On male friendship

 This article struck a chord: How many male friends do you really have?

I'll admit I'm not the most sociable person, maybe I've been unlucky but I've never had a large number of male friends. I'm not close with anyone from my (all boy) school, and the only people I'm still in touch with from university are female (and their husbands are the only guys I occasionally go for drinks with). I found this part especially true:

what happens when they enter the mid-life happiness U-curve around their mid-30s, when a lot of friends drift away and people get married and have kids?

I've definitely gotten lonelier as my friends have stopped going out due to family commitments, and one reason why I went to live in Asia was to meet new people (though that didn't work out too well either). I'd agree there is definitely a need for clubs and societies for men (not necessarily single-sex), as James Bartholomew pointed out in one side effect of the rise of the Welfare State was the decline in civil institutions that would have helped alleviate this situation.

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