I make a concerted effort to hang out with my guy friends. I’m usually the one who initiates hanging out. They all have families and we are childless, so I try to be respectful of their free time (or lack thereof). I’m not shy about my need for male bonding. I suspect most guys who feel isolated aren’t comfortable reaching out to put something on the calendar with their friends.

There was a moment that particularly stood out to me recently. I had a buddy who occasionally shows up to group events. I reached out and asked if he wanted to get beers one on one and we did so. A few hours in, he made a comment that he didn’t have other friends where the social time involved talking deeply about life, emotions, and experiences in the manner we were doing that evening. That surprised me, because that’s the only sort of friendship that I find meaningful. Decades of therapy has made me uncommonly comfortable talking about my deepest thoughts and that’s just normal to me. I think this may be less usual than I’d expected because that’s what I seek out in all my friendships; it may be that others stop at a surface level due to discomfort with intimacy.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always been “a few close friends” over “I wanna be liked by everybody” sort of personality, as I’m socially introverted. Anyway, if you’re a guy missing your guy friends, make the first move and ask them if they wanna hang out doing something together. They’ll probably accept.