So this is something I see all the time: sexless men complaining that women don’t empathize enough with their problems. What would this empathy look like in an ideal world, and how would it help you deal with the problems of sexlessness?

I’m asking bc I went through a long period of frustrating sexlessness at the start of college, and basically I would bitch about it to anyone who was close to me, whenever the topic came up in one-on-one conversation (yes, I was that guy). When I was talking to girls I was friends with — usually taken — they would say stuff like “I’m so sorry that you have to deal with this”, or “dating really is harder for guys, girls can be really fickle” (most of them were bio majors so they got this instinctively), or sometimes “if I was single I would totally hook up with you”, etcetera.

I can’t remember one time I came out of these “empathetic” conversations feeling any better. If anything they made me feel worse, since by listening to me at length and offering sympathy, these girls were helping me solidify and validate my own neurotic thought patterns. Unless my female friends were ACTIVELY taking steps to help me solve my problem — like literally fucking me (or at least inviting me to parties and introducing me to their hot fuckable friends, which some of them did and which I did appreciate) — their words didn’t do anything for me at all. Knowing that I was cared about should have been more comforting than it was, but no matter how much empathy they gave me, at the end of the day I was still a depressed dude jerking off in the dorm room showers desperately seeking small bursts of oxytocin.

You might ask, well what if you didn’t have these female friends who empathized with you, and you had to deal with the burden of not getting laid solely in the company of other men? And I think it wouldn’t have mattered lol the sexlessness aspect still would have sucked about the same amount. The ACTIONS of these friends helped me get laid in the end, but mentally masturbating with them re: the vagaries of hookup culture did not add much value to my life (besides the obvious pleasures of humor, friendship, and conversation).

This makes me think that the whole “empathy” thing is a red herring; it’s just low-hanging fruit to latch onto and complain about, but no one actually cares deep down. But maybe other people are wired differently or have less of a one-track mind, so that’s why I’m asking.