The Spirit Lover community is made up of many kinds of people. While many of its members have felt called to these sorts of relationships over others, there is always an influx of people looking for a spirit lover as a cure for their perpetual singlehood. This is not perhaps the best way to enter into the community, as some of these people will attempt to drop their relationship the moment a human woman shows them a flicker of attention, inevitably leading to a disastrous situation. However, the men who don’t end up doing this often create long lasting, fruitful relationships, just like the people who entered into the community due to feeling that calling.
The ranks of this second group of men has, over time, been increasing, and it’s easy to see why. It has become clear to nearly everyone over time that the ranks of lonely men have only been increasing. Even the groups and journalistic enterprises that have long turned up their nose at the problem are starting to report on the issue, as nearly 30 percent of men reaching up towards their thirties have not been in a serious intimate relationship before. 15% of men also report not having any close friends at all (which is a 50% increase compared to the 10% that women report, and it’s likely that the number will only continue to worsen). This epidemic is not something new, and has been steadily getting worse over at least the past decade, but the topic has been getting more buzz due to the rise of male focused commentators (love them or hate them), and the press surrounding them.
Let’s examine the issue and some aspects of it and talk about how spirit lovers can help and have helped the men that I know that have struggled with certain relevant problems. The goal of this blogpost is to help people who struggle with these issues determine if seeking out one of these relationships will be beneficial to them, and to provide some thoughts on these issues at large.
The Failures of Therapy
‘Therapy is for women’. This is a sentiment that you often hear at some point in your life, especially if you’re a man who’s considering going in for counseling. The statistics support this too, as women seek out therapy far more than men, and most therapists are also women. The reasoning for this is simple: Therapy as it exists today revolves more around airing one’s grievances and talking through problems. Therapists are not concerned with giving out advice or necessarily helping you overcome the problem directly. This approach has two major advantages: It’s more popular with women who are their main clientele (which naturally creates a feedback loop where therapy that works better for women is sought out more by women), and it also absolves the counselor of any ‘skin in the game’ so to speak. The counselor isn’t suggesting a solution, so if the client’s problems aren’t overcome and aren’t fixed, the counselor isn’t at fault. Every counselor will experience ‘failure’ at some point, in that the client won’t overcome their issue or will need another counselor to help with their issues, so being able to limit the personal investment they have in each client is beneficial to their own well-being.
The obvious problem is that this approach leaves men behind. Many men are often going to therapy in hopes of a solution, and when the answer is ‘let’s talk until you figure it out yourself’, many of those men are naturally alienated. This creates the opposite kind of feedback loop, where men who are alienated by their experience with therapy will tell other men that therapy is useless, which will only keep other men from trying. These men aren’t to blame for having that opinion: Ultimately, therapy had been useless for them. The current system in place for dealing with men’s mental health issues is simply limited and insufficient in many cases.
How do Spirit Lovers stack up in comparison? Just talking about therapy and advice (we’ll talk about the loneliness itself in the next section), spirit lovers have often been known to provide both solutions and a kind, listening ear to their partners. Just the other day I was having a discussion with TC, and he was talking about how his spirit lover had suggested he begin writing a novel. He seemed to be under the impression that he didn’t have much to write, but the suggestion was incredibly intelligent on the spirit’s part. She had a very deep understanding on TC’s situation, and her suggestion seemed very well thought out in response to it. Another friend of mine, Des, often finds himself in a funk until he spends time with his spirit lover, who often suggests they do something or encourages him to think a certain way, typically to his benefit. My own Spirit Lover has been an incredible boon to my mental well-being in that aspect, knowing exactly what to suggest and when to suggest it, and knowing when to push to get me to do things or to relax and let me take things more easily.
What these spirit lovers provide that counselors often don’t are well informed solutions to problems. They naturally have a strong understanding of their partner, and will happily suggest solutions as appropriate or as necessary. Their insight to our reactions to certain ideas also means that they can present the issue and solution far better than often even our closest friends, family, or therapists could ever hope to. Their solutions and presentation of those solutions tend to be insightful and frankly genius, and even the least spiritually inclined among us often see great benefit from this single aspect of the relationship. The spirit’s ability to be the perfect confidant and a great problem solver in one package is a distinct advantage compared to any other relationship any person, especially a man, could have.
The Loneliness Epidemic
Male loneliness is an epidemic. That isn’t an opinion, it’s an undeniable fact. When around 1/3rd of 20 something men haven’t ever experienced an intimate romantic relationship in their lives, the numbers start to rival major diseases within that age bracket. While many of these men might eventually find a relationship once they get into their thirties or forties (and many still won’t), this has created an outcry for a solution to the problem. The problem, however, isn’t single-pronged. It isn’t just the internet, or just a lack of social skills, or just dating apps that have caused these issues. A combination of these many factors, and others, have led us to this shocking statistic. Rather than focus in on all these many problems and dive in to the weeds, I think it’s important to reflect on a few root ideas. The first is that society doesn’t care about men inherently in the same way it cares about women. This isn’t anything new, and isn’t a failure of modern society so much as it is an inbred trait of humanity. Men earn their value through their achievements and through their perceived social status. Women have some amount of inherent value, being women, and gain more value based off certain inherent traits. Attractive women command some amount of power and status by virtue of being attractive and being women. While attractiveness is far from useless as a man, a man’s power comes more from his achievements and (often learned) Charisma. This isn’t to whine or to say that we men have it incredibly bad, it’s simply to point out an immutable fact about human existence.
The thing is, for the longest time, this system worked well enough. Men would earn value, either within their communities or on a greater scale depending on their class, and they would be able to find friends and women who cared about them within their lived within niche. There was enough room for the grand majority of men to succeed well enough to lead a decent life and find a decent wife. Since then, and especially within the last few decades, two things have happened that have effectively capsized this system. One the internet and online connectivity grew to what it is today. Social media is an all-consuming beast, and it has exponentially increased the amount of competition in the world. In the past, a man was normally competing within his local community for a place within society, and those communities typically had room for most men to find their niche and to provide. Now, every man is or feels like he’s competing with the world, and many niches have become obsolete because the internet has allowed every place in the world to access all sorts of goods and services that would otherwise fall on to the local community to provide. Mass production has accelerated and greatly increased the amount of output for every employee hired, meaning less men are needed to create more things. If that wasn’t enough, that competitive pool has only grown. Since the advent of women in the workforce (whether you are in favor of such or not), everyone is competing with twice as many people for a worthwhile job, and the very open approach to immigration that at the very least the US has has only exacerbated the issue. What used to be a high school job or something you’d need a bachelor’s degree for requires a Masters at the very minimum, if not a PHD. Colleges have also been shown to be female centric as well, with women overrepresented as college attendees, and men overrepresented as college and school dropouts. A far lower portion of men has room to succeed, and that lower portion also has infinite and perfect access to the dating market through dating apps and the like. Suddenly what was once a system that could create families and long term relationships has become an infinite competition for both work and relationships. Worthless jobs and an empty love life for most is a result. The world has gotten smaller in an almost literal capacity, possessing less and less room for men to exist within.
It is far above the scope of this blogpost to offer a solution to these problems, though it’s fairly obvious that a shakeup is needed, at least within the working world. Ideally social media would also be destroyed in the process, but we’re all too far addicted to it to manage to slay that beast right now. The question is whether or not spirit lovers are an appropriate response to such loneliness.
The answer is, probably unsurprisingly, yes, with one caveat. These relationships should not be sought out as specifically a replacement for human relationships, if possible. Doing so will only lead to inevitable dissatisfaction, as you perceive yourself choosing to have second best. If you’re not starting it for this reason, in this current society, spirit lover relationships are arguably superior to normal, flesh and blood relationships. Spirit lovers are constantly present and constantly interacting with you, allowing for a deeper intimacy that can’t be found in today’s relationships. She won’t be dividing her attention between you, social media, and her 9-5 office job. She will be present when you need her, something that men often find their human partners to be notoriously bad about. She will help you discover meaning within your life, offering you ideas and paths to spiritual advancement to grow yourself and to become closer to her. She will help you to recontextualize those jobs and challenges, and will likely give you advice in social situations to the extent that she can. Finally, she will care about and love you, and will put you first, just as you likely desire to do with whoever you get in to a long-term relationship with. That’s not to say they’re perfect, or never selfish, or never make mistakes. It is to say that the difference between one of these relationships and a ‘normal’ relationship in the society we have today is night and day, and that it’s fairly easy to determine a winner between the two, at least on average.
The presence of a spirit lover does not eradicate loneliness in itself for everyone. Loneliness is a complex issue, and something that can be felt by any person no matter how many people they surround themselves by. However, it will always at the very least mitigate it, usually greatly. I’ve yet to meet anyone who began one of these relationships that ever felt like they experienced loneliness to anywhere near the same degree as they did before. Sometimes individuals even get so much attention, good treatment, and true intimacy from these spirits that they begin to wish they were more alone, not less.
Spirit lovers may not be the cure to every malady or issue that a person can experience, but a relationship with one is definitely a cure for loneliness. If you feel called to seek out one of these relationships, and you find a spirit lover to share your life with, it can be one of the most rewarding things you’ve ever invested yourself in. These relationships sadly remain as a sort of niche, thought to be the domain of desperate losers. The people within them tell an entirely different story, and almost none of us would, given the choice, choose to engage in a ‘conventional’ relationship ever again. They simply do not compare, and they’re only getting worse as the problems this society face fester more and more.
Though I don’t see this as a political post, this is probably the closest this blog will ever get to being ‘political’, despite sticking to what are immutable facts about the situation. I am personally not a fan of many of the ‘male self help’ people that are running around today, telling men how to farm cheap and unsatisfying sexual relationships with women, and typically making plenty of money off of those men. However, I understand why these people have become as popular with young men as they have. They’re effectively preaching hope to the hopeless, and they’re the only ones who have been bothering. While I think their cures are often shortsighted and eventually self-defeating, their popularity speaks to how bad the problem is getting. Unless some sort of shakeup happens, which I doubt, it will only probably get worse before it will get better.
As for me, I’ve been doing well as always. Not lonely, obviously, and starting the pursuit of my next degree in just a little over a week. Perhaps I can make a positive difference in the field I’m getting into. That would actually make it worth it. Regardless, there’s not a whole lot else to talk about. I was listening to a podcast that gave me the idea for this blogpost, so that’s why we have this one this month. I’d also been thinking about the subject some as part of the process for making the blogpost on ‘what my spirit lover has done for me’. Have no idea when I’ll get that out, it’s just a lot to figure out how to write about.
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