https://www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/2020/11/30/male-bonding-covid/


No game days. No bars. The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships.


November 30, 2020 at 9:54 a.m. EST
It took a global pandemic and a badly timed breakup for Manny Argueta to realize just how far he had grown apart from his guy friends.

In the spring, after the 35-year-old had left the home he shared with his former girlfriend and moved into a studio in Falls Church, Va., on his own, he would go an entire week without saying a word. There were no more game days with the guys, no more Friday nights in D.C. bars, and Argueta was starved for social interaction. He returned to his PlayStation 4, jumping on the microphone with a stranger while playing “Overwatch” just to hear someone’s voice. He discovered the messaging app Discord and started chatting with his old gamer friends and watching them play “Mortal Kombat 11” — even when he didn’t have the game set up himself.

He started recognizing how dependent his friendships had become on those Sunday football games and nights at 14th Street lounges, on venting about Republicans or why the Caps fell short in the playoffs. They hardly ever talked about relationships or family, or just generally how they were doing. He had never met many of their family members.

On a rare night he spent catching up with an old friend in October, a mixture of vulnerability and intoxication led him to pour out his frustrations. “I bet you still have no idea why her and I broke up,” he said to his friend. “I bet you have no idea.” The friend paused, apologized and let him talk for a while about what had happened.

For more than a decade, psychologists have written about the “friendship crisis” facing many men. One 2006 analysis published in the American Sociological Review found that while Americans in general have fewer friends outside the family than they used to, young, White, educated men have lost more friends than other groups.

Male friendships are often rooted in “shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such as watching a football game or playing video games, while women’s interactions are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a coffee or getting together for a glass of wine, said Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work who wrote a book about male friendship. When Greif surveyed hundreds of men about how they most often socialized with friends, 80 percent of men said “sports” — either watching or participating in them together.

Because of this, many men have probably had a harder time than women figuring out how to adapt their friendships in a pandemic that is keeping them apart.

“The rules for guys pursuing other guys for friendships are not clear,” Greif said. “Guys don’t want to seem too needy.”

But the pandemic might be forcing this dynamic to change.




In emails and interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of men shared stories about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar nights, neighborhood-dad WhatsApp chains, Dungeons & Dragons groups and Fantasy Football leagues where casual chats about sports and politics have suddenly led to deep conversations — about the struggles of virtual schooling, family illness, breakups, births, wedding postponements and job losses.

The moment feels heavier and so do the conversations. Some men said their friendships have begun to look more like those of their wives and girlfriends. For the first time in their lives, they’re going on walks with male friends just to catch up. They’re FaceTiming old college friends and checking in on neighbors — not only to talk about the NBA draft picks or their children’s soccer schedule — but to ask how they’re doing.

Argueta, who works as a loan delivery specialist, was used to avoiding talking about personal details in his conversations with male friends. But after struggling with his mental health and going through therapy this year, he said he wants to start finding ways to tell his friends what’s actually going on.

“We are so used to finding a distraction to help us when we should be addressing what’s in front of us,” he said. “The world needed to slow down … we should slow down, too.”

Unprecedented isolation

Men weren’t always like this.

As young boys, male friends tend to share their deepest secrets and most intimate feelings with each other, said Niobe Way, a professor of developmental psychology who interviewed hundreds of boys for her 2013 book, “Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.”

But as boys begin to enter adolescence at age 15 or 16, “you start to hear them shut down and not care anymore,” Way said. They start to act defensive about their friendships, saying they’re “not gay” and that they’re not as close anymore. “You hear those expectations of manhood get imposed on them.”

Way argues the lack of vulnerability in male friendships is rooted in a misogynistic, homophobic culture that discourages emotional intimacy between men. But it’s also part of a culture that does not value adult friendship in general.

“The goal of adulthood is to find a partner, not to find a best friend,” Way said. “There’s nothing in our definition of success or maturity … that includes friendships.”

But research shows that close friendships and social networks are essential to getting by. A Brigham Young University study found that social connections — with friends, family, neighbors or colleagues — improve a person’s odds of survival by 50 percent.

In 2018, the suicide rate among men was 3.7 times higher than among women, according to statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health. But some surveys show men are less likely than women to admit they are lonely, while other research suggests men derive more of their emotional intimacy from the women in their lives. In one study, married men were more likely than married women to list their spouse as their best friend.



In this time of unprecedented isolation, Way said, many men may be forced to change the way they think about their friendships and to connect in new, deeper ways. “I think they’re being forced to for survival.”

John Bramlette, a 42-year-old father of two young children in Chevy Chase, Md., has seen these shifts in his own relationships. Before the pandemic, his closest male friends were from the softball team he has played with for 14 years, every Thursday evening. The group would often get together for a beer after a game or to watch baseball on TV after the kids were asleep.

But in normal times, it never dawned on him to ask one of his friends to go for a walk, just to chat, something his wife has been doing with her female friends for her entire adult life. In the past month, he has gone on three walks with male friends, and he plans on continuing to make it a regular thing, at lunchtime in Rock Creek Park.

“It’s totally logical,” said Bramlette, who is chief operating officer of Washington Nationals Philanthropies. “Why wouldn’t we do this?”

Dave Wakeman, a 46-year-old marketing consultant who lives in D.C.'s Forest Hills neighborhood, said many of his social interactions before the pandemic revolved around his kids’ sports or family gatherings with neighbors. But eight weeks into the pandemic, he ran into a neighbor two doors down and realized he had lost touch with him and other neighborhood dads.

The group of six men decided to start having happy hours with social distancing on their lawn chairs in their shared cul-de-sac. They created a WhatsApp group they call “The Battalion,” where they constantly share everything from Tucker Carlson jokes and political memes to frustrations with parenting and working from home.

“It’s become easier for people to say, ‘Hey look, I really am struggling right now,’" Wakeman said.

A few years ago, Stephen Davis, a 33-year-old tax manager in Alexandria, Va., joined a group text with one of his best friends and some other guys he vaguely knew from college. The conversation was, at first, solely focused on the world of professional wrestling. They called it “Five MB,” short for Five Man Band.

But recently, the group has evolved into a space to vent about so much more. It’s gotten them through multiple job changes, home moves and the births of four of their children — including two during the pandemic. When Davis was struggling with ideas for how to keep his son occupied when playgrounds were closed, one of the other dads in the group suggested an obstacle course of pillows for his son to run through. When Davis’s wife’s water broke, he texted the Five Man Band before anyone else — even before his parents.

The group has become closer than ever during the pandemic. They now send nearly 100 text messages a day, a constant stream of consciousness about what’s going on in their lives. The conversations feel more vulnerable, more honest than others Davis has ever had with friends in the past. They’re the kind of conversations he would have never been able to have while sitting at a bar and watching a game.

“There's always too much noise to get to that next level,” he said.


Jonathan Gordon sometimes wishes his college buddies would talk about more serious topics. The group of four men, who met on their freshman floor at the University of Virginia and are now in their 30s, have all been groomsmen in one another’s weddings. They have gone on international trips together. They all consider the other men in the group their closest friends.

So why don’t they ever actually talk about their feelings?

“I’ve always thought it’s funny that we talk about things that are completely inconsequential 80 to 90 percent of the time,” said his friend Alex Hyde, 32, over a joint Zoom call last week.

When the friends get together in person, for a beer or dinner, the deeper details “sneak in by accident,” Hyde said. Now that they can’t, the more serious topics don’t come as naturally over text. It feels more raw, Hyde said. “In general with other guys, there’s a certain amount of harassment that goes with anything you say … you got to be ready for that.”

It feels impossible not to revert to making fun of each other, Gordon said. “We have no self-restraint. … I can’t not crack up. We set each other off,” he said. “In an ideal world, we wouldn’t do that.”



These are the kinds of conversations Argueta, the 35-year-old in Falls Church, had come to expect from his friendships with other men.

On Saturday, when a couple of friends came over to help him set up his PC, Argueta expected them to roast him for looking like a “broke college student” in his new studio, where he has barely put anything on the walls and he has cords all over his desk.

But instead, the two friends asked him to talk about what led up to his breakup, and how he was handling the past few months. Argueta opened up to them — about his past relationship, the move, the pandemic, everything. He was more personal with them than he had ever been before.

One of his friends reminded him he could call the group on Discord anytime. “Just talk, just say anything,” the friend said. “Somebody’s going to answer.”

Argueta planned to send them a group text message soon, thanking his friends for coming over and for "bailing me out in more ways than you think.” He wanted to keep being honest about what he was going through.

“I’m going to be real,” he said.

He wondered if they would do the same.


@silentintellect

I've always said I'm jealous of the country and space we give women to express their interests and emotions/insecurities. I'm thankful for the circles I have because I know a lot of men are out here in the quarantine just conversating w/ the voice in their head.

I remember hanging out w/ this chick and bringing her around some of my childhood guy friends I'm still tight with and she hit me w/ a chide/compliment like "oh my god you guys are like girlfriends its so cute its gross". I've known most of these guys for about 15-20 years. I don't have as much fun w/ them these days, but I know I can talk to these guys about anything. Women, money, insecurities, etc

I notice a big difference in the tone and subject matter with those guys even compared to my college circle who I have known for about 12 years now. I have a fucking blast with these guys when we hang out, but its all very surface level and machismo based. Who's got the best whip? Who's got the best chick? Who team is killing right now? Who's making money? Who's living? We've all brawled with each other at some point but t's very rare we really delve into our problems w/ each other. If I get them 1v1, it's possible but there's no weakness to be shown in front of the 5 of us. Quarantine has helped with that slightly in that we just don't have as much material shit to talk about.

And then I compare it to the friends I've met post-college, and its drilled down even further where the whole friendship is centered more around common activities. I can think of one post-college friend I talk w/ on any sort of emotional level. And he basically rocketed himself to that level w/ me because for whatever reason he looks up to me like an older brother. I absolutely wasnt expecting him to lay his soul bare in front of me about a woman he loved. I remember him saying after the fact "I knew you might poke a little fun because that's just what you do but I thought I could count on you to not judge me negatively for this"

I think the difference for men (and I am absolutely winging it here) is that we have a certain allowed window of vulnerability in our life. Usually the teenage years. By the time you hit college you're supposed to have that figured out (you're lucky if you do but thats the expectation). And beyond that you're socialized to give a little less of yourself with each passing year. The folks I've been able to make those sort of connections w/ typically bring me back to a sort of pure childhood sort of friendship. The kind where you can just kick it and not really do shit because you really just enjoy each others company.

I have a lot of childhood friends. we are damn near brothers because we’ve known each other since birth. we talk about everything because we’ve seen each other at our best and worst.

college friends are close but def more surface level.

and the friends i have in charlotte are basically acquaintances.

damn...

High school friends....there's on one that I actually keep in touch with on the regular... and a few that I keep general tabs on but I can't say that we're remotely close anymore...

I'm still tight with 3 college friends and they probably have the most accurate insight on who I am as a man and a person...but maybe not a full grasp of the foundation years that made me this person.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I haven't socialized in any capacity in years...YEARS...
It's been me & the wife & kids for the past 4 to 8 years...
Prior to that...my socialization was limited to motorcycle club activities...but those weren't really friends in any capacity...
Prior to that...the early aughts it was just me & wife...

I probably haven't socialized solo more than 5 times over the past 20 years...

I suck :/


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

Just didn't grow up "tight" like that....
3 different personality types...3 different ways of living....3 different families at different stages, etc...

Plus we live in 3 different areas (i'm in the DMV, older is up near Baltimore & youngest is back home in NC)

I was the last to have kids...so while they were having kids and I had the "time and energy" to possibly bond closer to them...THEY didn't have the time and energy....
Now my kids are at that age were I don't have the time & energy & freedom to really be out there trying to make up for lost time.....

All in all...it's just a sad & fcked up situation.

I think about it often but have just come to accept that our relationships are what they are and we make the most of it. We talk on the phone about mostly topical stuff...sometimes deeper...most times not though. As far as hanging out, those opportunities are just few and far in-between.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

you’ve often talked like you don’t really go home or chill with fam like that.

Thanksgiving and during the late spring or early summer.

And it's usually for only a few days.

So that's pretty much spent sitting around the house or me and the wife taking an opportunity to go out to eat without kids.

It's just tough to fit in a lot of stuff when you're only back home for like 3 days. I think the longest i've ever been back home was back when my dad had heart attack & triple bypass surgery. I stayed home with my mom for like 7 days and shuttled her back and forth between Greensboro and the VA Hospital in Durham....that was like 9 years ago though.

That kind of aligns with everything though....friendships, relationships...etc.. all of that takes time to really nurture and maintain. Seems like the older you get the less time you have.

Ultimately I think I really just made a conscious decision to focus on making sure me and the wife had a strong & solid foundation and ongoing relationship from jump. That meant putting a heavy emphasis on spending as much of our free/leisure time with each other over the years. I think we both just peeped that there's only so much time in a day/week/month/year and what we valued most was spending it with each other. So this all started basically 3 days after I graduated college in December of 1999 lol.. I bounced from NC to DC and didn't look back.

I think the ONLY thing I maybe halfway regret was not keeping up the NC A&T Homecoming tradition.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

from home but I have a co-worker that goes into the office anyway to get a break from his wife and kids lol

I'm a homebody too.....
So I kinda lightweight been loving having to be "stuck" at home.....

But see....I go in before the kids and wife wake up...so ALLLL these years I missed out on the whole waking up with the family thing (except weekends of course)... So when this COVID stuff started that was the first time I really got a chance to take part (wake the kids, get em ready for the day, prepare breakfast, talk about dreams they had overnight, etc.)...and I gotta say...I LOVE that shit man... Never realize how much shit you miss out on in the waking moments of the day with your family.

So the days I go into the office now, I'm sitting there just anxious to get back home. Fortunately I only have to stay for a couple of hours....


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

a constant stream of daddy what you doing? watch me play this game on my tablet.

and it frustrated my college friends because they were still running the streets

but now that they found love they get it. when you find that person you want to spend all of your time with them.

but I also think we shouldn’t spend all our time with our SO’s. Sometimes you beed to vent, chill, shoot the shit with the fellas and she needs her time with her girlfriends.

now.
between S.C. & Baltimore.

And traveling to kick it with the fellas just ain't in the cards when the kids are in this age range.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

If so, then that's cool and I can understand part of the reason for not having the need to socialize with others outside of your circle...

I would think, male siblings would be more vulnerable to each other and have that deeper understanding of one another..




@silentintellect

raised of course....
Also how close parents and their siblings are...
My college friends know more about me and my nuances, interests and proclivities than my siblings do.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

my old roommate gets really down when he'd see couples out doing couple shit. "man he's got it figured out. went to school, got a hot girl, owns a home, drives a nice car, has a nice job. what a life. i don't have any of that" and on the one hand i get it*. because this is what we've been taught a successful man is from day one. he's very into trying to live up to an old idea of manhood vs just being comfortable in his own convictions and ambitions

its over.

You will definitely have a chance every so often to kick it but most of that time is reserved for family unless you want to get a divorce.

I had a good friend who got married and she was always on vacation with her girlfriends... lets just say that marriage didn’t last long.

but some people seem isolated.

Most of my friends that I grew up with are married with kids and we communicate mostly through social media and some joke about they live vicariously through me but we link up every now and then sometimes the wives and kids are involved. The last time we all saw each other was last year for a classmates funeral and we spoke about then not waiting for the next funeral to link up then 2020 happened.

but since we waited to have kids sometimes we would see parents who were 20 years younger than us with the same age kids. Can’t kick it with them.

Honestly, its one of the things I used to loathe when going to the park before covid and my kids would play with some other kid. now i have to talk to this mom or dad and return compliments and shit.

>Honestly, its one of the things I used to loathe when going to
>the park before covid and my kids would play with some other
>kid. now i have to talk to this mom or dad and return
>compliments and shit.

alone time you'll get....and the LAST thing you feel like doing is chatting with strangers lol...

I just be wanting to browse my phone or take a minute to zone out and just soak in the surroundings and not really think about shit.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

>I just be wanting to browse my phone or take a minute to zone
>out and just soak in the surroundings and not really think
>about shit.

that's the thing, people would rather have their face in their phone that interact with other humans lol

know how to hold conversations anymore....

I'm not shy or standoffish or anything like that either....but if you ain't talking about shit, I ain't really trying to force pleasantries.

Also, I'm frequently the only Black (capital B) person out there. And I def. have little interest talking to these privileged soccer moms.
And white dads be doing 4much when they on the playground....like they be getting ALL UP INTO the play just trying to show off and shit like they are the world's greatest dad...I think it's like a mating call for white men or some shit..... I'm like look...I came out here so the kids can play...that's it. I'ma let them play with OTHER KIDS while I fall back and make sure they're safe....and check up on my feeds lol...


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I was all over slides and everything with my kids. doing flips and shit lol.

that was part of their fun to see my big ass out there with them. that also helped my have fun and engage more with them. it also help when mine or other kids didn't want to play with each other. me and mine are gonna have fun regardless. plus it was a way to disconnect from the phone for me. I aint checking nothing or answering calls when I'm on the monkey bars.

only time i have my phone out for photos of them stunting or showing off.

and it's definitely not intentional but given the circumstances...

gotta impress em and show em you still got it.

Nothing worse than a playground full of kids and then some big goofy ass adult out there trying to do waaay too much, getting all in the way and preventing the other kids from having free reign of a space that was designed for THEM to enjoy.

or not the kids are aligned in age, temperament, etc.....
If the kids drift apart and the connection was solely based on the kids...then you drift apart. We've had that happen a couple of times.
Also...family socializing isn't really the same dynamic unless y'all have ties pre-kids.

We've done a family trip with another two couples once....and it was cool. But I don't think it'll happen again, at least not with that group. One of the couples is divorced/ing and the other couple has kids that are just way older than ours now.

more so back in my slacker stoner days, but it was still so unhealthy.


therapy helped with that a lot. Understanding that my journey is my journey alone.

nothing wrong with being the family man but you need some type of social outlet outside the fam.

I don't feel like I have a void or anything missing....

BUT....I do realize i'd be S.O.L. if I found myself wifeless heaven forbid...


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

and they all looked at the woman like “gotdammit, why you bring him”

cause its basically a chance to shit talk and vent

i laughed but I was also looking at her like “oh.. really now?”

cause those same women prolly tagged along a fee times when they knew it was fiys night out.

I lost a lot of my childhood guy friends when I moved to another state at age 12...(I moved once from BK to Queens before that)

When I first moved to Philly, I had a few guy friends early on but that dwindled as time went on...
I do have one childhood friend who, just like me, moved from NY and we have been cool since (I guess we had that common bond)..

I'm fortunate to at least have that.. oh and my barber.. I knew him for so long we can talk on a deep level..


college and Post college friends are cool but it's all surface (similar to what you described above)

I have one friend post college I consider family, and at this point even we have been friends for over 15 years. All my other friends/brothers I've been friends with forever, some since I was 11 years old. A couple different circles involved, but I talk with em at least weekly if not more often. My kids call em uncles. I would think most men probably do need deeper relationships overall, I'm just not one of them. I have deep, long standing relationships with several other men and it's great.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

"hey bro, meet me at so-so" or "I'm firing up the grill come through" now there's a lot more "hey bro, just calling to check in, what's up?" Its different and sometimes weird but cool. My friendship group is a little different ranging 10-15 years younger than me to 10-15 years older. I kinda like that the young guys keep me current and I try to pass on what knowledge I have onto them and its a similar thing in reverse with my OG's. Its interesting to get people's perspectives on different levels.

conversations has changed for the better amongst the homies and that's cool..

and I totally agree on having folks of different backgrounds in your circle, it makes thing more interesting at a whole different level




@silentintellect

I tried it...but dudes are weird.


I'm glad I have brothers and I'm gonna call them tonight and tell them I love them and how thankful I am.

>I tried it...but dudes are weird.
>

Yeah, I can see that lol

>
>I'm glad I have brothers and I'm gonna call them tonight and
>tell them I love them and how thankful I am.
>
>


That's what's up!

@silentintellect

My social circle was in shambles and I think the pandemic dealt the death blow.

I'm glad I'm already a solitary person or else this shit would be torture.

a lot of dudes won't come off the he-man steez, even for themselves. I got a couple of homies that will and that I can talk with.

one of my biggest regrets from the younger years is chasing girls and letting it get in the way of close friendships that I had.

Yeah I've made friends in adulthood. Pickup basketball helps a lot.

but as others said it is hard, and the friends I've made as an adult will never be as close as the childhood friends.

Aka, be scrambling to find groomsmen for my wedding.

Outside of turning strong online friendships into IRL friendships, I may be too socially awkward to fully figure it out.

I could probably re-strengthen some high school or childhood friendships but a lot of them are already married with married-nigga friend groups.

Probably an advantage to getting married young - you still have lots of friends to invite

I find that men are always like "what can this person do for me" or "Why would I befrined that dude if he is of no use to me".

Women have a more "Girl we can kick it and support each other" type of thinking.

I noticed when I had my kid, many of my so called male friends didn't call, send a gift or do anything thoughtful. A few of the sensitive ones sent cash or called.

In my male friends' minds, I was off limits as a mother and obviously off the market for sex. It was sad to see. Those male friends generally didn't have close bonds outside of romantic relationships.

I think American male culture sees people as commodities and it infiltrates their personal lives.

I also know married men who have no networks outside of their wife and kids. I think this has more to do with how men focus on one thing and don't want to divide energy. But God forbid a divorce or a death, then their whole foundation is uprooted. My uncle remarried 2 years after his wife died and basically sunk into his new wife's life.

thanks

I was trying to decide if I should say anything to her or not, but you did it perfectly.

and they always involve sex or wanting sex or lack of it.

like damn, is there anything else going on in her life besides anger over failed relationships?

Relax dude. Just sharing the women's perspective. We get it. You are a great guy in a great relationship with no gendered relationship flaws.

Bye.

Not really.. but it’s predictable

I knew as soon as i read the first line it was Mori cause you always say the same shit about the men in your life and then use a broad ass brush.

and can't just ignore replies you don't like

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

You never add anything of substance to any discussion, but you're always game to stoke the fire.

Even with all the bickering among members, you're still the biggest cancer on the board, because you do absolutely nothing to offset your faults. You're literally all flaw with no upside, the epitome of empty calories. You bring as close to zero positive value as anyone who has ever created a login.

You're absolute trash, and, frankly, represent the single worst reflection of poor judgement on the part of whoever has the power to remove you as a mod.

And even now, your smug, pithy- but most importantly, entirely vapid- reply will come from that same cancerous place. You never have, and never will, provide anything resembling sincere, thoughtful self-reflection.

You're as worthless as anyone can possibly be to a community.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Cancer isn't something people simply aren't fans of.

It's something that should be removed.

so when you read through my bullshit, it's quick for you to recognize.

I have my good points is what I'm saying.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

There's no positive there, all negative.
There's nothing good that you bring, at least to GD.

You're a complete negative. There's no positive element to your existence in GD. The fact that you're cool with that makes it worse.

I may or may not be a cancer, but you've definitively proven I was mistaken, you are a fan. I appreciate you.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Der... you said everything!
That must mean EVERYTHING!
Good god are you insufferable.

Just shut the fuck up.

Today, tomorrow, and the next day- just put a fucking sock in it.

Take a break for a day or 5,000.

Even now, in a good post, everyone chilling, chopping it up on a real,heartfelt topic- your sole participation in it was to show up and call everyone losers.

You add absolutely nothing but volatility.

You're garbage, and need to be fired from your "job".

I called specific people losers, I can name names if it will make you feel better?



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

seems that having a laser focus on wife & family would be an ideal approach vs. having a "network" outside of wife and kids. That kind of negates all the previous sentences you typed about "taker" mentality....


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

A man who only has a network with his wife and kids does not make him an automatic great dad, giver or good husband. It just means you have closed your options off to a supportive network or might have fear for a deeper connection.

Could also mean your wife does everything and is stressed out. All my friends with husbands who have no friends are drained and beg for him to go and get a hobby or friends.

Comes back to the socialization of men as takers and women as givers. Not true across the board, but for the most part, very common.

Also it assumes that all relationships ultimately end in separation of some sort

But it doesn't seem healthy to only have one person in your life to share your life with.

Like you mentioned, what if something happens to your partner? Plus it puts a lot of pressure on the one with EQ to manage the other partner's feelings.

It's good to be committed to your primary family but other relationships aren't distractions as much as they are a chance to explore other parts of yourself. Or have other people to vent to or work through issues with.

My younger brother is married with two kids under 6. He's very accomplished and committed to his family but doesn't have many friends that he spends time with. But I wonder if he has people to talk about life issues with besides his wife. She's a great woman but I think its good to have a rich social life besides your primary partner.

But I say that knowing it is hard to manage multiple relationships along with a partner and even more so if you have kids.

I damn sure don’t want to be the only social outlet for my wife. Some convo’s need another woman’s perspective, not mine.

especially this:

>It's good to be committed to your primary family but other relationships aren't distractions as much as they are a chance to explore other parts of yourself. Or have other people to vent to or work through issues with.

and that to me is more about getting to know more about yourself outside of all your relationships.. pretty much exploring you, making yourself grow (into new experiences, possibilities, etc..)

in the end it helps you become a better person and a better contributor to all your relationships

I may come across brash and offensive to many men on this board. Only because I see and hear what the wives, girlfriends and daughters say.

I even talked to divorced wives of men of I have dated. There are certain habits that men have picked up thinking they are being good partners but really they become overly dependent on the wife, ESPECIALLY successful black women.

I love black men, pray for black families and hope that we do better. But there are many of us who are flying by the seat of our pants in the relationship arena.

Every relationship I know that has lasted more than 20 years has a solid NETWORK of people, of both sexes for support.

support each other like that.

Guys in general "love language" isn't gift given. It's Acts of Service. To guys the test of our friendships are, if I was in need or my back against the wall, would that guy have my back or be there? That could be money, a fight, a ride or a place to stay.

The funny thing is I tend to think guys have deeper relationships then women IN GENERAL. Whereas some women have different best friends every few years and have long running fueds guys have the same best friends they have since grade school and nothing really can come between those friendships.

So yeah it is harder for guys to make new friends but I think that's because they have expectations of deeper relationships with guys they call their friends.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

but men mostly haven't been taught / haven't learned how to maintain relationships or the value in doing so



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Yes, I agree that men are not taught to cultivate relationships for non-capitalist, darwinian reasons.

I don't know enough about how men think to understand why. But the high suicide rates, addiction, domestic violence, general self destructive male pattern of behaviors speak to something deeper missing, especially in American men.

Personally, I think men need a higher calling- not sports or money. It doesn't have to be Jesus or Allah, but many men need to aspire to something noble and only then do we see a deeper heartfelt masculine love arise.

>I find that men are always like "what can this person do for
>me" or "Why would I befrined that dude if he is of no use to
>me".

Men are always?

How did you arrive at this conclusion?
Do you see men in this forum operating in that way?

>Women have a more "Girl we can kick it and support each other"
> type of thinking.

... so do men.

So far, what you're describing is no different for men, and it reads like you're merely injecting your personal experiences into a broader context.

>I noticed when I had my kid, many of my so called male friends
>didn't call, send a gift or do anything thoughtful. A few of
>the sensitive ones sent cash or called.

That's unfortunate, though absent critical contextual information, that could mean a million things.

>In my male friends' minds, I was off limits as a mother and
>obviously off the market for sex.

How did you determine that this was their thought process?

>It was sad to see. Those
>male friends generally didn't have close bonds outside of
>romantic relationships.

How do you know what all of their personal relationships were like?

You speak with a fair amount of certainty regarding their internal thoughts, motivations, and a seemingly detailed knowledge of the personal relationships they don't have.

So how is it that you know all these intimate details about all of them?

>I think American male culture sees people as commodities and
>it infiltrates their personal lives.

Based on?

>I also know married men who have no networks outside of their
>wife and kids.

I'm sure that happens. But again- how do you know that they have NO network aside from their wives and children?

>My uncle remarried 2 years after his wife died and basically
>sunk into his new wife's life.

You're projecting an awful lot of your personal experiences- and your personal perceptions of those experiences- onto men as a whole.

As it stands, your assessment is heavily skewed and falls right in line with many of your extremely one-sided agenda takes on most subjects.

Considering you once said that pedophiles should "stick to third world countries," and, as you put it, "leave normal children alone" doesn't exactly build a great track record to give you the benefit of the doubt here.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I have a few good friends that met there, that are still my good friends - some of the realest friendships of my life. But we're grown, have kids and live in different areas. We call and text, and it's cool, but I miss the day to day community aspect of it. There were a LOT of situational friendships or friendships that kind of depend on being part of one of those groups, though. They fell by the wayside pretty quick.

I had decided to try some new stuff and meet some new people in 2020, but that shit kind of a wrap for this year, though. Definitely still in my mind that I need to get out and meet new people who are doing positive shit.

I have four insanely close friends. One I go back to sixth grade with, another ninth. The other two I met in college. We are all in the same fraternity... different schools, different times, but made sure we were all there for each other's crossings.

Three of us have been roommates post college. We've been best man or groomsmen in each others weddings. One is godfather to my son, and I'm godfather to another's son.

I have literally talked to one or more of them every week...for decades. The experiences I have shared with these gentleman are a bog part of who I am as a person.

My only complaint is that I don't actually see them that often. We all still live in the metro Atlanta area, but we all have demanding gigs, families...etc. During the pandemic we have had a ongoing chat that has just been going and going.

While we are all close, there's one that I'd probably consider my best friend. We see each other a few times a month, and our sons are actually best friends that have literally known each other since birth, being a year apart.

I'm lucky like that.

if I could do one thing differently it would be to go away to school instead of going to a commuter college close to home.

Yeah I saved money and all that living with my parents. But I never got that dorm experience where you build these types of friendships. You're building social skills at that age too.

There's always the retirement home I guess lol

>if I could do one thing differently it would be to go away to
>school instead of going to a commuter college close to home.
>
>Yeah I saved money and all that living with my parents. But I
>never got that dorm experience where you build these types of
>friendships. You're building social skills at that age too.
>
>There's always the retirement home I guess lol
>
>

right?!

it was what I had to do, but in hindsight I think the bonds you make during the first two years at a university - through dorm life, clubs, frat/sorority, intramurals, etc (whatever your flavor was), can be really valuable personally and professionally in a way that just isn't the same as when you're living at home with your parents or in a shitty appartment and commuting to school.

When we go home we always visit each others families and report back.

When my Dad had an ambulance in front of his house in Pittsburgh my friend in DC called to tell me before my family had a chance. Because another friend called him and told him to reach out since he didn’t have my number.

At first it was weird because after HS i adopted a ton of college friends and ran with them for years. Still keep in contact with a few solid friendships but its not the same as my childhood friends.

It is interesting that a lot of you have really tight relationships pre-college. I have basically 1 friend that I keep up with in any consistent way. My strongest relationships are college homies and immediately post college when I ran track.

We have all had different seasons of our friendships (turn up and show out, marriage season, divorce season, getting real at 40 season). But it feels like for the most part they are all fairly deep relationships.

All of the people I call friends I’ve had “battles” with (not against). College, professional track, music industry so It could be possible we fortified these bonds cuz we faced a similar adversity I guess.

I’ve never been a team sports watcher or anything so those types of friendships would ever be fostered.

Equally as close as my guy friends are still a few homegirls who I’ve known as long. Similarly they are relationships forged in some sort fo fire.

The kinds of guy friendships they describe do feel like a lot of the ones I’ve had on my college track team or currently in my crossfit gym... super surface.

Some still have that bond with the friends they grew up since a youngin..

others have gotten that bond through a common interest (fraternity, college, playing sports, etc..)

you also brought up something I don't think I saw mentioned in the post (I have the check), your homegirls! lol and that's cool too .. it's great to have that diversity of friends, I believe that was mentioned above..





@silentintellect

>Some still have that bond with the friends they grew up since
>a youngin..

Yea I moved out of NY probably at a crucial time.. 7th grade. So I couldn't maintain those elementary school friendships

>
>others have gotten that bond through a common interest
>(fraternity, college, playing sports, etc..)
>
>you also brought up something I don't think I saw mentioned in
>the post (I have the check), your homegirls! lol and that's
>cool too .. it's great to have that diversity of friends, I
>believe that was mentioned above..
>
>
Yea there are only 3 but I actually think they are necessary (for me) even as a sounding board within relationships.

My closest homegirl is an actress though and she may be the only person with the most similar experience (to me) coming from immigrant parents, public school to an ivy league to the entertainment industry

>
>My closest homegirl is an actress though and she may be the
>only person with the most similar experience (to me) coming
>from immigrant parents, public school to an ivy league to the
>entertainment industry
>
>

and having a similar experiences like that? Crazy! that's what's up..

@silentintellect

Not a lot- I have two close friends that are very, very strong, and we cover everything under the sun when we talk, from shits & giggles to kids, family, to serious life problems. And we lean on each other when things get serious, hold each other accountable if we're fucking up, help keep each other on the straight and narrow, all that.

There are two others in that circle, and we're tight, but it's not to the same depths.

These aren't even friends. These are brothers, as far as I'm concerned.

I have one, who lives in Texas, another brother. His mom was essentially my mom, as far as she was concerned, and always treated me that way.

He's ride or die loyal as they come, but he's difficult to hang with sometimes because all he wants to do is party, and that's just not me. Our convos, at times, get mad heated too, especially when it's about heavy subject matter, but every last discussion ends with "I love you bro". In many ways, that exemplifies that bond. We've had discussions about rappers where we were straight up yelling, then laughing, and then yelling a few minutes later. And it always ends the same way.

I can look at those relationships objectively and say that I don't really have cause to feel like I need deeper friendships. I'm fortunate in that regard. I suppose that feeling comes with my actual blood brothers, none of which I speak to. Three of those are by my choice, while the other is somewhat mutual.

But that's a different story altogether, I suppose.

cause it can be like that sometimes (when I can't control the rhymes)

I see that a lot.. some folks just has a better relationship with folks outside the family than those within..

folks have the same blood but that bond takes work and dedication.. ..



@silentintellect

Everyone (not just dudes) needs to discuss deeper stuff with people who can handle it. AND they need to want to do it with you.

Trying to do it with people who can't handle it and/or don't want to do it with you is a huge waste of time for everyone involved. After years of being lucky to have all sorts of friends from different situations (school, work, neighbors, whatever), I think I get this now.

Luckily, I have hella folks in my life. And I have figured out what I can and can't hit them up with. And it is working out pretty well.

So yeah, some of your homeboys are gonna be driking buddies, video game friends, we worked together for a while a long time ago friends, watch the game dudes, go to the club crew, go to the skrip club crew, 'let's link up in Vegas cuz its been a while yawl' folks, let's hit the gun range, and/or let's go hoop homeboys. And if that is it? THAT IS OKAY! IT REALLY IS!

If you're lucky, some % of those folks will also fall into the range of folks you can have real talk discussions with. You know the ones..the ones you say say stuff like this to and get real energy and support back:

- me and the wife are trying to have kids, it's expensive with no guarantees, and we're both scared and tired
- I need paul bearers for my daddy's funeral
- I think I lowkey hate my kid(s)
- Man, I might have cancer
- My wife is trippin. I think we're gonna be aight but maaaan..
- What am I gonna do with my old parents when they don't want to listen? Yeah, he's still eating honey buns even though the doctor said he needed to stop!
- Dude, I might quit my job. I'm tired of getting passed over.
- My sister/cousin/somebody is trifling. I'ma ban them from my house.
- My wife is stiiiill trippin. We might NOT be aight.
- Maaaaaaan, my side has been hurting for 2 months off and on.
- Maaaaaaan, my wife's friend tried to f#ck with me at a BBQ (yeah, the fine one). No, I didn't do it! It's my wife's friend! Yeah, I know she's fine! And she had on these shorts where the pockets were longer than the shorts. It was right dude.
- Maaaaaaaan, you remember Tasty Luv? Yeah man, Tasty keeps on texting me all crazy and stuff. I know..after all this time! And she's threatening to show up at the crib and blow me up to my girl like an army grenade! Yeah, I hit! But that was like forever agooo!! Her real name is Rachel...she called me crying a long time ago and that's how I ended up over there...I know man..I'm stupid.

All of that. The real talks. You can't just drop that type of shit on just anybody. And if you take your 3 or 4 longest running friends and try to make them the 'everything all the time' friends, you can fallout/burnout well before the time. And that does nobody any good.

>https://www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/2020/11/30/male-bonding-covid/
>
>
>No game days. No bars. The pandemic is forcing some men to
>realize they need deeper friendships.
>
>
>November 30, 2020 at 9:54 a.m. EST
>It took a global pandemic and a badly timed breakup for Manny
>Argueta to realize just how far he had grown apart from his
>guy friends.
>
>In the spring, after the 35-year-old had left the home he
>shared with his former girlfriend and moved into a studio in
>Falls Church, Va., on his own, he would go an entire week
>without saying a word. There were no more game days with the
>guys, no more Friday nights in D.C. bars, and Argueta was
>starved for social interaction. He returned to his PlayStation
>4, jumping on the microphone with a stranger while playing
>“Overwatch” just to hear someone’s voice. He discovered
>the messaging app Discord and started chatting with his old
>gamer friends and watching them play “Mortal Kombat 11”
>— even when he didn’t have the game set up himself.
>
>He started recognizing how dependent his friendships had
>become on those Sunday football games and nights at 14th
>Street lounges, on venting about Republicans or why the Caps
>fell short in the playoffs. They hardly ever talked about
>relationships or family, or just generally how they were
>doing. He had never met many of their family members.
>
>On a rare night he spent catching up with an old friend in
>October, a mixture of vulnerability and intoxication led him
>to pour out his frustrations. “I bet you still have no idea
>why her and I broke up,” he said to his friend. “I bet you
>have no idea.” The friend paused, apologized and let him
>talk for a while about what had happened.
>
>For more than a decade, psychologists have written about the
>“friendship crisis” facing many men. One 2006 analysis
>published in the American Sociological Review found that while
>Americans in general have fewer friends outside the family
>than they used to, young, White, educated men have lost more
>friends than other groups.
>
>Male friendships are often rooted in
>“shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such as watching a
>football game or playing video games, while women’s
>interactions are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a coffee
>or getting together for a glass of wine, said Geoffrey Greif,
>a professor at the University of Maryland School of Social
>Work who wrote a book about male friendship. When Greif
>surveyed hundreds of men about how they most often socialized
>with friends, 80 percent of men said “sports” — either
>watching or participating in them together.
>
>Because of this, many men have probably had a harder time than
>women figuring out how to adapt their friendships in a
>pandemic that is keeping them apart.
>
>“The rules for guys pursuing other guys for friendships are
>not clear,” Greif said. “Guys don’t want to seem too
>needy.”
>
>But the pandemic might be forcing this dynamic to change.
>
>
>>from home actually step up more?]
>
>In emails and interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of
>men shared stories about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar
>nights, neighborhood-dad WhatsApp chains, Dungeons & Dragons
>groups and Fantasy Football leagues where casual chats about
>sports and politics have suddenly led to deep conversations
>— about the struggles of virtual schooling, family illness,
>breakups, births, wedding postponements and job losses.
>
>The moment feels heavier and so do the conversations. Some men
>said their friendships have begun to look more like those of
>their wives and girlfriends. For the first time in their
>lives, they’re going on walks with male friends just to
>catch up. They’re FaceTiming old college friends and
>checking in on neighbors — not only to talk about the NBA
>draft picks or their children’s soccer schedule — but to
>ask how they’re doing.
>
>Argueta, who works as a loan delivery specialist, was used to
>avoiding talking about personal details in his conversations
>with male friends. But after struggling with his mental health
>and going through therapy this year, he said he wants to start
>finding ways to tell his friends what’s actually going on.
>
>“We are so used to finding a distraction to help us when we
>should be addressing what’s in front of us,” he said.
>“The world needed to slow down … we should slow down,
>too.”
>
>Unprecedented isolation
>
>Men weren’t always like this.
>
>As young boys, male friends tend to share their deepest
>secrets and most intimate feelings with each other, said Niobe
>Way, a professor of developmental psychology who interviewed
>hundreds of boys for her 2013 book, “Deep Secrets: Boys’
>Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.”
>
>But as boys begin to enter adolescence at age 15 or 16, “you
>start to hear them shut down and not care anymore,” Way
>said. They start to act defensive about their friendships,
>saying they’re “not gay” and that they’re not as close
>anymore. “You hear those expectations of manhood get imposed
>on them.”
>
>Way argues the lack of vulnerability in male friendships is
>rooted in a misogynistic, homophobic culture that discourages
>emotional intimacy between men. But it’s also part of a
>culture that does not value adult friendship in general.
>
>“The goal of adulthood is to find a partner, not to find a
>best friend,” Way said. “There’s nothing in our
>definition of success or maturity … that includes
>friendships.”
>
>But research shows that close friendships and social networks
>are essential to getting by. A Brigham Young University study
>found that social connections — with friends, family,
>neighbors or colleagues — improve a person’s odds of
>survival by 50 percent.
>
>In 2018, the suicide rate among men was 3.7 times higher than
>among women, according to statistics from the National
>Institute of Mental Health. But some surveys show men are less
>likely than women to admit they are lonely, while other
>research suggests men derive more of their emotional intimacy
>from the women in their lives. In one study, married men were
>more likely than married women to list their spouse as their
>best friend.
>
>>Then came the pandemic.]
>
>In this time of unprecedented isolation, Way said, many men
>may be forced to change the way they think about their
>friendships and to connect in new, deeper ways. “I think
>they’re being forced to for survival.”
>
>John Bramlette, a 42-year-old father of two young children in
>Chevy Chase, Md., has seen these shifts in his own
>relationships. Before the pandemic, his closest male friends
>were from the softball team he has played with for 14 years,
>every Thursday evening. The group would often get together for
>a beer after a game or to watch baseball on TV after the kids
>were asleep.
>
>But in normal times, it never dawned on him to ask one of his
>friends to go for a walk, just to chat, something his wife has
>been doing with her female friends for her entire adult life.
>In the past month, he has gone on three walks with male
>friends, and he plans on continuing to make it a regular
>thing, at lunchtime in Rock Creek Park.
>
>“It’s totally logical,” said Bramlette, who is chief
>operating officer of Washington Nationals Philanthropies.
>“Why wouldn’t we do this?”
>
>Dave Wakeman, a 46-year-old marketing consultant who lives in
>D.C.'s Forest Hills neighborhood, said many of his social
>interactions before the pandemic revolved around his kids’
>sports or family gatherings with neighbors. But eight weeks
>into the pandemic, he ran into a neighbor two doors down and
>realized he had lost touch with him and other neighborhood
>dads.
>
>The group of six men decided to start having happy hours with
>social distancing on their lawn chairs in their shared
>cul-de-sac. They created a WhatsApp group they call “The
>Battalion,” where they constantly share everything from
>Tucker Carlson jokes and political memes to frustrations with
>parenting and working from home.
>
>“It’s become easier for people to say, ‘Hey look, I
>really am struggling right now,’" Wakeman said.
>
>A few years ago, Stephen Davis, a 33-year-old tax manager in
>Alexandria, Va., joined a group text with one of his best
>friends and some other guys he vaguely knew from college. The
>conversation was, at first, solely focused on the world of
>professional wrestling. They called it “Five MB,” short
>for Five Man Band.
>
>But recently, the group has evolved into a space to vent about
>so much more. It’s gotten them through multiple job changes,
>home moves and the births of four of their children —
>including two during the pandemic. When Davis was struggling
>with ideas for how to keep his son occupied when playgrounds
>were closed, one of the other dads in the group suggested an
>obstacle course of pillows for his son to run through. When
>Davis’s wife’s water broke, he texted the Five Man Band
>before anyone else — even before his parents.
>
>The group has become closer than ever during the pandemic.
>They now send nearly 100 text messages a day, a constant
>stream of consciousness about what’s going on in their
>lives. The conversations feel more vulnerable, more honest
>than others Davis has ever had with friends in the past.
>They’re the kind of conversations he would have never been
>able to have while sitting at a bar and watching a game.
>
>“There's always too much noise to get to that next level,”
>he said.
>
>
>Jonathan Gordon sometimes wishes his college buddies would
>talk about more serious topics. The group of four men, who met
>on their freshman floor at the University of Virginia and are
>now in their 30s, have all been groomsmen in one another’s
>weddings. They have gone on international trips together. They
>all consider the other men in the group their closest
>friends.
>
>So why don’t they ever actually talk about their feelings?
>
>“I’ve always thought it’s funny that we talk about
>things that are completely inconsequential 80 to 90 percent of
>the time,” said his friend Alex Hyde, 32, over a joint Zoom
>call last week.
>
>When the friends get together in person, for a beer or dinner,
>the deeper details “sneak in by accident,” Hyde said. Now
>that they can’t, the more serious topics don’t come as
>naturally over text. It feels more raw, Hyde said. “In
>general with other guys, there’s a certain amount of
>harassment that goes with anything you say … you got to be
>ready for that.”
>
>It feels impossible not to revert to making fun of each other,
>Gordon said. “We have no self-restraint. … I can’t not
>crack up. We set each other off,” he said. “In an ideal
>world, we wouldn’t do that.”
>
>>health crisis]
>
>These are the kinds of conversations Argueta, the 35-year-old
>in Falls Church, had come to expect from his friendships with
>other men.
>
>On Saturday, when a couple of friends came over to help him
>set up his PC, Argueta expected them to roast him for looking
>like a “broke college student” in his new studio, where he
>has barely put anything on the walls and he has cords all over
>his desk.
>
>But instead, the two friends asked him to talk about what led
>up to his breakup, and how he was handling the past few
>months. Argueta opened up to them — about his past
>relationship, the move, the pandemic, everything. He was more
>personal with them than he had ever been before.
>
>One of his friends reminded him he could call the group on
>Discord anytime. “Just talk, just say anything,” the
>friend said. “Somebody’s going to answer.”
>
>Argueta planned to send them a group text message soon,
>thanking his friends for coming over and for "bailing me out
>in more ways than you think.” He wanted to keep being honest
>about what he was going through.
>
>“I’m going to be real,” he said.
>
>He wondered if they would do the same.
>
>
>@silentintellect

and in some ways I do this as well..

for instance my barber, who I've known for a while, and I can talk about cooking, and a lot of other stuff on a deeper level . lol

whereas my other homie we can talk about all types of shit really but it's on a whole different level lol

I also have one other homie that I can talk to about financials with no problem

I definitely see that as well.. and there is nothing wrong with that at all.


@silentintellect

Reading the stories in the article (and some in the replies) all feels familiar to me, but not in a personal anecdotal way as much as a culture that I have often observed but never felt was my own.

Reflecting on my own life, I realize that (and these two things may be intertwined so it’s kinda like a “chicken or the egg” thing):

1) I am generally by default a pretty vulnerable person, so I’ve never really felt entrapped by the confining walls of stereotypical masculinity (also have consistently kept many women as friends). I think that having that vulnerability generally attracts others (and keeps you attracted to others) who are more genuine and open as far as what you talk about, how you communicate, etc.

and 2) so much of my life and its activities have been based on creative goals.

From music to more recent forays into other territories in the entertainment industry, I have generally encountered and found common ground with other men who find themselves on a similar journey...and the relationships (while definitely driven by what has been mentioned above as some “what can we do for each other”) require a bit more interpersonal connection...I think the trials and tribulations of building something (an album, a tour, a tv show, any kind of creative project really) are all essentially “formative experiences” and they subsequently def help you learn more about one another, rely on each other, and reinforce a tighter bond. You’re working towards an extremely challenging but also gratifying goal, TOGETHER.

I can imagine that there must be some of this for the “we all drink beer on Thursdays/we love watching this team” squad...but my gut (and limited personal experience) tells me that it just isn’t quite as deep. And like I said before, I don’t know if the process of going through this journey made me more vulnerable, or if being naturally vulnerable led me to seek out these experiences.

That said, I’ve had people drift and sometimes they return, sometimes they don’t. I have some friends I’ve kept up with for 25 years, some who I met in college, and even some post-college but I will say that it def feels a bit more challenging to create NEW tight bonds in my 30s than it did in more “formative experience” chapters of my life.