This reeks of the same type of stuff as “just get outside to cure your depression” or “have you tried just not thinking like that?” for mental health issues.
If someone could be reached by telling them “just reach out, its that simple”, they weren’t the ones we need to be reaching. For sure it’d help, and there may be some people this resonates to. If so, great for them. But we have a major problem with isolated men, and those usually aren’t ones who this will be helpful for, any more than an article addressing the mental health crisis by saying “just try more” solves that problem.
I think we need to be reaching out, but IMO the focus isn’t on using words that are incredibly loaded, particularly for those people we’re trying to reach and connect with. Those of us who are doing better should be reaching out, like the author said, and making those connections, but that won’t solve this loneliness crisis.
like any social issue, reaching out isn’t doing shit. you can’t ‘reach out’ to the homeless really.
what you need to do is change the material conditions such that homelessness isn’t an appealing option… you have to give people opportunity. and we are living in a society that is destroying opportunity and then shifting the blame back on individuals for being ‘failures’ for not somehow squeezing blood out of a stone.
This reeks of the same type of stuff as “just get outside to cure your depression” or “have you tried just not thinking like that?” for mental health issues.
If someone could be reached by telling them “just reach out, its that simple”, they weren’t the ones we need to be reaching. For sure it’d help, and there may be some people this resonates to. If so, great for them. But we have a major problem with isolated men, and those usually aren’t ones who this will be helpful for, any more than an article addressing the mental health crisis by saying “just try more” solves that problem.
I think we need to be reaching out, but IMO the focus isn’t on using words that are incredibly loaded, particularly for those people we’re trying to reach and connect with. Those of us who are doing better should be reaching out, like the author said, and making those connections, but that won’t solve this loneliness crisis.
like any social issue, reaching out isn’t doing shit. you can’t ‘reach out’ to the homeless really.
what you need to do is change the material conditions such that homelessness isn’t an appealing option… you have to give people opportunity. and we are living in a society that is destroying opportunity and then shifting the blame back on individuals for being ‘failures’ for not somehow squeezing blood out of a stone.