Why Some Men Struggle to Keep Up with Friendships

The problem isn't time. Most men never learned to maintain friendships without a shared context like school or work holding it together. When that scaffolding disappears, so do the friendships.

> By Isabel Fattal

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“What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.”

― Fight Club

Since I've had kids and moved cities, I have basically zero friends. I have a two friends about 40 minutes away but we're all too busy with kids and work to meet up more than really once a year. Having young kids really changes your social life in a way I wasn't entirely prepared for. I have no time left for anything other than family and work.

Is this something ai can fix?

I think inadvertently found some insight on this. I’m typical and have failed to maintain friends over the years. As an old dad who’s spent a lot of time at kids parties talking to men; men just aren’t that pleasant to talk to. Best case is we’re opinionated, myopic, closed off. Worst case ignorant and obnoxious.

It's really hard to discuss this without making overly broad statements.

For my personal expense, I have found a lot of men view other men as competitors to be guarded against. You can't begin to work with the building blocks of trust and communication without getting past that first barrier. So we often just stop at the gate.