Saturn Returns with Caggie - *Moments* We need to talk about male loneliness with Max Dickins

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

Author, screenwriter and comedian Max Dickins is on the podcast this week, talking about his book ‘Billy-No Mates’.  In this ‘moment’, Max explains the issue many men are facing with their friendships; how men don’t strive to have intimate relationships with other men; and how all genders need balance in their relationships.  The full episode will be live tomorrow morning and dives further into the ‘male friendship problem’; how men tend to lean on the women in their lives for emotional support; and the constant struggle to be vulnerable in relationships.  --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

hello everyone and happy sunday i hope you're having a lovely weekend so far i wanted to share with you a moment from tomorrow's episode of saturn returns where i am joined by an old family friend of mine max dickens max is an author comedian screenwriter and speaker. And in this conversation, we explore friendships, particularly male friendships. And I found it such an interesting conversation. And so here is a moment from tomorrow's episode. Men seem to have a friendship problem. So like, why is that?

On the one hand, it's like, well, why are men not talking about, not able to have these intense conversations and a lot of it's like well maybe it's something to do with masculinity so it's you know we will not be intimate with another guy because we conflate it with maybe it being gay or it being feminine. maybe we are ashamed of talking about things which make us look not strong or not competent and and then there's this theory psychologist I spoke to or therapist I spoke to said you know if men can have better conversations and learn how to inverted commas do intimacy then that will help them have much better friendships i actually went to talk about investing yourself i'd never done therapy before in my life and i was not cynical

about it i just thought it's not really for me it's for someone with a very this has got something serious going on i thought i'm fine i've just got no friends absolutely healthy completely normal but it was in the lockdown so i started doing these weekly therapy sessions and after about four months of being having these sessions and i thought slightly going in circles the therapist said the thing is with emacs is you can talk about anything in an intellectual or a funny way but you your friends don't think you can ever go there with them. So they don't think if they shared that you could reciprocate. Because you don't present yourself in that way.

Absolutely. Then she said, so it's no wonder that you don't have any friends. And I was like, oh, that's a bit of a haymaker. Because after four months, I could hardly deny there was sufficient evidence for that. I like it when it's being kicked down a staircase, sort of falling down this spiral staircase, going right back your past going like oh yeah maybe there is a lot of truth to this so a lot of this is about vulnerability and being able to do that going first with that and permissions so in a conversation with another guy or a group of guys what is the permissions there

and often the permission is not there to talk about anything beyond the superficial because you're bantered back into shape so i think a lot of the male way of relating is around humor and around quite aggressive humor and that can be brilliant it can be its own form of intimacy one of the best things and which also you know can bring obviously in a healthy dose a lot of joy because it can be quite amusing and i've experienced it with male friends when like i've got i once ended up in a situation i went on holiday with just a group of guys did you and it was when i've just gone sober as well and i knew they were all quite aggressive drinkers and

i was like oh my god this is gonna be so and I didn't know half of them I thought it would be really challenging but we had so much fun but whenever I would like try and like engage in the things that I talk about they'd be like just just don't take life so seriously can I go right I just can't calm down but actually that's really what I needed so it's kind of you need a balance of the two but they also just like, let's not talk about the serious stuff. But actually I needed the silliness, you know, because I didn't have enough of that in my life. So yeah, that's really, that's a brilliant story. And I think a really good illustration

of how complex this thing is. So when I spoke to loads of people when I was writing my book and I spoke to men and women and I said, what do you like about being friends with blokes? What do you like being friends with the opposite sex? And women would often say, the reasons I love being friends with men

and how a lot of my best friends are male is all the things that the psychologists were saying is what is wrong with men. Is that, oh, men are obsessed with humour. All they do is play games all day. They do everything shallow. It's simple, it's uncomplicated and there's a real sort of tension there

because I was being told on the one hand this is what you're going to not be like that yeah and then a lot of women are being like that's what I like you

you're like I don't know what to do but the way I liken it is can you go through the gears hopefully now I've learned I can go to fourth and fifth gears if i need to in a conversation with a man a woman whatever so i can go there but you don't always want to be in fourth and fifth sometimes you want to idle in third i'm just getting very specific

it's an analogy sometimes you want to you know if you want to hear more from this conversation, don't forget to follow the show. It will be available tomorrow at 7am. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.