When do men no longer make friends?

Agreed. I'm 46 and have no desire to find new close friendships. I'm on facebook so I can catch up with my college friends without having to visit them. I have people I work with that I get along with and have good conversations, but at quitting time we go our separate ways. I go home to my family. My world is built around them. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Men lose their friends once they get married and must befriend the friends of their wife.

Idontreallyknow wrote:

Men lose their friends once they get married and must befriend the friends of their wife.

This is true.

A married friend is half a friend. I am now half a friend to my friends before I got married. Half a friend is actually a pretty useless thing. Better than nothing though.

My dad kept making friends well into middle age. Mostly the guys he would play golf or tennis with. He's in his mid-sixties now though and doesn't really care too much at this point.

obviously our circles become smaller and tighter as we settle into families and what-not, but a major reason for it is simply the natural decline in testosterone. Let's be honest, we don't do a lot of the things we used to do - don't have the will or energy. It is what it is :/

Idontreallyknow wrote:

Men lose their friends once they get married and must befriend the friends of their wife.

Yep.

I don't know. I am 37 and I have made more friends in the last 5-10 years than at any time prior (maybe not counting High School).

I feel like I kind of grew up with kids who automatically became my friends as we got older, so it was easy. When I went to High School, I made new friends and that was probably the high point of creating new relationships. In college I mainly hung out with teammates, but still got close with a few new people every year. Then I started working and kind of had work friends but they weren't real friends.

The last few years have been kind of an uptick on the friend side. My wife and I are more social now that our kids are a little older, so we are meeting more people. I know folks through volunteer work that I do, we are members of a country club so I have made some pretty close friends through those channels. Plus, existing friends will introduce me to people, and every once in a while one of those relationships will take off.

I did go through a real dry patch from like 23 - 30 though. Babies, newly married, new city, new job. Not much of an interest in meeting new people.

I think it goes in cycles.

The downfall of male social clubs (Moose, Elks, Shriners, etc) and the lack of social recreation from employers (golf leagues, and softball teams) have significantly isolated men from each other. And has forced men to totally affiliate with professional sports teams in order to maintain the appearance socialization.

Or, when they begin spending any of their free time here.

Read Putnam's "Bowling Alone." The TV started the evolution on this and the Internet has simply accelerated it.

Blahbaba wrote:

The downfall of male social clubs (Moose, Elks, Shriners, etc) and the lack of social recreation from employers (golf leagues, and softball teams) have significantly isolated men from each other. And has forced men to totally affiliate with professional sports teams in order to maintain the appearance socialization.

Good point.

My new england fave were Masons and Oddfellows, even VFW a d AMVets,....they are dying.

Yeah, I have read and heard all these 'bowling alone' and decline of social clubs, and TV and Internet etc, etc, theories. But here is what I know: Somehow, Nike and Salazar and Mo Farah and Seb Coe and whichever politician you happen to hate are behind this. And women. And millennials. They got together in a hotel in Andorra and worked out this plan to steal our testosterone and do something with it -- give it to Ethiopian women I think. Or Muslims. Or both. I haven't worked out all the details but my sources confirm enough of the key players, times and places. Wait and see. It's all connected.

Blahbaba wrote:

The downfall of male social clubs (Moose, Elks, Shriners, etc) and the lack of social recreation from employers (golf leagues, and softball teams) have significantly isolated men from each other. And has forced men to totally affiliate with professional sports teams in order to maintain the appearance socialization.

That's a real nice post.

Howard Cunningham was grand poobah of the Leopard Lodge. Fred Flintstone was part of the Water Buffaloes.

I used to work for companies that often held social events.

Now you see guys wearing a bunch of sports gear, watching TV and saying "we" won or "we" lost.

Do (or did) most of these clubs revolve around drinking?

I should probably volunteer somewhere. At one point I took a couple of Master Gardener classes, but it was probably 90% women.

My primary care physician told me that the primary problem men have as they age is lack of interests and friends.

end of an era wrote:

My primary care physician told me that the primary problem men have as they age is lack of interests and friends.

To clarify, he was talking about mental health, and how men reacted to retirement.

Men are not meant to be like women. Men should work, build houses, make plans and execute them, sail the seven seas, fight wars, etc. And then die. Men find their friends in common hardships. In a soft society like ours, men will not thrive.

metrofication wrote:

Men are not meant to be like women. Men should work, build houses, make plans and execute them, sail the seven seas, fight wars, etc. And then die. Men find their friends in common hardships. In a soft society like ours, men will not thrive.

Even though you are a troll, you are 100% correct. This is why most men gravitate towards things like "hazing" and other forms of earning a position in a group. Men value loyalty and hard work, which is why my college teammates are some of my best friends 20 years after college. I went through hell with those guys and the ones who made it through with me share a connection.

Same goes for soldiers. Those guys would die for each other (do die for each other). The friendships are deep.

The idea that guys are supposed to develop close relationships over a wine and painting event with their wives is atrocious.

I have also made really close friends with guys who have been through something very difficult. Talking with them about some of the struggles I have been through makes you see them, and them see you, as a real person.

What has happened as this type of friendship has been vilified is that we get the culture of the Bros. Guys pretending to be macho. It is a total fly-in-the-face reaction to the idea that men need to be softened.

The thing is, life is fvcking hard. Men need each other. The softening of life is leading to men unraveling. Looking for uneven fights, rape culture, porn addiction. This is a side effect of taming men.

Society has evolved. Men have not. I say this as a man.

It's no longer about going out and drinking in a club and driving home drunk at the end of the night. Having a family and being a part of it are good things. Plus there's good tv now that men like. Great TV. And you can talk about it with women.

But yeah, we generally become our wife's friend's friends.

Anyways join a run club. They're far better socially and you stay fit. Plus its good to be big fish once in a while.