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I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

wave3.social

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I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#1

Post by nswizzle31 »

The other day I saw a post here on HN that featured a NYT article called "Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44098369) and it definitely hit home. As a guy in my early 30s, it made me realize how I've let many of my most meaningful friendships fade. I have a good group of friends - and my wife - but it doesn't feel like when I was in college and hung out with a crew of 10+ people on a weekly basis. So, I decided to do something about it. I’ve launched wave3.social - a platform to help guys build in-person social circles with actual depth. Think parlor.social or timeleft for guys: curated events and meaningful connections for men who don’t want their friendships to atrophy post-college.

It started as a Boston-based idea (where I live), but I built it with flexibility in mind so it could scale to other cities if there’s interest. It’s intentionally not on Meetup or Facebook - I wanted something that feels more intentional, with a better UX and less noise.

Right now, I'm in the “see if this resonates with anyone” stage. If this sounds interesting to you and you're in Boston or another city where this type of thing might be needed, drop a comment or shot me an email. I'd love to hear any feedback on the site and ideas on how we can fix the male loneliness epidemic in the work-from-home era.

I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic
wave3.social

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#2

Post by Multicomp »

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem.

1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority.

2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they never have to break the ice and talk to those around them in the breakroom or geographical space, so all of our social skills have atrophied at best, or were never learned at worst. We know just enough civility to not get in fights, but we don't know how to easily break the ice or become acquaintances.

3. All the people that live in the cities are not close with each other, they didn't grow up together and don't go to church / rotary club / male-only spaces any longer because we are all supposed to pretend to be cool liberated yuppies in a hookup culture. Can't have real ties or any strongly held beliefs, that would make you religious (or worse, Religious on an actual religion), those people are bad. So I'm okay, you're okay, and we all smile. And inside, no real connections are ever made.

Not to mention testosterone levels dropping, schools being geared towards women, always co-ed spaces, and a breakup of younger and older generations because of cultural differences there too...not that the old people are always nice.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#3

Post by allears »

As Groucho said, I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.

Here's the thing -- by making it a 'club', and making prospective 'members' pass muster, you're just replicating HR at a big corporation. Friendship isn't so much about matching activities and interests as it is about finding someone whose sense of humor matches yours, or going through the same experience together. No matter how lonely I was, I would never audition for a 'club'. I'd much rather meet someone by just doing the activities I like, and noticing who else is around.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#4

Post by nswizzle31 »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

Appreciate the thoughts - totally agree on those issues, but I don't think the problem is insurmountable. There is a real - albeit latent, maybe - demand for deep friendship and male-only spaces. Everyone recognizes it's an issue, at the very least, and is being more vocal about it in the face of the dramatic enshittification of the internet over the last few years.

It just takes too much self-discipline to break out of the internet consistently enough to build meaningful relationships without someone / something taking the initiative. I am sort of trying to replicate that at a larger scale by removing any friction to making plans.

Would love to hear your thoughts on if / what you think the solution is.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#5

Post by nswizzle31 »

allears wrote: post #3

As Groucho said, I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member. Here's the thing -- by making it a 'club', and making prospective 'members' pass muster, you're just replicating HR at a big corporation. Friendship isn't so much about matching activities and interests as it is about finding someone whose sense of humor matches yours, or going through the same experience together. No matter how lonel…

Interesting! All of my best friends came from going through the same experience together. Totally agree on that. But that experience was high school or college. What experience can adult men (25+) go through that is enough to build a lasting friendship?

That consistent, shared experience what I'm trying to build. But I can appreciate the feedback that it comes across as "auditioning" as that's not the point. The goal is to get people in the same place on a consistent basis. I also believe that consistently hanging out with people who are generally interesting / agreeable is a lot more important than matching humor or hobbies.

How would you position this with that goal in mind, especially considering that some filtering needs to take place since many people won't necessarily click like you say. I'm not going to find someone whose humor matches mine by dumb luck.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#6

Post by EGreg »

nswizzle31 wrote: post #4
Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

Appreciate the thoughts - totally agree on those issues, but I don't think the problem is insurmountable. There is a real - albeit latent, maybe - demand for deep friendship and male-only spaces. Everyone recognizes it's an issue, at the very least, and is being more vocal about it in the face of the dramatic enshittification of the internet over the last few years. It just takes too much self-discipline to break out…

Here are my thoughts… well, an article about my thoughts anyway:

https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-communities/

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#7

Post by frankmatranga »

As a recent grad in upstate New York, this exact problem of college friendships atrophying has been on my mind nonstop. My girlfriend and I host monthly cocktail parties in an attempt to stem the tide and even make new friends, but I’ve definitely been looking for male-focused groups. I’m interested!

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#8

Post by qcic »

nswizzle31 wrote: post #5
allears wrote: post #3

As Groucho said, I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member. Here's the thing -- by making it a 'club', and making prospective 'members' pass muster, you're just replicating HR at a big corporation. Friendship isn't so much about matching activities and interests as it is about finding someone whose sense of humor matches yours, or going through the same experience together. No matter how lonel…

Interesting! All of my best friends came from going through the same experience together. Totally agree on that. But that experience was high school or college. What experience can adult men (25+) go through that is enough to build a lasting friendship? That consistent, shared experience what I'm trying to build. But I can appreciate the feedback that it comes across as "auditioning" as that's not the point. The goal…

Gym, BJJ, pick up soccer, tabletop game clubs, RPG events, book clubs. There’s a billion options out there.

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#9

Post by parpfish »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

> Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they never have to break the ice and talk to those around them

one of the unexpected consequences of social media is that people have been conflating being informed with being connected.

asking "what have you been up to?" was to be a nice easy opening into a conversation that lead to connection.

but thanks to broadcast updates on social media, your friends already know what have you've been up to, so they can delude themselves into thinking that they've maintained a relationship because they know superficial details.

but a relationship isn't built on updating a list of superficial facts. it's built by having a conversation

Re: I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

#10

Post by losteric »

Multicomp wrote: post #2

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem. 1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority. 2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they…

This is incredibly fatalistic.

I lived under all of this, plus two immigrant parents with no community / role modeling, isolated in suburbia as a kid with a chronically online 20s.

Yeah that nurturing left its mark. Yet I learned to see it, and learn new patterns. In my 30s I have deep friendships. Younger, older, men, women, nb. Most are still shallow, my energy is limited, but even there sometimes we touch into depth when it comes to relationship or existential stuff.

Rewrite your programming.

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