Why Men Are Losing Their Pals

Where would we be without pals? Could Trey Parker have created the comedy “South Park” if he didn’t meet Matt Stone in college? Would quarterback Steve Young have won three Super Bowl rings with the San Francisco 49ers without the receiver Jerry Rice? Had Bill Hewlett and David Packard not teamed up in a one-car garage in the late 1930s to complete a fellowship would we have had Hewlett-Packard’s innovations? Where would the world be if Paul Allen and Bill Gates didn’t happen to be childhood friends who teamed up to begin Microsoft? Or what if Steve Jobs didn’t have Steve Wozniak’s genius to prod into what became Apple? Would we have something like Google if Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t hit it off at Stanford? Would John Lennon’s cynicism have inhibited his most creative works without Paul McCartney’s optimism? Could Mick Jagger have become a rock star without the quiet fortitude of Keith Richards?

These questions are worth asking because we’re losing our pals. A 2006 study published in the American Sociological Review determined that 25 percent of Americans have no close friends. Even worse, while in 1985 the average guy had four pals, by 2006 the average man had just two. “You usually don’t see that kind of big social change in a couple of decades,” said the study’s co-author Lynn Smith-Lovin, professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Okay, studies on friendship should be treated as intoxicated strangers. They may be interesting, but they may or may not be full of it. One recent study determined that the number of pals someone has in school is an indicator of how much money they’ll make. (“Each extra school friend added 2% to the salary,” reported the BBC.) Another study linked the number of friends we have to our “brain density.” Yet another says it found a link between the number of friends we have and how much physical exercise we get. Such studies have a funny way of linking the obvious with the absurd; nevertheless, we sense there is some truth beneath them, as we’ve all seen too many pals disappear into our pasts.

Lost pals aren’t easily replaced, but they must be. The English author Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) put this best: “If a man does not make new acquaintances, as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.”

To keep our friendships is constant repair, we must first understand why we lose them.

First of all, manly events are inhibited by political correctness. Once was, Tuesday night card games with the guys, nightclubs for mature adults, men-only social clubs, and more were viewed as necessities so that men could be men. Classic films often got these men-only gatherings right. They showed men leaving the women and children after dinner to have a highball and talk war, women, or anything uncensored at all. Even the classic chick-flick “Gone with the Wind” (1939) has a scene where Clark Gable disagrees with a room full of men all sure of Southern victory; meanwhile, the women are upstairs napping. This was a period when, after dinner, women were apt to say, “Well, let’s leave the men to their cigars.”

These days such things are politically incorrect. So much so popular culture rarely portrays manly get-togethers as mature events. Now they’re more often depicted as frat-house flashbacks. Sitcom writers seem to think “man rooms” (which they’ve deemed “man caves”) are only for men who secretly want to be John Belushi in the 1978 flick “Animal House.” They treat men as adolescents. When the men somehow escape the watchful eyes of adults (the women) for a moment they quickly devolve into Charlie Sheen in the sitcom “Two and a Half Men.”

Okay that’s not fair. Women can certainly be a part of a group of pals if they don’t censor the manliness from the conversation or make the scene all about themselves. For example, in 1955, after a long party in Las Vegas in which Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, David Niven, and others had a hell of time, Lauren Bacall surveyed the damage and declared, “You look like a … rat pack.” Legend has it this comment prompted them to form the “Rat Pack.” Sinatra became “Pack Leader” and Bacall “Den Mother.” The group famously became an exclusive group of pals—gals included. So yes, women are allowed as long as they don’t take the manliness out of the affair—but how many women do you know who’re capable of that?

Not that it’s all about women. Men too often concentrate on the action hero. This is why today pals are rarely even celebrated as sidekicks—have you noticed how unnecessary Robin has become in the latest Batman movies? It’s easy to forget that the star quarterback is useless without a receiver who can sprint and catch. It’s common to overlook the players who get on base before the home-run hero comes to bat, the corner man giving the champ instructions, or the player who got the assist.

This tendency goes far beyond sports. Just consider that the best man at a wedding is forgotten as soon as he finishes speaking. Friends, pals, confidants, amigos, co-pilots, and first mates right the ship while the captain sleeps, tell famous men when they’re wrong, and are steady when the political winds change, yet rarely get credit. Sergeants, editors, agents, coaches, managers, teachers, parents, priests, and senseis are somewhere behind every man who has ever achieved anything, but they typically remain anonymous. As General Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff during the Civil War, one of General John Rawlins’ chief duties was to keep the general sober; some historians say this arbitrary but arduous deed just might have kept the Union together, but few have ever heard of Rawlins. Such men are often better, if less dynamic, than their more famous pals; they just shun the spotlight, are overlooked, or haven’t been recognized.

Who has stood behind you?

Who has told you when you’re being stupid and picked you up when you’re down? Who has laughed with you? Who slapped you on the back when you’ve really achieved something? Who are the pals who shared ballgames, a beer or two, and life-changing advice too? They shouldn’t be taken for granted, as that is another reason for the loss of pals. Even the Bible says we need pals: “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”

Of course, this list of things separating us from our pals wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that the mobility of today’s workforce is partly to blame. People are no longer tied to a neighborhood or town. We move. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 37.1 million people moved in the U.S. in 2009. Of those, 67.3 percent stayed within the same county, 17.2 percent moved to a different county in the same state, 12.6 percent moved to a new state, and 2.9 percent moved internationally. The Census Bureau says, “Nearly 3/4 of the U.S. population moves an average of once every 5 years.” Social media can help keep friends in touch, but “Facebook friends” are a paper-thin wrapping over very little at all unless backed up by real card games, ball games, fishing trips, or whatever blows your hair back.

Some studies even indicate that Facebook friendships can be unhealthy. A study titled “Narcissism on Facebook: Self-Promotional and Anti-Social Behavior” that was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences established a link between the number of Facebook friends someone has and how narcissistic they are.

So what’s the solution? In his 1960 book The Four Loves C.S. Lewis argued that without a shared experience, a passion for a hobby or really anything that interests us that we share with another, friendship doesn’t grow or last. This is why friendships that aren’t about something are shallow and easily ended. This is why some high school or college pals fade away after graduation, as the shared experience of school is over.

A mutual passion can be stamp collecting or rock climbing, but whatever it is a friendships needs to be about something other than a person or a past or it fades away into old stories. C.S. Lewis noted that friendships are about something other than ourselves when he pointed out that while lovers are often pictured looking at each other, friends are always seen looking in the same direction, as if they’re headed for the same goal.

So keep your friendships in constant repair by looking for passions in common. Even in this mass-media age we need pals to tell us when we err, to congratulate us when we succeed, and to pick us up when we fall. As Charles Dickens put it: “Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.”