Post #2779754
2026-02-09 05:28 UTC
Replies (3)
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@reabsorbthelight@lemmy.world 2026-02-09 06:50
On the flip side, I think men could use more men's groups because male loneliness is problematic. Women don't want to feel responsible for men's loneliness (rightly so), so the natural solution is men need to do better at making friends with men. The problem is doing it in a healthy way That said, I would suggest the solution is hobby groups without gender exclusion. Like carpentry, basketball, knitting, dance, ballet. Hobbies seem to self select. Most of my hobbies are female dominated in my conservative area.
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@MirrorGiraffe@piefed.social 2026-02-09 21:32
I was in a men's group once for a few sessions, we talked about everything from anger issues, how to work on improving ourselves, how to handle rough parts of it relationships etc. It was very nice, we were all very different people with different backgrounds and problems and I believe we all got a lot out of just opening up in a group like this. This was hosted by the Swedish organisation Man which exists to help men with all the issues modern men are facing, hoping to combat toxic masculinity. Personally I think a mixed group would've worked for me but I am pretty sure some of the people, especially the ones with violent history, felt more secure in a men's only scenario.
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@idiomaddict@lemmy.world 2026-02-09 11:28
I think there’s a parallel with other social clubs, too. My medication kicked in while writing this and it shows. TLDR: in Germany, there are various social clubs including international cultural exchange groups (generally composed of immigrants/children of immigrants and Germans in a roughly 2:1 ratio) and clubs based around specific countries open only or mostly to immigrants from those or neighboring countries (whether openly or simply through convention, selection bias, and social pressure). The former are fun and the latter tend to be toxic unless there’s currently a large wave of immigration/refugees from the country they represent in Germany, in which case they can help coordinate resources and support, as well as help people deal with culture shock and the trauma of needing to flee their home country. I’m an American immigrant in Germany. I love international groups and being able to bond with people about dealing with German bureaucracy as a non-native. I have zero interest in _American_ emigrant groups. In international groups, we do make fun of Germany, but it’s not mean spirited. We also commiserate about the actively negative aspects of living in Germany as an immigrant. In American groups, I suspect it would turn into U-S-A chants or something similar. International groups here welcome Germans as a rule, whereas for groups for specific nationalities, it tends to be limited to people who can speak the language. There’s a real need served by national groups for brand new immigrants who are overwhelmed by everything being different (often significantly more different than Germany is for an American), and they’re great for creating a sense of community that can be helpful for short term immigrants (though they can hamper long term integration). I suspect I’ll warm up to American groups as a way to give new immigrants a crash course on German culture if we get a wave of American refugees in the next couple of years, because those are the demographics (large groups of people temporarily displaced from the same country who all come at once) that tend to benefit from these type of groups. I’ve been told that national groups for Arab countries tend to be full of either bitter, unpleasant people and/or gay people and blatant alcohol drinkers, because everyone else just meets at the mosque. Although given that I have no first hand experience and the person telling me about it only has experience with a handful of cities, it may not be accurate for the rest of the country.