Walking Through The Door: On Vulnerability and Openness to New Experiences

By Lewis Kendall

One of my close friends spent the last few months in the Balkans. He’s finishing his PhD in eastern european history and has been knee-deep in Croatian and Serbian archives, researching and writing.

My friend doesn’t know anyone in these countries. He’s been living alone in a small apartment. He speaks the language, though not fluently. The other day we were catching up on the phone and he admitted to me he was struggling with anxieties. He said he was finding it difficult to “walk through the door” as he described it—to introduce himself to strangers or ask a question of the archivist or even order a cup of coffee.

It would be easy to attribute his experience to language barriers or cultural differences, but what resonated to me was his feeling of discomfort. Through his work, my friend chose to step outside his comfort zone, launching himself into the unknown in every sense. And every time he steps through the door and nothing bad happens, it gets a little easier. I’m proud of him. I think he’s really brave, and I try to make a point to tell him as much.

I tell this story because I think it relates a lot to friendship. Much has been made of the recent male “friendship recession” and the rise of loneliness across the board, accelerated of course by the COVID-19 pandemic. (For context, 15 percent of surveyed men say they have no close friends).

Making and maintaining relationships requires proactivity. It requires vulnerability. It requires putting yourself out there; not only going to the dinner party but talking to that friend of a friend and exchanging Instagram handles at the end of the night. None of this is conducive to people who want to live in pure comfort. Life is hard. We work long hours for low wages and in our “free” time have to care for ourselves and fulfill all the minutiae of adult life. So why would we want to voluntarily introduce additional discomfort? Moreover, when the world is seemingly spinning off its axis with war, climate change, and a global pandemic, we gravitate even more strongly toward safety and comfort.

And I say this all as someone who wants to live in pure comfort. I mean who doesn’t, at least to some degree? I’m an introvert, a homebody. But I also recognize how important friendship, specifically close friendship with other men, is to my life and mental well-being. The harms of loneliness are well-cataloged. Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 45 in the UK. Social isolation has been linked to a wide range of serious health conditions, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and a weakened immune system. Even the rise of authoritarianism can be linked to a disconnect from our fellow humans.

“What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience,” philosopher Hannah Arendt posited in 1951.

So we need these relationships. We need to develop new connections and nurture existing ones. And sometimes this will require that we be uncomfortable—in a new social situation or in a new country where no one speaks our primary language. We need to be vulnerable and welcoming. We need not shy away from sensitivity and anything not deemed traditionally “masculine.” 

And that’s why I celebrate my friend. For our relationship, but also for setting an example of courage. The next time I walk through the door, I’ll be thinking of you.