Men are getting lonelier – is it time to change the way we do ‘friendship’?

Like many fortysomethings, Josh Burt has a tight group of male friends who meet regularly at the pub. When one of their group took his life, it was a shock to them all, prompting them to rethink the relationship men have with their mates and how it can be better...

In good company: Burt with his friends Sam, Olly and Matt (Josh Burt)

Just over two years ago, my good mate Rich, an integral part of my friendship group, took his own life. We’d known each other since we were teenagers at university enjoying our first forays away from home, and while I knew he was depressed on the back of losing his job, it still came as a shock.

Since his death, I have thought about it a lot, and I do wonder whether his willingness to talk about what he was going through was sometimes scuppered by the ridiculous constraints men like us put on ourselves.

I’m not saying it would have saved him (that would be far too full of assumptions that I can’t remotely back up), but it’s standard for fortysomething blokes to slip into knee-jerk banter just as conversations are getting too deep or interesting, or to search for silver linings to make sadness somehow more palatable – and less awkward.