Billy Baker, a journalist and author of "We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends," dives into the pressing issue of male loneliness. He shares his personal quest to forge friendships in middle age, emphasizing the unique challenges men face. Discussing the 'men's shed' movement, Billy highlights the importance of shared activities for building connections and encourages embracing social risk. Discover his insights on rekindling old friendships and the intentionality needed to navigate adult relationships.
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insights INSIGHT
Male Loneliness
Men are suffering from high loneliness due to a lack of social connection.
Loneliness is a perception where desired social connections don't match actual connections.
insights INSIGHT
Health Consequences of Loneliness
Loneliness significantly increases the risk of various health problems, including heart disease, cancer, and premature death.
It's even healthier to eat junk food with friends than healthy food alone, highlighting the importance of social connection.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Billy's Friendship Realization
Billy Baker realized his own lack of close friendships after an editor asked him to write about male loneliness.
He hadn't budgeted time for friendships, relying on his wife and kids' activities for social interaction.
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In 'We Need to Hang Out,' Billy Baker recounts his journey to reconnect with old friends and form new ones, highlighting the challenges of maintaining friendships in adulthood. Through humorous anecdotes and insightful research, Baker explores the significance of friendships for men and how they can be revitalized despite busy lives.
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.
The Art of Manliness 