#24: The F Word: Why Friendship Is So Hard for Men

What this episode covers

Walk With UsThis whole conversation is the why behind Ruck the Way. We started this because we believe friendship doesn't grow at desk-speed or scroll-speed—it grows at three miles an hour, on a trail, with a pack on your back and someone walking beside you.Join a Pilgrimage: New dates dropping soon. → rucktheway.com/pilgrimageSubscribe to the Podcast: Wherever you listen, hit follow so you don't miss what's next. → rucktheway.com/podcastGet the Newsletter: Slower than a feed. Better for your soul. → rucktheway.com/newsletter-signupSupport the Mission: Ruck the Way is a project of East Mountain Greenville. All gifts are tax-deductible. → Give NowReach Out: Got a story, a question, or someone we should have on the show? → rucktheway.com/contactFriendship sounds like it should be the easy part of being human. It's not. In this conversation, Gabe and Chris pull up a chair next to one of the most painful, elusive, and unspoken realities men carry in their rucksacks: the longing for real friendship—and the disappointment when it doesn't come, or when it fades, or when it breaks.From the Facebookization of "friend" to the cutting-room-floor lives we hide behind curated highlight reels, from the gated country-club neighborhoods of Charlotte to the caste-stratified high schools of the UK, the guys name why building real friendship as a grown man is so much harder than it should be. They borrow from C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (whose own legendary friendship broke down in their later years), they lean on Lewis's The Four Loves, and they pull from John Hendrix's beautiful graphic novel The Mythmakers to show that even the giants of the faith struggled with this.Then they get practical. Three rails to run on if you're lonely, longing, or just stuck: side-by-side, vulnerability, and invitation. This isn't a how-to. It's gardening. You can't force a tomato to grow—but you can cultivate the soil.If you've ever sat with the quiet ache of I don't really have any friends right now, this one's for you. You're not alone. And there's nothing wrong with you.Mentioned in This EpisodeThe Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix — the graphic novel Chris references throughoutThe Four Loves by C.S. Lewis — especially the chapter on philia, brotherly loveThe Inklings, the Eagle and Child pub (a.k.a. "the Bird and Baby") in OxfordThe Lord of the Rings & Lewis's secret 1961 Nobel Prize nomination of Tolkien

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