with people I wanted to match, and when I did match, and even met up in person, it was seriously not worth it. In other words, it was easier just to go out to some local bar, as that would have been way more productive, not to mention thinking about Tinder, hours of swiping, texting back and forth, and fake and scam accounts, which I had to deal with.

Again, this wasn’t just my experience, as many men are having the same issues. Here it is worth mentioning that dating apps do work for some men, but they are still the minority, or it works in some places / countries in the world, but in case it works, it isn’t worth talking about it.

As such, in most cases, and for most men, it doesn’t work, while women report to have just about the opposite experience. They match with almost every man, and just don’t reply or date with them, considering most profiles to be “trash,” reserving their time for exceptionally lucky men, or ego validation, seeing that virtually everyone wants to match with them.

Either way, even in these best-case scenarios, there are many bad profiles which we need to consider and discard, a lot of time wasted talking to people, and few good dates, with some being fake, unrealistic profiles, or just scams.

So again, at first I thought it was all my fault, as I wasn’t good looking, smart, or somehow special enough, which gave me huge depression when I was in my mid 20s, only to realize later on that, nothing personal, it’s just normal for most men.

Offline Dating

Similarly, I wasn’t the most popular kid in town, I was very shy, polite, and told “just be yourself and the world will give you everything on a silver platter.” In many ways, this didn’t work for me, again leading to a massive mid-20s depression, again only to realize it wasn’t my fault, but just a normal life for most men.

You see, when puberty hits for women, they become a focal part of attention for both men and women, a spotlight they keep for some 15-20 years (more or less depending on the individual). Men, however, hit puberty, and get virtually no attention whatsoever, especially from women who they are now interested in. This leads to feelings of insecurity, thinking “maybe something is wrong with me,” and certainly being unsatisfied due to the human need for intimacy and companionship.

Again, women don’t have these problems, and perhaps they have them in reverse, having too much attention, often of the wrong kind, which creates their own female mental health problems men often can’t understand or appreciate.

This is a cultural problem, as we live in a society that for most part ignores men until they are in their mid-20s, and gives them more attention when they reach their 30s, which often leads men to believe that they somehow “got it,” while in reality it is just a normal part of reaching a certain stage of life.

However, after 30 years of being ignored, many men are left with some sort of trauma, which accumulates in different ways, so even at their best years, men often feel inadequate because of all the problems they felt when they were younger.

Here it is worth noting that “if it wasn’t this it was that,” meaning that everyone thinks their problems are important and meaningful to them. So if they don’t have these issues, they are likely to obsess about some other aspect of their life, so the best solution to mental health is to learn Optimal Happiness, which is designed to make us as happy as we can be, regardless of our circumstances.

Creating Meaningful Connection

And here we arrive at a situation when eventually a woman says “yes” to being a man’s girlfriend, which sounds perfect, as we no longer have to deal with loneliness and rejection, but eventually (down the line) it leads to a whole different set of problems, which are women themselves. After all, men are said to be from Mars and women are from Venus, which is to say that men and women often behave as if they were from 2 different species, which is funny because we were supposed to be compatible, but in the end we find it just leads to conflict.

Here it is worth mentioning that down the line, women also feel bad in relationships, but in a completely different way. This point of difference between the sexes is discussed at length in a library of dating books, while my point is that both genders suffer at times in each other’s hands. Certainly, there are positive aspects as well, which is why we start relationships in the first place, but negativity is also common, which is overall a quite normal part of life.

Again, the overarching point here is that, nothing personal, it’s not you, but rather different biological, psychological, and social imperatives in play, which may make you believe that ultimately you are the issue, while in reality there are structural issues in place that make you feel like the problem is with you, the men.

Here again, it’s not worth discussing every possible permutation in terms of problems that life can create, as they are infinite. The real solution, however, is to learn how to separate ourselves from these problems and in turn solve them in the best way possible. In this way, I recommend the Optimal Happiness formula since it teaches the science and art of becoming happy once and for all. This isn’t to say that other methodologies won’t work, but Optimal Happiness addresses all aspects, leading us to become our happiest and best selves, which is great.

Men’s Mental Health In Summary

In the end, both genders say that they suffer at the hands of each other (and find joy), but the above three problems just sum it up best for me the whole topic of the uniqueness of men’s mental health. Of course, there are many other problems out there, but they are often either personal or not specific only to men, so they are addressed in different blog posts.

Again, this is a very simplified view of the story, but it gets the message across, that women and men are different no matter what the feminist movement will insist. Of course, this doesn’t excuse the fact that we should strive for equality in some key parts of life, such as income equality and higher job representation of women in key workplace positions.

At the same time, we should also realize that most women aren’t asking for complete equality, but only in places that are convenient to them, such as they still don’t want mandatory conscription into military services that exist for many men or to pay 50/50 on dates. I guess this point is just what it is, one of these things in life that we can’t or shouldn’t mention as it can be offensive to some women. However, I added this point anyway because in my experience it is better to state facts at their face value, regardless of how they will be received, as there is plenty of information related to the pursuit of happiness, which opposes conventional thinking, suggesting that this is part of the reason why we are so unhappy in our society today, as being selective in what we say is exactly how we got into this mess:

As such, men and women will struggle with different mental health issues, but ultimately it’s not our fault, while at the same time, we all have to learn how to live in this often confusing world and find happiness. And the best way to do so is by optimizing toward happiness, to learn what are the best ways to become the happiest we can be in a world that can often feel overwhelmingly confusing, which in turn makes so many of us negative, depressed, and overall unhappy.

Ultimately, it’s not productive to throw tantrums, saying that it’s unfair, or to insist on having traumas and feeling depressed until everything is fixed and handed to us on a silver platter. Instead, it is much more efficient to accept that most problems are structural rather than personal and to learn to address them accordingly. And this is why I recommend Optimal Happiness, which focuses on providing the best possible mental health solution. You can learn more about our services through our blog, book, or during a free personal one-on-one call.

Stay happy!