You know what I realised in this pandemic? People who say this will usually mean 'yeah talk about it but just not to me"...and specifically women.

Going into the pandemic I had quite a lot of female friends as well as male friends. The female friends couldn't run away fast enough when lockdowns/isolation hit. Whether happy at home with their partners and/or breaking rules and still meeting people, when I tried to open up about how hard it had been for me (losing all social life overnight/total isolation) these female friends didn't want to know. It actually really shocked me tbh how heartless it has been. From ignored messages to 'we can't be friends' (because they have partners - gee thanks for not letting me know five years ago). These were people I bent over backwards for in pre pandemic life to help out, who I spoke to and saw weekly or more. I gave up on a few...waited a few months to see if any contact...nope. Cracked once or twice..."You ok?"..non committal 'yeah good you?" ..like obvioisly not i haven't seen anyone for a year. I could go on. But yeah I realised that actually women don't care about men unless they are getting something from them.

It's just not just me either. My friend...his male relative commited suicide in lockdown out of loneliness and depression. He has understandably also been in a bad way (as have I). One day he was saying he was having dark thoughts and thinking of ending things...i did my best to help and talk to him, though I was also feeling as low as I could get too. I thought, I'll text our mutual female friend to ask her also to message him sometime in the next few days.. told her he was feeling very low. Guess what she did? Ignored my message. Never texted him. Like I actually can't believe someone could be so heartless. We've known each other years...yet she couldn't be bothered to message a male friend who was suicidal. Instead she posted nice Facebook stories of her and her boyfriends cooking etc.

I've never felt so let down in my life and never had such a low opinion of women.

I will add that that one female friend has been good. She is much older, and she has made the effort. Only after I had to explain how bad things had been mind..and she broke lockdown rules to see partners etc etc. But I do appreciate she has been good recently so I'm putting that in for balance. The rest though...just unbelievable. When women say men should talk more...it means 'yeah just not to me'.