As a therapist, Jeremy Mohler spends his days guiding middle-aged men through feelings of loneliness. He encourages them to seek connections, yet the 39-year-old is the first to admit it: when you’re a guy, making real friends in midlife is difficult. “It feels like an uphill battle,” says Mohler, who lives in Baltimore.
Some call it a friendship recession: a time in midlife when close male friendships sink to their lowest. According to data from the Survey Center on American Life, 15% of US men said they do not have close friends in 2021, compared with 3% in 1990. Those reporting 10 or more close friends decreased from 33% to 13% during the same period.
Authentic or close friendship may mean different things to different people. One straightforward description is finding “someone who sees you as you see yourself, and you see them as they see themselves”, says Niobe Way, a developmental psychology professor at New York University. Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas who studies friendships and has previously found it can take 200 hours to make a close friend, says: “A true friend will support and stand by you no matter what, will stand up for you, and tells you the truth.”
