By the time we go to press, a meeting will have taken place at Áras an Uachtarán, that touched my heart when I heard about it. On her travels, the President noticed that there was a marked absence of older men participating in the various community projects across the country she was launching or encouraging by her involvement. And so she organized a forum to highlight “Loneliness and isolation as experienced by some older men in Ireland” – to initiate a debate as to why this is so, and, to explore the factors at work which may discourage men from participating.

While appreciating the intention of the forum, the agenda seems to suggest that if the organisational structure of community-based organisations were to change, that men would come flocking to them. The approach, understandably, is to tackle the problem in the same way that feminists address the issue of the under-representation of women in politics or big business. If the Dáil was structured in a more family-friendly way, more women would be interested in becoming public representatives; if talented businesswomen (and, by extension, all people with young families) were not penalized for prioritising their children’s needs, then they would find it easier to pass through the glass ceiling that prevents them from having equal access to the boardroom. Neither of these solutions, however, have been implemented, and so they cannot be properly evaluated, although if we want to see how they might be successful, we only have to look to Norway or other Scandinavian countries to see the results. However, every attempt to redress social imbalance has a price. When it comes to picking the best person for a particularly demanding job, for example, an employer will always prefer an ambitious driven man with a tendency to workaholicism rather than a mother of two kids who will skip meetings every now and again to pick up a sick child from school, or who will be unavailable for corporate schmoozing over dinner because she’s spending quality time with her kids before putting them to bed. The notion that fathers should be just as committed to parenting as mothers is an attractive one, but one not borne out in reality, in my experience, as men will readily sacrifice time dealing with emotionally complicated family demands, and prefer sticking to the more comfortable challenges of a task-orientated workplace.
I see nothing wrong, however, with imposing a regulatory system that encourages men to be just as free to meet their children’s demands as women. The loss of competitiveness in absolute economic terms would be compensated for by a more enjoyable and richer society. Men would benefit enormously, not to mention their families, and if two parents are equally available, if not equally obliged, to meet the demands of raising their children, it would indeed level the playing field for women. The main beneficiaries of this system would be children, which would in time benefit us all enormously, but unless the political clout is there to effect this change, it’s not going to happen, and it will only happen when there are more women in the Dáil. It’s a chicken and egg situation.
The notion that men have to be encouraged to take more interest in their children, to be required to take an equal parenting role, goes to the heart of the problem with men. We don’t think the same as women, we don’t prioritise relationships, familial or otherwise, as women do. Women spend far more time communicating with each other, maintaining links, keeping each other up to date with news about peoples’ lives. Studies have shown that single women fare far better than single men in terms of satisfaction with their lives - single women will go out, get involved, keep various circles of friends going, keep in touch with their families. Women know about the value of working at relationships, and are far more likely to be the ones who are at the centre of a nexus of family, friends and community. Women talk to each other about their problems. Men are more likely, when single, to retreat to isolating behaviour, to drink more, to neglect that which is good for us. It’s been years since I met a man who really enjoys the process of getting to know someone new, eager to flirt and enjoy the subtle manoeuvrings towards building something intimate and lasting. In fact the only men I’ve met who have really got what I’m talking about have been bisexual, who are used to loving women and are relaxed about intimacy, not stressed and defended against it. Women are good for men.
I see gay men as men squared, if that makes sense, not some sort of middle species between the sexes, as so many people imagine we are. So often, we act towards each other in an exploitative hedonistic fashion, ruled by our dicks, and are extremely guarded about letting anyone in, or exploring intimacy in any real meaningful way (i.e. beyond seduction and into the realms of real exploration of another).
An Irish gaydar profile I came across recently contained the following paragraph as the only information proffered. I quote it not to criticise him, but to offer it as an example of the sort of thinking that men are capable of when it comes to avoiding relationship, and how we prioritise sex over intimacy.
“I’m basically just an ordinary straight guy who mostly has sex with other men. I don’t particularly enjoy it (anal sex feels painful and weird to me). I would much prefer to just have a nice girlfriend but I hate that tied-down feeling more than anything plus I think it’s morally wrong to just use women for sex – it’s bad karma. Whereas with a guy it’s just somehow... not. Anyway – you know what I mean. I’m pretty sure the same holds true for most so-called gay men.”
Can you imagine a woman ever writing something like that? Do women realise the lengths to which men will go to avoid intimacy, how so few of us are willing to open up and depend on another human being? We men are our own worst enemies when it comes to what is good for us.
All the organisational restructuring in the world won’t make some men more interested in being “tied down” to relationships, to whatever degree, even if being tied down to a partner, a family, a community, results in a happier, safer, more content life. And, with regard to older men, and especially widowers who left all the family/social stuff for their wives to deal with while they were alive, once a pattern has been built up over a long life, I imagine older men simply don’t have the skill set to change it, and often go into a decline. However, women, once widowed, can often emerge after bereavement into a highly active and fulfilling life, full of travel and further education. Traditionally, it’s only been Irish pub culture that has offered a forum for socializing for older men - which has its own drawbacks; drunken conversation about sport is not intimacy.
I suspect the answer to lonely old men is long term, and lies in education. Acknowledging the differences between the sexes, and compensating for them – assertiveness training for girls, including self-defence and encouraging young women to feel more powerful in the world, and emotional literacy for boys, including relationship and parenting skills, encouraging them to be brave enough to appear to be weak by talking about their emotional needs.