One Man's Impossible Quest — To Make Friends in Adulthood

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Several years ago, there was a tweet that went viral which said that of Jesus' many miracles, perhaps his greatest, was having 12 close friends in his 30s. As people say, it's funny, because it's true. When my guest today came face-to-face with the anemic state of his own friendships, he set out to try to do the miraculous himself, and make friends in middle-age. His name is Billy Baker and he's a journalist and the author of We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends. Billy and I begin our conversation with the problem of male loneliness in the modern age, and how it befell him in his own life. We then discuss how men and women do friendships differently, the way men do theirs shoulder to shoulder, what this means for what male friendships need to be built around, and why they require what he calls “velvet hooks.” Billy shares how he started his project, which experimented with different ways to recover and create connections, by rekindling his old friendships, but why that ultimately didn't scratch the friendship itch for him. Billy then describes what did: a kind of casual fraternity for middle-aged men he started, and how it was inspired by something called the "men’s shed" movement in Australia and its philosophy that men need "somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to talk to." We end our conversation with Billy's takeaways for making friends in adulthood, including the need for embracing intentionality and social risk. Get the show notes at aom.is/makefriends.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bret McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:10.9	Several years ago there was a tweet that went viral which said that of Jesus' many miracles
0:15.0	perhaps his greatest was having 12 close friends in his thirties.
0:19.1	As people say, it's funny because it's true.
0:22.0	My guest day came face to face with the anemic state of his own friendships, he set out
0:25.5	to try to do the miraculous himself and make friends in middle age.
0:29.0	His name is Billy Baker and he's a journalist and the author of We Need to Hang Out, a memoir
0:32.6	of making friends.
0:33.6	Billy and I began our conversation with the problem of male loneliness in the modern age
0:37.3	and how he felt him and his own life.
0:39.1	We did discuss how men and women do friendships differently, the way men do their shoulders
0:43.0	or shoulder, what this means for what male friendships need to be built around and why they
0:46.9	require what Billy calls velvet hooks.
0:49.2	Billy then shares how he started his project which experimented with different ways recovering
0:53.0	create connections by rekindling his old friendships but why that ultimately didn't scratch
0:57.0	the friendship itch for him.
0:58.4	Billy then describes what did, kind of casual fraternity for middle-aged men that he started
1:02.8	and how he was inspired by something called the men's shed moving Australia and its philosophy
1:07.0	that men need is somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to.
1:11.0	We inter-conversation with Billy's takeaways from making friends and adulthood including
1:14.5	the need for embracing intentionality and social risk.
1:17.7	To watch the show's over check out our show notes at a-wim.is slash make friends.
	...

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