I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic

I'm starting a social club to solve the male loneliness epidemic(wave3.social)

303 points by nswizzle31 353 days ago | 662 comments

The other day I saw a post here on HN that featured a NYT article called "Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44098369) and it definitely hit home. As a guy in my early 30s, it made me realize how I've let many of my most meaningful friendships fade. I have a good group of friends - and my wife - but it doesn't feel like when I was in college and hung out with a crew of 10+ people on a weekly basis. So, I decided to do something about it. I’ve launched wave3.social - a platform to help guys build in-person social circles with actual depth. Think parlor.social or timeleft for guys: curated events and meaningful connections for men who don’t want their friendships to atrophy post-college.

It started as a Boston-based idea (where I live), but I built it with flexibility in mind so it could scale to other cities if there’s interest. It’s intentionally not on Meetup or Facebook - I wanted something that feels more intentional, with a better UX and less noise.

Right now, I'm in the “see if this resonates with anyone” stage. If this sounds interesting to you and you're in Boston or another city where this type of thing might be needed, drop a comment or shot me an email. I'd love to hear any feedback on the site and ideas on how we can fix the male loneliness epidemic in the work-from-home era.

keiferski 353 days ago |

This idea appears every once in awhile, as it’s obviously a major issue in modern life.

The interesting thing though is how the solution is always location-agnostic. By that I mean it’s never really about a specific cafe or restaurant or soccer field, it’s always an app or service that organizes people to show up in various places.

I bring this up because if you look at places that had lively social activities a few decades or a century ago, they were almost always a specific place.

The neighborhood cafe where locals can stop by at any time and see other locals. The bar that everyone stops by after work twice a week. These are stationary physical locations that don’t require pre-planning, schedules, apps, or anything else.

JimDabell 353 days ago | |

It’s not always location-agnostic, but you’re more likely to hear about location-agnostic efforts because they have further reach.

For instance Men’s Sheds are a local effort with a thousand locations in the UK:

> Men’s Sheds encourage people to come together to make, repair and repurpose, supporting projects in their local communities. Improving wellbeing, reducing loneliness and combatting social isolation.

> Research gathered by the UKMSA Health and Wellbeing Survey, 2023, suggests 96% of Men’s Shed attendees feel less lonely since joining a Shed.

— https://menssheds.org.uk

Unfortunately, sometimes you get things like this happening:

> 'We put the pressure on to join Men in Sheds'

> The 74-year-old added: "Eventually they let us in, just one morning, eventually it became all the time, and now it's 50% women, and we absolutely love it."

> When the women were allowed into the workshop, members decided to keep a quiet room with a model railway display in it, just for men.

> "We [the men] escape now and again [to the quiet room] and have a chat and weigh things up."

— https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5qd9l3094o

bcraven 353 days ago | | |

You have selectively quoted that article. Note the last four paragraphs are:

>Andrew McNerney, 70, admitted there was initially some resistance to becoming a mixed group.

>He said: "There was apprehension, but in all honesty, it's turned out well.

>"We [the men] escape now and again [to the quiet room] and have a chat and weigh things up."

>But he added: "It's a lovely atmosphere, and it's been good."

notarobot123 353 days ago | | |

The men are there to meet each other, not to avoid women. Gender segregation isn't the point - it's about building relationships.

lupusreal 353 days ago | | |

What I find a bit remarkable is how they lost control of their club dynamics so severely. I've been a regular attendee of a few hacker spaces that were open to the public but never had the problem they describe.

I think maybe a key aspect is ensuring that all men, particular the ones that are classically unattractive (even repulsive) feel welcome as valued equals. Many women cannot countenance this and will try to shape group membership to be more agreeable; those women are free to leave. The rest are welcome to stay and at that point there shouldn't be any issues.

(Of course it goes without saying that actual harassment isn't tolerated, but being a smelly fat slob with a heart of gold doesn't count.)

jamesdeluk 353 days ago | | |

Why didn't they start Women's Sheds?

ctippett 353 days ago | | |

I had never heard of Men's Sheds before. Thank you for mentioning it.

idiotsecant 353 days ago | | |

Yes, unfortunately sometimes social events are wildly successful and even more people want to join, and the existing members let them, and everyone has a great time together.

It's unfortunate, but it happens.

immibis 353 days ago | | |

Why does the presence of women cause men to not have male friends?

lurk2 353 days ago | |

> The neighborhood cafe where locals can stop by at any time and see other locals. The bar that everyone stops by after work twice a week. These are stationary physical locations that don’t require pre-planning, schedules, apps, or anything else.

I’ve seen a number a theories on why these spaces declined:

1. Social media became more engaging than actual hangouts.

2. Rising levels of cultural and ethnic diversity lead to lower levels of social trust and a subsequent exit from public spaces (see e.g. Robert Putnam).

3. Independent bars and cafes got bought out by chains that favored higher rates of table turnover.

4. Civil Liberties movement made America into an open air insane asylum that normal people avoid venturing into.

5. Wages not keeping pace with inflation leaves less discretionary income available to pay for these spaces.

6. Decline of fraternal orders, friendly societies, and veteran clubhouses which were often the owners of the bars and / or cafes.

maerF0x0 353 days ago | | |

(Similar to 2)

7. A loss of a common religious practice creating a space for community, and in the case of evangelical Christianity a shift to a female driven congregation and preaching.

(Which, ultimately, is very sad for the women in the church, too, because a lot of them want to be married to a Christian man, but struggle to find one if only for a purely supply issue)

_DeadFred_ 353 days ago | | |

1. True. When I was younger we all went to XYZ coffee shop in large part to see who we ran into there, catch up on gossip, let people know where to come hang that night. With social media you don't have/need that.

3. When I was younger we did item 1 above, but at Denny's late at night after everything shut down. The fact it was a chain didn't seem to impact the hang potential.

4. I grew up in Santa Cruz and it was always an insane asylum and had a homeless problem before having a homeless problem was cool, but it was also always a city full of people hanging out (don't know anymore was forced to move away).

carabiner 353 days ago | |

Last one I tried was Grouper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grouper_social_club

You'd meet up for dinner at a local place that was usually pretty good, with 2-3 other people, mostly tech-adjacent. Dinners were pretty polite, a little awkward, mildly stimulating, but I never made real relationships from it. Seems like the same idea has emerged with https://timeleft.com.

I don't know. It seems like the best way to make friends is to force people to do some other task next to each other a few days per week and let things form organically after they are around each other for a few years.

lotsofpulp 353 days ago | | |

> I don't know. It seems like the best way to make friends is to force people to do some other task next to each other a few days per week and let things form organically after they are around each other for a few years.

You need a “shared struggle” to build tribal bonds. Some kind of us vs it or us vs them narrative. A simple get together where everyone spends money and has a good time is never going to accomplish that.

That is why immigrant groups, religious groups, professional groups, etc are more resilient, and successive generations that experience more independence end up splintering and otherwise loosening the bonds.

See also hazing in militaries/sports teams/“Greek” organizations/etc (not that I condone hazing).

kelnos 353 days ago | | |

> ... with 2-3 other people, mostly tech-adjacent.

This IMO is a part of the problem. I don't want more tech friends. Not that there's anything wrong with us, but I want more diversity in my friend groups. And I'm tired of many hangouts eventually devolving into chats about tech-related topics.

scelerat 352 days ago | |

It seems to me that an underlying assumption of every so-called "social" app is that its users wish to avoid contact with people in real life. That the users wish for some sanitized, safe and dimensionally meager simulacrum of human interaction.

Obviously, that's not an absolute; clearly people yearn for human contact. But as you point out, there was a time when people participated in social activities and public life with a much higher degree of physical presence than they do now, and the popularity of apps which sidestep this indicate to me that people also desire not to engage with others so proximately.

If you want to have relationships with people, go to where people actually are, buckle your belt, set aside your dread of rejection or indifference, and introduce yourself.

KolibriFly 353 days ago | |

There's something irreplaceable about place-based community

km144 353 days ago | | |

Probably that's just how we were wired. I'm probably often guilty of invoking an appeal to nature [1] when it comes to these things, but it's striking to me how few people who exist in modern society have the capacity to acknowledge that to live in this society is to entirely live within an experiment whose parameters have evolved from generation to generation over the past few centuries. We do not think critically enough about which of the technologies that "enhance" our lives actually enhance them. If personal automobiles are good for us, then to what end are they good? If social media is good for us, then to what end is it good? When you go beyond the first or second question, you start to realize the societal good is dubious at best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

BlueTemplar 353 days ago | |

Not always, but this is the Internet, and Hacker News : if you freaking love hammers, everything starts to look like a nail.

flowingfocus 353 days ago | |

> The neighborhood cafe where locals can stop by at any time and see other locals

This is still the norm in some places. When I was cycling through the Balkans, I was surprised how many people sit in public spaces, usually close to a kiosk, and play cards, throw dice, or just chatter

jajko 353 days ago | | |

Whole southern Europe is like that (sitting now in a small trattorria in Liguria province in Italy, I see this everywhere, and ie Spain, Portugal or Greece is same).

The problem mostly arises in big cities where a lot of young move for work, I'd call those socially sterile places.

lavelganzu 352 days ago | |

Isn't this merely a technological change? "A few decades or a century ago", being location-specific was the only possible option for a social club. Now there are more options; location-specific options still exist, and location-agnostic options exist also.

You can totally pick a convenient cafe or pub and start hanging out there & inviting your existing friends. In time you'll start to recognize the other regulars, and you can make a point of chatting with them regularly (but not overstaying your welcome especially early on!), find out what they're interested in, offer & request small favors, crack jokes, eventually a bit of friendly competition, casual debate about mutual interests while intentionally trusting them enough to let them change your mind a little, etc -- all the things you'd normally do to build a social connection with another man. The upside and downside of a location-based approach is that it's a very weak filter. The other regulars may be people whom it's a real stretch to learn to connect with.

Location-agnostic social activities are typically focused on an activity or interest, e.g. people who want to hike, watch a movie, play a game or sport, do political activism, do community service, etc. So the social group comes with a filter attached that ensures you will have an easier time connecting with them. This is great! There are some downsides, too, but nothing serious.

Euphorbium 353 days ago | |

You are not supposed to stop by. You are supposed to spend money and keep going.

lovestory 353 days ago | | |

Here in the Balkans and most of European countries always have public squares or similar gathering place for each neighborhood. I was shocked when I visited some USA states that absolutely have nothing of that sort. Not even a park that is tailored for a few hours hangout sessions. Even some public spaces like parks and library gardens are filled with corporate interests like Starbucks. You absolutely are expected to spend money whenever you go out which is depressing af.

teddyh 353 days ago | | |

If the business doesn’t make enough money it will not be able to pay rent, and will be replaced with a more profitable business which will make enough money, probably by pressuring people to instead be customers, pay and move on. It’s what the system will produce.

yowzadave 351 days ago | |

I agree with this; I think part of the societal problem is one of poor urban planning. I’m lucky to live in a neighborhood in New York (Sunnyside) that has a park that is the hub of everyone’s social life—most nights of the week, people show up, bring some food, and chat/share dinner and drinks while the kids run around playing unsupervised. This is extremely rare in the US, which is dominated by suburban typologies that feature individual homes and relatively few communal spaces. The shared spaces, like restaurants/bars/etc. tend to be places you have to drive to, and therefore have less of a connection to their community and less of a regular clientele. Everyone wants to have their own backyard…which is fine, but leads to people hanging out alone in their own backyard rather than with their friends and neighbors.

cess11 353 days ago | |

It's about brand. This is tailored to a kind of person that feels confused and lost in a setting without a brand, so classics like joining an association around a hobby or a union or the freemasons or whatever makes them feel uncomfortable.

It's not only about one's own identity, but also the other participants.

Eddy_Viscosity2 352 days ago | |

Location specific is better, because if you just know that a particular spot has the kind of people and atmosphere that is inviting and pleasant to be in, you just go there. No need to check-in or schedule a meeting or anything else. Frequent regular interval fixed-time events are good too. I used to part of a racquet club that just had an open session all evening twice a week. You just show up and play and so did everyone else. You put your name up and are just play whoever is next for a game, then wait, then play someone else. You get to play a variety of people and when waiting your turn you can chat and get to know the other players. 5 stars system.

0xfaded 352 days ago | |

Last time I was in Prague my friend brought me straight to the local pub, and without even ordering beer came out. Everyone knew each other and each other's dogs (Prague is very dog friendly, in fact one of the dogs was in the kitchen begging scraps). I have vague memories of similar scenes growing up in Australia, and have seen similar in Ireland. I don't know if anywhere like it in US cities, but maybe it's still like that out in the country.

Alex_Notchenko 351 days ago | |

I run local communities (specifically a London based Russian Language Machine Learning and AI community, hit me up if you are interested) it's 100% cannot survive long term without a locus in physical space. Online only exists to facilitate offline, if people are just avatars and not real people, there is a hard limit to what can be achieved in a community, its a question of trust.

seydor 353 days ago | |

It's a matter of process: first exposure to many people, then filtering. That's how it works in school, work etc. Ideally one would plan to gather a ton of people in a crowded place, like a large concert or church.

fellowniusmonk 352 days ago | |

I co-ran a very transformative social club as a co-working space for several years.

People still talk about it years later.

It's not hard to do if you have the space.

But you have to have the space.

msgodel 353 days ago | |

Many of us are alone and not lonely and I think most men who feel "lonely" are lying to themselves about what socialization really is.

unhappy_meaning 353 days ago | | |

Yup, a lot of the men who are lonely are also a bit of an outcast whether it's self-imposed because of their warped sense of socialization or they're ostracized because they have weird takes on life issues or just life itself.

more_corn 353 days ago | |

Yeah my first thought reading the headline was “isn’t this just called the pub”?

timnetworks 351 days ago | |

sounds like someone was never a foursquare mayor :)

pokemon go was a notable example that got people out of the house (and sometimes into adventure..)

antisthenes 353 days ago | |

I mean, you do realize you FIRST need to be location-agnostic to find some people, right?

Only then can your group start to develop favorite local places to hang around at.

> I bring this up because if you look at places that had lively social activities a few decades or a century ago, they were almost always a specific place.

Which is basically irrelevant, as you can come up with a similar example of pre-covid, during-covid and post-covid changes for how people hang out. People adapt pretty quickly.

> The neighborhood cafe where locals can stop by at any time and see other locals. The bar that everyone stops by after work twice a week.

I'm not sure these places really ever existed with such a stability as you describe outside of _really_ small towns. Like under 5000 pop towns.

keiferski 353 days ago | | |

I'm not sure these places really ever existed with such a stability as you describe outside of _really_ small towns. Like under 5000 pop towns.

These places exist today, in numerous major cities around the world. I live near one.

maxehmookau 353 days ago | |

Yeah, to me this is another arm of that old idea that every few years, someone in Silicon Valley reinvents the bus.

Place-based community is key, and can't be fixed with an app, or a service. Not long-term anyway.

Multicomp 353 days ago |

The lack of deep friendships feel like a 3-fold problem.

1. You can't ever be real, if you are real, you are likely to be recorded doing something someone somewhere on the largest stage in the world (the public web) that someone will disapprove of, and someone else will raise their own profile by mining your impiety to prove their own concern and moral superiority.

2. Everyone is so mobile and connected online, they never have to break the ice and talk to those around them in the breakroom or geographical space, so all of our social skills have atrophied at best, or were never learned at worst. We know just enough civility to not get in fights, but we don't know how to easily break the ice or become acquaintances.

3. All the people that live in the cities are not close with each other, they didn't grow up together and don't go to church / rotary club / male-only spaces any longer because we are all supposed to pretend to be cool liberated yuppies in a hookup culture. Can't have real ties or any strongly held beliefs, that would make you religious (or worse, Religious on an actual religion), those people are bad. So I'm okay, you're okay, and we all smile. And inside, no real connections are ever made.

Not to mention testosterone levels dropping, schools being geared towards women, always co-ed spaces, and a breakup of younger and older generations because of cultural differences there too...not that the old people are always nice.

scoofy 353 days ago |

I've never felt more connected to people than in NYC. I knew my neighbors, I had a huge social network, I just didn't like the NYC that much.

I honestly blame residential zoning. The place we would get to know our neighbors was at the corner shop, bar a block away, salon and pizza shop downstairs. All that goes away when you're walking more than a couple blocks to do anything.

Telemakhos 353 days ago |

Sometimes I wish we could have "gentlemen's clubs" of the sort that existed in Victorian Britain (not the US strip club version), third-spaces where one could go to read or converse or play cards with other men or even have a meal or a drink. Having social space that's limited to a set of people one knows, more or less, and that has rules on behavior seems like a civilizing influence that's missing today.

fiforpg 353 days ago |

I'd like to offer a contrarian view.

Much of the NYT article can be explained away by the Gell-Mann effect. During most of human history it was hard to maintain multiple strong bonds anyway; long distance communication pre-internet was hard too. There are plenty of modern opportunities for finding friends based on interests: conferences, concerts, sports bars etc. How much of this discussion is a moral panic caused by imprecise notions which by definition cannot be described by hard data?

cjohnson318 353 days ago |

I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that most men are too insecure to engage with each other meaningfully. This causes them to appear overly competitive, or uninterested. How many times have you spoken to another man that can't stop trying to one-up you, or cannot be bothered to ask you a single question? That's the majority of my interactions with other men.

yesfitz 353 days ago | |

Is there a common thread between the men you describe beyond their gender?

I haven't experienced what you described since I was socializing with programmers and scientists on the East Coast. Now most of the men I socialize with are artists (at least part time) and IT generalists in the Midwest.

cjohnson318 353 days ago | | |

That's difficult to say. Right now, my cohort is mainly other dads at my kids school, so we're all busy and kind of tired. I want to make friends, but it's hard to find people that are (1) available and (2) friendly. Full disclosure, I have insecurities too: I've got zero interest in trying to make friends in a group where I feel like I'll be judged or looked down upon for whatever. I still socialize, and I've learned a lot about socialization from my wife, but yeah, I realize that I've got a chip on my shoulder also.

dennis_jeeves2 352 days ago | |

>How many times have you spoken to another man that can't stop trying to one-up you, or cannot be bothered to ask you a single question? That's the majority of my interactions with other men.

Very true. Statistically men don't care about other men, period. Conversely they care about women or their daughters more than their sons. A lot of it is biological - meaning mean are the dispensable gender. The term 'women and children' is not a coincidence.

blablabla123 353 days ago | |

Yeah, problems are way deeper and would have to be addressed in such a concept. Last year I read a Graphical Novel about it (Seek You) which goes into great detail. Root causes includes dysfunctional TV stereotypes (the lonely hero) among others.

cjohnson318 352 days ago | | |

Dysfunctional media is a big one, dysfunctional families, the disintegration of the middle class, the rise of techbro culture where a whole generation suddenly had this expectation that you can and should be as wealthy as a doctor, with a fraction of the training or oversight.

_zaey 353 days ago |

Bouldering (indoor climbing) is the most social sport I’ve tried, and I’d highly recommend going on your own as you will find opportunities to meet new people, and others will talk to you (as long as you’re not wearing headphones!).

Bouldering provides an open space you can move freely in, with no inherent social hierarchy (no tutors, teachers), just people trying varying difficulties of bouldering routes. If someone can do a route you can’t, just ask them for tips, or if someone can’t do a route you can, ask if they want help, or cheer someone on when they do something difficult.

Bouldering provides lots of easy conversation starters, and as with all social situations, going on your own and showing vulnerability will always be endearing to others.

solraph 353 days ago |

I like the idea in general principle - but if I lived in the right city/country, and didn't already have something similar, my first thought based on the landing page pictures would be;

"This is only for white guys in their twenties."

I don't know if that's intentional, but if I was in the location target market, I'd close the tab at that point.

sandspar 353 days ago | |

This comment inadvertently reveals why clubs like this can't exist: there's always someone counting races and genders in photos. High functioning male social clubs generally have implicit rules, like "straight-acting gay guys are fine but don't make it weird" or "no weird lefties". But you can't have those rules anymore. So "male social clubs" get overrun with board game types who are OK with accepting everyone. Which means high status guys, the kind of guys who are trend setters, tend to stay away.

wkat4242 353 days ago | | |

> High functioning male social clubs generally have implicit rules, like "straight acting gay guys are fine but don't make it weird" or "no weird lefties".

I think that whole conformation thing is why they don't work. Nobody wants to hang out with people pretending to be someone else so they fit in. Any social connection you make is then fake too.

> Which means high status guys, the kind of guys who are trend setters, tend to stay away.

The board games types can also be high status trend setters, just not in your circle. That's fine though. Nothing wrong with seeking out people that are like yourself.

But there's plenty of places where you can find what it sounds like you're looking for. Like sports bars. Won't find the board games types there and not many women either.

rchaud 353 days ago | | |

But high status guys by definition wouldn't be seen dead in clubs like these to begin with. They are socially successful ladder climbers already, that's part and parcel of being high status.

BlueTemplar 353 days ago | | |

« board game types » ??

solraph 353 days ago | | |

I guess it depends if you are after a club with men to help you climb some status ladder, or if you are after a club that helps you make male friends, regardless of where they come from.

ojbyrne 353 days ago |

My mother, somewhere around 1976, told me that basically when men get married, they lose all their friends. But they get all their wife’s friends. Which seems prescient to me. Including their husbands, obviously.

reify 353 days ago |

Being a retired psychotherapist I realise how valuable places like this are for men.

In therapy, For every 10 female clients, you get 1 male client, but most of the time that ratio is much worse.

Here in the UK we have Andy's mans club.

https://andysmanclub.co.uk/

Its a male peer support group.

Its a great place to go.

Groups of men talking about stuff that impacts all men in their daily lives.

A safe, supportive space to talk about problems: Relationships, employment, divorce, debt, family, violence, anger, grief, loss and everything men are not that forthcoming to share.

Setup by the family of a young man who took his own life at 21 years old.

The one I went to had about 60 men turn up every week, they were split into smaller groups.

Men supporting men who have experienced the same shit life throw at you.

pjerem 353 days ago |

Congrats on your launch, that’s a truly nice issue to address.

For what I feel, boy friends doing whisky and poker night in seemingly high end places, that sounds like a boring cliché. That’s not how I would make friends so this don’t look appealing to me at all. It doesn’t feel like a setting to be natural for me. It feels cold. It’s exactly how I imagine American superficial "friendships" (I know it’s a cliché but it feels reinforced here). I understand it may be more than that but that’s what is advertised.

But maybe that’s just a cultural gap on my side and since the service is US cities only, maybe it’s fitting well there.

It also feels like you exclude half your potential market by being male only. Nowadays, women also have hard time creating relationships.

frankmatranga 353 days ago |

As a recent grad in upstate New York, this exact problem of college friendships atrophying has been on my mind nonstop. My girlfriend and I host monthly cocktail parties in an attempt to stem the tide and even make new friends, but I’ve definitely been looking for male-focused groups. I’m interested!

hakunin 353 days ago | |

I'm not far from you, and also trying to find a solution to a similar problem, albeit long time from college. Started a local meetup here, but it hasn't quite taken off. My area has very few people doing what I do, and I work remotely. School friends are all over the country at this point, and connections have been fading. Maybe it's something about upstate NY. Either way, added you on LinkedIn.

doom2 353 days ago | |

I didn't stick around the Capital Region too long after college but I actually found the Troy community to be incredibly engaging. Maybe it was a function of time and place, but I got into cycling groups, community arts orgs, and volunteerism. It helped that I made friends in college who were already plugged into the local community.

frankmatranga 353 days ago | | |

I do love Troy and it is indeed surprisingly lively. I think shifting from a “I’m here temporarily for school” to “I’m now an average local” has been difficult to navigate and kept me from thinking about those sorts of local communities. Your comment is a good reminder.

allears 353 days ago |

As Groucho said, I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.

Here's the thing -- by making it a 'club', and making prospective 'members' pass muster, you're just replicating HR at a big corporation. Friendship isn't so much about matching activities and interests as it is about finding someone whose sense of humor matches yours, or going through the same experience together. No matter how lonely I was, I would never audition for a 'club'. I'd much rather meet someone by just doing the activities I like, and noticing who else is around.

listenallyall 353 days ago |

I'm torn on whether this has any potential for success but I strongly believe you chose the wrong launch cities. These are all crowded, "destination" cities with tons of people to meet and places to go, with a large urban core. I imagine people in growing cities without much of a central core and far less "personality" would desire something like this a lot more. Think Phoenix, Charlotte, Minneapolis, etc.

KolibriFly 353 days ago |

Can we say that male loneliness is one of those issues that's quietly massive but rarely talked about seriously...

ALittleLight 353 days ago |

One big challenge I see with this is that it will attract people who struggle to make friends. A club of lonely men seems like a place I would be embarrassed to go to and hesitant to make friends at. Usually friends have more to recommend them than loneliness.

kilroy123 353 days ago | |

That's exactly how meetups always felt to me.

rchaud 353 days ago | |

In economics, this is known as the problem of adverse selection.

jaitaiwan 353 days ago |

In Queensland Australia there are men’s sheds which are great. The local pub. If you’re near a good church they often have lots of social stuff too, even basketball and soccer clubs.

worthless-trash 353 days ago | |

https://mensshed.org/ for anyone who needs a specific link.

Each shed has its own policy and opening hours, best to look up your own local shed.

0xEF 353 days ago |

To be honest, I don't want another social media platform. I just want a group of people that I can talk computers, old tech and projects with and zero risk of politics, religion, or any of the various -isms entering the fray.

kelnos 352 days ago | |

It's funny because I want sort of the opposite. I have quite a few tech and tech-adjacent friends, and while I value those friendships a great deal, I want to make new friendships with people who aren't in tech and can talk about other topics. Both because I'm interested in other topics, and because I want to learn about and be involved in other things that are not tech.

0xEF 350 days ago | | |

That's also perfectly valid.

Maybe it's a saturation thing. The people I call my friends are plenty ready to chat about philosophy, psychology, politics, money, television or books they like, maybe play some games...but they kinda just glaze over when I want to talk about computers or some silly electronics project I'm futzing with. I could see the opposite being true, as well.

Balance in all things, I suppose.

nkotov 353 days ago |

Finding a third place helps a lot. For me, it's church. That's my community that's outside of work and family. But I also have hobbies (karting, gun range, etc.) and through that, I meet new people.

kylehotchkiss 352 days ago | |

Church works for me because I tried to pursue one based on the quality of its small/home groups and not just off Sunday service. Most people are going to find a Sunday service they like and find themselves stuck trying to actually find community. I think it's fair to say churches are failing to facilitate small groups better. It's not just having them, it's spawning new ones regularly, making sure to reach all the demographics. It takes a lot of resources to do that, which means maybe pastor needs a slightly smaller trendy shoe budget.

jonfromsf 353 days ago |

These were a huge part of the American social fabric in the past. Most of the organizations are still active, although smaller than before. There's Freemasons, The Elks, Rotary International, American Legion, VFW, Knights of Columbus, Loyal order of Moose, Shriners, Lions Club, Kiwanis ...

ngc248 353 days ago | |

Also, as compared to before, the amount of solitary activities one can do have increased a lot. This has also led to these asspciations becoming smaller.

kelnos 352 days ago | |

I do wonder what percentage of people (men, in particular, I guess) are members of such organizations. I'm pretty sure I don't even know one person who is a member. I certainly have my own bubble, though, so I assume they're still decently active, but my general impression is that it's likely, say, under 5% of the US population that belongs to one of those.

ecshafer 353 days ago |

I think this is a good idea but I think to get it really going good you need to have a social club. The old ethnic, religious an society social clubs all had a common factor of a club house. You could go to the American Legion, or Elks, or Masons, or Knights of columbus or Polish club or whatever at any time when you were a member you had old timers hanging out and doing things regularly. Youe event schedule will also need to be at least weekly to keep up close contact to build up connections.

nprateem 353 days ago | |

No, you need regular events, same place twice a month. That's the killer for social clubs like this. Just have a regular date in the diary and if people are free they can drop in.

Then do the more unique events on a different day (and let members suggest/ organise events too).

Friendship is repetition with the same group. Make it easy on people by meeting at the same time, maybe changing venue within a small area.

A group chat can be the clubhouse these days provided everyone meets regularly. I'd revoke membership from frequent no-shows. You want to limit groups to around 70 people too. Some research says above that cliques form.

Disposal8433 353 days ago | | |

Its funny because you described liberal Freemasonry: mandatory attendance twice a month. Forcing yourself to go and feeling the honor of being part of a group has been great for me.

I'm sure other groups have that kind of rule too, but the mandatory part is what makes it special.

SoftTalker 353 days ago | |

> American Legion, or Elks, or Masons, or Knights of columbus ...

Those all still exist, right? Or did they die off with the WWII generation?

aaronbaugher 353 days ago | | |

They still exist where I am, and are desperate for members, because their memberships tend to have an average age probably over 60. Some new blood could really invigorate them, but they have trouble finding any.

I sometimes wonder how my grandparents' generation, who were generally hard-working farmers and tradesmen, and who raised large families relative to today, found the time to maintain all those groups along with their churches. Different priorities, I guess, and that was not only before the Internet, but before TV really took over.

nswizzle31 353 days ago | |

That is the goal, for sure. Soho House almost gets it right.

b3ing 353 days ago |

Most dudes are too busy looking to hook up with women (maybe because dating is harder than before, not sure but at meetups you can see the desperation sometimes) or they feel hanging around guys is “gay” or that’s the stigma that started in the 90s

os2warpman 353 days ago |

In my 30s I found myself slipping into the chasm of loneliness.

It was particularly difficult for me because I had been in the Army for 10 years and was used to having many male friends I was extremely close with.

All I was doing on the weekends was sitting on the couch and I hate sitting on the couch.

I decided to fight it by focusing on three aspects of my personality and finding activities that suited them.

First was my nerdy side and for that I joined my local amateur radio and astronomy clubs. The amateur radio club is all old guys, but there's nothing wrong with that-- I'm on my way there too. But there is field day, volunteer opportunities, and monthly talks. Same for the astronomy club but slightly younger. You don't even need an expensive radio or telescope, or radio telescope. A pair of binoculars and a cheap handheld radio will get you started. My astronomy club is focused on astrophotography. I will never dive into that nightmare of cost but I have purchased a star tracker and learned to take deep sky photos with a DSLR. Also, if you want 20 different opinions on how to do something, tell an amateur radio club about your plan to do something-- sometimes their input is useful. Sometimes.

Time commitment: one day per month per club and the occasional volunteer event. Financial commitment: if you have self control, minimal.

Next was my desire for mental and physical fitness and for that I, a hairy sweaty middle-aged man who couldn't touch his toes, joined a yoga studio and started going regularly. There aren't a lot of men who go to yoga but they do exist and after a couple of months we started to get to know each other. Now every single Sunday after Yin we go get coffee. We are all into scuba so we go on an annual retreat each year to somewhere with yoga and good diving sites. The teachers think it's adorable, our little yoga men's club. Now I can touch my toes. And do a headstand. edit: and I don't know if it is a quirk of my area but every dude who is in to yoga is also, apparently, in to clay pigeon shooting as well so we do that too.

Time commitment: six hours per week, plus retreats. Financial commitment: large.

Finally was my desire to serve my community. This led me to joining my local volunteer fire company, going through EMT training, and going through the firefighter training pipeline, doing driver and pump operator training, and this fall I'm starting the officer pipeline. Now I staff the ambulance, do CPR training for the community, do a shift on the engine a couple of times per month, am on the board, and MOST IMPORTANTLY drive the engine in every single parade I can. The only reason I am up so late on a Thursday is that this evening was forcible entry training so I'm still amped up a little from hammering on the door training prop for three hours.

Time commitment: don't ask, it's practically a second job. Financial commitment: none, volunteers in my area get property and income tax credits and all training and gear is free.

I don't need to do all three, any single one of these would be fulfilling enough to make me happy-- but my kids are grown and gone and I've decided that working myself to death isn't worth it so I have the time.

Now instead of sitting on the couch all weekend doing nothing I have to specifically schedule weekends and tell people to leave me alone so I can sit on the couch all weekend and relax.

And if I need help moving that couch there is no shortage of volunteers.

Your personality is different but I guarantee, no matter where you live or what you're in to, there is some group somewhere that is looking for you.

abhisek 353 days ago |

Hmm. Not sure if discovery and connection will solve the root cause of the problem that you highlighted. I think it’s more to do with dopamine rush from social media and decreasing ability for people to people IRL connection.

noddingham 353 days ago |

Honestly I think you might be grappling with getting older and the change that naturally comes with it.

>I've let many of my most meaningful friendships fade.

At least you acknowledge that part and aren't bitter at your friends that it is somehow their fault.

>but it doesn't feel like when I was in college and hung out with a crew of 10+ people on a weekly basis

And it won't, ever again. They'll get married, move away, have kids, whatever. Just like if you played a sport in high school, or were in the band, that same group of people will never be together doing that same activity again after the last time.

>curated events and meaningful connections for men who don’t want their friendships to atrophy post-college

Except you acknowledge above your role in the "atrophying" and while you can say you didn't/don't want that to happen, you still allowed it to didn't you?

>The goal is to get people in the same place on a consistent basis.

Isn't that called the gym, the range, the golf course, softball/kickball/pickle ball team, bar, etc? I've struggled (still?) with exactly this thing as well and don't have any good advice. I will say it feels related to the notion of wanting to have a significant other but never leaving the house, you gotta put the effort in. On the bright side I read an article about a couple that missed neighborhood connections so started having coffee on their porch on Saturday mornings (or some consistent day of the week) and eventually neighbors walking by started saying hello, then stopping to chat, then bringing their own coffee, and then it became this whole neighborhood thing. So I guess I'm saying don't lose hope that you can't change things in your situation.

cogogo 353 days ago |

I find it ironic that the site is missing information about its creators and their background given the mission/goals. Presume OP is the Nick in the contact at the bottom. If OP is reading I’d definitely suggest adding something about yourself and anyone else involved and why doing this matters to you.

nswizzle31 352 days ago | |

Thanks for this comment - I created the site quite quickly to gauge interest in this cause that's really important to me... the response has been overwhelming. I am adding some real pictures of myself and friends, along with more info about me both on the page and in the eventual instagram page.

Little about me just for kicks - I'm early 30s, married, recently moved to Boston with a great tech job and a really solid group of friends from college that I unfortunately don't live close to anymore. I've made some good friends since moving here but it has all been through someone taking a herculean level of initiative to plan things and invite people to stuff. I want to lower that friction to have consistent IRL interactions with interesting people - whoever those people might be for a given person.

pconte 353 days ago |

Makes sense. A lot of guys feel this.. respect for actually doing something about it.

kebokyo 353 days ago |

It would be really cool to see more Mastodon instances that’s solely focused on people within a certain geographical area. It would be this but without the trendy startup energy.

Also if I don’t hear a single MTG Commander game come out of this project we have all failed as a species.

tbrownaw 353 days ago | |

Isn't there already a "social" site that instances itself by neighborhood? I think I remember having a login there that I never use.

billy99k 353 days ago |

"but it doesn't feel like when I was in college and hung out with a crew of 10+ people on a weekly basis. "

I'm in my 40s and in my 20s (shortly after college), I created a meetup group and regularly met with a group of 10-12 people weekly (parties, hangouts, dinner, activities).

We are all married now (some with kids) and now meet once/month and the meetup group disbanded before covid. As I've gotten older, I realized that some friends don't make it to a new phase of life. Sometimes because it was a friendship of proximity (like a neighbor or co-worker) and other times because you are doing something different with your life.

kelnos 352 days ago | |

I think the main difference is that when you and your friends live near each other (and/or work together) and enjoy the same sorts of activities, maintaining those friendships (even at a deeper level than "hey let's go to the club and hang out without much real social interaction") isn't too difficult.

When people get married, change jobs, start families, move away... then it actually requires a solid amount of effort to maintain those friendships. For some people they really value the friendships enough to put in that work, and for others they don't (and when they do, it has to be mutual for it to work out). The sad part is when people value the friendships, but don't understand that shift, and what's required, and those friendships fizzle out.

I still maintain friendships with a 10-15 people who no longer live near me, and who are doing different things with their lives, and are in very different circumstances than I am. The oldest of these friendships are pushing 30 years now. It's doable, but everyone needs to be on the same page as to what they expect from and what effort they're willing to put into the friendships.

smitty1e 353 days ago |

I chef a monthly breakfast for the fellas.

We're working through R. Kent Hughes "Disciplines of a Godly Man". https://a.co/d/7jeAATr

1123581321 353 days ago |

Neat. There may be an issue in the sign-up flow. I said I was in Other city, wasn’t asked where specifically. After I made an account, I RSVPed for an event which details will be revealed a couple days before. Is it just mixing all the other city people together or is that going to be in one of the cities where you’re established?

Male friendships are valuable. I either walk and get coffee, or we make breakfast every week. It started as three guys and averages 6-8 now, and some of our kids have become best friends. We also do a book club and some less frequent full family events.

susiecambria 352 days ago |

I very much appreciate these efforts. I don't think they, like I don't think men's sheds, have to be everything to all people.

I DO think social isolation, white boys and men in the US (and elsewhere? I have no idea), and voluntarism have confronted challenges for years. Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone that came out in 2000, the Do Good Institute report on voluntarism (https://dogood.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Where%20A...) and the recent work of Scott Galloway and friends on boys are examples of investigations of problems, challenges, and solutions.

Having been in the public policy world for 20+ years, government may be part of the solution (okay, not in this climate). But more often, it is part of the problem. Government is fickle about consistent and long term funding and evaluation and nonprofit organizations may not actually do work in a way that helps (meaning, is effective).

Individuals and communities often step up to do something, often anything, that may address a need. Participation and reach may wax and wain and I think that's ok. It really is the nature of the beast. Best case, an effort fades away and there is already another underway or standing in the wings.

The bottom line for me is that efforts are made. As a policy wonk and social worker, I'd very much like for efforts to be grounded in some sort of theory of change or best practice or something. But since I'm not a funder or a wielder of power, I don't get to make this decision.

matty22 352 days ago |

I would argue that the fatal flaw of this idea is that it is an online app. If this was solvable with technology, Meetup.com has a 15 year head start on you and they didn't solve it.

I think technology is antithetical to the goal you are working toward. Instead, start a local group and have a "all cellphones go here" basket when members enter so that when they are there, they are fully engaged and not doom scrolling the entire time.

phendrenad2 352 days ago | |

Meetup also raised many millions of dollars, so they had to enshittify fast.

benchloftbrunch 353 days ago |

I'd be interested, but it's not in my city (Houston) so tough beans I guess, unless someone else wants to start it here.

I very much agree with this being its own thing independent of Big Social Media. We need more of that. Too many of these types of things have the flaw that their only online presence is a Facebook group, which implicitly excludes me and anyone else who doesn't have nor want a FB account.

amir734jj 353 days ago |

I think we (hacker news community) can make a difference in dating industry by creating an open-source free to use dating app. Same quality as Hinge/Bumble but free of cost and free of algorithm manipulation. I have been thinking about it for a while. I am a software engineer but doing this requires a massive group effort. Maybe let's chat about it. amirhesamyan [at] gmail.com

gaws 351 days ago | |

Women don't care about open-source or free software. They want an app that's popular and easy to use on their phones. Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder have concerned that market.

kupfer 353 days ago | |

What is missing for you in Alovoa? Can you maybe contribute it?

informal007 353 days ago |

On the one hand, it's helpful to join a new friendship club if we truely admit that most of friendship is going to disappear as we are getting old.

On the other hand, some people are shamed to admit this point, as a result, joining this kind of club will make them look more shamed. It's just nature of humanity.

I think there should be a better idea for the second type of people.

daseiner1 353 days ago | |

I think the failing point with all(?) of the attempts in this space is that, to phrase it in a very handwavy pseudo graph way, “real world” social groups depend on people who are “hubs” with a disproportionately large number of links to individuals, the majority of whom have far fewer links comparatively. Communities are anchored by these “super friends”. Those are exactly the least likely people to ever consider using a site/app like the above, but the most important to have as they are the ones with the requisite initiative and/or social clout to actually "herd the cats".

Basically, the Friendship Paradox https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Friendship_paradox

renewiltord 353 days ago |

Is this really a problem? I get the feeling that the male loneliness epidemic is more described by people about others than themselves. For my part, the world doesn't seem that way at all. I have many friends who live close by and who are a part of my life. We play basketball and poker and board games together. We go to nearby bars occasionally and to each others' homes regularly. We lift together though I haven't been good about keeping up with that.

And my apartment building is home to some 500 people, all of whom are quite normal. People borrow a spoon of yogurt or a USB cable, or ask for a jump start, or help with plumbing. It all feels very normal and about the right scale of human interaction. Considering all that, and that people generally report happiness, and that these things come and go without success we must conclude the whole thing is illusory like so many other Complaints About The Modern World.

smaudet 353 days ago |

Hmm, I have used sites like this in past to some effect to make real world connections.

Signed up, but despite asking if I lived in one of three cities and selecting "other", it seemed to stick me in some event without a location?

There could be room for another app, e.g. Meetup has gotten particularly money hungry. If this is just a prototype I guess good luck!

nswizzle31 352 days ago | |

Thanks, I've fixed that now! I added the "other city" option as a way to let people express interest and if there is enough people + someone willing to show up then I'm happy to expand. Just want to focus on creating a good experience first.

nprateem 353 days ago |

Weird survey questions. How about "none of the above", "yeah maybe it depends", etc.

I don't know what you hope to achieve with such a limited set of answers.

nye2k 353 days ago |

The problem to solve is that these clubs exist already with low membership. Join a local Masonic lodge, or other local social org if you want to meet men you will learn from.

Boy Scouts, DeMolay and other boys youth orgs got their start in the 1910’s, joined by young men without fathers who were lonely due to their life situations. Many just need someone to take their hand and show them how to break the ice.

Loughla 353 days ago | |

I joined the Lions about three years ago. Our local chapter was defunct, so I got it going again.

Now we have about 40 members (for a town of 500, that's pretty damn good).

We get together to do volunteer and fund raising events. But mostly we meet twice a month to eat supper and bullshit/play cards/pool/darts.

It's awesome.

I think we're going to bring back the formal dances they used to have in the 40's-60's. I think that would be fun.

nappy-doo 353 days ago | |

Masons and the Scottish Rite (and even the Boy Scouts and DeMolay to some extent) have religious components that exclude people like me.

Mountain_Skies 353 days ago | |

All Masonic and similar type clubs in my area openly accept women.

bradlys 353 days ago |

I’m not the target audience but I wonder if I’m the type of individual it wishes would attend. (There is a caveat)

I’m in my mid-30s, relatively successful, educated, friendly, outgoing, and so on. When I think of many men in my life, I am there for them emotionally and mentally. I’ve been there when times were good and bad.

But, I have no interest in this even a little. If I wanted more male friends, it’d be trivial. I workout all the time and there’s tons of dudes from my gym who want to go out practically every night (currently live in nyc). There’s an extreme amount of men in my hobbies who are looking for new close friends. I’ve been invited to numerous outings and so on.

Yet, this is where I wouldn’t be a good fit, I cannot be bothered because I just want a family and I’ve been deeply single for four years without any hope of a relationship. For me, the loneliness epidemic is more to do with how deeply single I am and how little women want to love me. That’s my whole concern. I moved to nyc just to be able to run into women because I had no ability to do that back in SF. My friends in nyc try to invite me to shit all the time but I refuse because it’s just gonna be men hanging out and I don’t care. I’ve even gone as far as not working for three years and I just turned down an offer to work at Meta today because I don’t want to become an incel like half of the men in the tech world back in SF are. I’ve given up so much money over these last few years all just so that I could focus on my own startup - having a family. Failed miserably at it too like most founders but still trying.

nathias 353 days ago |

I think loneliness is a consequence of choice, people had less choice about their inclusion into the social networks, so they were more social, but now interaction is more voluntary. This is a much higher threshold (opt out vs opt in) and less and less interactions meet it, which further degrades future social interactions.

anal_reactor 353 days ago |

These ideas pop up once in a while, but they fail to address the core issue. We don't have friends because having friends actually negatively affects our ability to amass resources. In 2025 the only reason why we want friends is because our caveman instincts tell us to do so. Having friends feels nice, but it's an impractical luxury, like getting a big mansion or an expensive car. This is a fundamental shift to what friendships used to be, that is basic mechanism of survival. I think that the loneliness epidemic isn't a problem to solve, but rather an evolutionary filter. A bigger force we cannot combat. People who cannot function without social bonds will go crazy and die out. People who thrive in loneliness will live. That's it.

Simply imagine a species of animals that are social, but then apply evolutionary pressure to convert them into solitary ones. This is what we're experiencing now as a humanity.

Another comparison is the obesity epidemic. It just filters out people who are unable to control their appetite.

Tasboo 353 days ago |

Male loneliness talk aside, why wouldn’t you start a Facebook group to get a gauge for actual interest? I know you mentioned deliberately not using Facebook and Meetup, but spinning up a whole new site just to connect with people seems like a lot of work for something that is largely a solved problem on those platforms. Facebook groups are very popular because so many people are already connected into it. Getting people onto and engaged with your club, regardless of topic, is one of the hardest parts of something like this, not the actual website part. A Facebook group would allow you to get people connected ASAP.

benchloftbrunch 353 days ago | |

That would exclude me and others who refuse on principle to use Facebook (or really any social media owned by Meta).

wiseowise 353 days ago | | |

Right.

Excluding, let’s be honest, a couple of weirdos who don’t use FB as ideological stance is a problem.

Excluding huge swaths of “normies”(who are majority of people) by setting up third party website with zero reputation is not.

genezeta 353 days ago |

I'm the guy that talks to lonely bus drivers. I don't know how it happens, but it does.

I'm also the person a lot of old - and not-that-old - ladies will suddenly speak to at the bus stop. The weather, the waiting time, or whatever other subject that comes up. Again, I don't know why me.

There's also other situations lone strangers -shopping, the park, whatever- will start talking to me. I do try to pet dogs sometimes and that sometimes leads to people talking to me but I'd say that's less surprising so it doesn't count. Once, years ago, a guy just greeted me when coming out from the subway and I was a bit confused because I didn't recognise him. So I asked and he told me that no, we hadn't met; we just passed each other sometimes when going in/out of the subway so he thought it would be nice to greet me. I smiled and appreciated the gesture. After that sometimes we would greet or at least nod. It didn't go further than that and after a while our schedules probably shifted a bit but it was a nice thing. Strangers you see routinely. It seems polite to greet them. And nice, a gentle gesture.

My impression is that there are many, and many of them crave just being able to talk to someone for a little while. Sometimes, particularly older ones, mainly ramble almost uncontrollably. They need to talk. In a way it used to break my heart seeing that. Now I don't think much about it, it's ok; I just talk for a few minutes and smile, because smiling is nice and they smile back and it's warm.

I don't initiate such conversations but I reckon I may somehow propitiate them by looking or nodding/greeting politely or something. Maybe it's that. But I've never been an extrovert and often I'm wearing headphones and have to take them off when they start because I didn't hear them at first. So, it's not like I'm particularly approachable, I'd say. Not handsome but neither ugly -I hope-. For a while I was a bit overweight. Now I'm clearly underweight but I don't think it shows so much that anyone would think I'm sick or dying or anything. I dress quite normal, have an about 1-1.5 inch beard, and in general I'd say nothing in my appearance particularly says "talk to me". But people often do. shrug

In any case it feels nice seeing those people smile for a while. Particularly those older people that tell you about some mundane stuff that means a bit to them. Sometimes their stories carry the implications of some children or grandchildren they don't see too often and miss. Sometimes it's much more personal, health issues or other problems; and it still surprises me a bit how candid people can be with personal stuff. Other times it's just literally whatever, small things in their lives like the groceries they just bought or are going for or really anything. There was this nice old lady I used to see catch the bus to avoid a sloping street. She repeated often the same story about how she was going for bread and "if I see the bus approaching I take it" because the slope often left her quite tired. Once I noticed she'd fallen and bruised her face. She was fine, she said, but it feels nice that someone notices when something happens to you. I rarely go to that bus stop any more, since I now try to walk as much as possible, so I haven't seen her in more than a year. But she was from the neighbourhood so I may pass by her one of these days. Maybe.

I know this may not mean much in their lives but I think it's a nice thing. It may brighten their day even just for a few minutes. Or maybe I'm one of the few people at all they talk to that day. Who knows. It may make a difference. Most probably not, but anyway...

norir 353 days ago |

Timely, relevant piece: https://psyche.co/ideas/is-being-single-a-happier-experience...

nerder92 353 days ago |

Hey! We are building something in this space but connected with sports (starting from combat sports right now). We are Europe-based and we have some 60k users at the moment.

I've sent you an email to have a chat and share some ideas!

ashoeafoot 352 days ago |

These clubs are created . Then some social air superiority hag has fomo as part of her social circle takes part. So she comes crashing in driving the more shy members away. Repeat at infinitum.

gaws 351 days ago | |

Please share an example of this happening in real life.

nsonha 352 days ago |

I feel like the biggest problem with my attempts to make friends is that I don't have hobbies, interesting opinions, or "personality", put it a little blunt, can a club fix that?

gaws 351 days ago | |

No. The first step is finding a hobby that doesn't put you in front of a screen all day, then finding like-minded people who meet offline to discuss or do that hobby.

Esophagus4 353 days ago |

The idea of needing to impress an in-crowd enough to get an invite to join reminds me of fraternities in college (which I withdrew from half way through the process) and well-heeled yacht clubs or country clubs.

I’d much rather make friends where I can just show up and have a nice time with someone based on a shared interest (like my local cycling club, where I’ve met a few folks I hang out with regularly… or even social dance clubs for those into ballroom or Latin dance). Meetups are obviously too transient, so I join clubs with consistent regular attendees.

But maybe there are people this program will resonate with. Obviously, exclusive invite-only clubs like fraternities and country clubs are popular and I know many who joined, and even met life long friends there.

…I guess, just not me. I probably have some weird outsider-exclusion-from-popular-kid-club complex that is well beyond the scope of this comment :)

The same reason I won’t show up with a navy blazer to a yacht club social event to beg sponsorship from some commercial real estate agent with a chip on his shoulder because he has a quarter-zip polo from the club store and a member number like S29 he can use at the bar.

That being said, good luck with the company, I hope it is successful and you meet a lot of great people.

nswizzle31 352 days ago | |

Totally get your perspective and appreciate the thoughts. In full transparency, this idea comes directly from my experience joining a fraternity and making a group of ~10 lifelong friends that I still get together with a few times a year.

We have so little in common interest wise, but we bonded over just being in the same place repeatedly. I'm not in contact with anyone from my engineering program. That says a lot to me about shared interests as a (non-)driver of lasting friendships compared to shared EXPERIENCE, but I'm just one person.

Obviously "frat culture" has an extreme negative connotation, but I will just say that not every fraternity is full of gym bros... they exist for every type of guy and I truly think the socially awkward guys I know who joined fraternities made significantly more meaningful relationship than the cool, good-looking guys who didn't.

m_kos 352 days ago |

I think it is a great idea, but the images on your page and lack of pricing details make me think it is expensive and focused on "manly" interests (gambling, whiskey, etc.).

maerF0x0 353 days ago |

adding one datapoint, maybe it will help the founders deal with an issue. On dating apps that have a friends component I've found a good percentage of the "friends" who connected with me were actually homosexual people hoping I was bi / curious. Could simply be a factor that the feature was grossly underused except by that segment, but addressing the non-negotiability of my preference. Yes they could have potentially been good friends, until they broke that boundary.

throwaway81523 353 days ago |

Bring a postbox? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg5599l2vqo

sfmz 353 days ago |

Maybe an hour at the gym followed by some social event. You would have a spotter for your benchpress and some shared purpose.

Animats 353 days ago |

Some schools have alumni clubs. Harvard has a whole chain of them. Here's the New York City branch.[1] It's modeled after classic English clubs. It's still thriving. But the Princeton Club went broke and the Yale Club is in trouble.

Stanford never got into this. Stanford's alumni association is mostly a front for the "development office", the alumni donation extraction operation.

Silicon Valley had the Capital Club in San Jose (closed). There's something called the Alexandria in San Carlos, which has a restaurant and a gym.[2] Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park is a hangout of sorts, and it's next to the British Bankers Club, which used to be a pub but upgraded to a fancy restaurant.

There's happy hour at the Sand Hill Sundeck, at 3000 Sand Hill Road.[3]

There's Hacker Dojo [4] But after two moves and COVID, it's a shadow of what it once was.

Those are places you go to make deals, or at least talk to people who do deals.

[1] https://www.hcny.com/

[2] https://www.invitedclubs.com/clubs/the-alexandria-san-carlos...

[3] https://www.sandhillsundeck.com/

[4] https://hackerdojo.org/

paradox460 353 days ago | |

There's also the Olympic club in Sf proper

cultofmetatron 353 days ago |

car centric urban design caused all of this. you don't see this level of male loneliness epidemic in south america or europe.

elevatortrim 353 days ago | |

I tend to disagree as European male. We are very lonely too in our walkable cities.

ramoz 353 days ago |

Would love for poker nights to be spun up in LA.

zug_zug 353 days ago |

I like the idea, on principle, any attempt to build community should be supported.

I'm may not be the target audience if this is recently post-college, but the thing that strikes me is these activities feel a bit performatively male.

I guess my hot-take is there are certain things that people genuinely love (e.g. improv, dnd, video games, rock-climbing) perception be damned, and there are certain things that people do because they are socially acceptable stereotypes for males: drink craft beer, whiskey, poker, grilling, sports? And that it's about 20x easier to make real friends from the former than the latter.

My experience has always been if somebody says "Come over for poker night," it's gonna be much more awkward than if somebody says "Come over because I'm gonna play video games on the couch and smoke a joint and it'd be fun to have somebody to chat with while I do that." [I'd be curious to hear where other people fall on that topic]

Anyways, not to discourage your current tack, nor even say you should do a blunts and video-games event, but I just think some of the activities on the website seem branded to a very narrow type of guy (business majors? for lack of a better stereotype)

undisclosedUser 353 days ago |

Generally, I'm a fan of the idea of creating social groups that meet in person and are accessible to people who are a little more offline. I will say that you've run into a rather awkward name collision. The Third Wave (when not referencing feminist theory, or surfer lingo) usually refers to a specific social experiment where a teacher created mini-fascism (okay, that's a tldr, but it was an interesting educational thing). Generally it's a great idea though, might be worth a rebrand tho!

sfmz 353 days ago | |

I associate 3rd wave with coffee, fwiw

xkcd1963 353 days ago |

How is it not obvious to just start a hobby or activity where people do something together, heck you even might find some women.

nanna 353 days ago |

Man here. Female friends key to my not feeling lonely. Couldn't identify less with men who only see hanging out with men as key to not feeling lonely, which is what this app seems to offer. Seems like the target market for this is lonely lads, when lad culture is driving male loneliness. But hey, I guess some men, even in the West where this app is targeted, really just feel uncomfortable making friends who are women. Open yourself up, lads.

gaws 351 days ago | |

> Female friends key to my not feeling lonely.

Your girlfriend/wife would like a word.

redtaperat 353 days ago |

“Solve the straight male loneliness epidemic.”

FTFY. Gay men have many more community options. Not sure why, but we just do togetherness inherently.

Glad to see this though. It can only be solved by the people in the epidemic but it only takes the effort of a handful of organizers in the community/town/city to jumpstart events and hit critical mass. I’ve organized things on meetup and it takes persistence. Good luck!

gaws 351 days ago | |

> Gay men have many more community options. Not sure why, but we just do togetherness inherently.

How much of that is motivated by dating and hooking up?

nathan_compton 351 days ago | | |

I would guess its more like if you want to meet any other gay men you have to work at it because you are a minority. Being in a minority does engender some comradery all by itself.

solarized 353 days ago |

the awkwardness moments when lonely person meet each other. :D.

seydor 353 days ago |

i ll just go to a sauna

openplatypus 353 days ago |

> Male loneliness epidemic

You are solving a non-existent problem.

There is no "male loneliness epidemic". If anything, there might be a "human loneliness epidemic". This is not a DEI angle on the problem.

Times have changed, societies have changed. But our expectations have not.

It is literally time to grow up to the new reality.

I think Professor Galloway, whom I am generally a fan of, is spreading a narrative based on selective statistics.

Sohcahtoa82 352 days ago | |

Nah, there IS a male loneliness epidemic, but it's entirely self-inflicted.

If men feel like they can't open up to their friends because they're afraid they'll be ridiculed, that's on them. Get better friends.

throwanem 353 days ago |

Homepage leaves me asking why this website wasn't a Meetup group for AI-generated stock photos. What's to resonate?

I hate to have to be the one to say it, but speaking from my mid-forties, what you are experiencing is called "entering your 30s." If you try to sell "fix loneliness" to a "not committed yet to growing TF up" market you're cooked.

Ironically, I'm probably pretty close to who you think you want to hear from and speak to. But you can't justify my time and wouldn't hear me in any case. Find something else to sell and someone else to sell to.

pconte 353 days ago | |

I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think it’s just a “you’re in your 30s, deal with it” thing. A lot of guys lose connection over time.. not because they’re flaky, but because work, family, and life get in the way.

To me this doesn't feel like some cheesy attempt to fix loneliness with tech. It’s just creating a space for something that’s clearly missing for a lot of people. Writing it off feels like part of the problem..

throwanem 353 days ago | | |

Where does the time come from to spend in that space?

It isn't that I lack sympathy for the problem, for goodness' sake. Indeed to a reasonable first approximation the only reason I bothered to comment is that "male loneliness" is of interest to me, enough so that a solution aimed at an irrelevant epiphenomenon of a different problem strikes me as worth objecting to on that basis.

That said, the formulation deserves some obloquy of its own, in that I think it likewise hits the nail squarely on the side by misattributing a problem of general social atomization. It isn't a "men problem" per se, so much as that - for various reasons related largely to social roles and experiences, and varying interests and approaches to same - men tend to make a good bellwether for some aspects of what I maintain is a broader social problem. Think "bedrotting" versus "gooncaving" - different codings, especially as respects men being defined as the sexually assertive gender, but the same basic social behavior. (Or asocial behavior, which is of course the crux of the problem.)

Note too that that isn't the "early 30s in Park Slope" problem. (I guess Boston has different trendoid neighborhoods. I don't care.) That, to reiterate, is the very natural shift of focus as young careers and young families both demand time and interest, as described in the OP. That's normal for this stage of life, and while it is very much worthwhile to try to maintain a broad circle, that really will not be effectively fostered by college-style social events no one is going to have the time to attend anyway - not when the same time could be spent more productively on social events that also build and reinforce bonds in the spheres which do and should absorb your interest at this time.

kelnos 352 days ago | | |

> A lot of guys lose connection over time.. not because they’re flaky, but because work, family, and life get in the way.

I don't think that's really it. Well, it's a reason, but not the cause. I think people (not strictly men, but maybe this hits men harder for some reason) lose touch because they fail to understand that it requires different skills, mindset, and effort to maintain friendships when work, family, and life "get in the way".

If your friend group is centered around hanging out in the college dorms or doing coursework together, or going out for drinks after work, or just the ease of scheduling things because no one yet has kids, then when those things change, the friendship maintenance changes too. I think some people don't get that, or just aren't good at figuring out what they need to do to keep the friendship going. It's often more work, too, which can be difficult to adapt to.

ramoz 353 days ago | |

15 years ago it wasn't the norm to spend all day at a desk in your home. Especially after a rapid induction to isolated living over a ~2year period; during the midst of cultural revolutions that pitted most young men in these forums in the bottom of the social barrel.

rchaud 353 days ago | | |

15 years ago is 2010, socially inept men were absolutely spending time alone at home. They had videogames, internet and MMA/wrestling back then too.

nswizzle31 353 days ago | |

I think the concept clearly resonates with people. There is an article every week NYT, etc about how like most men have at most one friend. It seems you think the execution is off, which I wouldn't disagree on.

Happy to hear what you have to say - email is in my bio - although I doubt we'd have a meaningful conversation if you write me off as trying to sell something instead of taking the more gracious interpretation that I want to help other guys build strong friendships (and build them for myself).

throwanem 353 days ago | | |

It isn't a question of grace, or of motivation. If you understood the problem you purport to seek to solve, you wouldn't need telling that a doomed attempt to recreate an unrecreateable social and personal milieu isn't going to do that, and it will probably fail pretty quickly absent an unsustainable burn rate, as people discover that what's bringing them apart - as their family and professional responsibilities multiply - is not a simple lack of incidental, interpersonal physical proximity. Depending on how much you spend giving people reasons to show up anyway that outcome may take more or less time to happen, but it will happen.

Don't get me wrong; I think you'll probably pivot to something more successful if you abandon the sunk cost soon enough. Just that I am extremely confident you will need to make that pivot. Of course you shouldn't take my word for it, though.

Vilian 353 days ago | |

There are different ways to cope with loneliness, some find ways to fix it, others post assholes comments on people's projects trying to fix it

throwanem 353 days ago | | |

I think it'd be a shame to see someone make what looks to me like a mistake with a potentially severe opportunity cost. I'm an asshole for not keeping my mouth shut? It's just a website. Nobody has to listen.