I spent a weekend at New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, packed into a sanctuary with over a thousand men. Bishop Walter Thomas, Sr. stood up and announced the number himself, and I watched grown men — fathers, husbands, brothers, sons — react like he'd just called their name out at graduation. Over a thousand. From Friday night through Saturday's workshops to Sunday's closing service, we prayed together, worked through what it means to lead a family, and talked honestly about the cost of living up to it.

Somewhere along the lower level of that church, walking between sessions, I passed a small side room where a circle of men had formed. Hands joined. Heads bowed. Somebody was giving testimony, and the rest of the circle was holding him up while he did it. I stood in that doorway for a second longer than I needed to, because I recognized what I was looking at. This is what good men look like.

The Question I Keep Getting Asked

I've had more conversations than I can count with people who tell me good men don't exist. Not present. Not showing up. Not doing the work. And I understand why they believe it — the noise around men right now is loud, and most of it is bad news.

But I was standing in that doorway. I saw the circle. I know what I saw.

You don't have to be a member of New Psalmist to be a good man. You don't have to attend a conference in Baltimore or join a particular prayer circle to prove it. The circle doesn't need to be religious at all. Swap the sanctuary for a gym, a garage, a fraternity house, or a folding table at somebody's recovery meeting, and the same thing is happening: men choosing to show up for each other on purpose. That weekend confirmed that good men are out there — leaders, fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, sons — unafraid to admit they need people around them, and just as unafraid to claim their own strength once they've found their circle.

If you're not seeing them, the question worth asking is where you're looking.

Why This Hits Different After a Divorce

Divorce doesn't just cost you a marriage. It costs you the network that marriage came wrapped in — the couples' dinners, the group texts, the guy you used to grab a beer with because your wives were friends first. A lot of men over 40 wake up one day and realize the people who used to fill their calendar filled it because of a relationship that no longer exists.

The data backs up what a lot of you already feel in your gut. The share of American men who report having six or more close friends dropped from 55% in 1995 to 27% today, according to survey data from the Survey Center on American Life. A separate 2021 American Survey Center study found 15% of men say they have no close friends at all — a fivefold increase since 1990. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a formal advisory declaring loneliness a public health epidemic, and men consistently report fewer close relationships and less frequent contact with the friends they do have, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey.

Translation: you are not the only man standing in an empty house wondering who you'd even call.

The Brotherhood I Had to Go Looking For

I didn't grow up with biological brothers. Joining Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. gave me an international network of men who showed up for me in ways I hadn't planned on needing. When my divorce stripped away nearly everything else — my home, my finances, a good chunk of my sense of who I was — it was that network of brothers who reminded me who I still was underneath the wreckage. They held me accountable. They checked on me. They gave me perspective from men who'd already survived their own version of my mess.

Groups like Heare Brotherhood, a Utah-based nonprofit that grew out of one man's addiction and divorce recovery into a community of thousands, exist because this need is everywhere, not just in my story or in that Baltimore sanctuary. Men are building circles on purpose because the old ones — built around marriage, around proximity, around convenience — don't hold up when life falls apart.

Here's what I've learned about the men who show up for you in a crisis: they're rarely responding to your success. They're responding to your character, and to the fact that you were willing to show up for somebody else first.

Where Are You Looking?

That circle of men I found off the hallway in Baltimore wasn't rehearsed. Nobody scheduled it. A group of men needed to hold each other up, so they did. That's available to you too, whether it's in a church basement, a fraternity house, a recovery meeting, or three guys who decide Tuesday nights belong to them now.

Good men are out there. The only question left is whether you're willing to go find the circle — or start one yourself.