The Wired Word for 06/21/2026  🔗 **Source:** [The Wired Word for 06/21/2026]() > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [friendship, mens-friendship, social-isolation, christian-community, spiritual-formation, bible-study] > author: The Wired Word > source: The Wired Word (Communication Resources) > reference: https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbmdx6de5e1q8efhwwpybqf > date created: 2026-06-17 16:45 > > # 🏷️ Title: The Wired Word for 06/21/2026 — Research Reveals That Men Are Losing Friends > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - ['Pick Your Ten' — The Eternally Radical Idea (Greg Lukianoff)](https://www.thefire.org) - [Why Friendships Among Men Are So Important — Greater Good Magazine](https://greatergood.berkeley.edu) - [Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? — The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com) ## 📝 Summary - **What happened.** This Father's Day issue of The Wired Word pairs a current-events story — research showing men have markedly fewer close friends than a generation ago — with a Bible study on friendship (David & Jonathan, Proverbs 27, John 15, Acts 4). It opens with Greg Lukianoff's "Pick Your Ten" advice: identify the small set of people whose judgment you trust to tell you hard truths, and measure yourself against them when the crowd is screaming. - **Why it matters.** It connects a real well-being problem (male social isolation) to a faith framework and a concrete practice, aimed at small-group/Bible-study discussion. For a church/community context it's both diagnostic (why men's friendships erode) and prescriptive (activity-based, side-by-side bonding; the church as a place to foster it). - **Key stakeholders.** Men (the focal group), congregations and small-group leaders, families, and anyone designing community programs. For Courtney: Faith & Theology / Spiritual Formation work and small-group facilitation. - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The data is summarized loosely (one survey statistic, secondary reporting); the "models of masculinity" causal claim is asserted, not demonstrated. The piece briefly references one figure's depression/suicidality as context — handled here without amplification. - **Bottom line.** Friendship — especially deep, truth-telling male friendship — is a buffer against stress and a flourishing-of-life practice the church is well-positioned to foster; the actionable cores are "pick your ten" and "find a shared activity." ## 📖 Main Content - **The "Pick Your Ten" frame.** Greg Lukianoff (president of FIRE), describing burnout and depression from culture-war work, shares a mentor's advice: choose ~10 people who know and love you enough to tell you the truth, and when the internet is "losing its mind," ask what *they* would think. Criteria: people whose judgment you trust more than your mood on a bad day, some capable of hard truths "without cruelty or relish," not merely those who agree with you. - **The decline in male friendship (the news).** Per a Survey Center on American Life report, only **27% of men in 2021** said they had at least six close friends, down from **55% in 1990**. Causes cited: declining involvement in civic and religious organizations; workplace changes (longer commutes, remote work); pandemic isolation (affecting women too); and models of masculinity that discourage boys from expressing emotion or seeking comfort from other boys. - **The barriers.** Men report *wanting* to hang out but lacking time (little kids, demanding jobs); a "stigma around asking another man to hang out" that "feels higher stakes" than it does for their wives. - **Why it matters for men specifically.** Early-adulthood male friendships buffer against stress; men look to other men for loyalty, truth-telling, and help, and—feeling best understood by other men—can find these bonds even more fulfilling than romantic relationships. - **The mechanism / how to build it.** The key is a **shared activity**. "Side-by-side play" (golf, cars, projects) lowers the stakes; doing it regularly opens doors to deeper sharing ("I had a rough morning… my wife's in cancer treatment"). Groups can form around anything — movies, vintage cars, mission projects, or Bible study. - **The scriptural reflection.** Four passages: **1 Samuel 18** (Jonathan's "soul bond" with David, sealed by covenant and the gift of his garments/armor), **Proverbs 27** ("well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts"; "iron sharpens iron"), **John 15** (Jesus calls disciples "friends," not servants — "no greater love than to lay down one's life"), and **Acts 4** (the Jerusalem community holding everything in common; Barnabas, "son of encouragement"). A recurring TWW joke: "Nobody talks about Jesus' greatest miracle — having 12 close friends in his 30s." - **The call to action.** Reach out to a friend not seen recently; meet for a shared activity or coffee; give thanks for friends and strengthen the bonds. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Headline statistic:** men with ≥6 close friends fell from 55% (1990) → 27% (2021). - **"Pick Your Ten"** = a trusted-judgment council as an antidote to crowd/online pressure; truth-tellers "without cruelty or relish." - **Causes of decline:** less civic/religious involvement, workplace/commute/remote changes, pandemic, restrictive masculinity norms ("boys… should not express emotions"). - **Barrier:** time scarcity + stigma of "asking another man to hang out" (higher-stakes than for women). - **Mechanism:** shared activity → "side-by-side play" → safe openings for vulnerability. - **Scripture arc:** soul-bond covenant (David/Jonathan) → loving rebuke (Proverbs 27) → friend-not-servant (John 15) → friendship-as-shared-life (Acts 4). - **Church angle:** congregations as natural venues for activity-based, truth-telling friendship; Bill Tammeus's 40-year men's group (weekly since the early 1980s) as a living example. - **Care note:** the Lukianoff context mentions depression/suicidality; treated as background, not amplified. ## 📚 References - [The Eternally Radical Idea — "Pick Your Ten" (Greg Lukianoff)](https://www.thefire.org) - [Greater Good Magazine — Why Friendships Among Men Are So Important](https://greatergood.berkeley.edu) - [The New York Times — Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? (Sam Graham-Felsen)](https://www.nytimes.com) - [Survey Center on American Life — American Perspectives Survey (friendship data)](https://www.americansurveycenter.org) - Scripture: 1 Samuel 18:1-5; Proverbs 27:1-22; John 15:12-17; Acts 4:32-37; 2 Samuel 9:7; Proverbs 17:17 ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - The issue frames Father's Day around the value of friendship for men and how to foster it. - Lukianoff's mentor's advice — "pick ten" trusted truth-tellers — is offered as a sanity-preserving practice against crowd pressure. - Research shows a steep decline in men's close friendships since 1990, driven by civic/religious disengagement, work patterns, the pandemic, and restrictive masculinity norms. - Men want connection but face time pressure and a stigma around initiating it; shared activities are the proven on-ramp to deeper male friendship. - Scripture models deep friendship (David/Jonathan), loving honesty (Proverbs), friend-not-servant intimacy (John 15), and shared-life generosity (Acts 4). - The church is positioned to foster such bonds; the call is to reach out and strengthen an existing friendship this week. ## 📰 Newsletter **This week's Wired Word: men, friendship, and "pick your ten"** A strong Father's Day study. The hook is Greg Lukianoff's "Pick Your Ten" — name the handful of people whose judgment you trust enough to hear hard truths from, and when the internet is losing its mind, ask what *they'd* think. Then the sobering data: men with six-plus close friends fell from 55% in 1990 to 27% by 2021, with causes ranging from fading civic/religious life to remote work to a masculinity script that tells boys not to share feelings. The practical key is refreshingly concrete — friendship grows "side-by-side," around a shared activity (golf, cars, mission projects… Bible study), which lowers the stakes enough for real talk to surface. The scripture arc earns the theme: Jonathan's soul-bond covenant with David, Proverbs' "wounds of a friend," Jesus calling his disciples *friends* not servants, and the Acts community holding life in common. Great fodder for a men's group — and a nudge to text a friend you haven't seen. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: Not applicable to this source (faith/community content). - Education: the "shared activity → deeper conversation" mechanism transfers to community-of-practice design (cohorts bond around a shared build, not forced networking). - Developer experience / marketing / community management: Not applicable to this source, except the general lesson that *side-by-side activity* beats face-to-face "networking" for forming trust in any community. #### OSPO - Community Engagement: the "pick your ten" trusted-council idea maps to a small advisory circle for hard governance calls; otherwise Not applicable to this source. - All other OSPO functions: Not applicable to this source. #### Community - Maintainers/Contributors: "side-by-side play" insight — bonding forms around shared work, so pair newcomers on real tasks rather than icebreakers. - Sponsors/Ecosystem: Not applicable to this source. #### WordPress - All subteams: Not applicable to this source — this is a Bible-study/community piece, not a WordPress topic. (General transfer: community bonds form around shared activity, relevant to WordCamp/contributor-day design.) #### The WPCC - Programs: Not applicable to this source. ### FAIR - Not applicable to this source. #### ✝️ Faith / Small-group applications (the source's actual audience) - **Run it as a men's-group study:** open with "Pick Your Ten," walk the four passages, close with the "reach out to one friend this week" challenge. - **Start or join an activity-based group** (the article's core mechanism) — center it on a shared interest so conversation and vulnerability can follow. - **Practice loving honesty** (Proverbs 27 "iron sharpens iron"): name one relationship where you can give or receive a hard truth in love. - **Church program idea:** audit whether the congregation offers low-stakes, activity-based on-ramps for men's friendship, not just front-facing fellowship events. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - H1: Activity-based ("side-by-side") groups produce deeper male friendships than conversation-first ("face-to-face") formats. - H2: Men with a trusted-advisor circle ("pick your ten") show greater resilience to social-media/crowd pressure than those without. - H3: Declining civic/religious participation explains a substantial share of the 1990→2021 drop in men's close friendships (vs. work/pandemic factors). - H4: Restrictive masculinity norms in boyhood predict fewer close adult male friendships. - H5: Church-based men's groups (regular, long-running) correlate with higher well-being than ad hoc socializing. ### 📊 Methodology - H1/H5: randomized or matched comparison of activity-based vs. discussion-based men's groups, measuring friendship depth (e.g., number of confidants, self-disclosure scales) and well-being over 6–12 months. - H2: survey linking presence of a trusted-advisor circle to measures of online-pressure resilience and decision regret. - H3/H4: longitudinal / retrospective analysis of civic-participation and boyhood-socialization variables against adult friendship counts (the American Survey Center data is a starting dataset). ### ❓ Questions - Is the decline specific to *close* friendships, or to all social ties? (the stat is about ≥6 close friends.) - How much of the effect is men-specific vs. a general societal trend (the piece notes the pandemic hit women too)? - Does "pick your ten" scale, or does it presuppose you already have ten trustworthy people? - What concretely makes church a better friendship venue than secular activity groups — theology, regularity, or shared values? ### 🔮 Future Research - Whether digital/remote work can be redesigned to recreate "side-by-side" bonding. - The causal weight of masculinity norms vs. structural factors in friendship decline. - Interventions: do "reach out to one friend" nudges produce durable reconnection? - Cross-cultural variation in male friendship norms and their well-being effects. ### 💡 Implications - **Practice:** prioritize shared activity over forced conversation to build trust (in churches, communities, and teams). - **Policy (church/community):** design low-stakes, recurring, activity-based gatherings; normalize men initiating connection. - **Health:** male social isolation is a well-being risk; friendship is a protective factor worth programmatic investment. - **Education/formation:** teach boys emotional expression and friendship skills early. - **Personal:** maintain a trusted-advisor circle as an antidote to crowd pressure. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: accessible devotional/journalistic prose; ~Flesch–Kincaid Grade 9–11. Flesch Reading Ease ~55–60. #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: none (text email). - Improve: a simple chart of the 55%→27% decline; a diagram of the scripture arc. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: none. - Improve: an audio version for the commute; a discussion podcast. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: strong — quotable lines ("wounds a friend inflicts"), the Tammeus joke, clear definitions ("soul bond"). - Improve: a glossary for "covenant," "side-by-side play." #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: the "Responding to the News" action (reach out, do an activity). - Improve: a one-week friendship challenge checklist. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: clear problem→cause→mechanism→application structure; the Big Questions. - Improve: a cause-weighting table for the decline. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: very strong — built for group discussion (Big Questions, For Further Discussion). - Improve: facilitator notes / time-boxed agenda. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: reflective questions usable alone. - Improve: a journaling prompt on "who are my ten?" #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: outdoor/activity examples (golf). - Improve: tie friendship to shared outdoor service projects. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: standard email with headed sections (In the News, Big Questions, Scripture). - Improve: ensure scripture references and headings are marked up semantically in the published email. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: N/A (email). - Improve: ensure links are reachable and labeled in the email client. #### Contrast and readability - Present: plain text email, generally readable. - Improve: verify link contrast in the newsletter template. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: email reflows in most clients. - Improve: confirm no fixed-width tables clip at 200% zoom. #### Media and captions - Present: no media in this issue. - Improve: N/A — "Not applicable to this source." #### Forms and interactions - Present: an unsubscribe link. - Improve: ensure unsubscribe and any links are labeled. #### Standards reference - WCAG 2.2 AA: 1.3.1 Info & Relationships (section headings/scripture structure), 1.4.3 Contrast (links). ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: notes that "religious leaders, including Jesus, Muhammad and the Buddha" taught friendship's centrality — a deliberately cross-tradition nod. - Improve: include non-Western friendship models; data beyond the US. #### Inclusive language - Present: largely inclusive; explicitly extends application to "both men and women" despite the male focus. - Improve: acknowledge friendship challenges for non-binary/LGBTQ+ people; avoid implying friendship norms are universal. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: clear, chunked structure with consistent section headers. - Improve: a short summary up top for scanning. #### Representation - Present: focal on men, but the discussion questions invite comparison of women's and men's friendship styles; diverse biblical figures (Matthew the tax collector, Mephibosheth). - Improve: include contemporary diverse voices, not only TWW team members. #### Psychological safety - Present: warm, encouraging, non-shaming tone; frames vulnerability as strength. - Improve: when referencing depression/suicidality, add a support-resources note for readers. ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Empirical (decline): a concrete before/after statistic (55%→27%) anchors the problem well. - Causal (mechanism): "side-by-side activity opens doors to vulnerability" is supported by expert testimony and a plausible mechanism, with a vivid concrete example. - Analogical/scriptural: the four passages are aptly chosen to illustrate distinct facets of friendship (covenant, honesty, intimacy, shared life). #### Fallacies - **Hasty generalization / single-statistic** — the friendship decline rests largely on one survey figure summarized via secondary reporting. Fix: cite the primary survey, sample, and method; note confidence intervals. - **Correlation treated as cause** — declining civic/religious involvement and remote work are presented as drivers of friendship loss without establishing causation. Fix: frame as associated factors; control for confounders. - **Appeal to (selective) authority** — relationship experts are quoted as settling the mechanism; their views are plausible but presented without counter-evidence. Fix: note where evidence is anecdotal. - **Idealization / survivorship (mild)** — Bill Tammeus's 40-year group is held up as a model; long-lasting groups are visible while the many that dissolved aren't. Fix: acknowledge how rare/hard such longevity is. #### Tone of voice - Warm, pastoral, encouraging; gently witty (the "12 close friends" joke); invitational rather than prescriptive. ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny / Attack / Reverse victim-offender: Not applicable to this source. It is a pastoral/educational study with no accused party and no defensive posture. No denial, attack on critics, or victim-offender reversal is present. ## 🎯 Conclusion - **Bottom line.** Men's close friendships have declined sharply, harming well-being; the remedies are concrete — keep a "pick your ten" circle of trusted truth-tellers, and build friendships *side-by-side* around a shared activity. Scripture frames friendship as covenant, loving honesty, friend-not-servant intimacy, and shared life, and the church is well-placed to foster it. - **Next steps for readers.** (1) Name your "ten." (2) Reach out to one friend you haven't seen and do a shared activity. (3) If you lead a group, design a recurring, activity-based, low-stakes on-ramp for men's friendship. (4) Practice one act of loving honesty ("iron sharpens iron"). ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — The Wired Word 06/21/2026 (Men Are Losing Friends) > Density: 2–5 Literature atoms (H3), 0–3 Permanent candidates (H4). > Defaults applied. Resonance filter on. > > Tag pool: #bmf · #addendum · #xref · #articleseed · #storystem · #share · #aphorisms ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) #### [H1] Keep a small circle of trusted truth-tellers ("pick your ten") > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > "Figure out who the small number of people are whose judgment you genuinely trust, the people who know you well enough and love you enough to tell you the truth when you are wrong." **Context & use**: - Greg Lukianoff's mentor's advice; an antidote to crowd/online pressure. - Criterion: trust their judgment "more than you trust your mood on a bad day." **Tags**: #xref #aphorisms #share **Highlight**: [view highlight](readwise://pending) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H2] Men's close friendships have declined sharply since 1990 > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > "only 27% of men in 2021 saying that they had at least six close friends. In 1990, 55% said they had this number of friends." **Context & use**: - The issue's empirical anchor; tied to well-being decline. - Causes: civic/religious disengagement, work patterns, pandemic, masculinity norms. **Tags**: #xref #articleseed **Highlight**: [view highlight](readwise://pending) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H3] Male friendship grows side-by-side, through shared activity > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > "If you're playing golf with someone, you can focus on golf. But then if someone says, 'I had a rough morning…' it's a way of opening up the door to have a conversation about that in a safe way." **Context & use**: - The practical mechanism: activity lowers stakes, then vulnerability surfaces. - Church/community design implication: build activity-based on-ramps. **Tags**: #xref #addendum #share **Highlight**: [view highlight](readwise://pending) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H4] Scripture frames friendship as covenant and friend-not-servant > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > "I do not call you servants any longer… but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." **Context & use**: - John 15:15; with 1 Samuel 18 (soul-bond covenant) anchors a theology of friendship as intimacy + shared knowledge. - Connects to spiritual-formation practice. **Tags**: #xref **Highlight**: [view highlight](readwise://pending) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### [P1] Trust grows through shared activity, not forced conversation **Claim** (one sentence, Courtney's voice): Durable trust forms side-by-side through a shared activity that lowers the stakes, so communities build belonging better by giving people something to do together than by staging face-to-face conversation. **Evidence pointer**: [[#H3]] **Scope & conditions**: Holds for forming new bonds and male-coded friendship norms especially; weakens where the activity crowds out any space for disclosure, or where people already have deep verbal intimacy. **Links**: - [[Spiritual Formation and Discipleship MOC]] — because applies-in — formation happens in shared practice, not only teaching - [[Community Architecture - What Makes Communities Thrive vs Extract - Literature Note]] — because extends — belonging mechanics for communities - [[Faith & Theology MOC]] — because applies-in — a theology of friendship (John 15 / 1 Samuel 18) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] Personal: name my "ten" trusted truth-tellers — https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbmdx6de5e1q8efhwwpybqf #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Group idea: design an activity-based men's-friendship on-ramp for the church (not another talk). #fleeting #inbox ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Reach out to one friend I haven't seen and plan a shared activity — #things - [ ] Draft a "trust grows side-by-side" note linking [[Spiritual Formation and Discipleship MOC]] and community-belonging — #things <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** ![[Full Document Contents/Articles/The Wired Word for 06212026.md|The Wired Word for 06/21/2026 by The Wired Word]] ## Highlights - "Figure out who the small number of people are whose judgment you genuinely trust, the people who know you well enough and love you enough to tell you the truth when you are wrong," wrote Lukianoff. "Then, when the crowd is screaming, when the internet is losing its mind, when strangers are confidently informing you who you are and why you did what you did, bring it back to those ten. Ask yourself what they would think. Ask yourself whether they would be disappointed in you. Ask yourself whether they would tell you that you had acted unfairly, or out of vanity, tribalism, or cowardice." ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbx3pm104tj3ndf3eh77tk4)) - Note: H1 — "Pick your ten": keep a small circle of trusted truth-tellers as an antidote to crowd/online pressure (Greg Lukianoff). - Tags: friendship, atom/literature/h1, aphorism - Picking good friends is excellent advice, but unfortunately men have fewer friends these days, which is hurting their well-being. According to a recent American Survey report, men have fewer social ties than they did in years past, with only 27% of men in 2021 saying that they had at least six close friends. In 1990, 55% said they had this number of friends. Such a loss of friends is likely having a negative impact on health and happiness. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbx3s3zj5b360507z6y1z63)) - Note: H2 — the empirical anchor: men with ≥6 close friends fell 55% (1990) → 27% (2021). Flag: rests on one secondary-reported survey stat. - Tags: fallacy/single-statistic, atom/literature/h2, mens-friendship - Boys and men tend to engage in "side-by-side play," observed psychologist Fred Rabinowitz, enjoying activities that do not involve face-to-face interactions. But sometimes intimacy can grow, said Rabinowitz, because if you do these activities regularly, opportunities to share personal issues can arise. "If you're playing golf with someone, you can focus on golf. But then if someone says, 'I had a rough morning, you know, my wife's in cancer treatment,' it's a way of opening up the door to have a conversation about that in a safe way," he said. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbx3w85fyt4chht89zdvcxe)) - Note: H3 + Permanent P1: male friendship grows side-by-side through shared activity — activity lowers stakes, then vulnerability surfaces. - Tags: community-building, atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h3 - I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kvbx3yhg3et21e0k4j300cz4)) - Note: H4 — John 15:15: Jesus reframes the disciples from servants to friends ("friend knows what a friend is doing") — a theology of friendship as intimacy + shared knowledge. - Tags: atom/literature/h4, bible-study, spiritual-formation ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Shared Activity Gives Vulnerability a Side Door]] — promotes the side-by-side friendship practice while retaining the source's limits on demographic evidence.