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PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.

Anita Rao
I want to tell you a story about an email that's about so much more than an email. It was an exchange between two men about six years ago, Mark and Sam. Mark pagan is a podcaster, filmmaker and deep thinker. Sam is one of his closest friends, and at this moment in their friendship, Mark and Sam were living in different cities, so they'd send each other these long life updates.

Mark Pagán
At the bottom of the email I wrote the words, I miss you, just plainly, I miss you. No man, no dude, uh, nothing like that. I miss you, period. And I was about to hit send and I erased those words and, um, sent the email 

Anita Rao
Despite the closeness of their friendship, Mark just couldn't write those words.

Mark Pagán
If I'm one of those people who's been, you know, quote, unquote, doing the right work to better himself as a man, how am I still having the same issues?

Anita Rao
This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. I first heard the story of that email exchange and Mark Pagán's own podcast, and what stuck with me was how radically different his experience of friendships as an adult was from my own I'm honestly not that much of an effusive verbal communicator. Yet, I probably send a handful of texts or voice notes each week to my long distance best friends with those exact words, I miss you until hearing Mark's episode, I had never thought twice about it, are the dynamics in male friendships that different? So I wanted to sit down with Mark and start to unravel this story. At the root of it is the question we'll tackle together today, what makes close friendships among men so difficult to make and maintain, and what can we do about it. Mark has been sorting through the quandaries of masculinity and male friendship for years through his sub stack newsletter other men and his podcast, other men need help. That email story is one he spent a whole episode unpacking.

Mark Pagán
I miss you, I think is more dangerous a phrase than I love you for a lot of men. Why is that people in general, and I think we say that I love you, is this? Is this hurdle for men? You know, there's this whole, I think, a pretty dumb stereotype you see in movies and things like that, where, let's say, in a heterosexual relationship, the woman says, I love you, and the guy goes, Yeah, that happens in life. Sure, like it has happened, but I actually don't think that's such an issue. I miss you. I think displays a heavier degree of vulnerability. What you're saying is, I need you. What you're saying is you linger in my mind. Your presence means a lot to me. When you are gone, it affects me, and I think it is really hard for men. And I'm gonna with our conversation today. I'll limit it to Western men, in particular, North American men, because I think the standards are different around the world in terms of how people are socialized, and conversations about inequities, gender inequities, and what that means for certain male spaces. So I'm talking about American, North American men, but the ways that we're socialized super early to really push down anything that's considered longing or desire for another boy or for another man, and it happens really early. I've worked with kids of all ages in my life as an educator, and boys at four or five or sometimes, well, it's time to stop saying I love you to this friend of yours. Or it's the way that you're making that sound. It's shrieking. It sounds like a girl. You shouldn't display emotion that way. And from that early age, the ways that we are boxed to display and work with our friendships really puts us in quite a straight jacket when it comes to this like simple human acknowledgement, like I miss you.

Anita Rao
I want to take you back to Sam for a second, because you did eventually talk with him directly about this email. You told him, Hey, I wrote I miss you, and then I deleted it. Tell me about that conversation and what his response was.

Mark Pagán
Oh, it's, it's so silly, because, of course, he was like, oh, you should have written that. He should have said it. He said, I would have said the same thing back to you. But it allowed us to unpack this, these little voices, these almost Gremlins that are, I call them masculine pinches. You know, there's, it happens in sort of the belly, and it's almost like there's this little gremlin in there going, like, wait, what's going on this with a friend of mine is like, no, but you are gonna show up. And it puts all these. Thoughts in your head. And it's funny because Sam, again, this guy who I really respect, he gave an example about how he'll think, Oh, Charlie, yeah, I should really get in touch with him. I've been thinking about him a lot, and then almost this road runner Gremlin that that runs across his head like, Oh, does that mean you want to kiss him? Does that mean you want to hold him? Do you and all of these things. And the conversation was responding like, why am I still shackled by early homophobic socializing? He was very eloquent, and basically said, our brains can't think outside of black and white boundaries. If you have affection or need for somebody, then it is moving into the realm of romantic. And I think that's probably why, and I've suffered this as well, probably why so many men in adulthood put a lot of our emotional labor on our partners. Because if I do that with another man, that denotes in my head, in this Gremlin part of my head, I have a longing for this man.

Anita Rao
So you're talking about this kind of way we're gonna continue to unpack, like the links between feelings of intimacy and internalized homophobia. But I wanna point to another distinction that I'm curious about. In your own experience, you say when you're saying men, you're kind of narrowing it to a western context through your research and interviews and in your own personal experience. Do these dynamics play out differently for men who aren't cisgender and who aren't heterosexual?

Mark Pagán
I think so, and there's only so much that I can say outside of just observation. You know, I'm not going to have the same experience in a circle of trans peers than a trans person would, and there's going to be different areas of negotiating. This is not me saying this is the experience of everybody, but just interesting things that I hadn't considered about somebody who's a trans man, and then the ways in which they have started navigating workspaces differently, or have adapted to being a little bit more cold because, like, oh, I seem to be accepted more if I'm acting a little bit more cold in these spaces. And I think that's really, really interesting. When I was younger, I romanticized different parts of the world because of the ways that I projected the community side of these male spaces. I'd watch movies, or I'd see the news and or even traveling say, Oh my God, look at these guys. They've got their arms around each other. They're super affectionate. They're even kissing on the cheek. There doesn't seem to be these restrictions. They seem so free with the way they're expressing themselves. Why does the world have it so much better? And I think we all have our own issues, and I can only speak in terms of observation research, but a lot of those places are extremely segregated, gender wise. And so you can be freer. A man can be freer, potentially feel freer and expressing emotion, things like that when there's no gender competition.

Anita Rao
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I'm curious to take you back in time a little bit to connect some of these dots between your own friendships and these broader forces of masculinity and cultural scripts around what friendship can look like if you think back to being a kid before the baggage of adulthood, or before you inherited some of these scripts. What was it like then for you to make friends with other boys?

Mark Pagán
I remember around second grade, age of eight or so, coming home and telling my mom with the same enthusiasm as I got into law school or whatever, you know, life event that, like, I made a friend. I made this new friend. And it, you know, it wasn't the thing of, like, being a lonely kid and not having a friends. It was just I made a new friend. I mean, like we hung out on the on the playground, we played some games, and it was awesome, and just that pure, unfiltered, un self conscious joy of that. And then I think of like four years later, when puberty started, I had a cousin of mine who he lived in Puerto Rico, and then moved to Texas. I was in Maryland, so we weren't in the same area ever in terms of living, but we loved each other. Whenever I go to Puerto Rico, we'd spent we were just like, we were just together all the time. He was my best friend. He was a cousin, but he was my best friend. So we had a pen pal relationship for years. And it was really, it was great, did this, and I got into this, and I got this comic book, and this is what school blah, blah, blah, very pure, very open. And I think around the age of 12, I remember this so clearly my mom had given me, you have, like, a label, like a mailing label, you know, like Mark Pagán. Oh, yeah, like an address label, like an address label, and it had, it had some sort of illustration on it, or something. She got it from a catalog. Anyway, I had it. I started using it for for mail. I sent my cousin a letter. He replied back, and he said, your label or whatever. He called it, whatever it was, doesn't matter. The key thing is he used one word that really did not sit well with me. And he said, your label is very cute. And I remember, I remember my face going, ew, like that, and seeing him differently and like the crazy difference from four years of sitting with this kid max on the playground and feeling no sense of self consciousness or anything like that, to my cousin, who I had the same sort of relationship with, the same Like unfiltered, affectionate relationship with to seeing him so differently because of because of one word, because of one word that I That, to me, equated, you know, it equated queerness. It equated being other, equated girliness. There's so many labels at the time I could have used on it, but I give that example to say, like the lovely energy that can exist between friends at that age, but especially boys before we're told not to act a certain way.

Anita Rao
Mark Pagán hosts the podcast. Other men need help, and writes the sub stack newsletter. Other men just ahead mark will share some of the small moments and rituals of male friendship that he thinks should get a little more love, like the secret handshake. You're listening to embodied from North Carolina public radio, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear embodied as a podcast, follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back. This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. We're talking about the complexities of male friendship with Mark Pagán, who's documented his own interrogation of the topic in his newsletter and his podcast. For years, when Mark was growing up, most of his models for friendship were based on the interactions he saw between the women in his life. But he did have one role model for male friendship, his dad.

Mark Pagán
My father, culturally by nature, being a Caribbean man and perhaps being older, he was so affectionate with the people and the men in his life. I'm sort of warmed over by memories of just looking up and watching the conversations where my father would have his hand for minutes at a time, on somebody's shoulder, or the sort of holding another man's cheeks, you know, where you're looking like, ah, you know, so good to see you. So good to see you.

Anita Rao
Mark was 14 when his dad died, but as an adult, these memories sparked a curiosity about what physical affection between male friends can look like, and the seemingly small but hugely important rituals that help keep a friendship going. Rituals, for example, like a secret handshake, which he captures in season three of his podcast. Other men need help.

Other Men Need Help Clip
Hands together, that becomes like a fist and then like back Pat, kind of enclosed hand
up, palm out, embrace corey's other hand, grab hand by hand, pulled shoulder to shoulder, gave him the brother slap on the back of the back. We hug, and then I have a thing where I reach down and do a little double tap on the ass.

Anita Rao
Okay, so tell me about this friendship ritual in particular and why you wanted to capture it.

Mark Pagán
You know, we talk a lot about the friendship gap that is happening for men, and I don't disagree with that. I think that there is a lot of work that we have to do individually as well as culturally, and tons of stuff, tons of stuff. But what I'm not hearing, and what I want to hear more of is the celebration of those bonding moments that we're overlooking and that we overlook in our own friendships. And I'm curious about the ways that those sit with us, those small, ephemeral interactions, how they sit with us when we're away from each other, how they would sit with us if we spent a moment to think about it or talk about the importance of these rituals. And I just think there's so much that happens in friendships, and there's so much that happens in friendships between men that I just found find so beautiful and. So beautiful. And I think I I love the idea of the the idiosyncrasy and the intimacy that happens where two people say to each other, whether it's as explicit as this or not, but over time, like we are going to create a physical way of showing our relationship to each other, as well showing our identity, showing why we are this unit. And I just wanted to capture that, or at least a small piece of that, and have take a moment to step away from the rhetoric of men are in trouble, which, again, I'm not disagreeing with, but adding more to the conversation of, what are we getting right and what can we lean more into.

Anita Rao
I'm curious about that, because in hearing you say that, there's a part of me that says, Yes, incredible, that, like men make this ritual of celebration. But is this in place of a longing for more physical touch? And this is the only sanctioned way to do it is in this kind of performative slapping each other on the butt. But really, if you could, you would just be hugging each other and holding each other, like, how do you think about that?

Mark Pagán
Well, that's the that's the bridge, and that's the void that, yeah, trying to figure out. And I think the first, the first step, this is never going to be the poster for other men in terms of this mission statement here, but my work as a person towards myself, but as well as what I would like to do for the rest of my life is to take steps to remove shame. And I think if, if you know, the first step is normalizing, celebrating, lauding something that already exists as a physical, a physical space in your life, perhaps, perhaps by normalizing that you can maybe have a conversation with your friend about taking another step or bridging, or you can feel that it's more normalized in general to be affectionate and things like that. That's a that's a heavy load to put on something that's just a podcast episode. Yeah, but I, would like to offer displays that are subtly just normalizing the physical need that we all have as human beings, totally normalizing it, pointing out the ways how it's already happening and it's great. You know, don't you want more? Or like, how else can we celebrate each other or or spend time with each other physically in friendships. But the real you know, the overall goal is to try to just find the right ways that I or this platform, can remove those feelings of shame and self consciousness for other men, so that they can either start having those conversations or start bridging those physical or answering those physical needs organically. I'm not sure I have the answer just yet, but these are my early attempts.

Anita Rao
Is there a friendship in your own life where you have worked through this barrier of physical intimacy, or where physical intimacy plays a role that you are happy with.

Mark Pagán
There's a lot a bunch of layers to this story, but I moved into college and started being more conscious of the fact that I was Latino and didn't grow up in a I grew up in a fairly diverse area, but I just didn't grow up with a lot of Latinos, let alone Caribbean Latinos, and I felt like a real void. And I met who I'm calling Fabian at some point in college, this Colombian dude, and he was one of the first people to feel silly to say this, but he's one of the first people to call me friend and Spanish, you know amigo or Paseo, you know Colombian Spanish. And he was, he was, what I love about being Latino, about being Caribbean Latino, is that he was, like, my father, he was sort of the hands on the cheek kind of affection. Guy, Mark, I love you, man, like, you know, just, just there and put his arm around me. Like, this guy right here, he's so good. This is my friend. He's so cool, you know, like, you're like, Yeah, you could use so much energy there. And there's like, you're not self conscious about it at all, and it, it just felt so wonderful. And we ended College, we went our own ways, and I lived in South America for a time, and he had moved back to Colombia, and I had gotten in touch with them, and I thought, oh, man, can we get Can I meet up? Can I stop in Colombia? He said, Yeah, yeah, come up. And when I was fantasizing about the trip, I remember the flight to Bogota, wasn't fantasizing so much about I'm gonna eat this or do this or see this. I was fantasizing about our reunion at the airport, and I mentioned this in the episode. Code. When I was growing up, my father traveled a lot. We would go pick him up late from these international flights at Dulles Airport in the DC area, and it was this, it's sort of like this mood board of other ethnic families, but in particular, like ethnic men, they were just waiting for their loved ones to come, and then the doors would open. And it was just this cacophony of, like, so good to see you, you know, like, hugs and blah, blah, blah, and like, so much Old Spice cologne and all this stuff. And it was like, and I just remember being a kid going, this is great. Whoa. Like, look at these guys. And I was just like, I'm finally in adulthood where I've got some financial freedom to do some traveling, and to do what I've thought of like enter ports of entry, where men will greet me and Envelop me and, you know, all this stuff. And I get there to Bogota, and I can't find him. The door's open. He's not there, and I'm it wasn't pre cell phone. I just didn't have a cell phone. It was like, 2006 or seven or something, and so I didn't have a wandering around the air, like, where is this guy? Where is this guy? And then I see, I like, 10 feet away. I see this guy who looks like Fabienne, standing by the door, and he's on his phone, just playing Snake. I sort of tiptoe like, I'm like, my eyes are a little like, is that the guys? That's him. And I walk over to him, and I go, if I were young, and he looks up from his phone. He goes, Oh, hey, Mark, how's it going? And he gives me a hug that I think I describe as, like a cold fish hug, yes, I know that hug, yeah, just, it's like, are Am I dying? Like, are you being gentle with my body, like what happened to you? And it was a devastating these small moments, I think are really important to point out, because they they, at least to me, there are paths I could have gone in live with that. I still had this level of affection for a friend. I still had this expectation of how friendships could be, but I was in my 20s, and very easily, I could have taken that experience be like that. Was humiliating. I'm so ashamed. I'm never gonna ask or expect anything from a man ever again. You know, I could have gone that route, and I had moments like that, but I never officially did, luckily, for whatever reason, and I have found I have had friends that have picked me at the airport. We've we've sort of had, like, done the, I don't know what to call it, the jig, where you you sort of like, you see each other, and then you're sort of, we're not on video, but we're hugging so tight, and then our legs are sort of oompa loomping Up and down. It's like, so good to see you, that sort of thing. And it's like that I'm so happy that I have that in my life, and that there is a path that a lot of men go, which is the other path, and going this is so shameful to me.

Anita Rao
Well, it seems like the fork in the road is like, can I admit that I want this and can I say this out loud, or am I just going to internalize that I have a deep need for connection that isn't going to be met, so I'm just going to not seek it out anymore.

Mark Pagán
Yeah, and that's it. You're absolutely right. That's the thing.

Anita Rao
I mean, I'm curious, like in when you think about what this connection looks like in your life now, like, how do you build new, close male friendships in adulthood, like these people that you're able to Oompa Loompa toward? Like, what is the foundation of these friendships?

Mark Pagán
I've looked at this and I don't have the clearest answer, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk it out and tell you what has made sense to me. I think the first thing is this degree of self confidence, which has really helped to say, you know, as you said, this is what I want. This is important to me. Yeah, and I don't necessarily have to be explicit about it, but I'm gonna lean into friendships that have that opportunity. It's also saying to myself, I need to sort of you build the world you want to live in. So I do need to say I miss you more. I do need to be the one that says I've been thinking about you or you crossed my mind. I just wanted to let you know that I'll tell you. I'll tell you the truth, though, I'll tell you the truth. I don't, I don't think I've ever asked another man to hold me or hug me. I I have barely even asked my spouse to do that. She does it organically, quote, unquote, like she senses I'm upset, or, you know, we're in a situation which she can see that something is bothering me. But that is a barrier. That is a barrier that I will truthfully say I have not crossed, and I don't know if I'd say it's a next step, but it's definitely something that's in some ways, it's bothered me.

Anita Rao
Does it catch in your throat, like, like you're at the point where you're able to identify it as a need, and so is it like on its way to coming out your mouth, and then you stop yourself? Can you kind of envision where the block is happening?

Mark Pagán
So I'm working on it, and I'm not sure, because it usually it happens, this is probably revealing too much here, but whatever I mean, I have, there's a lot revealed in the show, so apart for the course, but I've been having this conversation with my therapist recently about this pattern I've noticed where all have a drink or two, and I'll get that, like, that layer of buzz, you know, that warm layer, you start to get a little bit looser, and you're and apparently, I have been told that if, if anybody's around me, and, you know, there's been drinks where, like, I'm A very, I'm very like, sweet. I just become very sweet, which I like hearing. That's good to hear. But the pattern that I noticed is I will feel that layer of being buzzed, and then that's when my text messages will start to friends that are affectionate texts so they aren't physical hugs, but it would be the step towards a physical hug. You know, it's sort of a digital version of a hug, or it's me saying I'm underlying, like I'm thinking about your I really would love to see you or or I'm I'm having an issue right now. I could really use your presence and your I could really just use your embrace and talking to my therapist about and talking to myself about it, it's like, oh my god, I'm using this lubricant, this, like this, not just a social lubricant, but this emotional lubricant, to to cross this bridge, to go over this gap of acknowledging a need. Like I'm seeing it so explicitly because, you know, the first or the second drink, and it's, it's just these messages start going out. It's like, wow, like, this stuff gets really locked in. And I when you talked about the the catch in my throat, there's something that's happening to me outside of those sort of, like, Buzzy moments where I think something, but don't, don't reach out. And whether that's in person or it's the first stages of meeting up with somebody to get an emotional need filled or physical need filled, there's something that is still blocking me from doing that, and it's, it's a, I'm acknowledging it. That's a first step. But it's, it's something that does bother me.

Anita Rao
This conversation isn't making me think about kind of the context in which friends hang out, and the conversation that I have all the time with women in my life. Of you know, we'll get together for two hours, and at the end we have, you know, like, journal entries full of updates about what's going on with each person, how their mom is doing, how they're feeling about their new job, what's going on in their therapy sessions. And my partner will go and spend an entire night with someone, and come home and I'll say, like, Well, did they get the house? And he's like, I don't know. I'm like, Okay, well, are they like, what's going on with their IVF journey? He's like, No, I couldn't say. And I'm like, what's going on? Like, and it's a projection on my part that like, Okay, you all are not talking about these things that are important to you. You're not having these intimate moments. He doesn't necessarily view it in that way. But I'm curious, for you, as someone who's thought deeply about how men spend time together and connect like what do you make of that phenomenon? And for you is the block and more intimacy, because there aren't those moments in Hangouts when you can insert them more personal, or is it something different?

Mark Pagán
I have two thoughts about these kinds of moments and these kinds of Hangouts that happen. There is one where, and I'm guilty of this too, there's this pattern of, we get together, we talk about movies, and it's like, it's such a it's almost like an opiate, yeah, it's just like, This is my time. Oh man. And you're, you know, you're just geeking out. And that's what friend, you know, that is a part of friendship that should just be. There's, there's things that, like, just shouldn't be examined, you know, which, like, I just unfiltered, wise, like, let's talk about this thing. Like, I want to spend time with you, and this is such a relief for me, in terms of my this is why, you know, part of the reasons that we bond, I do think that there is power in having activities or spaces, you know, going to a game together, getting together to talk about, you know, Christopher Nolan movies or whatever. Because I think that there, for a lot of men, there does need to be an initial filter to get to the deeper stuff. It is the responsibility of on ourselves, but also like it really is a responsibility of us as friends, as the friend, to use those moments to basically get the information in between, you know, to have the initial filter of like, we're going to be talking about this, or, you know, going to the game, etc, but to try to get to the. Life and what's really happening in between. And I put a lot of onus on again, on the friends, on us, asking the questions, us, having the curiosity us, and sometimes us providing something so that the other friend can feel free sharing with us. I've experienced it, and I've seen it too with I'll sit in a cafe or something, and I'll, I'll have two men sitting next to me that I assume, like they're here every week, like these, these older guys, they're, it seems like they're here a lot, and this is a routine. They come here and they talk about sports. They talk about sports for an hour or two, and then go home and observing the sports talk, but then hearing what I'm projecting as emotional needs, at least being shared, if not fulfilled. So yeah, that game was blah blah blah. Game was awesome. Scored a lot of points. Have you? Have you heard from Jim about the remission status? Oh, yeah, his wife called me, and he's doing a little bit better, but blah, blah, back to sports and then, like, sort of this seesawing. And I don't know that that this is the perfect version, but I do know that I think the first step for emotional acknowledgement for a lot of men is at least having some version of a filter there. And again, that could be an activity. It can be a conversation topic. It is hard for us to quite hard for us to come and say like this is going to be an emotional sit down, unless it's something that we deem as well. This is the time where I have space for my friend.

Anita Rao
Just ahead, Mark reflects on addressing conflict in a friendship and what it's like to let a lifelong friendship go. Mark pagan is the creator and host of the podcast, other men need help, as well as the writer behind the newsletter, other men stay with us after the break. This is embodied. I'm Anita Rao. Today we're talking about male friendships. Why it's difficult to make and maintain them, and what we can do about it. The data on these friendships is pretty bleak. Analysts say that since the 1990s American men have been sinking into a friendship recession where they not only have fewer friends overall, but also are experiencing less emotional connection within those relationships. We're talking about all of this with Mark Pagán, the creator and host of the podcast other men need help in the third season of his show, he unpacks the cultural baggage around male friendship and reflects on how his own connections with other men have evolved over time. One piece of that story is noting the friendships he's lost, something he thought about this past January when he bought himself a somewhat unusual birthday present, a background check of a former friend

Mark Pagán
Tim and I met in kindergarten and just hit it off, not much more than that, just and then we stayed friends, and he left, he left the area. Maybe we were fourth grade and moved to North Carolina. I was in Maryland, and so we maintained a long distance friendship. We, I guess, I guess we called each other. I don't, I don't really remember, maybe wrote letters, but we definitely would, you know, he'd come up to Maryland and go down to North Carolina, and then we still had things in common moving into adolescence. Like, we were really into hip hop at the same time, you know, we were into, like, gangster movies and stuff like tough guy, like, not that we were tough guys, but, like tough guy media, but our as happens, you know, we just became a little different in terms of our lives and our tastes and things like that. I went to college, he didn't. I pursued, you know, an urban life and, like, a creative life and things like that. And he, he didn't, he stayed, sort of, I really, I want to use this word in a really nice way, but more provincial, you know, sort of like stayed within a circumference, which is, I'm not judging that, or at least I'm not right now, but I'll get to, I'll get to that in a second. He moving into our 20s. He there was just shady stuff happening. He called me and say, Hey, can I borrow 20 bucks? And say, that's that's weird. 20 bucks, it's like such a specific amount, or he would lie to me about who he was dating. I started getting these calls from people that were looking for him. And then there was a final the final straw for me, I started to slowly be unresponsive to text messages from him and emails. But the final straw was a card of mine was hacked, like or PayPal was hacked. And. And the when you look at those statements, there's so many numbers and letters. Sometimes it's like, this is from United Air airlines, TK, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, there were four letters, or there were a few letters that were his last name. And I thought, and it could have been just coincidence, but I thought, You know what this is all pointing to, maybe I shouldn't be around this guy. I officially ghosted him. He I never responded to a final email, and then he wrote an email back saying, you know, I've been carrying this friendship, etc, etc, goodbye. Like, really angry. And that was, it was like 2009 2010 years ago, yeah, it's a long time ago, and I still think about him all the time. And I purchased this background check as a birthday gift, yes, as a birthday gift to myself for perhaps some closure or some understanding, because I realized what the conflicts that I've been having where, number one, I still have questions for myself and for all of us, of when is a legacy friendship? One worth keeping.

Anita Rao
And legacy friendship is like a lifelong friendship, someone that's lifelong through phases of life,

Mark Pagán
Especially when, you know, for instance, my father died when I was 14. There are, I can look around my peer group. 95% of them never even met the man. And the Memory Keepers of his life and my and the way I was back then are far and few between, except people like Tim, you know, so when? When is it, even if you aren't seeing eye to eye, even if you are, your lives are different, when is it important to still maintain these, these ties? This is a rhetorical question. I don't know. I don't have the answer. The other thing that I wanted to the sort of darker truth and one of the questions I have, of like, the layers of complexity that happens in life now, with friends, with moving, is, was this based on class at all? Was I trying to, you know, I, I had a birthday a few years ago when I thought of Tim, I was, I was looking around the room at my birthday. I'm like, here is a room full of people who, when I was younger, I would have, I said, this is the I want, like, New York creative class. Look at this room of people. You know, I thought about myself younger, like, this is the kind of place I'd walk into this room go, like, these people are my friends. I'm like, I know cool creative people. And I felt a sense of sadness for the sort of the friend casualties along the way, that, if I'm honest with myself, part of that was class striving, and that the then I did have some judgment at different points in my life of what these friends were were not doing. So there was guilt there. And then, of course, the third thing was like, was I right? Was I right? Was this guy into shady stuff, and to a degree, he was at least the background check answered some of those questions, but that was two or three months ago at this point, and I he still. I've had at least one dream about him, like he's still, I still have the question, Did I do the right thing here? Did I suffer a loss? Because I know how to grieve a family member. I know how to grieve a romantic relationship, but I still, and I would, I would challenge people listening. I don't think most of us know how to grieve a friendship, right? Even what that means, right?

Anita Rao
I mean, it's making me think about, you know, when do you let it go quietly, and when do you address it more directly? Like, do you think you would find more closure if you responded to Tim? Or does this feel like the kind of final chapter in yours friendship story that you can begin to let go because you have found closure in another way? Or have you, I guess.

Mark Pagán
I don't know. The closest analogy I've had is I think of exes and those times in life where years later, you go, you know, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. I wonder what she's doing now, I should reach out, and I'm not telling anybody, like, nine times out of 10, do not reach out to that ex. But usually what happens, or at least in my experience, when that's happened in my life, is you come back to what the truth was, where you just weren't fit to be together, or like, Oh no, we were growing apart. Like, five years later, meeting up again and go, oh yeah, we we did. We made the right choice, because you're a different person. I'm a different person. So there's that rationalizing I have in my head, but I think there's a part of me, especially with such an old friendship, I mourn the children we were and I mourn the friendship that these boys lost. And. And because that still into adulthood, those childhood secrets, those childhood jokes, regardless if we were dealing with mortgages, taxes, breakups, all this stuff, those things were still our shared language, these, these child versions of ourselves. So there's a question of, there's a few questions I have, but one that I sit with is, am I am I mourning a friendship versus Am I mourning? Am I mourning what these children lost, as well as the children we were? If that makes sense.

Anita Rao
It does. There's so much that you are exploring in your work and in your show through interviews with other men and looking intimately at their friendships. We've talked about a lot of your own friendships. I'm curious about the things that you are working on in your own friendships now, in light of some of this investigation and interrogation of male friendship.

Mark Pagán
Conflict aversion is a big one. Um, my own, my own conflict aversion

Anita Rao
Like a willingness to put in the work to address conflict in a friendship.

Mark Pagán
Yeah, yeah. We all have friends who maybe take up a little bit more space. We allow them, we allow them to take up a little bit more space. Like you didn't really ask me any questions about my life, and I have stuff going on, and I am guilty of walking away, or at least not not staying with some of those friendships when a conversation might have, might have just done the trick, and I'm encountering that with some friends now, and I'm like, All right, this is a next stage of growth for me to actually and it goes back to sort of like an overall seems like an overall theme that we're coming back to this idea of addressing needs, yeah, and this isn't necessarily a physical need, but this is a hey, I feel like I'm I'm supporting you a lot when we talk, and I am 99% sure that approaching that with the men in my life or the people my life, they'll be responsive, and they'll, they'll, they'll hear me out and make, make changes. So that's one of the big things.

Anita Rao
Does that mean you haven't had any of those conversations yet, but you want to?

Mark Pagán
I literally talked to my therapist about it recently, yeah, said this is, you know, I can't believe I'm spending an hour talking about this, but this friend of mine always, always calling me for recommendations or advice or whatever it is, and he never seems to check in with me. And so we, we dissected this with this plan in mind to address it with him. I I'm learning to also be fair with myself, as well as I would love other men to be fair with themselves. There are certain tools we were not taught, and it's up to us. You know, accountability wise, it's up to us to develop those tools. We are fine with conflict in other areas, but when it comes to a longing or a need, sometimes we're at a loss, and it's it is okay to take a first step and go, I wasn't, I didn't have there's like, not inherent skills, or I was socialized in a way that didn't make this as easy in adulthood. So let's, let's say that, and let's figure out what can be done. And I think those are two of the big things. And then just, you know, as I mentioned with this example of feeling slightly inebriated, to ask, you know, to basically reach out like that is that is a shameful thing that I don't like admitting, but I'm happy that I could observe it and talk with a professional about to go all right, there seems to be a need that needs to be addressed here. So how can we do that? So working on things like that and realizing that the people in my life are there and will receive my full self, and would like to participate. And I would venture to say that that's the case for most people's lives. It's just it's really hard to cross that bridge.

Anita Rao
In the spirit of meditating on and lifting up the some of the beauty in male friendships that we were talking about earlier with the handshake, is there a ritual that you have with a close male friend, or something of that nature, in a close male friendship that you would be willing to share with us.

Mark Pagán
I have this, this goal that I have no idea how this will, if this will ever happen, for a number of reasons, part of which is just like consent. You would need the consent of people, but I would love to see, I would love to create sort of a museum of text threads between friends, okay? Because I think there's so much there. And I think about my I don't think, I don't think it matters if I use this real name, my one of my best friends, Eric, if somebody were to source our. Text exchanges. I mean, like, if the government, it's like, Oh, my God, poor person that has to look at that. There's just not much there except all of these. We, this isn't a physical interaction, although we, we give great hugs and things like that, but we, I love making him laugh, or sort of hearing him laugh in my head, even when he's not around. And so we send each other. We have a few things that are patterns, but we send each other celebrity look alike photos or memes. And it's like, and I sort of, it's sort of the thing where it like the cliche of, like waiting by the phone, like I send it, I go, Oh God, what am I? You know, I can't wait to see what comes back. And then, you know, he'll give an LOL, or just or he'll just say, that's amazing. And I know, like, I can just, I can just see him on the other side just cackling, and then he'll do the same for me and things like that. So there's this shared emotional space that is the most mundane, ridiculous side of my communication. But again, I think those things are really, really important, and we shouldn't discount them. And I, I think it's great these, these details that we have with these people in our lives, that, you know, it doesn't just express interest in things, and I hate to get too lofty here, but we are meditating on this, but does express, like, a deep understanding of each other and love and wanting to bring the other person joy.

Anita Rao
What a wonderful way to close this conversation. Mark Pagán, thank you so much for talking with me today. I love speaking with you.

Mark Pagán
Likewise. Thank you for having me.

Anita Rao
As Mark shared. Deepening an existing friendship takes a lot of vulnerability. But after Mark and I hung up, I realized there was one more thing I wanted to ask him about, something a little more practical. What advice he has for men who are still searching for these close friendships and any tools he's used to make new friendships as an adult, he sent me this voice note.

Mark Pagán Voice Note
Number one, it's not weird to want friends. Wanting close friends as an adult isn't strange. It is essential. We are wired for connection that doesn't stop after college or our 20s. So remind yourself it's normal, it's healthy. It is brave and deep to want friendships. Number two, go where you feel seen. Your people are out there. You just may need to expand your search. If your job, town or current circle doesn't reflect who you are, expand the search. Maybe it's a queer hiking group or gaming group or volunteer crew or a traveling circus. Where do you feel the most like yourself? Start there and then take small steps to show up. Number three, friendship needs flesh and blood, and this is kind of an addendum to number two. Online friendships are real, but they get stronger when you show up for the person or the community. Friendship doesn't require sacrifice. It asks for investment. So go to things, host something, take initiative. Turn a group chat into a dinner. Visit a long distance friend or help them visit you. Presence deepens connection. I hope all that stuff helps. Have fun. Be yourself, and good luck.

Anita Rao
Mark Pagán hosts the podcast other men need help, and writes the sub stack newsletter. Other men. You can find out more about Mark and our show at our website, embodiedWunc.org you can find all episodes of embodied the radio show there and subscribe to our weekly podcast. You can also see behind the scenes of our show and get bonus content by following us on Instagram. Our handle is at embodied¼ª²ÊÍøÍøÕ¾. Today's episode was produced by Audrey Smith and edited by Amanda Magnus and Wilson Sayre. Kaia Findlay also produces for our show. Nina Scott is our intern, and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. Quilla wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District North Carolina. Public Radio is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.