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One big challenge I see with this is that it will attract people who struggle to make friends. A club of lonely men seems like a place I would be embarrassed to go to and hesitant to make friends at. Usually friends have more to recommend them than loneliness.
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> High functioning male social clubs generally have implicit rules, like "straight acting gay guys are fine but don't make it weird" or "no weird lefties". I think that whole conformation thing is why they don't work. Nobody wants to hang out with people pretending to be someone else so they fit in. Any social connection you make is then fake too. > Which means high status guys, the kind of guys who are trend setters…
Huh? "Conformist" is the most common type of person on Earth and conformists prefer hanging out with conformists. Social clubs are entirely a conformist phenomena, almost by definition. All those Elk clubs and bowling clubs and so on were chock full of conformists.
Maybe that's one of the reason people in small towns are so different, the social dynamic is stricter because there's just not enough people around to form groups of people that are different. City people like me, if we don't fit in we'll just find another place to go so we're more aligned. We can choose our community because a city isn't a community, it's a big box of lots of different ones. If you live in a small town you don't get to do that (not as much anyway)
But the idea that there's no community there at all is not correct. I live in a big city but I keep running into the same people :)
Ps I don't think one is better than the other, just more suitable to some people than others. I'm a city guy and I moved to the town of my girlfriend for a decade but I couldn't stick it. She couldn't stick the city with me, not for more than a holiday. That's ok too. Just meant we had to go our separate ways.
Edit: But yes when I said "Nobody wants to conform" I was just talking about myself. I guess there are people that want that. Thanks for the correction.
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…
1) Real friends certainly let you be real. And the scene I frequent deeply frowns on unconsensual photography. Most of the events I go to they sticker all the cameras. I love that. I go there for the people not for Instagram. That's not to say nobody takes pics but they do it in a quiet corner so they don't catch anyone by mistake. It makes it very respectful. The stickers are just a reminder so you don't just start…
This is a massive assumption, but maybe 'yourself' is limited to a standard deviation from the accepted mean.
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> Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today. You just described a country club, right down to the innate classism and exclusivity rules.
Are male only country clubs legal?
Sometimes I wish we could have "gentlemen's clubs" of the sort that existed in Victorian Britain (not the US strip club version), third-spaces where one could go to read or converse or play cards with other men or even have a meal or a drink. Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.
> Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today. You just described a country club, right down to the innate classism and exclusivity rules.
Similarly historically it wasn’t just elitist hangouts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_men's_club
It was particularly difficult for me because I had been in the Army for 10 years and was used to having many male friends I was extremely close with.
All I was doing on the weekends was sitting on the couch and I hate sitting on the couch.
I decided to fight it by focusing on three aspects of my personality and finding activities that suited them.
First was my nerdy side and for that I joined my local amateur radio and astronomy clubs. The amateur radio club is all old guys, but there's nothing wrong with that-- I'm on my way there too. But there is field day, volunteer opportunities, and monthly talks. Same for the astronomy club but slightly younger. You don't even need an expensive radio or telescope, or radio telescope. A pair of binoculars and a cheap handheld radio will get you started. My astronomy club is focused on astrophotography. I will never dive into that nightmare of cost but I have purchased a star tracker and learned to take deep sky photos with a DSLR. Also, if you want 20 different opinions on how to do something, tell an amateur radio club about your plan to do something-- sometimes their input is useful. Sometimes.
Time commitment: one day per month per club and the occasional volunteer event. Financial commitment: if you have self control, minimal.
Next was my desire for mental and physical fitness and for that I, a hairy sweaty middle-aged man who couldn't touch his toes, joined a yoga studio and started going regularly. There aren't a lot of men who go to yoga but they do exist and after a couple of months we started to get to know each other. Now every single Sunday after Yin we go get coffee. We are all into scuba so we go on an annual retreat each year to somewhere with yoga and good diving sites. The teachers think it's adorable, our little yoga men's club. Now I can touch my toes. And do a headstand. edit: and I don't know if it is a quirk of my area but every dude who is in to yoga is also, apparently, in to clay pigeon shooting as well so we do that too.
Time commitment: six hours per week, plus retreats. Financial commitment: large.
Finally was my desire to serve my community. This led me to joining my local volunteer fire company, going through EMT training, and going through the firefighter training pipeline, doing driver and pump operator training, and this fall I'm starting the officer pipeline. Now I staff the ambulance, do CPR training for the community, do a shift on the engine a couple of times per month, am on the board, and MOST IMPORTANTLY drive the engine in every single parade I can. The only reason I am up so late on a Thursday is that this evening was forcible entry training so I'm still amped up a little from hammering on the door training prop for three hours.
Time commitment: don't ask, it's practically a second job. Financial commitment: none, volunteers in my area get property and income tax credits and all training and gear is free.
I don't need to do all three, any single one of these would be fulfilling enough to make me happy-- but my kids are grown and gone and I've decided that working myself to death isn't worth it so I have the time.
Now instead of sitting on the couch all weekend doing nothing I have to specifically schedule weekends and tell people to leave me alone so I can sit on the couch all weekend and relax.
And if I need help moving that couch there is no shortage of volunteers.
Your personality is different but I guarantee, no matter where you live or what you're in to, there is some group somewhere that is looking for you.
In Queensland Australia there are men’s sheds which are great. The local pub. If you’re near a good church they often have lots of social stuff too, even basketball and soccer clubs.
Each shed has its own policy and opening hours, best to look up your own local shed.
I’m in my mid-30s, relatively successful, educated, friendly, outgoing, and so on. When I think of many men in my life, I am there for them emotionally and mentally. I’ve been there when times were good and bad.
But, I have no interest in this even a little. If I wanted more male friends, it’d be trivial. I workout all the time and there’s tons of dudes from my gym who want to go out practically every night (currently live in nyc). There’s an extreme amount of men in my hobbies who are looking for new close friends. I’ve been invited to numerous outings and so on.
Yet, this is where I wouldn’t be a good fit, I cannot be bothered because I just want a family and I’ve been deeply single for four years without any hope of a relationship. For me, the loneliness epidemic is more to do with how deeply single I am and how little women want to love me. That’s my whole concern. I moved to nyc just to be able to run into women because I had no ability to do that back in SF. My friends in nyc try to invite me to shit all the time but I refuse because it’s just gonna be men hanging out and I don’t care. I’ve even gone as far as not working for three years and I just turned down an offer to work at Meta today because I don’t want to become an incel like half of the men in the tech world back in SF are. I’ve given up so much money over these last few years all just so that I could focus on my own startup - having a family. Failed miserably at it too like most founders but still trying.
Sometimes I wish we could have "gentlemen's clubs" of the sort that existed in Victorian Britain (not the US strip club version), third-spaces where one could go to read or converse or play cards with other men or even have a meal or a drink. Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.
There's the Mechanics Institute Library in San Francisco. I used to be a member. If you want to see people sitting around in wing-backed chairs, half asleep, that's the place to go. It's quite a good library, too.
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These places exist but are usually financially prohibitive for most people, and that’s even if they meet whatever requirements they have to join
To be fair to our modern world this is how the Victorian gentleman's clubs were too—it's even in the name. If you weren't a gentleman you had the pub.