“Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism.’ … It unites the human family with its happy influence.” – Joseph Smith

A group of men in white shirts shuffle into a room of folding chairs. Just one more hour, the home stretch. First, the announcements. Bro. So and So is moving and could use some help next Saturday. As far as activities go, there’s a thing coming up in June but details are vague and it isn’t clear who was in charge of making the phone calls. The end of the month is coming fast, so don’t forget about home teaching. The time is turned over to Bro. K who has the lesson this week. He’s subbing again, but no one really knows who the regular teacher is. And since it was a last minute thing, he says, he was hoping the announcements would take longer, so he’ll be relying on lots of comments from the group to take up the time.

But the group has already checked out. They are staring despondently at their feet, or pretending to find the lesson on their phones while they check the latest scores.

Meet the Mormon patriarchy having all the fun running the Church.

A recent article in the Atlantic points out that men, especially middle aged white men, are increasingly dying from lives lived in isolation and addiction. I would like to believe that Mormon men somehow buck this trend. After all, aren’t we part of a tight knit community capable of self-organizing in a moment’s notice? Just hand us a natural disaster and we’ll show up with rakes and shovels. But despite the Church’s obvious strength in organizing labor, it’s my observation that Mormon men lead surprisingly isolated and lonely lives.

There is very little in LDS culture that fosters male friendship. Mormon men have no equivalent of going out for a beer, one of the few socially acceptable male reasons for getting together in American culture. Any free time outside work and church callings should be spent at home with family. Period. I remember an EQ president who berated the quorum for hunting or fishing or playing sports with friends. The time for high school buddies was over, he said. Now it was all about taking care of our wives and children.

When women make time to be with their friends (as they should), it’s billed as a much deserved “Girl’s night out.” The male version is much less common. Because men are “out” all day at work; why should we need time away? And research shows that men in general simply have a harder time maintaining deep friendships than women, despite the fact that such friendships can increase life expectancy by as much as 22 percent.

I don’t want to paint a picture of victimization. We men have no one to blame but ourselves. It’s easier to not make that phone call, to not reach out, and instead numb out in front of the TV or the internet or whatever happens to pop up on the phone. It’s especially easy to not go to that once-a-quarter (if you’re lucky) EQ activity, which are often so poorly attended that they feel like support groups for misfits.

We also have our excuses: :

“My wife is my best friend, and my kids are priority in terms of free time.” Yep. Me too. Let’s give ourselves a pat on the back for being such committed family men. But can we admit it still isn’t enough, that friendship is as important to a full life as family? Isn’t the “family man” excuse just alienation masked as nobility?

“I’m just too busy.” This excuse may not be a lie, but it’s beside the point. Busyness has nothing to do with connection and fulfilment. Some of the most bored, disconnected people in the world are those with schedules packed full of commitments.

So what should be done? I don’t have any easy answers, but the discussion seems more interesting than “Did you do your home teaching last month?” or “Everyone turn to lesson 22.” Like any change that happens in a community, it must become a cultural priority. The Amish, for example, understand very well that a single machine could cut and gather more hay than the work of 12 men. But they wonder, wisely, what would become of the friendship and camaraderie of those 12 men if they weren’t working together?

An acquaintance of mine who attends a support group for “sex addiction” remarked about what a sense of brotherhood he feels there. The men in the group share their deepest struggles and see one another as allies in strengthening each other.

I’m not officially addicted to anything, so I wouldn’t know what such a group is like. I have never belonged to a quorum of elders that tried something that looked like honesty and vulnerability. And why should they? Beneath the “Hey how are ya?” facade, an elder’s quorum is too often a room full of strangers.

Sheldon Lawrence is a writing professor, essayist, and author of the recent novel Hearts of the Fathers , story of one soul’s redemptive journey into the afterlife. Please follow new posts on this blog by submitting your email at the upper right on this page.