Pickleball & Partnership

Building Connections: A Cure for Male Loneliness

• Charlotte Jukes • Season 1 • Episode 16

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In this lively episode of the 'Pickleball and Partnership' podcast, hosted by Charlotte Jukes, the conversation revolves around the themes of connection, communication, and injecting fun into relationships through the game of pickleball. Returning Co-host, Neil discusses his recent injury and recovery, reflecting on how pickleball and its community have positively impacted his life.

 The episode delves into the broader topic of male loneliness and societal challenges surrounding male vulnerability and communication. 

Charlotte and Neil share personal stories about moving to Canada, giving advice on how to build meaningful connections. The episode underscores the value of engaging in shared activities like pickleball, not just for physical health but for mental well-being and fostering deeper relationships. 

The podcast wraps up with a fun freebie: 'Top 10 Tips for Playing Pickleball with Your Partner without Losing Your Mind,' aimed at strengthening both your game and your relationship.

00:00 Welcome to the Pickleball and Partnership Podcast

00:44 Reconnecting with Neil: Injury and Recovery

01:26 The Social Side of Pickleball

03:43 The Loneliness Epidemic Among Men

07:35 Struggles and Resilience: Moving to Canada

13:36 The Importance of Connection and Support

14:53 The Essence of Male Friendship

15:17 Pickleball: A Positive Distraction

17:16 Humor in Male Relationships

18:05 Support Systems Among Men

20:27 Advice for Men Feeling Isolated

24:17 The Impact of Social Media on Loneliness

26:12 The Social Benefits of Pickleball

27:56 Conclusion and Freebie Announcement

Pickleball & Partnership Facebook Page
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https://www.facebook.com/conejukes

https://www.facebook.com/groups/848118700833703

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pickleball-partnership/id1775742795

Pickleball & Partnership Email cejukes@gmail.com

Get your FREE Top 10 Tips for Playing Pickleball with Your Partner subscribepage.io/Top-10-Tips-Partner-Pickleball

Music: Purple Planet Music
Thanks to Purple Planet Music for Pickleball & Partnership Intro and Outro music Purple Planet Music is a collection of music written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey.


Charlotte Jukes:

This the pickleball and partnership podcast, the place to talk. Talk about building better connections with your partner. Learning how to communicate with each other and how to inject fun. Into your relationship all through the game of pickleball. If that sounds like your cup of tea. Pull up a chair grab your paddle and join me. Your host, Charlotte Jukes. For pickleball and partnership.

Charlotte J:

Well, today I'm really excited because we are back in the closet for a closet conversation and I'm here with Neil.

Neil:

Hey guys.

Charlotte J:

I bet you thought I'd, stuffed him in a bag and thrown him in the river or something. Where have you been?

Neil:

Well, I've been out of action. I hurt my shoulder I've been struggling through making myself busy with other things. But I am back, I have gone through some treatment I've had a couple of injections that's gonna put me hopefully on track. I've gotta go through some physio and I will be back on the court.

Charlotte J:

Back with a vengeance.

Neil:

Hey, back with a vengeance. I

Charlotte J:

know. It's been weird. So last week I talked about preparing for the tournament. I talked about, it came up on my Facebook page from last year, how we had played together and we had done very well. So it's been really weird not playing with you and then finding different partners to play with. I know it's been tough for you. It's been having another

Neil:

pickle. Yeah, exactly.

Charlotte J:

Having another pickle,

Neil:

another person.

Charlotte J:

Oh, having another person to pickle with, right. No, I mean, it's tough for you because pickleball is really. Everything, it's. Physical activity.

Neil:

Right. And I'm not a great spectator. I love to be out there doing my thing. Yeah, it is, it's part of the physical, it keeps me mentally in check with myself takes that little bit of physical energy to take my mental energy down. And yeah, I suppose I miss the people. I miss the. The community that it brings to me, that something that I haven't really found anywhere else until we found pickleball. Well, we used to get it with camping, and you get some of it through work, you find those people that you pick up and you really don't want to drop. They've been such good people and you still hang out with'em even though you don't work at the same place or whatever. But. Pickleball has definitely picked up the slack where we left off with camping with the kids and having a really good circle of friends who you could hang out with, drink beers, have fire pits, that kinda stuff. So yeah, I have missed it terribly. So any pickles out there? I've missed you guys a lot.

Charlotte J:

He has. He talks about you all the time. But the great thing is, and I mentioned this last week as well, is that you have been supporting me while I've been playing. So you've still been showing up and watching games. You were at the tournament, you took amazing photos. Yeah. Yeah. And then we've gone out with people afterwards. So we have our dinner group of eight who actually are meeting this week as well. So you've had some element of that social.

Neil:

Yeah. I can't quit that piece, you know, if there's a chance. So I'm going to the pub after. I'm probably gonna be there.

Charlotte J:

So a few weeks ago as well, I was talking to Sumit and Rajan from Mega Courts, and Sumit happened to mention the loneliness epidemic that is happening now in the world and how he felt that so many men were lonely and that this is something that's really difficult for men because I think, men are notorious for. Finding it difficult to reach out to people, to make friends, to connect with other,

Neil:

yeah,

Charlotte J:

guys, right? Totally.

Neil:

Yeah. Yeah, they do. I mean, we're conditioned as kids to not really, be very vulnerable. You don't wanna say anything, you don't wanna say the wrong thing. You don't feel, you don't show weakness, you don't show vulnerability. You don't share feelings. That's just not what you do as a guy. May be different now, but when I was a kid, not that way. So when people need to reach out, I mean, there's so many good people that we've lost as guys through people taking their own lives.'cause maybe they didn't have somebody to talk to or felt too vulnerable if they did speak to somebody. I know there's a couple of people from school that I've lost. And still miss, those people that got left behind. So yeah, when it comes down to people talking and guys talking, especially I've said it at work, that's part of my job and the guys that I work with, I've always said to'em, I'm, maybe they're not the right guy to talk to. But I'm always available, I'll open the door, somebody can come in and it's not gonna be something I'll ever bring up to the guys. It's just a case of a problem. Shared is a problem, halved that's what I was always told. But yeah, guys just don't do a great job of communicating. But pickleball definitely helped me build a circle of friends again. There's a few absolute gems that I've picked up on the courts and I feel pretty lucky to have found these people. when you find those, you don't wanna let'em slip through your fingers. So I kinda make sure that we hang out and we go for beers and, things that you don't always do on the court and you just make time for that stuff.

Charlotte J:

So what do you think it is about pickleball then, and maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds as though you have found some real connections through playing pickleball with other men. So what is it about the game of pickleball that perhaps attracts. Well, I suppose it attracts like-minded people.

Neil:

You know what I'm gonna say? It attracts the survivors, the ones that really want to do something for the rest of their life, whatever that looks like. When I'm getting close to 60 and I can still run around with a lot of goofy guys, it's a lot of goofy guys who did the same kind of things that I did and ended up at the same kind of place that I did and are still healthy enough to enjoy it. So they are survivors. These are the ones that are probably gonna go till they're 90. I hope I suppose that's why I find myself drawn to these people because they are very similar to me.

Charlotte J:

There's also quite an age range if you think about it, because we've played with men. In their forties. And we've also played with men in their fifties, sixties, and seventies too.

Neil:

Yeah. We have and the teenagers, the 18 year olds that Oh, yeah, yeah. Right.

Charlotte J:

Yeah, exactly. Not that we can get our 21-year-old son on the court.

Neil:

No, it's not his thing. Not his thing.

Charlotte J:

Not yet. I did ask him for Mother's Day if he would bless me with a game of pickleball, but we'll see. How did

Neil:

that work out?

Charlotte J:

He didn't say no. Oh. So

Neil:

that's a start.

Charlotte J:

I'm hopeful, mm-hmm. Well, so we're in the closet, literally anything. Yeah. We literally are in the closet. We're having a closet conversation. But can you describe a moment, perhaps when you felt truly lonely and what that experience was like for you emotionally?

Neil:

Yes, I can. The only time that I felt truly lonely when I felt like there was. Yeah, probably the lowest point of my life was actually when we left England and came to Canada. The first, probably the first two years were incredibly lonely for me. Just because I didn't feel like I fitted, I. There was no people that that came from the same place that I came from. None of those small connections, the way that we use slang and humour and all those things I didn't feel like I fitted for a few years until I started finding some people through camping and work and, the kids doing external stuff, soccer and dance and ice skating, and. All those good things came to Canada with a couple of little girls and it was, it was tough times for us. Mm. Financially, mentally just being able to keep ourself on track and not wanting to quit and go back to where we'd come from. It's worked out for us over 25 years now. Yeah. But that was a big deal.

Charlotte J:

Yeah, it was, yes, our eldest was two. Our youngest had just been born literally when we put the application in. Yeah.

Neil:

Well, she was still in arms, wasn't she? When we got off the plane, she was nine

Charlotte J:

months old. And actually, here's an interesting fact that I just realized is this week is exactly to the day 25 years ago that we landed. Huh? We left on the 11th of May. And we landed because it was a day later on the 12th of May. And that's this week. I know. That's crazy. 25 years, years ago, and I remember that too. And it's funny because people could look at us now and say, oh, there's no way you struggled with money. But I remember. Like it was hard for you to find work.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

Even though there was work here. It was a really hard time Finding

Neil:

well-paid work was tough.

Charlotte J:

Finding well-paid work. I couldn't work as a nurse because I hadn't converted my qualification from the uk. Yeah. And I remember, the first payment you received, I remember the check was for$25. Mm-hmm. And I thought, oh, thank goodness we can go to the grocery store. We went to Superstore and bought food. It was that tight. It was a really tough time. I wasn't working, I was looking after the girls. We hadn't had our son yet. Right. And you were out every day pretty much pounding the pavement trying to find work. So, yeah. We connected through the children. Actually, we lived in a community that had a community lake.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

And we would go to the lake and there we would meet people we would meet them through the children.

Neil:

Yeah. The kids hung out with other kids and we got to know the moms and dads. Right,

Charlotte J:

right. Yeah. Thinking about those most desperate times because it was awful. It was really tough for both of us. But how do you think mentally you were able to navigate through that

Neil:

I Suppose just that not wanting to quit really, it wasn't a case of knowing what to do, it was a case of knowing that I wasn't gonna quit. That was the only thing that I could really concentrate on. And then when camping started to kick in we bought a tent trailer and I started to get some decent work friends. And then what else do we used to do?

Charlotte J:

I think it was the girls playgroups and stuff, but I hate to say it. You're going back to the practical Yeah. Like typical, right? Yeah. That's men. Yeah. And absolutely there were so many practical things that you did. And I did, and we did keep going.

Neil:

I started to talk to myself. Basically just talked to myself saying it's gonna work out. It's gonna work out. Just keep pushing, keep pushing. And although my family weren't with me, I I think I always thought that they wanted the best for me. So I kept pushing.'cause I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to go back to the UK and say, okay. We tried it, it didn't work. It wasn't the case of it didn't work, we just quit before it did. I. Mm. And then that's, that's a big thing. I didn't want to go back and say, you know what? We should have given it more. And there's so many people come to Canada and they have called it the thousand dollars Cure. They come to Canada, they say they're gonna quit. It costs them a thousand dollars to go back to the uk and then as soon as they've had a week or two

Charlotte J:

or home, wherever home is, yeah.

Neil:

Back. Yeah. I know that people have done it, that we've been friends with, they've gone back to, Liverpool or wherever it was, and then they've got, oh my God I'd forgotten what I'd left behind when I came to Canada. And they come back again. They come back and then they realize they can settle. Mm-hmm. They know they can.

Charlotte J:

We've had a few friends do that, haven't we? Yeah. So I think that sort of encouraged us not to go back, although we always said to each other, if it doesn't work out, we can go back. Yeah. Like we, it,

Neil:

we probably didn't have the thousand bucks that's probably what we didn't do. That's

Charlotte J:

probably true yeah. But I love how you talk to yourself, it's that internal dialogue, yeah. it totally is 100%. What you say to yourself and if you believe, okay, I did my best today and tomorrow is a new day and I'll try again.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

It makes a difference.

Neil:

Right. So I know my dad always used to say, if you're in heaven then you are. And if you think you're in hell, then you are. It's all about how you think about things.

Charlotte J:

Yeah.

Neil:

Tough to go back and think about them.

Charlotte J:

If you think you can or you think you can't, you are. Right. Yeah. That was Ford how was it? Yeah, I remember that. Now you're impressed, aren't you? Yeah. So you touched on this and you've mentioned your dad a couple of times, but what were the societal expectations or the cultural messages that really made it challenging for you to openly discuss? Feeling isolated or feeling vulnerable?

Neil:

Um, as I say I was brought up by somebody who was brought up by the people who survived the war. Mm-hmm. My dad was he was about eight years old when the war ended and it was tough times. You just kept that English stiff upper lip and you just kept moving forward and you know, things will work out as long as you don't quit. So, yeah, I suppose that's where I was when I got to that point in Canada. You find those people, you keep'em with you, and then you just, you know, your life starts to flourish again. But you do need connection. As a guy. You do need connection. And I can't say to enough times that we all need to, have somebody to talk to. Even as, painful at the time. And if you find the right people you'll be fine.

Charlotte J:

Yeah, I definitely hear you saying it's about finding the right people and from my perspective, I feel as though there are so many of those right people playing Pickleball. Yeah. But it sounds like you've found the same as well.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

So what does meaningful male friendship look like to you?

Neil:

Well, you know, you've gotta be able to laugh at each other. That's one thing that men find that can be vulnerable. If they can use humour to do it. It doesn't make you feel weak. It doesn't make you feel stupid. When you look at each other and you laugh and you know, you find your people just the way they react to what you said. And pickleball, as I said, the other survivors, they also are more positive. They're the positive people who survive it. They just have that forward thinking or positive outlook that'll save these guys in the long run. Right now inflation and things have been tough even on some of the people we play with that have now retired. May be in a place where they're on a fixed income and inflation is chewing away at their income and they're still positive. They need to find something to focus on other than sitting and looking at the investments and looking at inflation and looking at the other things in life. You can always find the negative if you look hard enough. But when you're playing pickleball, there is nothing else on your mind except for that darn ball which is good for men. It just breaks that little bit of tension that guys focus on the negative or they focus on their issue or their problem or challenge. And guys wanna be fixers. We want to fix it. You concentrate on it for long enough, it becomes all consuming. So. When you play pickleball, it takes that little bit of pressure off it. I'm sure there's a lot of people kicking around on this planet because of pickleball and being able to relax, playing something else and going for a beer after having a laugh. Win or learn it's good.

Charlotte J:

Mm-hmm. And I know we've talked about this before, this has definitely come up on previous episodes as well about. When you're playing the game, and I'm sure this is the same in other sports too, but definitely you are on that smaller court. You can see your opponents on the other side. You make eye contact with them. You are. Most of the time a hundred percent your head is in the game and you are not thinking about the argument we just had on the way here, or, that list of errands we have to do afterwards and right. All the other stuff in life. It sounds as though humour plays a big part, and I notice that you use humour a lot. You and I have had many conversations about humour and how I find that very frustrating at times, like when I want to be serious and when I want to have a serious conversation and things get a little deeper. Yeah, definitely the humour comes out. So not working so well between maybe a husband and wife. Man and woman, but it sounds like between men, this is definitely the way to go.

Neil:

Yeah, exactly. You can chirp each other. You can say the wrong thing. It could be off color, it can be anything. If it's the right person, it's always right. It doesn't matter.

Charlotte J:

Can you think of a story that you can share about a time when you felt genuinely supported by another man and how perhaps that impacted your sense of connection? No. Well, thanks for that.

Neil:

I, I could probably call 20 guys tonight and say, I've got a flat tire, can you help me for an hour? And I would say that a bunch of them would come, because of the right people and they know if they anything happened to them, they could call me. And if I had the chance to do it, I would be there for'em. Totally. And that's enough.

Charlotte J:

Love that, but that's very practical. And I have 20 women I could call if I needed something. Some help with something too. Car tire. Car tire. Yeah. Oh yes, yes. Women can change tires too. I'm talking about like, I don't know, is there ever a time where you felt like you could, and you did open up to a guy and say, oh my God, things are bad.

Neil:

Yeah, there, there is a couple of guys I could say that with. I I spent a lot of time on site with a bunch of construction guys and I've got a couple of real gems that I talk to weekly, although they don't even live in the same city as me. And I constantly forward'em backward with a couple of guys. And yeah I could honestly say that I could tell'em pretty much anything. I know it would be in confidence and they would never judge me and I would never judge them for the same thing. But there's only a few people in your life that you could, that I could do that with. Mm. And there's probably one or two within pickleball that I could do that with right now. If something happened, I could talk to him. Yeah.

Charlotte J:

And do you think it's always been that way or has that been something that you've learned or developed or evolved over time as you've got older?

Neil:

I think I've changed my strategy because, me and my brother were always close until I left. England, and it wasn't as easy because of the time difference and the distance and just not knowing the setup of our families and things. I kinda lost that with my brother a little bit. Not that I couldn't call him at any point, but, I just different. So I had to find other brothers. Basically. That's what I've done. I've found other brothers and it's pretty cool.

Charlotte J:

Mm-hmm. So what advice would you give to any men who are listening who are perhaps struggling with feelings of isolation? They don't know how to build meaningful connections, and they're feeling pretty shitty right now.

Neil:

Play pickleball. Go get out there, get yourself a racket, run around for a couple of hours, you're gonna feel totally different. I can't tell you enough. I found a complete community in my late fifties by playing a stupid game with a stupid plastic whiffle ball. It's just one of those things where you find the right people in the right situation. You know, when you go hiking, you find people who love hiking and they have a passion in life. You'll find these people. I'm not sure who they are, but you'll find them. It doesn't matter. When you start, you'll find people at your level and you'll find those gems. You got through a lot of gravel to find a nugget, but you'll find a nugget.

Charlotte J:

Okay, so what if, I mean, I love that, and obviously the answer to every question, every problem is play pickleball, right? What happens if somebody's thinking, oh my gosh, there's no way I'm playing pickleball. That looks stupid. I don't know. Maybe they're not even at that point where they feel like they want to go and try something new.

Neil:

Well, everybody wants to do something more badass. Everybody wants to throw their theirself off a cliff or do something ridiculous with a fast motorbike or a gun over. Pickle ball's the easy way. You just get out there, you play around. It makes you a little bit more vulnerable. The first time you do it, you might feel a bit of a jackass. I did the first night I went out there. I'm thinking, why am I playing this? It looks like kids stuff, but it's great. And within the first five minutes you're laughing and it doesn't really stop. Whenever I'm not playing pickleball, now I'm thinking about playing pickleball'cause that's where my buddies are. It's my community.

Charlotte J:

I suppose it's about taking a risk, isn't it? Everything in life is about taking a risk. With that next step, there are two choices. We either stay where we are doing the same thing, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, acting out that same behavior, and then tomorrow is the same, tomorrow never changes.

Neil:

Yeah. Or.

Charlotte J:

The second choice is we shake things up and I think we did that.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

Playing pickleball. Yeah. I didn't want to play. You insisted that we play now I'm addicted to it, but sometimes you just have to take that

Neil:

risk. You need to change your perspective. That's what it is. That's what I feel. And it doesn't matter if it's pickleball, it needs something. Not only change your perspective, but if you want a better relationship with your spouse, if you're both healthy enough to play. Play something. Doesn't even matter if it's pickleball. Could be chess, could be walking, could be, archery could be anything. We all need to do something. You need to find something that gets you outta bed and keeps you motivated. And if you can do it with your spouse, brilliant. It's definitely pulled us a little bit closer together and, it's been easy to do it. Because it's such a social sport and it's cheap and it's easy and it's 12 months of the year. It's indoor, it's outdoor, you can play at the competition level, you can play it at rec level. You can find your people who played at your level. We all need something, especially heading towards retirement in our case. I'm 60 next year, so for me, I have to have something. I'd like to retire and do something other than watch the TV or walk the dog, although those are pretty good things too. I wanted more for myself, so that's where I got to this point.

Charlotte J:

Oh, I have a question. How do you think social media and phones and endless scrolling has contributed to male loneliness?

Neil:

Wow, that's a big question. I think it's easy to drop down that hole, right? I'll do it myself. You look on Facebook for something or you start looking on marketplace or just almost you find that click bait that makes you press the button and you go down that road for sometimes it's an hour, you turn around, you, oh my God, I had things to do. Yeah, pickleball kind of definitely focuses me, I don't I don't feel like I scroll as much as I, I used to. I just, I suppose I don't have as much time, as much dead time. What did we do before we pickleball?

Charlotte J:

Well, we reno'd that flipping house, didn't we? Yeah.

Neil:

But if we didn't have pickleball now, what would we fill the gap with? Yeah, it would be phone. It would be phone, TV screens. I don't even know what we would do. We would probably cook more or something.

Charlotte J:

I dunno. When your partner is on their phone, scrolling. It is so incredibly isolating. Yeah. It's so as a woman, I feel this, is it the same for

Neil:

It is, right? Yeah. Yeah. The attention is not each other. It's this thing. Right,

Charlotte J:

exactly. Yeah. And it's like you're living in the same house, but you're passing like ships in the night or whatever the saying is. You are not having any kind of conversation, meaningful or not, and honestly, just going and doing something together like pickleball or walking the dog or anything that gets us away from technology. Off our phones, off those rabbit holes that it's so easy to go down.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

Has definitely helped me feel like we are more connected.

Neil:

Totally. Yeah. And people know us as a couple now. Maybe if we didn't pickleball, I don't know how many people would know us as a couple. We had certain couples we would ask over for a meal or we got to them for a meal. But outside of that circle that we'd kept, we hadn't really made a bigger circle of friends for a few years,

Charlotte J:

I would say 20 years. While the children were growing up, our circle of friends pretty much stayed the same.

Neil:

Right. Yeah. And now it's exploded again.

Charlotte J:

Yeah.

Neil:

Yeah. Great people. Great people. And there's

Charlotte J:

always new people, right? Every time we go and play.

Neil:

Yeah.

Charlotte J:

There's somebody new that you meet. I mean, gosh, look at the tournament that I just played in. Yeah. Last weekend, how many new people did we meet? Yeah. How many new conversations? Oh my gosh. It was just, we could have stood there all day.

Neil:

That's the one thing that pickleball makes difficult, remembering everybody's name. I use buddy, friend. How you doing? I have got every. Single deflection for giving myself thinking time to remember anybody's name. Oh my God. It's not easy I just about remember my old name, mine. Anybody else is,

Charlotte J:

I honestly, I think you were like that in your thirties. It was always, what's, what's his name there? There's a couple coming towards us. What's his name? What's her name?

Neil:

Yeah. That's funny.

Charlotte J:

Well, that was a great closet conversation. I really enjoyed that. And it's good to have you back.

Neil:

Thanks. Yeah, it was good. Goofy little conversations, eh,

Charlotte J:

goofy conversations, but. Powerful stuff too. Yeah.

Neil:

Us guys, we don't give ourself enough credit and we definitely don't give ourself enough time to talk. Anyway, find your people.

Charlotte J:

Okay. Till next week.

Neil:

Okay. Thanks Chai.

Charlotte J:

Thanks, Neil.

Speaker 2:

Before we go, we've put together a fun freebie just for you. Top 10 tips for playing pickleball with your partner without losing your mind. It's packed with practical advice and a few laughs plus some insights on how these on-court habits can actually strengthen your relationship off the court too. You can grab it by clicking the link at the bottom of the show notes or just message us directly and we'll send it your way. And remember, it's not just about playing well together. It's about growing together.

Speaker:

Thanks so much for listening today. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Anything mentioned, including links, notes, and a full episode list, will be over on our website at pickleballandpartnership. buzzsprout. com. Com. If you got something outta this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe to Pickleball and Partnership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so that you are notified of new and upcoming episodes. And if you're finding value in this podcast, a free way to support us is to leave a five. It truly means the world to us. This will help more people access these real conversations. And if you haven't connected with myself or Neil personally, we would love to meet you and say hi over on our Facebook page. Thanks again for listening. Please tune in next week for another exciting episode of Pickleball and partnership. Remember, we're all learning, growing, and showing up in our own ways. And that's what matters most.

People on this episode

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Charlotte Jukes

Host
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Neil Jukes

Co-host