You actually do need new friends as a man.

High chance you don’t want new people around you when you’ve finally minted some success. It helps to filter out the chancers, takers and bringers of confusion. “No new friends” is a common trope for the man who now has a lot to lose after supposedly winning it all.

In reality though, you’re undermining yourself chained to mindsets, conversations, hopes and fears that need a breath of fresh air. 

And we do outgrow friendships. The ones that are always taking and never giving. Limiting our growth. Keeping us hungover. In debt. Pitting you against one another. 

But this is less about outgrowing your friends and more about seeing life beyond your circle. Great as it may be, it can only give you perspectives it is familiar with. 

An often overlooked aspect of men these days is building a wider network of people you can learn from or help you level up. We’re usually constrained by our loyalties to the friends we grew up and struggled with. Fair enough. 

But you can’t learn about investing in shares if your circle has nobody with any knowledge of it. 

And knowing someone who does shouldn’t come at the cost of losing your current friends. It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other. 

A shortcoming of the Zambian man is to purchase a Mercedes Benz and stop hanging out with the friends who still drive Corollas. Or move to Ibex Hill and stop taking calls from friends in Kabwata or Mandevu Compound. 

We can retain these relationships while seeking new ones. Balancing our roots with our branches. 

If you’re forward thinking and moving as a man, the illumination of new friends and associations will naturally light up your life’s dashboard.

As you take on more age-appropriate pursuits and habits, there will be men you will meet along the way. Men who have also eschewed late nights in Dacapo in preference to a laid back afternoon at home with a drink in one hand and a grill fork in the other. 

There will be a man who shares your values as a father and you will meet him at the school PTA, only to be happy to discover that you’re mutual satanists in your love for Manchester United. 

You will also meet unsuccessful men. See their perspective. Divorcees. Alcoholics. Widowers. Unemployed. Depressed men. They add depth to life in the way they struggled, failed or recovered.

The point is that life is fleeting and you cannot live it holding on to the limited perspective of friends you shared a desk with in school or university. The world is changing every day and demanding aspects and capabilities of us that we did not grow up with. 

“No new friends” is self-sabotage when new friends can be well-traveled, Muslim, recovered drug addicts, German, entrepreneurs, mechanics, single fathers, … new people and friends teach us more than we cease to learn in the bubble of ‘my guy’.