Title. Well these days I’ve been feeling lonely, and I feel somewhere male friendships I have aren’t that strong. I’ll be honest, I don’t have many female friends either, but I’ve been particularly felt disappointed by my male peers, especially when it comes to talking emotionally. What are your experiences?
This is one of the things that I’m pretty satisfied with and grateful for in my life. No romance, currently no job, not much I’m excited about on the horizon, but I’m very happy with the friendships I’ve cultivated with other dudes. I just wish we all lived closer together. A handful of us do a semi-regular video chat where we check in and see how everyone’s doing. We hold space for emotional vulnerability and support each other however we can. We talk about issues with life, family, or sometimes just shoot the shit and have a regular chat about whatever we’ve been up to.
When people talk about holding your male friends accountable for saying sexist things or reinforcing typical toxic bullshit, I feel very fortunate that I just don’t have friends like that. I like to think I’d call it out if it happened, but I just never have to hear that kind of shit from my friends and I don’t think I’d cultivate a friendship with someone who’s comfortable saying that kind of stuff.
We’re all in our 30’s at this point and some are starting families. I don’t get to see everyone as much as I’d like, but any time I get to spend around them always feels so restorative. I’ve never been shy about expressing my true feelings and I tell each and every one of them that I love them. I used to really enjoy making my more guarded friends squirm with an “I love you,” but it doesn’t really work anymore because now everyone is just as comfortable saying it as I am.
I wish every dude could have guy friends like this. There’s a lot of cultural baggage that makes it harder than it should be. I appreciate the question because I often struggle with feeling gratitude for the things in my life that I’m most thankful for. I spend too much time in a negative headspace, but I’ve got a good bench of bros I can lean on and I need to appreciate that.
Well, very few of them remained successful. There is only like one person right now or maybe two with whom I am open enough to reveal my identity’s crucial parts and not being judged. Most of them broke my heart, maybe, cuz I have trusted them from very beginning or maybe I am unlucky person who broke the hearts of those who wanna come closer to me and also got broken heart by those whom I chased.
I only have one friendship left, which is fine with me as more would honestly be too many for me. We’ve been friends since we were boys. Long story short, we both got serious, life-threatening/disabling diseases at the same time, and because of his gentle persistence over years, he finally got me to open up to him about it and be okay with him opening up to me.
Now we have this nice thing where we actually emotionally support each other through tough times. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known and he’s stuck by me for decades even when I didn’t bring anything to the friendship.
I have never understood the “I can’t talk to my male friends” meme. As long as the vibe is right you can say anything. And nz men have a reputation for being emotional brick walls. (In a relationship I can be an emotional brick wall so I get it)
But when I catch up with a friend I havent seen in a while and we ask “how have you been” its a genuine question and sometimes the response is “not good man, …” Its easier to share mental state concerns with friends than partners.
I don’t project insecurities as lack of friendships
My closest, only and true friend is a friend of 25 years.
We live in different countries today, don’t speak everyday, but any opportunity we have to talk it seems like nothing has changed and we’re still the same two goof balls we were back then.
Just added with a strong dad vibe. And jokes.
I had a close friend too, but it feels like we’re drifting apart . Both Ideologically and socially. And again, he’s not the guy I feel comfortable being emotionally vulnerable to. I don’t think there’s any friend who I’m genuinely comfortable being emotionally vulnerable to. And I don’t know where to find such friends anymore. I’ve become a working man(started interning, still a fresher), I feel like my days of finding close friends are over.
To maintain a friendship at least one has to occasionally reach out. Ideally both.
Be the one if you must.
No, I don’t have a handful of friends but “drifting apart” is easy.
You have a job now, so does he, maybe you have a partner and so does he, maybe one of you will have a kid soon, or both, you have bills to pay and other hobbies, you like to go out, and guess what? So does he.
It’s easy to keep delaying because you don’t have time. Make time. It does not have to be a lot of time. He’s busy, just like you, but if he wants to maintain the friendship, he’ll answer the call when he can make time too.But honestly, its kinda complicated. Like I want to give an anecdotal evidence. Just a few days ago, we were talking, and there was another friend of mine talking to a girl, and he was obviously trying on her. Then we talked for sometime, and he asked her, what do you do for living.
She said she’s in grade 8.
And honestly all of us were perplexed cause we thought she was an adult. Now what I felt was the right thing to do would have been terminate convo, or just have a casual conversation and never mention it again. Instead, the second the girl stepped away, both of them started discussing how she’s bluffing and stuff, and they were so loud and unsubtle about it, she was standing 10 feet away and could hear it.
I saw 3 options in front of me of what could have happened
- She’s actually a minor
- She’s lying cause she wasn’t interested in the other friend
- Some stupid games
Neither of the 3 cases invite a conversation in my opinion. And come on have some manners, she’s standing 10 feet away from you, that’s such an awkward spot to put someone under if it was one of the first two things. I even told him this, he shrugged it away, saying she was just playing games.
And honestly it’s kinda become a pattern. I’ve become more opinionated on several topics, those are the convos I just cannot have with most people around me.
I have few friends already because I am a socially awkward guy, and I have no Idea what to do when I’m faced with situations like these.
Well, my comment was to encourage you to maintain friendships you want to maintain. If you don’t want to maintain the ones you currently have, for whatever reason, you are in the right to not do it.
I don’t have suggestions on how to make new friends unfortunately. I’ve often seen suggested to join new hobbies or volunteer for that. Maybe try that 🙂
You guys have friends?
Step 1: get male friends
Step 2: come back to this thread to comment on the quality of the friendship
Quick question on point number one: Why would I want friends?
“Gotta catch 'em all!”
Not really, but it’s okay because I have my wife who is my best friend period.
I’m of 2 minds about this.
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I’m jealous you have a best friend in your wife. I miss that.
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shouldn’t there be more than that? I feel like it’s a lot to put on just one person and someone who already has other ties to you.
When you’re dating, sure. But when you get married you sort of become one unit. It is a lot to put in someone but that’s sort of what marriage is about.
She puts that on me as well. That’s part of being married.
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I had a large group of friends (50+ people), then I was laid off due to AI and other stuff, and I changed from one specific hobby to another. I lost them all in a few months.
I’m old enough to understand that it is my karma to go from group to another. I made new “friends” with sports and music, but I now accept that I must now rely on myself only, and friends are fleeting.
My father is an asshole, friends are temporary, I am now trying to be my best friend because everything else is unreliable.
I believe that in my previous life I must’ve done something good that brought me luck in this one.
I have a group of a dozen male friends whom I would trust with my life and the lives of my family. I think the same holds for each and every one of them.
We all come from the same small town. The group grew since kindergarten a few of us went to, adding friends through school, highschool, university. We have different careers and each one brings a unique perspective on things.
We try to get together as often as possible, but with work and kids and families it’s difficult to always make it. So we implemented the “minimum viable product” approach where any two of us will arrange to meet up, then notify everyone else about what/when/where we are planning, and have anyone else join if they can, too. So even if just the original two meet up, they get to see a good friend. And if more show up, so much the better.
I feel truly blessed in this regard. I think there’s a huge number of benefits we all reap from such a group: social safety net, psychological support, sanity checks on ideas and life decisions, reliable people you can vent to, always having someone to have a beer with, interventions when needed.
I know few people have this, and if I could magically wish things into being, it would be that everyone in the world gets a friend group like this to rely on. I feel it would make things… significantly better.
Take care of each other out there.
No
But I’m doing fine work and giving it my best.
Let me pat myself on the back instead of getting depressed about it for a change.
It’s unfortunate, but friendships seem to be worn down by time. I’ve always been the person who will reach out if I feel like the other person also does but as soon as it feels one sided I lose motivation. When I was younger and lived closer to several people I considered friends, it felt nice. But as the years roll on, I find myself growing apart from friends in several ways. One of those ways is that despite seeming like not “kid people” several friends now have multiple kids and that’s their life now. Which isn’t really my thing. Other friends, I just feel I have less in common with than before, or they’ve gone off one deep end or another. Politics is a non zero factor. Conspiracy theories are another thing, unfortunately.
Nope. Not at all. I used to. I had a decent group, for the first time in my adult life. Then we moved 1000 miles a few years ago. I haven’t been able to find it. Got a few guys who might pan out but it’s slow going. Several guys have let things wither. Idk why. No one invites me first, it’s always me, though they do mostly say yes. It’s frustrating.
Same. Moving is social suicide. Ugh.
Not totally satisfied, to be honest.
Don’t get me wrong, they are good friends and nice people in general, and we get along well when we get together, but we just don’t hang out often enough for the relationship to feel very strong or satisfying. I see my friends a couple times a year at most.
I can’t say I don’t miss the old days of hanging out together, playing games and music almost every weekend! And yeah, I feel that we all live very separate lives these days, so I don’t exactly know them as well as I used to, and vice versa.
My best friend (friends for about 40 years now) and I still talk a few times a month. His schedule has always been busy since he’s a workaholic, but we always find time for each other.
We’ve talked most of our lives about emotional stuff, but he came out about 15 years, so I don’t know how much that plays into him being more emotionally available. I’m straight but feel fine talking about personal stuff with people. I just know that stuff is important to talk about.
My other closest guy friend is more a typical dude. We’ve had some personal chats. He’s kinda had like a prolonged 5 year split with his wife, so there’s been a lot he’s needed to get off his chest.
He doesn’t like to get too open, but now that he’s kinda living on his own (partial custody of kids) I’ve been trying to be really supportive of him because I know he’s going through a lot and doesn’t really have anyone else to talk to as most of his lifelong friends are 3 hours away. He kinda thanked me the other day for always being so positive and upbeat around him, so it seems to be working even if he can’t always acknowledge it.
My brother is probably my next closest guy friend. We’re very opposite in lifestyle, but humor-wise we are the same and we grew up the same crappy ways, so we get along well. He’s much more social than I am, so he’s busy a lot, but we still BS a few times a month and have dinner sometimes.
It’s important to have bro friends. I have a good amount of female friends as well, but some things are just more bro-ish. The girls can give equally valid, if not better advice sometimes, but it’s nice to have a guy to get another guy’s opinion on things too.
I wouldn’t just get all sobby on someone out of nowhere, but if you want to get more personal, just lean into it a bit and feel out how receptive people are. Sometimes, guy or girl, people are cautious about getting into someone’s personal life, either they’re insecure talking about personal things, or they don’t wanna get blamed if they give advice that doesn’t work out, etc, but you just gotta go for it in a reasonable manner if you want to be more open.
