I'm Stig Abel, presenter on the new Times Radio launching next week.

I'll be hosting a breakfast show which means getting up very early.

Ugh, and going to bed at an antisocial hour, but here's the thing it won't be antisocial to me because I'm already antisocial.

During lockdown I thought about this. I don't really have any friends.

I've got a theory that life's divided into three work, family and friends and you can only do two of them well and I chose the first two. I've got lovely colleagues a magnificent wife bewitching

children most of the time so does that mean I'm okay without further companionship?

And is this line of thinking a man thing I wonder? My dad worked hard spent time at home and didn't seem to have friends either

whereas my mom still speaks to her friends on the phone for hours at a time

It appears though I'm not alone. Almost one in five blokes across the UK say they have no close friends and also married men like me are less likely to have

mates than single guys.

Not coincidentally perhaps an inability to talk about problems is seen as a major cause in the mental health problems surrounding men.

You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday times.

Today, why don't I have any friends? Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns.

Now, picture you.

Zooming past it all.

Light and breezy.

Ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic.

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So, Nadee. So Nadine, have you noticed that I don't have any friends? I have noticed. I asked the question, but I know you have because you've spent the last 15 years of our acquaintance laughing at me for Avenue.

Well I wouldn't say 15 years because at the beginning you did have friends

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