July 22, 2025 • 18 mins
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. 💪
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
A lot has been said in thepopular media lately about the
male loneliness epidemic, abouthow men don't have any friends
and they are silently sufferingbecause of it.
Now, depending on whatstatistics you look at, this may
or may not actually be true.
I think instead of calling it amale loneliness epidemic, I
(00:24):
think what is more true is thatthere is a male isolation
epidemic because the reality isthere's a lot of men who are
isolated but aren't exactlyfeeling lonely.
They're kind of okay just beingon their own and functioning in
their own world and doing theirown thing until life gets hard.
(00:45):
And then that's when we as menkind of wake up to the fact that
we don't have any friends.
There's no one around us for usto be able to lean on for
support.
There's no one for us to talkto.
We don't have anybody to go towith our problems for care, for
concern, for support, forassistance, for anything, just
(01:06):
for friendship to somebody to bearound in the midst of things
getting really difficult inlife.
So I do think there are a lot ofmen dealing with loneliness.
You might be one of those andthat 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 whichstatistics you look at, some
(01:30):
things will tell you that theaverage man in American society
or North American society todayhas fewer than one friend.
I don't know how you have fewerthan one friend, but again, it's
a statistic.
It just means that most guyshave zero or one close friends
in their life.
That's a really bad place for usas men to be in because we
(01:53):
weren't built for that.
We weren't designed to functionon our own, isolated from one
another.
That's something that I try totalk about on this channel quite
a bit here at Manhood Tribes.
My name is Don.
I'm the host of the ManhoodTribes Channel, and I like to
say that my job is really to tryto do three things.
(02:13):
I'm here to give you a clearvision of how to be a man, to
give you a clear challenge forbuilding close male friendships
and to give you a clear path forhow to do both of those things.
So today we're gonna try to talka little bit more about that
second one, about the challengefor building close male
friendships, because I think thereality for most of us guys is
(02:37):
that if we look around, we justdon't have those, they aren't in
our lives anymore.
I.
The world around us.
Our culture that we live indoesn't naturally breed close
male friendships anymore.
It's not like that.
We as men can just sort of showup into adult life and
friendships are going to happen.
(02:59):
Maybe that was once the case inour culture, but it sure is not
today.
And so for most of us as men, wefind ourselves in this place
where we're just isolated.
We aren't connected with othermen in our lives anymore.
And now for a lot of us, like Isaid before, you might just kind
of be bebopping along in yourlife.
Not really recognizing the factthat you're isolated because you
(03:20):
don't actually need that.
Your life is full.
There's a lot going on.
You don't really recognize thefact that you're isolated and
aren't connected closely withother men in your life.
Maybe you are a dad and ahusband, and so you've got a lot
going on family-wise.
Maybe you have a successfulcareer and you have coworkers
that you're around on a regularbasis and people that you
(03:41):
interact with, and so you mighthave some kind of social
activity in your life, but youjust don't have any really close
friends.
You don't have people in yourlife that you can go to for fun,
for engaging with serious thingsthat are going on in your life
for somebody to be around whenyou're just looking for company
(04:03):
for things that you like to do.
These are the kinds of thingsthat men have always done with
friends, and we just have lessand less of that kind of
interaction in our world.
But where that really becomes aproblem is when life gets really
difficult.
I.
We've been spending a lot oftime kind of in this series of
recent videos talking about whyit feels so hard to be a man in
(04:25):
our culture right now.
And this is one of thosereasons, 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 yourselfin, things are just getting more
and more difficult.
The cost of living is, gettinghigher.
The stress and pace of life isgetting more difficult.
(04:47):
The just sheer survivability ofwhat it takes to be able to
exist in our world is becomingharder and harder.
And so most of us are facingmore challenges than we thought
we probably would at this stagein our lives.
And yet in the midst of that.
We have fewer and fewer peopleto turn to.
We are isolated and in theplaces when we most realize we
(05:10):
need some friends, we recognizethat we don't have any, and
that's when loneliness tends tokick in.
That's when for guys, we startto actually recognize maybe I am
really lonely.
Maybe this disconnection fromother men in my life isn't such
a good thing.
Maybe it would really help me ifI had some other guys to be able
(05:31):
to face these things with I.
But when problems show up atyour doorstep, the reality is it
almost feels like too little,too late to try to be able to
all of a sudden conjure up someclose friends that can help you
be able to navigate those toughwaters.
And so a lot of guys just sortof opt out.
We choose not to because in themidst of challenging situations,
(05:54):
the challenge of building closefriends just feels like one more
difficult thing to do, and wedon't need any more difficult
things to do.
So we need to be honest aboutwhat to do about the fact that
we as guys really are isolatedand many of us are lonely, and
we need to try to address how wego about building close
(06:15):
friendships that will help us beable to weather these storms
with a little bit moreresilience, with a little bit
more courage andsticktoitiveness so that life
doesn't just come crashing downon us.
Because here's, here's thereality guys.
When life gets that difficultand you don't have anybody to
(06:35):
lean on, you don't have anybodyfor support in your world,
that's when things can go reallybad for men.
The suicide rate among men rightnow is skyrocketing.
It is at one of its highest alltime levels.
I heard a statistic the otherday and I can't totally quote
it, so if you know it and youcould look it up and put it in
the comments for me, that wouldbe great.
(06:56):
But the statistic that I heardis that as many men die from
suicide these days, as women diefrom breast cancer, this is a
real problem in our world whenmen.
Get isolated and life gets hard.
Men make bad choices.
We go to really dark places andwe make really bad conclusions,
(07:18):
and so we need to try to setthings up for ourselves that
help prevent us from getting tothose really dark places and
having close friendships is oneof the best ways to help keep us
from going to one of those darkplaces.
So I want to try to just addressa little bit of what we need to
do in order to be able to getback to a place of developing
(07:42):
those close friendships.
Now, I do wanna say, before Iget into that, if you are one of
those guys who is in a reallytough spot, you're at a very
down place in your life and youdon't have any friends at the
moment to be able to turn to.
Now, I do wanna say before I getinto that, that if you are one
of those guys who is in a reallydifficult place and you don't
(08:04):
have any friends to turn to andyou feel like life is falling
apart and you're concerned aboutmaking a bad choice with your
own life, I want you to knowthat there is help.
There are people who care andthat that kind of a choice,
going down that dark road is notthe right choice.
Things can get better.
They may not get better quickly,but they can get better and
(08:27):
there is a road to that.
I want to encourage you to reachout to 9, 8, 8 hotline.
Just talk.
Just dial that number, talk tosomeone and just open up about
what's going on with you andwith the circumstances in your
world.
You can get some help.
The next video in this series isactually going to try to address
those men in particular.
(08:48):
What do you do when life reallyfeels like it's caving in on
you?
But for today, I wanna spendmore time on those of us who are
just kind of in the place wherewe're recognizing I am isolated,
I am disconnected.
Maybe I am even a little bitlonely.
I don't have friends in my life,and I'm realizing that isn't a
good thing.
That's not how I want tooperate, but I just don't know
(09:09):
where to get started.
I, I don't, it's not like I haveguys 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 dothat in our world anymore?
There aren't those just naturalplaces for guys, especially once
you get out of college and intoadult life, there just aren't
those places to kind of go to,to be able to build friends.
They don't naturally happenanymore.
(09:31):
And as our world's becomeincreasingly digital and we live
out of our homes and on ourdevices, we don't have as much
personal contact.
So I'm gonna say it upfrontguys.
I.
Building close male friendshipsis challenging.
It is more difficult in ourworld than it once was.
It is gonna take realintentional effort on your part
(09:53):
to be able to make it happen.
Those friends aren't going tofall into your lab, so you are
going to have to be intentionalto try to put some things in
place that will help get youaround some like-minded men,
where you can start to make someof those connections that can
grow into close lastingfriendships.
So that's really the first stepis you need to figure out what
(10:17):
are some places in your worldwhere you can get around other
guys.
Lemme try to name some of theones that I think are the
easiest.
There's lots of these that areout there, okay?
And maybe some of you guys cantalk about those here in the
comment section of this video.
There's lots of ways to be ableto get yourself around other
like-minded men, but if you'renot used to doing that, you may
(10:38):
not know what they are.
So here's a few.
Number one.
Your gym.
Okay?
A lot of guys, their one timethat they get out of the house
every day is to go work out.
You head to a gym, you're aroundsome folks.
There might be some other guysthere who consistently work out
at the same time that you workout.
Okay?
Say hello to them.
(10:58):
Just have an awkwardconversation.
If you wanna do something that'snot awkward to start the
conversation, ask somebody for aspot at the gym.
You're doing a bench press,you're putting on a little more
weight on the bar than you'reused to, to pressing ask a guy
to help you out with it.
Okay?
That's an easy way to start aconversation.
And then once he does that.
Take it another step.
(11:18):
Say, Hey, thanks for that.
My name's Don.
What's your name?
Right?
These are things that like, theyseem obvious.
They kind of seem funny becausethey seem so obvious, but
they're things that don'thappen.
I can't tell you how many timesI've asked somebody to spot me
at the gym and not asked theirname.
We've just, you know, put ourearbuds back in and going right
back to working out.
Okay?
That is kind of the normal thingto do, so you're gonna have to
(11:41):
be a little bit.
Unusual, you're gonna have to bea little bit different.
But again, building friendshipsdoesn't come naturally in our
culture, so you're gonna have totake some different steps.
Just start some of thoseconversations, and then when you
see that guy regularly at yourgym, just say hello.
Keep the conversation going.
Find out some things about him.
How long has he been workingout?
(12:02):
How did he get started workingout?
What things does he like to do?
What are his goals?
Ask any question you can to justcreate some conversation and to
start building a friendship.
Yeah, maybe you're at a gymwhere 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 maybeit's time for you to find
another gym, try to get involvedin something that's more of kind
(12:23):
of like a small group gym class,like.
CrossFit or some kind of yogawhere you're involved in
something that the people arethere regularly for the same
class and you're seeing the samepeople show up on a regular
basis, then you're doing thingstogether and it's a little more
natural to actually talk to thepeople that you're there with
because you're always there withthe same people.
(12:44):
Okay?
That can be a great way to startbuilding some friendships,
change gyms.
Do something that's more smallgroup oriented, and you might be
surprised how quickly you canconnect with the other men
around you.
All right, so number one is thegym.
Number two might be a church.
Now, for many of you guys whowatch this channel, going to
church is something that youalready do, and that's great for
(13:04):
some of you guys.
It may not be, you might bethinking, uh, I'm not really
sure about this whole churchthing.
Like, I don't know where I standon issues of faith.
I'm not sure that that's how Iwould want to connect, and I can
understand that.
But let's just say you aretrying to build friendships.
Church is a natural place wheremen are looking to connect and
(13:24):
to build friendships.
In fact, churches actually puttogether small groups of guys
for those very reasons.
They're trying to learn abouttheir faith, and they're trying
to build friendships with othermen who want to do the same
things.
It's one of the.
Easiest places to be able tobuild some friendships, and in
fact, you could probably joinone of those groups and just
say, Hey guys, I'm actually notreally sure where I stand on
(13:46):
these issues of faith, but I dowant to connect with other men
who are asking some of thesesame questions.
And so I thought maybe I couldjust join up with the group.
I guarantee you that any churchmen's group is gonna be
absolutely okay with you joininginto their group for those
reasons and would welcome yourcompany.
You might be surprised howquickly you will develop close
(14:07):
friendships with these guys,even if you don't fully agree
with everything that they standfor.
Faith related.
But this is one of the best andeasiest ways for guys to connect
with other men is by joining amen's church group.
Okay?
So just find a church down thestreet.
There's still lots of them.
Even if you don't go to one,find a church join up.
Look for maybe even a churchthat has a website where they
(14:28):
talk about things that they dofor their men's ministry, and
that could be an easy place foryou to connect.
All right.
A third place where you might beable to connect is if you're a
dad through any of your kids'activities, whether they're
involved in sports or performingarts or.
They just go to the neighborhoodplayground for play dates or
things like that.
(14:48):
Whatever your kids are doing,there's guaranteed to be other
parents around.
And these days it's actuallymore common to see dads involved
in some of those kinds ofthings.
So look for other dads who aredoing things with their kids and
find ways to just start up aconversation, ask him about
their kids' school, or ask himabout how long they've been in
(15:09):
the area.
Just, you know, s small talk.
Whatever it takes to just beable to connect with another dad
and find out some more aboutthem over time.
That may lead to finding outthat you're a little more
like-minded than you thought youmight have been, and that's an
easy way to start building afriendship.
Okay.
There's probably, like I said,lots of other ways to be able to
do that.
Ways where you're building ahobby, ways where you're joining
(15:31):
up with meetup groups.
There's all kinds of things thatyou can come up with and in
fact, put some of those in thecomments.
But the point is you need tostart taking some initiative to
build those kinds ofrelationships in your life.
You need someone to talk to andyou know that now, that's not
where you're gonna necessarilystart a brand new friendship is
(15:51):
by reaching out and just saying,Hey, life is really hard and I
need to, I need someone to talkto.
You're probably not gonna saythat to a perfect stranger if
you have a friend in your life.
Where you could say that, thenabsolutely reach out to them,
even if they're notgeographically close by, give
them a phone call.
Even if you haven't talked in awhile, that's still a great
person to be able to reach outto and just say, I just need
(16:13):
somebody to talk to.
Most guys will be totally okaywith that, and you might be
surprised that that guy that youcalled probably needs that just
as much as you do.
Don't be afraid to take theinitiative, but for those of you
guys who don't have anybody toreach out to, these are some of
the best ways to startrebuilding new friendships in
your life.
(16:34):
Start small, but start now.
You'll be surprised how quicklythose results might come into
your life if you'll start makingsome effort right away.
Guys, if you have enjoyed thiskind of content, I hope that you
will like this video andsubscribe to the channel.
And I also want to encourage youto consider being a part of our
Manhood Tribe's community.
(16:56):
If you're looking for ways to beable to connect with other
like-minded men, we have one ofthe best ways of being able to
do it.
And you can get your name.
On the list right now to joinour community when it is ready
to launch.
If you go to manhoodtribes.com/community, you can
find out more about what thatcommunity is gonna look like,
but it's gonna help you be ableto get better at being a man.
(17:19):
It's gonna help you get betterat being a follower of Jesus.
And it's going to help youconnect with other like-minded
men.
So all the things that we'vetalked about today, the Manhood
Tribes community is gonna be agreat way for you to be able to
do that.
Go to manhoodtribes.com/community and put
your name on the list to sign upwhen the community is ready to
(17:39):
launch.
Okay guys, I wanna leave youtoday by encouraging you to
comment on this video.
Just answer the question, whatchallenges do you face in making
close male friendships?
What challenges are you facingin trying to have close guy
friends in your life answer thatquestion?
And I look forward to engagingwith your comments, and I will
(18:01):
also be excited to talk to younext week in our new video about
dealing with life when it feelslike it is crashing down on you.
I'll see you then.
A lot has been said in thepopular media lately about the
male loneliness epidemic, abouthow men don't have any friends
and they are silently sufferingbecause of it.
Now, depending on whatstatistics you look at, this may
or may not actually be true.
I think instead of calling it amale loneliness epidemic, I
(00:24):
think what is more true is thatthere is a male isolation
epidemic because the reality isthere's a lot of men who are
isolated but aren't exactlyfeeling lonely.
They're kind of okay just beingon their own and functioning in
their own world and doing theirown thing until life gets hard.
(00:45):
And then that's when we as menkind of wake up to the fact that
we don't have any friends.
There's no one around us for usto be able to lean on for
support.
There's no one for us to talkto.
We don't have anybody to go towith our problems for care, for
concern, for support, forassistance, for anything, just
(01:06):
for friendship to somebody to bearound in the midst of things
getting really difficult inlife.
So I do think there are a lot ofmen dealing with loneliness.
You might be one of those andthat 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 whichstatistics you look at, some
(01:30):
things will tell you that theaverage man in American society
or North American society todayhas fewer than one friend.
I don't know how you have fewerthan one friend, but again, it's
a statistic.
It just means that most guyshave zero or one close friends
in their life.
That's a really bad place for usas men to be in because we
(01:53):
weren't built for that.
We weren't designed to functionon our own, isolated from one
another.
That's something that I try totalk about on this channel quite
a bit here at Manhood Tribes.
My name is Don.
I'm the host of the ManhoodTribes Channel, and I like to
say that my job is really to tryto do three things.
(02:13):
I'm here to give you a clearvision of how to be a man, to
give you a clear challenge forbuilding close male friendships
and to give you a clear path forhow to do both of those things.
So today we're gonna try to talka little bit more about that
second one, about the challengefor building close male
friendships, because I think thereality for most of us guys is
(02:37):
that if we look around, we justdon't have those, they aren't in
our lives anymore.
I.
The world around us.
Our culture that we live indoesn't naturally breed close
male friendships anymore.
It's not like that.
We as men can just sort of showup into adult life and
friendships are going to happen.
(02:59):
Maybe that was once the case inour culture, but it sure is not
today.
And so for most of us as men, wefind ourselves in this place
where we're just isolated.
We aren't connected with othermen in our lives anymore.
And now for a lot of us, like Isaid before, you might just kind
of be bebopping along in yourlife.
Not really recognizing the factthat you're isolated because you
(03:20):
don't actually need that.
Your life is full.
There's a lot going on.
You don't really recognize thefact that you're isolated and
aren't connected closely withother men in your life.
Maybe you are a dad and ahusband, and so you've got a lot
going on family-wise.
Maybe you have a successfulcareer and you have coworkers
that you're around on a regularbasis and people that you
(03:41):
interact with, and so you mighthave some kind of social
activity in your life, but youjust don't have any really close
friends.
You don't have people in yourlife that you can go to for fun,
for engaging with serious thingsthat are going on in your life
for somebody to be around whenyou're just looking for company
(04:03):
for things that you like to do.
These are the kinds of thingsthat men have always done with
friends, and we just have lessand less of that kind of
interaction in our world.
But where that really becomes aproblem is when life gets really
difficult.
I.
We've been spending a lot oftime kind of in this series of
recent videos talking about whyit feels so hard to be a man in
(04:25):
our culture right now.
And this is one of thosereasons, 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 yourselfin, things are just getting more
and more difficult.
The cost of living is, gettinghigher.
The stress and pace of life isgetting more difficult.
(04:47):
The just sheer survivability ofwhat it takes to be able to
exist in our world is becomingharder and harder.
And so most of us are facingmore challenges than we thought
we probably would at this stagein our lives.
And yet in the midst of that.
We have fewer and fewer peopleto turn to.
We are isolated and in theplaces when we most realize we
(05:10):
need some friends, we recognizethat we don't have any, and
that's when loneliness tends tokick in.
That's when for guys, we startto actually recognize maybe I am
really lonely.
Maybe this disconnection fromother men in my life isn't such
a good thing.
Maybe it would really help me ifI had some other guys to be able
(05:31):
to face these things with I.
But when problems show up atyour doorstep, the reality is it
almost feels like too little,too late to try to be able to
all of a sudden conjure up someclose friends that can help you
be able to navigate those toughwaters.
And so a lot of guys just sortof opt out.
We choose not to because in themidst of challenging situations,
(05:54):
the challenge of building closefriends just feels like one more
difficult thing to do, and wedon't need any more difficult
things to do.
So we need to be honest aboutwhat to do about the fact that
we as guys really are isolatedand many of us are lonely, and
we need to try to address how wego about building close
(06:15):
friendships that will help us beable to weather these storms
with a little bit moreresilience, with a little bit
more courage andsticktoitiveness so that life
doesn't just come crashing downon us.
Because here's, here's thereality guys.
When life gets that difficultand you don't have anybody to
(06:35):
lean on, you don't have anybodyfor support in your world,
that's when things can go reallybad for men.
The suicide rate among men rightnow is skyrocketing.
It is at one of its highest alltime levels.
I heard a statistic the otherday and I can't totally quote
it, so if you know it and youcould look it up and put it in
the comments for me, that wouldbe great.
(06:56):
But the statistic that I heardis that as many men die from
suicide these days, as women diefrom breast cancer, this is a
real problem in our world whenmen.
Get isolated and life gets hard.
Men make bad choices.
We go to really dark places andwe make really bad conclusions,
(07:18):
and so we need to try to setthings up for ourselves that
help prevent us from getting tothose really dark places and
having close friendships is oneof the best ways to help keep us
from going to one of those darkplaces.
So I want to try to just addressa little bit of what we need to
do in order to be able to getback to a place of developing
(07:42):
those close friendships.
Now, I do wanna say, before Iget into that, if you are one of
those guys who is in a reallytough spot, you're at a very
down place in your life and youdon't have any friends at the
moment to be able to turn to.
Now, I do wanna say before I getinto that, that if you are one
of those guys who is in a reallydifficult place and you don't
(08:04):
have any friends to turn to andyou feel like life is falling
apart and you're concerned aboutmaking a bad choice with your
own life, I want you to knowthat there is help.
There are people who care andthat that kind of a choice,
going down that dark road is notthe right choice.
Things can get better.
They may not get better quickly,but they can get better and
(08:27):
there is a road to that.
I want to encourage you to reachout to 9, 8, 8 hotline.
Just talk.
Just dial that number, talk tosomeone and just open up about
what's going on with you andwith the circumstances in your
world.
You can get some help.
The next video in this series isactually going to try to address
those men in particular.
(08:48):
What do you do when life reallyfeels like it's caving in on
you?
But for today, I wanna spendmore time on those of us who are
just kind of in the place wherewe're recognizing I am isolated,
I am disconnected.
Maybe I am even a little bitlonely.
I don't have friends in my life,and I'm realizing that isn't a
good thing.
That's not how I want tooperate, but I just don't know
(09:09):
where to get started.
I, I don't, it's not like I haveguys 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 dothat in our world anymore?
There aren't those just naturalplaces for guys, especially once
you get out of college and intoadult life, there just aren't
those places to kind of go to,to be able to build friends.
They don't naturally happenanymore.
(09:31):
And as our world's becomeincreasingly digital and we live
out of our homes and on ourdevices, we don't have as much
personal contact.
So I'm gonna say it upfrontguys.
I.
Building close male friendshipsis challenging.
It is more difficult in ourworld than it once was.
It is gonna take realintentional effort on your part
(09:53):
to be able to make it happen.
Those friends aren't going tofall into your lab, so you are
going to have to be intentionalto try to put some things in
place that will help get youaround some like-minded men,
where you can start to make someof those connections that can
grow into close lastingfriendships.
So that's really the first stepis you need to figure out what
(10:17):
are some places in your worldwhere you can get around other
guys.
Lemme try to name some of theones that I think are the
easiest.
There's lots of these that areout there, okay?
And maybe some of you guys cantalk about those here in the
comment section of this video.
There's lots of ways to be ableto get yourself around other
like-minded men, but if you'renot used to doing that, you may
(10:38):
not know what they are.
So here's a few.
Number one.
Your gym.
Okay?
A lot of guys, their one timethat they get out of the house
every day is to go work out.
You head to a gym, you're aroundsome folks.
There might be some other guysthere who consistently work out
at the same time that you workout.
Okay?
Say hello to them.
(10:58):
Just have an awkwardconversation.
If you wanna do something that'snot awkward to start the
conversation, ask somebody for aspot at the gym.
You're doing a bench press,you're putting on a little more
weight on the bar than you'reused to, to pressing ask a guy
to help you out with it.
Okay?
That's an easy way to start aconversation.
And then once he does that.
Take it another step.
(11:18):
Say, Hey, thanks for that.
My name's Don.
What's your name?
Right?
These are things that like, theyseem obvious.
They kind of seem funny becausethey seem so obvious, but
they're things that don'thappen.
I can't tell you how many timesI've asked somebody to spot me
at the gym and not asked theirname.
We've just, you know, put ourearbuds back in and going right
back to working out.
Okay?
That is kind of the normal thingto do, so you're gonna have to
(11:41):
be a little bit.
Unusual, you're gonna have to bea little bit different.
But again, building friendshipsdoesn't come naturally in our
culture, so you're gonna have totake some different steps.
Just start some of thoseconversations, and then when you
see that guy regularly at yourgym, just say hello.
Keep the conversation going.
Find out some things about him.
How long has he been workingout?
(12:02):
How did he get started workingout?
What things does he like to do?
What are his goals?
Ask any question you can to justcreate some conversation and to
start building a friendship.
Yeah, maybe you're at a gymwhere 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 maybeit's time for you to find
another gym, try to get involvedin something that's more of kind
(12:23):
of like a small group gym class,like.
CrossFit or some kind of yogawhere you're involved in
something that the people arethere regularly for the same
class and you're seeing the samepeople show up on a regular
basis, then you're doing thingstogether and it's a little more
natural to actually talk to thepeople that you're there with
because you're always there withthe same people.
(12:44):
Okay?
That can be a great way to startbuilding some friendships,
change gyms.
Do something that's more smallgroup oriented, and you might be
surprised how quickly you canconnect with the other men
around you.
All right, so number one is thegym.
Number two might be a church.
Now, for many of you guys whowatch this channel, going to
church is something that youalready do, and that's great for
(13:04):
some of you guys.
It may not be, you might bethinking, uh, I'm not really
sure about this whole churchthing.
Like, I don't know where I standon issues of faith.
I'm not sure that that's how Iwould want to connect, and I can
understand that.
But let's just say you aretrying to build friendships.
Church is a natural place wheremen are looking to connect and
(13:24):
to build friendships.
In fact, churches actually puttogether small groups of guys
for those very reasons.
They're trying to learn abouttheir faith, and they're trying
to build friendships with othermen who want to do the same
things.
It's one of the.
Easiest places to be able tobuild some friendships, and in
fact, you could probably joinone of those groups and just
say, Hey guys, I'm actually notreally sure where I stand on
(13:46):
these issues of faith, but I dowant to connect with other men
who are asking some of thesesame questions.
And so I thought maybe I couldjust join up with the group.
I guarantee you that any churchmen's group is gonna be
absolutely okay with you joininginto their group for those
reasons and would welcome yourcompany.
You might be surprised howquickly you will develop close
(14:07):
friendships with these guys,even if you don't fully agree
with everything that they standfor.
Faith related.
But this is one of the best andeasiest ways for guys to connect
with other men is by joining amen's church group.
Okay?
So just find a church down thestreet.
There's still lots of them.
Even if you don't go to one,find a church join up.
Look for maybe even a churchthat has a website where they
(14:28):
talk about things that they dofor their men's ministry, and
that could be an easy place foryou to connect.
All right.
A third place where you might beable to connect is if you're a
dad through any of your kids'activities, whether they're
involved in sports or performingarts or.
They just go to the neighborhoodplayground for play dates or
things like that.
(14:48):
Whatever your kids are doing,there's guaranteed to be other
parents around.
And these days it's actuallymore common to see dads involved
in some of those kinds ofthings.
So look for other dads who aredoing things with their kids and
find ways to just start up aconversation, ask him about
their kids' school, or ask himabout how long they've been in
(15:09):
the area.
Just, you know, s small talk.
Whatever it takes to just beable to connect with another dad
and find out some more aboutthem over time.
That may lead to finding outthat you're a little more
like-minded than you thought youmight have been, and that's an
easy way to start building afriendship.
Okay.
There's probably, like I said,lots of other ways to be able to
do that.
Ways where you're building ahobby, ways where you're joining
(15:31):
up with meetup groups.
There's all kinds of things thatyou can come up with and in
fact, put some of those in thecomments.
But the point is you need tostart taking some initiative to
build those kinds ofrelationships in your life.
You need someone to talk to andyou know that now, that's not
where you're gonna necessarilystart a brand new friendship is
(15:51):
by reaching out and just saying,Hey, life is really hard and I
need to, I need someone to talkto.
You're probably not gonna saythat to a perfect stranger if
you have a friend in your life.
Where you could say that, thenabsolutely reach out to them,
even if they're notgeographically close by, give
them a phone call.
Even if you haven't talked in awhile, that's still a great
person to be able to reach outto and just say, I just need
(16:13):
somebody to talk to.
Most guys will be totally okaywith that, and you might be
surprised that that guy that youcalled probably needs that just
as much as you do.
Don't be afraid to take theinitiative, but for those of you
guys who don't have anybody toreach out to, these are some of
the best ways to startrebuilding new friendships in
your life.
(16:34):
Start small, but start now.
You'll be surprised how quicklythose results might come into
your life if you'll start makingsome effort right away.
Guys, if you have enjoyed thiskind of content, I hope that you
will like this video andsubscribe to the channel.
And I also want to encourage youto consider being a part of our
Manhood Tribe's community.
(16:56):
If you're looking for ways to beable to connect with other
like-minded men, we have one ofthe best ways of being able to
do it.
And you can get your name.
On the list right now to joinour community when it is ready
to launch.
If you go to manhoodtribes.com/community, you can
find out more about what thatcommunity is gonna look like,
but it's gonna help you be ableto get better at being a man.
(17:19):
It's gonna help you get betterat being a follower of Jesus.
And it's going to help youconnect with other like-minded
men.
So all the things that we'vetalked about today, the Manhood
Tribes community is gonna be agreat way for you to be able to
do that.
Go to manhoodtribes.com/community and put
your name on the list to sign upwhen the community is ready to
(17:39):
launch.
Okay guys, I wanna leave youtoday by encouraging you to
comment on this video.
Just answer the question, whatchallenges do you face in making
close male friendships?
What challenges are you facingin trying to have close guy
friends in your life answer thatquestion?
And I look forward to engagingwith your comments, and I will
(18:01):
also be excited to talk to younext week in our new video about
dealing with life when it feelslike it is crashing down on you.
I'll see you then.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.