As many as 58% of men in New York said they regularly feel lonely, according to a survey commissioned by the California mental health center A Mission for Michael (AMFM). New York ranked 26th in the nationwide comparison, roughly in the middle of the pack. The survey also found that many Americans have great difficulty talking about their emotions, and some have not a single person in whom they can confide.
The survey was conducted by the firm Cherry Data Signals among 3,004 men across the United States. The highest share of respondents reporting regular loneliness was recorded in Louisiana, at 83%. Oklahoma followed with 79%, then Oregon with 73%, Wisconsin with 71% and Michigan with 70%. The lowest rates, 20% each, were recorded in Delaware and Nebraska.
Among the occupations that New York respondents considered especially conducive to loneliness were long-haul truck driver, security guard and overnight hotel front desk clerk.
One of the survey’s key findings is the limited number of people men can turn to in a difficult situation. As many as 20% of participants said they have no one to whom they could entrust a personal problem. Another 32% named only one trusted person, and 39% said they have two or three confidants. At the same time, only 33% of respondents had had an honest conversation about their feelings in the previous week, and 15% could not recall whether they had ever taken part in such a conversation.
Men also gave reasons for avoiding conversations about loneliness. The most common was fear of burdening others with their own problems, cited by 20% of those surveyed. Fifteen percent each said they were ashamed to talk about their problems or believed they should handle difficulties on their own. Another 12% feared that showing emotion would be seen as a sign of weakness.
The Pew Research Center noted similar trends in a 2025 report. According to that study, 38% of men said they would be very likely to turn to a friend for emotional support. Among women, the figure was 54%.
Asked about their closest source of emotional support, men most often named a wife or partner, at 36%. Some 26% said they can count on a friend, and 21% on another family member. Only 7% of respondents would turn first to a mental health professional. Interestingly, 5% named an artificial intelligence chatbot.
Loneliness affects men’s behavior in the workplace. As many as 41% of participants in the AMFM survey admitted they had stayed at work longer than necessary because they did not want to return to an empty home. Long work hours and exhaustion were each cited by 17% as obstacles to maintaining social contacts. For 14%, the problem was carrying out their duties alone for most of the day. At the same time, 42% of those surveyed said they were satisfied with their friendships, which shows that loneliness does not necessarily mean a complete lack of social contact.
Editor: JŁ
