We Need to Hang Out Quotes

“The social joys of making a meal with friends are known to all who have done so/”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“Ball busting [a friendly form of humor]...contains a fundamental flaw, one that has done immeasurable harm to the male psyche, and basically eliminated dance and music as potential outlets for bonding.

That is the use of the term 'gaaay.'

It's a form of self-policing, some fucked-up safe word that got called out if any behavior approached a level where it felt intimate or affectionate. Really anything that felt 'feminine,' and that list was long.

It was not used to describe romantic attraction to another many--though it certainly insulted that entire idea in an inexcusable way--but instead was used to reinforce what Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, calls the 'crisis of connection' among men. We so fear being called -gaaay- for making connections that are 'feminine' that we sacrifice intimacy for casual banter.

It's a huge disconnect, perhaps the central one at the heart of the problems of with modern male bonding. And unlike many 'male' things, it cannot be blamed on genetics. It's cultural. It's learned.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“In a wonderful essay for -Salon-, the sociologist Lisa Wade wrote that 'to be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, to be kind to others, have empathy and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest. "Real Men," though, are not supposed to do these things. They are supposed to be self-interested, competitive, non-emotional, strong (with no insecurities at all), and able to deal with their emotional problems without help. Being a good friend, then, as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“A best friend isn't a person. It's a tier. Mindy Kaling said this once on a television show...

...it's much better to think of best friend-ship as a tier, a podium that many can ascend rather than a pedestal belonging to one or two. Embracing this notion has allowed me to enjoy my new relationships without feeling like I'm betraying my old ones.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“...Freud's theory of self-determination...argues that human beings need three things in order to be content: They need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected to others. He considered these three pillars--autonomy, competence, and community--to be intrinsic to human happiness.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“...the fundamental rule of male friendship [:] intent was the gesture, but activity was the glue.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“The second big emotional impact of quitting social media was that it made me miss my friends. I know the easy knock on social media is that it’s just people telling you what they had for dinner, but it could be so much more than that. Long before, I had eliminated much of the noise on my feeds, so the friends I “saw” each day were those who made me laugh and learn and think. That was not something I was prepared to lose forever, so it forced me into an interesting position. The only way to get those people back into my life was to actually get them back into my life.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“I will hear no arguments that this was a bad idea. Let's not divide things into good and bad. Instead, it's better to separate them into 'good and boring'. And this was not boring.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“Just like that, we started to see each other most mornings, which meant we quickly went from two guys who liked each other and kept saying they wanted to hang out to actual full-blown bros. This of course meant that every woman who knew us...was falling over herself to label our relationship a 'bromance.' That's a term that was coined in the nineties by the skateboarding magazine -Big Brother- to describe skaters who spent a ton of time together, but it has morphed into a gentle insult for any guys who dare to get too close. It's not as condescending as 'bros,' and it doesn't cut quite as wrong as being shouted down with 'gaaay.' No, the bromance lived in the category of the oh-aren't-you-cute pat on the head.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“What should young people do with their lives?' That's a good question, and the writer Kurt Vonnegut once came up with a good answer.

'Many things, obviously,' he said. 'But the most daring is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“Men need somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to talk to.

[Dick McGowan]”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“The reality is that there are no successful loners in the history of social evolution. Being a solo survivalist is arduous and inefficient. Survival has only been accomplished in groups.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“...the only thing I know about women with absolute certainty is that they don't want a man telling them how they feel.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends

“Trading favors, the relationship tit for tat that social scientists call reciprocal altruism, was long thought to be the basic backbone of friendship. But recent research has revealed that we actually care less about 'fairness' with our friends than we do when dealing with strangers and acquaintances. In a friendship, when either person insists on repaying a favor it's seen as signaling a weakness in the relationship. Friendship is what happens beyond the tracking of favors.... Among the traits exclusive to -Homo sapiens-, altruism and selflessness are near the top of what makes us human.”
― Billy Baker, We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends