I've mentioned before but at Christmas I volunteer at nursing homes/assisted living places. There are so many of the elderly that either have no family, or the family they do have don't even visit them. It's insane like 80% of them don't have anyone visit them even on Christmas.

After hearing about this a few years ago I started going with a group that goes to various places to spread some Christmas cheer to this age group. We went to their rooms many times because most of these people can't even get out of bed without half an hour of assistance to get dressed and then get up and then get wheeled out. This was never an issue.

All the sudden now when we go multiple places they want just the men which is a minority of the group to only visit in a public place. Women are fine to go into the rooms. This is not some huge explicitly stated thing. It's more of a guys wait here and they eventually bring people to us. While they just guide the women off to visit in rooms. This was about half the places we went to this year. None like this last year. Then on top of that at one place me and a few people in the younger than 40 age group were explicitly singled out with "It's a shame people your age have to come do this because they do better with people their age. It cheers them up more". How demoralizing and untrue. These people always love us! One of the guys last year who was 16 was so nice and social with them that they were crying and talked all year long or so I was told about how special it was for him to come along and want to listen to them.

But, now him and I are just seen as a lesser option because there aren't enough old Women to do this so they have to rely on young guys sometimes too. In addition to this because of how long it takes the aides to get these people ready to come out to meet us our two hours was spent half waiting to meet them. Just frustrating.