I got a few things that have helped me figure things out.

1. Nobody has this shit figured out. We’re all just kids with jobs and responsibilities now.

2. The only people that care about how manly another man is are other men that wanna feel superior to you. It’s okay to want to feel manly if that’s what you want, but don’t do it for someone that probably didn’t like you to begin with. Why work so hard to earn the approval of someone you don’t like?

3. Men are just as emotional as women and the sooner you realize that the sooner you can start dealing with your emotions in a healthy way.

4. Don’t try and find people that fit the very specific definition of “friend” that you have in your head. Every friendship and relationship is unique and should be appreciated for what it is instead of what it isn’t.

5. Failure doesn’t mean that you are a failure. Try and figure out why you failed instead of focusing on the fact that you did fail. You learn a lot more about yourself from your failures than your success.

The “Fully Functional” is something that the most level headed adults that I know, men or otherwise, would refute on the spot. I don’t think I know anyone who feels like a fully functional person. Or an adult for that matter. As that is an elusive concept to begin with. Although, that doesn’t mean one can’t find ways to mature.

I’m 40. And the thing that I’ll say is that kids and younger people have it harder these days. The world is in a state of unprecedented cacophony, in which the previous existential threats that loomed over the previous generations are all stacking up to form a massive sense of unease.

Whichever adult, men, woman or other, that claims they have it all figured in the face of increasing calamity is lying. Possibly to themselves first.

The men who feel the way(s) that you mentioned, are not wrong in feeling the way they do. They can only be wrong in how they act in response to it. Because from time to time, we’re all bound to feel like that at one point or another. And unfortunately in some circumstances and contexts that might be more persistent than others.

The great failure of our time is not that men, young or not, are failing more, but that we are all failing more. Because we are all failing each other. Some more than others, obviously. But even so, we’re failing to reach one another at some point in a growing secluded world.

You can eat your greens. Go to the gym. Earn income that allows you comfort. Find a partner. And even have a child…

And still feel all the things that these “men” do.

The point of maturity is to not make others pay for what burdens you.

And the only escape out of that isolated space is not the “self-improvement” route that the fraudulent will try to coach others. As that is just maintenance.

The way out of loneliness is in service of others. Which has always been the the case and will always be.

Trying to find a way out of loneliness by trying to find a romantic partner to “fix that” is just offloading the burdening responsibility to another person. And regardless of sex or sexual orientation that will always lead to a toxic dependency and a relationship that never ends well.

I’m a 40 year old dude. I have a home. I get to do what I’m passionate about. I have a partner that I live with and I love her. But if anyone comes knocking for advice, I tell them that if they’re looking for easy answers, they’re looking for lies to comfort them out of what they already know to be true… That life is complicated and none of us really know what we’re doing while we’re roaming this earth.

But it sure is a whole lot easier when we’re kind to one another. And that is about the only certainty we’re gonna get before we die.

Everything else is noise.

“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

• C.S. Lewis

I pretended I was functional, and eventually I forgot I was pretending.

Getting into philosophy and ethics. Contemporary Stoicism in particular is very freeing and empowering. Theres this concept in Stoicism (and Buddhism) of “dichotomy of control” where some things can’t be controled like thoughts emerging or you dying but you can control your reaction to all of that.

Another concept from Stoicism that relates to community is the idea of “festival” which is basically being intentionally mindful of how awesome crowds are - the fact that a diverse group of people gather together for some shared activity or just to hang out is enough for you to enjoy it!

Might be a controversial take but it’s my experience: psychedelics. Dramatically improved my self and general awareness, feel way more connected to existence and the rest is history.

The trick is:

1. Dosage. Keep it low to moderate.
2. Have a suitable mindset and location
3. Recognise them as tools to be used and put down once no longer needed.

I don’t know about fully functional, but I think there’s 3 things I would say are key to not being miserable all the time:

• Be kind. It’s not in everyone’s nature, but the results are so rewarding. Just stop to think, is what I’m doing right now causing someone else pain or discomfort? How could I reverse that? Don’t let your bad day ruin someone else’s.

• Be purposeful. Find things to strive for. Small goals are fine, and sometimes things take a long time, but don’t lose sight of where you want to be. Dont be manipulative or treat it like a zero sum game either, your success doesn’t need to come at the cost of someone else’s. Winning with your friends is even better than winning alone.

• Be forgiving. Most importantly to yourself. Failure is not the enemy of success. Self hatred will destroy any chance you have at happiness, many of us are taught at a young age to treat our own failings as horrendous sins that we must mentally self flagellate for. This is the one of the hardest things to overcome, but every step along the way will give your mind a little more room to find peace.

I found myself in a place where I was terribly miserable, isolated, and regretful. I didn’t know it at the time but it was the gradual application of the above which helped pull me out of that place.

I’m not sure what you’re asking about exactly. If it’s the key to happiness you’re after, I’ll let you know once I find it. But when it comes to meaning - and feeling like I’m valued by society - that shift happened for me when I went from being an employee to being self-employed.

In my old job, building mostly apartment blocks and schools, I never interacted with the end users. Nobody appreciated a job well done, and nobody ever said thank you. The only thing that mattered was how fast you got it done. It wasn’t much different from working on an assembly line.

These days, people call me when they’ve got a problem with their house and I show up to solve it. They’re usually relieved I’m there, and many are just as glad to have someone to talk to - especially the elderly, who make up about half my customer base. I’ve done everything from recovering lost TV channels to full kitchen remodels, with very few limits on what I can help with. People are almost always incredibly kind and hospitable - nearly everyone offers coffee and snacks, and a few even cook for me.

On top of that, I get a ton of repeat customers, which tells me they were satisfied with my previous work. Honestly, I can’t imagine a more fulfilling feeling than getting genuine gratitude for what I do.

I identify and eliminate things from my life that I feel make it worse, and add things that I feel make it better. People, jobs, activities, anything.

a large number of men feel isolated, unvalued by society, and dysfunctional, but it’s not 100%.

My solution to this has been to join a hobby that happens to check off a lot of criteria

• Physical exercise
• Interesting people
• Teaching and mentorship, with opportunities on both sides of that fence
• Camraderie
• Promotion of positive masculinity

For me that’s the SCA, a medieval reenactment organization. But my local area has a lot of good people in the organization and unfortunately not every area is filled with great people. Plus, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine.

Relevant: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous speech, Don’t Ever Call Me a Self-Made Man https://youtu.be/DOldEbWxgdQ (you can probably easily find it not on YouTube with a web search). It’s not 100% what you asked but it’s along the same lines.

Edit: full speech https://youtu.be/RJsvR_gSEjg

I take issue with “fully functioning”. I believe no person on earth is fully functioning, at least not in the developed world. Everyone has to rely on others for some tasks, including basic tasks.

For me it’s mostly cooking, which is a huge gap in my function.

Just off the top of my head:

• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Home maintenance
• Exercise
• Paperwork/bureaucracy
• Socializing (friends, family)
• Pets (optional)
• Children (optional)
• Work/Study
• Digital safety (e.g. using a password manager, keeping devices up to date, avoiding malware)
• Culture (books, movies, games etc.)
• News (at least on subjects you care about) from trustworthy sources
• Hobbies

I consider all of these necessary to be “fully functioning”. I really don’t see how it’s possible for one person to have the time and the knowledge for all of these diverse tasks.

We’re humans, and we live in a society. We specialize, and if we’re lucky, we have people close to us who can fill in the gaps where we fall short.

I can’t cook, and I rely on my family for proper food, otherwise I usually go for frozen stuff. But in return I make sure my family doesn’t make any digital safety blunders, and I fix things around the house that my mother just wouldn’t know where to start.

Loads of people hire a cleaner to regularly clean their home. Are they not able to clean for themselves? Are they not fully functioning? No, of course they could if you take cleaning in isolation, but they can’t do everything, and more importantly, they can’t do it to the same level of quality. Replace cleaning with whatever.

The fully functioning adult is a myth. Everyone offloads.

Didn’t read many other comments, don’t know if this was already said.

You talk about being fully functional and then about being isolated. Which is it? What are you really asking about?

I’m not advocating for any of these, but my journey towards feeling secure in a male adult identity was probably:

• Good set of male friends in high-school that I still keep in touch with (at 48). That was pure luck, I didn’t get to choose them ending up in my class.
• Joined the army at 18. Hard work but definitely forced me into a number of situations I wouldn’t otherwise have had to deal with and raised my personal confidence that the unknown was generally something that could be handled.
• Did the Landmark Forum early twenties. I do not recommend this to anyone but it did wonders for me.
• Through doing a bunch of shitty jobs learnt to apply for good jobs.
• Raised with high expectations. Parents weren’t jerks or unreasonable but they expected me to apply myself without ever nagging at me. Good parents is a huge hidden privilege.
• Met my wife at the right time and through sheer luck she turned out to be perfect.

In short: Mostly luck, privilege and a bit of hard work. And when I say privilege I do not mean money. That we had not very much of.

The first thing was growing a beard. For a man aged say 18-25, having a beard makes people treat you like an adult, while being clean shaven you are treated as an adolescent. No I’m not joking.

Second for me was financial independence. Even a stupid things like exiting the cellular family plan.

Third I think is hobbies. When you gain self confidence in your skill in something you love, even if it’s just hiking or metal detecting, you may care less about others opinion of you.

that you feel helped you transition into adulthood

It felt like nothing and nobody helped. It just happened, and it took awfully long.