The Loneliest Burden: When You’re Breaking Down and Don’t Have Any Friends To Tell

There's a lot of talk right now about the male loneliness epidemic, but we think there's more going on here than just loneliness. 

We explain how modern societal changes have led many men to live isolated lives, even when they don't feel lonely—until life's challenges hit hard. 

We discuss the importance of building close male friendships, not just for support in tough times, but for overall mental health and resilience. 

And we offer some practical advice on where and how to start forming these crucial connections. 

00:00 Understanding the Male Isolation Epidemic
02:01 Introduction to Manhood Tribes
02:26 The Challenge of Building Male Friendships
04:13 The Consequences of Isolation
07:34 Steps to Building Friendships
10:12 Practical Tips for Making Friends
16:44 Join the Manhood Tribes Community
17:40 Engage and Share Your Challenges

💪 Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly. 💪

Transcript

0:01

A lot has been said in the popular media lately about the male loneliness epidemic, about how men don't have any friends and they are silently suffering because of it. Now, depending on what statistics you look at, this may or may not actually be true. I think instead of calling it a male loneliness epidemic, I think what is more true is that there is a male isolation epidemic because the reality is there's a lot of men who are isolated but aren't exactly feeling lonely. They're kind of okay just being on their own and functioning in their own world and doing their own thing until life gets hard. And then that's when we as men kind of wake up to the fact that we don't have any friends. There's no one around us for us to be able to lean on for support. There's no one for us to talk to. We don't have anybody to go to with our problems for care, for concern, for support, for assistance, for anything, just for friendship to somebody to be around in the midst of things getting really difficult in life. So I do think there are a lot of men dealing with loneliness. You might be one of those and that might be why you clicked on this video today. But I think more realistically, there's just a lot of men who are isolated. I. Again, depending on which statistics you look at, some things will tell you that the average man in American society or North American society today has fewer than one friend. I don't know how you have fewer than one friend, but again, it's a statistic. It just means that most guys have zero or one close friends in their life. That's a really bad place for us as men to be in because we weren't built for that. We weren't designed to function on our own, isolated from one another. That's something that I try to talk about on this channel quite a bit here at Manhood Tribes. My name is Don. I'm the host of the Manhood Tribes Channel, and I like to say that my job is really to try to do three things. I'm here to give you a clear vision of how to be a man, to give you a clear challenge for building close male friendships and to give you a clear path for how to do both of those things. So today we're gonna try to talk a little bit more about that second one, about the challenge for building close male friendships, because I think the reality for most of us guys is that if we look around, we just don't have those, they aren't in our lives anymore. I. The world around us. Our culture that we live in doesn't naturally breed close male friendships anymore. It's not like that. We as men can just sort of show up into adult life and friendships are going to happen. Maybe that was once the case in our culture, but it sure is not today. And so for most of us as men, we find ourselves in this place where we're just isolated. We aren't connected with other men in our lives anymore. And now for a lot of us, like I said before, you might just kind of be bebopping along in your life. Not really recognizing the fact that you're isolated because you don't actually need that. Your life is full. There's a lot going on. You don't really recognize the fact that you're isolated and aren't connected closely with other men in your life. Maybe you are a dad and a husband, and so you've got a lot going on family-wise. Maybe you have a successful career and you have coworkers that you're around on a regular basis and people that you interact with, and so you might have some kind of social activity in your life, but you just don't have any really close friends. You don't have people in your life that you can go to for fun, for engaging with serious things that are going on in your life for somebody to be around when you're just looking for company for things that you like to do. These are the kinds of things that men have always done with friends, and we just have less and less of that kind of interaction in our world. But where that really becomes a problem is when life gets really difficult. I. We've been spending a lot of time kind of in this series of recent videos talking about why it feels so hard to be a man in our culture right now. And this is one of those reasons, is because when life gets, when life gets difficult, and frankly guys, life is getting difficult for all of us. It doesn't really matter what. Arena of life you find yourself in, things are just getting more and more difficult. The cost of living is, getting higher. The stress and pace of life is getting more difficult. The just sheer survivability of what it takes to be able to exist in our world is becoming harder and harder. And so most of us are facing more challenges than we thought we probably would at this stage in our lives. And yet in the midst of that. We have fewer and fewer people to turn to. We are isolated and in the places when we most realize we need some friends, we recognize that we don't have any, and that's when loneliness tends to kick in. That's when for guys, we start to actually recognize maybe I am really lonely. Maybe this disconnection from other men in my life isn't such a good thing. Maybe it would really help me if I had some other guys to be able to face these things with I. But when problems show up at your doorstep, the reality is it almost feels like too little, too late to try to be able to all of a sudden conjure up some close friends that can help you be able to navigate those tough waters. And so a lot of guys just sort of opt out. We choose not to because in the midst of challenging situations, the challenge of building close friends just feels like one more difficult thing to do, and we don't need any more difficult things to do. So we need to be honest about what to do about the fact that we as guys really are isolated and many of us are lonely, and we need to try to address how we go about building close friendships that will help us be able to weather these storms with a little bit more resilience, with a little bit more courage and sticktoitiveness so that life doesn't just come crashing down on us. Because here's, here's the reality guys. When life gets that difficult and you don't have anybody to lean on, you don't have anybody for support in your world, that's when things can go really bad for men. The suicide rate among men right now is skyrocketing. It is at one of its highest all time levels. I heard a statistic the other day and I can't totally quote it, so if you know it and you could look it up and put it in the comments for me, that would be great. But the statistic that I heard is that as many men die from suicide these days, as women die from breast cancer, this is a real problem in our world when men. Get isolated and life gets hard. Men make bad choices. We go to really dark places and we make really bad conclusions, and so we need to try to set things up for ourselves that help prevent us from getting to those really dark places and having close friendships is one of the best ways to help keep us from going to one of those dark places. So I want to try to just address a little bit of what we need to do in order to be able to get back to a place of developing those close friendships. Now, I do wanna say, before I get into that, if you are one of those guys who is in a really tough spot, you're at a very down place in your life and you don't have any friends at the moment to be able to turn to. Now, I do wanna say before I get into that, that if you are one of those guys who is in a really difficult place and you don't have any friends to turn to and you feel like life is falling apart and you're concerned about making a bad choice with your own life, I want you to know that there is help. There are people who care and that that kind of a choice, going down that dark road is not the right choice. Things can get better. They may not get better quickly, but they can get better and there is a road to that. I want to encourage you to reach out to 9, 8, 8 hotline. Just talk. Just dial that number, talk to someone and just open up about what's going on with you and with the circumstances in your world. You can get some help. The next video in this series is actually going to try to address those men in particular. What do you do when life really feels like it's caving in on you? But for today, I wanna spend more time on those of us who are just kind of in the place where we're recognizing I am isolated, I am disconnected. Maybe I am even a little bit lonely. I don't have friends in my life, and I'm realizing that isn't a good thing. That's not how I want to operate, but I just don't know where to get started. I, I don't, it's not like I have guys around me that I can just reach out to and be like, Hey, you wanna be my friend? You know that we, where do we do that in our world anymore? There aren't those just natural places for guys, especially once you get out of college and into adult life, there just aren't those places to kind of go to, to be able to build friends. They don't naturally happen anymore. And as our world's become increasingly digital and we live out of our homes and on our devices, we don't have as much personal contact. So I'm gonna say it upfront guys. I. Building close male friendships is challenging. It is more difficult in our world than it once was. It is gonna take real intentional effort on your part to be able to make it happen. Those friends aren't going to fall into your lab, so you are going to have to be intentional to try to put some things in place that will help get you around some like-minded men, where you can start to make some of those connections that can grow into close lasting friendships. So that's really the first step is you need to figure out what are some places in your world where you can get around other guys. Lemme try to name some of the ones that I think are the easiest. There's lots of these that are out there, okay? And maybe some of you guys can talk about those here in the comment section of this video. There's lots of ways to be able to get yourself around other like-minded men, but if you're not used to doing that, you may not know what they are. So here's a few. Number one. Your gym. Okay? A lot of guys, their one time that they get out of the house every day is to go work out. You head to a gym, you're around some folks. There might be some other guys there who consistently work out at the same time that you work out. Okay? Say hello to them. Just have an awkward conversation. If you wanna do something that's not awkward to start the conversation, ask somebody for a spot at the gym. You're doing a bench press, you're putting on a little more weight on the bar than you're used to, to pressing ask a guy to help you out with it. Okay? That's an easy way to start a conversation. And then once he does that. Take it another step. Say, Hey, thanks for that. My name's Don. What's your name? Right? These are things that like, they seem obvious. They kind of seem funny because they seem so obvious, but they're things that don't happen. I can't tell you how many times I've asked somebody to spot me at the gym and not asked their name. We've just, you know, put our earbuds back in and going right back to working out. Okay? That is kind of the normal thing to do, so you're gonna have to be a little bit. Unusual, you're gonna have to be a little bit different. But again, building friendships doesn't come naturally in our culture, so you're gonna have to take some different steps. Just start some of those conversations, and then when you see that guy regularly at your gym, just say hello. Keep the conversation going. Find out some things about him. How long has he been working out? How did he get started working out? What things does he like to do? What are his goals? Ask any question you can to just create some conversation and to start building a friendship. Yeah, maybe you're at a gym where those kinds of things are just totally not allowed at all. And I, I don't mean not allowed, but just like people don't do that, which means that maybe it's time for you to find another gym, try to get involved in something that's more of kind of like a small group gym class, like. CrossFit or some kind of yoga where you're involved in something that the people are there regularly for the same class and you're seeing the same people show up on a regular basis, then you're doing things together and it's a little more natural to actually talk to the people that you're there with because you're always there with the same people. Okay? That can be a great way to start building some friendships, change gyms. Do something that's more small group oriented, and you might be surprised how quickly you can connect with the other men around you. All right, so number one is the gym. Number two might be a church. Now, for many of you guys who watch this channel, going to church is something that you already do, and that's great for some of you guys. It may not be, you might be thinking, uh, I'm not really sure about this whole church thing. Like, I don't know where I stand on issues of faith. I'm not sure that that's how I would want to connect, and I can understand that. But let's just say you are trying to build friendships. Church is a natural place where men are looking to connect and to build friendships. In fact, churches actually put together small groups of guys for those very reasons. They're trying to learn about their faith, and they're trying to build friendships with other men who want to do the same things. It's one of the. Easiest places to be able to build some friendships, and in fact, you could probably join one of those groups and just say, Hey guys, I'm actually not really sure where I stand on these issues of faith, but I do want to connect with other men who are asking some of these same questions. And so I thought maybe I could just join up with the group. I guarantee you that any church men's group is gonna be absolutely okay with you joining into their group for those reasons and would welcome your company. You might be surprised how quickly you will develop close friendships with these guys, even if you don't fully agree with everything that they stand for. Faith related. But this is one of the best and easiest ways for guys to connect with other men is by joining a men's church group. Okay? So just find a church down the street. There's still lots of them. Even if you don't go to one, find a church join up. Look for maybe even a church that has a website where they talk about things that they do for their men's ministry, and that could be an easy place for you to connect. All right. A third place where you might be able to connect is if you're a dad through any of your kids' activities, whether they're involved in sports or performing arts or. They just go to the neighborhood playground for play dates or things like that. Whatever your kids are doing, there's guaranteed to be other parents around. And these days it's actually more common to see dads involved in some of those kinds of things. So look for other dads who are doing things with their kids and find ways to just start up a conversation, ask him about their kids' school, or ask him about how long they've been in the area. Just, you know, s small talk. Whatever it takes to just be able to connect with another dad and find out some more about them over time. That may lead to finding out that you're a little more like-minded than you thought you might have been, and that's an easy way to start building a friendship. Okay. There's probably, like I said, lots of other ways to be able to do that. Ways where you're building a hobby, ways where you're joining up with meetup groups. There's all kinds of things that you can come up with and in fact, put some of those in the comments. But the point is you need to start taking some initiative to build those kinds of relationships in your life. You need someone to talk to and you know that now, that's not where you're gonna necessarily start a brand new friendship is by reaching out and just saying, Hey, life is really hard and I need to, I need someone to talk to. You're probably not gonna say that to a perfect stranger if you have a friend in your life. Where you could say that, then absolutely reach out to them, even if they're not geographically close by, give them a phone call. Even if you haven't talked in a while, that's still a great person to be able to reach out to and just say, I just need somebody to talk to. Most guys will be totally okay with that, and you might be surprised that that guy that you called probably needs that just as much as you do. Don't be afraid to take the initiative, but for those of you guys who don't have anybody to reach out to, these are some of the best ways to start rebuilding new friendships in your life. Start small, but start now. You'll be surprised how quickly those results might come into your life if you'll start making some effort right away. Guys, if you have enjoyed this kind of content, I hope that you will like this video and subscribe to the channel. And I also want to encourage you to consider being a part of our Manhood Tribe's community. If you're looking for ways to be able to connect with other like-minded men, we have one of the best ways of being able to do it. And you can get your name. On the list right now to join our community when it is ready to launch. If you go to manhood tribes.com/community, you can find out more about what that community is gonna look like, but it's gonna help you be able to get better at being a man. It's gonna help you get better at being a follower of Jesus. And it's going to help you connect with other like-minded men. So all the things that we've talked about today, the Manhood Tribes community is gonna be a great way for you to be able to do that. Go to manhood tribes.com/community and put your name on the list to sign up when the community is ready to launch. Okay guys, I wanna leave you today by encouraging you to comment on this video. Just answer the question, what challenges do you face in making close male friendships? What challenges are you facing in trying to have close guy friends in your life answer that question? And I look forward to engaging with your comments, and I will also be excited to talk to you next week in our new video about dealing with life when it feels like it is crashing down on you. I'll see you then.