Jonny McCambridge: How to make friends…don’t ask me!

It is not a publisher. Instead it is a producer from the BBC who asks me if I would like to appear on the Lynette Faye show on Radio Ulster the following day. This is an unusual, but not unknown occurrence. I make the occasional broadcast appearance when they are unable to find someone who possesses more star appeal to go on. I think my name is on a note somewhere in the depths of Broadcasting House which reads ‘Call only if Da from Give My Head Peace and Big Jim McDonald off Coronation Street are not available’.

I ask what it is that they would like me to talk about with Lynette. The producer tells me that the discussion will be about why men find it so hard to make friends with other men. I agree to do the appearance and the call is ended.

It is only when I get home that I start to wonder about why they decided to ask me (apart from Big Jim not being available). The discussion is about why men struggle to make friends. I start to imagine the scene at the production meeting in the BBC.

BBC Person 1: ‘So, we’re going to be talking about men who have no friends. Who would be a good guest for that?’

BBC Person 2: ‘What about that guy McCambridge who writes a column for the News Letter? I can’t imagine anyone likes him. Certainly, nobody ever bothers to read his column.’

BBC Person 1: ‘Perfect!’

I am brought back to reality by my son asking if he can have potato waffles for dinner. Perhaps I am a little bit stung by the conclusion of my thought process. As I turn the oven on, I reassure myself that I am indeed popular. Surely it is obvious that I have loads of friends. In a remarkable act of maturity, I begin to make a list of them.

The first thing to do is to set out the parameters for inclusion. Family and females have to be excluded. I decide on the rule that it has to be someone who I have spent some time with within the last year because I wanted to, not because work, parenting or family commitments demanded that I had to. I mull it over while the potato waffles roast.

By the time I turn off the oven I have reached an unfortunate conclusion – I have no friends.

One of the things about going on the radio is that it forces me to think about the subject matter. I am not instinctively given to moments of deep introspection and would in normal circumstances just shrug off the revelation and move on.

But the following day I am going live on air to discuss male bonding. I need to have something to say about it. A mere shrug of the shoulders tends not to work on radio.

There is, of course, the laziness factor. I see how much time my wife puts into keeping up contact with her acquaintances. I am the opposite. I don’t think I have ever fallen out with anyone, but numerous friendships have been squandered simply through my lack of effort.

There is my best friend from school. Because he was my best friend at school, I will always think of him as my best friend. Each of us has moved about a bit and raised families. I suppose we both just assumed that one or the other would make the effort to stay in contact - but neither did. I have now not seen him in more than a decade. How long does the separation need to last before I can no longer consider him my best friend?

Then there is the fact that I am just so busy. I work and have a son. There just doesn’t seem to be much of me left over to devote to other relationships.

I am a member of a few WhatsApp groups made up of male colleagues that I have known from different points in my career. It has come to the time of the year when various members are floating the idea of Christmas nights out. But where will I find the time? The days between now and December 25 are already lined up like a calendar in my mind with big red crosses against most dates. I have so much to do, to cook, to buy, so many work commitments, family members to visit. This festive season is destined to pass, like so many before it, with no Christmas nights out for me.

Another more basic concern is do I even possess the skills to be able to make new friends? It is a talent which children seem to possess instinctively but which later gets lost. I watch my son at play to see if I can learn anything. I note how he can bond quickly with other children. It is not a useful exercise. I cannot see that much good will come from me approaching a stranger in the shop and exclaiming ‘Hi! I’m 47 and a half! Would you like to be my friend?’

Add to this my complete inability to engage in the easy conversation with people I do not know. I have suffered in agony through countless children’s birthday parties, vainly trying to think of anything remotely interesting to say to the other daddies.

The following day I go on the radio. I am on air with an academic who explains the science of why men are worse at friendship than women. He also speaks of the potential mental health impact of not having friends, the burden of loneliness and how men are much more guarded about emotional intimacy. My role is the familiar one of the bumbling, slightly-confused middle-aged man trying to make some sense of the world. The personification of all the troubling issues that he has described.

The discussion concludes with Lynette gently asking me if I will make more effort to make new friends. With my shortcomings so publicly exposed, I agree that it seems like a good idea.