“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
That is from C.S. Lewis, and contained within this solid David French opinion column.
I have spilled about six metric tons of digital ink on friendship since I’ve been writing. There are a few very good ones (IMHO), and some crappy ones. I wrote about male loneliness first in a Minneapolis coffee shop in 2013. I guess I was ahead of my time therein, eh? That might be one of the bigger successes of my adulthood. Nice.
My own arc with friendship is weird, insofar as everyone’s is weird. I’ve moved a few times, which changes friend dynamics without question. I had one good college group for about 20 years, although that started to wither over time via Trump discussions (sadly and honestly), younger kids entering, geographic distance, the wives not being friends whatsoever, etc, etc. I’ve also been divorced, which is a huge blow to friendships. Some of my better friends of adulthood were through my ex, and most of them I haven’t spoken to now since maybe early 2018, if that. That’s about to be six years. Some of them may have new kids I don’t even know about. Weird to type that.
After getting divorced, I stayed in Fort Worth for (a) cost of living and (b) I had some decent friends there by then. Most of my guy friends at the time were scattered, with a small cluster near D.C., but they all had young kids at the time and I knew their wives wouldn’t “let them out” for a beer now and again, so I figured I’d be restarting as the weird uncle figure. I couldn’t motivate myself for that. Then I stayed, I met another cool woman, and I got remarried.
I have a lot of acquaintances, but I don’t know if I have many friends. I’m also kind of an asshole sometimes, can send dumb texts when I drink, and have opinions about big life buckets that some people recoil from. For some reason, women who love Peloton and $35,000-millionaire men seem to utterly despise me. I’ve never been quite sure why.
As a result, I think and write a lot about this stuff.
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