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:
- Childhood & School-age Buddies
- Fraternity Brothers and Military Comrades
- Young Adult Friends
- Mid-life Friends as Couples
- Mature Life-stage Friends
The circumstances of each life-stage impacts how we make and keep friends. Where we decide to live. Which school we choose or whether we enlist in the military. How much time we invest in building our careers. Who we marry. Where we settle down. Even when we start a family. Each stage creates different opportunities to make new friends, while each is more difficult to find the time to develop and keep friendships.
Our Friendships Change
I’ve also realized that the purpose of friendship changes as well. Our needs change, as do the needs of our friends. As we get older, our values and priorities evolve, which changes the type of friendships we need.
The friendships from our youth were for fun and adventure. We learned a lot from each other, had fun together, and made plenty of mistakes. But quite often, those same friends have remained stuck in their old ways, even well into adulthood. Today, too many males still act like “40-year-old boys” rather than responsible adult men. Mature men are best at helping young males know what it means to become a better man.
Why Men Need Friends
My theory is that men become more mature and better men through better friendships. Stay tuned in the next post as I continue to provide evidence for the reasons we need deeper, more authentic friendships.
Read more about the importance of friendships in my book, Get Out Of Your Man Cave: The Crisis of Male Friendship. Find practical ways to develop closer, more genuine relationships that help us become better men. While based on biblical principles and standards for living from Jesus Christ, the book is valuable to everyone. Get the ebook or printed copy on Amazon. Click here or on the picture of the book to get a signed copy. I also offer discounts on bulk orders for your men’s group.
Thanks for your support!
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[Feature Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash]
