Random musings: One Man’s Impossible Quest — To Make Friends in Adulthood

Today's blog post is based on a podcast from The Art of Manliness:

Several years ago, there was a tweet that went viral which said that of Jesus’ many miracles, perhaps his greatest, was having 12 close friends in his 30s.

As people say, it’s funny, because it’s true.

When my guest today came face-to-face with the anemic state of his own friendships, he set out to try to do the miraculous himself, and make friends in middle-age. His name is Billy Baker and he’s a journalist and the author of We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends. Billy and I begin our conversation with the problem of male loneliness in the modern age, and how it befell him in his own life. We then discuss how men and women do friendships differently, the way men do theirs shoulder to shoulder, what this means for what male friendships need to be built around, and why they require what he calls “velvet hooks.” Billy shares how he started his project, which experimented with different ways to recover and create connections, by rekindling his old friendships, but why that ultimately didn’t scratch the friendship itch for him. Billy then describes what did: a kind of casual fraternity for middle-aged men he started, and how it was inspired by something called the “men’s shed” movement in Australia and its philosophy that men need “somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to talk to.” We end our conversation with Billy’s takeaways for making friends in adulthood, including the need for embracing intentionality and social risk.

Here are the highlights from the program:

Why are men so susceptible to loneliness?
What are the health consequences of loneliness?
Face to face versus shoulder to shoulder
What are “velvet hooks”?
Why re-kindling past friendships didn’t fully scratch the friendship itch
Why the Men’s Shed Movement inspired Billy to make some actual friends
How COVID managed to strengthen friendships
The pressure of trying to be friends with both halves of a couple
What’s the actionable takeaway here for guys?

I think that's why bars are so popular with men...sitting shoulder to shoulder while participating in an activity (drinking), where laughing and joking comes fairly easily.

The last time I really made new friends that I hung out with was when I first started working at AT&T. There were several of us in the same age bracket amongst many people who were older, so we hung out quite a bit (a lot of it at bars!).

That's also part of the reason I got started with SendOutCards...I wanted to build some new friendships. And I have in many ways, but there hasn't been the weekly type of just hanging out. That's why I do my Saturday morning trainings...we can hang out, shoulder to shoulder, and engage in the activity of learning how to grow our businesses. It's also part of the reason I joined Gold Star...except we've been meeting virtually for the last 14 months.

In the podcast, they talk about John Mulaney hosting Saturday Night Live. I found the video they were talking about...interestingly it was that weekend that we were talking about it being a Leap Year, Daylight Savings Time was starting and it was a full moon...remember that weekend? That's the power of our thoughts being manifested! (Plus the standing brooms didn't help!).