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Two men exercising together outdoors
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Let’s keep it a stack: it’s never been easier to keep tabs on people. Good, bad, and in between.

You know what your cousin had for brunch in Atlanta (spoiler: it was lamb chops. It’s always lamb chops in Atlanta), what your old college roommate is listening to while sitting in traffic in Dallas, and what that weird guy from 7th grade thinks about UFOs and pyramids. All before you’ve had your morning coffee. We are more connected than ever. And yet, somehow, we’re lonelier than ever, at the same damn time.

Especially us, Black men.

We’re living in a world that’s heavy on presentation but light on connection. A place where everybody is broadcasting, but nobody’s really tuning in. And that’s a problem. Because for Black men, especially those of us in the fell clutches of middle age, real friendship isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s life support.

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: we’re too logged into our own lies.

Social media is fun, no doubt. It gives us the jokes, the memes, the fuego takes, and the low-key surveillance we love. But it’s also fundamentally dishonest. We don’t post who we are, we post who we want people to think we are. We share the highlight reel, not the practice film. And over time, that continuous curation makes it hard for anybody to really know how we’re doing.

We’ve turned our lives into expressions of our personal brands. Every thought is a caption, every experience is content, and every emotion is carefully filtered for consumption. So when someone asks how we’re doing, we say “good” because our personal algorithms can no longer handle or express “honest.”

I’ll admit, I’m personally guilty of all of this. I don’t just write for NewsOne because they pay me in Pokémon cards; I get jazzed from the Facebook likes, too.

Two men stretching in forest
Source: Cultura Creative / Getty

The real kicker? Somewhere along the way, we started treating our friendships like brand extensions as well. We can’t just kick it without having to treat it like some kind of collab. We can’t just be in each other’s company without a shot for the ‘gram. It’s not enough to just share company; showing up and showing off have become inseparable.

We confuse proximity with closeness and likes with loyalty. And before you know it, we’ve got a phone full of contacts but no one to call when life, inevitably, punches us in the face.

And once you get to this age, you know life’s got a mean left jab.

I’m lucky, dare I say blessed. I’ve got a couple of friends who’ve walked with me through the roughest chapters of my life: my marriage ending, my career detouring into the unknown, my leap into entrepreneurship, and all the uncomfortable personal recalibration that came with it. These are men who don’t just know me, they’ve held me accountable, clowned me when I needed it, and pulled me up when I didn’t even know how to ask.

We know we’re all floating down the same river, even if we aren’t always in the same boat.

There’s no performance in our friendship. No roles to play. Just space to be who we are, even when that version of ourselves isn’t Instagram-ready.

And that’s the thing, we need more friendships like that. Honest ones. Where you can talk about real stuff and not just fantasy football or Kelis vs. Kelly Rowland. Where someone can tell you, “You are entirely too old to still be chasing this mixtape dream, fam,” or “That job never respected your contributions, dawg,” or “These ribs is dry, homey.”

Black men need other Black men to be honest with us, push us when we’re stuck, and remind us that we’re not alone, even when we feel like it. We need a brotherhood that isn’t just rooted in shared trauma or grinding but in shared joy, mutual respect, and deep trust. No one else in the world knows us like us, so we owe that simple grace to one another.

But let’s be honest. Some of us have lost the basic know-how of making friends.

Making a friend as a grown man feels weird. It just does. You don’t have the natural meeting points of school or dorm life, or being there when one of y’all got jumped coming out of the basketball game. But it’s not impossible. It just takes a little intention and a little less pride.

So here are a few practical and fully doable steps for making a grown-ass Black man friend:

Be friendly

It’s 2025 and we gotta put some of these old Crack Era masculinity tropes to rest. It’s okay to smile in your pictures. It’s okay to wear shorts. And it’s okay to be a friendly person without the appearance of being weak. We’ve worked too hard to not experience, express, and share our joy with others.

Speak. Ask another guy how he’s doing. Strike up a conversation and acknowledge what he’s saying. Actively listen and then remember what he said for the next time you see him. Treat him like he matters because you know how it feels when you’re seen in the same way.

Treat it like networking

So many of us are addicted to grind and hustle culture, but we don’t know how to flip it to work in our personal lives. If you want to make a new Black male friend, follow some of the same steps you would use if you were trying to make some money.

Find a mutual point of interest — sports, music, family, food — and then build from there. Offer to connect on LinkedIn or, if you’re feeling froggy, ask for their phone number. The point is, you know how to meet people. You’re just used to meeting people for the utility and not just for association. But every relationship starts out the same way.

Go do something

Two men exercising with dumbbells in park
Source: Cultura Creative / Getty

If there’s one thing I know about Black men in our 40s, it’s that a lot of us are pretty boring. We work hard, we come home, we sit in our comfortable seat (or the seat we’re allowed to sit in), and we slowly wait to die. It’s a predictable rut that feels both reassuring and damning. But given the opportunity, we like to do stuff too. We just need someone to do it with.

So, make a plan. Want to go to the driving range? Call that guy you met at your kid’s school thing last week. You see they have a 50-cent wing special on Wednesday? DM the dude you sat across from at dinner the other night. You came up on an extra cigar? See if your homegirl’s new partner wants to light up on the deck after work.

The point of all of this is to stop trying to mask real loneliness with fake posturing. You’re not alone, and there’s a bunch of other guys who are also navigating this situation who don’t know what they’re doing either.

We’ve spent too long thinking that manhood is about doing it all by yourself. That’s nonsense. We are not supposed to carry the weight of this life without support. And while social media might try to convince you that all your guys are thriving and grinding 24/7, know that behind every fire selfie are six or seven shots that didn’t come out right.

Don’t just “like” the product; participate in the process.

Black men don’t always need some kind of platform; we just need a patio. We need real talk, good laughs, sharp jokes, shared meals, and the kind of honest friendships that make life better and lighter.

So here’s your homework: text a dude you haven’t talked to in a minute and see if he’s up to kick it this weekend. Plan a get-together that doesn’t involve a bar or a bottle. And maybe, just maybe, disengage from the virtual world long enough to actually sit with the homey, listen to their story, and say, “I hear you.”

Because no matter how slick your captions are or how cold your fits may be, if you don’t have people who see the unfiltered version of you and still want to rock with that, then what’s all this really for?

The new agenda? Having friends who know you, clown you, check you, and still choose you.

That’s friendship.

And we all need more of it.

SEE ALSO:

Bring Back Boredom: A Requiem For Black Gen X Summers

The Uncomfortable Realities Of Middle-Aged Black Manhood







We All We Got: The Crisis Of Black Male Friendship  was originally published on newsone.com