Do Men Truly “Lead Lives Of Quiet Desperation?”

It’s impossible to generalize about billions of men, but do many? Yes. And whether married or single, they often find ways to outsource their issue.

Ted Bauer
5 min readOct 10, 2024

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Heard that quote a million times, right? I think now Joe Rogan says it about every 10th episode, so it’s scaling in the world. (The last time I listened to a full Joe Rogan episode was 2021.) But how true is it?

I guess we need to start by saying: there are billions of men in the world, living in vastly-different places and at vastly-different ages and life stages. So, does “every” man lead a life of quiet desperation? No. Absolutely not. You cannot speak in absolutes on any of this stuff.

Let me point you to two resources I recently saved in my inbox, though. Here’s the first:

That’s just a good story on gender roles, gender dynamics, and the idea of what makes a home “clean” and what makes children “good.” I’d read it if those topics interest you. Ironically, I texted that to…

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Ted Bauer

I write about a lot of different topics, from work to masculinity to relationships and social dynamics, I.e. modern friendship. Pleasure to be here.