Our culture has a distinct lack of inherent value for men's lives. We're taught to be independent at all costs, so we never really learn to trust and depend on anyone, and we struggle with friendships and relationships. We're taught that our value is directly tied to what we produce, so we work hard to have well paid jobs and useful skills. We get no recognition for these accomplishments because they're expected of us as a minimum requirement. If we want recognition, we must soar leaps and bounds above the average.

We're taught that people will want us if we're interesting and successful, and some of the more honest will even tell us that we have to be attractive and confident as well. We're expected to express desire for women, but our culture forbids women to even hint that men are wanted, labeling those who do as slutty or desperate.

Men don't show affection to each other, because our culture insists that our interest in another person can only take the form of romantic and sexual interests. It takes a leap of trust to directly tell a friend that you really care about him, because affection between men is heavily ridiculed. If we're feeling lonely, we can't hug a friend for support, because we think it would be seen as gay, and despite our relatively recent LGBT acceptance, we don't want to take a chance that our already invisible appeal to women might diminish even further.

We live in a society that is forbidden from telling us we matter in any meaningful way (a text message from an internet stranger is not meaningful). As far as we can tell, we have no value. If we did, we would feel wanted. By women, by our friends, by society. But we don't feel wanted. We feel redundant, replaceable, and ultimately disposable.