I was reading Scott Galloway’s awesome blog post last week, and this stat immediately jumped out at me:

I’m not one of those dudes, but, there’s a world where I could’ve been.

I’ve always been very selective about who I keep close. I’m annoyingly picky, quick to judge, and only like to spend time with people i absolutely adore.

The result?

This tendency endears me to other Type A’s — the intense, driven, “no time for bullshit” crowd.

But it also frustrates the hell out of people like my wife — warm, welcoming, open-minded, the kind of person who truly believes more people always equals better. (bless her heart.)

But as I get older — and more insulated in the kid-raising/family-life chapter of life — it’s impossible to completely ignore this truth:

You need friends. Especially male friends.

And, like a lot of dudes, I wasn’t doing much about it.

Galloway puts the scary stats out there:

My guess is that most men have some friends; and then, as they get older, it slowly creeps in.

It’s a gradual decline in engagement; missed calls, ghosting texts, and enough “let’s catch up soon” that it turns into a never routine.

And then one day, before you know it, you just aren’t really comfortable reaching out to your homies anymore.

I wasn’t anywhere close to that - to be clear - but I was seeing a directional change in my life that I really didn’t like and it was obvious why one line was going down while the other was going up.

For years, I had great excuses:

“ work’s insane right now”

“new job, just trying to keep up”

“lemme get through q4, chat soon”

Blah blah blah blah.

Then, I quit my job & stepped off the treadmill this past March.

No more 60+ hour weeks.

I gave up my double-monitor addiction and shed the digital Slack leash.

I stopped chasing the “I need a big public exit to have value in myself” merit badge.

And that’s when I really, really noticed it:

So I made two moves almost immediately:

Every guy I texted had the same response: “Sounds awesome. Good luck. You’re never gonna be able to organize everyone”.

Too many families with three kids, coaching, practices, night shifts, legal deadlines.

No time, too tired.

I was like, what are we the only busy Dads? Hell no. I was dead set on making it happen.

So, I brute-forced it, and we started in March.

First Thursday of every month, five guys, and yes, we played a little poker, for sure, but that was just the excuse.

We drank bourbon, whiskey, a couple beers.

An increasingly (non) impressive lineup of non-alcoholic beers, Utz pretzels, tomato pie.

Somehow we always spend an inordinate amount of time on hoagies, best hoagies, corner hoagie spots, delco spots, sweets vs. hots, then it’s a rotating grab bag of Birds updates, creatine cycles, Bobby Bonilla, how badly the cowboys suck, workouts, kids, corned beef sammies.

We started with five, now it’s nine guys - I quite literally can’t fit any more.

And every one of them I’ve basically known since elementary school.

So the banter, the bullshit, is just A-plus. It’s the main event.

I usually let my son hang out with us for just a lil’ bit.

He’s dying for it. He has no idea what we’re talking about or who’s the butt of any joke at any given time, but he wants to be a dude so bad you can feel it.

He climbs on my lap, soaks it all in.

And I want him to see it:

Because one day god willing, he’ll be 40 too.

And I want him to know that this sh*t matters, maybe more than a lot of the other things we chase instead.

Please understand, I have not changed.

I still hate small talk.

I still recoil at meeting new people. And I will still lean introvert, saying no to 80% of things that come my way.

But I don’t hate connection.

And there is a difference between the two.

So if by any stretch of the imagination, this prompts anyone out there to make a change, perhaps this is your cue to close the laptop, exit out of slack.

Pick up the phone. Send the text. Start the group.

Host the poker night.

If you liked this blog post, you might enjoy this other one on how to create something called a “Family Fun Day”. Great post, awful name, stop hatin’.

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