To all the men here, are y'all satisfied with the male friendships y'all have in life?

My closest, only and true friend is a friend of 25 years.

We live in different countries today, don't speak everyday, but any opportunity we have to talk it seems like nothing has changed and we're still the same two goof balls we were back then.

Just added with a strong dad vibe. And jokes.

You guys have friends?

Not really, but it's okay because I have my wife who is my best friend period.

I had a large group of friends (50+ people), then I was laid off due to AI and other stuff, and I changed from one specific hobby to another. I lost them all in a few months.

I'm old enough to understand that it is my karma to go from group to another. I made new "friends" with sports and music, but I now accept that I must now rely on myself only, and friends are fleeting.

My father is an asshole, friends are temporary, I am now trying to be my best friend because everything else is unreliable.

I believe that in my previous life I must've done something good that brought me luck in this one.

I have a group of a dozen male friends whom I would trust with my life and the lives of my family. I think the same holds for each and every one of them.

We all come from the same small town. The group grew since kindergarten a few of us went to, adding friends through school, highschool, university. We have different careers and each one brings a unique perspective on things.

We try to get together as often as possible, but with work and kids and families it's difficult to always make it. So we implemented the "minimum viable product" approach where any two of us will arrange to meet up, then notify everyone else about what/when/where we are planning, and have anyone else join if they can, too. So even if just the original two meet up, they get to see a good friend. And if more show up, so much the better.

I feel truly blessed in this regard. I think there's a huge number of benefits we all reap from such a group: social safety net, psychological support, sanity checks on ideas and life decisions, reliable people you can vent to, always having someone to have a beer with, interventions when needed.

I know few people have this, and if I could magically wish things into being, it would be that everyone in the world gets a friend group like this to rely on. I feel it would make things... significantly better.

Take care of each other out there.

No

But I'm doing fine work and giving it my best.

Let me pat myself on the back instead of getting depressed about it for a change.

It's unfortunate, but friendships seem to be worn down by time. I've always been the person who will reach out if I feel like the other person also does but as soon as it feels one sided I lose motivation. When I was younger and lived closer to several people I considered friends, it felt nice. But as the years roll on, I find myself growing apart from friends in several ways. One of those ways is that despite seeming like not "kid people" several friends now have multiple kids and that's their life now. Which isn't really my thing. Other friends, I just feel I have less in common with than before, or they've gone off one deep end or another. Politics is a non zero factor. Conspiracy theories are another thing, unfortunately.

Nope. Not at all. I used to. I had a decent group, for the first time in my adult life. Then we moved 1000 miles a few years ago. I haven't been able to find it. Got a few guys who might pan out but it's slow going. Several guys have let things wither. Idk why. No one invites me first, it's always me, though they do mostly say yes. It's frustrating.

Not totally satisfied, to be honest.

Don't get me wrong, they are good friends and nice people in general, and we get along well when we get together, but we just don't hang out often enough for the relationship to feel very strong or satisfying. I see my friends a couple times a year at most.

I can't say I don't miss the old days of hanging out together, playing games and music almost every weekend! And yeah, I feel that we all live very separate lives these days, so I don't exactly know them as well as I used to, and vice versa.

I’ve tried, man. I at least got better at socializing in a common atmosphere, so I don’t feel so distant, but many people just don’t reciprocate communications. I invite a repeating occasion for people, and they’ll need 8 reminders or just not show up, to the point I don’t bother. When I realize I’m always the initiator, I decide that connection isn’t important to them.

God forbid a deeper need like confessing to traumas or needing emotional support. Some of the slightest favors I’ve asked of people have been too much. All the “above and beyond” actions I’ve ever seen in my life where people do things for one another have been in fictional media, never between actual human beings.

My best friend (friends for about 40 years now) and I still talk a few times a month. His schedule has always been busy since he's a workaholic, but we always find time for each other.

We've talked most of our lives about emotional stuff, but he came out about 15 years, so I don't know how much that plays into him being more emotionally available. I'm straight but feel fine talking about personal stuff with people. I just know that stuff is important to talk about.

My other closest guy friend is more a typical dude. We've had some personal chats. He's kinda had like a prolonged 5 year split with his wife, so there's been a lot he's needed to get off his chest.

He doesn't like to get too open, but now that he's kinda living on his own (partial custody of kids) I've been trying to be really supportive of him because I know he's going through a lot and doesn't really have anyone else to talk to as most of his lifelong friends are 3 hours away. He kinda thanked me the other day for always being so positive and upbeat around him, so it seems to be working even if he can't always acknowledge it.

My brother is probably my next closest guy friend. We're very opposite in lifestyle, but humor-wise we are the same and we grew up the same crappy ways, so we get along well. He's much more social than I am, so he's busy a lot, but we still BS a few times a month and have dinner sometimes.

It's important to have bro friends. I have a good amount of female friends as well, but some things are just more bro-ish. The girls can give equally valid, if not better advice sometimes, but it's nice to have a guy to get another guy's opinion on things too.

I wouldn't just get all sobby on someone out of nowhere, but if you want to get more personal, just lean into it a bit and feel out how receptive people are. Sometimes, guy or girl, people are cautious about getting into someone's personal life, either they're insecure talking about personal things, or they don't wanna get blamed if they give advice that doesn't work out, etc, but you just gotta go for it in a reasonable manner if you want to be more open.

I have an amazing set of male friends. We have been friends since college. We game, go on vacations, go to events, go out for dinner together, we help each-other out. We all talk to each-other at least once a week. We have weathered marriages, divorces, kids, grandkids, moves, addictions, hospital visits, and funerals.

Guy friends are kinda rare for me, none of them i feel normal about. I had a guy friend who kinda fell off the face of the earth because he's so miserable working at amazon and doing trade school simultaneously. Worried as hell for him. And then i made another guy friend recently but now we're super gay for eachother so i guess i feel really good about that one? Definitely not an ordinary friendship though.

Area Man Unsure If He’s Male-Bonding Or Being Bullied

No. Mainly for these reasons.

I tried more when I was younger. At some point I couldn't be bothered with those kind of things anymore.

Maybe it's just me or the places I've been, but men are value superficially. Most guys I've thought were friends were shallow or based on value extractions.

There was one man only who didn't care about tangible values. Whether that be monetary, social capital, or what have you. We drifted apart over the years and lost contact all together. Might be the only true friend I've ever had.

It seems from my experience the gateway to most male friendship is animalistic headbutting. I'm not about that. Maybe I tired of that too soon before my age group moved on from that phase. I don't know.

All of the males around me are conservatives. No

This is one of the things that I'm pretty satisfied with and grateful for in my life. No romance, currently no job, not much I'm excited about on the horizon, but I'm very happy with the friendships I've cultivated with other dudes. I just wish we all lived closer together. A handful of us do a semi-regular video chat where we check in and see how everyone's doing. We hold space for emotional vulnerability and support each other however we can. We talk about issues with life, family, or sometimes just shoot the shit and have a regular chat about whatever we've been up to.

When people talk about holding your male friends accountable for saying sexist things or reinforcing typical toxic bullshit, I feel very fortunate that I just don't have friends like that. I like to think I'd call it out if it happened, but I just never have to hear that kind of shit from my friends and I don't think I'd cultivate a friendship with someone who's comfortable saying that kind of stuff.

We're all in our 30's at this point and some are starting families. I don't get to see everyone as much as I'd like, but any time I get to spend around them always feels so restorative. I've never been shy about expressing my true feelings and I tell each and every one of them that I love them. I used to really enjoy making my more guarded friends squirm with an "I love you," but it doesn't really work anymore because now everyone is just as comfortable saying it as I am.

I wish every dude could have guy friends like this. There's a lot of cultural baggage that makes it harder than it should be. I appreciate the question because I often struggle with feeling gratitude for the things in my life that I'm most thankful for. I spend too much time in a negative headspace, but I've got a good bench of bros I can lean on and I need to appreciate that.

I have great friends, but they live far away so I only see them a couple times a year. I'd love to make more friends who live nearby, but it feels more difficult the older I get.

Yeah. I have several active groups of friends:

Neighbor friends. These are the people I tend to reach out to when I'm taking my kids to a playground or a local neighborhood restaurant or other activity. I usually coordinate with them for local neighborhood events.

Work friends. These are the people I tend to socialize with during the day, or with the periodic happy hour or work outing. Sometimes I travel with some of them for work, so it's sometimes a friendly partner to explore another city with in our down time, and usually some sort of shared project for the actual work time.

Text message friends. These are people who I don't necessarily hang out with in person all that much, mostly because we don't live in the same cities, but I have about 3-5 very active group text threads around some shared interest or common friend group or former social connection (like going to the same school), maybe 3-5 more somewhat active group text threads. We share memes, news stories, links, just general discussion about our lives, etc.

I've had to reset and make new friends probably 5 or 6 times in my life, moving cities somewhere new. Each time I get a new local friend group, and I try to stay in touch with the ones I got along with best. A lot of that social stuff was out of necessity, but it built some social skills and got me used to making friends well into my 30's and beyond.

Nah literally cut off my last main male friend group. I basically hung out with one dude and he'd hangout with other guys I've known for maybe 15-20 years but never I never hungout with them 1 on 1, just this one dude. I stopped responding to the group texts, don't accept invites and slowly weened my way out. These are the guys:

• One is in a "punk band." He grew up with a house maid. Tried to mock me multiple times for things like; wearing Docs, wearing band shirts(that he doesn't like), my tattoos(which are cool af). He's definitely just mad I am naturally way more punk than him without even trying.

• An alcoholic who has become more annoying as we aged.

• A pot head who doesn't share his weed, like ever. His dad bought him a house only one of us with a house, his dad paid for his college as well. No debt, doesn't share weed.

The main guy I used to hang with you could've called an anti-establishment/conspiracy theorist type. We would play co-op couch games and shoot the shit, drink a little and smoke a bit. Since 2015 he's slow walked down the path you imagine, never really diving head first, but walking it. He doesn't vote, but started listening to Tim Poole and slowly got worse from there. Just an absolute idiot that even when presented with information doesn't accept if it isn't what he thinks. The last time we hung out a few months ago we were talking about politics loosely and he kept doing this little bitch hand wave thing with this disgusted grimace on his face to anything about everything happening. The last thing I said was "You know man I miss talking about politics with you, it never used to be this pathetic we could just say whatever." Then I said bye and decided I don't ever wanna hangout with these dudes again.

Now my main friends are some ladies I used to work with and my online D&D group, which has two guys in it but they're like chill nerds.

All of my friends are on Discord living several states away (one is in Canada). I don't have any friends that live close by I could go do something with. Been with these guys for over a decade and we meet up in person every couple years at a convention. I'm happy when I'm talking to them, but I'd love nothing more than to have a friend I could hang out with in person. My therapist encouraged me to do volunteer work and look for hobby groups. I've been doing those and the hobby groups worked a lot better, but I never feel like I'm getting to know any of these people even after talking to them for a while. Like it still just feels no different than the Discord group where we only see each other in this one specific moment and never outside of it.

As I've gotten older, I've got more responsibilities which compete for my care and attention. With that said, I make time. What that looks like for me is I visit with one of my old friends quarterly-ish and then go fishing or hunting (depending on season) once every other week with a closer friend.

Then for sharing things on the emotional front, in my experience that may come as a natural consequence of sharing other things going on in your life and asking about another's own experiences.

I have nobody :(

I have stopped socializing.

Not really. I have a lot of trouble relating to other straight/cis men. The more time I spend around someone, the less I like them. I pretty much hate most "masculine" stuff. I have started to prefer ephemeral stuff like talking people up in public, doing board games and trivia nights, and attending niche meetups. Friendships rarely stick, but I do see the same people periodically which is nice

I've tried gaming, but card games are too expensive for my interest level, and I get burned out out video games too quickly to get into competitive stuff. A bunch of my friends from college bond over this, and it kinda sucks to feel incompatible with it. I sometimes get in on an D&D game which is great, but not especially frequent.

I have more female and LGBTQ friends than anything, but it's hard to feel fully included in those communities either because I'm pretty much a normie. It's still the most positive community I am a part of and tend to earn trust and an ally pretty quickly, so I lean on it.

I'm also pretty autistic and mostly want to talk to people about Linux, mesh networks, and data hoarding, and I have my best luck online. I'm a part of a few niche online communities and do IRL meetups and stuff.

I work in word tech startups, and like my coworkers, but they're not my close friends. Still, it's the closest I get to "my people", but it's mostly remote work and hardly anyone ever lives near me.

I an excellent relationship with my wife and she has a much easier time making friends. She and her friends all think it's weird that I don't have many close friends, and it really does feel like it's just hard to be a social man these days.

It does get to be hard. I do sometimes worry that I am uniquely unlikeable, but I also don't ever get that feedback. I just have no idea where I would find the kind of friend that thinks writing NixOS flakes and Terraform scripts is a fun leisure activity.

I have painstakingly picked a few guys from literally all the guys I've ever met, and these guys are the best. It's been a lot of trial and error to get here, but it was well worth the effort.

Over the various years growing up, I'm friendly with a lot of people, but I keep in touch with a select few from each time period, and they tend to keep me in the loop of the goings on in that circle.

And many of these good friends I am currently physically far away from, I try to make the effort to go and visit them, and invite them over if they ever consider coming to where I live.

I don't have any friends other than my wife. Am I satisfied? Yes, mostly. There are rare occasions where I'd like to spend time with a male that shares my hobbies but I don't really have time or the drive to go too far, so still waiting on a neighbor that smokes weed and is a nerd to move in.

Had a friend all through high school and my early 20s. Kinda lost touch. His mum gave me a number that I messaged a couple of times but other than that not really had ‘friends’ for the last 20 odd years.

Just work colleagues from time to time.

Yes, my best friend and I have been friends for 35 years, even though he lives 1000 miles away. I’m close with one of my male cousins and we talk regularly. My wife and I also just hung out with another longtime male friend and his wife and just spent the night bullshitting. Also making new friends, including men, at the living history museum I’m on the board of.

I’m not always sure why these folks want to hang out with me, but I’m glad to have them in my life.

Fortunately, my male friendships were formed through shared experiences at difficult workplaces. I feel like only a percentage of workplaces are conducive to this type of bonding. Working front line tech support is one of the places where that can happen but also I've just been fortunate to have been adjacent to some great people when those situations arose.

I barely chat with my long ago male friends; we live in different regions and while we used to talk on the phone a lot, now it like once or twice a year. But I've got new long-haul friends from said workplaces and though we we only get together maybe every month or three, it's in person and that goes a long way.

I hope you keep at looking. Loneliness is a terrible feeling. I was utterly lonely for a lot of my life and it's very hard.I don't wish that for anyone except for the hateful bigots that need to be shunned to tell them their views, words, and actions are not acceptable.

Yes, we nuture it mostly on discord but also get together once a month or more and everyone is very supportive of each other. Just a handful of dudes hanging out and doing stuff together for decades. Very lucky they all stayed within an hour or so.

Don't know if I could form new friendships if I started from zero.

I am. I pal around with five guys. Our link is we all live on an “island” in the Chesapeake Bay. I put island in quotes because it isn't an island, but it is called one.

We run around on the bay in our jetskis, get together for football games and other social events.

So im older and married. Marriage like it or not kinda is the end to the buddies phase. I saw it in my friends who married before me and in myself. Problem is there is only so much time and my wife and I don't spend enough quality time together as it is. Its not just males she also does not meet with friends as often. Add to this people moving to other areas of the country or to other countries. Heck we don't even have kids. You even see it somewhat with dating. Any guy in the group who gets a girlfriend is not seen as much as if they are they have the girlfriend in tow. Again not exclusively male thing. Females see it to. I firmly believe the stag party is a going away party ceremony.

I've moved too many times, and now I'm in that difficult age where I have teenage children, and all my peers are too focused on their careers. It's lonely, but I have four (or more) hobbies that I'm really passionate about, so I'm weathering it well enough... And I have my own career, but I work remote.

If any of you find yourselves in San Diego, California, and you want to get coffee/tacos/beer/whatever, send me a message.

No. Not enough, not close, deep, or consistent enough.

Yes, but it took time to get there. Two things shifted: I opened up and I lowered the bar to be called "friend".

Opening up: geek out. Find the people that share your interests. I know, it's hard to do. But if you can find some people with a common thread, you'll likely find people with a few common threads and several tangential threads. Obviously, it's hard to find people, but chances are if you find one, they'll bring you more similar-minded people. Secondly obviously, you have to throttle yourself to not overdo the geeking until you know it's someone that has similar levels of interest. Most people geek out about something, but your local societal norms tend to direct you on what's normal. Watching every sports game of a particular team, knowing their stats? Geek. Cars? Geek. Guns? American Geek. Weight lifting min/maxing? Geekmaxing. These are just the normal masculine hobbies. Weather, space, physics, electronics, gardening, cooking, reading, so many other things to geek about. Try going to events that are part of or are tangential to your interests. Even if you dont grab anyone's contact info, enjoy vibing with your kind. Depending on the gig, you might even start seeing the same people.

Lowering the bar: I spent souch time feeling like I had no real friends. I had work friends. I lost school friends. I left home city friends. I lost prior work friends. Then I threw a big party and invited people from across my life. They showed up (mostly) and it literally felt like I was just catching up with old friends. The party itself wasn't important (to this topic), but the realization was. I always heard this notion of "fair-weathered friends" and "friends of proximity" and thought it applied to all of mine. Now I know: they're all friends of proximity because everyone is. Even your own family. If you lose the proximity, the friendship fades if you don't make the time for them. But it doesn't mean it's gone. It doesn't mean it needs a formal restart. I have summer friends, winter friends, work friends, concert friends, and so on. No, they're not all deep friendships, but they're people I can message on mutual topics and get together for mutual interests. But, among the ~30 people I can think of off the top of my head, there's maybe 5 I can talk about anything to. Doesn't mean I do. But they're people that i can spontaneously have deep conversations with.

Opening up can be as a simple as "I'm having a bad time with [blank]". If you're surrounded by masculinity, you might just get some dumb curt answers like "fix it" or "so don't do it". But you might find people with relevant experiences. I know I have selection bias, but most of the people in my life now would lend an ear and try to help. Humans like solving problems.

Similarly, when I was younger, I had more female friends than male. I'm sure being horny was an underlying factor, but I have little interest in most male interests here. By 25, I felt like I had no one. By 35, I was surrounded by 20 men and 20 tangential women, all friends, all open emotionally, all with just a seemingly small amount of common interest. But all about the same vibe.

And yet I can go a week and only talk to my spouse. And I'm happy with that. My spouse is my best friend, but I'm in the orbit of all these other people to share hobbies and interests with, both with and without my spouse.

Hell yeah, I love my homies. Most of my friends I met through conventions, which is a pretty easy way to meet people. We game sometimes, we've worked on cosplay, had wild parties, and we talk and hang out sometimes. A bunch aren't local but I've also got a lot of guys who I hang out with locally.

You just gotta find the right people and don't hang out with the people who you don't vibe with. Throw a party for the people you do like and they can invite people that are cool they like.

I have a wife and kids and a good amount of friends. Some are friends of convenience (neighbors and such I see everyday or kids are friends and we hang out or are part of our puckleball league) and some are just aquiantances but I got like 4-5 friends I really enjoy seeing and hang out with twice a month or more.

Yep. I have a few really old friends elsewhere in the world that I'm no longer in regular touch with that were having a great time when we meet. Then I have my homies around the city that I've known for twenty odd years that we have a group chat with almost daily messages and I meet at least one about once a month. Finally I have the local dog people that have become friends over the last years that we happen upon outside, and some go on dog walks and I'm invited to their events and parties.

All these circles are both men and women, curiously progressively younger than me the more new friends and acquaintances I make. I feel that I can ask people in any of these circles if I need help or talk about something, selectively depending on the need but still.

I'm really an introverted dude with a need for private time so this is quite sufficient for my social needs and with my dog by my side I very rarely feel lonely.

I'm satisfied but I think my bar is really low.

I hardly talk to any of them but if they ever messaged me out of the blue for help, I'd be there for them and I'd like to think they'd lend me a hand if things got really bad, too. That's all I could ask of them. I have one I see once every few months for a beer. We talk about games and general frustrations with life. He's an American living in Japan and I'm Canadian, but we seem to align politically so we don't need to tip-toe around that, which is nice.

What kinda friends are you looking for?? What needs weren't met when you say your peers disappointed you? Did they actively hurt you (emotionally or otherwise)?

If other guys are like me, they don't want or particularly feel the need to express their feelings because they already have a particular set of people who they feel comfortable being vulnerable in front of, so they can't reciprocate even if you want to open up.

No. I grew up with parents who cut me off from the entire world and now I can't make friends without it getting awkward. It's usually because I don't know proper guy behavior, and they end up thinking I'm gay, but a new low was achieved recently, where I was actually the problem this time by leaning into the stereotype and freaking all the guys I know out.

I just grew tired of getting friends, hanging out the first time, and never getting a call back. Or, "if you need anything, let me know/hey bud, how's it going?" Making random ass promises that we'd hang out. Then never following through. So I just leaned the hell into it. I don't even remember what I said. A lot of the guys have stopped being friendly with me now though. Used to talk about their home countries and shit.

It was just frustrating, trying to find authenticity and constantly getting people who couldn't see me as a person. It had happened over and over and over and over. And they all just wiggle out of it with fakeness, so they don't have to be a bad person. Which hurts more than them actually manning up and just telling me the truth.

Yeah. I don't expect anyone to help me with anything. I try my best to be available to people and I have a pretty active social life.

I have dozens of cousins who I've known and been friends with since I was born. I have family friends that I have some vague memories of us taking baths together. I have a group of friends I've known since middle school (~25 years ago) that probably includes 7 people. I have some friends who I've known since college which could be 2 to 15 people depending on how I'm feeling that day. I am still in touch with 5 friends from med school and maybe 4 friends from residency and I've got a bunch of friends I've developed in the last few years.

Dang, typing that all out made me feel incredibly blessed.

It's funny, if you ask me most days, I'll tell you dudes are lame and women are more interesting to talk to, but tbh most of my closest and longest running friendships are with dudes. Dudes just need an activity. They don't need to talk to each other. The vast majority of my male friendships at least originally centered on some activities like basketball, playing Warhammer 40k, playing video games, being in med school/residency.

As far as being emotionally vulnerable with another man, I think maybe like 3-4 guys in total. I am pretty emotionally closed off. I'm more of a "bust your balls" type of friend.

No, I'm down to like 2 male friends at this point. All the others have gone off and had children and don't really make the time for friendship. Of those 2, both of them want kids so I'm sure I'll lose them too.

I'm glad I still have all my girls, they're all child free, so are fun and we hangout pretty often, but yeah, long gone are the days of hanging out with the boys.

Yes, I don't hang out with toxic people.

Now that I've stopped drinking yes. Male friends before that were 'drinking buddies' which is not the same thing.

Also. Therapy helped.

No. Too lonely

I am lucky to have some of the best dudefriends I could imagine. Some are very open with talking emotions, some are more shy. Regardless, experience taught us the importance of supporting one another and that's what we do. Btw, I just sent them a text over Signal this morning, recalling the dream I had just made : I was cooking a stew for the whole group and at some point I was feeling inspired and took a piss in it- insisting that it added to the flavor(???). They took me by the shoulders and said look we love you, but you have to start the stew over. I said ok fair. One of them responded with "way to make a "piss-too soup" (=pistou=pesto). Anyway

Well, very few of them remained successful. There is only like one person right now or maybe two with whom I am open enough to reveal my identity's crucial parts and not being judged. Most of them broke my heart, maybe, cuz I have trusted them from very beginning or maybe I am unlucky person who broke the hearts of those who wanna come closer to me and also got broken heart by those whom I chased.

I only have one friendship left, which is fine with me as more would honestly be too many for me. We've been friends since we were boys. Long story short, we both got serious, life-threatening/disabling diseases at the same time, and because of his gentle persistence over years, he finally got me to open up to him about it and be okay with him opening up to me.

Now we have this nice thing where we actually emotionally support each other through tough times. He's one of the best people I've ever known and he's stuck by me for decades even when I didn't bring anything to the friendship.

I have a really good friend actually, we open up to each other about what we've got in mind, our emotions, anxieties, etc. We got each other's back, we started a band and we even work out together. He's married so sometimes he's a bit busy though.
I met him this year in a DnD group and I'm in my mid twenties, so although finding friends becomes a bit harder with age, it is not impossible. Cheer up mate, I hope that you'll find a friend like that soon :D

Yes.

I think the 'lonliness epidemic' is really born of delusional expecations. Most of the sad lonely people expect things from others they'd never give of themselves...

my most socially unhappy time in my life was the one when I had the most friends.

I have like one actual male friend I still talk to every week left, I'm okay with that. One or two female friends too depending on the week. My male friend I've known for like 10 years now since my first week in college, so we usually have no issue talking about whatever, theres no emabrassment or anything like that. I don't really talk about emotional sht with my female friends, it's always been more about entertaining each other and making the other laugh.

I never got the whole woman are more emotional and want to talk about sht like emotions or whatever, they can handle it better and are more used to it, sure, but do they actually want to talk about that stuff, probably not.

I'm not as hungup on needing friends or wanting to be social all the time as I used to be. I feel like I still don't have enough alone time to do and learn all the things I want to.

Having friends that share the same hobbies I do seems like a dream (I've had that in the past, but I hobby hop, maybe these friends are also into yugioh but I lose interest and swap to blender and they don't care about that at all, so eventually we stop communicating and maybe a year or two later im back into yugioh but now its been too long.

I swap hobbies way too often and I never know when, I at least return to most of them eventually but the friends related to it are gone. The friends that remain are the ones I've spent years drinking with (and ocasionally hanging out sober, but im a social drinker, I go mute otherwise)

I have never understood the "I can't talk to my male friends" meme. As long as the vibe is right you can say anything. And nz men have a reputation for being emotional brick walls. (In a relationship I can be an emotional brick wall so I get it)

But when I catch up with a friend I havent seen in a while and we ask "how have you been" its a genuine question and sometimes the response is "not good man, ..." Its easier to share mental state concerns with friends than partners.

I wouldn't call my male friendship status any better or worse than my non-male friendships.

Lots of people that I wish to hold contact with but also don't wish to be in contact with too often. It's not too difficult for me to pick out similar folks or be picked out by similar folks in a crowd of people, so I'm not in a rush to make more connections.

No, they are all retarded

I am very fairly satisfied. And yes, I get cuddly with them because I can, and why not?

How often do you find such friends?

Yeah, Samael (also known as Lucifer) and Stolas are good friends 😄

I don't project insecurities as lack of friendships

I have no friends.

it's mostly a personal choice, but also a lack of acceptable partners.

I rely on nobody. I lean on nobody. I share with nobody. not because I feel masculine doing it, but because I don't feel the need to. I've been "alone" for decades at this point and anything else feels foreign.

should I find one or many friends, they would inevitably need me more than I them and that would be unfair to them and me. if I would befriend someone like me it negates the friendship entirely. the importance of a friendship being built on bilateral support is often undersold or ignored entirely.

Am I lonely? sometimes. Am I happy? rarely. Am I satisfied? satisfactorily. introducing a friend to my life would inevitably destabilize my balanced world where it was no longer within my control.