What Usefulness Has To Do With The Crisis Of Men’s Friendships

A strange thing happens when people stop needing you: Life gets easier, and sometimes emptier. Your children solve their own problems. Your colleagues rely on you less because technology can do more of what you once did. Nobody calls because the car won’t start or the sink is leaking. Modern life has eliminated countless small burdens. It has also eliminated countless reasons for other people to need us.

For some men, there’s a psychological cost. We call it loneliness, but loneliness isn’t always the problem. Some men have spouses, children, friends, and colleagues. They aren’t alone. They feel unnecessary.

Consider Tom: He was married, employed, and in regular contact with his family. When I asked whom he would call if something went wrong, he immediately named three people. Then I asked who depended on him. He went quiet.

His sons were grown. At work, software had largely replaced his expertise. At home, his wife handled most of the small decisions. Nothing was particularly wrong with his marriage or his job. Tom described his life as strangely flat. He wasn’t isolated. He felt unnecessary.

The numbers on male friendship are troubling. A 2021 survey by the Survey Center on American Life found that the share of men with six or more close friends had fallen by roughly half since 1990, while the share reporting no close friends had risen fivefold. The usual advice is predictable: Men need more friends. They should open up, be vulnerable, and get better at talking about their feelings. Sometimes that’s exactly what they need.

But in trying to teach men to talk more about their feelings, therapy culture may have overlooked something fundamental about how many men form relationships. They don’t always connect by talking about themselves. They connect by doing things for others.

We ask whether men have someone to confide in, whether they feel understood, whether they feel seen and supported. Those things matter. But those questions are all about what relationships give us. We rarely ask the question in reverse: Who needs something from you?

Many men build relationships around that question without ever asking it. They play basketball with the guys, work on something together, or coach a team. We sometimes look at relationships like these and conclude that men aren’t very good at emotional intimacy. But perhaps we’ve defined intimacy too narrowly. For many men, it’s embedded in shared tasks, favors, and the expectation that you’ll be there. Disclosure isn’t the only form of intimacy. Sometimes intimacy is being counted on.

Psychologists have long understood that adulthood isn’t only about being loved. Erik Erikson called one of its central tasks “generativity”: the need to contribute to the lives of people who come after us. We seem to have kept the language of connection while forgetting how important usefulness is.

Modern life is good at eliminating the need for that usefulness. We can work, eat, travel and solve household problems while depending on almost no one we know. We treat dependence as something adults are supposed to outgrow: Take care of yourself. Don’t burden your friends. Don’t bother the neighbor.

Yet some of the strongest relationships are built through inconvenience. A friend needs a ride. Your brother needs help moving a couch. Somebody has to coach the team. These moments don’t seem especially meaningful, but over time they tell us something important: Your presence matters to someone else.

I don’t mean that men should measure their worth by how much they produce or provide. Being needed can be much simpler than that. It’s not about achievement. It’s about having a place in other people’s lives.

This is where some of our advice about loneliness misses the point. We tell people to find connection, join a group or call an old friend. That’s sensible. But the language can become oddly consumerist: Find people who make you feel connected. Find a community that meets your needs. Maybe we should also ask the question in reverse: Where are you needed?

Tom found an answer in an ordinary way. A neighbor’s work schedule changed, and she needed help getting her children to school twice a week. He offered to drive them. It didn’t transform his life. But on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, two children were waiting for him. It mattered whether he showed up.

If you disappeared from your ordinary routine for a week, how much would change? Who would have to adjust? Who would wonder where you were? Having people in your life isn’t quite the same as having a place in theirs.

We’ve spent years asking whether men have someone they can talk to. Maybe we should ask a different question: Who depends on them? Being cared about isn’t the same as being counted on. Sometimes the difference between feeling lonely and feeling useful is knowing that your absence would matter.

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Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and author of the book “Therapy Nation.” Find him on X @JonathanAlpert.