Seven guys showed up to a restaurant in Phoenix. That’s how it started.
Quincy Winston is 38, former military, works in IT. He created a group called Professional Black Men’s Friends. First meetup was at Pappadeaux’s in March 2022. Now it has about 130 members. I saw his story on a PBS NewsHour segment from January 2024 and it stopped me cold.
Because the numbers on men’s friendships aren’t just bad. They’re catastrophic. But Quincy’s group and others like it are proof that real solutions exist. Since I wrote The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, men keep telling me they don’t know how to connect anymore. This segment showed them how.
The Statistics
These numbers are from the PBS segment and they’re stunning:
- 20% of single men report having no close friends
- Over 50% of all men feel unsatisfied with the size of their friend group
- 15% of men under 30 lack close friends (compared to just 3% in 1990)
- 21% of men receive weekly emotional support from friends vs. 41% of women
- Men account for approximately 80% of all U.S. suicides despite comprising less than 50% of the population
That last stat is the one that haunts me.
This isn’t just about loneliness. It’s a public health crisis. The U.S. Surgeon General even issued an advisory about it. And the numbers keep getting worse. Between 2014 and 2023, the amount of time Americans spend with friends dropped by 37%. Men are on the sharper end of that decline.
Two Groups Doing It Right
The PBS segment profiled two community solutions that caught my attention. Real groups with real results.
Professional Black Men’s Friends Group (Phoenix, AZ)
Quincy Winston started this in March 2022. He’s 38, former military, works in IT.
Seven guys showed up to the first meetup at Pappadeaux’s restaurant. That’s it. Just seven.
Now? About 130 members.
They meet weekly. Rooftop bars. Backyard barbecues. Morning hikes. Nothing fancy. Just consistent.
And here’s the thing that matters. It’s intentional. Winston didn’t wait for friendships to “just happen.” He built the structure. He picked the time. He picked the place. He sent the invites. That’s what it takes.
I think about this a lot. Everybody wants someone who brings people together. The role of connector is available in most friend groups. Nobody is filling it. Quincy filled it. And 130 guys showed up because they were waiting for someone to do exactly that.
Men’s Sheds (National Nonprofit)
This one started in Australia in the 1990s. Now there are 27 U.S. locations.
It targets older and retired men. Guys who lost their work buddies and don’t know how to fill that gap.
The model is simple: project-based work combined with peer support. Build stuff. Fix stuff. Talk while you work.
Phil Johnson, 74, founded the Minneapolis chapter. He saw a need and filled it.
These aren’t therapy groups. They’re practical. Men show up to do something tangible. The friendship is the byproduct. And that’s exactly how men build real friendships. Side-by-side. Through shared activities. Not sitting in a circle talking about feelings (though that can help too).
Why Structure Matters
Here’s what both groups have in common: structure.
A regular time. A specific place. An activity. That’s the formula. And it works because it removes the hardest part of adult friendship: the logistics.
“Hey, we should hang out sometime” is a dead-end sentence. Everyone says it. Nobody follows through. But “we meet every Tuesday at 6pm at Pappadeaux’s” is something you can actually do.
I compared friendships to exercise in another post. This is the same idea. You don’t get fit by saying “I should work out more.” You get fit by going to the gym at the same time every day. Friendship works the same way.
I saw this play out in my own life. When I lived in NYC, I used to walk up to strangers and say “Hey, what’s up, are you guys friendly?” It sounds crazy. But it worked because I kept doing it. I didn’t do it once. I did it every week at different events. The structure was: show up, say hello, follow up. That’s it.
Quincy Winston figured out the same thing. He just formalized it with a name, a weekly time, and a text chain. That’s all it takes to go from “I have no close friends” to “I have 130 guys I can call.”
What You Can Do
Richard Reeves wrote a book called “Of Boys and Men.” He said something that stuck with me:
“You can’t neglect a friendship and expect it to just grow. You have to work at it.”
Here’s my take on that:
- Start a group. You don’t need 130 people. Start with 7. Pick a place. Pick a time. Send the text.
- Make it weekly. Monthly doesn’t work. People forget. Weekly builds momentum.
- Give it structure. Hikes work. Projects work. Dinner works. “Let’s hang sometime” doesn’t work.
- Target men specifically. Women are better at this. Men need explicit permission and structure.
- Keep showing up. The first few meetups will be awkward. Push through it.
If you’re a man reading this and you don’t have close friends, you’re not broken. The system is broken. But you can fix it for yourself and others.
More on the Friendship Recession
This is part of a bigger trend I’ve been covering. Check out my friendship recession overview for context on why this is happening across all demographics.
And if you want to read more specifically about men’s friendship struggles, the New York Times piece on why men’s friendships are so hard digs deeper into the cultural factors. I also wrote about why men lose their friends and 11 things I learned about why men need more friends.
The PBS segment is worth watching. Real stories. Real data. Real hope.
Source: PBS NewsHour (January 2024), hosted by Geoff Bennett