Men, distance and social media

A wallet photo
was sometimes the only connection with friends and families they would carry with them.

Millions of young men would leave home to work the mineral deposits, man the mills, go to sea or drive the herds to Abilene. A few of them went off to college but most had more immediate needs.

Letters were slow and long distance phone calls, when they finally came on the scene, were prohibitively expensive. Before social media, it was nearly impossible to keep track of the hairstyles, romances and ailments of loved ones left behind.

For better or for worse generations of young men — especially working-class boys in times of war — were groomed for solitude and were admired as the “strong silent type.” They were taught that the lifeboats were for women and children and that they were expendable. For better or for worse, they developed the habit of privacy.

Maybe that’s why many older men keep a certain distance. Many of them shy away from social media in the same way their fathers and grandfathers shied away from the telephone. “I’ll put your mother on the line,” generations of American men have told their children.

It’s not the hassles of mastering a new technology that make these guys guard their space. It’s not that they don’t care about your gun collection or your mayonnaise recipe. And it’s definitely not that they don’t want you in their lives. It’s something more fundamental than that.