This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
When Andrew McCarthy’s 21-year-old son turned to him and asked, “You don’t really have any friends, do you, Dad?” McCarthy had to stop and think. He had friends—at least he thought he did—but he saw and heard from them so infrequently that he started to wonder if they still counted as his friends. He asked himself: “What did I get from my friends, and what did I have to offer them?” The question set him on a mission to reconnect with a handful of his male friends, and it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped.
“A 2021 survey found that 15 percent of men confessed to having no close friends at all, up from 3 percent in 1990, while fewer than half of men said they were satisfied with how many friends they had,” McCarthy writes. Friendships are hard to maintain as work, family, and life demands set in, but the social stigma that some men face when opening up and being vulnerable can make things even harder. Today’s newsletter explores the struggles of male friendship and how to reimagine those bonds.
On Male Friendship
Are They Still Your Friends if You Never See Them?
By Andrew McCarthy
The friendship crisis of American men
How the Passionate Male Friendship Died
By Tiffany Watt Smith
The “perfect” platonic bond used to be between two men. What happened?
The Agony of Texting With Men
By Matthew Schnipper
Many guys are bad at messaging their friends back—and it might be making them more lonely.
Still Curious?
Other Diversions
PS
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Cindy G. sent this photo of a sunrise in Bucksport, Maine.
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel