The State of Masculinity
The Search for Belonging
The places where men find or long for belonging — teams, friendships, faith communities, partners, online spaces, and mentors. What happens when those containers collapse, and how are new ones being built?
"No One Taught Us How to Talk About Loneliness"
Exploring Male Isolation, Friendship, and the Search for Emotional Connection
A retired professional athlete sat in a room with us and said something that stuck: "You don't realize how much the locker room holds you up until it's gone." He spent his entire adult life in a container — a team, a structure, a place where he belonged — and one day it ended. The silence arrived before the pain.
Across our listening year, we heard this story again and again, though the containers changed. A military veteran leaving active duty. A college graduate moving to a new city. A man whose friend group scattered. A father whose kids grew up. A student whose school year ended.
The containers that held men's lives together are not permanent. Yet masculinity is often taught as if they are — as if the identity and the skills needed to sustain connection could simply transfer from one place to the next.
"I have people I talk to, but nobody I'm honest with."
— 21-year-old college student
"Loneliness arrived quietly. One day, I looked up and realized it had been here a long time."
— 35-year-old engineer
The Scope of Disconnection
The numbers tell a stark story. Research from our partner organizations shows that nearly half of young men say they lack close friendships. One in five men report having no one they can confide in. More than one in four young men experienced mental ill-health in the past year.
These are not insignificant numbers. They suggest a generation of young men growing up with the expectation of independence, strength, and self-sufficiency, while lacking the actual connections that human beings need to survive.
50%
of young men say they lack close friendships
1 in 5
men report having no one they can confide in
1 in 4+
young men experienced mental ill-health in past year
Why Men's Connection Is Conditional
A mother told us about her son and his best friend. They had grown up together, played sports together, shared everything. One day, when her son was struggling with depression, he tried to open up to his friend. The friend went quiet. He didn't know what to say. The two young men never talked about it again.
"No one ever said 'don't cry,' " she said. "They just went quiet when he did."
This is how masculine socialization often works — not through explicit prohibition, but through invisible signals. Boys learn what's safe to share by watching who gets met with understanding and who gets met with silence. They learn which vulnerabilities are permissible (a work failure, a loss at a game) and which are not (fear, longing, sadness, desire).
In one-on-one conversations, men told us that friendship, in their experience, is built around activity, not intimacy. A man knows his best friend of twenty years well enough to watch the game together, work on a project, share a laugh. But beyond that — the deep fears, the private struggles, the questions about identity and meaning — those often remain untouched. The friendship exists in a shared container: the gym, the bar, the job, the team. Once that container is gone, so is the friendship.
This is not men's fault. It's what they were taught. In the Man Box, emotional intimacy between men is often coded as weakness or, worse, as threatening. Male friendship is safest when it stays on the surface. Depth is risky.
The result is what psychologists call homophilic intimacy — the ability to be close to someone without ever really being known. Young men described having dozens of friends but feeling profoundly alone. They had people to do things with, but no one to be with. The containers held them up through activity; without it, there was nothing underneath.
Between Containers: The Generation Caught in Transition
Generation Z told us something we hadn't fully anticipated: they don't feel like they're growing into adulthood. They feel like they're moving through a series of containers with no continuity between them.
A young man named Marcus described it this way: "You go from high school, where you know everyone and see them every day, to college, where you're with a new group completely isolated from anything before. Then you move to a city you don't know, or you start a job. Each time, you build connections from scratch. There's no thread connecting it all."
This is particularly acute for young men without stable family ties or community roots. Boys whose fathers weren't present, whose mothers worked long hours, whose neighborhoods were scattered by economic change, whose online friendships couldn't translate to real life — these young men are learning to build connection in an unpredictable landscape.
One college student told us: "I have three different friend groups that will probably never meet each other. I'm a different person with each one. I don't know which one is the real me."
How Disconnection Becomes a Health Crisis
Loneliness is not just an emotional experience — it's a public health issue. The surgeon general has compared it to the health risks of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. For young men specifically, disconnection shows up as depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidal ideation.
A social worker we spoke with had a simple observation: "The boys who make it are the ones with at least one adult who consistently shows up. That's all. One person who knows them and doesn't go anywhere."
That requirement — consistency, presence, genuine knowing — contradicts much of what young men have been taught about independence. They're told to handle things alone, to not burden others, to keep it together. When they try to follow that script and it fails, they often interpret it as a personal weakness rather than a structural problem.
The Knowledge Gap
When we asked young men what they wished they had learned about connection, they named specific gaps:
Skills for starting friendships
How do you make friends as an adult? None of them had been taught.
Permission to need others
The mental shift from "I can handle everything myself" to "needing people is human."
Places where emotional honesty is normalized
Faith communities, therapy, support groups — spaces where vulnerability isn't coded as weakness.
Continuity across life transitions
How to maintain connection when containers collapse, or how to intentionally rebuild.
The good news is that these are all learnable. They're not inherent to masculinity — they're learned behaviors that can be unlearned and relearned.
Building a Culture of Care
When we asked men about the people who had helped them grow — who had shown them a different way of being — we heard stories about moments of seeing someone else be vulnerable and realizing it was possible.
"The first time I saw another man cry, I felt empowered to be brave."
— Young professional, 28
These moments matter. They're small ruptures in the Man Box — instances where a man stepped outside the narrow constraints and survived it, maybe even thrived. When other men witness that, it shifts what they believe is possible for themselves.
A father told us he cried at his daughter's school performance. His son, seeing that, asked why he was crying. Instead of hiding it, the father explained: "I was moved. It was beautiful, and I felt it." His son, then five years old, nodded and said, "Yeah, that was really beautiful."
That boy is learning something different. He's learning that depth of feeling is human, that tears can mean love, that being moved is something to share rather than hide.
The Levers for Building Connectedness
1. Build Connection Infrastructure
Create intentional spaces where men gather for reasons beyond activity. Faith communities, talking circles, mentorship programs, therapy groups, online communities with accountability — spaces where the primary purpose is to know and be known.
2. Teach Relational Skills Early
Boys need to learn how to listen, how to ask for help, how to express emotion, how to navigate conflict. These are skills, not traits. They can be taught. And they need to be taught alongside physical skills and academic achievement.
3. Treat Care as Daily Practice
Showing up for people isn't a one-time gesture. It's a practice. It requires presence across time. A mentor who is there for years. A friend who calls back. A community that doesn't disappear when crisis has passed.
4. Make Transition Intentional
When life containers collapse — high school to college, job to job, city to city — create rituals and rituals of connection. Ceremonies of departure that honor what was. Intentional onboarding into new communities. Support for the in-between.
The good news is that these are all learnable. They're not inherent to masculinity — they're learned behaviors that can be unlearned and relearned.
"Where I grew up, you didn't talk about attraction unless it was to a woman."
— HIGH SCHOOL COACH, NEW MEXICO
“Desire Shouldn’t Feel Dangerous”
How Identity And Sexuality Intersect With Masculinity Today
Young people across the country told us that figuring out who they are has become one of the hardest parts of growing up. In previous generations, the answer might have been simpler: you were born a boy, so you became a man in a particular way. Now, that story doesn't hold.
Nearly 20% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQIA+. Younger men are more likely to reject rigid gender norms. They're more likely to have queer friends and to have learned from them. They're more likely to question what attraction means, what manhood looks like, what it's possible to be.
For many, this is liberating. For others, it's disorienting. For all of them, it's where belonging becomes complicated.
The Cost of Exclusion
We heard from young men and trans men about what happens when you step outside the boundaries of expected manhood. The costs are real.
A trans man told us: "Before I transitioned, I was expected to make other people comfortable. After transitioning, I was expected to act confident all the time. Neither felt true to who I actually am."
Research from our partners at Movember shows that young men with identity-based isolation — those who feel they can't be authentic about their gender identity or sexual orientation — show significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking compared to their peers.
When belonging is conditional on conformity, young men face an impossible choice: be yourself and be alone, or be accepted and be false. Many choose a third path: partial truths, fragmented selves, friend groups that never meet because they each know a different version.
"Real life taught me people just want you to care. The rest — your identity, your past, your preferences — that's actually secondary."
— Young queer professional
Trans and Gender-Expansive Masculinities as Innovators
Here's what surprised us: trans men and gender-expansive young men weren't just navigating the constraints of the Man Box — they were actively reimagining it.
These young men had to consciously choose their masculinity. They couldn't inherit it unreflectively. In doing so, many of them built a version of manhood that included vulnerability, interdependence, collaboration, and fluidity. They modeled what it looks like to be strong without being dominating, to be confident without being arrogant, to be a man without having to perform a narrow script.
Straight boys were watching. One young man told us: "My best friend is trans. Seeing how he navigates the world — how he's comfortable being himself, how he doesn't pretend — that changed me. I don't have to perform either."
In faith communities, schools, and friend groups, we heard this pattern: when trans and queer men are welcomed and known, the entire community gets more spacious. Boys learn that manhood has a wider range. They see other boys offering emotional support. They witness vulnerability and learn it's not contagious or contagious shame — it's contagious courage.
Belonging, Safety, and the Courage to Desire
The question of desire — romantic desire, sexual desire, the desire to be wanted — showed up again and again in our conversations with young men. And nearly always, it was tangled up with fear.
Young men described feeling watched, scrutinized, unsure. A counselor at a college told us: "I believe most boys today fundamentally want to be kind, but so many of them don't feel confident they know what kindness looks like in moments that matter."
This is especially true for young men navigating attraction that falls outside the heterosexual script. For a young man attracted to other men, to non-binary people, or to people of multiple genders, the question of belonging becomes even sharper. Am I safe here? Can I be honest? What do I risk?
We heard from several young men about the moment when they came out, or nearly came out, and were met with acceptance. One described: "I thought my best friend would drop me. Instead, he said, 'Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for telling me. I love you.' And that was it. My world got bigger that day."
That moment — when someone's world gets bigger because they're no longer hiding — is what belonging actually looks like. It's not a check mark in a box. It's the freedom to be yourself and still be wanted.
What's Needed
Across both Chapter 4 and Chapter 6, the same core insight emerges: men need permission and infrastructure to be known. This requires:
Spaces where vulnerability is witnessed and honored
not pathologized as weakness or performance-checked for authenticity, but genuinely received as the human truth it is.
Models and mentors who have done this work themselves
men who show it's possible to be vulnerable and strong, to acknowledge need and maintain dignity.
Language for the interior life
not just emotions (sad, happy, angry) but the full complexity of being human (ambivalence, longing, doubt, possibility, grief).
Continuity and accountability
people and communities that show up not once but repeatedly, that stay present through the difficulty.
A widened definition of manhood
one that makes room for the full spectrum of human expression and desire, that includes trans men and queer men as essential teachers rather than exceptions.
This is not soft or weak work. It requires tremendous courage — the courage to acknowledge that you're human, that you have limits, that you need people, and that your humanity is not a flaw but the point of being alive.
The men we spoke with knew this. Across backgrounds and ages, they named it again and again: "The work isn't becoming less of a man. It's becoming more human."
Reflection Questions
As you think about the theme of connection and the search for belonging, consider:
On Containers and Transition
What containers held you when you were younger? What happened when they collapsed? How did you rebuild connection in a new place or phase of life?
On Emotional Honesty
Who do you trust with the difficult parts of your life? What made that friendship or relationship safe enough for real conversation?
On Gender and Identity
Where did you learn what manhood means? How has that changed as you've gotten older or as the world around you has shifted?
On Expansion
Have you encountered a person or a community that modeled a different version of masculinity than you were taught? What did you learn from witnessing it?
Our Research
The stories in this chapter rest on solid research. Throughout 2025, we conducted deep, narrative-based research to understand how masculinity is learned and how it can be transformed.
These are not abstract numbers. Each one represents a conversation where a man made himself vulnerable enough to examine his own story. Each one is evidence of the possibility that men can look at where they come from and consciously choose who they want to become.
221
in-depth conversations with men, boys, and those who shape their lives
25+
years of violence prevention work informing this research
Next: Turning Points
The view from those who've felt these forces most — and what they still, despite everything, believe men can become.
The State of Masculinity
A CALL TO MEN
25 years of violence prevention, healthy manhood, and culture change.
To inquire about future collaborations, email us at info@acalltomen.org.