Male Friendship Decline

 This statistic popped up in my social media (such as it is) feed this morning. It was from a story in Psychology Today, which had to deal with a man trying to get over the loss of his wife and his intentional and growing ability to make and keep friends. Now, what I thought of when I saw the statistic was my male students, the ones who can't look up from the screens and who are increasingly and painfully socially awkward. I'd hate to think of how many of them fall into the category of those who have no close friends (I'm sure it's over 15%; and it will only grow once they leave the artificial bubble of college). I feel bad for them, but I can't help but think about how it makes them easy pickings for the radical right, who are selling a manufactured and false sense of community and masculinity.

Janet's comment in response to these stats (as usual, I was pestering her with stuff I'd read as soon as she grudgingly opened her eyes) was that I'm definitely the exception to this rule because I have so many friends. That's definitely true, and it's something that I put work into. I'm sure my friends wonder why I send them so many texts about articles or videos or random ideas, but a big part of it is the constant "work" of maintaining friendships.