Why Men Lose Their Friends — And How To Rebuild A Modern Buddy System With Geoffrey Greif

You've studied male friendships for decades now.

Are men actually lonelier today, or are we just more aware of it?

I think that's a great place to open up, and I think we have to look at men both in relation to their family and men not in relation to your family, because whenever somebody says men, are we talking about 20-year-old-

Right.

Are you talking about, like, father, brother, or are you talking about, like, friendships, male friendships?

Right.

And are we talking about men who are in their 20s on, in their Zoom room by, by themselves on their sofa, you know, communicating that way with playing games with other people, other men, or men that, that are by themselves and just going online? Are we talking about guys in their 30s and 40s and 50s with a spouse or family or anything else? So I think whenever we say men, we're all gonna have a different image all of a sudden pop up, and I think it's kind of important to, to clarify that.

Are we talking about men that are working, men that are not working, men in relationships with other men or women or, or not? So let's just-

Okay.

So, okay.

So, so let... why don't we start with, um...

I'm, I'm really personally intrigued about male friendships in particular, and when I say that, th- this platform, Men's Anonymous, is really about inspiring men to reach out and develop deep, connected, you know, open, deeply connected relationships so they can form their tribe, because in doing so, it helps them come into their true masculinity, et cetera, et cetera.

So I, I, I wanna focus on male friendships, and then we'll-- let's break it down between, like, I'm, I'm 51, so, like, you know, let's say been in long-term relationships for a long time, et cetera, um, have had lived some part of a, you know, a good part of life.

But I'd like to focus on men at my stage today and how they were, let's say, 25 years ago in terms of, you know, who would you deem to be lonelier.

And then I wanna talk about the phenomenon of, um, let's say the, the, those young men coming through the ranks at like, let's say, teenage, late teenage years going into young adult, and look at, you know, because you just mentioned, you know, young men playing games online, et cetera, which is, you know, didn't exist 25 years ago.

So why don't we talk about those two groups and maybe help us understand whether we are lonelier today, or we're just more aware of it.

I'll give a short answer.

I think we're more aware of it.

We're more willing to talk about it.

Men in general are more willing to be vulnerable than their fathers were/are.

So there certainly is a trend to greater acceptance of the other or of others in the world, uh, or certainly in the parts of the Western world that we're approaching.

There's much greater acceptance of men that are gay, men that are bisexual, men that are non-binary, men in all kinds of different, uh, choices that they have decided to pursue in add- in addition to those other, uh, de- descriptors that I just gave.

So I think we're just more willing.

We're more open.

More people are s- more willing to go for therapy, which means more or means less stigma around mental health issues.