A few days ago I asked a simple question on LinkedIn.
When’s the last time you called one of your male friends just to talk?
I didn’t expect much to be honest. I figured I’d get maybe a handful of responses from guys who said, “Yeah I should do that more” and then just don’t do it.
Instead 40+ guys showed up in the comments and gave me some great food for thought.
Some guys said that they have a circle of close male friends that they can call at any time. And almost all of them followed that up with something like “I know I’m lucky” or “I know that’s rare.” Almost like they were feeling guilty about it or something.
That tells me that guys who have real friendships know that they’re the exception and not the rule.
Then there was the guy who said something that probably doesn’t seem very significant until you think about what it means. He said when he’s gonna call a friend, he texts first. Same my friend. Same. Not to make plans but more so just to warn him so he doesn’t see a call and assume something bad happened.
And that tells me that a phone call from a guy friend nowadays probably means something bad happened.
One guy said he thought about the question for a solid ten seconds and came up with two names. Another one said that he’s never even had that person at all.
One that hit me hard was the guy who said his list got shorter when his dad died because his dad was on the list. It hit me hard because it made me realize that my list had become one shorter at some point as well for the same reason.
Then someone else brought up third spaces. The places where guys used to just be able to hang around with each other without it necessarily being a thing. The garage. The field. The bar where everybody knew your name.
Those spaces are mostly gone now and we haven’t really replaced them with anything. We just kind of stopped showing up for each other and then called it being busy.
Another guy pushed back a little in the comments and what he said wasn’t wrong at all. Guys connect shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. Doing something together, not sitting across a table talking about feelings.
He’s right but what I said to him was that we’re not just losing the face to face. We’re losing the shoulder to shoulder too. And when you lose both, you end up where a lot of guys are right now – working next to a person who doesn’t talk back, going home to your family, and calling that a social life.
That’s my life most days, by the way. I’m a home care nurse. One patient. Non-verbal. I see him three days a week and then I go home. My wife is my person and I’m grateful for that but I know it’s not enough and so does she.
And of course someone asked me in the comments what my strategy was for making more friends and I had to admit the truth.
I don’t have one. My strategy is basically trusting that I’ll get around to it someday.
I’m 50 something years old and my friendship strategy is someday.
I had a cousin I grew up with that I could call about anything for years. That faded. I had a close male friend a few years back who was that person for me. That faded too.
I have ready-made excuses and reasons as to why both of them ended but the reality is I just haven’t made it a priority in my life.
And as if to drive that point home one commenter said that he has male friends that he could call. A handful of them. But does he call them? Nah.
He has the people and he still doesn’t make the call. Because something in us has decided that just calling to talk is a little too much. A little too needy. A little outside the norm for guys.
So we wait for a reason. And the reason never comes. And the years go by.
I don’t have a clean answer to any of this. I’m in it the same as most of you. But I think the first step is just being honest that it’s real and it’s costing us something we can’t fully measure.
The research says loneliness shortens your life. I believe that. But I also think there’s something that happens before the health consequences. Something a little more subtle.
You just start feeling less and less like yourself and you can’t figure out why.
This is probably why.