> Another thing that caught my attention is that my female friends all have active social lives, whereas that is very rare among the men I know (again, past a certain age).
Yes, that is a pretty typical thing. Starting around late 20s, pretty much most guys are either part of a steady relationship, usually with kids or permanently without a relationship. The men with families have their own family events and get included in the wife's social and family circle. The guys who do not get paired up are not welcome at those events and wives forbid the partnered up guys to hang out with their single male friends on the other days. To be fair, there is nowadays anyway so much online entertainment, that it probably will be fine in the end.
>and wives forbid the partnered up guys to hang out with their single male friends on the other days
Sounds pretty mean!
This is so wildly out of step with my own experience that I wonder what world you are living in. I know plenty of men and women in their 30s going into and out of relationships, I have both single and partnered male friends, and I've never heard of a wife discouraging time with single male friends (single female friends, maybe!).
If you identify as a "permanently" single male who believes that the world is oriented against you in this way, I hope you are able to challenge this belief and move towards a fuller life. Alternatively, if your beliefs accurately reflect the place you are living, then maybe you should live somewhere else.