Men,Intimate Connections and the Timing of Fatherhood: Conceptualising ‘Misconnect’ within the Sociology of Personal Life

Abstract

Sociological explorations of trends of later parenthood have paid insufficient attention to the significance of intimate relationships, and of connectedness more generally, for such trends. This article presents findings from qualitative interviews with men (n = 25) who do not (yet) have children about their experiences of intimate relationship establishment and progression and imaginaries of fatherhood, presenting three themes: dating as elusive, fatherhood as elusive for unpartnered men and intimate relationships as risky. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of connection and connectedness, and theories of masculinities to consider how narratives are structurally shaped by gender. The article discusses the nuanced, complex ways in which people do and do not form and practise close relationships, and introduces the concept of ‘misconnect’ to better attend to disjunction in connection, discussing the significance of this concept for understandings of later parenthood and for the sociology of personal life more broadly.

Introduction

Recent decades have seen the age at which individuals are having children steadily increase. In England and Wales the average age of women and men at the birth of children (including first and subsequent children) has risen steadily since the 1970s, rising from 26.4 years in the mid-1970s to 30.7 in 2020 for women, and rising over the same period from 29.4 years to 33.7 for men (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2022).

Social science research into factors contributing to trends of later parenthood has largely focused on women, and has demonstrated the range of structural, cultural, economic and policy-related factors contributing to such trends (Mills et al., 2011), as well as the difficulties women experience in securing what they feel to be requisite pre-conditions for motherhood during their ‘fertile years’ (Baldwin, 2019; Cooke et al., 2012; Perrier, 2013). A far smaller body of research on this topic with men suggests men similarly place importance on achieving certain conditions before having children, relating to age, partnerships, education/employment and feelings of ‘readiness’ (Hammarberg et al., 2017; Henwood et al., 2011; Malling et al., 2020).

Despite diversified routes for family building, it is still the case that most people who wish to have children wish to do so within an intimate partnership (Hammarberg et al., 2017; Jamieson et al., 2010). Yet despite this, few scholarly investigations have paid detailed, focused attention to how relationship formation and progression mediate reproductive timings. A small body of research with both women (Baldwin, 2019; Cooke et al., 2012) and men (Adachi et al., 2020; Hadley, 2015) suggests complexities relating to relationship formation, progression and dissolution may contribute to later parenthood and involuntary childlessness, but this remains relatively under-interrogated.

Central to matters of reproduction are connections and connectedness: bound up with the phenomenon of reproduction is a range of actual and imagined connections, most notably connections between individuals and their (actual and/or imagined) offspring and, for those seeking to have children in a partnership, connections with (actual and/or imagined) partners. As such, theories regarding the practice and nature of close relationships – such as of the sociology of personal life (May and Nordqvist, 2019; Smart, 2007), aka the connectedness thesis, which foregrounds the significance of connectedness for how people practise their lives and for the construction of the self – are potentially fruitful for enhancing understanding of recent trends of later parenthood. At the same time empirical studies of reproduction and partnerships, with their scope to examine how people ‘create joint endeavours out of individual lives’ (McDonnell, 2011: 145), can enhance the development of theories concerned with intimacy, connection and individualisation.

This article contributes to scholarly discussion about the practice and nature of close relationships, and to developments in the sociology of personal life, by introducing a conceptualisation of ‘misconnect’. It explores this concept through the lens of men and reproductive timings, and utilises data from a study of heterosexual men and reproductive timings. It presents findings suggesting that difficulties some men experience in establishing and progressing intimate relationships with female partners – one instance of misconnect (see later) – have the potential to contribute to trends of later fatherhood and involuntary childlessness. It describes how men experience dating to be elusive, and conceptualise relationships as risky, both of which have the potential to prolong or inhibit relationship formation and progression and thereby push back the timing of having children, or to make having children seem unviable. The article also describes the subjective emotional experience some men expressed in response to not yet having children.

The article conceptualises these difficulties in establishing and progressing intimate relationships, and the subjective emotional experience some men expressed in response to not yet having children, as instances of misconnect, a concept that refers to disjunction in connection. A multifaceted concept, misconnect may relate, as illustrated in this article, to the non-establishment or non-presence of connection with another; to difficulties and tensions regarding the nature and quality of connection; as well as to the subjective emotional experience the absence of a connection can engender. As illustrated in this article, misconnect in regard to forming and progressing intimate relationships has the potential to contribute to later fatherhood and involuntary childlessness; at the same time not having children and not being a father – that is, the absence of a father–child connection – can feel, for some, like misconnect. In seeking to ensure the analysis is contextualised, it considers the data in relation to changing practices regarding dating and intimate partnership formation, as well as to heterosexuality, theories of masculinities and changing conceptualisations of fatherhood.

The article makes two key contributions. First, it enhances understanding of factors contributing to current trends of later parenthood, by demonstrating how men experienced relationship formation as elusive and relationships as risky; both of which have the potential to push back timings of intimate relationship formation and progression and family building. As such, the data demonstrate how misconnect has the potential to shape reproductive timings and contribute to later parenthood. The factors contributing to contemporary trends of later parenthood are multifaceted and complex (Cooke et al., 2012; Henwood et al., 2011; Mills et al., 2011), but, this article argues, a holistic, comprehensive understanding cannot be achieved without attending to difficulties inherent in establishing and progressing intimate relationships; that is, without attending to misconnect. Second, it contributes to theorising within the sociology of personal life, by challenging the privileging of actual connections within this scholarship, seeking to stretch the boundaries of the sociological gaze to better attend to connections that are absent and elusive or that hold troubled meanings, and in doing so by offering a new conceptualisation of misconnect.

Literature and Context

Intimate Relationships, Dating and Reproductive Timings

As described above, despite diversified routes for family building, it is still the case that most people who wish to have children wish to do so within an intimate partnership (Hammarberg et al., 2017; Jamieson et al., 2010), yet scholarly investigations of how relationship formation and progression – particularly in a ‘post-dating world’ (Haywood, 2018) – configure in reproductive timings have been minimal. A comprehensive exploration of reproductive timing, connectedness and intimate relationships requires us to consider changing epistemes of dating and relationships formation, and to consider the ways previous scholars have theorised the relationship between intimate relationships and reproductive timings.

Dating, it is argued, has shifted from being a familial or social concern to become deregulated and privatised, and an individual practice (Illouz, 2012). In recent years new forms of dating, particularly online dating and dating apps (Haywood, 2018; Rosenfeld et al., 2019), have radically altered the landscape of intimate relationship formation and given rise to a fragmentation of dating or ‘post-dating’ in which taken-for-granted scripts and rituals have disintegrated and dating has become unchartered (Haywood, 2018). Men’s studies scholars have attended to how such changes have unsettled traditional gender dating scripts (Haywood, 2018) and to the connections between men’s emotions and masculinities in intimate partnerships (Oliffe et al., 2022). Culturally, singlehood among men is not problematised as it is for women: Lahad’s (2017) work illustrates how meanings of time govern how we understand female singlehood, and how this temporal paradigm devalues and marginalises single women; processes that men are not subject to.

A small body of research with both women (Baldwin, 2019; Cooke et al., 2012) and men (Adachi et al., 2020; Hadley, 2015) suggests complexities relating to relationship formation, progression and dissolution may contribute to later parenthood and involuntary childlessness. Despite a contemporary moral panic surrounding men’s alleged ‘commitment phobia’ (Illouz, 2012), research with both men and women demonstrates that even once a relationship is established, anxieties around future relationship breakdown may still problematise the timing of parenthood (Bergnéhr, 2007). A small body of work suggests that trends of later parenthood may be partly explained by ambivalence, negative attitudes and inactivity in partnership formation and family building – that is, an apparent unwillingness to form lasting connections – among (certain cohorts of) men (Baldwin, 2019; Jamieson et al., 2010; Wood, 2017). Some such work utlises ideas from the individualisation thesis – which posits that values of individualism had weakened and fragmented family ties and intimate connections (Bauman, 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995) – suggesting men may be eschewing commitment and fatherhood in part due to ‘the increasingly individualised nature of the lifecourse’ (Baldwin, 2019: 119).

Changing Masculinities and Conceptualisations of Fatherhood

A deeper understanding of the salience of connection with regards to men, reproductive timings and intimate relationships requires it to be explored in context, and particularly in the context of cultural changes. Of particular relevance are changing masculinities and changing conceptualisations of fatherhood: both structural factors, including gender, and the ways in which individuals conceptualise and understand family roles and relationships, including fatherhood, have the potential to shape men’s positions and practices.

This article draws inspiration from Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities, which applies a ‘gender lens on men’s lives’, seeking to challenge hegemonic masculinity and power relations (Lohan, 2015: 219–220). Theories concerned with the multiple and relational nature of masculinities position hegemonic masculinity as a ‘pattern of practice [which] . . . embodie[s] the currently most honored way of being a man’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 832) and as privileging traits including strength, stoicism, independence and invulnerability (Daniels, 2006; Oliffe et al., 2022). Both fertility and fatherhood can confer the successful performance of masculinity and help to secure men’s public status (King, 2015). However, more recently a range of emerging theories have considered how masculinity is changing, among some men and in some spheres of life, in ways that constitute a softening of and challenge to hegemonic masculinity, and that may indicate progress and new possibilities (Gough, 2018). This article weaves into its analysis of connectedness a gendered analysis considering how masculinity, as well as heterosexuality, shape men’s accounts and the implications for gender relations; but, in keeping with post-structuralist critiques that a focus on masculinities can further essentialise men (Lohan, 2015), seeks to provide a nuanced analysis attentive to changing conceptualisations of masculinity.

Alongside changing conceptualisations of masculinity, the social construction of fatherhood has evolved over recent decades, as expectations of fathers as the ‘breadwinner’ and removed from family life have given way to the emergence and idealisation of fatherhood as concerned with ‘hands on’ engagement in emotional and practical care (Dermott, 2008; Dermott and Miller, 2015; Lohan, 2015). Conceptualised by Dermott (2008) as ‘intimate fatherhood’, it is suggested that such changes are evident within men’s meaning making, and are well established and enduring (Dermott and Miller, 2015). New conceptualisations of ‘caring masculinities’ suggest men’s orientations to involved fatherhood contribute to the reimagining of masculinity (Dermott and Miller, 2015). Such profound shifts in understandings and expectations of fatherhood have the potential to shape men’s imaginaries of future fatherhood – and their orientations towards or away from it.

Sociological Scholarship on the Practice of Close Relationships

Having discussed phenomena that contextualise the findings and interpretations reported in this article, the article now turns towards the theoretical area to which this article contributes. Studies of reproduction that take the non/establishment of connection as a central focus require a consideration theorising on the nature and practice of close relationships. Shifting demographic patterns of family, household and relational configurations in recent decades have resulted in exciting sociological theoretical and conceptual developments and debates particularly regarding the salience of values of individualism, family practices, intimacies and the significance of connectedness (see Gabb and Silva, 2011, for an overview). A broad range of literature has utilised such ideas to explore various aspects regarding the practice and nature of close relationships – including family forms, couple relationships, commitment, friendship, love, marriage, divorce, cohabitation and childbearing – and how these are shaped by structural factors.

The sociology of personal life (May and Nordqvist, 2019; Smart, 2007) emphasises the ongoing significance of connectedness to people. Borrowing from and building on previous scholarly work (Smart, 2007), this new vision for the sociological study of ‘personal life’ is concerned with all forms of relationships, including and beyond ‘the family’, and with how life ‘is lived only in the context of others’ (Oakley, 2008: 417). Smart (2007: 45) introduces a conceptual toolkit including: embeddedness, which ‘seeks to reflect the tenacity of . . . bonds and links’; relationality, concerned with the active process of relating among people and within networks; and imaginary – considered to be just as important as practices – referring to ‘[t]he ways in which relationships exist (indeed have a life) in one’s imaginations and thoughts’ (2007: 49). Indeed, while ideas of practices (Morgan, 1996) are embedded within Smart’s work, she also ‘emphasize[s] the importance of thinking and imagining family and relationships’ (2007: 38). With neither embeddedness nor relationality positioned as inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, Smart seeks to avoid an overly positive depiction of connectedness and family life, which neglects to consider the significance of ‘dark emotions’ (2007: 135).

More recently scholars have begun to challenge the privileging within this field of actual connections and to attend to the significance of absent and missing connections, and on how ‘gaps, blanks, distances and secrets’ feature within connections (Morgan Centre, 2021). Such developments cohere with Scott’s (2019) ‘sociology of nothing’, which is concerned with the significance of that which is absent: of ‘things we have not done, that did not happen or that we have not become . . . undone acts, unlived lives and unrealised potential’ (2019: 1). Scott et al. (2016) invite scholars to consider how ‘not becoming’ something is a meaningful identity, that is socially produced. These developments offer exciting new avenues of inquiry regarding how people do and do not form connections with others, including intimate partners and offspring, and as such are salient for questions about how people do and do not engage in family building. However, there has been minimal application of the connectedness thesis within social studies of reproduction. One exception is McDonnell’s (2011) work, which finds empirical support for the connectedness thesis with participants orienting towards connectedness, negotiation and compromise in relation to family building; yet overall the connectedness thesis remains significantly underutilised within this field. The sociology of personal life, with its focus on connectedness and conceptual tools of relationality, embeddedness and imaginary, is of particular relevance to the present study. This article contributes to theorising within the sociology of personal life, by challenging the privileging of actual connections within this scholarship, seeking to stretch the boundaries of the sociological gaze to better attend to connections that are absent and elusive or that hold troubled meanings, and in doing so offers a new conceptualisation of misconnect.

Methods

The data presented in this article are drawn from a sociological, cross-sectional, qualitative study of men and reproductive timings. The aim of the study was to explore meanings, practices and imaginaries relating to reproductive timings among men who do not have children but want or expect to have them in the future, in the context of trends of later parenthood. Twenty-five men, all of whom resided in England, UK, took part in one-to-one, in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews between 2016 and 2017. Men were recruited through family, friends and colleagues (n = 13), staff and student mailings at the host university (n = 6), Facebook (n = 3), direct contact from the researcher (n = 2) and snowball sampling (n = 1) (Law, 2019). Interview length ranged from 39 to 122 minutes, with a mean length of 88 minutes. Interviews explored men’s ideas about the ‘right time’ to have children, and when they felt was ‘too late’, in general and for themselves; the factors they thought were important for determining timings; their own imaginaries, hopes and expectations for their reproductive futures; their experiences of dating/relationships and work/education; as well as more niche topics such as social sperm freezing (Law, 2020); and methods-focused questions regarding their research participation (Law, 2020). The interview schedule was not adhered to rigidly; interviews were conversational, flexible and free-flowing.

Men ranged in age from 22 to 47 years, with a mean age of 31.72 years. Thirteen were unpartnered and 12 were partnered. Fifteen were White British, six Asian/Asian British Indian, three Black/Black British African and one Black/Black British Caribbean. Most (n = 20) had an undergraduate degree or higher qualification, all but one were working or studying full time and a significant minority were homeowners.

Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The full data set was subject to reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021) aided by NVivo 11. Themes illustrating the salience of misconnect are presented in this manuscript: dating as elusive, fatherhood as elusive for unpartnered men and intimate relationships as risky. Quotes from participants were selected on the basis of their illustrating themes particularly well, particularly in terms of clarity of phrasing and/or depiction of emotion.

Results

This results section first sets out brief contextual data about men’s desires to have children, their imaginaries of fatherhood and the importance they placed on forming intimate relationships with female partners for family building; before going on to discuss in more depth three central themes pertaining to misconnect.

Men were recruited to the study on the basis that they wanted or expected to have children in the future. As such, all men interviewed anticipated or hoped they would become fathers.

Men spoke about how they envisaged fatherhood would be. They conceptualised it as a dedication of time, as encompassing physical play and activity such as football, playing frisbee and swimming, and also considered the importance of a father being a guide and mentor, providing moral support.

In discussing the factors and circumstances men felt were most important for determining whether and when to have children, men stressed the significance of intimate relationships, and the importance of a ‘good’, secure, lasting relationship. For many this was deemed to be the most important factor:

I think that [a good relationship with the right partner] is the most important thing for me because you want to raise your child as a family. (Unpartnered man, age 23)

Being with a good partner is . . . the key to the jigsaw. (Man in a relationship but living separately, age 24)

However, for a considerable proportion of the sample tensions relating to the formation and progression of intimate relationships, and emotional implications of the absence of a father–child connection, were evident in their narratives. This article now goes on to report these findings in more detail.

Dating ¹ as Elusive

This first theme discusses unpartnered men’s experience of misconnect in the form of difficulties they experienced in relation to establishing intimate relationships with female partners. The majority of unpartnered men sought to establish an intimate partnership, and those in their 30s and 40s hoped this would happen sooner rather than later. A small number of men described activities they had engaged in to pursue this – such as online dating, going to nightclubs, engaging in activities such as dance and exercise classes, and seeking ‘matchmaking’ through friends, family and community networks – but also described several overlapping barriers to and challenges associated with relationship formation.

The question of how to meet potential partners raised questions of the place and space to do this. Pubs and clubs were referred to, but several men did not feel a sense of ease or belonging in such spaces, which were instead perceived as the domain of younger people, suggesting that age influences which spaces and places feel viable. For some men these venues necessitated the specific practice of ‘chatting up’ – heteronormatively positioned by one man (see below) as a default practice for partnership formation and reifying gendered dating norms of masculine-activity and feminine-passivity – which not all felt comfortable with:

‘I’ve never been fantastic at chatting women up anyway. I’ve always hated clubbing for example . . . it was like well how do you meet people?’ (Unpartnered man, age 43).

Online dating and dating apps may circumvent unease with establishing connections in a physical space. However, the showcasing and competition inherent to online dating and dating apps (as well as ‘chatting up’), may put men in a vulnerable position and at risk of rejection, which would discredit their masculine status. While men did engage in online dating, it had not enabled them to form suitable partnerships and they appeared to feel it was contrived, and at odds with their preferences to meet people ‘organically’:

I would like to meet someone organically, I have been on dating websites, I have been on dates and I am one of those people I would rather have something in common and build on that and enjoy their company. Rather than just go ‘right, you match’. (Unpartnered man, age 38)

The distinction between online dating and ‘organic’ partnership formation is presented in terms of preference rather than in relation to personal deficits or failings; this type of talk positions the problem as external and omits any engagement with themes of rejection, self-doubt and one’s inner critic.

Men also perceived dating to be time consuming, and suggested this was difficult in the context of their busy lives of juggling work/study and other commitments. Men felt it was hard to meet new people once one was settled in their life and community, suggesting that the networks in which they were located were not shifting and changing but fixed:

‘I think a combination of that is not going out enough and meeting people, or when you become settled somewhere it’s difficult to meet new people’ (Unpartnered man, age 36)

It was not always easy for men to identify why they had not yet forged a lasting relationship. Often men’s allusions to barriers and challenges were vague. Relationship formation appeared to be opaque to some men, with men reporting ‘it’s just not happened’ and asking ‘how do you meet people?’ – again, positioning the problem as external:

[My sister] asked a very pertinent question really which was, ‘is there a reason why you haven’t found the right person yet?’ Which is . . . a difficult one to answer, I guess whatever stage you are at in your life if you haven’t found the right person you haven’t found the right person. I am not entirely too sure what the reason is. (Unpartnered man, age 36)

As these illustrations suggest, there was a sense in some men’s narratives of relationship formation being a mysterious, enigmatic phenomenon, one that was elusive and difficult to navigate. Notable within men’s accounts of dating was an absence of excitement and optimism, and men seemed somewhat defeated. Some alluded to a lack of confidence, and in particular the nerves and feelings of vulnerability that dating can elicit:

‘It is quite scary in a way, the idea of going on dates when you haven’t dated for a long time . . . it is a little bit daunting’ (Unpartnered man, age 43). As dating appeared to be unenjoyable for many men they engaged and retreated from it: some described finding the process of partnership-seeking frustrating and therefore putting active dating on the ‘back burner’ periodically.

These challenges and barriers, the sense of relationship formation being elusive and enigmatic, and men’s practices of retreating periodically from dating signify the absence of, or non-formation of, a connection with a female partner, and can be seen as an instance of misconnect; this misconnect may prolong the process of relationship formation and also therefore push back the timing of having children, or result in involuntary childlessness. As such, fatherhood was felt, by some men, to be elusive – the theme towards which this article now turns.

Fatherhood as Elusive for Unpartnered Men

While ‘failure’ to form a connection with an intimate partner constitutes a form of misconnect in the form of the non-establishment of a connection, how unpartnered men felt about fatherhood being, they perceived, elusive constitutes an instance of misconnect as the subjective emotional experience the absence of a connection can engender.

For men not currently in intimate relationships, fatherhood was felt to be elusive. For some single men, particularly those in their 30s and 40s, the absence of a partner was felt to be the foremost reason why they did not yet have children. This was seen as fundamental for having children, and some felt they would likely already have children had they met the ‘right person’:

‘I guess if I had met the right person a good number of years back then hopefully I am sure we would have had children when I was much, much younger’ (Unpartnered man, age 36). These men wished for, and for some coveted, a connection with a child of their own, but – in line with their heterosexual positioning and heteronormative imaginaries – felt that without a partner having a child and establishing such a connection was unviable. However, men employed a masculine ‘factual’ narrative, positioning this as related to luck or chance; it was not depicted as a personal shortcoming, as a failing in the competitive world of ‘dating’ or as a source of shame, weakness or stigma – conceptualisations that could destabilise one’s sense of masculinity.

Most unpartnered men, particularly those in their 20s, did not discuss this in emotional terms. However, for a small number their reflections on their single status, and relatedly the absence of children, portrayed unhappiness and longing; the absence of these imagined connections was painful:

There is nothing more frustrating than Christmas day . . . they have all got their kids around them and they are all opening presents . . . I have got the point at Christmas where I don’t want to be around them and that is really sad . . . I would rather be anywhere than here, just to not feel the pain of wanting this. (Unpartnered man, age 38)

Similarly another man reflected he might cry when discussing his fears of remaining childless. Accounts such as this present interesting complexities regarding the expression of emotions and masculinities. On the one hand, such accounts demonstrate vulnerability, an eschewal of stoicism and emotional expressiveness at odds with hegemonic masculinity; on the other hand, the use of the word ‘frustrating’ – an emotion associated with unhappiness with lack of agency and implying unjustness with the situation – suggests a more masculine framing of difficult emotions.

Intimate Relationships as Risky

Returning now to consider misconnect in relation to intimate relationships, this third theme illustrates how despite men valuing connections in the form of intimate relationships, a substantial minority of men, both partnered and unpartnered and across all ages, conceptualised relationships as risky; relationships (both actual and imagined) were characterised by uncertainty and precariousness, resulting in concerns and anxieties, as well as cautious practices. This was centred, it appeared, not around ideas of relationships as burdensome or restricting one’s freedom, but around the fear of future relationship breakdown. Such caution appeared to be piqued among those around age 30 – the age at which family building might be considered ‘on-time’:

It’s finding the right kind of person because it’s a lifetime commitment. Because I don’t want to just get into a relationship and have a child and then divorce . . . I don’t want to take that risk yet in terms of finding somebody and rushing into it and realise it’s not the one. (Unpartnered man, age 29)

For some men, relationships were felt to be inherently precarious and uncertain: it was perceived that relationships change, unpredictably, over time, and being in a ‘good’ relationship now did not guarantee the relationship would continue to be good in the future. Love and emotions were perceived to be potentially transient, and some found it difficult to feel confident that feelings of love would sustain:

That certainty of where you are, who you are, who they are. You may be totally happy with the person right now but things change, people change, relationships change . . . I wouldn’t want to jump into something too soon when I am not too sure of my feelings permanently . . . that was something I found difficult before anyway and it continued into the relationship with my wife. (Married man, age 30)

Such narrations offer insights into the cognitive and emotional processes within men’s inner worlds, that may be interpreted outwardly as men being insincere in relation to emotions and commitment.

A minority of men discussed how past experiences of having been cheated on or of relationships ending abruptly fuelled their feelings of hesitancy and cautiousness regarding subsequent partnerships. Similarly, experiences from one’s own childhood shaped men’s orientations, with one younger man describing how his father had been unfaithful to his mother, and how his ‘fear’ of replicating this held him back from progressing relationships:

I think there is a bit of a fear of rushing into having a family and having kids just because of what I have seen [in my family] . . . fear is the only time limit that is holding me back. (Unpartnered man, age 23)

This man’s comments illustrate, on the one hand, self-reflection and emotional expressiveness about his cautious approach. On the other hand these comments, along with his later comments ‘I am young and I do like to . . . go out and I appreciate different types of females’, suggest, in line with discourses of the (youthful) male sex drive, a resistance to being held fully accountable for potential future unfaithfulness. However, this man’s narrative was an anomaly: the majority of men did not display preferences for serial dating or sexual escapades.

As a result of these anxieties men described feeling hesitant towards relationship formation and progression, and cautious about making commitments. Men discussed taking a long, protracted approach to relationship development. This theme demonstrates an instance of misconnect in the form of difficulties and tensions regarding the nature and quality of connection. The meanings relationships held for men and the consequent practices they engaged in have obvious potential implications in terms of elongating the processes of relationship formation and progression and consequently pushing back the timing of family building or potentially resulting in involuntary childlessness.

Discussion

Through the use of qualitative, in-depth interviews, which enabled the collection of rich and detailed data on personal and sensitive topics, the present study offers a nuanced insight into the affective meanings that close relationships – with both (real and imagined) partners and (imagined) offspring – hold for men. The article suggests a new conceptual understanding of misconnect can enhance understandings within the sociology of personal life of the range and nature of connectedness, and more specifically deepens understanding of current trends of later parenthood. A multifaceted concept, misconnect may relate, as illustrated in this article, to the non-establishment or non-presence of connection with another; to difficulties and tensions regarding the nature and quality of connection; as well as to the subjective emotional experience the absence of a connection can engender; or, as a concept ripe for application in other contexts and against other social phenomena, and for development and expansion, it may be fruitful for considering other variants of disjunction in connection. Crucially it foregrounds the subjective meanings connections hold and the feelings they engender. Attendance to misconnect enhances understanding of how people practise personal life and the meanings relationships and connections hold, and enables theories of personal life to be extended by problematising connectedness to a greater degree. This discussion will first consider the significance of misconnect for enhancing understanding of reproductive timings; before discussing its value for the sociology of personal life.

Misconnect, Intimate Relationships and Later Parenthood

Data from the present study illustrate instances of misconnect across all three themes. Unpartnered men spoke of dating as elusive, signifying a non-establishment or non-presence of connection with a partner. Despite the rise in online and non-traditional forms of dating (Haywood, 2018; Rosenfeld et al., 2019), men in the present study appeared wary of and tended to eschew such methods, and instead sought for partnership formation to be natural, private, intimate and ‘organic’ (echoing findings from Wood, 2017) – but found this to be out of reach. In addition, among these men, the absence of much-desired father–child connection – or misconnect – was deeply painful for some. This coveted connection was imbued with imaginary: men’s imaginaries of themselves as a father, their imagined children and the imagined father–child relationship. In keeping with existing research with older involuntarily-childless men demonstrating an ebbing and flowing of loss and bereavement across the life course (Hadley, 2015), men in the present study appeared to experience anticipatory grief at the prospect of continuing involuntary childlessness, illustrating the significance of the absent, of ‘undone acts, unlived lives and unrealised potential’ (Scott, 2019: 1) and indicating ‘negative intentionality’ – motivational attitudes towards meaningful absences in subject/non-objects relations – in the form of missing, longing and disappointment (Scott, 2020).

Men’s conceptualisations of relationships as risky illustrate a different variant of misconnect, concerned with difficulties and tensions regarding the nature and quality of relationships – and the consequent implications of initiating, establishing, maintaining and progressing relationships. Such findings regarding connections being difficult to establish and shrouded in anxiety appear on first reading to have resonance with theories of individualisation; theories that offer a different assessment of connectedness from the sociology of personal life, instead suggesting contemporary relationships are characterised by fragilities and anxieties, with individuals wary of relatedness (Bauman, 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). Yet, as described above, at the heart of men’s anxieties were not fears of burden, strain and loss of freedom (Bauman, 2003) or a preference for self-indulgent detachment (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995) but instead the fear of future relationship breakdown. While other empirical studies of relationships and family building conclude that fear of future relationship breakdown provides evidence to support theories of individualisation (Bergnéhr, 2007), in contrast I suggest that anxieties and apprehension among the men in the present study arose not because (for the majority) they sought to live individualised lives or feared the loss of individual and sexual freedom, central to discourses of commitment phobia (Illouz, 2012) and to ideas within the individualisation thesis; but instead from the importance of connections, specifically lasting connections that would not in the future break down, as per the connectedness thesis (Smart, 2007).

Considering the data through the lens of misconnect enhances understanding of factors contributing to current trends of later parenthood. Thus far social scientists have discussed a myriad of interconnected reasons for trends of later parenthood (e.g. Cooke et al., 2012; Henwood et al., 2011; Mills et al., 2011) demonstrating the complexities inherent in this phenomenon. Despite a small body of work examining how the formation and progression of intimate relationships intersect with reproductive timings (Baldwin, 2019; Bergnéhr, 2007; Jamieson et al., 2010; Wood, 2017), overall this aspect has been surprisingly overlooked within social studies of reproduction. This article demonstrates how men experienced relationship formation as elusive and relationships as risky; both of which have the potential to push back timings of intimate relationship formation and progression and family building. As such, the data demonstrate how misconnect has the potential to shape reproductive timings and contribute to later parenthood.

Of course, matters of relationality, connectedness and misconnect are not structurally neutral (May and Nordqvist, 2019): personal life ‘is lived out in relation to one’s class position, ethnicity, gender and so on’ (Smart, 2007: 28). Participants in the present study were all heterosexual and mostly middle-class men, and so represent a particular subsection of society: their narratives reflect heteronormative and hegemonic masculine norms, values and ideals, and their experiences of misconnect reflect their particular gendered, heterosexual positioning. At times men framed their narratives in ways that protected their masculinity – such as engaging ‘distancing strategies’ (Galasiński, 2004) by adopting factual narratives that enabled them to narrate ‘their relationships in observer capacities rather than talking about themselves as active agents’ (Oliffe et al., 2022: 369), and positioning problems as external and in doing so eschewing engagement with notions of rejection or self-doubt, which could discredit one’s masculine status. Yet, interviews are human encounters and interview data are accounts; such self-presentation may (or may not) mask feelings of vulnerability that were deemed unsayable according to norms of masculinity within an interview encounter (Pini and Pease, 2013). In addition, the data demonstrate contradictions and complexities: at times men expressed emotion and vulnerabilities – suggesting some adherence to new, ‘softer’ forms of masculinity (Gough, 2018). Despite the recent exponential growth in online dating (Rosenfeld et al., 2019), men appeared cautious of it, perhaps in part due to the vulnerability its showcasing and competitive nature engendered. Such observations resonate with Haywood’s (2018) assertions that new forms of dating can engender feelings of shame, unease and anxiety in men.

Men’s experiences of misconnect are also shaped by age, and its intersection with sexuality and gender, and have implications for gender relations. Few unpartnered younger men expressed concern regarding the timing of future fatherhood: their longer (in comparison with women) fertility ‘window’ may mean they did not feel a sense of urgency. Critical feminist work suggests that, in part due to men and women’s differing fertility lifespans and the consequent privileged position of men who have greater flexibility in charting their lifecourse, heterosexual dating practices are characterised by gender stratification and gender oppression as women undertake the ‘work’ of dating while men display more ambivalent attitudes and inactivity (Baldwin, 2019; Jamieson et al., 2010; Wood, 2017). While most men in the present study did not embrace individualistic values, privileging a life of freedom and casual sex, or reject ideas of love and commitment (Illouz, 2012) their practices, however inadvertently, may contribute to patterns of gender inequality within relationship and family formation and the timing of this. However, there was some concern among unpartnered older men about their potential future status as single and childlessness. While men are not subject to the ageist, sexist stigma of ageing singlehood women are (Lahad, 2017), these men did display unease and vulnerability with being single, suggesting a vulnerability of male, unpartnered ageing that may warrant further attention.

Participants in this study wished to attain the connectedness of fatherhood. Men’s imaginaries of fatherhood reflect changing ideas of fatherhood as more close, involved and intimate (Dermott, 2008) and indicating adherence to ‘caring masculinities’ (Dermott and Miller, 2015). Notably men’s imaginaries of fatherhood encompassed play, sport and physical activity: such imaginaries privilege masculine conceptualisations of strength, vitality and ‘bodies that do’, and become problematic in the context of later parenthood with regard to ageing masculinity (Shirani, 2013). Men’s (gendered) imaginaries also foreground the joys of parenthood, rather than the mundane, repetitive tasks of childcare and household labour; such underdeveloped imaginaries align with the unequal gendered division of labour that commonly occurs after children are born (Miller, 2011).

Misconnect and the Sociology of Personal Life

Looking beyond reproduction studies, this article now returns to the concept of misconnect to consider its value for enhancing understandings of how people practise close relationships and the meanings they hold, and more broadly its significance for the sociological enterprise.

Smart (2007: 134) argued that difficulties in everyday relationships were sociologically underexplored, and called on sociologists to better attend to the ‘dark sides of relationships’. Findings from this study illuminate the disharmonious aspects of intimate relationships and the chaotic and unstructured nature of dating and relationship formation (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). A consideration of misconnect facilitates better attendance to the ways in which relationships may be disharmonious, troubled and saturated by anxiety and risk. However, the findings also provide empirical support for the significance of connection to how people practise close relationships and one’s sense of self. ‘Misconnect’ foregrounds the significance of connectedness for people despite their engaging in and retreating from actual connections; indeed there is a danger when speaking of fragmented relationships or connections unestablished of appearing to take sociology back in time to consider individuals as free-floating and autonomous. Yet misconnect does not imply disconnect with its association of disconnected, atomised, autonomous individuals (Smart, 2007); instead with the concept of misconnect the significance of these fragmented relationships and unestablished connections is considered to arise from the importance of connectedness – not its unimportance.

A conceptual understanding of misconnect also disrupts the historic privileging of actual, present connections within the sociology of personal life and shifts the sociological gaze to better attend to elusive, absent connections, as well as to the imaginary – a central tenet of Smart’s (2007) original theorising on personal life. Such a shift coheres with recent moves towards better attending to absent and missing connections within the sociology of personal life (Morgan Centre, 2021) – a move influenced by Scott’s (2019) ‘sociology of nothing’. In keeping with Scott’s (2020: 1) work, the ‘misconnects’ that men in the present study experienced constitute relationships that ‘do not empirically exist, yet are experienced as subjectively meaningful’ and illustrate the significance of the ‘unlived experience’. Drawing inspiration from Scott, in including within its scope absent, elusive and wished for connections misconnect offers a less fixed conceptualisation of such non-events (of things that did not happen) encompassing instead a future that is still unknown (i.e. things that may or may not happen in the future). Exploring misconnect in this particular context, which considers the social and interrelational processes of dating and intimate relationships, and the meanings they hold, draws attention to the ways in which ‘non-becoming’ (e.g. not becoming a partner and/or a father) is constituted through social interaction and is a socially constituted process (Scott et al., 2016). In addition, absent and elusive connections are significant to individuals because of what they are imagined to be; as such the conceptual tool of misconnect foregrounds imaginary as of central importance within the sociological study of personal life, and reinforces the value of imaginary as one of Smart’s (2007) conceptual tools for this field of study.

There are several limitations of the present study. The sample was small and comprised of predominantly middle-class, heterosexual men. As such, it represents a narrow, particular subset of the population, and this will inevitably have shaped the data that emerged. Consequently the conceptualisation of misconnect is a tentative one, requiring further empirical testing both within and beyond studies of reproduction, and with different populations, in order to expand its conceptual boundaries and to further consider how it is socially stratified. In addition, that the interviewer was female will likely have affected the interview dynamic and shaped the data (Pini and Pease, 2013).

Conclusion

This article has presented novel empirical data regarding men, imaginaries of fatherhood and the timing of this, and meanings and practices associated with intimate relationships; providing new insights into how intimate relationships configure within trends of later parenthood from the perspective of men, and paying attention to how men’s narratives are structurally shaped by gender and heterosexuality. It has introduced the concept of misconnect to better attend to disjunction in connection and suggests that paying sociological attention to misconnect can enhance both understandings of particular phenomena – in this case trends of later parenthood – and the sociology of personal life more broadly, advancing this body of scholarship. As the sociological gaze continues to expand to understand connectedness, ‘misconnect’ offers exciting potential for new explorations of the nature, presence (and absence), and quality of connections; the subjective meanings connections hold for individuals and the feelings they engender; and how misconnect is structurally shaped.