This is one of the things that I’m pretty satisfied with and grateful for in my life. No romance, currently no job, not much I’m excited about on the horizon, but I’m very happy with the friendships I’ve cultivated with other dudes. I just wish we all lived closer together. A handful of us do a semi-regular video chat where we check in and see how everyone’s doing. We hold space for emotional vulnerability and support each other however we can. We talk about issues with life, family, or sometimes just shoot the shit and have a regular chat about whatever we’ve been up to.

When people talk about holding your male friends accountable for saying sexist things or reinforcing typical toxic bullshit, I feel very fortunate that I just don’t have friends like that. I like to think I’d call it out if it happened, but I just never have to hear that kind of shit from my friends and I don’t think I’d cultivate a friendship with someone who’s comfortable saying that kind of stuff.

We’re all in our 30’s at this point and some are starting families. I don’t get to see everyone as much as I’d like, but any time I get to spend around them always feels so restorative. I’ve never been shy about expressing my true feelings and I tell each and every one of them that I love them. I used to really enjoy making my more guarded friends squirm with an “I love you,” but it doesn’t really work anymore because now everyone is just as comfortable saying it as I am.

I wish every dude could have guy friends like this. There’s a lot of cultural baggage that makes it harder than it should be. I appreciate the question because I often struggle with feeling gratitude for the things in my life that I’m most thankful for. I spend too much time in a negative headspace, but I’ve got a good bench of bros I can lean on and I need to appreciate that.

I don’t project insecurities as lack of friendships

I have a wife and kids and a good amount of friends. Some are friends of convenience (neighbors and such I see everyday or kids are friends and we hang out or are part of our puckleball league) and some are just aquiantances but I got like 4-5 friends I really enjoy seeing and hang out with twice a month or more.

So im older and married. Marriage like it or not kinda is the end to the buddies phase. I saw it in my friends who married before me and in myself. Problem is there is only so much time and my wife and I don’t spend enough quality time together as it is. Its not just males she also does not meet with friends as often. Add to this people moving to other areas of the country or to other countries. Heck we don’t even have kids. You even see it somewhat with dating. Any guy in the group who gets a girlfriend is not seen as much as if they are they have the girlfriend in tow. Again not exclusively male thing. Females see it to. I firmly believe the stag party is a going away party ceremony.

Now that I’ve stopped drinking yes. Male friends before that were ‘drinking buddies’ which is not the same thing.

Also. Therapy helped.

Area Man Unsure If He’s Male-Bonding Or Being Bullied

No. Mainly for these reasons.

I tried more when I was younger. At some point I couldn’t be bothered with those kind of things anymore.

Maybe it’s just me or the places I’ve been, but men are value superficially. Most guys I’ve thought were friends were shallow or based on value extractions.

There was one man only who didn’t care about tangible values. Whether that be monetary, social capital, or what have you. We drifted apart over the years and lost contact all together. Might be the only true friend I’ve ever had.

It seems from my experience the gateway to most male friendship is animalistic headbutting. I’m not about that. Maybe I tired of that too soon before my age group moved on from that phase. I don’t know.

Hell yeah, I love my homies. Most of my friends I met through conventions, which is a pretty easy way to meet people. We game sometimes, we’ve worked on cosplay, had wild parties, and we talk and hang out sometimes. A bunch aren’t local but I’ve also got a lot of guys who I hang out with locally.

You just gotta find the right people and don’t hang out with the people who you don’t vibe with. Throw a party for the people you do like and they can invite people that are cool they like.

All of my friends are on Discord living several states away (one is in Canada). I don’t have any friends that live close by I could go do something with. Been with these guys for over a decade and we meet up in person every couple years at a convention. I’m happy when I’m talking to them, but I’d love nothing more than to have a friend I could hang out with in person. My therapist encouraged me to do volunteer work and look for hobby groups. I’ve been doing those and the hobby groups worked a lot better, but I never feel like I’m getting to know any of these people even after talking to them for a while. Like it still just feels no different than the Discord group where we only see each other in this one specific moment and never outside of it.

I have painstakingly picked a few guys from literally all the guys I’ve ever met, and these guys are the best. It’s been a lot of trial and error to get here, but it was well worth the effort.

I’ve moved too many times, and now I’m in that difficult age where I have teenage children, and all my peers are too focused on their careers. It’s lonely, but I have four (or more) hobbies that I’m really passionate about, so I’m weathering it well enough… And I have my own career, but I work remote.

If any of you find yourselves in San Diego, California, and you want to get coffee/tacos/beer/whatever, send me a message.

Yes, my best friend and I have been friends for 35 years, even though he lives 1000 miles away. I’m close with one of my male cousins and we talk regularly. My wife and I also just hung out with another longtime male friend and his wife and just spent the night bullshitting. Also making new friends, including men, at the living history museum I’m on the board of.

I’m not always sure why these folks want to hang out with me, but I’m glad to have them in my life.

I have no friends.

it’s mostly a personal choice, but also a lack of acceptable partners.

I rely on nobody. I lean on nobody. I share with nobody. not because I feel masculine doing it, but because I don’t feel the need to. I’ve been “alone” for decades at this point and anything else feels foreign.

should I find one or many friends, they would inevitably need me more than I them and that would be unfair to them and me. if I would befriend someone like me it negates the friendship entirely. the importance of a friendship being built on bilateral support is often undersold or ignored entirely.

Am I lonely? sometimes. Am I happy? rarely. Am I satisfied? satisfactorily. introducing a friend to my life would inevitably destabilize my balanced world where it was no longer within my control.

No. Not enough, not close, deep, or consistent enough.

Nah literally cut off my last main male friend group. I basically hung out with one dude and he’d hangout with other guys I’ve known for maybe 15-20 years but never I never hungout with them 1 on 1, just this one dude. I stopped responding to the group texts, don’t accept invites and slowly weened my way out. These are the guys:

• One is in a “punk band.” He grew up with a house maid. Tried to mock me multiple times for things like; wearing Docs, wearing band shirts(that he doesn’t like), my tattoos(which are cool af). He’s definitely just mad I am naturally way more punk than him without even trying.

• An alcoholic who has become more annoying as we aged.

• A pot head who doesn’t share his weed, like ever. His dad bought him a house only one of us with a house, his dad paid for his college as well. No debt, doesn’t share weed.

The main guy I used to hang with you could’ve called an anti-establishment/conspiracy theorist type. We would play co-op couch games and shoot the shit, drink a little and smoke a bit. Since 2015 he’s slow walked down the path you imagine, never really diving head first, but walking it. He doesn’t vote, but started listening to Tim Poole and slowly got worse from there. Just an absolute idiot that even when presented with information doesn’t accept if it isn’t what he thinks. The last time we hung out a few months ago we were talking about politics loosely and he kept doing this little bitch hand wave thing with this disgusted grimace on his face to anything about everything happening. The last thing I said was “You know man I miss talking about politics with you, it never used to be this pathetic we could just say whatever.” Then I said bye and decided I don’t ever wanna hangout with these dudes again.

Now my main friends are some ladies I used to work with and my online D&D group, which has two guys in it but they’re like chill nerds.

Yep. I have a few really old friends elsewhere in the world that I’m no longer in regular touch with that were having a great time when we meet. Then I have my homies around the city that I’ve known for twenty odd years that we have a group chat with almost daily messages and I meet at least one about once a month. Finally I have the local dog people that have become friends over the last years that we happen upon outside, and some go on dog walks and I’m invited to their events and parties.

All these circles are both men and women, curiously progressively younger than me the more new friends and acquaintances I make. I feel that I can ask people in any of these circles if I need help or talk about something, selectively depending on the need but still.

I’m really an introverted dude with a need for private time so this is quite sufficient for my social needs and with my dog by my side I very rarely feel lonely.