Author: Rich Gorecki

The Life-Stages of Friendships

January 13, 2025 No Comments

In my opening post of this year, 2025: The Year for Better Male Friendships, I included an interesting video on The Decline of Friendship and encouraged everyone to make better friendships this year. Over the next several posts, I will make my case for why we need better friendships. First, I will describe the various life stages of friendships. In subsequent posts, I’ll provide further evidence about why men (and women for that matter) need better friendships. “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” – George Wythe Randolph (1818-1867) Virginia lawyer, politician, and Confederate General What Happened to My Friends? As I explained in Where Did All My Friends Go?, I’ve describe several types of friendships during a man’s life: The circumstances of each life-stage impacts how we make and keep friends. Where we decide to live. Which school we choose or

2025: The Year for Better Male Friendships

January 6, 2025 No Comments

In my last post with Reflections on Year 6 of this blog, I stated that too many men still fail in school, at work, and in their families. The increase in loneliness and isolation has created a culture that enables guys to hide behind a mask, which keeps others from knowing them well enough to know when they struggle. So this year, I want to double down on my theory that men need deeper, authentic friendships. This post kicks off the new year with an interesting video about the decline of friendship in America. It also includes facts about loneliness and why we must help connect young males in relationships with more mature men. With a renewed focus on having better friendships, our boys and men, our girls and women, and our families, can all do better. Men Struggle with Stress and Loneliness According to recent studies, around 57%

Reflections on Year 6: Too Many Men Are Still Failing

December 30, 2024 No Comments

Since starting this blog, my practice has been to write an annual summary of the recent year’s posts. This year’s theme, “Wisdom for Men” was purposely geared to a more general audience of men, regardless of their religious affiliation or spirituality. But I realized there is still work to do. Despite what you read in the media, too many males are falling behind in school, at work, and in their families. They are struggling with loneliness, isolation, abuse, and addictions. Even after nearly 300 posts, self-publishing a book, and several speaking engagements, men still need deeper, more authentic friendships because the problems of boys and men persist. Males are Struggling In his recent book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It, Richard Reeves examines the alarming trends well known to social scientists but not present in the