Friending | No Mercy / No Malice
This year, I wrote a book called Notes on Being a Man . My publisher is billing it as a “path forward for men and parents of boys.” (Sounds … pretentious.) It’s also my life story — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Working on the book, I observed a pattern: My friends were/are key to the trajectory of me. According to Pew, 61% of U.S. adults say having close friends is extremely or very important for a fulfilling life. The shares of people who say the same about marriage (23%), children (26%), and making a lot of money (25%) pale in comparison.
And yet, American males have fewer friends than they used to. Three decades ago, 55% of men reported having at least six close friends — plenty for a pickup basketball game. Today only 27% of men can say the same. Worse, 15% of men say they have zero friends — a 5x increase since 1990. Read that sentence again: Nearly 1 in 7 men today doesn’t have a single person he can call to shoot hoops, grab a drink, or catch a movie.
What happens to those men when the shit gets real? One horrifying data point: Men account for 3 out of every 4 deaths of despair in America. Too many men are stuck, isolated, unproductive, and prone to obesity. They’re addicted to drugs, gambling, porn, and whatever other substances provide a dopa hit with minimal friction. They’re susceptible to misogyny, conspiracy theories, and radicalization. They make inadequate mates, employees, and citizens. Can we turn this around? Yes. We have to. That’s why I wrote the book. Here’s an excerpt about making friends.
