Category: Friendships

This current series started with my initial post, New Year; New Types of Friends that suggests the turn of a calendar page is a great time to re-evaluate your friendships. To help you through that evaluation process, I now describe some history of friendships, some of which may even surprise you.  My hope is that this series will help you understand and overcome some of the barriers men have in making friendships. Later in this series, I’ll provide some examples of good friends in sports, literature, and entertainment. I’ll also wrap up the series with why good friends may not be beneficial —and why you need some GodBuddies to help you become a better man.  Ancient Theory of Friendships  My previous post on The Philosophy of Friendship explained that Aristotle distinguished three types of friendship in his Nicomachean Ethics: a friendship for utility, a friendship for non-sexual mutual pleasure, and a

My initial post for the New Year titled New Year; New Types of Friends suggests it is the perfect time to re-evaluate your friendships.  In my next two posts in this series, I provide the history and philosophy of friendships. Starting with the ancient philosophers, many have spoken about the philosophy of friendships. Since then, dozens of sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and historians have written extensively about the need for humans to have friends. So let’s explore the early beliefs about friendships and the role they played at different times in history.  Ancient Philosophy of Friendship  Much of the early concepts for classical friendship came from philosophers in Greece and Rome who influenced the conduct of friends during the many centuries that followed. In ancient times, the philosophy of friendships included its social significance, moral basis, and the ethical rules it implied.  As I wrote in the initial post of this

A new year is a perfect time to start something fresh. Better yet, it’s a good time to re-evaluate your life’s practices and habits in general. This could include your food and alcohol consumption, frequency of exercise or spiritual disciplines, and even how you engage in relationships. This is especially true when evaluating your types of friends.  Spoiler Alert: This post includes a free download to a Relationship Self-Assessment to help you. Jump to download As I wrote in my last post, Reflections on My Journey through The MANual, I found many lessons as I read the entire Bible last year.  In addition to staying COVID-free, I also published a book titled Get Out of Your Man Cave: The Crisis of Male Friendship which expands the narrative about why men (and women for that matter!) need better friendships.  After retiring from my “paying job” in 2020, the book certainly is a “bucket list”