I’m not saying this is a definitive list, but if a lot of these bullet points ring a bell, maybe you’ve got your walls up and don’t know how to engage with other men. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy — you’re probably just comfortable doing what you’ve always done.

I was the same way at one point, but then God blessed me with some friends who challenged all of my assumptions of what healthy male friendship looks like.

The Liberation of Being in Authentic Friendship

At the beginning of my freshman year of college, I was a wreck. Although I wanted to love Jesus, my life was littered with insecurity, sexual permissiveness, and unforgiveness. But then I started attending a nondenominational, charismatic church where there were a lot of young men like me, and they were fearlessly sharing their emotions with God and each other.

They wept while praying for the brokenness in their families; they confessed their sins to one another and asked for prayer; and when there was conflict, they had the guts to talk it out rather than shut down.

I was caught off guard at first — based on my experience, men usually talked about football stats during church meetings, not convictions, inner struggles, and spiritual warfare. But the whole thing was so refreshing, so real; and before long, I jumped right in, put myself out there, and began to experience a newfound liberation.

I had all this emotional junk stewing inside that needed to be processed — my fears, temptations, and petty grievances — and up until that point, I had either bottled it all up or vaguely talked with female confidantes about it. But with these guys, I had a place where I could experience the freedom of transparency without having to deal with the weird sexual tension of an opposite-sex friendship.

The prayerful accountability I experienced with my new friends became a template for the way I interacted with other guys as I moved into different phases of my life. Not to say that it was easy being myself after that — it wasn’t, because there was always the risk that the real me would be rejected. But I learned to be patient and realize that just because a guy resists being real doesn’t mean he’s rejecting a friendship.

I mean, I’d say most of the men I became friends with over the years were initially resistant to transparency, but like me, they eventually found it pleasantly unsettling and began baring their own souls when they realized they could trust me. And to this day I’m not only close to a number of my friends from college, I’ve got a number of other close friends from the other stages of my life.

To Be a Real Man With Other Men

Listen, guys, I know this isn’t the norm, but it ought to be in the church, where we’re told to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) as well as “confess [our] sins to one another and pray for one another” (James 5:16). Surely obedience in this area involves something more than awkward, general requests for our friends to pray for us because we’re “struggling.”

So if you’re in a church where men are being real with each other, get off the bench and get in the game. Join a men’s small group; ask for a mentor; go on the men’s retreat; sign up for group counseling — whatever they’re doing to foster these relationships, do your part to make it work in your life.

On the other hand, if you haven’t found a safe place to be yourself with other men, then be the men’s ministry you wish you had. Here’s a suggestion for how I’ve done that when the church I was in didn’t adequately meet the need: Find two honest, Christian guys and ask them if they want to meet once a week to be real about what’s going on in their lives. When you meet, give each person 15 minutes to talk (you can suggest a topic or just open the floor) and if you interrupt, only do so with questions. Don’t give advice unless it’s asked for, and at the end, save 15 minutes to pray for one another.

Sometimes the conversations will be deep; sometimes they won’t — but the likelihood of the whole group being more honest will greatly increase if you regularly take the risk of sharing embarrassing, personal stuff that’s much easier left unsaid (for example, you could talk about your strained relationships, fear of failure or sexual temptations). And as you learn to accept each other, warts and all, it will help you recognize that God loves and accepts you, too.

It will probably be unsettling for you and your new friends at first, but it will be real, and that’s terribly refreshing, because being real is a lot more interesting than staring at each other’s masks. And furthermore, as you let yourselves genuinely care for each other, you’ll discover that one of the most masculine things you can do is use your spiritual muscle to bear the heavy weight of other men’s burdens.

Come on, brothers, take the risk: Own your true self and let others meet that person. Sure, it’s scary, but it’s a whole lot better than spending the rest of your life disconnected from the men who need authentic friendship just as much as you do.