How to do male friendships
Breakfast. Go have breakfast.
A new entry in the “Loneliness Epidemic” genre: This NYT Magazine article about how hard it is for men to make friends.
What I didn’t know is that American men are getting significantly worse at friendship. A study in 2024 by the Survey Center on American Life found that only 26 percent of men reported having six or more close friends. Polling a similar question in 1990, Gallup had put this figure at 55 percent. The same Survey Center study found that 17 percent of men have zero close friends, more than a fivefold increase since 1990.
It’s a problem:
Most men I know say they’d like to hang out more but don’t have time. They have little kids or demanding jobs or both, and if they have a second to breathe, they’re going to spend it with their partners. One friend says, only somewhat jokingly: “I have a family now. Why would I want to hang out with friends? What would I get out of it? What are we even going to talk about? It just feels kind of contrived.” Another friend recently transitioned out of a high-stress career. With more free time, he has been trying to see friends more, but, he says: “There’s a stigma around asking another man to hang out. It feels higher stakes for me than it does for my wife.”
Dude, I have one magic word that’s going to solve all your problems.
Breakfast.
Let me try that again:
BREAKFAST.
Just ask your bud to have breakfast. It’s not hard! If he’s worthy of being your bud he will be cool with it and also jump at an excuse to go drink coffee and eat bacon for an hour or so. You will be surprised how deep the conversations can go. Will you talk about sports? Yes. But you’d be surprised how deep you can go over breakfast, and the fact that everybody has someplace to go puts a time limit on the proceedings, which — if you need this — keeps the stakes low.
Who doesn’t like breakfast?
Two more tips:
* You don’t have to only have male friends, guys. I honestly have more female friends than male friends — people I hang out with, talk with, that kind of thing — because I’ve found a lot of male-on-male conversations can be shallow or pissing-match affairs that I’m not well-suited to. Find somebody whose interests/communication style matches yours — regardless of gender — and the other problems fall away.
* More broadly, you can lower the stakes if you spread out the risk: Make your friendships in community. My dad gets coffee with other men from his church congregation. My coffee shop and movie watching communities provide a lot of my friendships. It helps that they’re both natural hangout spots.
We’re not good as a society at offering those communal opportunities anymore, admittedly. But a little intentionality helps. Go have breakfast.
Great advice, Joel.
Another thought (not mutually exclusive) — if you play cards, start or join a poker game. I was invited to one in 1980, and though obviously some of the participants have changed, the game continues! We played weekly at first. The stakes were low — nickel, dime, quarter — and the point of the game was to make sure everyone came back next week.
One of the players was a city planner and had council meetings Wednesday nights, so we stayed with his kids until he or his wife got home and he could join the game. Creative babysitting! I spent 20 years as a journalism vagabond, but the game kept going, if less frequently. Every time I returned to visit family, we would have a game. I have since moved away again, so the guys play two or three times a year, and meet for a beer at least once a month or do other things together (two of them were/are serious canoeists/campers, and have taken others with them).
The connections we made are priceless. And the entry fee is cheap!
When I left university administration for the coaching and consulting world, I wanted to keep in touch with the colleagues with whom had worked over the years. I am not a breakfast guy, but lunch -- now there is something for guys! So many bars are great places for lunch; it's a great environment for guys: Lots of TVs, tasty beverages, and food frowned upon by the American Heart Association.
What I have found out is that if it is going to happen, I have to be the one to initiate it. There are about 10 people on my Lunch List, so every couple of months, I text them to set something up. Hell, just about everybody eats lunch; as an added incentive, I offer to buy. I really like connecting with the old gang, a group with whom I shared so much for so long. It would be nice if they were in touch with me, but my life is more flexible these days so I take on that role. Besides, if I didn't, I wouldn't have the pleasure of their company.
I also have some old friends from other jobs and even a few old college roommates that I see regularly but less often. I make the long drive to Milwaukee for Brewers games to stay in touch with them. I've been doing a podcast for 20 years with one of my old pals from a previous job, so while we don't see each other in person much, during the football season we talk regularly when we do our show.
One of my concerns in leaving full-time work was becoming isolated. That hasn't been a problem these first three years but I expect it might become more problematic as the years go by.