Almost one in five men admits to having no close friends, a survey has found

For instance with these two, we talk about everything - our marriages, our careers and even what we make and what we have saved. I would never talk to most people about that type of stuff. Among other reasons there is a certain taboo about it and you have to worry about jealousy, but one is a software developer and we have worked together at three separate jobs and the other is a well compensated manager at one of the big tech companies.

My wife and I both have to be careful about sharing even the smallest things about our lives like our vacations, our hobbies, etc because we are better off financially than most of our friends and family - not bragging as a software engineer and part of a dual income couple , statistically we would be.

And the typical male loves talking about sports. I really don’t care about sports as far as having any type of team affiliation. I can watch sports for the athleticism.

I’ve moved around a lot since college, and have had to build a social network from scratch a few times with varying degrees of success.

While the advice to join a social activity centered around a shared interest is solid, it’s not sufficient by itself for making friends. Bridging the gap between hanging out for a given activity to hanging out more generally to being actual friends with someone is hard.

Make one friend that is just down to show up. With at least one friend that you can consistently count on to show up, you can start inviting other potential friends to things and build out your social circle. You have to be open to rejection and to a bit of awkwardness that comes with two semi strangers hanging out. But with one anchor friend it becomes so much easier to make more and it’s the one piece of advice I wish I’d come across sooner.

The problem is that it’s going to be fake, which gets back to the core of my question.

I'm one of those men with no close friends. Or any friends, for what it's worth. I've had a few people in my life that I had very good friendships at a time, but all of them now live very far and we don't maintain any contact.

I'm married and my wife covers all my emotional needs. While I realize how dysfunctional such state of affairs is, I just can't bring myself to approach new people. Every time I'm in even remotely social situation, all I wanna do is to go home and be alone most of the time. Even when I do find people with similar interests, I never pursue the connection and follow up. I do realize that total lack of social exposure makes me a dull, boring person and forming connections will become even more difficult as time goes by.

I don't know how to get out of this.