Men are in the middle of what the Survey Center on American Life has called a “friendship recession.” In 2021, the Center found that one in five unmarried or unpartnered American men reported having no close friends. Even among those with close friends, men tend to feel less emotionally connected than women do. More recent data from Gallup shows that 25% of American men aged 15 to 34 report frequent loneliness. That’s higher than both the national average and compared to women their age.
Part of the explanation for the male friendship recession is structural. Men are spending less time in the environments where friendships naturally form, such as workplaces, civic organizations, and religious communities. However, structure alone does not explain why men have fewer friends than women, since women are also spending less time in these environments. From an early age, boys are taught that strength means emotional restraint. To be a man is to avoid vulnerability, not to express it.
The result is not just fewer friendships, but weaker ones.
If male friendship is to recover, we need a new understanding of how strength, emotion and vulnerability fit together. The Biblical story of Jonathan and David offers a powerful model for challenging our current assumptions about masculinity and teaches us about how to have male friends.
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The story may seem out of touch with modern life, but it has recently found a contemporary audience through Season 2 of the Amazon series House of David.
Jonathan was the eldest son of Saul, the first king of Israel, and the natural heir to the throne. He was courageous, loyal, and already a hero in his own right. Then David, a shepherd and musician, is privately anointed by the prophet Samuel as the future king of Israel, making him a rival to both Saul and Jonathan.
After David defeats Goliath — making David a hero who steals King Saul’s (and Jonathan’s) spotlight — the Bible tells us that “Jonathan’s soul became bound up with the soul of David; Jonathan loved David as himself” (1 Samuel 18:1). Jonathan makes a covenant with David. He gives him his cloak, his armor and his weapons — symbols of his own status. As his own father grows jealous to the point of trying to kill David, Jonathan protects his friend. When he finally comes to the realization that David, not he, will be the next king of Israel, Jonathan still does not see David as a rival. He tells his friend, “You are going to be king over Israel, and I shall be second to you” (1 Samuel 23:17).
Jonathan is not passive or weak. He is strong and a true friend. Rather than fall victim to envy, social comparison or unrealistic ambition, Jonathan chooses to measure his life based on his own path so that he can celebrate his friend’s successes as if they were his own.
Jonathan and David offer a model of friendship grounded in a commitment to one another. Jonathan does not need David to lose so that he can win. Their souls are bound together so that friendship is a positive-sum rather than a zero-sum engagement.
In case you are thinking that Jonathan chose to sacrifice his happiness for the sake of a higher good, modern psychology suggests otherwise. Sonja Lyubomirsky, in The How of Happiness, writes that the happiest people don’t measure themselves on a scale marked by other people’s abilities or possessions. Like Jonathan, they measure their success against internal standards.
There is a well-known teaching from Hillel the Elder that rephrases the commandment to love your fellow as yourself to be: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend” (Shabbat 31a). Jonathan shows us how to go further. He does not simply avoid harming David. He binds his life to David. He aligns himself with David’s future. He loves David as he loves himself. That is the lesson for male friendship today.
Male friendship is not in decline because men are incapable of emotional depth. It is in decline because men are losing the communal spaces — and the ability — to see that they need others in their lives, and that the need is not a weakness but a strength.
Jonathan and David remind us that male friendship is possible. They also teach us that, when we focus on our friend’s well-being, we may also be improving our own.
This essay initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on May 30, 2026. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
