Every Sunday evening I play basketball with about 8-10 dads at Fayetteville Baptist Church. Last night we went an hour later than usual.. it just seemed like no one wanted to leave. At one point I looked around and I realized… we’re no longer hooping, we’re just hanging now. Most of us met through the small school that our kids attend down the street. It actually started as a small group of about 3 or 4 of us going on walks around the neighborhood after drop offs on Friday mornings. We just happened to notice the lull in our schedules on that particular day and then it turned into a thing. We’d walk, we’d talk, and before you knew it, we were starting to form actual friendships. Real stuff came out of these conversations about fatherhood, marriage, childhood wounds, etc. It’s amazing what a 30 minute walk through the woods will do for your conversation skills right? It turned out that we each liked basketball, so we decided to move our hangouts to the court. We added a few more dads, usually by invitation only to protect the group’s culture. Now we’ve got a tight knit community, one that I’m particularly grateful for in this season of life.

I’ve heard the narrative for years, men don’t make new friends after 35. Wait, that can’t be true… right? Towards the end of my thirties I suddenly starting seeing articles in my inbox that talked about an epidemic of loneliness for men my age, particularly fathers. In one article from Men’s Health they talked about how a third of men have no close friends, with “peak loneliness” occurring at age 35. The American Journal of Epidemiology found: the “risk presented by social isolation is very similar in magnitude to that of… smoking, lack of access to care and physical inactivity. The same article found this to be most acute for white, heterosexual men, but the impact was felt across all demographics of men. My own wake up call happened when my wife turned to me years ago and casually remarked… where are all of your friends? It’s true, most of my own friends live elsewhere. My closest friends live in Charlotte, New York, Virginia, and Nashville. At that point I started to take a hard look at what I was doing to maintain the friendships I had and form new ones. Here’s what I learned.

Put yourself out there. The walking club actually started before I came. I happened to see a group of dads gathering at drop off and walked over to see what they were doing. Then, I invited myself to join them. Sure, it was a risk (they could have politely declined), but I was curious and I already knew most of them so I knew there was a chance we might hit it off. As it turned out, it was one of the best decisions I made, and now I’ve got a few new friends.

Deepen your existing relationships. Years ago I made a list of all my close friends and potential friends who were on the periphery. This was during the pandemic when most folks were feeling isolated. We ended up starting a weekly zoom call (even though 3 of us lived in the same city and the other 2 lived elsewhere). On this call we’d check in about all the things going on in our lives. It helped that most of us were fathers and each of us were married, so we were all in similar seasons of life. Because we shared a faith tradition, we also wove in prayer to our calls which added an additional dimension of feeling seen and known in that space. Similarly, for my two best friends from high school we’ve gotten together a few time for weekend trips fishing, hanging out in a city, etc. It was about making time, and in some cases making consistent time to strengthen the friendships I already have.

If you want a friend, be a friend. A few weeks ago a friend of mine called me up and asked me to be his kid’s godfather. He lives several states away, I already had a busy travel schedule that week, and my own kids had an out of town field trip planned the week afterwards. It would have been easy to just say no, and sometimes that’s what you have to do. But, how often do I get the chance to reconnect with the best man from my wedding and former college roommate? Once a year is about all we get when I bring my family to his house for a weekend trip on our way to Baltimore. I was determined to make this one work, and guess what? It did. I could tell that it meant a lot to him, and truthfully, it meant a lot to me to be there for him and his family.

The holiday season presents the perfect opportunity to reexamine the state of your relationships. Are there any friendships you’ve been meaning to reconnect with and perhaps repair? Make the call. Might this be your chance to make some new friends through establishing a new tradition? Take a chance and find out. Whatever you choose, my hope is that each of you find your people this season. It just might change your life.

SDW3