I did have friends, people I’d known for years, but something happens to men in middle age, to male friendships. You get focused on your work, your family, and somehow you fail to keep up. Before you know it, you haven’t heard from the people you think of as closest to you for six months, then a year; you’ve missed birthdays and new children and house moves and changes of job, and inevitably you wonder if your friend is resentful or angry at you for being so distant, and it feels artificial to phone them and invite them out for a drink and more so if your ulterior motive is to ask them for
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