I have it so much better than a lot of my countrymen, but holy shit does this suck and it is not getting better anytime soon. The hopelessness gets you.

Software engineering is one of my last remaining pillars of life remaining more or less intact. At least I get to write some code and make computers do things.

Life is a strange thing.

I think a big part of the problem is that middle-aged men are at the apex of their expectations to be successful in the eyes of society, and we are living through a period of time where success is very hard to define, much less attain.

There is a name for this in sociology: anomie [1]. Émile Durkheim coined it in his book Suicide, written not too long after the Industrial Revolution.

In times of great change, the set of norms and rules that we take for granted as an organizing principle of our lives get uprooted. It's as if all of the pieces and tokens and rules of the board game we played our whole lives are swept off the table to make room for a new game, but the new game has not been set up yet. In that interim, we all feel a sense of unease. It is our turn to move, but we don't know the rules of the game or what moves to make. We feel intense pressure to play the game well, but don't know how.

In the past, these transitions have ended and society has generally returned to some sense of stability. A new board game gets set up, new pieces doled out, we learn to play the new game. I hope we get to that point with AI soon, but the revolutions seem to keep coming faster and faster.

I think for a lot of men, it feels like just at the time when we should be able to rest on our laurels a bit after having worked so hard to play the game society told us to, the rules have been ripped out from under us and any sense of security going forward is lost. We feel too old to learn the new rules of the game in time to play well, but not old enough to be able to abstain from playing.

It's a psychologically very difficult time.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie

And this isn't even to mention money, and what my future is looking like, despite having every possible intrinsic and external advantage in The Greatest Country on Earth.

I've had one same-aged friend kill themselves, and I try to be attentive to the signals being put out by everybody in my circle.

I was made redundant in August and despite being a 20 year career vet who has done many different langs, I still can’t find a new job.

My skills as a developer are no longer required because the all knowing robot can (apparently) do what I need to do. I’ve heard multiple companies now using it to ship stuff all the way into production without any human intervention at all. This feels to me like driving the car without holding onto the wheel.

The side hustle I had of writing books to teach people development is over — they can just ask the robot instead. I was writing a new book about how developers can train up others, but have put that on hold (due to losing my job which was that thing, and because of AI)

I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do here to provide for my family.

I had to step back from my career to focus on a mobility issue and at this point I don't know if the job path will continue to be there or even if I care. I'm focusing on small pleasures for now - cup of tea, exercise, peace and quiet. Music and film help provide a sense of meaning and catharsis.

I've facilitated 200+ talking meetings at this organisation and another I was involved with previously. Anecdotally, the average attendee at the male-only meetings is ~45 years old, has some level of issues with personal and/or professional boundaries, has had suicidal ideation more than once, and has made plans for or attempted suicide more than once.

There is some form of survivorship bias in the above, but I get a lot of pride from our groups keeping men alive. We haven't lost anyone in 2 years.

Most of us had/are having kids late. Now our parents are old/getting old and in need of our support. Along with that, parenting expectations have never been higher. So between shuttling kids from one thing to another all week, and taking parents to medical and other appointments, there isn’t much time or energy left to enjoy anything. It’s exhausting.

Combine that with someone already depressed, and any unfortunate trigger could push them over the edge. It’s partly anecdotal and some of what I’ve observed.

They can’t escape because all those legal and moral responsibilities. They have to wait patiently until retirement —- if their hearts allow them to live that long.

Then, at the same time, other aspects of our lives -- family raising and career -- are trickier than ever. Family raising these days takes more time than ever [2] (which admittedly is good and bad). Career growth in the era of stagnant wages has been tough for many fields of work, and AI threatens many of the remaining ones.

It's hard to feel fulfilled these days: our social lives are poor, and we're constantly busy doing things that don't necessarily help us get ahead.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089921 [2] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/01/09/millenni...

It is over for a lot of us in IT. It isn't going to get better, it is going to get worse very quickly. Rather than tell myself a convenient lie, I'd rather try to figure out why to keep living in a world like this.

Anyone going through the same thing, I hope you find something worth living for.

What I do know is that I wish he could have known how many people would miss him.

However, since the article is about "men" and "suicide". There is substantial evidence that suggest women (especially young girls) attempt suicide more than men... while men are are more likely to die from a suicide [1]

Does gender have a role in suicide? Maybe. But I would hesitate to generalize too much.

[1] I asked chatgpt to back up my claims. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

But I only recently truly accepted that the life I am living (and have created for myself and family) is actually the dream. We so often miss the greatest times in our lives because we are too focused on the unknowns of the future.

But, what can you do. There's always been injustice in the world. You just never used to hear about it 24/7/365.

Now you wake up and read about it on the little screen, later you see it on the big screen, talk about it at work, then go to bed and read about it on the little screen again. I have friends who can't even talk to me for 30 minutes without just bringing the entire mood down with doomerism.

Idk, I just do sports, work and spend time with whoever I can in whatever little free time I have left over. I had to forcibly block every news site and social media via an app otherwise I'd get addicted again and become a cynic. Reddit is by far the worst for me, insta is 2nd.

Unlike 95% of people I speak to I actually love my life and enjoy my work, and just hope that AI doesn't steal that from me.

Growing up as a first generation immigrant in a country with some of the worst inequality in the world taught me to just ignore everything but what you need to do.

This is something I sometimes feel guilty about now that I have a comfortable life. But, I feel like trading that ignorance for constant awareness just leads to anxiety and guilt and is a poor trade I don't have to make.

Edit: also this is just 1 factor. There are other factors like actual poverty, loneliness etc. I don't meant to put forth the idea that it's purely the 24 hour news cycle and social media that's to blame, just 1 aspect I see most often in my life.

For them, I keep going. I think because both the best and worst times in my life were roughly due to my own decisions, I always have the idea that I will get back to the good times.

It's like plenty of things are happening by inertia, but none of them bring any joy or make lots of sense. In such moments, I really envy people who have the courage to work on something they truly believe in. I have quite a few people to take care of, which requires financial resources, so I am not there yet.

Now I'm here staring at AI with the reality that if it makes my skills irrelevant I'll have no fallback, and I'll be at an age where reskilling is extremely hard and I'm still nowhere close to retiring.

I am a single man with no dependents who is struggling to work due to burnout, and I perceive that we are really not far off a world where young people will take seriously the idea that older people like me have had our time. I do not expect to be able to work for much longer because why would they let us keep our jobs or get new ones when we are taking away theirs? What can we teach them when we have built the tools that will destroy their livelihoods and wrecked the environment in which they live? Why should they listen to us at all?

Leaving a bit early may be the morally responsible thing for me to do. Understanding that living until I am dependent on care from the young is not going to be a good time when we are a despicable, despised generation, it’s an oddly liberating thought.

2 male friends from college died by their own hand within the last decade.

By most measures, they were successful professionals.

And yet my children are grown now and mostly gone. I feel a profound sense of loss.

I feel like I'm entering the age where I'm a prime candidate for any myriad of diseases and I get so anxious every time I get a symptom. I go to the Dr. a lot. I went to the ER twice every year in the past 3 years. Ironically, its occurred to me that if I do have something terminal, I don't have to go on like this. And I like the thought of that. I'm both terrified of death and also really looking forward to it.

I used to enjoy my work, but AI has made it so that I just kind of show up and ask it for things. Anyone could do what I do. There's no sense of accomplishment in anything.

The worst thing about this is that I have every reason to be the happiest person here. So the fact that I feel the way that I do actually makes me a pretty bad person and that makes the whole thing feel a whole lot worse.

I have been meditating on WHY I feel this way. On paper things are pretty good. I’m married. I have a job that is safe for now. I have kids. Two dogs. A house. Two cars.

But I feel really lonely and unseen and like I am a disappointment to everybody including myself. Like it makes sense I’m unseen because I’m unexceptional.

So I’ve done some things that have helped a little including scheduling lunches with friends and coworkers, more frequent date nights (especially double date nights), working out (setting and achieving even small pointless goals like mile time, distance, weight lifted, etc really helps).

All of that and it feels like I’m bailing water out of a sinking ship. It is barely enough to stay afloat and heaven help me if I skip a day or make a mistake…

It is hard to imagine doing this for another 30 years…

I used to think Soma was one of the more disturbing ideas in Brave New World. These days, I understand the temptation a little better.

I can totally see why this is highest in my demographic.

An underlying cause is quiet desperation, there are elements of failure in ones' own life, perhaps pressure caused deliberately by others as they step on you to get to the top. Perhaps it's the fact you start to notice death, your parents, family, and friends. You also see the beginning of your own aged based health decline.

Until society can support genx and older with their goals at this age, instead of telling them to get talking in men's groups, or saying it's alright to show emotions to a generation that grew up without this culture, this will probably continue.

I don't have an answer to fix it, but what I do feel would help is if was treated as a high risk stage of life without stigma. So 45+ men or menopausal women, can take time off to adjust, spend more time with family and friends, and it be treated as normal process, like a sabbatical or maternity leave or just a wind down from society like partial retirement.

This will never happen obviously because it means as a society we have to have a better welfare state and drop the ingrained idea that if you're not working you're a problem (not working is NOT the same as not contributing or benefiting to society, but people conflate this).

Perhaps the AI age will force us to fix that due to mass unemployment, the way COVID kick started remote working.

Personally I have given up on hoping for a nice planned and well executed life up through retirement. My own skill set just isn't valued enough by the markets to set myself up separated from the festering human pits. Im just going to go for as long as I can just to see how things go at this point. I always did enjoy thrillers and tragedies, it sucks to be in one but it is better than being in nothing at all. And if the world just keeps getting crazier, maybe ill just join them in being crazy and maybe hopefully go out with a bang near the end.

    She said: “The evidence is clear that successive governments have failed to deliver on their promise to reduce suicide rates and make suicide prevention a priority. Today must act as a wake up call. The current approach is not working; we need meaningful action and proper funding if lives are to be saved.”

The last thing I will do is die alone, or worse, confined to a nursing home, abused by underpaid staff. Yes: I have tried over 15 medication's, therapy, you name it. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that accepting that my life has an end, and they I will make that decision to end it, has been comforting. I feel like it's the only, perhaps last control, I might ever have

Back when we were in high school we were aiming to do the least amount of work to get through the year and spend the rest of the time hanging out with our mates.

A big part of our fault is also that we accept to get dragged by women into a territory that is not ours which is made up of large amount of introspection, extremely fine margins between good times and awful times and walking on eggshells with regards to social cues , the avoidance of social faux passes, planning years and years into the future down to the smallest detail .

That's the perfect recipe for depression for guys

We should go back to the basics and hangout with our mates trying to do the least amount of work as possible, play sports, banter with each other, take everything much less seriously and when we feel the need to have sex shoot for ONS or visit escorts or prostitutes and then go back to our mates.

Who can blame them?

After having failed romantically one too many times and having an average dev job AI will probably take from me, that won't allow me to FIRE for 6 more years even if I can keep it, life's not fun for me at 35 already, how will it be at 55, all wrinkled up, frail, probably cancer stricken and with no future potential left?

My friends who are older are pessimistic as fuck. Several have been unemployed for lengthy stretches due to ageism in American hiring practices, which has resulted in their life crumbling around them as they lack the resources for basic upkeep anymore. I see that and shudder for myself, wondering if we’ll finally get this sorted before I hit my 50s or if this is just going to be a shitty fucking thing for the foreseeable future.

Social activity is hard for middle-aged men. We spend several hours a day commuting to and from work, which eats into our social budgets. Hard to host dinners, attend game nights, or go on dates when 80% of your day is spoken for work alone in some capacity (preparing for, getting to, performing, commuting home), which leaves us isolated. Most of our peers have paired off, so they have a stronger support structure - yet they too disappear at alarming rates.

At every conceivable intersection for the past fifty years, we’ve chosen to make life more hostile and less comfortable. I’m tired of feigning surprise at what, at least to me and my circles, is so sickeningly obvious.