Millennials (ages 29-44) are one of the bridging generations between pen and paper and the digital world. At very young, they’ve overcame mass eras like 9/11. Hope defined their history — overseen by Obama Era Optimism. Now, they step into intentional power, aiming for evolution. As a generation demanded to hustle and build lives that mirror the “American Dream.”
Somewhere between this rollercoaster ricocheting between fear and hope, many found themselves feeling alone. This includes many millennial men.
According to Psychology Today the percentage of men with six or more close friends dropped nearly 20% from 55% to 37% from the 1990s to 2020.
Seemingly, it would prove helpful for adult, millennial men to extend themselves past the social constructs of keeping their emotions tucked away and learn to let anger turn into well-needed tears and beautiful shared laughs.
Patriarchy has not been kind to everyone. It takes every individual to break from its heavy constraints. Adult men unlearning these cycles through friendship could allow the start of healing through years of pain.
Christopher Ray, 37: An embodiment of rebuilding. He curates his inner circle by keeping those who reciprocate his intentionality. In result: he hosts bi-weekly card games. Ray’s middle school friends are still in the game.
Ray is no stranger to breaking cycles, as if he’s the card dealer and a player at his own table. The careful intention that goes into his current-day friendships is a gamble but fulfills his today and tomorrow with company. Yet, this victory wasn’t instant.
Adult male friendships have the tendency to only scratch surface level while juggling the learned inability to reveal the man beneath it all. Friendships are all cards in, and the fortunate chips of career and families play a factor in the weight of the result. Whatever they put in, ultimately makes its lap around the table.
Men are the loneliest they’ve ever been in the United States. One in four men report being lonely. This CAN change.
The weight of bullying, grief, and the travesty of 9/11 in the foreground of everyone’s life at the time had Ray’s middle school experiences feel a certain type of disconnectedness.
“The realization of 9/11 introduced the immense scale of the world and my own smallness. Simultaneously, the family death forced rapid maturity and the need to find ways to cope with permanent loss,” Ray said.
It’s through the rattled perspective from one’s peers, and self, that leads to a dangerous type of detachment. This brews when young boys are taught generational ideas that can be harmful.
Middle and high school are not particularly easy for most. There’s a type of loneliness in the air that self-reflexivity and genuine companionship may heal. However, when you’re a teenage boy, those realizations come with time.
“A lot of [changes] started in middle school. Especially with feelings. But it was like, ‘You shouldn’t be talking about that [emotions]. You’re a man. You need to grow up.’ We need to suck it up and push forward and it seems like the easiest way,” Ray said.
Some of Ray’s middle school companions stuck by his side through the magic of online gaming into the adventures of early adulthood. Even through the ins-and-outs of moving states and the pressures of adult life, Ray still hops on the games to share his joys and everlasting growing pains with his friends.
When the Rays’ adventures across states had settled back into El Paso, he also reconnected with old friends who still reside in the region. Deeper connection between these groups of men flourish, but there was a catch to this predicament.
“My friend group and I started cutting off misogynists,” Ray said.
Constraining cycles like the patriarchy can only be broken when a majority of individuals realize it never fully benefits anyone.
During the end of high school and the start of college, many realize that many young friendships form through convenience. Effort isn’t as much of a necessity when friends are found in the same spaces every day: school, sports, clubs.
When Ray’s adulthood hit, he started becoming far more intentional about the people he kept close to him. Friendships with prominent misogyny became abhorrent to keep around. Not only did he take note of this in his friendships, but also his family.
“[Some family] is kind of sexist and other things… we don’t want that. I don’t want to go to a cookout and then all of the sudden they say something super sexist. After that, I’m over it,” Ray said.
Ray explains though elders might be stuck in their old school ways, his actions project otherwise: onto a new way. He’s nurturing interpersonal relationships with other men exhibiting the idea that it is okay to stop performing. Brotherly love, today. Sixty will arrive tomorrow. Time is just slipping away. But his community will have an everlasting outcome onto everyone.
“It benefited my mental health. It’s nice to just hang out with people and actually be yourself. That’s how it should be in the end,” Ray said.
Adulthood’s systemic cycles intersect when cultivating your inner circle. The intention behind emotional intelligence and availability holds unseen yet critical value.
However, learning to take care of each other and the willingness to unlearn stubborn perceptions about how to show up in life. Ray urges others to gamble with vulnerability; it may mature into beautiful cycles. For the younger generation will take note of and pass onto their children—which many millennials have already shined a beacon for.
