People's lives seem to be taken up with "everything other than just time for each other", a man has said.
John was speaking as research by the Survey Center of American Life found that the number of men admitting they do not have any close friends has significantly increased since 1990.
Back then, only 3% of men said they had no close friends but now that figure has grown to 15%.
John told The Hard Shoulder the world can feel quite lonely.
"I'm just a man and I'm nothing special in the world or anything that that," he said.
"I'm just a regular working Joe but I guess there's a feeling sometimes that there's no place in the world for you.
"It seems to be that the people that you would have been shoulder-to-shoulder with, in the pub on the Saturday night or at a football match or something, they seem to be in the same boat as well.
"Your whole life seems to be taken up with everything other than just time for each other".
'People move'
John said people are on the move a lot more than they used to be.
"I think in the world at the minute we have an awful lot of pals and and not really the deep friendships anymore," he said.
"We live in a kind of transient world now where people move. One time leaving the parish and then moving to the next parish was considered maybe a big step.
"Now we have people from parts of west Kerry living in parts of Belfast and back and forth.
"So I suppose they're uprooted - they've move to places where they don't have that that life-long build up of people about them that they had up until they were teenagers or early 20s.
"I would call them 'my people' whereby you may not know them but you have something in common with them".
'That's not good enough'
John said people can be "surrounded with people, surround with things and live very lonely lives."
"We have so much other things that have come into the men's world at the minute," he said.
"I'm just a guy - I go to work, I move machinery and I do a lot of hours and stuff like that - but it seems now like as if that's not nearly good enough.
"It seems now like they want the fella who who got chopped on trees all day long and put on the scaffolding and put out a fire and then mind the children and maybe volunteer at the orphanage at the weekend.
"You seem to have have to be able to cover all these things and defend the home and bring in money.
"I think it's it's making it harder to just to just be a man - that's what I think".
A man sitting on a bench overlooking the bay at Skerries in Dublin, 2-9-10. Image: Barry Mason / AlamyJohn said he feels like he 'gets left behind' especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It seems like I was locked in my bedroom in 2020 and when I was let out of it in 2022 the whole world seemed to have just changed," he said.
"It takes me a while to come around - I know my kids think, 'God Dad, you are a dinosaur' - because maybe I say the wrong thing or maybe I actually don't even understand what the hell they're talking about.
"All of a sudden you find yourself surrounded by people and you feel very much like, 'My God, I am the odd one out here, what's wrong with me?'
"You can be lonely - I don't want to say 'lonely in your own home' - but you can be".
'In the same boat'
John said he believes it all stems from a lack of friendships.
"I don't want to sit down with any man face-to-face...and shed a tear - I don't want that," he said.
"But I do like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at a football match and sit at the bar maybe on the odd Saturday night.
"After a while you begin to realise there's a lot of us are in the same boat here.
"Then without maybe even saying anything at all you just realise that we're all in the same boat here - all that seems to be gone," he added.
A recent EU survey found that 20% of Irish people reported feeling lonely all or most of the time.
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Information on coping with loneliness, including supports, can be found here
Anyone affected by issues raised in this article can contact The Samaritans on 116 123
