I’m wandering through Camden, trying to remember it. I’ve barely set foot in these ends since I lost Jules, the defining friendship of my twenties. He had a flat here for years and we were a double act - literally. We spent years travelling the country, doing shows, pursuing our comedy dream.
It was above the Oxford Arms pub near Camden Lock that we’d do our previews for the Edinburgh Fringe, but I haven’t been here in years because when we lose friends, we also lose places. So I lost Camden, too.
I should say: Jules has not died, we just drifted apart. And I miss him tonight, like an ache in a phantom limb.
I’ve been thinking a lot about men and friendship these past few years. Ever since I got engaged to my girlfriend and realised that I had no one to be my best man. I soon learned that I was not the only bloke with a friendship problem.
Since social scientists started measuring this stuff in the early Seventies, men have had fewer friends – especially fewer close friends – than women. And the problem gets worse as they get older: the research shows that when men retire, get divorced, or suffer bereavement, they experience worse mental and physical health outcomes than women because they are more isolated. It begs the question: what on earth is going on? And what can men do about it?
In my quest to reboot my social life, I sought out world-leading experts. The psychologists I spoke to all told me a similar story. If I wanted stronger friendships, I would have to break out of the “man box” of unhelpful gender norms that get in the way of intimacy for men. The unspoken rules of the road in male friendships, such as: “It’s all about the banter”, “Don’t tell him you like him,” or “Let’s not talk about our feelings”.
This advice made sense but lurking alongside it was an assumption: that your best or closest friends are the people you bare your soul to. Yet when I thought about my friendship with Jules, without doubt one of the most meaningful of my life, talking about our feelings barely came into it.
Our intimacy was in that comedy dream we shared. We went through everything – the joyous breakthroughs and the soul-withering bombs – shoulder to shoulder. We might not have spoken about how we were feeling, but we knew. We couldn’t hide it. Unavoidably, I witnessed him, he witnessed me, in our rawest form: scared, excited, puffed up with pride. It was all written in our behaviour, a braille only friends could read.
It was when we decided to stop performing together – to go solo – that it started to go wrong for Jules and me. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, we had lost what Dr Robin Dunbar – the leading evolutionary anthropologist and Don of friendship research – would tell me is the crucial ingredient for strong male friendships: our shared activity.
While female friendships happen face-to-face, men tend to socialise side-by-side... it’s about what we do with one another
Dunbar argues that while gender norms like those mentioned above play their part, differences we see in the male and female social worlds are more innate than it is currently trendy to think. While women’s friendships tend to happen “face-to-face” and be based predominantly around talk, men tend to socialise “side-by-side”. For guys, it’s all about what we do with one another.
Walking around Camden, I suddenly feel like Jules is alongside me again. Friendship is inseparable from place. Not only because the pubs, the streets of a place are where our friendships literally unfold; but because places become tied in our minds to a time of life. And our friendships so often live and die by these seasons. Camden for me isn’t just a stop on the Tube map, it’s a metaphor: for the sense of possibility I shared with Jules back then. This is why Jules and I could never get our friendship back – that time has gone.
I am glad to say that since my proposal wake-up call, I have replenished my friendship stocks. And, yes: I did find a best man – two, in fact. The key change I made was to start being intentional about my friendships: to take my social life as seriously as I took my career. To take the lead and do the work of friendship. Conor, Nick, Ollie, Phil and Hope: they were the best decisions I ever made.
Max’s tips for how men can rekindle their friendships
1. Adult friendship relies on routine and structure. Organise recurring activities with your mates so you don’t rely on spontaneity. A five-a-side league, say. Or a poker night.
2. Be the one who sorts out social things. Go first: send that text to sort a drink with an old pal. Book the boys’ weekend away. The best way to have friends is to be a friend.
3. Expand your toolbox. Try and widen the range of conversations you have with your mates. Role model vulnerability. Ask your friends direct questions to deepen the conversation, such as: “And, how did that make you feel?”.
