I pride myself on being a miserable-middle aged man

Men often take a bashing when it comes to emotions, and feelings. We are grumpy, irritable and emotionally repressed, apparently. The latest pseudo-diagnosis being offered for this is ' miserable man syndrome ', typified by the male propensity to pessimism.
According to some, this can be a slow growing cancer in relationships, a corrosive drip-drip that eventually gives out. Everything is seemingly fine until one day you forget to put the bins out and an emotional sinkhole appears. Hell ensues.
'But it was only the bins,' you bleat weakly through the yells, knowing full well it wasn't just the bins, it was the pent-up response to all those years of the eye-rolling and huffing you did each time you were asked to do the bins.
But is it really so bad to get narked at each other's foibles in a relationship? Of course not. It's okay to lose your composure occasionally when the dishwasher isn't loaded properly, because honestly, how hard can it be?
Embrace gentle melancholy
Miserable man syndrome should really be middle-aged man syndrome, and in some cases, simply man, because it's not a syndrome at all, it's who we are, particularly as we age. Some outliers might remain jauntily optimistic and emotionally intelligent in the face of hair loss and erectile dysfunction, but in my experience most men of a certain age delight in gentle melancholy.
I certainly do and have learnt to embrace this facet of my personality and celebrate it. In many ways I'm proud of it. I feed it and nurture it. When my wife is away on work trips, for example, I sneak to the theatre alone to watch tragedies. This week it was Elektra, a plodding production about parental murder and bitter vengeance. I enjoyed telling anyone who would listen the next morning how bad it was. Last summer on holiday I skipped the latest Lee Child and read Cormac McCarthy's gruelling The Road instead, followed by the grimly bleak Prophet Song. They ensured a cloud hung over me, despite sitting under a clear blue Corsican sky.
Generation X gloom
Perhaps it's a generational thing. I am 55 and Generation X. I became culturally aware in the early Eighties under the shadow of the threat of nuclear annihilation and listened to the gloomy shoegazing music of The Cure, The Smiths and New Order. The following decade Victor Meldrew seeped into my subconsciousness.
My wife tells me that while I'm not necessarily grumpy, I do tend to focus on 'the pessimistic side', which I correct as being 'the realistic side'. She, on the other hand, is the opposite and wildly optimistic. She even runs a company called Laughology. On paper we shouldn't work, but we do because we complement each other. She is the bright yang to my black yin. She acts as a brake to my gloom and surprisingly we laugh a lot, because we share the same warped sense of humour. Mine is just a little more fatalistic.
'It's your detailed and slow brain. You think things through too much and get stuck in what you can't do rather than what you can do,' she counsels when I moan about one of the regular gripes, like not having enough money, or time. Or not understanding some of the house rules, which make me miserable.
Observe the towel protocol
My slow brain doesn't compute the towel, bedding or crockery protocols, for example. As far as I can ascertain there are three levels, and each level depends on who is using them. There are ones for everyday use, then a guest level and finally the mystical level three, or Defcon 1 as I call it, which is, as far as I can gather, reserved for visiting heads of state and minor deities. When I'm pulled up for some minor infraction of the rules, or for not folding the bedding properly, or storing it in the right drawer, I sulk, then pettily get my own back by telling guests what level they have achieved, and that they are not deemed worthy of the top level.
In truth, the towel thing is not a biggie. But that's not the point. I look for things like this to wind me up. Men do; it's our hobby. I enjoy getting angry at other road users, hurling abuse when I'm safely out of eyeline and earshot. It helps me let off steam. And maybe I am a tad too obsessional about the parking in the access road behind my house, often sitting at the desk in my home office, monitoring both the Ring doorbells I've set up to police the area, drunk on omniscience. Often, you can hear me over the Ring equipped with a loudspeaker.
'You can't park there. It's a private road,' I yell at people, who look around confused, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice, before they clamber back inside their vehicles and pootle off to find some other place to obstruct. Delightful.
Revel in the misery
You could argue that now, more than ever, the grumpy man is in ascendance, because the world is currently a dark place. What a time to be alive! I often revel in the misery of it all, doom scrolling at regular intervals through the day, chasing a fix of misery. My best friend is even more miserable than me and we meet monthly to drink beer and dissect the world and all its gloom. Our glasses are neither metaphorically half-full nor half-empty. They're all empty. And chipped.
It is in our nature, so cut us some slack. Celebrate it with us. Gives us a little sympathy. Midlife generally is tough enough for all of us. While men don't go through anything like the profound changes that women have to cope with in the menopause, we do naturally weaken and slow. Hair spouts from our nostrils and ears. It takes a monumental effort to stay fit and healthy so many don't bother. We develop expanding midriffs that spread no matter how many miles we pedal on our expensive bikes, tucked into Lycra that mocks our silhouettes, collecting injuries like trophies.
Happy ever after
Indeed, one of the worst things you can do to feed the male mindset of misery is to pathologise it and label it a syndrome. Because we love to bang on about our ailments and injuries, even though we never go to the doctor. Walk into any gym changing room and I guarantee the first thing you'll hear from any of the older gentlemen will be a moan about a niggle. We wear ripped ligaments and tennis elbows with pride. Meanwhile we have David Beckham in his budgie smugglers and Hugh Jackman's ripped torso as impossible role models to measure up to.
And as for relationships? In mine, we accept each other and our failings. We laugh at ourselves. This, I think, is the key.
And while I'm not a psychologist, if you find yourself stuck with a grumpy man, know that relationships like yours generally follow an arc similar to the Kübler-Ross model of grief. Stage one is denial. 'He can't be that miserable for no reason. Is it something I'm doing?' Then comes anger: 'Why is he so bloody miserable all the time?' Next, bargaining: 'If we watch the Hungarian Grand Prix, will you cheer up?' Then depression: 'This is making me miserable.' Finally, acceptance: 'I tolerate his misery.' Get to that stage and you've got a decent chance of living happily ever after.

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Telegraph

5 days ago

• Telegraph

The forgotten generation keeping Britain running

Kate watches the war between millennials and baby boomers with some bemusement. As a member of Generation X, sandwiched between them, hers is an experience rarely discussed with the same fervour. 'We endlessly hear about millennials and the housing market, but Gen X missed the cheaper housing boom too,' says Kate, who asked not to give her second name. 'The joke about, and among, Gen X is that we are the forgotten generation. Ignored by our parents and the media alike, we are actually the ones keeping the country running.' She may have a point. Many members of Generation X – the cohort born between 1965 and 1980 – were denied the financial spoils granted to baby boomers, yet receive none of the pity (or scorn) afforded to millennials and Gen Z. Now aged between 45 and 60, they were too young to benefit from lucrative final salary pensions, but too old for auto-enrolment to make much of a difference. Their best years were blighted by financial crises, just as house prices soared out of reach. 'I was pay cheque to pay cheque' Kate, now 56, moved from Australia to London 30 years ago. She argues that life was tough for many young Gen Xers, which had a knock-on effect later in life. 'We largely left home, or were thrown out, at the age of 18, unlike younger generations who have been able to continue living with their parents throughout their 20s and even into their 30s,' she recalls. London in the 1990s was not cheap, either. 'I was very much from pay cheque to pay cheque, despite having a university degree,' recalls Kate. 'My friends and I used to have clothes-swapping parties in order to have something 'new'. There is no way I could have saved for a deposit for a home.' Twenty-somethings today grappling with the brutal rental market can take some comfort in the fact that the struggle never changes. Kate describes rent devouring around half of her monthly take-home pay. 'A friend of mine had three different jobs that paid for three different things – her rent, her bills and discretionary spending,' she says. 'In those days, you had to go through your bills line by line with your flatmates.' Kate ended up renting into her 40s, well after the point she had hoped to finally get a foot on the housing ladder. 'There was a massive rise in house prices in the 1990s and I wasn't in a position to buy,' she recalls. 'Council houses were being sold off, and I feel Gen X missed out on that. I recently bought my first flat and was only able to do so because my mother died prematurely of cancer and I inherited her house.' The 2008 financial crisis hit Gen X right around the time they were turning 30, souring dreams of homeownership for many. Housing affordability, defined as the ratio between house prices to annual earnings, had been rising throughout the decade, but plummeted as the world went into recession and borrowing became more difficult. Some, like Kate, ended up trapped in rental housing long after their incomes might have suggested they could buy – a familiar story to frustrated millennials. In 2020, the Office for National Statistics warned that Gen X, then in their mid-30s, were three times more likely to be renting than the same age group 20 years before. 'I feel like I missed out' Others, like Adrian Evans, 56, were lucky enough to buy property before interest rates soared in the 90s. A lucrative stint in a factory in his 20s ensured he could pay off his mortgage after eight years. 'Houses are really overvalued,' he says. 'I think the banks have let this happen, and I do have sympathy for younger generations, but I also wonder if maybe some of them didn't need to go to uni and saddle themselves with all that debt.' But it hasn't been an easy ride. When Evans left school in the 1980s, the future looked uncertain. All around him in South Yorkshire, steel mines and factories were closing. Opportunities were scarce. 'It was devastating,' Evans says. 'I drifted between low-paid jobs. I recovered pool tables and even did a stint in an abattoir. You had to take the work because there was no work.' Even now, Evans would struggle to describe his work history as resembling a career. He was born too early to be swept into university by Sir Tony Blair's pledge to make half of young people graduates. 'To be honest, I feel like I missed out,' he says. The working lives of many Gen Xers, whether or not they were university educated, were devastated by financial crashes, the collapse of the dot-com bubble, and in Evans's case, deindustrialisation. 'I remember just before my 40th birthday trying to organise a party, knowing lay-offs were looming at work,' Evans says of the climate in the mid-2000s. Official figures show that by the middle of their working lives, Gen X begin to stagnate financially. Over the 10 years following graduation, their average disposable income grew by 72.6pc, but over the next decade, taking them to middle-age, this figure plummeted to 5.5pc. Even millennials are faring better in this regard. It is yet to be seen how theirs and Generation Z's earnings will perform later in life, but income growth for late-career Gen Xers is a mere 9.6pc, compared to 35.8pc for boomers and 57.5pc for those born in the 1940s. Those who did manage to secure a home have been lucky. Though they may have accumulated housing wealth more slowly than their elders, Gen Z and Millennials still have it worse in this regard, says Lucian Cook of Savills. Over 60s account for £2.89 trillion in housing wealth, equivalent to more than half of all owner-occupied homes. Meanwhile, Gen X has amassed £2.4 trillion in bricks and mortar, compared to the £820bn owned by millennials. 'Baby boomers have continued to build wealth, having largely paid off their mortgages and benefited from decades of rising property values,' Cook says. 'Generation X is following a similar path. However, millennials and Gen Z have had much less opportunity to work their way up the housing ladder profitably due to higher prices, stricter lending criteria and weaker wage growth.' 'Stuck in the middle' Another quirk of timing means that many members of Gen X's careers have slowed down or been derailed just as they reached their supposed peak earning years, causing a knock-on effect on their retirements. Financial crises aside, some industries – particularly in media and the arts – shrank rapidly throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Paul Sanders, 58, is a self-employed music teacher and has seen this happen first-hand as his pay stagnates relative to rising living costs. 'My income has effectively stayed at a fixed level,' he says. 'I remember starting out thinking this is quite good now, but in real terms, it will be the same by the time I retire.' Pay for arts teachers has been eroded by inflation, he says, to the point that music itself has become a discretionary spend. Sanders believes he is lucky that his father, a former bank manager, imparted the basics of financial planning, so he has saved into a private pension throughout his working life. Polling by Standard Life paints a bleak picture of Gen X's pension prospects, who have been left behind by their wealthier older peers. More than half of Gen X fear their finances will not cover their retirement, compared to just 31pc of baby boomers. This is because Gen Xers were 'caught between the decline of defined benefit pensions and the massive expansion in defined contribution savings over the past decade', says James Norton, of Vanguard. Lucrative final salary schemes were in decline by the time Gen X were in the early stages of their careers. In 2000, more than 9 million people were members of one of these defined benefit schemes, a figure that had dropped to 6.8 million by 2012. Many members of Gen X neglected to take up defined contribution alternatives, while auto-enrolment – which ensured workers saved into a pension – only came about in 2012. Since 2020, fewer than one in 20 defined benefit pension schemes were open to new members, with almost 72pc closed to future accrual in 2023, the House of Commons' Work and Pensions Committee found. Lily Megson, of My Pension Expert, says: 'Many Gen Xers missed out on pension growth in their early career – in fact, around two-thirds of over-40s wish they'd been taught about pensions earlier, and some didn't benefit from auto-enrolment until well into their working lives. Now they're playing catch-up with retirement on the horizon.' Higher life expectancy mean that members of this generation are inheriting later, while they are also having longer working lives, says Simon Wong, wealth planner at JM Finn. All the while, they are sandwiched between looking after ageing parents and paying for their children into adulthood. 'Boomers were comparatively young when they had children. Gen Xers tended to have children later,' he adds. 'They're now supporting both university-age children and ageing parents in their care home period, and doing it on rapidly shrinking salaries with 10 to 15 years to go to reaching an increased state pension age of 67.' Sanders, for his part, has made his peace with where being born into Generation X has left him. 'I stayed doing what I was good at,' he says. 'I could have gotten a salaried job and climbed the greasy pole, and I am certainly glad I didn't.' Even so, there is a lingering sense that maybe if he'd been born earlier, his fortunes might have improved. On this 50th birthday, he wistfully went looking for a new home, but found the endeavour rather pointless. 'I did envisage myself upsizing by this point, but for what I could afford, there was no significant improvement to what I have now. I'm stuck in the middle.'

Telegraph

22-03-2025

• Telegraph

What boomers really think about Gen Z

Are you a retired boomer, and find millennial whingeing a massive irritation? Or perhaps you are a go-getting Gen Xer who can't understand stay-at-home Gen Z? The truth is, most of us have a view on the other generations and their perceived shortcomings, believing the era we were born in to be the most character-building of all. In the Eighties, two American authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, came up with a generational theory that sought to define people who lived through specific periods in history. The theory suggests that every 21 years, a new generation arrives – shaped by political, financial, social and technological changes. Thus baby boomers's personalities are shaped by the huge social changes that took place post-Second World War, and Generation X's by Margaret Thatcher and the Big Bang. Meanwhile, millennials grew up with the internet and the credit crunch, while for Gen Z the defining moment of their lives is the pandemic. In recent years, inter-generational warfare has reached a zenith thanks to endless memes and reels on TikTok and Instagram. But how much do the stereotypes we associate with each generation hold true? What do people think shaped their generations's values and, crucially, how much do they buy into the criticisms of their forebears and successors? We travelled the length and breadth of Britain to find out what the generations really make of each other – and found out feelings towards other generations are more nuanced, complex and contradictory than first thought. Meet the baby boomers Defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers are the post-war generation who came of age during a new era for Britain. A series of revolutions changed the lives of young boomers – women's access to work and education had never been greater, the contraceptive pill changed sexual politics, and the space race was accelerating technology throughout their childhoods. Jane Barker, 65, an education officer for a wildlife charity from Lancashire, and Justin James, 75, a heating engineer and company director from Wiltshire, reflect on what it means to be a boomer. What does it mean to be a boomer? I was the first woman in my family to go to university; a big change from that traditional home-bound female role my mum embodied. I never thought for a moment I'd have a life like that. I was a punk (not a very radical one) and that movement said you could do whatever you wanted. If you had the guts, what would stop you? Perhaps that has made us a pushy, opinionated generation, used to getting what we want. Boomers were ambitious. We wanted to better ourselves and were prepared to put in the work – we worked really long hours, but we expected to be able to achieve a good life through work. That social contract has changed nowadays. But there's an element of bigotry. There's less tolerance for people who are different to us. – JB We had the best era. We were happier in those days because we didn't have mobiles or TVs, we had to make our own enjoyment. We had better friendships too. Nowadays it's all about who you are and what you've got – none of that used to matter. I had friends on good money while I had nothing, and it was no problem. People were more prepared to be friends with those outside of their socio-economic class or political background in those days. The one thing I fall out with my children over all the time is the idea that I never worry about anything whereas they're always stressed. My generation was never like that: if the roof fell in, what's the point of panicking? Let's get it sorted. We were more resilient. Nowadays you have to be so careful about what you say. – JJ On Gen X I don't think Gen X are too different to us. They're resourceful, they're grafters, probably because they're pre-digital, like boomers. – JB I agree. It wouldn't have been until the late 1970s that most of them got colour televisions and there still wouldn't have been mobile phones or the internet. It's only since the 1990s things were falling apart. – JJ On millennials This is the generation where the work ethic starts to dissipate. I suspect millennials feel that it's not the case that hard work leads to rewards. You can't build resilience unless you're allowed to fail. We created a generation of young people who struggle because they've never had to confront things. It's awful to say 'you might have to just cope with that', but sometimes that's how you learn. – JB They were sold up the river. Life is harder now and it's not their fault. I think they've been lied to by governments who told them that they'd go to university and all come out with great jobs. They all want to be at the very top: lawyers, doctors and Hollywood actors. Millennials are quite a disappointed generation. – JJ On Gen Z I feel desperately sorry for Gen Z because they will be constantly miserable. Their expectations are so high and they need so much validation. The world they live in is tough, the constant scrutiny they're faced with is tough. – JB They only see what's in front of them. They know they can look things up online so they don't want to learn. If they can't do something, they sulk. They don't want to try. – JJ Meet Generation X Born between 1965 and 1980, Generation X came of age during a period of prosperity and positivity. Business was booming, and as Generation X hit adulthood, technologies including mobile phones and email were starting to proliferate. Britain entered a period of economic and cultural dominance. Annabel Eyres, 60, a former Olympian and wellness entrepreneur based in Hampshire, and Martin Sharp, 49, a fitness and lifestyle coach from York. consider what it means to be Gen X. What does it mean to be Gen X? We grew up in an era of British optimism. Politics was glamorous, there was a sense of fun, music was great – Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Super Tramp, ABBA, Soft Cell – incredible. Our parents were tough cookies but reserved. Some of that filtered down to Gen X. We recoil from self-promotion. The culture of shouting about your achievements, which you get from boomers, millennials and Gen Z, is an anathema to Gen X. My generation was taught not to shout about our achievements. The humbler you were, the better. Because our parents were war babies, there was an emphasis on getting together and working together against a perceived threat. Even if Thatcher said 'there's no such thing as society', I don't think that's true for Gen X. We knew the bogeyman was round the corner, but it didn't stop us doing anything. Threats were more distant and abstract. Now they're in our phones, on computers, on TV; there's no escape. Even if we grew up with the threat of nuclear war, it felt too big to worry about. – AE We grew up with the space race, a huge movement towards consumerism, people learning a lot more, way more social mobility. We grew up with old world values and an old world way of doing things, but then by the time I got into secondary school there were a lot of exciting technological changes happening. We're optimistic. When you speak to Gen Xers, the glass is always half full. There's always opportunity on the table, always something to be done. Rather than worrying about things, we just get on with it and make the best of what we can. We were unshackled from the worries of the post-war era. That filled our generation with optimism. – MS On boomers They're quite buttoned up. They're not open about their emotions and they're not obsessed with mental health; they still had their issues but they didn't really talk about them. – AE You had your job for life, you had an amazing pension, you had your house for peanuts and it was paid off by the time you retired. Every generation has made decisions I wouldn't have. The demolition of the coal industry decimated communities around where I grew up in Leeds, which is still felt today. – MS On millennials Hard-working, but perhaps in a more traditional way. They want an employer and a corporate job, something with a defined path. As a generation, millennials aren't big risk-takers. They might not be the Sloane Rangers like we had in my generation, but they are still party people, definitely enjoy a drink and know how to relax. The whole thing about millennials being woke is overstated. We witnessed the most vile homophobia when I was growing up, and that has changed massively. – AE Millennials get a hard time. They're seen as getting stuff handed to them, but they've run a hell of a lot faster than we did to get to the same pace we achieved as Gen X. – MS On Gen Z They're entrepreneurial, they're excited about doing things differently. They're constantly attached to their phones. That has put more of a stamp on this generation than any other. That ties into the rise of ADHD diagnoses which is sweeping across all generations. I'm sure there's more to come out about what phones do to your brains. They're not a resilient generation but that's not their fault. – AE People don't realise the expectations placed on Gen Z. We would go to school to meet up with friends and have a laugh, nowadays kids can only do school work, they don't get to have fun anymore. – MS Meet the millennials Sometimes known as the 'digital native' generation, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996. Their childhoods and teenage years were marked by the mass adoption of the internet and later, social media. Globalisation made the world more accessible for millennials than it had ever been, but the buoyant optimism of Gen X was tempered by the global war on terror and the financial crash which changed economic fortunes. Frankie O'Dowd, 44, a fashion retail technologist from Northamptonshire, and Joel Smith, 29, a business development consultant who lives in Manchester, reflect on what it means to be millennials. What does it mean to be a millennial? We went from having a childhood that a Victorian would recognise to something unlike anything before – in the space of a few years, we got computers, Tamagotchis, phones and then the internet in our pockets. Our generation realised the past wasn't always better, and thought 'can't we find a new way of doing things?'. Via the internet we were able to look further and get information more quickly. The 2008 financial crash solidified that position. The old world order: work for a company, make money, buy a house; it wasn't going to happen. So why would we play by the old rules? Why not live in a way that makes us happier? Millennials have embraced work/life balance. Work no longer defines us. – FO We were the first generation in human history to experience adolescence online. We formed our social lives with an online audience. Friends on the other side of the world were just as important as friends we saw every day, so we wanted to share our lives more widely. Because everyone is sharing the highlights of their lives online, we're constantly comparing ourselves to others. Not only are you being told you are spending too much money on things, you're also being told 'buy more, engage with consumerism, get a personal trainer, go on luxury holidays. If you don't, you're a failure'. It's tough. Millennials can be pessimistic. Every government budget our entire adult lives has been about austerity, belt tightening, everything getting more expensive, getting paid less, being taxed more. We know that success isn't always possible, no matter how much we work for it. – JS On boomers Boomers were similar to millennials. They were trying to be modern and fun, trying to move on from the war. They didn't want to go back to the drab 1950s. I sometimes think that the real cause of all the strife between millennials and boomers is that they're a bit frustrated we don't recognise how radical their lives were. – FO Boomers are credulous. They swallow what they're told without question. I guess that comes from growing up in the shadow of war. They're patriotic because when they think of Britain there's a national identity. In contrast, millennials tend to just associate Britain with how the country is run. We don't understand their patriotism. – JS On Gen X If I think about all the rights I enjoy: equal pay, anti-discrimination, being respected as a woman at work; those were fights that Gen X had. They pulled up their Doc Martens and went out to create the world that we enjoy. You can't micromanage Gen X because they grew up with a level of freedom in childhood you don't see anymore. It set them up well for life. – FO They were more free-thinking than boomers. There was a lot more social reform going on in Gen X: women's rights, Pride marches; society's views on what was normal was being developed by Gen X. – JS On Gen Z I feel a lot of sympathy for them, they've lived with social media their whole lives. They haven't been able to make mistakes without it being online. They are also better educated; more information is available to them so they're more clued up, which is a factor in why they're healthier. They're more sensible than us. No hate for Gen Z, but millennials had a bit more fun. – FO They're such an open-minded and accepting generation. When I was a teenager, coming out as gay was terrifying, but Gen Z don't bat an eyelid. They're socially aware: what people's needs are, what's polite and what's impolite to say. - JS Meet the Gen Zs Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2010) grew up in an age where the internet and social media were commonplace, but the biggest event which shaped their childhood was the global Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns radically changing schooling, university experiences, and early stage careers. George Wakely, 26, a public relations consultant from Scarborough and Alice Maxwell-Hyslop, 19, a social anthropology student currently living in Edinburgh discuss what it means to be Gen Z. What does is mean to be Gen Z? Some of the most important years of our lives were spent entirely on screens, whether that was university or taking our first steps into work. Thankfully, we're very tech-savvy because we never experienced a world without it. It's a new normal. We're less focused on work than previous generations, probably because we know work isn't going to reward us as much: it's not like we can buy houses! Instead, myself and the rest of my generation seek flexibility and work/life balance. It ties into Gen Z being seen as health-focused. While people used to go for drinks after work, I'd prefer to read. Gen Z is sometimes called the ' anxious generation ' and that resonates a lot. Social media has given us big expectations of what life should look like. A perfect life isn't just a far flung idea; it's personified as someone we know on there. That's tricky to live up to. – GW There's more activism and that comes from growing up online and seeing what's going on in the wider world. A lot of people my age want careers where they can do good, even if it means not getting paid loads. They want to end climate change or poverty. We're more liberal. We respect authenticity, the focus is on personal character, not someone's skin colour, gender identity or sexuality. Growing up on the internet where anyone can be anything they want, we respect people who are real. We've stepped back from some of the more strident aspects of millennial culture. I'm pretty anti-cancel culture for instance. Nowadays, the main cancellers are 50-year-old men telling us how evil some 18-year-old celeb is, or anonymous guys with usernames like ''user2596'. It's embarrassing and has definitely gone too far. We find socialising harder. Coming back into the real world after lockdown, you realise how quickly you lose the ability to chat, you don't know what to say to people, you overthink conversations. The more time we spend online, the more we'll see that. – AMH On boomers It depends on gender. Boomer women really did pave the way. Women have more choice now about how they live and that's thanks to boomer women fighting for that. Boomer men, in contrast, knew what they wanted and that was it. Not more, not less. Now I see a lot of frustration from boomer men about their place in the modern world. – GW That generation is the complete opposite to ours. My grandparents could say racist or homophobic things as they grew up in the days when they were told people who were different to them were monsters or not normal. Boomers are very career-driven. At university I study social anthropology, and when I tell people of my grandparents's age about that, they ask: 'what career is that going to lead you into?' Nowadays, jobs are more abstract and there are so many different fields to work in. For Gen Z work is about transferable skills, whereas boomers were more about specific trades. – AMH On Gen X They're very professional and single-minded. There's a stereotype about Gen X, and maybe even the younger boomers, that they're the 'Karen' generation. My mum is called Karen and she hates it, but it rings true: that element of being quite demanding. They complain and act quite entitled, and get wound up about trivial issues. – GW They're seeing a contrast between themselves and the way we have grown up with tech. They're sceptical about social media and they're forever writing thinkpieces about the dangers. My mum panics about my online footprint: 'what if your future employer sees that?' But I don't think posting silly TikToks will deter employers, because everyone's doing it. My parents's generation are obsessed with professionalism, even in their personal lives. – AMH On millennials Millennials paved the way for Gen Z to have fun. They changed society for the better. They normalised sexual freedom: before millennials it was taboo, now it's like going bowling. Sometimes millennials go too far with wokeness. They get offended over silly things. A good example is pronouns; one person gets annoyed at someone's pronouns, the other gets annoyed their pronouns aren't being used correctly, others get annoyed that they don't understand it. Gen Z rolls our eyes and gets on with it. – GW They can be quite cringeworthy on the internet. They have Facebook pages and post selfies of them in front of a view. Lame. I don't know any Gen Zs who use Facebook or who would ever post pictures of themselves in front of the Eiffel Tower for instance. Millennials are still a bit excited about technology while we view it as passé. Half of them were like Gen Z: they got technology in their teenage years when they were probably most worried about what people thought of them. In contrast, older millennials got social media when they were in their 20s and cared less what people thought of them, so they've been less warped by having to perform for an audience online. – AMH

Telegraph

28-02-2025

• Telegraph

I pride myself on being a miserable-middle aged man

Men often take a bashing when it comes to emotions, and feelings. We are grumpy, irritable and emotionally repressed, apparently. The latest pseudo-diagnosis being offered for this is ' miserable man syndrome ', typified by the male propensity to pessimism. According to some, this can be a slow growing cancer in relationships, a corrosive drip-drip that eventually gives out. Everything is seemingly fine until one day you forget to put the bins out and an emotional sinkhole appears. Hell ensues. 'But it was only the bins,' you bleat weakly through the yells, knowing full well it wasn't just the bins, it was the pent-up response to all those years of the eye-rolling and huffing you did each time you were asked to do the bins. But is it really so bad to get narked at each other's foibles in a relationship? Of course not. It's okay to lose your composure occasionally when the dishwasher isn't loaded properly, because honestly, how hard can it be? Embrace gentle melancholy Miserable man syndrome should really be middle-aged man syndrome, and in some cases, simply man, because it's not a syndrome at all, it's who we are, particularly as we age. Some outliers might remain jauntily optimistic and emotionally intelligent in the face of hair loss and erectile dysfunction, but in my experience most men of a certain age delight in gentle melancholy. I certainly do and have learnt to embrace this facet of my personality and celebrate it. In many ways I'm proud of it. I feed it and nurture it. When my wife is away on work trips, for example, I sneak to the theatre alone to watch tragedies. This week it was Elektra, a plodding production about parental murder and bitter vengeance. I enjoyed telling anyone who would listen the next morning how bad it was. Last summer on holiday I skipped the latest Lee Child and read Cormac McCarthy's gruelling The Road instead, followed by the grimly bleak Prophet Song. They ensured a cloud hung over me, despite sitting under a clear blue Corsican sky. Generation X gloom Perhaps it's a generational thing. I am 55 and Generation X. I became culturally aware in the early Eighties under the shadow of the threat of nuclear annihilation and listened to the gloomy shoegazing music of The Cure, The Smiths and New Order. The following decade Victor Meldrew seeped into my subconsciousness. My wife tells me that while I'm not necessarily grumpy, I do tend to focus on 'the pessimistic side', which I correct as being 'the realistic side'. She, on the other hand, is the opposite and wildly optimistic. She even runs a company called Laughology. On paper we shouldn't work, but we do because we complement each other. She is the bright yang to my black yin. She acts as a brake to my gloom and surprisingly we laugh a lot, because we share the same warped sense of humour. Mine is just a little more fatalistic. 'It's your detailed and slow brain. You think things through too much and get stuck in what you can't do rather than what you can do,' she counsels when I moan about one of the regular gripes, like not having enough money, or time. Or not understanding some of the house rules, which make me miserable. Observe the towel protocol My slow brain doesn't compute the towel, bedding or crockery protocols, for example. As far as I can ascertain there are three levels, and each level depends on who is using them. There are ones for everyday use, then a guest level and finally the mystical level three, or Defcon 1 as I call it, which is, as far as I can gather, reserved for visiting heads of state and minor deities. When I'm pulled up for some minor infraction of the rules, or for not folding the bedding properly, or storing it in the right drawer, I sulk, then pettily get my own back by telling guests what level they have achieved, and that they are not deemed worthy of the top level. In truth, the towel thing is not a biggie. But that's not the point. I look for things like this to wind me up. Men do; it's our hobby. I enjoy getting angry at other road users, hurling abuse when I'm safely out of eyeline and earshot. It helps me let off steam. And maybe I am a tad too obsessional about the parking in the access road behind my house, often sitting at the desk in my home office, monitoring both the Ring doorbells I've set up to police the area, drunk on omniscience. Often, you can hear me over the Ring equipped with a loudspeaker. 'You can't park there. It's a private road,' I yell at people, who look around confused, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice, before they clamber back inside their vehicles and pootle off to find some other place to obstruct. Delightful. Revel in the misery You could argue that now, more than ever, the grumpy man is in ascendance, because the world is currently a dark place. What a time to be alive! I often revel in the misery of it all, doom scrolling at regular intervals through the day, chasing a fix of misery. My best friend is even more miserable than me and we meet monthly to drink beer and dissect the world and all its gloom. Our glasses are neither metaphorically half-full nor half-empty. They're all empty. And chipped. It is in our nature, so cut us some slack. Celebrate it with us. Gives us a little sympathy. Midlife generally is tough enough for all of us. While men don't go through anything like the profound changes that women have to cope with in the menopause, we do naturally weaken and slow. Hair spouts from our nostrils and ears. It takes a monumental effort to stay fit and healthy so many don't bother. We develop expanding midriffs that spread no matter how many miles we pedal on our expensive bikes, tucked into Lycra that mocks our silhouettes, collecting injuries like trophies. Happy ever after Indeed, one of the worst things you can do to feed the male mindset of misery is to pathologise it and label it a syndrome. Because we love to bang on about our ailments and injuries, even though we never go to the doctor. Walk into any gym changing room and I guarantee the first thing you'll hear from any of the older gentlemen will be a moan about a niggle. We wear ripped ligaments and tennis elbows with pride. Meanwhile we have David Beckham in his budgie smugglers and Hugh Jackman's ripped torso as impossible role models to measure up to. And as for relationships? In mine, we accept each other and our failings. We laugh at ourselves. This, I think, is the key. And while I'm not a psychologist, if you find yourself stuck with a grumpy man, know that relationships like yours generally follow an arc similar to the Kübler-Ross model of grief. Stage one is denial. 'He can't be that miserable for no reason. Is it something I'm doing?' Then comes anger: 'Why is he so bloody miserable all the time?' Next, bargaining: 'If we watch the Hungarian Grand Prix, will you cheer up?' Then depression: 'This is making me miserable.' Finally, acceptance: 'I tolerate his misery.' Get to that stage and you've got a decent chance of living happily ever after.