Member-only story
Let’s do some backstory to start, with some reading materials to boot. Start with me at this present moment. I’m sitting in a coffee shop typing. Well, on what appears to be December 10, 2013, I was also sitting in a coffee shop — that one was in Minneapolis — writing about the decline of male friendships. That was almost six years ago and I doubt much has changed.
As for reading materials: Here’s a little ditty on “male loneliness killing millions,” here’s one calling the whole deal “an epidemic,” and maybe the №1 thing in this canon, a Boston Globe article about how loneliness is a bigger threat to dudes than obesity. You also might enjoy “Why do we murder the beautiful friendships of boys?”
Why is this a thing now? What’s happening?
It has probably always been a thing, in reality, but here would be my take:
Men tend to make friendships side-by-side, i.e. at bars, at sporting events, at conference tables, etc. As you get older and have more responsibilities/children, and/or your friends have more responsibilities and children, and/or people move for work, and/or you aren’t as athletic as you once were, well, the ways and opportunities for guys to make friends are less and less. Plus, in a lot of situations a wife with kids wants to work less, or not work at all, which increases…
