The State of Masculinity
What the World Demands
Where the weight of expectation accumulates — provider roles, emotional restriction, fear of failure, fear of being misunderstood.
"The Algorithm Raised Us, Too"
How Social Media, AI, and Online Culture Are Shaping Identity and Belonging
A thirteen-year-old sits in his bedroom at night, phone glowing in the dark. His dad is working the night shift. His mom knocked on his door three hours ago and never came back. TikTok is his constant companion — and his teacher about what it means to be a man.
"My dad's around, but he works nights," he told us. "TikTok raised me more than he did."
This is not just one boy's story. Across our conversations with teens and young adults, we heard versions of it again and again. Boys and men go online looking for answers: How do I talk to girls? How do I be confident? How do I know what to do? Then the algorithm narrows their feed. Confidence becomes dominance. Dating advice becomes "high value" rhetoric. Vulnerability becomes weakness.
The platforms that have become our de facto teachers about masculinity are engineered to maximize engagement — and engagement, it turns out, favors extremity.
"I wish someone taught us how to be human before they taught us how to be a man."
— 17-year-old, Focus Group
The Scale of the Shift
The numbers confirm what boys themselves are telling us.
Nearly half of men reported that their online lives feel more engaging and rewarding than their offline relationships. This is not a problem of the internet itself. It is a problem of design — algorithmic systems built to capture attention through increasingly extreme content.
65%
of men 18-23 said "no one really knows me well"
2,300+
boys reached through Healthy Masculinity Project interventions
Growing Up with AI as a Peer
The landscape has shifted again. As AI companions become normalized, young people are turning to chatbots not just for information, but for emotional connection.
This creates a paradox: as boys withdraw into digital spaces to avoid real-world vulnerability, they also lose the messiness — and the grace — that comes from actual human relationship. They practice intimacy with machines that never disappoint them, never require repair, never push back. When they return to real relationships, they find themselves unprepared for the work of connection.
64%
of teens have used AI chatbots
31%
said AI conversations are as satisfying as real friendships
What Healthy Masculinity Interventions Show Us
Through the Healthy Masculinity Project and our work with young men across the country, we have identified what changes boys' trajectories. It is not shame. It is not telling them to "be better." It is presence, skilled language, and the experience of being truly seen.
Name what you feel
Boys who can name their emotions with precision — not just "angry" but "disappointed in myself," not just "sad" but "grieving" — become capable of genuine connection. The algorithm deals in absolutes. Real life requires nuance.
Repair is love
When boys learn that accountability — admitting mistakes, apologizing, making amends — is an act of care, not weakness, their relationships transform. They experience accountability not as punishment but as the pathway to being known and trusted.
See it to be it
Boys need to witness men who are strong and vulnerable, who lead without dominating, who ask for help without shame. When they see these models — in mentors, coaches, and older peers — they begin to imagine different versions of themselves.
Real connections change the math
Our data shows a clear pattern: boys' online lives improve when their offline relationships improve. A mentor who listens, a peer who understands, a coach who cares — these change what boys seek and what they become willing to be online.
"Boys' online lives improve when their offline relationships improve."
A Call to Men's Research Team
A twenty-two-year-old in Minnesota sits in his car outside a coffee shop. He has been there for fifteen minutes, phone in hand, typing and deleting the same text message over and over. He wants to ask her on a second date. He wants to say the right thing. But he is not sure what the right thing is.
"I want to ask her out," he told us, "but I don't want to come across as pushy. I'm not sure where the line is anymore."
This young man is not alone. In the landscape of modern dating, young men report confusion, exhaustion, and a deep uncertainty about what is expected of them. The old scripts — straightforward pursuit, decisive action, sexual confidence — no longer work. But nothing has fully replaced them. Boys and men are learning to love in real time, without clear instruction.
The cost is visible in the data. Among singles today, 53% report dating burnout. 85% say stereotypes about dating affect their lives. And yet — in the midst of this confusion — we hear something remarkable from young men: a genuine desire to get it right. A willingness to learn. A recognition that love and intimacy matter more than they have been taught to believe.
The Dating Landscape
Young men today are navigating a dating world transformed by technology, #MeToo, and a shift in what women expect of men. The data reveals both the challenge and the opportunity:
46%
of singles are ready for a long-term relationship
53%
of singles report dating burnout
85%
say stereotypes about gender affect their dating life
The pressure is real. But so is the desire for something different. When we asked young men what they most wanted in relationships, the most common answer was not "power" or "control." It was "to be understood" and "to understand my partner."
"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."
— Live Respect Program Leader
Emotional Literacy: The Missing Infrastructure
The core challenge is not that young men don't care. It is that they lack the language and framework to navigate intimacy with awareness and intention.
Emotional literacy — the ability to recognize, name, and respond skillfully to your own emotions and those of others — is not taught systematically to boys. As a result, many young men enter relationships with sophisticated social media skills and zero experience in vulnerability, repair, or asking for what they need.
This gap shows up in dating. A young man wants to express his feelings but doesn't have the words. He misreads his partner's signals because he has practiced reading algorithms, not faces. He assumes directness equals aggression, or silence equals strength. He carries the Man Box into intimate moments, where it fails him completely.
Consent as Care
One of the most significant shifts we see in young men who engage with healthy masculinity training is a fundamental reframing of consent.
"I used to think consent was about avoiding trouble," one Live Respect participant told us. "Now I understand it's about making sure both people feel at ease."
This is not a small shift. It moves consent from a legal minimum or a risk-management issue to what it actually is: an expression of care and attentiveness. When young men learn to see consent as something actively positive — a way of checking in, of honoring their partner's autonomy, of being present to the other person — their relationships become entirely different.
93%
of Live Respect participants shared lessons with peers
89%
shared lessons with family members
These numbers matter because they show something crucial: when young men learn healthier ways of being in relationships, they don't keep it to themselves. They become educators in their peer groups and families. Healthy masculinity spreads.
What Healthy Masculinity Looks Like in Dating
Across our conversations with young men and our work with relationship educators, we identified four core practices that transform how men show up in love:
Clarity
Knowing what you want and being able to communicate it directly, without aggression or manipulation. Clarity is honesty, and honesty is the foundation of trust.
Consent as Attentiveness
Actively checking in. Reading your partner. Creating space for their desire and boundaries. Seeing consent as ongoing, not a one-time agreement.
Boundaries Without Punishment
Being able to hold your own boundaries while respecting your partner's. Not weaponizing your needs or using withdrawal as control.
Repair
Taking responsibility when you cause harm. Saying a real apology — not defending, not explaining away, but owning the impact. This is the highest form of emotional maturity.
Four Invitations to Change
We emerged from our listening year with a clear sense of what would shift young men's capacity to love and be loved. These are not barriers. They are invitations — to educators, families, peers, and to young men themselves.
"Ask Anything" Spaces
Create spaces where young men can ask the questions they are actually asking, without judgment. "How do I know if I'm being creepy?" "Is it okay to cry in front of my girlfriend?" "How do I say no?" These conversations are happening in bathroom stalls and group chats. They need to happen with wise adults too.
Consent as a Lived Skill
Stop teaching consent as a legal requirement and teach it as a relational skill — something practiced, refined, and deepened over time. Workshops that move from concept to practice. Role-plays that build muscle memory. Reflection that embeds the lessons in real relationships.
Repair Culture
Normalize apology and repair as central to masculinity, not peripheral to it. A man who can say "I was wrong, and here is what I will do differently" is not less of a man. He is more of one. Create spaces where young men practice this repeatedly, with peers and mentors.
Algorithm Discernment
Teach young men to recognize how platforms shape their understanding of dating and relationships. What stories are you consuming about what women want? How is the feed narrowing your vision of what is possible? Building awareness is the first step toward freedom.
Reflection Questions
Whether you are an educator, a parent, a peer, or a young man yourself, these questions invite deeper reflection on the pressures we have discussed:
On Online Life
What role have digital platforms played in your own (or your student's, or your son's) understanding of what it means to be a man?
How could we intentionally create offline experiences that compete with algorithmic engagement?
What would it look like to teach media literacy that helps young men recognize how platforms narrow their vision?
On Dating and Relationships
What conversations about dating, love, and intimacy are young men actually wanting to have?
How can we make emotional literacy a priority — teaching it with the same seriousness we teach financial literacy?
What would it look like to normalize repair and apology as central to masculinity?
On Your Role
What healthy practices in relationships do you model? What would it mean to make these explicit with the young men in your life?
Where do you see the pressure of the Man Box in your own life or in young men around you?
How could you create space for vulnerability, questions, and learning?
The pressures that accumulate on young men — to perform, to be certain, to never show vulnerability, to navigate intimacy without instruction — are real. But they are not permanent. They are learned. And what is learned can be unlearned, and relearned differently.
The young men we spoke with are not asking for less responsibility or fewer expectations. They are asking to be known. They are asking for guidance that meets them where they are — not where the algorithm says they should be, or where the Man Box says they must be. They are ready to learn. They are ready to practice. They are ready to become the kind of men their relationships require them to be.
That readiness is the entire invitation.
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: Connection
What lives beneath the pressure — the hunger to be known, and the silence that keeps too many men from reaching for it.
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.