The Zac Clark Show - A Better Future for Boys and Young Men: Reimagining Masculinity and the Need for Deep Friendships | Dr. Niobe Way, Renowned NYU Professor

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

What if deep, intimate, and meaningful friendships could change the world?  Dr. Niobe Way, an internationally renowned Professor of Developmental Psychology at NYU, believes this is the path toward a more humane future. As a leading expert on what she calls the “crisis of connection” affecting boys and men in the U.S. and beyond, Dr. Way draws from over 40 years of research on social and emotional development, exploring how cultural ideologies shape child development and family dynamics. Her research centers around three key insights: (1) boys and men deeply crave meaningful, intimate friendships, (2) our culture stigmatizes male-to-male intimacy, labeling it as soft, feminine, or indicative of same-sex desire, and (3) this cultural failure has fueled a mental health crisis, leading to rising levels of depression, suicide, and mass violence among boys and men. In her latest book, Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture, Dr. Way brings together four decades of research. In our conversation, we discuss her discoveries and how our culture has gendered basic human instincts, prioritizing academic achievement and romantic relationships over friendships. This imbalance has led to a crisis of connection, heightening loneliness, depression, and violence. Dr. Way insists that boys are telling us what they need—we just need to listen. Her earlier book, Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection, inspired the Oscar-nominated film Close, which won the Grand Prix Award at Cannes. Dr. Way is also the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH) and leads "The Listening Project," an initiative focused on fostering curiosity, connection, and empathy to combat loneliness and anxiety. She has served as President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, holds a doctorate from Harvard School of Education, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Yale. This conversation is a must-listen! A thought-provoking discussion on the transformative power of friendships, the cultural barriers boys and men face in seeking them, and why nurturing deep, supportive friendships is essential to addressing many of today’s societal challenges. Connect with Zac https://www.instagram.com/zwclark/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/ https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclark https://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553 https://twitter.com/zacwclark If you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release: [phone] releaserecovery.com @releaserecovery

All right, welcome back to the Zach Clark show. I am honored to have Dr. Niobe Way with us today. Hi, Nairobi. Hi, Dr. Way. Hi, hi, hi, hi. Dr. Way is an internationally recognized professor of developmental psychology at NYU. Yep. But more importantly, she has been studying and researching boys and young men for the past 40 years.

So we are pumped to get into a conversation today about that and a lot more. I also have to mention the book, the most recent book, Rebels with the Cause, right here, buy it, read it, I'm going to read it, I haven't read it yet, I'm sorry. Reimagining boys, ourselves, and our culture. So, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks. I'm really excited. I start, I like to start just with, how are you? Like check in, like what's going on, how is your day?

Yeah. Like, have you been heard yet today. Okay, I have. Can I tell you what I just did? Yeah. So part of my work, which we'll get to, hopefully, is that the boys, no, no, but a big series, the boys and young men in my work that I've worked with or do research with, I also work directly with kids.

We've been developing a friendship app that would be the first friendship app co-designed with teenagers for teenagers using my method that I describe in this book, and I just presented it to like 150 people with many of them potential investors in the company. And the company, come on, come on, come on. In New York. Yeah, the company is called, are you ready, agapi.teens, and it will literally be the first friendship app for teenagers designed with teenagers using a empirically proven, scientifically proven method of fostering connection between teenagers.

Specifically, boys? Well, it's for all teenagers, but definitely a plus for boys. The thing about it is I, the method is basically taught from listening to boys and what they want and how they have a hard time doing, you know, asking the questions that they really want to ask of other guys. I mean, we can back up a little bit. But the idea is this gives them permission to ask because it's a listening with curiosity game. So they give permission to ask what they really want to ask other guys, that they just feel

self-conscious to ask because they don't want to look geeky. So you get what I'm saying? Yeah. I've been there. So when I've done, so when we played this game in person, not as a digital app, I get boys always loving it. And I even get kids who are identified, self-identify as being on the spectrum. And they will come up to me. This always makes me cry when this happens.

Because they'll say, so what you're teaching us, like the questions to ask and how you do follow-up questions and stuff, could I do that with like someone I want to be friends with? and I'm like yeah totally you see you're crying too and I I get so emotion and they're like whoa you know what I mean and what I just did by doing this whole method I mean it's it's you know I'll talk about it if you want me yeah but the point is is I give them permission to be able to go to another guy who they're interested in friends with and these are like 12 13 14 no no no they're all 12 up all the way up to I mean young men I hate to tell you because but young men are also having the same difficulty with having feeling confident to be able to ask

real questions. I'm not talking about trauma questions. I'm talking about like, what do you care about? What are you about? Tell me about a time in which you felt listened to. What was that like? Where do you feel safe? These are all questions that teenagers and young adults, right, all the way up to basically 30, want people to ask them and we're not asking. And by the way, for me, like I couldn't answer those questions because I never thought about it. Yeah. Until I got sober at 27, so my entire adolescence, my entire, you know, like young adulthood, if you would have asked me what my hobbies are, what I like doing, I would

have said, well, drinking and watching sports, you know, like there was no thought around any of it. Yeah. And then I got sober and at 28, 29, 30 years old, I'm like re-reberthing my life, rebirthing my existence. And finally, someone asked me and I said, for the first time I can answer it. Like I like playing golf. I like going to live music.

I like running, you know, I like recovery-related activity. Like I was able to answer. Yeah. No, no, I mean, but that's exactly. So it's not only a hesitation to ask, but it's even a hesitation to think about to think about these things. And so let me back up a little bit to tell you how I got there because I want to talk about, you know, the main finding in here.

But you're doing good. You're today. Oh, yeah. I'm doing really good. Come on. To go from that to this. Are you kidding me? And then tonight we have an event at Barnes & Noble.

I mean, like, come on. For the book. Yeah, for the book. Okay. So it's like I'm, I'm doing well. We're going to put it on my Instagram story and tell people to go come out and meet you. Okay, yeah, tonight, 7 p.m. Upper West Side.

Make your publicist happy. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Okay. That's great. And I'm glad you're good. I mean, for me, I'll do my check-ins, even though you didn't ask. No, no, no, no, no.

So tell me how you're doing. Tell me how you're doing. That's part of the method, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm not good. You're not. So tell me. Well, it's not that I'm not good.

I am at, and I'm very, vocal about my story at 13 years sober finding myself at a moment in life where I've had this like thing like that heartbeat yeah like anxiety yeah and sadness that I have not been able to shake now for about two weeks and it culminated yesterday I was at a you know one of these networking breakfasts that we've all been to a thousand times and I walked out with a colleague my friend Sloan who works for a treatment center and I've known Sloan for I don't know five seven years she's not the person i call with like my deepest darkest secrets she's not the person that i feel comfortable sharing on a very intimate level with and she asked me on uh 27th in park

avenue in new york city at eight nine 15 in the morning how you doing just like that and i stopped and i like started to cry yeah and it was this powerful experience and walking away from it I was actually proud because it's like I that doesn't make me weak yeah exactly that doesn't make me soft yeah that doesn't mean I need to be ashamed of this yeah I'm simply in a spot right now the difference for me as a man I know what to do yeah I hope like I reach out to my therapist I think about going down to a program in Tennessee on site to do some intensive work like I know there's something bigger building um so that's how I'm doing yeah Yeah, yeah. No, but I think that reflects how a lot of people are doing at this point, which is not well, which is sort of the root of all this work, is that figuring out what boys and young men teach us about why they're not doing well, but also why none of us are doing very well.

Do you believe that? Like no one's really... Well, I would say as a professor at NYU, since I see a lot of hundreds of students with my research, et cetera, and work in schools, no. Yes, it varies. I mean, it varies. The degree to which we're not doing it. well. But I would say my students certainly compared to 15, 10, 15 years ago, you know, the levels of depression, anxiety, not being able to give presentations because they're freaking out. I mean, things that I didn't see 10 years ago. And this is not just post-COVID. It was happening before COVID and then just got worse. So, I mean, and I think among men it's gotten worse, which, you know, in some sense I want to back up a little bit and tell you about what they've taught us about who they are, because it relates to your story. And then what's

getting in the way and why are they so, you know, they're miserable. But I would honestly say most of us are suffering to some degree with depression and anxiety and loneliness. I mean, my students, it's stunning, I'll say how many kids, I never say kids, how many of you feel, you know, you struggle somewhat with loneliness, et cetera? And if you don't want to raise your hand, it's totally fine. And it'll be like 70% of the students. Raise your hands.

Yeah, raise their hands. And so just that loneliness. And then obviously when you talk to young men, they struggle more because of this friendship problem, right, that the whole notion of, and I'll, you know, what, so let me just get into it. So basically, let's talk about boys. So we're going to talk about boys, loneliness, failure to connect. And the solutions, and the solutions. More importantly, the solutions, because we shared a little bit of this before we started rolling.

There was a lot of people out there talking about the problem, putting the finger, and I lose my shit. Like when I'm on social media, I'm, and I'm so. And it's like, in some ways, I'm happy that there's more influencers and more people talking about mental health and bringing awareness to it, but it's very surface level. And then we're never actually getting underneath that and talking about like the real solutions.

Exactly, exactly. And we're also never really talking about the real problem. I mean, basically, so I'm going to try to be very, very quick because I want to get into all those topics specifically. So essentially what, what, I do use my hands. What, so I started listening to, I was a counselor. in the 1988 at a high school in Boston. I was studying graduate school.

And I started to hear from boys, teenagers, that they were talking about their friendships all the time. That's all they were talking about. And that stunned me in 1988. Because first of all, I was taking classes on adolescent development for my graduate course. And then I was listening to teenagers and particularly teenage boys.

And they didn't sound at all like what I was reading in the textbook. It's like all they were talking about with their friendships, wanting friendships, struggling to find good friendships. They were just right out there. They were talking about the importance of friendships. So I became obsessed.

That was really, this is a long time ago. I became obsessed of why aren't we talking about that? Why are boys and young men having such a hard time finding friends? And then why that leads to what I call a crisis of connection for boys and young men and really everybody. But they're the loudest about it, right? Because they're suffering the most in many ways. So what I learned when I started doing research. That's surprising.

So they do talk. always just assumed that they were struggling and they didn't know this is the thing this is the thing this is the big insight when they're in a space that's a safe space meaning they're being interviewed by either a counselor or a researcher part of me not just me my team yeah got it um they fit then you give them the permission right by asking the question tell me about your friendships tell me what's difficult tell me what's fun etc boys just tell you and since I've been working with teenage boys

and young men forever even two weeks ago I sat down with a bunch of 15 year old boys and I just asked them the question and they sounded, and this is kind of sad, they sounded exactly like the kids in 1987. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. But what's amazing to me, and Zach,

this is, it's always surprising to adult men, it's always surprising. When you give young people the opportunity to say what they really think and feel and you make it safe so that you're not judging, you're just asking them, and you really want to know you really want to learn from them not teach them not preach to them right but actually learn from them they tell you they're truth tellers young people are truth tellers i mean like are

if people feel safe they will tell the truth i mean for me i substance use disorder is kind of my wheelhouse i mean i was up at our clinic today in westchester running a group and it was 15 men in a room and i started and i basically said to them who here doesn't want to be sober and they're all there because they're supposed to be sober and four people raise their hands and I immediately said I'm really proud of you guys I love it

that honesty yeah telling us in this room where you are here to recover and get the drugs and alcohol because you got in trouble or whatever happened

yeah being honest about that in this room you did yourself a service today I know you proved to yourself that you could be honest with yourself

and this room and then we dug into each of their four reasons why and they were all different yeah I know I know okay okay so you could do what I do because that's what I do for living.

And so the whole thing is, so then when I started doing research studies, you know, where you have hundreds and hundreds of kids, it wasn't just boys, but the boys are the ones telling the story that everybody's shocked by. So when we started following boys, and when I say following, I'm a developmental psychologist. So we start interviewing kids when they're 12 or 13, and then we follow them.

We interview them every year for like five or six years. Do they have to sign up for that? Oh, yeah, their parents have to, I mean, it's a very, very formal process. Right. So we interview the six. I'm asking dumb questions. No, no, no, no, but it's good for your listeners, too, to understand. So, but the important thing for your listeners to understand is that it's the same kid over many years,

and I'll tell you the story they teach us. They teach us four things. Number one, they teach us when you start listening to 12, 13, 14, 14-year-old boys, and you'll see it in Rebels, and you see it in my previous book, Deep Secrets. They are amazingly blunt about their social and emotional needs. Like, they say things like, I can't live without him. you know the guy I love him so much you know I mean they speak openly and honestly about their love or wanting to find a love relationship with another guy okay so then right that's the first

thing they teach us they also directly link it to their mental health so this is not a my interpretation of the data they directly said right say still to this day the kids I interviewed just two weeks ago if I didn't have friendships if I didn't have guy friends I would go wacko I'd want to kill myself. I'd go on drugs. They literally say it. It's like it's not, you know what I mean? It's not like an interpretation of like...

And that answer was the same in 87 or 88 when you started. They've been saying that to me for F and 40 years. And no, and everybody... Okay, I'm just going to say something because I really want your listeners to get it. We got to stop with focusing just on mental health because mental health is the consequence. I'm going to repeat again. The consequence of a crisis of connection, a loneliness, a disconnection from self and other. You can say it however you want to say it. But it's a disconnection from ourselves and

each other that then leads to mental health problems. And then for some kids, unfortunately, suicide and, or not kids, people, you know, suicide and violence, mass violence. So we have to understand that it's a crisis of connection that is leading to us being so wildly depressed. A crisis of connection. Right. Mental health is the consequence. The consequence. The consequence of what I call a crisis of connection. Let me define that, because it's defined as the boys define it. How boys define the crisis of connection, they start to expect, remember I said there's four themes.

So one was they want friendships, two is that they link it to their mental health. Three is that as they get older, you hear the crisis of connection, and I'll tell you now what it means. You hear them having a crisis. They start to disconnect from their desire for male friendships because even now, even now in our woke period because it's girly and gay. So they start to disconnect. I'm going to say this really slowly because I really want your listeners to hear this.

They start to disconnect from the very thing that they say they want for their mental health. They start to say it doesn't, you know this language. It doesn't matter. It's all good. It's all good. I don't have friends. I don't have guy friends anymore. I never found it's hard to find someone.

It's all good. I'm good. I'm good. You know, they say so many times. You know, they say so many times that you're like, yeah, uh-huh. yeah you're good right so you hear the crisis of connection then then the fourth theme so you hear this crisis of connection then the fourth thing that boys articulate and and i'm going to go slowly because i really want your listeners to get this they reveal that the reasons for why they have a crisis

of connection and you hear it in their language so all of a sudden the same boys remember it's the same boy over many years at 13 he'll say things like i love him so much i can't live without him He said, my man, you know, blah, bo, we do everything together. That's my guy. I share, and they say things like, I share deep secrets. I can be vulnerable with this guy without him laughing. I mean, he knows everything about me. He knows everything about me.

Like, that's the language. Then as they start, you hear this crisis of connection, the disconnection, you know, basically, no, whatever, it doesn't matter, whatever. You know, I can't find friends. I mean, we're not getting along anymore, you know, struggles with that friendship. And then they start to say things like, no, homo. Even the question, do you have, friendships at 16 guys, many guys will say, no, I'm not gay. And I'm like, I didn't ask

whether you're gay. I asked if you could tell me about your friendships. So all of a sudden at 16, they're equating having friends with a sexuality. It's not linked to a sexuality. Is that because they're just starting to experiment sexually? Well, no, no, no, because the culture, this sort of culture, which I call in my book boy culture, and I'll tell you what I mean by boy culture, is it basically makes friendships, genders the desire for friendships. So that's not a gender thing. It's a human thing. We all need friendships. And boys are very loud and clear that they need friendships, but they grow up in a culture that somehow makes friendships girly and gay, I mean intimate friendships. And so the whole thing is that they reveal that it's not girly and gay. It's

human. I mean, I'm not making any comment about their sexuality because I don't study that. That's not what I look at. I'm just saying it's human. So, but they don't think it is. They think it's weird, right? And I'll give you an example of how much they think it's weird. So when I start talking about that all guys, I'll give you a story actually, all guys want friendships, this is the effect you get. Okay. I want you to visualize this. A room for 12 year old boys, 21 12 year old boys in an all-boys school, okay? I'm sitting there and I'm teaching. 21, 12-year-old boys. And I want you to visualize the 12-year-old boys because they're all sort of moving around. You know how 12-year-old boys. They're sort of, you know, moving around their seats. They're sort of not really paying

attention. And then I say, I want you to read this quote and they read the quote from Justin. Justin's a pseudonym. They read the quote from Justin. That's the quote I keep on saying just because it's easy to remember. You know, I love him so much. I can't live without him. It's human nature to love someone so much. You know, it just happens, et cetera, et cetera. So we read that and they all start laughing. Okay. So I know why they're laughing, right? We're in the same culture. And I said, why are you laughing? And then nobody would tell me. And I said, no, come on, tell me why you're laughing. What's so funny about that quote?

And one kid said, the dude sounds gay. And I said, well, let me tell you this. I don't ask about sexuality. I don't, that's not my topic. I don't know. I have no idea. But 80% of the thousands and thousands of boys I have interviewed sound like that during adolescence. 80%.

40%. Okay. 80%. Okay. So the boys, 12-year-old boys, remember, they're not teenagers yet. They go, for real? For real? And I'm like, oh, yeah.

That's what teenage boys sound like. Guess what I just did? I normalized it. So then within two seconds, guess what's happening? They're all talking about their desire for friendships. And two boys, even in the classroom, in the classroom, talk about how the other boy heard his feelings, and that's why they broke up.

They used the language of broke up because the other kid heard his feelings. Meaning, I normalize it by saying, this is a normal thing to want friendships. It's not a girly or gay thing. Right. I'm even thinking like I'm thinking back to my like play dates yeah yeah I would see like my friends with Kyle and I'm hanging out with Kyle and then I see Kyle going off with Ryan and

I'm like I wasn't invited what's up with that and now I'm hurt exactly first breakup almost but like totally it wasn't because then Kyle wants to hang the next day no now I'm like I'm mad at you Kyle no no exactly exactly but I'm just telling you I've been hearing exactly what you just said for 40 years and we're not listening and the other story I quickly want to share A 15-year-old kid in an audience, I'm speaking to 150 guys. It's an audience of 150 guys in New York City. And a 15-year-old raises his hand. I always ask people's ages.

And he said, who did you write? It was the previous book, but it's talked about in the new book. He said, who did you write deep secrets? Who did you write it for? And I didn't know what he meant. And I sort of gave a lame answer. And I said, for parents and teachers. And he said, looked at me smack in the face and said,

why didn't you write it for us and I was like oh and he said because then we wouldn't feel so alone and I thought every kid teenage boy I've ever spoken to think they're the only ones that want these kind of closeness unless they already have it because obviously there's some variation here but I'm just saying they think they're the only ones we still think it's weird we think it's somehow feminine or whatever it is it's just a human need it's a human need for mental health, you know, for connection. All right, so major announcement, guys, today's podcast is brought to you by Fro Pro Snack Bar. Fro Pro is the perfect on-the-go snack bar.

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when I say they make good fucking snacks. Connection. So that room of 150, is that a high school? That was 5th, 6th, 7th to 8th. That was 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th. Of high school? Like here in New York. Yeah, in New York and the Lower Side.

So they're mandated to be there. They have to be there. And they had given me like a half an hour to talk. We were in that room for an hour, over an hour. You could hear a pin drop, 150 boys, 5th, 6, 7th, 8th. you could have heard a pin drop. And all I did is I'd show quotes from the boys and I'd say, someone stand up and tell me what that quote means. That's all I did. I didn't bring research findings. I didn't do the talky talk. I just said, read the quote and tell me what it means. And you had

one by one boys was standing up saying, read the quote, and then they'd tell a group full of 149 boys, you know, what the quote meant and how much they want friendships. And they would ask me questions. It was so gorgeous. They said, how do you keep a friend? They said, said, ma'am, we have a question. How do you keep a friend? So I said, well, you answer that question. And then someone yelled out, you can't like the Yankees or something like that. And then they all started laughing. But then they started, 150 boys are having an intimate conversation about, and all I did is give them, you get what I mean by permission? I gave them permission. It's normal to have friends. It's normal to have soft feelings. It's normal

to have that desire for connection, deep desire connection. And it's critical for your mental health and if you don't pay attention to it you might suffer mentally right you might actually suffer with depression so i'm what this is bringing up for me i am not a parent and i think it's probably the hardest job in the world but a lot of the people that listen to this are our parents our parents like a large percentage of my following is is i would say like you know women wives moms that have kids boys yeah so how does parents parenting affect all of this? Everybody's, yeah, everybody.

Because like for me, everybody, yeah. I don't know, like if you do something at 10 years old and your parents tell you not to do it, like I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this whole idea of being curious and giving them permission. Exactly. So I would say every adult to different degrees, obviously, is implicated. Every adult is implicated in this.

No, no, really, to different degrees. And what I mean by, because I don't want to just pick on parents because I think adults do this all the time. and teachers do it all the time too. We reinforce these sort of cultural messages where fundamentally we have gendered. I know it sounds like I'm being academic-y, but I'm really not. We have gender, meaning given a gender,

to thinking and feeling. Like what? Like thinking is masculine and feeling is feminine. What are you talking about? All people think and feel. There's no gender to thinking and feeling. Same with friendships. There's no gender to wanting friendships.

That's a human thing. How I know that is you look at, cultures around the world and you look at American history you know before 50 years ago so my point is is why don't we value friendships I mean as a culture we think we value according to the data parents value academic achievement over kindness what yes we live in a culture that values academic achievement over kindness we certainly value academic achievement over friendships and all my kids ever wanted in high school I'm going to implicate myself just to out right all all I asked my daughter for her four years of high school

is did she do her homework, what she do on the test, right, and how much homework does she have? Right? That's all I asked. All she cared about, and same with my son, who's 24, he's the soccer player, all he cares about. He still only cares about his friends. That's all he cares about. All they cared about their friends. What would be like to be a teenager? Every day, you're thinking about your friendships, you're thinking about who likes you, who doesn't like you, being excluded, all the things. And your mom's asking, your dad's asking, your grandma's asking you every day, how'd you do on your test? You know, you're asking questions that have nothing to do with what you're really thinking, what you really care about for years, for years and years and years, I did it. Does your, there's a 24-year-old have, and we don't have to talk about it, we don't want to about it, do you have a friend group? He has through his, and I do want to talk about this because you played baseball. He has a friend group, thank God, because he started playing soccer when he was seven.

And that he has the same guys that he played when he was seven. Sports are powerful. Sports are powerful. And I wasn't, I wasn't a sports player when I was younger. My ex-husband was, but I wasn't. I didn't understand the role of sports until I had my son. And all his friendships, he is very, very powerful friendships that he holds on to from when he was seven and he's now 24. And then he made a new group of friends.

He went to college and made a new group of friends through his soccer team. He was on a soccer club at college. I'm just saying it all, so he has a fantastic group of friends. And the reason is, is because he played sports. And he also had great coaches. And we can talk about coaches. Because coaches are important. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about my high school experience in that locker room,

and if you would have taken all of those men and thrown them in that locker, the football locker room, it was almost like the great equalizer. Yeah. You know, the cool kids, the this kid, and that kid. But they all, we all came together and became so close because we had this common. Yeah. Yeah. And I also, you know, but I also think it's the coach too,

because they, he's always had coaches that see that a more connected team is a better playing team. So, you know, communicate on the field, all those kinds of things that, my son has gotten since he was younger and so the idea is that he understood his I mean he had various coaches obviously but his coaches for the most part always understood that and so to me it's coaching is critical in sports because sports teams obviously as you know can be really toxic too what have I told you that my 15 best friends in life are the guys I went to high school with and grew up with yeah it doesn't yeah it's going to be true I said you're going to be like my son I'm sure yeah yeah yeah absolutely it's amazing and it's almost like when I got to college I was like I don't

need any of you guys yeah like I just I was like yeah cool like I played baseball and it was fun and there's a couple people that I still am in touch with and love very much but even to this day like at 40 years old the most meaningful relationships that I have in my life are the guys that I grew up with and still feel very connected to because I trust them and I believe that they know who I really am yeah and would you know take a bullet for me or whatever you know Yeah, and you, and you were one of the, you somehow, there are lots of kids in my studies and who I work with who actually are able to maintain their friendships, but I have to say, it's oftentimes the guys who played on sports teams that were very close, and they basically

were able to keep those relationships, and my son's going to be the exact same way. I mean, it's just amazing to me. He comes, he now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and he comes back all the time. Is you the UVA? Yeah, he's at UVA. And playing soccer? At the moment, he's playing club soccer. Got it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he's sort of, you know, he said soccer, he said, mom, if I didn't have soccer, he said it would be devastating for my life. He said soccer is critical to his mental health. But it's because, you know, I say, he doesn't say that. He says because he loves the game. But it's clearly what he loves about it is the camaraderie. I mean, and that's so, so important to him.

And he comes back to New York all the time just because one of his high school friends, friends is having a party and so he comes back up to go to the party yeah yeah I relate to that yeah now if you done any I want to get back to the four things to yeah in the solution but have you done any like studies or research around I'm being selfish like later in life friendships like a 40 year old like yeah so yeah so I was just talking about 40 year olds when you when you came in so this is the interesting thing um so basically how I know the later in life because I haven't actually done studies on it is I know I've been getting responses to my work since deep secrets came out which is it's called deep secrets boys friendships and the crisis of connection that's when

they made into a movie they made into an oscar no i've been a movie called close see it it's on amazon prime um and say one more time okay the movie is close called close oscar nominated feature film about two 13 year old uh boys and it's on amazon prime is based on deep secrets um so What? Not American. He's a Belgian film. It's a Belgian film. Yeah. And that was really interesting because it's not interesting that's Belgium because it meant that what I was finding in American boys was now all over the place. I told Jay to start talking more. He's smart. Like, just chime in, dude. You're good. Yeah, I know, I know. That's good. But so, anyway, so, I lost my train of thought.

40-year-olds. Oh, the 40-year-olds. So, so I have gotten the response from 40 years by the response to that work. So what I found, because I I get thousands of emails. I've been getting this for years since the book came out from all over the world. Mostly people saying, you're telling my story. That's my story. That's my story. Nobody's ever told me this story from all over people.

The only people I get pushed back from where people will say, like I'll be on a radio and they'll call in and they'll say, that's not my story. You know, my story, I've never had, you know, sort of defensively. That's not my story. I've never had problems. Like I don't want, you know, I don't need to talk to a dude. You know, I mean, that sort of defensive thing. The only group I get that from is 40-year-olds.

And I'll tell you why. Why do you think 40-year-olds would be a tough age? What do you think is happening to men in particular in that decade? Well, I can tell you my personal experience. I've lived in New York City for 13 years. I've always had that friend group that I just told you about. My stock response, because I don't want to be not invited or I don't want to be let down because I'm super fucking sensitive

is I have enough friends I have enough friends I'm good I don't need any more friends I don't need any more friends The truth is I have three or four men here in New York City that I met because I'm in recovery So we have a special bond

And that's like this community that Not everyone has right The AA 12 step whatever For me the recovery community is powerful Where I met these guys But I There's Friday nights where I'm sitting alone And I have a hard time saying that out last

because I think the expectation is I'm so busy and I have too many friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is so beautiful you're saying this in your show. Thank you for sharing that. A lot of men are really resonating right now. Yeah, and you got to hit it right on the nail. So basically, by the time you're in your 40s, that's officially the beginning of, I mean, no offense. It's the beginning of middle age, right?

It's the beginning of middle age. It's the beginning of middle age. And middle aged men are not only more likely to, to sort of defend their emotions because they're afraid. They're even more afraid than they were in 30 because they're middle age and they're feeling vulnerable. They're feeling physically. Is that what's going on me right now?

Yeah. But you're only just turning 40. I mean, but the way I'm feeling it's. But they're feeling more vulnerable, so they're feeling more defensive. The other thing that's a little depressing and I don't want to make it too depressing because I do want to talk about the solutions is that the men who are most likely to commit suicide

are men between 40 and 55. And why do you think that is? I know why because they've arrived they're now right midlife they've arrived and they're like this is it

like this is it and so that suicide rate actually being so high between 40 and 55 to me is really telling and also with their sort of defensiveness to my work that sort of like

I don't know what you're talking about I know what you're talking about I mean I will literally get on and that person is so hard to penetrate it is so this is how I do it's how I do it Because I do the girl thing. Give me the secret because I was talking to a guy today

after group and maybe I shouldn't show that because I think he would know who he was and I don't want to know. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. But you got it from someone today. Yeah. No, yeah, I just felt it.

I felt it and I was like, you know, I just want people to make sure they feel seen. Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. So, yeah. I mean, it's just incredible to me basically the sort of shutting down and think that somehow if I,

this is what I've heard from so many men. I just got to say it, because I just heard it from another man the other day, in your 40s and 50s, I think men feel this at all ages, but particularly in the 40s and 50s when you're feeling that fragile self, that somehow if they enter into their vulnerability, what you just said, the desire for intimate friendships, and not even with men at that point, with women, with other people, real intimacy, not necessarily a romantic partner,

but just real intimacy, being able to share your thoughts and feelings, et cetera. they feel like if they get that vulnerable they're going to somehow implode or something I mean be figured out right well they're just they're just afraid of getting that vulnerable and I'll say a million times what it what seems scary about it and they're like I don't know I just you know I just I'm not gonna do it and the only way I break it so let me tell you how I break it on the radio

I'll get these guys calling in and they'll say you know typically ma'am you know you it's nice that you have this you know thing going on but this is not me i mean i've never experienced that i don't think like my guy friends have ever experienced that i don't really know what you're talking about and i'll say and it goes i'm going i go fishing with my guy friends all the time you know like we have and i'll first of all say that's fantastic that you have someone to go fishing with i said congratulations a lot of people don't so that's wonderful so i affirm right yeah and then i'll say so i'm just curious so like if you and your wife are having, first I'll always check, are you married or whatever.

And I'll say, are you in your wife? That's my next question, but yeah, yeah. Are you, are you and your, you know, when you and your wife have some difficulties, are you able to find a friend to sort of talk about the difficulties in your marriage? It always gets them. They're like, no. And I'll say, well, would you like someone like that? And almost always they'll turn around.

And they'll say, well, I mean, I guess it would be kind of nice. I mean, I guess it would be not. Yeah, I guess so. You know what I mean? So it's like, and I think that the reason I get away with it is because I'm a woman. You know what I mean? And so I do that sort of difficulty with your wife and all of a sudden I become their wife for that moment. Well, there's something interesting about that in therapy, just the dynamic, the gender dynamic of a female working with a male, male working with a female, and what you can kind of pull out of the opposite gender.

That you can't, yeah, that you can't win at same sex, definitely, definitely. I mean, I'm thinking about my dad. So my dad is 82. He'll be, you know, he's going to kill me. But anyway, he, and I'm thinking about him because it hit me, he had a best friend in the guy's name was Mike Donne, and they did everything together. They, like, met at one of my basketball practices, you know, 35 years ago, both hungover, immediately connected as like probably 40-year-old men.

Right. And it was probably really refreshing. And from then on, they were thick as thieves. And when Mike died, he got cancer sadly and passed very quickly. my dad How old was your dad when he passed? This is probably five years ago 77, 77, 78 years old

So sorry My dad went into Yeah And he still talks about I just don't have anyone to talk to I don't have anyone to talk to Wow I don't have any friends left

All my friends have died Yeah He's really just the one I mean he's got other friends Yeah But Mike was his guy He was guy Yeah yeah yeah

No I've just I mean That's first of all It's incredibly sad to hear And I'm sorry for you bad Yeah no I mean Mike yeah Yeah I mean it's just you know But I just have to say just what I've heard, I've just been hearing this for decades.

I mean, you know, the stories of pain, I hear lots of older men. And then if you get older than 40s and 50s, 60s, 70s, 80-year-old men will come and listen, give me a talk, listen to me talking about the book. And they will come up to me afterwards and they'll say, I wish I had this book when I was younger. Yeah. Because I would have been able to figure out. Or they'll say things like, you know, I've been looking for, I still am looking for a guy friend and the only person I have, who I love is my daughter, and so my daughter and I are very close, but I'm still looking for that guy friend, and there'll be like a 75-year-old.

You know, it's like just that desire, and I'm just saying, my big message in my book, which I want Ulysses to hear, is it's not a problem of men or of women or people who vote for Trump or people who vote for Kamala Harris. It's a problem of an entire culture, first of all, that doesn't value friendships fundamentally, right? We still privilege romantic. Does ethnicity play into your whole?

Yeah. So basically, ethnicity always plays into it because you hear different stories from different kids regarding their identities. So, for example, in, you know, I would say in New York City, Puerto Rican and Dominican kids come from families where the emotional expression is a little bit more possible than my kind of family, which is an Anglo sort of waspy kind of family. And so they're much more comfortable with expressing their emotions than a white waspy kid in my sort of. circle. So you get that kind of variation. But the desire for friendships and the struggle to find friendships, don't let anyone tell you that that varies by ethnicity. It doesn't. It doesn't. I mean, basically, adult men, I don't care. You know, 40 years. I don't care. I don't care what social class you come from, what community you come from. We do work in China. We do work all around the world in Abu Dhabi in Middle East. It's the same eff and story. And the reason is, is because it is a culture, right? And I'm going to say something. It's going to sound academic, but it's coming from the Mao's of babes, okay?

It's a, first of all, it's a culture, a modern culture, modern culture, that doesn't value friendships. It values romantic relationships over friendships, even the label, single is a crazy label. Singles would suggest that you have no relationships. Like what? You know, we privilege romantic relationships over friendships. We shouldn't do that. Stop doing it. Because what we really fundamentally only is friendships.

And if we have romantic relationships. So what are you saying instead of single? You say, I don't have a romantic partner. You know, at the moment, I don't have my, whatever you say. I don't have, I don't have a romantic. partner we've got a shitload of friends like I don't it's like no I what I say is I'm surrounded by lots of loving people yeah no I mean but you get what I'm saying I mean the dating world I mean I think people will love that like single I agree is bullshit I'm not single I got plenty of

people no no exactly exactly but but that's privileging the romantic status over the friendships and to me the only thing I'm going to say this really really loud okay I'm going to say this really loud screaming the only thing that parents teachers adults young people should be doing in their lives is helping others and helping themselves have high-quality friendships. That's it. That's it. If we actually nurtured friendships, fostered friendships, valued them, didn't see them as girly and gay, you know, all those kinds of things that we do to friendships.

If we actually really valued them as much as that we do, if not more, academic achievement, right, we would be a much, much healthier society. Drug abuse would go down. I mean, think about all the things that would go down. Drug abuse, suicide, violence. And when you listen to mass shooters, because in that book, there's a whole bunch of stuff on mass shooters reading their manifestos, they say the same effing thing. They say that basically there's a beautiful case study and they're beautiful in the sense

he articulates the emotional struggle of the increasing isolation and not being able to find guy friends. Well, isolation. I mean, like I talk about this a lot, right? Like we're in this loneliness pandemic. We're in this opioid epidemic. And for me, death by suicide, overdose. Totally.

How are those people dying, alone? Yeah. Alone. Yeah. No, exactly. And when you read the manifestos, because they articulate this pain before they do their violence, is that they say that the isolation, but they blame the culture. They see it.

It's a culture. It's the waters in which we swim. So the manifesto, this is like they actually write their, like. They actually write out what they're thinking years, oftentimes. years before they commit their crime okay so the idea as in they say they see the water so this is what they complain about should I tell you what they complain about sure first of all they complain about a culture that has a hierarchy of humans in it that's it that's not my language that's their language a hierarchy of humans

where some humans meaning guys in their case who play sports and who are tall and etc. are valued more than others and they think that's unfair and it angers them and that the people on top of the hierarchy get their needs met have friends you know, are well-liked. And the people on the bottom are seen as shit. You know, I mean, basically, nobody cares about them. And if they get bullied and if they suffer, nobody gives a damn, right? And they're angry about it. Okay, so that they see the hierarchy in the culture and they say, this is unfair and eventually, right, it leads to mental illness. Because if you're, think about it, if you feel like your needs as a human are not being met at all, you know,

you're being bullied, everybody's blaming you and switching schools and you're going to seven different schools because people think you're the problem and you know that it's because kids are actually bullying you because you're short or you don't play sports or whatever crap you're being bullied for, right? Think about how much that would affect your mental health, right? So they see the hierarchy of humanists that nobody cares, nobody's doing anything, right? And then also, you know, the whole notion is that they see that it's a larger problem. So these are the kinds of quotes you get for mass shooters. And I hate to quote mass shooters. But if we're going to stop the violence, we've got to know why there's violence.

So I got a quote from people who commit mass violence because if we're going to stop the violence, right, we got to listen to people who commit violence. They'll say, the kid that I write about in my book, he said the night before he stabbed his roommate 94 times and killed seven people. I'm not going to say his name. But he said, this is into a video. He said, this is against all you humanity, humanity, that's society. who's let me rot in my own loneliness. Okay, so he gets that. And all the mass shooters I've ever read

of their manifestos and their social media posts. Lonely. Get that it's a, no, but get that it's a cultural problem. It's not a, there's just something weird with them. Or, you know, there's something, you know, where they have a bad mom or a bad dad. Get over it. Like these, we're now blaming the parents for the mass shooters.

Like, that's crazy to me. Because they're seeing it's a cultural problem. So if it's a cultural problem, we stop blaming the kids we stop I mean yes of course people who commit violence should should pay the consequence I mean I get that I'm not I'm not yeah but I'm just saying but we have to see it's a cultural problem which means to come to the solution right I was just you're gonna say you ready to earn your money or what no no no no exactly all right exactly so so which means we have to change the culture that sounds huge it's not huge because you know

why it's not huge because they've been telling us I'm trying to tell us that's what I'm saying Because they've been telling us what the problem is. And what they say, let me just spit out what I learned from boys and young men about their capacities. That all humans, including boys and young men, have extraordinary relational and emotional intelligence. They read human emotions in incredibly astounding ways.

They can see when you're faking an emotion. A five-year-old boy says to his mom, Mommy, why do you smile when you're feeling sad? which means essentially asking at five years old, why do you fake an emotion? That's relational intelligence, right, that you could see that someone fakes emotion. Another kid

says, another boy to his mom says, are you yelling at me because your mommy yelled at you? I mean, come on. That's what we come into the world with that natural intelligence to understand this complex level of emotion, right? We come into the world like that. It's natural to have

those relational skills, right? And to ask those powerful questions. And then we enter into an unintelligent culture because our culture is pretty unintelligent. We don't value those skills. We don't value that sensitivity. We don't value all those beautiful things that create relationships. So you said our culture is unintelligent because we don't value the things that actually matter. We don't value the very things that is necessary to have human connection. Let me repeat that again. We have a crisis of connection because we live in a culture that doesn't value the very thing you need, the skills you need, emotional sensitivity,

attunement, all those things, to have connection. We don't value those skills. We call them soft skills, and we make them kind of lame. You know, like, you know, where I've gotten, if I could be honest. Yeah. When I sit down and I talk to someone, she's just fired up, Jay. Let her, let her, let her roll, dude. She's like, you know, we're just, we're just passionate over here. Thank you for that. Where I've gotten is like, I'll sit down. And this is my own shit probably But when I know the person Like is not

And not in my work But I'm saying like When I'm trying to connect with a friend And they're not willing to go Beneath the surface I'm out I'm out I'm not interested in this bullshit small talk like Yeah

Yeah well that's why you end up doing the show I mean because you're actually able to connect But I'm just saying Wouldn't it be amazing until if we value First of all if we valued friendships We valued that from the day one of our child's birth The every student in our class all I'm doing as a teacher is I'm trying to foster people's friendships, because I know you think better when you have friendships, which is a whole other conversation.

your actually cognition improves when you feel well loved. There's beautiful examples of that. You see the hill as less steep in an experiment that's done. You literally see it as less steep when you're standing next to your best friend versus when you're standing next to a stranger. You see, your perception, is the hill is less steep. I mean, that's profound. We see the world as less difficult when we're standing next to someone who loves us.

We are so sensitive as animals, as social animals. We're so sensitive. We stand next to someone who loves us, even this conversation. You and I are thinking really, really sharply now. able to make connections really, really quickly and talk really quickly because we're feeling the love from, right, going both ways in this whole room, right? So that love actually, actually makes us think better. It makes us more articulate. It makes us able to say things, finish our sentence, et cetera. And so we have to understand that. So if we valued friendships. Is that why when

you first fall in love, there's like this deep kind of like long conversation? And you think you sounded so smart too, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. No, no. But so, but if we valued those skills are the skills that you're showing me right now right the second you and I are showing natural human skills to connect to talk right I mean even the way we're talking right even the way we use our hands the way you express yourself the gentleness in which you interrupt sometimes but you always wait till I get my point and then you bring in your own point and then I right the way we're doing a dance in some ways when we talk if we valued those skills could you imagine how different the world would be yeah if we if we thought as a teacher as a

boss, right? I mean, as a parent, that our job was to nurture that gorgeous skill of having connection with some other human being? I mean, the world would different. So it's not flipping the hierarchy, it's not putting soft skills on top of hard skills, because I'm going to give you an example. So this is not. Everybody thinks I'm putting, like, empathy and sensitivity above, you know, autonomy and, you know, stoicism. I'm not. In order to be sensitive, I'm going say something and give an example. So if you started telling me that story about your suffering, let's imagine you started to cry when you told it. And if I responded by starting to cry, it actually wouldn't necessarily feel supportive for you because then you would have to take

care of me, right? So the best thing to do when you're crying and feeling vulnerable is actually to pull my, first of all, my self-regulation, to regulate my own feelings that you might be evoking, given my own background, right? But also to be stoic with you so that you can, so I can hold your emotions by being stoic. You follow what I'm saying? So we need our stoicism and we need our sensitivity. We need our hard and our soft sides. We need both sides of our humanity to be connected. We need our stereotypically masculine sides. That's why this is not a critique of masculinity. I'm not one of those people. It's not a critique of masculinity. What I'm saying is we need are stereotypically masculine, right?

I'm saying stereotypically in the sense, it's not masculine, it's human, right? But our stereotypically masculine side are hard sides and our soft sides, like the yin-yang, like the yin-yang that I wear in my wrist, that comes together, they work together, the hard and the soft of our humanity, work together, the stoicism and the sensitivity,

the self and the other, the, what is it, autonomy and connectedness. They all work together. They all work together. We need, thinking and feeling. They work together. We have to stop. Which is like men and women, right? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. They work together, right? And so the idea is they work together. And the minute you split them and then you put them on a hierarchy, we're unbalanced. We're crazy, which is what we're now. We're totally off our rockers. Right? I mean, we're doing things like we're trying, in the sciences, this is a studying to me. We assume that thinking matters. We spend a whole, this is in developmental psychology. We spend a whole century proving that cognition matter, that studying cognitive,

you know, thinking. We've put in new money now to prove, I mean, think about a sister from another planet coming down here and hearing this. We assume that thinking matters. We have to prove, in my field, that feeling matters, that feelings actually linked to other things. Yeah. I mean, but think about how deep that is, right? That cognition, that thinking matters, clearly, because we've studied, you know, how kids think, but that feeling we have to prove that feeling about us like that is such a I want to ask a question but I'm scared of the the can of worms it's going to like where does

fuck like where like medication it's like okay okay because like that is the thing like and I'm not going to talk about I will generalize this one because I don't want to out anyone but I got a call from someone in my life and their child was you know 11 12 years old or whatever and they're asking about Ritalin.

It's a hard story asking out Ritalin and I for me I don't have kids I've seen people get hooked on stimulants, amphetamines, all that stuff. At 11, 12 years old,

like I don't feel like it could be good. I know that there are doctors out there that will bury me for saying something like that, but I'm just curious. Like,

where does that? I'm really hesitant to say anything because I, you know, half, probably more than half or whatever my students are on medication.

Yeah. But I do think the problem with the orientation of meditation is that we think the problem is, you. And so we're going to try to give you something so that you don't feel what you don't

want to feel. So that can be very helpful, especially if the feelings are suicidal or all those things. That can be, medication can help alleviate those kinds of intense feelings. So that's a positive thing of medication. But it has to be, as I said to you earlier, it has to be more. If it's a cultural problem, if we're creating, if we're kicking ourselves on the asses, which is what we're doing, we're kicking ourselves in the asses by not valuing both sides of our humanity, are hard and are soft, then it can't just be medication. It has to be a complete reimagination, right, of how we're raising our kids, how we're educating, how we think about ourselves, that our soft skills are as important as our hard

skills. Soft jobs should be seen as valuable as our hard jobs, right? I mean, the hard and the soft are equally important and they're, in fact, integrated. So if we keep on doing medication and therapy is obviously a positive thing for most people. but it has to again be not be seen as an individual problem you get what I'm saying the boys and young men are teaching us it's not an individual problem only it's a cultural problem so we have to change the culture now how do we change the culture right that's solution yeah so you're asking me what I'm taking how I would answer that

now after talking to you or are you going to tell me well I have ideas but I'm curious about what you think at this point so we If listened for 40 years, the boys are telling us... How do you change the culture? Validating that friendship, like, I guess driving home the importance of friendship and meaningful connection. Yeah, give me your hands. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing.

Because that's what it is. That's what it is. Yes, I got to... It's the only thing. You're the only person that's ever been able to answer that. Thank you. That's what boys and young men have been telling me for 40 years. Make it normal.

make their desires, their desire for closeness, for connection, their emotional, relational intelligence, normal, normal. Not only a great thing, but actually just normal for everybody. And necessary, and the only thing I would say, and necessary. So make it normal. Yeah, I love that. And I get, I mean, my next development, or my next phase of that thing is, it's like when we were in high school or whatever,

that would be the guys and then someone meet a girl. Yeah. And now, you know, now Eric got wiped up. He's not cool anymore. Yeah. And so then there's a whole thing that probably happens there when they do meet someone or there is that relationship and now there's time being taken away from those friendships and then you have to work even harder to nourish the friendships.

Yeah, but that's another interview that we'll have to do. But I will have to say that it's the privilege of romantic relationships over. friendships that's that's a huge part of the problem is that we have to see that most of our human history we didn't make that hierarchy we had in fact if anything that what was on a hierarchy is the community was on the hierarchy right so this notion that you're we put all our emotional eggs into one romantic basket right and that's a that's a nice expression to right we do we we think that it has to be with a romantic partner and that's what's gotten us that's

what's gotten us so messed up because Naturally, we live in communities and we have lots of friends and including our family members or friends, our cousins are, you know, we're surrounded by people and communities. That's most of our human history and most cultures. So the fact that we've now narrowed it down to one person, right, that we're supposed to. Do you believe in marriage? Well, of course I do, but I'm just saying, but if it's just one person, you know, my whole life with just, that's just a relationship with one person. I mean, I think most people would say that's not going to work. Right.

You know, I mean, even if it does work and you've been married your whole life. No, but you get what I'm saying. I'm not, this is not about monogamy or not monogamy. I'm not, I'm really not saying that. I hear you. I'm just saying in a good marriage, if you're in a marriage, a good marriage means that each of you have the autonomy to have really deep meaningful friendships outside of the marriage. Outside of the marriage. The first thing I ask my boys when they call me and say I met, I met a girl.

What do you think the first question I asked him is? Yeah. What do you think the first question I asked? Did you meet a girl? No, when when my friend will call me and say, hey, I met this really all. awesome girl. Oh. What do you think the first question I then ask him is?

I don't know. What? Does she have friends? Oh, that's fantastic. Does she have friends? Yeah. Because if she doesn't have friends. Yeah, then you're in trouble.

Then you're in trouble. Then we're driving down the road. That's going to be scary, man. Okay, but I have a message to women because I get to speak as a woman. I'm going to tell a message. Okay. So, and I've said this to my sister-in-law too. We, this is the women, we have to stop thinking that if our partner wants to

hang out with their friends by themselves, that that's somehow betraying us, that that's somehow not loving us as much. And no, no, we have to do that. But the reason is, is because what they're showing us and their autonomy is what we should be doing. It's right, right, in our autonomy, is developing our own relationships.

And what really suffocates both partners is that oftentimes one of two things. The man has autonomy and he has his friendships and the woman feels threatened. But the other thing happens is the man will rely only the partner for all their problems and everything and the woman resents it because she doesn't want to be a therapist a lover, a caretaker, you know what I mean

all these roles with her partner who won't go out and have friends like go and find yourself some friends please because I can't be your whole thing so either one of those parents have... My love is not mutually exclusive yeah that's what I'm saying yeah but I'm just saying but you get those both of those problems in marriages right and it's I talk about that little bit in book so we have to understand that the healthy version of marriage I don't I'm not

making a stance about monogamy or not, it's not something I'm, you know, it sort of takes us off on another track. But in a marriage, it should be you, a healthy marriage, I get to have this voice, a healthy marriage should, both of you are deeply connected in lots of different wonderful ways and you definitely have time together where you share that. And you value just as much your friendships and going off by yourself with your friends and spending time with the both of you right and you figure out if you have kids you figure out how to swap the kids or whatever it is so that that both can happen and I've always said I've wanted to say this to marriage therapist for a for decades and now I get to say it it shouldn't just be date night as a solution

for difficult marriages it should also be friendship night where both of you are going off with your friends to help the marriage right the better your friendships are the better your marriage is going to be you know that intuitively you're you're like hitting me so much what you're hitting me is right between the eyes I could sit here and talk to you for four hours

I'm just thinking about like how am I gonna push this episode out how am I gonna get this out because like everything you're saying and it's applicable to everyone I think people are used to me

bringing people on where you know they specialize in substance use disorder they have this story of recovery it's like this mental health thing but like we're talking about a real tangible solution that totally

you don't need to be a doctor a therapist you can just be a good person exactly and you can also just and it comes back to friendship Exactly, friendships. And then the two key ingredients, which will have to be a different interview, but it's fine. The two ingredients of good friendships is being able to listen, right? Being able to listen because we don't listen. Nobody feels listened to, by the way. 80% of us don't feel listen to in culture approximately. We have to listen, but we also have to be curious about the other person. And that, we are missing that. Five-year-olds aren't missing that, but grown-ups are missing that.

That deep curiosity about, and I'm going to do what I do, right, about not only what I can tell you about me, but what I can learn from you about you, but also about me through you. Because once I learn from you about me through you, this is the kicker. I see myself in you. And once I see myself in you and you see myself in me, it's love. Yeah. Right? It's totally love. Yeah, that's it.

Like it's so critical because I The start of that for me is like I you know I did the New York City Not single I did the New York City Not in a romantic relationship But surrounded by a lot of great people thing For many years and I would go on these dates

And I would call my friends afterwards Yeah And they'd say how was it? I said she didn't ask me a single fucking question about myself Didn't ask me And it would blow my mind Yeah Yeah

Do you not get like do you not have any like did you do your research like what you don't care anything about who i am nothing yeah and it's an immediate no for me like that's just like it's a very easy yeah keep it moving um but that's interesting that you say that because i have to say speaking to a lot of men and women oftentimes women say that about men that they don't feel like the the the curiosity is reciprocated um and it's interesting to have you say that but i think that people love talking about themselves ask them and then they'll feel good and oh but that's that's that's i mean that's that's that's funny it's exactly part of the culture that is problematic we think this is the other I mean

there's so many things we have to unlearn right in our in our crazy culture um we think that talking about ourselves is going to lead you to connect to me doesn't happen that way doesn't happen to me it what happens when I connect to you is when I think you're interested in me and what I have to say yes right and but we really do think like social look at my social media we really do think if I tell you something intense about me that then you're going to connect to me. It's like, why would I connect to you? I mean, I might feel bad for you,

but I'm not going to connect to you. If you turn it around and say, just like you did the beginning of the interview when you said, how are you doing? And then you said, you tease me a little bit and said, I'm going to respond even though you didn't ask me, and then I asked you. It's when we both ask each other questions

and not just bullshit questions, real questions that we want to know the answer to. That's when the connection happens. It's a five-year-old insight. Five-year-olds know that. You know, with their incessant, why, why, why do you do that? Why do you do that? That's our natural knowledge, right, that you ask a question and then you ask the kid a question, right?

And it obviously is a little easier as kids get older, obviously. But the idea is it's that mutual curiosity that creates connection. I am making the most obvious statement in the world, right? But it's an entire culture that doesn't even know that. People will say, whoa, and I'll be like, what? Like, whoa, I'd like, you have to be curious about someone else to connect to them. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's just amazing.

Yeah. What a ride. Okay, so we're like probably at time, which I hate, but I... I know a question, though, because you're talking about the 80s growing up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The 90s, the same like young boys to, like, do something to stay in the town, whatever. I know. So what does a kid do who we want to? to connect that this goes to how you change the culture yeah yeah yeah yeah how does culture practically change who has the instinct right want to connect yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the responsibility on to ask or to tell yeah the responsibility is to ask yeah um yeah and so but i would also start off with that the responsibility is not

on the, should not be on the kid, but on the adults around the kid to provide opportunities. But for the kid, I mean, the parents, et cetera, because we have to help scaffold, we have to give them the permission to do it. But for the kid, you know, and I say this to college students all the time, including those who identified being on the spectrum, et cetera, I'll say, you got to just have the nerve to go up to someone and say, like, you can even say, my professor has having everybody asked this question, you know, I'm curious about what your answer is, meaning, like, you know, what do you want most in life? life and why. And that's a question that a lot of guys love to ask each other.

So, and I said, just say your professor told you to ask him. Yeah, your teacher, whatever. Right, yeah, whatever, your teacher told you. Or your mom, not, not your mom. Definitely not your mom. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But my point is, is that I say, just use the, I oftentimes say my undergraduates men are always like this, because they will say, I force them, I force them, I force them. At the beginning of every class, it doesn't matter what I teach. I say, now you're going to turn to your partner, whoever you're sitting has to, sit and face them, and I pick a question, millions

of questions. I know hundreds of questions that young people want to be asked. So where is home? Where do you feel safe? What does it feel like to belong? Who's your friend? Why is he a friend? Who do you trust? I mean, these are all questions they're starving to be asked, someone to ask them. So I just have them ask them, and they have to do it both ways. The guys in my class, especially in the sports teams, will look at me like I'm crazy. They're like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to ask this question of the guy sitting next to me. And I'll say, yeah, I said, if you really don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. But this is what we're going to start class with.

Every class is going to be a different question. And by the end of the class, they're, of course, best friends, totally best friends. And I've had, now, because I've been doing this for a long time, I've had, you know, best friends forever come out of my class, marriages come out of my class. I mean, because that's what happens. And all I did, Zach, I just want you understand. All I did is I said, turn to your partner, ask you. a question and ask it both ways and you're going to time it so every each side gets the same amount of time right because people always one person talks more than the other so right you got what

I'm saying it's easy it's easy today when people listen to your show I want them to go I want them to think of a question that they have for somebody else in their life and I want them to call them or find them and ask the question just do it just start your life asking questions of other people just do it it's not hard it's not hard and that will allow you to form connection and then friendships and that will inspire the other person to be curious about you right because when you're curious guess what happens they're curious

about you when you're curious yeah not all the time but right yeah yeah yeah yeah so I have a new drug yeah yeah yeah diagnosed later in life yeah yeah and I guess like how does this apply to children or people who

struggle with that because I feel like lack of connection and acting I've been something that's struggled with my entire life. Yeah. But then when I do and I settle back into my neurodivergent ways, I find it hard to maintain this connection. So what are some exercises, simple exercises, just like unwritten about?

Yeah. So first of all, I would say neurodivergent people are better at the method that I talk about than everybody else. And the reason is because actually I believe that neurodivergent people and people of all different, you know, identities around that are actually incredibly sensitive people. And the rules, right, the social norm rules don't make any sense to them. So they seem, as one 10-year-old said to me, they seem like bullshit. And he said, like, you're supposed to lie about stuff? Like, you're supposed to make up

things, to make people feel good. So to me, and I've also been told by students, college students, like, you have to understand that we, you know, in the way they identify, actually, you know, are better listeners than other people. Like, you have to understand. So I would say you have a superpower, right, you have a superpower of a kind of sensitivity that people who are not with that identity, actually, they've been dulled enough that they're actually less sensitive. So you're actually super sensitive. And I would argue, because I have kids in my life with your identity, that what the method does is gives you permission to ask the kind of what could feel awkward because then you say, my teacher told me to ask you. You know what I mean? You create situations, and even today, I'll give you a tip, right? I was listening to this professor talking to Zach, and she was talking about this, and she was raising all these questions, and it made me think about a question I have for you, and I really just wanted to ask you that question. And the thing is you won't find it difficult to do follow-up questions because you're really curious about the answer.

You know what I mean? So all your natural skills will come kicking in to actually really engage in that conversation. you won't get lost in the conversation. So I would say, know that you have a superpower. It's actually you're more skilled than people who are not, right, don't have that identity. And so use it to really, right, to really engage with people. So then the push and pull would be the cultural aspect of that give and take,

of that returning, the asking and the time. Yeah, yeah. So the skill is really, so what Zach's doing in this interview, is asking the question, and then when they give an answer, thinking to yourself and your highly sensitive mind, right? Okay, I don't really understand what she means by that. So I think I'm going to ask her what she means by though. She can give me an example of that because I'm not really sure what she's talking about. And then you say, well, so what do you mean by that? So then what happened? So then what, right? I mean, getting all the details

and what you're doing, when you know what that feels like when someone does that with you. You feel loved. When someone really wants to know really what you think and feel, you feel totally loved. You know what I mean? And so just know that, that you're loving them when you do that. So that will give you a kind of confidence, right, to be able to do it. You should check out the book, because I give you literally, I literally give you nine practices, right, that we do with kids, and you can actually try these practices. But I would say, don't see it as a deficit, see it as a strength, that you have where people who are not identified in that way have learned a lot of bullshit that actually is getting in the way, right, of connection rather than enhancing

connection. The people who, I mean, I'm considered extroverted, but extroverted people are oftentimes terrible listeners, right? They're terrible listeners. And also, they're so consumed with telling, you know, talking, that they're actually, right, they're not actually learning from other people about themselves. So I would say extroverted people have a, have oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes have a problem with this kind of technique, and less so for introverted people. And I'm like, I've been feeling I'd swear my entire lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so we got a wrap there. Dr. Niobe, what I am going to remember this talk. Rebel with a cause, go by the book, reimagining boys, ourselves, and our culture. I have a copy here, which I am going to read. The answers, they're telling us. They're telling us what we need to hear. We just need to listen is the message that I heard loud and clear today. and I just want to remind everyone who listened today, 40 years.

This isn't just some like propaganda throwing it. Like this is 40 years of many, many, many, many, many, many, many conversations. Hours and hours and hours and following people and boys and young men through their journey of life. And it comes back to friendship. So thank you for being here and being with us. Yeah, thank you. It was super fun. Cool.

You're fun. That's it. Thank you. Yeah.