I HAVE NO FRIENDS

I'm ( a young, lol ) 51 from Durham City. I have had three 'best mates' in my lifetime, all have passed away, due to one reason or another. Divorced twice. I've been a gamer all my life, from Atari to Playstation & now Xbox, this is the only thing that keeps me sane.. Escaping real life's demons by immersing myself in a virtual world. Yup, Billy-no-mates, that's me!

Agreed. It must have been very hard to make acknowledging all the social pressures on men to do this and that (and which are completely ignored by the MSM). A combination of overwork (the imbalance of work and life is a major concern) and I also think young people today are so self-obsessed with themselves that they don't want to spend their time with others. Very sad. I see all this happening in Japan as well. I will have to admit to having no real friends here today. A couple of good work colleagues, yes, but no real mates. And I miss that and will probably return to the UK (after decades out in the far east). All work and no play (i.e. no time to socialise) makes a person disconnect from society. And that isn't good.

Thank you so much for posting this video ! I was in the exact same boat as you. I moved to North Devon from the Midlands 14 years ago and - although I met some lovely people - I truly didn't have anyone that I could chat to on the phone or go and have a walk or go shopping with, I was miserable. And no-one would believe me when I said that I had no friends ! To cut a very long story short, I have now moved back to the Midlands, I have re-connected with old work colleagues, old friends and I'm closer to family and I'm a lot, lot happier. 'Meet Up' is a brilliant idea and I shall be going to some 'MU' events soon to meet new people that are a bit more local to where I've moved to. Fair play to you Mark !

What do you need "friends" for??

"Friends" are annoying and can be a liability. All the smart people, or geniuses throughout history kept "friends" away. "Friends" are a distraction at best.
Research has found: the smarter a person is, the less friends that person would have.
Smart people are very selective about whom they associate with. The smarter a person is, the more selective that person is about "friends".

Nicola Tesla would have had no work done if he had "friends" braking his balls.

If you are supposed to have "friends" you are going to meet them while you practice the things that interest you. If that hasn't happened then you are probably better off by yourself working and improving yourself.

Maybe go to eastern Europe and make friendas with a young lady.

I only ever feel lonely when in company, I suppose it is then that your differences are highlighted . So while some seek company to quell their loneliness others seek solitude for the same reason.

at least he has got social skills and a positive attitude. many males simply do not.

few people have many true friends. I personally have 2 real true friends. I have work collegues....actually thats a lie. I work alone for 12 hours as am treat like shit, but the drivers coming in, their work colleagues who i speak tofor a few mins a day. Life is cruel, life is hard, you have worked your arse off and and are a CEO of a company. Your successful, now you can go out and meet people. Not easy but least you can. I have to try and save for university or beg a law firm to take me on...you are lucky

I have noticed that married men can sometimes lose contact with their long term friends and it can be due to their partners being possessive and controlling. It's sad but a lot of my female friends are insecure and don't like their men socialising without them.

I don't really have any friends, I just struggle with small talk. I just feel awkward. Wasn't always like that, I used to be able to socialise quite easily after a confidence raising alcoholic drink, but I don't drink anymore and realised I've not much in common with most people

Aww cry me a river Mark ! You have co workers and online stuff .
Me ? Zero friends , and I an not looking for pity of sympathy .
I am an educated person in a hillbilly town . The locals HATE anyone who has any semblance of an education .
Furthermore , if you do not use words such as " aint , yeee haa , dint , " or any other inbred slang you are immediately ostracized .
I am only here to take care of an elderly family member because it was found that her last Power of attorney was stealing from her .
Even with the bank books proving he was stealing the police refuse to charge him .
He has sequentially slandered my name all over town further isolating me .
The town is VERY pro drug use and since he is a major drug user , locals flock to his side with ease
I did have one best friend years ago but when I came into some money( under 10,000 ) he was angry that I wouldn't give him any , so that was the end of that .
So Mark . Don't whine about your lack of friends. You have it pretty damd good .
Maybe you are just looking for pity and suck ups , but maybe you should take a look out of your window …. There are people a hell of a lot worse off.
Why don't you try living in Renfrew Ontario Canada and THEN you can make a video about having no friends ( Unless you are inbred , like to torture animals , have a 4 th grade education , are a criminal )
But … generally all OUTSIDERS are hated here

I thought this only happened to men in North America, not the UK - thanks for correcting my understanding on this subject.

I've been in the same boat for many years, partly due to serious, prolonged illness, but also my own apathy. It's perversely reassuring to find I'm not alone in this.

hi i just saw your video on yahoo news headline was good. The problem is there is just to many idiotic people out there to even want to waste your time. i say this to only a select view people not everyone is like this. i have done alot of temporary agency jobs and because its been mostly warehouse work you are surrounded by males of all ages around you working. You do though get females in warehouse jobs but not as many as males who it mainly seems to cater for. You see in jobs that females stick with themselves and males with themselves in groups this seems to happen in everything really. So usually if a male does interact with a female you can see they do seem not really to like it expecting the male to harrass them for a number or something else. But in warehousing roles females will always ask a male to please can you help me can you lift or can you carry this for me or can you open this happened alot in parcel jobs, even if the boxes were super light the females did not really bother to pick them up as they knew males were close by that could do it. The thing is because we are in are same sex groups in jobs you get males asking you stuff really a female should be asking like where you live,who you livem with are you married or not lol and it so funny when males ask wow you got your own place are you not scared i say why they say well i still live with family i could never cope with having my own place lol. But back to the topic of this when you said about work colleagues are just people you meet in the job and thats it i find that and probably every one else does. I find all the males just keep acting really stupid in alot of warehouse jobs going on about sex talk and in groups giggling about it and masturbation talk as if it normal all the time. This seems to happen in all warehouse jobs to which 2 people i know have decided to leave warehouse jobs altogether as they are sick of it and they were male. Also it got to the point where the foreigners who visiting England who would hear it and start doing it as well around the english to fit in. This never happened in office jobs but in the warehouse side its common and seems normal for males to constant go on about it and other childish things. I myself am in situation of you see people you know and say alright to them and carry on walking. I found as well saying alright to people who i dont know when i am just riding my bike gets a pretty cool alright back from strangers so thats a positive on society about being nice to one another. Good video again thanks from the Garner Collective

Amazing video Mark, can relate to this a lot myself I use to have friends I could rely on and share things with now I don't and I'm 31 I also work from home which is a bit crap so I won't get to socialise I have acquaintances and their social life with their friends but they're not my own. I just need too find a group like this where I live in Manchester. Thanks again keep up the great work. :)

Thankyou so
Much for this and being completely honest and bringing awareness xxx you have literally melted my heart 💖 xxx NEW SUBBIE ASWELL x

Neither do I, but it's all about how comfortable you are. I'm 52 also, I intentionally isolate myself from people (other than work) I avoid bonding with people, never been in a relationship, not married...yet I'm still completely happy.

I'm not quite sure why ones feel they need friends in the first place. Ones I've had have proven to be fair weather friends, which is worse than none at all really. Ones that expect you to be for there for them, but when it's you that need someone to lean on they don't have the time. I don't need that kind of one sided situation. Many people are just more solitary to begin with and do not feel the need to surround themselves with people, and that's fine. I find it odd if someone feels the need to be constantly surrounded by people, do they dislike their own company so much? Don't worry if you don't have any, you're not missing out in the majority of cases.

HAPPY NEW YEAR MARK

Fantastic video. I dunno how I came across this video, but I'm glad I did. I'm 34 living in Canada and I have no friends, no wife/girlfriend, no kids, no family. Same like you, my co-workers were the closest thing to 'friends' that I had, but as soon as I would leave a place and would try to keep in touch, it felt like I'd become invisible. With the holidays happening right now, this year for some reason has been tougher on me when it comes to feeling lonely and isolated. But watching this has really helped me feel better. I'll have to see if there are groups around me now. Thanks for making me feel better.

Same situation here, but loving the confident vibe, keep doing wht u doin brotha

Thanks Mark for shooting and posting this. I can very much relate to your situation. I'm 50 and self-employed, but I also teach part time at a college. I have literally hundreds of colleagues across a wide variety of professional connections, with many of them good people who I have enjoyed a laugh or few with over the years. But none of them could I ever truly considered to be that true friend who we all seem to need in our lives.


I think for me my attention to keeping and making "friends" began to slide once I first became married and then became a parent. Priorities were different, but I've been separated for just over a year now and I find myself in the same situation as you. I'm not an introvert by any means. Heck, my You Tube channel just crossed 4K subs and will soon hit 3 million views but I just seem to have lost the sense on how or even where to create those genuine friendships. All is not lost of course, but it was refreshing and helpful to see that I'm not as unique in this regard as I was beginning to think I was. Thanks again for this video and kudos to you for deciding to make it!

This is nothing to do with men and masculinity as they are attacking it here, its more to do with the english culture, ive grown up in africa and i did thibgs with friends all day everyday even strangers but in uk its 90 percent harder to make friends because literaly nobody wants to talk to strangers, its a synical sarcastic society, they even say on the tubes that u should mind ur business and not look at people!

Its this plastic culture thats killing uks men doesnt have anything to do with masculinity, i was rejected by girls people just for saying hi and men would just drink with u havr some jokes put an act sarcastically and at the end of the day dissapear. Its an english cultural thing they e been taught to being plastic and selfish since childhood, ive met americans here and they sre the easiest to get along with ive yet to see in uk but everybody else is just plastic.

From Canada here...find I have the same problem, used to have many friends, but over time, life happening, they dwindled to just a few, who live in other cities or countries even. When my eldest son died twelve years ago, then husband immediately had another affair (to cope I imagine, but it wasn't his child)....I lost everything and had to start over. I changed so much: most people who knew me found me too "negative"/bitter, or simply couldn't handle my inability to sit and talk BS small talk any more. But I agree that men, in general, have a more difficult time forming long term friendships. Suicide rates among older men are the highest in almost every country. I wish you well and applaud your courage for bringing this subject to the forefront. True intimacy, involving "into-me-see", letting someone IN, is scary, and difficult. Shallow relationships occur as a result, so your courage in ameliorating your loneliness (which I find I'm experiencing all too much, I just turned sixty) is admirable. Hugs from Canada, hope you build some true and abiding relationships with other men.

This is almost like an AA meeting, only it's the Lonely Hearts club confessional. I'm not trying to be flippant here, as I too have had my periods of loneliness. Part of it has been due to my lifelong work as a tech, moving and living in different parts of Canada, and even other countries. My high school chums all moved away, one close friend died from a bad motorcycle accident, another from a brain aneurysm. Bonds that I built over years through my high school and college years were severed.
But Mark has a good point, of getting off one's butt, and finding a club or activity or sport or music etc that you can connect with on different levels with another man. In my case its photography. I have been fortunate to make friends with a man who shares my passions, who I have dinner with, go on treks with, and do photo shoots with together. My girlfriend has met him too. Like me, he has had his trials, health issues, and a relationship that ended unexpectedly. So we are able to share our feelings on many different levels.
There may be some of you out there who are quiet or withdrawn, who may have difficulty in making that initial effort. All I can say is, be positive, and make the effort. With social media today, there are so many ways to make that initial connection. It's the only way to cure the blues. Be well and take care.

Mark, I moved from Canada to Hollywood CA. I didn't know anyone, except my wife. I went to a few Meet-up's then started my own with a friend I met at a Meet-up! It has worked out great, and in the last 3.5 years, I have made a number of really GOOD friends. We go out together, play music together, etc. etc. You just need to go out and socialize with people of common interests, that are not work related. Congratulations to you for what you are achieving and your bravery in posting this.

I think you are brilliant Mark. We are lonely than ever now and we must speak about it and destigmatize it! Amazing!

The Tribe has broken down.

Friends can be overrated.

Mark that was BRILLIANT! You have really inspired me and I’m sharing your video with the members of a group I am in. Super chuffed for you 👍👍👍

Hey there. Try becoming vegan or a vegetarian. You will still have no friends, but you'll worry less :-)

Mark, I admire and respect you so much for “coming out”, so to speak, as a friendless person. You gave me the courage to admit to being lonely, too, and now I’m growing a friendship with someone in the same boat. I’d be your friend in a heartbeat if I lived near you. Thank you so much for shining a light on the friendlessness issue. Good every kind of luck to you! 🤩🍀

Is there a forum or suck like which might help people who feel the same way ?

What the hell...... Marc is my name and I have no friends.... For real.

To echo others here, a superb and very brave video Mark. It takes a lot of courage. I'm approaching 47 but have chronic illness CFS and it makes socialising difficult; but also have mental health problems which is another spanner in the works. I did have two good mates earlier on in teens/20s but turned out one was only fair-weather and I don't see much of the remaining one now as I'm rarely well enough to step foot outside the house. I'm very grateful to even have this one friend though but as time passes we seem to have less and less in common.

I have no friends

I'm only 25 and I have no friends, I've always suffered from severe depression and anxiety and abandonment issues, everywhere I've gone I get on with co-workers and colleagues but never actually made friends or had friendship groups, and when my partner is doing stuff with her friends (going away with them, over their house etc) it hurts cause I don't have any of that and when she messages them and talks about them it sucks cause my phone never goes off unless it's a game or app notification ☹️

This is comedy gold.

maybe men use different criteria to call somebody a "close friend"

Fabulous, brave, honest, necessary video Mark. You're effectively giving men "permission" to admit they're lonely. I and my co-founder are setting up a business called Just Good Company with the intention of connecting people through activities or outings of their choice, in a non-pressured way. Launching in the New Year. So far we have had a majority of women starting to follow us on FB and Instagram (justgoodcompany.jgc). Where are the men?? We predicted this, but why? We'd love to have more men on-board!

I have no friends, and I do no want to have friends. I love to be alone.

Me too...You have found a friend in me.

Regards from Brazil

Well done Mark and thank you for being brave and talk openly about this sensitive topic 👏
I live in a country where the human/social contact is so low, very sad actually....That's why I love to travel, which is not really possible since 2 yes because of the pandemic...
All the best to you and hope you found new friends!
Happy 2022 *

It look likes me that the actual système of compulsive consommation plus technology destroyed our sentiment d appartenance a une réalité universelle...
I have no friends too and I m very pleased to hear about that coming out🙏

Hi Mark this just popped up on my feed now. I really hope 3 years on that you have some good friends. I'm sure your video has helped lots of other people out. Well done for putting your self out there. Its definitely difficult to make new friends in your 50s but it's possible. Very important to have a life outside your relationships and family. I think it's just more difficult for men and women tend to chat and men don't overshare like women do. It definitely hit home with me especially with the male friends that I have they don't have many real friends which makes me very sad. As humans we are very social beings. Anyway hope you have made lots lifelong friends now. All the best.

My Fiancé sent me this video.
After laughing about it it's exactly my situation.
I find it even more difficult because I'm English but I live in France.
I've tried things like website for making friend and things too, still haven't found that friend yet. But hopefully soon!

En france c'est pareil rassurez vous les gens ne sont pas aussi ouvert qu'on le pensent les célibataires se plaignent aussi de solitude...

I feel you, Mark! It have been lonely too these days. My best friend of 43 years passed away in 2020 and since then it's been pretty lonely. We had almost everything in common. It is hard to make good close friends in this day and age than it used to be. That is for certain!

IMO, it's a question of attitude towards life and you seem to have centered yours around your job instead of life itself, enjoying it. I've done the contrary, so I never had that problem, but, a couple of years ago, I lost my wife for almost half a century and it left a huge black hole in me, as she was the hub of my life. And that's when I found out that I have friends everywhere who I never thought of that way, people who will do anything for me without even asking, just because they see me in need, people who do not force themselves on me but are always there if I need it. So the loss of my wife, as hard as it is, has let me see stuff that I missed when I was focused on her, as she was such an angel who filled my life.

So here's my advice for you: don't try to be the richer or the more successful of the cemetery, just try to enjoy life and you enjoy it better in company. :-)