Every few months I read another article about men and loneliness. This one from Salon had me stopping to highlight almost every paragraph.
So I did what I do. I pulled out the best parts. Here are 11 things I learned.
1. Men’s Close Friendships Have Collapsed
In 1990, 55% of men said they had six or more close friends. Today that number is 27%. And 15% of men say they have zero close friends. That’s a five-fold increase.
I keep coming back to this stat. A five-fold increase in men with zero friends in just 30 years. Something broke. And we’re still trying to figure out what.
2. Boys Start Out Great at Friendship
NYU professor Niobe Way studied boys’ friendships for years. She found that young boys have really close, intimate friendships. They share everything.
Then around age 13, something shifts. Kevin Roy, a professor at the University of Maryland, says we tell young men that kind of closeness “is not cool.”
So boys lose the skill. And they never get it back. That’s four decades of research saying the same thing. Boys want close friends. Society trains it out of them.
3. Loneliness Can Kill You
Lacking social connection increases your risk of premature death by over 60%. That’s not a metaphor. It’s a medical finding.
The U.S. Surgeon General compared the health risk of loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And roughly half of U.S. adults report measurable loneliness. This is one of the biggest public health problems nobody is talking about.
4. Men’s Anger Is Often Loneliness in Disguise
Christine Yu Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, says anger in men is “vastly misunderstood.” It’s often how men express distress. The anger you see might be loneliness underneath.
I think about this a lot. When a guy at one of my events seems standoffish or irritated, I try to remember that it might not be about the event. It might be about everything else.
5. Male Suicide Is Four Times Higher Than Female
This is the stat that stops me every time. And it connects directly to isolation. Men who don’t have friends to talk to don’t talk to anyone. The loneliness epidemic has real consequences.
6. “Shoulder to Shoulder” Is How Men Connect
Women tend to connect face-to-face. Men connect shoulder-to-shoulder. Doing things together. Playing a sport. Working on a project. Watching a game.
The conversation happens on the side. And that’s OK. That’s how it works for a lot of guys. I wrote a whole post about side-by-side friendship because I think it’s the key insight for men who want more friends. You don’t need to have a deep talk. You need to do something together regularly.
7. Sports Fans Have More Friends
Ben Valenta, co-author of “Fans Have More Friends,” found that engaged sports fans report higher happiness, more life satisfaction, and less loneliness. Rooting for a team gives you a tribe. It gives you a reason to gather.
This makes total sense to me. Sports give you a shared identity, a regular schedule, and a reason to be in the same room with people. That’s everything friendship needs.
8. Small Gestures Work
A funny text. A dog park meetup. Watching a game together. You don’t need a deep emotional conversation to build a friendship. Start small. The depth comes later.
I talked about this in my post about treating friendships like exercise. Small reps done consistently. That’s the formula.
9. Vulnerability Is Contagious
If you open up, other guys feel safer opening up too. Someone has to go first. Be that person. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. Just honest.
10. Activity-Based Groups Are the Easiest On-Ramp
Running clubs. Trivia teams. Bible study. Pickup basketball. Making friends as an adult is way easier when you have a shared activity. The friendship grows around the thing you do together.
And the research on “third spaces” backs this up. The friendship divide article I wrote talks about how access to these spaces matters. Coffee shops, gyms, community centers. Places where people bump into each other repeatedly.
11. This Problem Started Long Before COVID
The pandemic made it worse. But the friendship recession for men has been building for 30 years. The survey data goes back to 1990. Every year the numbers get a little worse.
That’s why I keep writing about it on this site. And why I wrote The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. Hosting a simple gathering is one of the easiest ways to start rebuilding your social circle. You don’t need to be an extrovert. You just need to bring a few people together.
The Big Takeaway
Men need friends. The research is clear about that. But nobody teaches men how to make and keep them.
So we have to figure it out ourselves. Start with one small step. Join a group. Text an old friend. Show up somewhere regularly.
If I had to pick the three most important things from this list, it would be: shoulder-to-shoulder activities (point 6), small gestures (point 8), and vulnerability being contagious (point 9). Those three together give you a complete playbook. Find an activity. Show up. And be willing to be a little real when the moment comes.
It counts. All of it counts.
(Related: Why Men Lose Their Friends and How to Make New Ones and How to Survive the Friendship Recession)
Source: Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon (June 2023)