https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/07/no_author/the-crisis-of-masculinity-is-really-a-crisis-of-friendship/

The Crisis of Masculinity Is Really a Crisis of Friendship
The first principle for men is not work, training, intellectual development, or even marriage, it is male friendship. With it, men, marriage, and society are stronger. Without it, everything unravels.

By Auguste Meyrat
Crisis Magazine

July 10, 2026

By now, it’s no secret that men today are struggling. Not only are they outnumbered by women in the workforce and college, but fewer of them are marrying and forming families. To make matters worse, as writer Dr. Charles Cornish-Dale writes at length in his book that men today are producing far less testosterone and sperm than the men of previous generations. Instead of striving at work and making their mark on the world, most men today languish in their parents’ basement, consuming online porn, video games, and manosphere slop.

It would be unfair to only blame men for this. The DEI policies of schools and most employers have shut out and held down whole generations of white men from the economy and culture. Meanwhile, mass media has demonized men, casting them as toxic oppressors who need to be sedated and pacified early on. Even on a biological level, men growing up today are subjected to all kinds of endocrine disruptors in their food, water, and daily products, which compromise their physical virility. Altogether, these factors have sapped the strength, assertiveness, and dynamism of men—which, in turn, has made them less attractive to women.

Fortunately, there are some ways for men to overcome these obstacles and reach their potential. On the health front, they can eat better, exercise, sleep more, and avail themselves of various supplements and treatments that help with hormone production (popularly known as “biohacking”). On the intellectual and emotional front, they can heed the wisdom of great thinkers in the past, live moderately, and avoid destructive vices.

But will it be enough? While these usual prescriptions for self-improvement are salutary, they tend to neglect one major piece of the manliness puzzle: friendship. There are many ambitious young men who avoid processed foods, stay in healthy shape, read Stoic philosophy, and study hard in school yet also happen to be antisocial introverts whom nobody can stand.

Although the loneliness epidemic has received more attention lately—there are even loneliness influencers on TikTok—this problem is particularly bad for men. Many men do not have close friends, nor do they have much of a social life in general. In the past, men would form bonds with other men at school, the workplace, or a fraternal organization. But in the age of smartphones, remote work, and disappearing third places, most men no longer meet one another. More often than not, their social life consists of a few podcasts and a couple of group texts where they can send inappropriate memes to each other.

Of course, married men are told again and again that they should just make their wives their best (and only) friends, but this is a terrible idea. While it is obviously important for a man to be close with his wife, he must resist the temptation to make her his only source of meaningful friendship. This places an unfair burden on her that she is not ready to handle.

As a woman, she does not fully understand the way men experience the world nor what challenges they encounter, just as a man could not fully understand the experiences and struggles of a woman.

The same idea applies to dating. A man without friends might be even less romantically appealing than a short, overweight man without a job. This is because such a man will usually lack charisma, confidence, and emotional intelligence. Either the pursued woman will reject him altogether or she will keep him confined to the friend zone where she can continue to enjoy his attention and favors from a safe distance. Occasionally, she may agree to be his girlfriend or even marry him, only to regret this decision later.