Why You Need Male Friends
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All right, team, welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Connor Beaton here. Today, we're going to be talking about male loneliness, the rise of it, and why you probably need more male friends.

and how to actually get that done. How do you actually accomplish that? So in a recent piece of research, I think about a year and a half ago, researchers found that men between the ages of 18 to 30 are spending on average 6.6 hours alone per day.

Now, this is up about an hour and a half more from four years before and is much higher than it was in decades prior. And so on average men, especially younger men, but also older men when you look at the data, are spending more and more time by themselves.

Now, of course, many of you are sitting there thinking, well, I like spending time by myself. I like solitude. I also like being self-sufficient. You know, I enjoy my life the way that it is. And sometimes other people can be a pain in the ass and they can be irritating. And I get all that. But the reality is, is that we need friendships. We need socialization for the optimal mental and emotional health in order for us to share life with.

And the truth is that many men are lonelier than ever before. And you can see this in the data, not just in the amount of time that they're spending together. But when you look at the data around friendships, you'll see that roughly 15 to 20% of men cannot identify a close friend or a best friend.

You might not even feel like you have anybody in your life that you can talk to when things are going south or to get some advice from or some guidance from. And that may have inadvertently been something that you did intentionally, or it might be something that you did unintentionally. Maybe you feel like you're hard to get along with, or you're combative, or you push people away, or you're the guy that just never follows up with friends and you're elusive and aloof.

And you linger in the background and just hope that some people reach out to you. So whatever the case may be, men are spending more and more time alone. And there was another piece of research by Dr. Robin Drucker who talked about how men on average need two hangout sessions two times a week.

to spend with other men in order for optimal mental health. Now, for some guys, they hear that and they think, how am I supposed to fit that into my schedule? You know, you're married, got kids, maybe you run your own business, maybe you're a professional, maybe you don't have any of that, but it just seems overwhelming at the thought of, well, I don't have any friends right now, and so how do I even go about that? We're gonna talk about that in just one second. We're gonna talk about how do you actually meet and make new friends.

The first thing that you have to do is get over the hurdle of having good quality men in your life. Because for many men, there's a couple blocks and obstacles. Number one, male friendships can sometimes be a little bit more combative. And men who are generally more combative

insular, more insecure, have self-worth issues, don't like conflict, don't like confrontation. They'll generally just avoid male friendships altogether. And so generally speaking, again, this is just a generality, but generally speaking, men that are more introverted oftentimes have much more challenges when it comes to making friends in real life. They might have a lot of friends online, but you might actually lack friends in real life.

The other thing that's challenging when it comes to men having friends is the practicality of it. You see, we as men are very, very good at compartmentalizing. So if you look at a friendship and maybe you're in a building phase of your life, you're trying to get into great shape or you're trying to

get your finances in order, you're working super hard, you're trying to build a company, or maybe you're trying to build a family. What can happen for most men is that we start to compartmentalize, is this on mission or not? Is this going to help my mission or not? And what can very quickly happen, the more you have on your plate as a man responsibility-wise, the less that you begin to prioritize

friendships in your life. And I see this all the time with men. They get a good career, they start a business, it starts to have some success. Maybe they get married or they get into a relationship they really enjoy. And their social circle slowly becomes more and more around the woman that they're dating or their social circle drops off because they're just so busy with their life, their mission, their work.

their relationship, their family, that they don't prioritize time for friends. And this is tragic because again, all the data, all the research shows that you and we as men, we actually need friend time in our life in order to feel mentally healthy and in order to really feel like you're getting the most out of life

and that you have somebody to share it with. The last thing is that men need reciprocal, contributive relationships. Now, what does that mean? In my opinion, what men require, what we need from male friendships is that it's reciprocal. So you're putting in the work to make that relationship happen, but so is that other guy, right? You're not the only one on the hook for

you know, planning a time to go hang out, you know, to go golfing or whatever it is that the other guy's actually contributing to the ongoing planning of hanging out. And there's a contribution that's being made. You and that other man are getting something out of it. It might just be time to go and hang out and shoot the shit and play, you know, poker or, uh,

go whiskey tasting or whatever it is that you and your friends do, right? Play some pickleball, go to jujitsu, go hiking, et cetera. It may just be that. It may also be that there is a contributive dynamic where you and him are

helping one another in some capacity. We as men like to do things together and we often underestimate the value of getting to do things together. I remember as a teenager, we didn't have online gaming yet. And so one of the big things that we would do is actually get together and play video games together, whatever it was, whether it was GoldenEye or Cruisin' USA. I mean, now I'm dating myself. This is terrible, but they're amazing games. They're amazing games.

But we would get together and we would support each other in getting better at the games.

And for a lot of men, what ends up happening is that their social circles with other men lose that functionality of we are doing something together. Whether I'm building something and you're supporting me and vice versa, or we are doing something that we're working towards like a Tough Mudder or a PR record at the gym. But we as men like to have things that we are working towards together. And that can be very supportive for the relationship. And

The other thing is shared interest. There has to be some shared interest. So for a lot of guys, they start to look at friendships as something that is categorically not relevant or important because of how busy they are in their life. Maybe this is you. But the reality is it's something that we have to start to prioritize. So how do you go about doing that? Because for a lot of men, the biggest challenge that I hear from guys is,

how do I even make new friends? You know, maybe you're in your late 20s, maybe you're in your 30s, maybe in your early 40s, maybe you're older than that. And you're like, I don't really know how to make, you know, guy friends anymore outside of the guys that I meet at work. There's a couple ways to go about it. Number one, recognize the talent.

Okay, recognize the talent. Just like if you were at a coffee shop or grocery store or a bar and you saw a beautiful woman and you're like, I definitely wanna go talk to that person, recognize the talent in a man. So if you're at the gym and guy's got great technique and form, go and talk to him. If you're out wherever and you see a dude that's just like dressed in a way that you really appreciate, go and recognize him, right? Be like, dude, I love those shoes. That's amazing. Where'd you get those?

strike up a conversation with somebody. So recognize the talent and recognize, I mean, a big one for me is I love photography. And so the easiest thing is when I'm walking around and I see that somebody's got, you know, they're a photography gearhead and they've got some gear on them, I'm chatting them up. I'm like, what camera do you have? Why did you choose that one? What do you love to shoot? And I'm just having a conversation. And it's insane how quickly you can build rapport with somebody by just a

approaching them and talking about shared common interests. People love to do that. We as guys love to do that. So look for those shared common interests and recognize the talent. Number two, if you're really struggling, because a lot of guys struggle with social anxiety, especially when it comes to making new male friends,

go to where men with similar interests are likely to be. Go to where men with similar interests are likely to be, right? If you like pool, go to a pool hall, right? If you like pickleball, go online. You know, I'm sure that there's lots of forums and groups that you can check out.

The other thing is go and find a proper men's group. Do not underestimate. There are so many organizations now. Shamelessly, I will recommend that you check out the Man Talks Alliance. We'll have a link for that in the description below. But we've got almost a thousand guys

in the Alliance from around the world. And these guys meet up, they go for coffee together, they hang out. We have in-person meetups. We're doing real life weekends where everybody can come and get together. That is a great place and a great way to meet men who have shared common interests and

who want to support you in moving your life forward. Now, the last piece that I just want to drive home, and this is the really big piece, is that for a lot of men, their relationships fall apart because of the two things that I just want to nail. Number one is lack of prioritization because it doesn't fit in with purpose. And number two is the erosion of

not clearing out the shit that starts to build up. So you have to find men that you know can contribute to your life and vice versa. You have to. And again, whatever that is, maybe it's just, you know, you guys get to laugh a whole bunch, you know, just have a blast together and that's it. It doesn't necessarily have to be that you're like building some business or something like that. It can just simply be that you have the same type of

you know, lewd humor and your group texts are phenomenal, right? Like I definitely have friends like that where it's like, please God, don't let those group texts out. Which,

Which at some point they probably will be. It's like the way the internet and AI is going. But number two is make sure that you be committed to leading the clearing of the crap that builds up in the relationship. The major reason why most male friendships fall apart is that there's some conflict that builds up or there's some animosity that builds up and both men can feel it

or maybe the group can feel it and it doesn't get addressed and it never gets dealt with and then the relationship falls apart. We as men, you as a man, need to allow for healthy conflict and healthy confrontation to be a part of your male friendships. It is essential. It's actually the training ground for you to learn how to do conflict in your relationship. Because if you can do conflict really well with the men in your life,

and the men that you are friends with and you can get through hard times and you can have disagreements and you can disagree about things and maintain friendship and you can be frustrated with that man and clear it out of the way and still maintain the friendship then it gives you the training ground for being able to be regulated and move through conflict in the rest of your life whether it's at work whether it's with your kids whether it's in your relationship with your partner

So those are the two main things that you need to prioritize. So find men who are willing to do those two things with you. Find men who are willing to go through that conflict and to go through that confrontation to clear out the deck sometimes when crap is built up between the two of you or between men in the group.

And then secondly, make sure that there's some shared common interests, values that create this contributive reciprocal relationship. And again, that can just be fun and humor and joy. It could be skydiving. It could be photography, like whatever it is. Leave your thoughts below. Why do you think more and more men are lonelier than ever? Why do you think that male friendships are collapsing? And what do you recommend? Leave your thoughts and comments below.

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