So here at CVM we have been long-time supporters of encouraging men into men’s groups, and I thought that now would be a great time to just write a few blogs about it: why we are so focussed on it and how you and your mates can benefit from them. So, without further ado – let’s go.
Your epidemic of loneliness
Stats in the UK published in 2019 showed that on average, men lead more solitary lives than women and men form most of their friendships at work, which after retirement mean they are often in isolation.
32% of men said they don’t have a close, best friend.
Robin Hewings, the Director of Campaign to End Loneliness, in an interview with the Times stated that:
‘Women are more likely to have wider social networks than men across their lifetime and spend more time cultivating their existing friendships and meeting more people.’
Now in exploring this stuff, I don’t want to focus on comparisons between men and women to convince you of an epidemic of loneliness amongst men; there is a substantial percentage of women who are lonely too, with 24% saying they didn’t have a best friend to turn to either. What I do want to suggest is that encouraging men to meet, form a group and build a common focus and driver with, is vital to counter an ever-increasing culture of loneliness among men.
COVID and the various restrictions on life have crippled us all: none of us, regardless of gender, escaped the impacts from this over the last couple of years. However, for men I think there are some subtle differences.
Mainly, experience has shown us at CVM that men rely heavily on a model of opportunistic socialisation. This is socialising together in a shared activity. We gain the essential ‘bits and pieces’ for developing and maintaining a healthy self-esteem and mental health balance for example, as a by-product from being together with other men whilst doing stuff – a shared experience, work, sports or hobbies.
The reality of masks, social distancing, restriction on events, social spaces and activities outside and inside the workplace has been, in my opinion, crippling on men and their sense of isolation and loneliness because of how our friendship model is built.
My men’s group meet twice a month. We sit around a fire, we eat together, we talk life, when we are not together in person the Whatsapp feed is buzzing. We’re connected, we call out the moments around us in life and we listen and pray for our brothers. It’s connectivity that has kept us in the game: across the fire the shared interests and the variety of ‘stuff’ to connect over has been a lifeline.
That’s one reason why at CVM we really want to encourage guys to be in a men’s group.
If you want to know more about setting up a men’s group, some tools and ideas to kick things off then you can get in touch with us here at CVM.
You can partner a men’s group with us and get plugged into the movement of CVM to introduce 1 million men to Jesus.
